The Case of the Presidents Part 1: Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln v. The Hall of Presidents

[00:00:15] Welcome to The Supreme Resort, Land v. World, a podcast about Disneyland and Walt Disney World and which is the Supreme Resort. Each episode we will discuss and explore each resort ride by ride, land by land, park by park to determine which is better. I'm your host Jimmy and thank you for joining me on this quest to help the greater good of humanity answer this long elusive question, which is better, Disneyland or Walt Disney World. Joining me as always,

[00:00:47] which version of Dan? Dan. It's hard to, you know what, it's really hard to be either right now. Listener, you've seen the subject of this episode. Who will come, who will be here? You know, let's just say that I just love a good plate of spaghetti and I'm here, I'm ready to, let's say, you know what, just for old time's sake, I'm going to be doing some bouts and back and forth.

[00:01:15] And, uh, let's face it, we're all probably tired of the, uh, the thing I've been doing. So I'm back, I guess. Hooray! He's back or he's always been here? We don't know. I'm back in character until, you know, ice comes to my door. He means the frozen form of water.

[00:01:38] No, I mean the government agency that is now arresting people for not having papers and just for looking a certain way. That's right. It's a real thing. Um, hey, also Eric's here. Hi, Eric. Hi. Which version of you is here? Uh, the, the, the regular one that, um, is on the, the shows. Boring. Uh, listener, welcome to another exciting episode of the Supreme Resort.

[00:02:07] This, as we promised last time when we had our wheel, we're getting to it and we are here. We're less depressed this time. Yeah. Is there ever a good time to cover this topic is the question. Uh, so no, if there's never a good time, then anytime is a good time. Right? True. So, but before we do that, Dan, you went to club 33. I did. Whoa. We'd like to hear about it.

[00:02:34] I spat on the pores as I was on my way there. Um, and they thank me. They thanked me. Not like holes in people's skin, but poor people. No. Yeah. Um, well, okay. Hold on. Let me, it was, it was immediately after we recorded last time. Immediately after, um, you were going to wear a costume. Oh, okay. Well that is depressing. I was going to go in character as a sweaty Mar-a-Lago dentist.

[00:03:01] Um, but target no longer sells. Oh, hold on. Let me know. I'm going to put it this way. There was no, you went to Halloween superstore. Target no longer sells pants in my size. I'm not, I, I didn't outgrow them. They undergrowed me. Undergrowed. I thought you were going to say you went to target no longer sells the sweaty Mar-a-Lago dentist costume in their Halloween section. Yeah. The bagged, the bagged costume section. So I was going to, I was going to, it was going to be khakis.

[00:03:30] Um, it was going to be a polo shirt with a, um, uh, what's the, the vest jacket that people wear? Um, Patagonia jacket. Sure. Oh yeah. Or North face. Right. Yeah. One of those two works. Yes. But then I was upset. So I had just dropped everything and I went with jeans and a collar shirt. Um, uh, and a sign that read, I am Dan off your, your, the beanie that you wore.

[00:04:00] It's very upsetting. Um, I don't see it's, I've been a few times and I'm, that's not like a weird flex. I just, I don't know how to address this because it's like, it was the same. No, we went to the restaurant. You did. Oh, okay. Yeah. Um, I think for me, it was actually, this was the first time I had been since they closed

[00:04:24] off the, uh, the, uh, yeah, the, um, and it was really nice to see that. Um, and you could feel, you could feel very bougie and also very promy. I always feel that in my day to day life as everyone knows. That is true. Um, which one promy or bougie? Both. Um, I feel like I'm going to a prom at La Jolla high school every single day of my life. Um, uh, it was, it was more fun.

[00:04:53] And I think to share it with people who had never been and who had, um, looked forward to it. It was really fun to watch that. The, the, what our weight staff was fantastic. You would expect them to be like, Oh, hello, sir, ma'am, you know, all that stuff. But they were just like, Hey, what's up? But with like an air of like, I could totally blow you away with my sommelier stuff. You know? Um, I don't know what else to say. I got the filet mignon.

[00:05:23] It was delicious. Um, I also got the pork cheek appetizer, um, and the creme brulee. Hmm. I love a cheek and a brulee. Yeah. Did you eat with, uh, Tom and his friend? Uh, I ate with Tom and some of my friends. Okay. And we are all now friends. Oh yeah. That's what club 33 does is it makes us all friends. It makes us all friends.

