MARCH 2009
Walt Disney & the 1964 World's Fair, part 2
The story behind the five CD set

Randy Thornton:  Bruce was very much of a Disney historian, dare I say a Disney geek, just like all of us, and he had a very clear idea of how he wanted this CD set sequenced. When I build things like the Disneyland box set, I want to take you there. You just close your eyes and you go through all the lands and the attractions and there's a theme to it. There's a flow. I also usually like to have demo recordings and session recordings at the end of a program. For Bruce, it was part of the whole thing. He wanted you to experience not only the attractions itself, but the development of it.

It was a four disc set and when we talked about it I said, "It's kind of weird that the playlist goes this way, but I understand what you're thinking,” and Stacia had written the book and everything, sort of really explaining why things are the way they are. But I said, “You don't have the Carousel of Progress on here as it appeared at the fair." He had a pre-production version that he called the Alternate Universe version. It's full-production, it's Rex Allen (who voiced Father in the final version), even though there are some Imagineers in there for Mother, and the daughter and so forth. There's music and arrangements with each turn of the century and all that. It's a fully produced rendition of the Carousel of Progress except it's a different script.

The reason why Bruce couldn't include it before is that Bruce couldn't get space on the disc. He was lucky to get a four disc set going, yet alone a five disc. Then it just starts expanding because there's so much material. He wanted to keep it at four discs because there were four exhibits. Knowing that I was working on the Disneyland set, he said, "Well, you're going to have the Carousel of Progress there and everything's the same as it was at the World's Fair except for the last act. If we don't put the Alternate Universe version on, then nobody will ever be able to hear it." It's not as well-produced as the final version because it's a rough draft, but the fact that they would go to this effort in pre-production really shows something and it is really fascinating. So I completely understood that Bruce had limited space and why he opted for one that nobody had heard before.

The other thing he didn't include was a ride-through of It's a Small World. On the Small World disc, there's the whole facade entrance music, and then there's the original demo with Richard Sherman and Ginny Tyler, and then there's a brief narrative thing of Walt taking you through the attraction which was from the "Wonderful World of Color." Then Bruce isolated all the vocals so you have just the children singing, he didn't choose all the languages, just a couple of them so you get an idea of what the recording session was. Bruce got the biggest kick out of that during the Spanish recording you can hear one kid tapping his foot. He just loved that.

After that, he took all of Bobby Hammock's ethnic variations of the theme and he edited them together in the sequence in which they were recorded, so there's this twenty minute loop of just Bobby Hammock's ethnic variations of It's a Small World, then some chorus pieces, particularly "in chorus" which was recorded that was recorded for promotional where you can actually hear "It's a Small World" in counterpoint, to where one part of the chorus is singing, "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears," while the other part of the chorus is singing, "It's a small world after all."

So I started working on the set and cleaning things up and still trying to keep this low on the radar and keeping this to Bruce's four discs, and not including (final versions of) Carousel of Progress and Small World and things and honestly, it kept eating at me. I know the fans would appreciate it, but I also have to think of the general consumer as well. When you pick up a World's Fair set, you're going to expect to get Small World. All the other stuff is fun and great but don't you really want the attractions? I was really having a difficult time and trying to be true to somebody else's vision as well… someone I can't go to anymore (because Bruce passed away).

As I said, I wasn't very happy with some of the elements that he had, so I figured, Bruce asked me to do this so I have to do the best that I can. I started digging some more and contacted some people over at Imagineering and I started pulling elements again. Some of the things that we found we already had, like the Small World original orchestra sessions, but I also found Buddy Baker's original sessions for the Lincoln score and the original recording sessions for that, and the original recording sessions for Carousel of Progress and the Progressland stuff.

So essentially I took what Bruce had done and used it as a model and completely rebuilt it from scratch.

Some of the sound files that he had, those were the only files that existed, particularly the entrance spiel for the Magic Skyway with Dick Weston the narrator and Henry Ford II. Those were the only recordings that existed, but I found Walt Disney's original narrative recording session and all of George Bruns' original score, all those recording sessions. So I was able to completely rebuild this thing. As I kept going through it, the thing that still kept bugging me was that there was no Small World.

There were a couple of images that were in the booklet that were kind of low-res and we needed to get some better images, so we went over to the photo library and pulled some picture from them and set up an appointment over at the Imagineering Archives to go through some of their images as well. So we went over there and found the images and everything and found that those images had to be approved before we could publish them, and it was at that point that I discovered that none of the images that Bruce had were approved. None of them were cleared.

