Walt and Admiral Fowler seated in the front row of the test boats, designed by Bob Gurr, for the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction 1966.
Marc Davis' Pirates drawings went to a whole other level and more artists were brought in under Marc to flesh out ideas. He no longer had the time to do the work himself. By the time the '64 Worlds Fair had wrapped up in '65, Disney was in full swing creating Pirates of the Caribbean. Walt decided within a year that he wanted it bigger than ever so he added another show building. Due to space restraints, men had to go beneath the berm surrounding Disneyland which also meant that the boats had to go under Disneyland's train tracks. The entire area previously developed for the wax museum was completely dismantled, steel and all, to be redesigned. No one knew what to do with most of the first building so Walt told WED to put in some caves using the methods and tools they had already developed in the caves for the Ford Magic Sky Highway. The second building was necessary for the addition of a full scale pirate ship and part of a Spanish Fort battle bombardment. Once it was decided that boats would be part of the pirate experience, Bob Gurr was brought in to redesign the boats he had fashioned for the '64 World Fairs It's a Small World attraction. He had his hand in Pirates of the Caribbean as well as so many other things. Since the boats for It's A Small World were created by Arrow Development, the company was also used to make the boats for Pirates of the Caribbean. Arrow was also used to Fashion The Flume system for Pirates, when you take those drops. In the fall of '64 Walt, Marc Davis and some others flew up to Arrow Development headquarters to test out the boat in a flume mock-up. Dick Irvine executed the art direction on Pirates of the Caribbean. He was the first to head what is now known as Walt Disney imagineering. Prior to working for Disney he had a robust career in movie set design and all the technical aspects of the day and when you understand that, it starts to make sense why Disney attractions are so often a cut above most of what you'll find at other theme parks. They've always used high-end movie set design layout and lighting etc for their attractions and that started with Dick Irvine. Irvine was hired not just to be in charge of certain projects or single attraction, but rather the Disneyland and Magic Kingdom Parks as a whole! A lot of the design and force perspective stuff within the parks, is due to Irvine. He personally did the art direction for Pirates in both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. Though Bill Martin is also credited for his hand in the art direction, he was the art director of Disneyland's original Fantasyland. Martin also contributed to the Monorail, Sleeping Beauty Castle, Cinderella's Castle, Peter Pan's flight and the entire layout of the Magic Kingdom itself.
Learn more in Part 3. From the earliest planning stages of Disneyland, Walt Disney knew he wanted a pirate attraction but for one reason or another it never materialized for the opening in 1955. Supposedly concept work by imagineer Herb Ryman was to have a pirate shack along with pirate laundry drying out on a line at the edge of Frontierland. 1957 Walt was back on Pirates again and asked for concept designs and plans for a walk-through museum, this was all while work was being done to create the Submarine Voyage, the Monorail and the Matterhorn. The only preliminary work for pirates in the 1950s is this layout by Claude coats in 1957. In 1960 there was a big ship, a Cypress swamp and a burning City. October of 1960 Walt tasked Marc Davis to put together the preliminary work for Pirates of the Caribbean. Walt is quoted by Marc Davis as saying he thought it could be a walk- through. Marc Davis began developing gags, story-lines, staging and interesting scenarios and completely immersed himself in Pirate lore for two years drawing and conceptualizing Pirates. The enormous amount of work Marc produced during this time, combined with his limitless talent leaves little room to wonder why Pirates of the Caribbean is as amazing as it is! He really honed in on every aspect of the attraction, the character designs, facial expressions, clothing, background, set design, ship design, architecture, humor, lighting, color palettes, idea after idea after idea! He even took it upon himself to revise the layout. Keep in mind - there wasn't a team of people doing all of this, it was just Marc Davis. The Carousel of Progress would hone the technology of the audio required, along with the animatronics developed in the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln attraction. Guests would experience all of it within the safety of a boat gently weaving through a canal as another world seemingly took place around them similar to It's a Small World. The working name was the Blue Bayou Lagoon boom or the Blue Bayou boat ride. We'll cover more in part 2.
Pirates of the Caribbean is the perfect attraction to unwind on during warm days. Here are five cool facts about this classic experience:
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