[00:05:52] Um, and we spent, uh, I got a new magic band. It's a club 33 magic band. I'm sorry, listener. If you wanted more details, I don't know what it's look up pictures. I don't, I don't know. I don't want to get pictures of the bathroom and we're good. Yeah. All I took so many pictures of the bathroom. Um, it's not true. It's not true. Um, they, the, the joke there is that they are very clear that like, you will not take pictures of the bathroom.

[00:06:21] Please, please don't. Rebel Wilson got kicked out. That's it. Oh, is that, is that what, is that where that comes from? That's where it was. Oh my God. Okay. Um, so yeah, Rebel Wilson was there and, uh, you know, it was fun. Very nice. Well, I just, it was just a thread that I wanted to tighten up from the last. Right. Yeah. Uh, I don't know if that's the phrase, but I said it anyway. It is. So now we are going to, Ooh, also there's a new bride at the haunted mansion. Daniel.

[00:06:50] There is, there is. Um, uh, Oh, okay. Overall big picture. I think it's great. It's way better than a constant hatchaway. I thought constant hatchaway was a bad, it was like, you know, cute idea, but it was bad. And we'll get into some of those in the history of, uh, the, the Lincoln show. Um, I, my only note is I wish that the face were less clear.

[00:07:16] I wish it was more, it would be, it would be more spooky and more timeless if the face were less distinct, you know, like, and that goes with the general note that I have for what they're doing with the attraction in general, like overall great aside from a haunted mansion holiday. I think you're doing some great work there. I like the new queue, but it's sort of like, as I was saying with the music in the queue, it

[00:07:45] could stand to be less, uh, clear and more ambient and vague with me, like with kind of like they do at tower of terror in magic kingdom where there's a filter and it sounds distant and foggy. Just, just up the wet filter or whatever. Um, or what I would love is if it was like, instead of it being straight up, like, you know, Oh, this is the song.

[00:08:14] This is the music from the, the, the entry, but like in a different style, have it be just like spare notes here and there that suggest it, you know, that would be, um, that would be eerie as hell. And yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily need to be here. I agree. It would be, and it could be, but it could be just sort of like, you know, music that you hear off in the distance that suggests maybe it's in the same key has some key notes here

[00:08:42] and there instead of it just being straight up like dad, dad, dad, dad, it's like, okay, I get it. And then, you know, have that be the payoff in the attraction itself. But overall, I think they're doing great stuff there. Having said that as with the face of the bride, we can have, it would be really great if we were going back to a place where it's like, I don't know, what do you think it is? You know? Yeah.

[00:09:08] So, you know, as you're, as you're talking about that and I don't want to put you either of you on the spot and we don't have to make this very long, but to Eric's point, and I think we talked about it last time, the, the mood, the place setting of Tower of Terror, where it's sort of 40s music, the filter, the, the just, it's just, it's because it's set in 1920s, is it 20s? Yeah. Yeah. In 1920s and whatever Hollywood, right?

[00:09:38] I think also it's a, it's a different thing because Tower of Terror is kind of as close as they're going to get to a horror scenario where Haunted Mansion is more of a, you know, it's not straight up horror. It's like a fun ghost house sort of experience. Yeah. But my question is, the, the, what they're doing in the queue of Tower of Terror, that, that nothing's symmetrical, it's not straight, it's kind of crooked.

[00:10:07] Like it's, it's just place setting of an old, you know, abandoned hotel. Right. Right. Right. Um, so is it jazz? The, instead of playing the music from the ride, how do you set the stage? How do you set the place in the queue of the Haunted Mansion? Yeah. Cause Walt didn't want it to look terrifying from the outside.

[00:10:36] Do whatever you want inside. The ghost can do whatever inside, but outside it's pristine and beautiful. It's Disneyland. So how do you set that place? You know what I mean? I think you would think about, I don't have a direct answer, but this is how I would get there. Is you think about like, what sort of like parlor music or change? Yeah. Parlor music would have been played at the time that it was set. What is the time though? I mean, we could look it up.

