If You
Had Wings

Extinct WDW Attraction

Location:
Tomorrowland,
Magic Kingdom

Opened: June 5, 1972
Closed: June 1, 1987

Ticket Required: None

Contributing
Disney Personnel:
Buddy Baker, Alan Coats,
Claude Coats, Cliff Huet,
Stan Maslak, Jack Schilder,
G. Windrum, John Zovich

Descendant of:
Disneyland's
Adventure Thru Inner Space

Space later became:
If You Could Fly,
Dreamflight,
Take Flight,
Buzz Lightyear's
Space Ranger Spin

Remnants:
Ride system / track and
building  largely unchanged

All photos copyright
The Walt Disney Company. 
 Text copyright 2009
Mike Lee

   WYW acknowledges
the thoughtful assistance of
Dave Applewhite,
Ed Barlow,
Robert Boyd,
Michael Cozart,
Gian DiMauro,
Ed Ellers,
Michael Flint,
Donna Freitag,
Jan Freitag,
Mike Herman,
Dave Hooper,
Michael Kotler,
Marc Macuse,
Greg Maletic,
Ross Plesset,
Dave Smith and
Gerald Walker
with its If You Had Wings
research

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     Sponsorships have been an integral part of the Disney theme park experience from the moment Disneyland opened its gates in July 1955.  At that time, "lessees" (as the company originally called them) were as varied as The Upjohn Company, Swift, and Kaiser Aluminum who sponsored, respectively, Main Street USA's Pharmacy and Market House and Tomorrowland's Hall of Aluminum Fame.  Their financial contributions helped make the construction of the park possible, and their presence in the park's shops and exhibits put their corporate logos and/or services in plain view of millions of visitors every year.

     By the time planning for Walt Disney World was underway in the late 1960s, Disneyland had developed a more mature and far-reaching "participation program" for its growing roster of major corporate sponsors. Concurrent with Walt Disney Productions' new relationship with 1964-1965 New York World's Fair partners (Ford Motor Co., General Electric and Pepsi-Cola), they had also in 1964 secured United Airlines as a ten-year sponsor of Disneyland's new Enchanted Tiki Room attraction.

     Six years later, there was little doubt that a major airline would be solicited for a similar relationship with Walt Disney World. In 1970, however, United was coming off a decade of diversification and, more importantly, its first year of multi-million-dollar net losses. Additionally, since WDW was under construction there was no opportunity for a company to merely assume the sponsorship of an "existing" attraction as United had done with the Tiki Room in California. Rather Disney was now seeking the commitment of a larger sum of money to bankroll the development of an as-yet-to-be-determined attraction.

     The exact amount of that "larger sum" was reportedly $10 million. And the airline that proffered this fee turned out to be Eastern Airlines, by that time a major nationwide air carrier that had dominated air traffic routes along the Atlantic coast since the 1930s. By 1971 Eastern provided flight service to Orlando from 60 different cities. Above is a photo of Disney's vice president of Industry Sales Jack Sayers (at left) and Eastern's senior vice president Thomas B. McFadden at the time of contract signing.

     With the deal struck, WED Enterprises (Disney's design & engineering division) set out to develop an attraction that would suit the needs of both Eastern Airlines and Magic Kingdom visitors.  Eastern was anxious to promote the variety of exotic travel destinations to which it provided service - most of them in the American Southeast and the Caribbean.  Disney wanted something to fill a vacant slot in WDW's Tomorrowland, which in 1971 was transitioning on paper from its earlier master plans to one that would not truly be completed until 1975.

     This is where one of WED's brightest stars came into play. Claude Coats had been a key contributor to Disney's films and parks since 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His designs, color stylings and backdrops had shown up in many of Disneyland and WDW's key attractions (he is shown here during the construction of DL's Pirates of the Caribbean.) He pioneered the use of black light in three dimensional environments, making him a master of the dark ride format. In 1971, one of his most recent successes was a marriage of dark ride knowledge, creative setbuilding, filmed images and a new ride system called the Omnimover.

     The ride was Adventure Thru Inner Space, and it is recalled by longtime DL visitors as one of their most badly missed attractions.  It was designed by WED for Monsanto and debuted in 1967 as part of DL's new Tomorrowland.  In near-countless ways it served as the prototype for the ride that WED would create for Eastern.  The similarities between the two rides are so numerous (listed on a separate page), few people could have experienced both and not marvel at the fundamental common elements.  Yet for all the crossover devices, the combinations yielded vastly different experiences.  Whereas Adventure Thru Inner Space was cool and scientific (you entered the heart of a snowflake crystal after being "shrunk" inside an oversized microscope) If You Had Wings was bright and freaky.  And although Inner Space served as the basic model for the new ride, the amount of effort that went into planning If You Had Wings was still considerable.  The scope and spatial relationships of the ride's interior scenes were, despite their visual simplicity, no less sophisticated than those of many other rides that opened during WDW's first year.  During the planning for If You Had Wings, the Magic Kingdom itself was nearing its opening day of October 1, 1971.  Tomorrowland technically opened that same day but was very much still in development.  And If You Had Wings had yet to even really enter the construction phase aside from the building's outer framework.