I've never experienced that before because usually you don't actually get any kind of digital copy or any kind of placeholder until they're approved, so I just assumed everything had been approved. Well, Bruce, being the person of stature he was and kind of being the character that he was, had access to the library digitally, so he was able to build this thing on the QT.

So we had to get all the images approved and everything, and with several of the folks over at Imagineering asking what it was for. I said, "We're finally doing Bruce's World's Fair set," so they asked to hear the CDs. As a matter of fact, I had just finished mastering them, but I still wanted to put this stuff in here. I wanted the real Carousel of Progress, but four discs is not a small set, and five discs is an odd number. How do you do five discs in the thing, and the book had been laid out to be very much like my "75 Years of Music and Memories" set that I did for the Disney Stores?" That was only three CDs but it's the same format. It's that long box look with the CDs on the inside with the book in the center and there's only room for four CDs.

The Progressland disc was full and there was just no place to put the real Carousel of Progress on. I kept saying, "I'm being true to what Bruce really wanted." The comments I get back from Imagineering are, "This is really great! But there's no Carousel of Progress and there's no Small World." I said, "I know. These are some of the things that I mentioned to Bruce as well and we were worried about discs and space." They said the exact same things I was saying, "If you buy the set you would expect to hear the ride-through." I agreed, but I also explained the argument about keeping the Alternate Universe version. The real version's on the Disneyland set, it's already out now, millions of people have it, and Bruce really wanted this Alternate Universe. He said, "Well, maybe you can cut that down." I'm thinking, "No, Bruce really wanted the Alternate Universe version," but I'm understanding exactly where they're coming from because I completely agree. We got more images and all that stuff was approved and the master had already been done and it was going to be released in November.

So I went to the higher ups and explained the situation and said that I completely agree with them a hundred percent. My boss' boss' boss' boss said, "This thing's been languishing for eight years... what's a few more months?" I said, "Excellent!" So I got a fifth disc and what I did was I put the Alternate Universe version on that fifth disc so it's a Progressland bonus disc. I went back and rebuilt the real Carousel of Progress, I didn't even use the version that I had on the Disneyland set because I had found the actual recording sessions for this. So I completely rebuilt Carousel of Progress with the fourth act that talks about the Medallion Home, which people would later see once they left the Carousel theater. They would go up and see Medallion City there at the fair.

One of the other sacrifices that Bruce had to make was that Buddy Baker had done this arrangement of "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" which was this very long loop for the Medallion Home sequence so when you were going through the Medallion Home exhibits you had this lounge version of "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow." The full loop was about nine minutes long almost, but Bruce was only able to include four minutes of it. Well, with the shorter Carousel of Progress on there, being the real version, and moving the Alternate Universe version to disc 5, I had the space to put the full loop on. So I had been able to expand the Medallion Home music cue, which Bruce named "Music to Buy Toaster's Buy."

SW: Where did he come up with that?

RT: That was just his funny little name. It was still "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow," but when you have a playlist that is mostly "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow," you break it up a little bit. So I was able to include that full loop, again going back to the original recording sessions. Also, at the end of the disc, Bruce used the music beds without vocals for all the turn cues of "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow," so you get the turn of the century and the 1920s. Not only that, but when Father talks about the gramophone and Grandpa's playing a Dixieland arrangement of "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow," that's on there in full. The only thing Bruce didn't include was the very last act. The 1960s, or the contemporary version, forty six second cue of "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow," transitioning into the fourth scene, so I was able to include that as well.

For Small World I was able to rebuild Small World specifically for this as it appeared at the fair. It didn't have any of the South Seas things plus it didn't have the English chorus at the beginning. You heard the facade music and everything and then the first territory that you come to would be Scandinavia.

Another thing that's different from the World's Fair than Disneyland is that in the World's Fair, the loop is actually longer than it is at Disneyland. Even though it's the same recording, it was cut differently when it was installed at Disneyland. As it appeared at the World's Fair it was first verse, chorus, second verse. At Disneyland, it's first verse and chorus, it never goes into the second verse. So I've included the full loop. A couple of other territories were swapped around in the World's Fair that are different at Disneyland so I made those adjustments and I used the full loop.

So I was able to add all this new material, and add the fifth disc. Our artists here designed a brilliant package. It still looks like the "75 Years of Music and Memories." There's four DVDs on the side and the book is stitched into the center, but when you flip open the fourth disc, you can flip the tray, and back behind it is the fifth disc which is the bonus disc for Progressland.

So in keeping with Bruce's vision, when you open the book you see the four main exhibits there. Progressland, Great Moments with Mister Lincoln, It's a Small Word, and the Magic Skyway. But now you flip open disc four's tray and there's the fifth disc.
SEE PART 1 OF THIS INTERVIEW