[00:11:03] There's a, I think there is a time, but we're limited on time for this episode. So yeah, I was just, it was just an interesting idea to explore. No, that's, that's a, hold on. We can talk about. Cause I'm sure that when it was made, there was no, like this was set in the 19 whatever's and, and I think, you know, just, it was such a hodgepodge at the time that lore has built up around it. But what I like about the Disneyland Paris one, and we have to get to that series by the way,

[00:11:34] Disneyland Paris versus the rest is that it's deliberately dilapidated outside, you know, rotted fences. They went for it. Yeah. They went for it. It looks like an old abandoned haunted mansion. Yeah. Well, let's say it gets kind of there, but, but still it's not dilapidated. It's just a creepier house. Right. And to the, I'm sorry, not to dig up that old argument.

[00:12:02] So if we're going with it being an antebellum time period, then we're talking like 1812 to 1861. Music. Sorry. I'm not trying to like poo poo your idea. I'm just trying to, I know we're really limited on time a little bit. Yeah, no, you're good. I don't actually have an idea. It was more of a question. Yeah. I, but so I think what I would, what I would go with is like, there's probably harpsichords involved.

[00:12:30] There's, I mean, we could, they could look into, okay, what styles of music would have been played or performed specifically performed at this place. When it was like not haunted yet and maybe have like echoes of that. So kind of. Yeah. So 1980s, maybe before version of this is what you just said.

[00:12:59] The current version of the Disney company, the answer is almost there from princess in the frog. That's the answer to the question. Yeah. Almost there. Yeah. All right. Anyway, sorry. Um, I mean, look, I don't want to pull a Tom Corliss thing. I like, like if I weren't asked for notes, no notes, I think they're doing great. But if I, since I am, since this is an arts podcast and I am a podcast, a theme park journalist,

[00:13:29] that's right. I would say just dial the specificity of both of these things back by like 12 to 20%. Okay. Okay. I look forward to seeing it. Um, Eric, I look forward to seeing you next month at Disney world. Yeah. We're going to go see the other one. The other, the, the, the, um, the better. Okay. So, Ooh, not true. Um, well, we do have to re litigate that. We have to re litigate that.

[00:13:59] And we have to, we did when we did our planning session, we didn't even talk about the Disneyland Paris conversation, like versus the rest of the world. Oh gosh, we've got to do a three way. Yeah, buddy. Oh no. The three of us have to do it. Oh, it's going to be harder from this, from this distance away from each other. It will be hard. Yes. So the today's episode is the, the great, no great moments with Mr. Lincoln versus the Hall of Presidents.

[00:14:27] Now this is tricky because the Hall of Presidents was sort of announced in 1956 after a fashion with Liberty Street off of the, off of the street. Ooh. So the idea of the Hall of Presidents, I don't think it was called Hall of Presidents at the time, but the idea of it was far back as 1956. It's a shared history. Yes. Yeah.

[00:14:53] And great moments with Mr. Lincoln, of course, 1964, 65, World's Fair, et cetera. So that technically came first and then the Hall of Presidents, 1971. But to your point, Eric, there's a shared history. So today's episode is going to be exploring the history of both of these attractions, how they overlap. And we won't get to the actual attractions in this episode, but stay tuned. There's a lot to cover.

[00:15:19] So before we get to that, do either of you have any preambles or do we want to just get straight to it? Your attention, please. Um, no. Okay, great. Correct. Uh, so Eric is going to be arguing for great moments with no Dan is going to be arguing for great moments of Mr. Lincoln. Yep. Right. Eric will be arguing for the Hall of Presidents.

[00:15:48] So because great moments of Mr. Lincoln came first. Sorry, Eric, just some housekeeping. Okay. My notes are mainly, uh, history of animatronics, Disney, Walt Disney, like growing up animation leading to animatronics, leading to Lincoln. So any of that shared history, that's going to be all you. Oh crap. Yep. That's why we have pre meetings, everybody. Sorry. No, it's good.

[00:16:18] Uh, okay. Well, we'll figure it out. I just, if you, if you're expecting you to have anything about the Hall of Presidents at Disneyland, I do not. No, I, yeah, I, I have, I think I basically covered it, Dan. I'm going to say no, yeah, a bunch, but, uh, I, I do have, I do have some of that stuff about the, the, the prehistory of both of these attractions. Yes. Or in the immortal words of Mr. Jim Hill. No, that's it. Exactly. Okay.