     Its "show building," as Disney calls the warehouses that contain their rides, was already confined to a set space of 28,000 square feet.  Unlike many rides in the Kingdom that are contained within freestanding structures, such as the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean or Space Mountain, If You Had Wings was built onto the east side of the existing CircleVision 360 Theater building.  And it could only extend a certain length to the east without upsetting the symmetry of Tomorrowland's main entry corridor - already anchored on the north side by Flight to the Moon and the Space Port gift shop.  So the exterior boundary for If You Had Wings was already defined to the north, east and west.  Its walls, in fact, already supported portions of the WEDway Peoplemover track - four years before that ride opened!  Unless the building was to trail off to the south ad infinitum, Coats and his co-workers had to pack an experience into a finite space.

     What they managed to fit in was a vibrant, kinetic and multi-dimensional experience culled together from an array of artistic disciplines that Disney had been employing for years.  It consisted of an involved series of both flat and sculpted set pieces and film projections depicting various travel destinations serviced by Eastern, basically: Mexico, multiple Caribbean ports and New Orleans.  It also doubled as a type of simulator through the first use of a Disney-designed effect called the Speed Room (a.k.a. the Super Speed Tunnel) that projected high-speed 70mm images all around the ride vehicles.  A similar but more low-key effect employed as the ride's finale was the box-shaped Mirror Room, which elicited a sensation of being lifted gently over mountain vistas and rolling deserts.  When pieced together with lighting & sound effects, music and the versatility of the Omnimover ride system, the varied elements comprised a compelling and immersive experience.

click on the above image to view the diagram at full size

    
     Arranging that experience in the odd-shaped building, and having all the film effects hit their targets without projectors cluttering up the scenery, was a daunting task.  Above is a scanned portion of a page from the ride's blueprints - an overhead depiction of four separate projector & screen positions for the Caribbean Port scene. Click on the image for a better view of how intricately one small part of the ride was configured.

     Consider that the speed and directed angle of the ride vehicles only allowed guests about ten seconds to view the entire Port scene - including the four films outlined above and the props and set pieces surrounding them - during a trip that lasted four and a half minutes.  This gives you an idea of how much planning went into the ride as a whole. Additionally, the Caribbean Port scene was one of three settings within the ride that was also viewed by guests riding the WEDway Peoplemover.  They viewed the port segment of If You Had Wings from a completely different vantage point - one that also worked on its own merits and showcased the neverending stream of Omnimover vehicles snaking through the port and straw market scenes.

     Many of the films used in the ride were shot in real-life locations.  Shooting took place in settings as diverse as Acapulco, Jamaica, New Orleans, California's Imperial Valley and Canada's Laurentian Mountains.  Over two dozen staged production shots were put together as well.  These ranged from a full-blown Mexican fiesta with authentically costumed dancers to a far more casual (and dated via polyester) round of limbo dancing on a false beach.  To work the films into the ride, If You Had Wings would ultimately hold 41 16mm projectors, three 70mm projectors (one for the Speed Room and two for the Mirror Room), 40 special lighting effects projectors and one 35mm projector.

     Above left is a photo of room at Disney's MAPO division (where much of WED's engineering and assembling took place) that housed IYHW's battalion of 16mm projectors prior to their Florida move.  The tall rectangular cabinets mounted to the side of each projector stand are the mechanisms that allowed the films to continuously spool through the projectors during a working day that could span up to sixteen hours in summer months.  Looking at this picture it's easy to understand how the ride was filled with the sound of these machines running nonstop.  This is one of the reasons why the attraction was so loud, because the music had to overcome the noise of so many projectors that was bouncing around inside the fully enclosed structure.

     Music for the attraction was recorded under the supervision of Norman "Buddy" Baker, who composed the ride's title theme.  A  demo recording that revealed the intended range of song treatments tailored to each show scene was put together to offer a preview of how the ride would sound.  Baker also adapted a piece of music - the "Airbus" theme - from Eastern Airlines commercials of that same time period.  The instrumental he came up with provided the background for both IYHW's Holding Area and Mirror Room scenes.

