EPCOT’s iconic Spaceship Earth explores the “remarkable history of human communication from the Stone Age to the computer age” through the use of hundreds of Animatronic figures, including cavemen, Roman leaders, Renaissance painters… and several random U.S. presidents?
I’ve been visiting Walt Disney World for 30+ years, and for the majority of that time, EPCOT has been my favorite park at the resort, partially due to its fascinating history. During its development phase, the concept evolved from Walt Disney’s Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow — a real functioning city, into the “permanent World’s Fair” EPCOT Center that opened in 1982. As that happened, and budgets soared, Disney imagineers needed to get creative in allocating resources, including certain “leaders of the free world” making their way into the park’s central attractions.
While it may not seem like it today, the Hall of Presidents was one of the most advanced attractions present at the Magic Kingdom when Walt Disney World opened in 1971. Thanks to a new — and revolutionary for the time — computer system, the show was able to feature functioning animatronics of every U.S. President up to that time period.
This fulfilled a dream of Walt Disney’s (who had died in 1966), as he had spearheaded the idea of an all-animatronic Presidents show for years, only to find that the technology of the late 1950s and even early 1960s wasn’t advanced enough. Not even the Imagineers at the time of the show’s opening knew that those presidential animatronics would come in handy in bringing a version of Walt’s EPCOT dream to life years later.
A decade after the Hall of Presidents opened, Disney Imagineers were struggling with ballooning budgets while finishing EPCOT Center, meaning that some uncomfortable shortcuts had to be taken. Perhaps not coincidentally, several Animatronic pieces and molds seemingly made their way into Spaceship Earth.
The most noticeable is the use of John Adams’ facial mold (and perhaps full figure) as one of the monks. This is fitting, since Adams — eventually the nation’s second president — was a prolific writer.
However, he’s reportedly not the only presidential mold present in Spaceship Earth. Others that seem to be there include:
- James Buchanan and Andrew Jackson — Guttenberg and assistant
- Dwight D. Eisenhower — mandolin player
- William Howard Taft — Egyptian Priest
- Theodore Roosevelt — Roman Senator
- Franklin Pierce — scholar
- Zachary Taylor — Roman Centurion
- John Tyler — Turkish scholar
While previous Disney attractions had shared animatronic molds — specifically the Carousel of Progress, the Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean — none of those had used the visages of real people like the Hall of Presidents did, which is why they stick out more in Spaceship Earth.
Next time you find yourself on EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth, be sure to keep an eye out for some familiar faces from the Hall of Presidents. Stay tuned to AllEars for more Disney World secrets.
A Timeline of EVERY Canceled Project in EPCOT History
Have you noticed these reused Animatronics on Spaceship Earth? Let us know in the comments below.
That’s hilarious! I’ve never noticed but I’m not American so I don’t recognise the real people anyway. If I was in the Hall of Presidents and you asked me to point out various animatronics, I definitely wouldn’t be able to recognise even half of them. And I’ve been coming here 30+ years too.