[00:16:48] So yeah, I mean, Dan, I think I just, I kind of basically covered the history when I said there was an announcement of Liberty street and the idea of all the presidents all together, but that's before the technology existed. So Dan, why don't you get started with great moments with Mr. Lincoln and all the things you just said you were going to cover. Okay. Um, so I feel like this is a great place to get into the history of animatronics themselves. Perhaps that's a good, uh, good start.

[00:17:18] Yeah. Uh, perhaps, you know, when we get back in the, into the Tiki room again, we, we can review some of this stuff, but, um, I feel like this as, as the sort of the story of the sort of, um, I don't know, like crowning moment of it. Anyway, here we go. Uh, early on in, uh, the 2000 BCE days, we had Egyptian speaking statues that were operated by pulleys and counterweights to simulate godly gestures.

[00:17:47] Um, it's basically just, uh, an ancient show biz. Uh, and then there is the, it's, we also have the hef, hef, hef, hef, hef, hef, hef, animations. Yeah. Uh, this is, uh, these were in myth, self-moving golden creations that inspired the term automaton. Uh, then we have arc arc. There's going to be a lot of mispronunciations here. I'm really sorry.

[00:18:14] Or am I, uh, as you're going through this, can you, can you elaborate any on what you're talking about? Can you give me context for these things? You know what? We're so short on time that I, I'm just kind of inviting people to, to acknowledge that there's stuff in the past before animatronics that led to inspirations of perhaps all right, go ahead. Sorry. And let's be honest.

[00:18:38] I, I didn't go deep, deep into these things because that would be a day as opposed to a couple of hours. Um, we could do two history episodes. Exactly. There's so much about right. We have square and all of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Arquitas flying bird. It was a wooden pigeon powered by steam or compressed air. It mimicked flight. Uh, that was an early version of pneumatics.

[00:19:05] Uh, there was debates whether it really flew or if it just glided. Uh, middle ages, we had theatrics with timekeeping, uh, during the Islamic golden age, Al Jazaris elephant clock featured animated figures and parade like sequences. It was, it had, it involved very precise engineering and had, and it basically was the, one of the first places where we combined engineering and artistic storytelling.

[00:19:30] Uh, and then there was the myth medieval cathedral clocks in the 14th century. It didn't T they featured elaborate automaton saints that moved in sync with bells. Um, and it was sort of like Europe's prototype theme park experience. Excuse me. Sorry. Tom Corliss. Everyone does not burp for you on his podcast, but we do here at the Supreme resort.

[00:19:56] Um, then we got the later on the digesting duck that ate and pooped fake food. Uh, the food was basically just, you stuffed it in and it would poop. Uh, we had, uh, let's see. And then there's a lot more of these that I kind of, uh, reduced down to the, this list. And we end this list with Thomas Edison's talking dolls, terrifying phonograph enabled

[00:20:22] dolls that recited nursery rhymes, which you can imagine looked and probably were haunted. Um, so, and as far as the technology goes, a lot of it involved, like I said, counterweight and pulley mechanisms, uh, some, some air air getting released, uh, synchronization was there, but not quite there, uh, due to technology.

[00:20:51] Um, let's see. Uh, a lot of like pre work such as shoving, uh, you know, bread crumbs up the duck's butt. So it could poop it out later. Um, and of course Edison's talking dolls, the involved was wax, wax phonograph discs, which anyone who's a fan of those should listen to Bowie's planning.

[00:21:14] Um, and so over time, the mechanical sound quality got distorted by the, uh, repetitive. Playback kind of digging into the grooves. Um, that's the history, a very brief history of animatronics before the Walt Disney company. Um, I'm tired of hearing myself speak. One of you talk, please. That's wonderful. Thank you. I enjoyed that. Okay. Back to Dan. Okay. Yeah, continue.