     WED's sound effects department provided additional audio for the attraction.  The sounds of foot traffic in the Bahamas and of a jet takeoff were two of the most predominant recordings.  Less overt effects, such as fireworks, seagull calls and native Aztec musical instruments were brought in for additional authenticity.

     By late March, 1972 the blueprints for the ride's interior sets were completed and If You Had Wings was being pieced together at a frantic pace to be ready for the summer crowds.  The show's set pieces were designed in California by WED and installed on site by another division of the company, PICO West. The majority of the sets were constructed of 1/4" plywood with 1" framing. When assembled they often formed simple three-dimensional structures or spaces such as the Aztec pyramid or the New Orleans courtyard. Props and artifacts typical of the locations depicted (Mexican pottery, Caribbean straw goods, fishing gear) were added to the sets as a final measure of third-dimensionality.

     The ride opened to the public on June 5, 1972. Eastern Airlines and Walt Disney Productions officials formally unveiled the attraction during a dedication ceremony the following month, on July 2.

     Although If You Had Wings evolved from Adventure Thru Inner Space, it did retain the distinction of having passed along a few new things to some other Disney attractions.  Unfortunately most of those attractions have already gone the way of If You Had Wings.

     The first thing If You Had Wings loaned out was the Speed Room / Super Speed Tunnel idea, which landed on the second floor of Disneyland's America Sings in 1977 as an addition to the Peoplemover (which ran through the Carousel Theater building's second floor).  This application went on to feature scenes from the company's 1982 film, TRON.  The Peoplemover closed in 1995, however, and its replacement, the also-defunct Rocket Rods, did not make use of the Speed Room.

     When Epcot opened in 1982 (as EPCOT Center), many of its attractions could be likened to If You Had Wings in terms of their ride systems, pacing and sponsorship agreements.  But two rides at Epcot Center borrowed directly and unapologetically from If You Had Wings (and were better for it.)

     The first was General Motors' World of Motion, which began in a manner very similar to If You Had Wings: a large, open holding area leading to a load platform where guests boarded blue Omnimover cars that slowly approached a dark, semi-foreboding portal.  World of Motion also had not one, not two, but THREE Speed Rooms near the end of the ride.  The first was almost identical to If You Had Wings' version in that its films were extremely similar.  For example, one World of Motion scene was of bobsleds shooting down an icy run.  Another was a fast-paced underwater jaunt.  The second Speed Room featured swirling light effects and a fiery inferno, the third was footage from TRON, just as in Disneyland's Peoplemover.  If only Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin used some TRON images as a tribute to early computer-generated imagery, a circle would be completed.

     World of Motion closed in January 1996 and its replacement, GM's Test Track, does not have the Speed Room components.  Nor does it have the Omnimover cars.  It does have crash-test dummies, however, demonstrating that you don't need smarts to destroy a really  cool attraction.

     The other Epcot attraction that pulled from If You Had Wings was the Mexico Pavilion's boat ride, El Rio del Tiempo, which operated in its original form until January 2007.  It reopened in April 2007 as the Gran Fiesta Tour, which introduced characters from Disney The Three Cabelleros film to the ride.  The ties to If You Had Wings here were more numerous before the ride's reinvention but several echoes remain.  First, the boat ride incorporates a large early Mexican pyramid, as did If You Had Wings.  Secondly, the floating gardens of Lake Xochilmilco are kind of recreated in El Rio del Tiempo, albeit somewhat distinctly from the If You Had Wings version (in that there's some real water in the boat ride).  Both rides contain depictions of downtown Mexico City.  And they both rely heavily on the use of projected images to achieve motion.  Another strong connection was that If You Had Wings and El Rio del Tiempo both had very similar, upbeat, silly and repetitive theme songs created for the rides that could easily echo in vistor's heads for hours after exiting.  Gran Fiesta now uses the Three Caballeros theme to a similar effect. 

     What really tied the two rides together, though, were some of the original filmed scenes.  Mexico's attraction had footage of people cavorting on beaches just as If You Had Wings did.  Mexico had street merchants trying to pass off handcrafted wares to guests passing by, just as If You Had Wings had merchants pushing goods in the Caribbean Straw Market.  And If You Had Wings had a projection of cliff divers plunging in Acapulco, just as Gran Fiesta still does in a modified form.  The merchant footage in El Rio del Tiempo was removed when Gran Fiesta came in and the beach depictions are significantly changed.  Because the ride is still operating, however, there still exists the opportunity for WDW visitors to get a small taste of what If You Had Wings was all about.  That's a good thing whether you like the ride's makeover or not.