[00:21:45] Uh, okay. So, so in short, uh, Walt Disney and his Imagineers did not create the idea of, uh, autonomous moving objects. Fair. Yeah. It was already kind of out there and it wasn't, it was innovative, but it wasn't like, ah, they created this thing out of nothing. Right. Cause famously there was the dancing man. Do, does it, either of you have anything on that? Oh, well I, I didn't go into the history of animatronics, but yeah, that was, um, Buddy

[00:22:14] Epson who did the motion, basically early mocap work for a dancing robot. Yeah. And I think it was on display at Disneyland for quite a while. Like as a marionette, right? Yeah. I think so. Yes, that's right. Yeah. And you would press buttons. Yeah. And Walt like said, Hey, take this apart and figure out how it works. Right. Uh, that's the kind of quality you get on this show people. Cool. Um, all right.

[00:22:43] So all those old Coney Island things like the terrifying laughing dolls that you put in a quarter, probably a nickel. Yeah. And Zoltar, which of course is how we became adults. Um, they have a Zoltar machine. Where was I? Oh, is it universal at the exit of, um, men in black alien attack. There's a Zoltar machine. Yeah. I don't think that was actually there.

[00:23:12] Um, what? No. Uh, okay. Anyway. So, so Dan, that's the history of 12. Aren't we all the brief history of, uh, animatronics? Um, Eric, do you have anything you want to kick us off with? Oh gosh. Well, the, the concept of, uh, of a patriotic land really goes back to Edison square, which

[00:23:41] is a, it's something that, uh, Walt wanted to put into Disneyland. And it was, it was in that area in an area that still doesn't really exist. It's now just a walkway behind main street. He wanted to expand behind main street and put in an additional area that was, uh, Philadelphia, New York, St.

[00:24:06] Louis, San Francisco, Chicago, bring in these buildings that were part of the, the revolution of, of industry. Um, not the industrial revolution. That was, uh, that was a different thing, I guess. Yeah. There, there were signs. There was a sign over that area, Liberty street coming 1956. I, something like that. Oh yeah. Liberty street ending in Edison square. It was going to be on the street was announced on, it was on maps. Yeah.

[00:24:35] It was going to be on the tomorrow end side, right? That's right. Main street. Exactly. And this idea was to put in, put in like expand main street. So take the concept of main street, which is set in this particular time period and then expand it further into another time period where, where we're expanding and where we're looking at new technology and there were going to be multiple acts.

[00:25:05] And so what there's a really interesting document from, um, uh, from Disneyland to, uh, uh, general electric that has all of these concept, uh, concept drawings. Um, look it up on Disney docs.net. It's, it's a fantastic site. This guy, this guy is a, an amazing archivist, but Edison square came in, was supposed to come in multiple acts.

[00:25:34] It was a prologue act one, act two, act three, act four epilogue. And it was supposed to bring you through history while you watched Wilbur K. Watt, uh, who is basically John from the carousel of progress. This was the earliest incarnation of the carousel of progress. This man who has gone through technology from the late 1800s into the 20th century.

[00:26:02] And I think I listened to a podcast called the Dollywood reporter that talked about some of this. Oh yeah. The Dollywood reporter did a great job about that. I knew it sounded familiar. I couldn't remember why. Yeah. We don't need to talk about the carousel of progress in, in that much detail, but, but yeah, this was all part of it because part of this concept was Walt wanted to put in a tribute to our presidents, to, to our country.

[00:26:30] And ultimately like this, this concept of having multiple basically robots that, that are representing our forefathers, uh, didn't come to pass because it was huge. It was, it was one of those ideas that Walt had that took too much time to develop.

[00:26:54] And so when it came time for the world's fair of 1964, they said, let's do this. We've taken the technology, the audio animatronic technology from the, uh, uh, the Tiki room, which we will, we, we will get back to right guys, guys. Sure. Oh yeah. Play sure.

[00:27:18] I mean, we've got to do hotels and then kids' menus and what, I mean, yeah, the, the, the March hotel pools. Right. Okay. Very noncommittal. Thank you. Uh, but back to, back to that at some point, they took this audio animatronic technology that, that combined robotics with this soundtrack that, that triggered movements and allowed them to move in realistic ways.

[00:27:43] They made a, uh, they, they made a man. They made Abraham Lincoln. They made them a Lincoln. They made them a Lincoln. And, uh, yeah, there we go. That, that was the start of it. It was not the entire hall of presidents that, that Walt wanted, but it was a president, his favorite president. And, uh, yeah, that, that kind of kicked it off from there.

[00:28:14] And this goes to Walt Disney's Illinois roots. Uh, he grew up or he lived in Illinois for some time as a child. Uh, and of course they loved them some Lincoln. This was, you know, Yeah, we sure do. Early 19, we lay claim to this. So, you know, there's still civil war. The civil war was, you know, a generation away. Right.

[00:28:41] Um, there's monuments, school lessons, folklore, Lincoln's values, uh, really resonated with Walt. Uh, he dressed up as well, as well, dressed up as himself every single day, but he also dressed up as Lincoln occasionally just for funsies. There are pictures. Um, and in this, this background also weirdly enough inspired main street where a, where great moments, Mr. Lincoln ended up being going.

[00:29:12] Um, you know, he, there, there were early mechanical marvels that were showcased in these places, uh, agricultural machinery, electronic devices. Uh, people would, they, they'd have county fairs and expositions where little mechanical oddities would show up such as perhaps those little mechanical birds that we've heard about. Maybe, uh, Edison's talking dolls. In an episode that you didn't, you didn't flesh out enough about the Tiki room. We'll do that again. Yeah, totally.

[00:29:42] Sure. Um, and so I, I don't know that there's hard evidence that Walt Disney ever saw one of these talking dolls or whatever, but they were around. Right. And what this, this is a, this is an area where, you know, people were coming and going, things were happening.

[00:30:01] Um, and, uh, yeah, so his child childhood curiosity, um, it sort of led him to, you know, he didn't, if, if you know the, the, the biography, he didn't have a happy childhood necessarily. So he was a dreamer. He was, yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:23] Um, careful when you're talking about dreamers, Dan, he wasn't one of those dreamers and he wasn't, but he was indeed an anchor baby. Okay. Um, so yeah, Lincoln, no doubt had an influence on Walt Disney. Uh, he, uh, he, he, he digested a lot of the honest Abe mythos, whether it's true or not.

[00:30:51] He dressed up as Abe Lincoln and read the Gettysburg address in front of his class. He did. And they all threw pennies at him, just like they did at great moments with Mr. Lincoln. Um, fun, fun fact. Uh, at one point, I think it was fifth grade. We had to do the Gettys, Gettysburg address in school and everyone had to recite it. And I didn't, oh, oh, confession time.

[00:31:18] I did not bother to memorize the Gettysburg address because my name was halfway through the alphabet. And when I listened to like 15 people do it one after the other, I just cited it from memory after that. Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers. Um, that's all I got. I'm loving it. So. That's all anybody remembers. Yeah. Remember the version.

[00:31:47] I, I, I'm sure we'll get to it. Oh, we will. Okay, good. Thank you. Don't worry. All right, Mr. Brady. Oh, the binaural or where, where are we going? Yeah. Yeah. We got to get there. Yeah. So we could, okay. Let's, let's. There's only one neural. Eric. It's either man neural or woman. Jesus. Sorry.

[00:32:15] Uh, we're recording this in January, 2025. Just. Yeah. For historians. Just as a side note. It's just the beginning. Yeah, I know. It's it's that's nuts. Anyway, we haven't gotten to the history of other things too. What about that? I mean, yes, that's right. It's just the beginning of this history of great moments. Mr. Lincoln, the fifth bestest president there has ever been.

[00:32:43] Um, so, okay, so we can go into the, the, there, there's details there to be found about and speculation to be made and connections to be made about the, uh, the small town and main street and how Abraham Lincoln ends up in main street at Disneyland, all that stuff. Um, for the sake of time, uh, we're going to get into Walt Disney from animator to innovator.

[00:33:08] Um, so, uh, animatronics and theme parks in general can arguably be seen as, um, a natural extension of animation. Uh, it's, it's, uh, it's like long form storytelling. We've talked about all this stuff before, but again, I think this is a good place to kind of dig into that. Yeah.

[00:33:35] Early on, uh, as many of you listening, no, I'm going to stop saying that. Look, if you know the stuff, you know the stuff. And if you don't know the stuff, I'm going to give you like a bird's eye view of the stuff. You're welcome to dig into it. That's kind of how I like to operate. So early on, he began his career drawing ads in Kansas city, Missouri, and, uh, he formed Laugh for Graham studios in which they produced short fairytale inspired cartoons. Sounds familiar. Sure. It does.

[00:34:04] Um, he had a lot of money problems historically, and this, um, led him to seek out more commercial endeavors in these ads. Like, uh, he was, well, it says ads. Um, yeah, he was, he was an ad man, but he was also interested in telling Yeah. I think that hired him. Yeah. Yeah. Mar a sweaty Marlaco dentist. That's right.

[00:34:34] Um, so again, you can read the books, you can look at the things eventually over time and tribulation and trials and whatnot. This leads to the birth of Mickey mouse. Now, why is Mickey mouse such a big debt, such a big deal besides him being Mickey mouse that we know and love, uh, in case you're the one person listening who wasn't aware of this. Uh, he, he revolutionized, uh, animation by synchronizing sound to the animation.

[00:35:04] Mickey mouse did. Well, Mickey mouse himself. Yes, he did. Um, before that, it was just, you know, here's the cartoon and here's an organist. Here's Felix, the crummy cat. Yeah. Uh, who's probably a communist and he, um, you know, they would have the cartoon play and like the theater

[00:35:27] organist would play music that was, you know, in sync to what's happening on screen, but there wasn't, it wasn't a direct, the same machine is playing both the sound and the, uh, vision. Um, so then that led on later to the success in that led to a little something called silly symphonies. Uh, there was a lot of experiment experimentation involved.

[00:35:55] They synchronized, they further synchronized the idea of music and, uh, visuals working together. Um, and they experimented with some like early technicolor stuff there. Uh, you might've heard a little about a little something called flowers and trees. It was the first three step technicolor cartoon. And it was the first Oscar. Um, what does this have to do with Abraham Lincoln? Well, we're getting there animation, right? Um, yeah.

[00:36:25] So then we got snow white who, uh, is really a big deal. Uh, for all the reasons that you probably know by now. Uh, basically first long for first, uh, move full length motion picture that was animated and in color and had sound all that stuff. Uh, and just a little sidebar. I don't know if it was before hours or during this episode, we were talking about wizard of Oz.

[00:36:52] MGM's answer to the success of snow white was the wizard of Oz. That was their response. Really? That's a big deal. I never knew that. That's quite the response. Touche. Yeah. Wow. Um, so we're, we're, we're, the, the, the main thing I'm point trying to point out here is that we're moving forward. We're experimenting and we're, we're heading towards a, uh, a place where eventually if you

[00:37:21] just sprinkle some corporate or state money on it, you have an Abraham Lincoln. Uh, we got all sorts of innovations. We got your multi-plane. We got your storyboarding. You got synchronized scores. You got your Fantasia. Um, a lot of interesting things there are, I hope they are interesting. Uh, Eric, please speak. Yeah. Oh, you're handing me off at a weird spot. I know. I don't think that there's going to be a lot of one-to-one at this, at this point.

[00:37:49] No, there's not because there's so much overlap between these two attractions and, and so much of this development. Well, I don't think what's, what's important. Yeah. That you're getting to Dan is that animatronics are just another evolution in animation. 100%. And you know, it's, it's the same basic technology. It's sound and movement all happening through an audio format of sorts.

[00:38:17] It's just a, it's just an evolved version of a cartoon. Yeah, essentially. And that's why that's the picture I'm trying to paint. Yeah. And I don't think that there's going to be a lot of a one-to-one here with the history because I'm, I'm addressing a bigger scope. Yeah, you're going. Yeah. Yeah. You're going big. Yeah. So, and I think that in order for us to get the history of both of those, of both of these

[00:38:46] things out in a reasonable amount of time, we're going to probably just have to accept that it's going to be okay. I'm here in like 1930 and here you are in like 1970 something. Right. Okay. Who wants a rapid shift? Let's go to Blaine Gibson. Yeah. Yeah. Hi. Oh, hello, Blaine.

[00:39:13] Blaine, would you like to tell us about your legacy as the, the guy who made all of the characters? Before you do, I have a question. Is the Gibson girl your daughter? I've always wanted to ask. You beat me to it, Dan. I was about to talk about my ice cream parlor. Oh, it's ruined now. All right. Back to you, Eric. Yeah.

[00:39:41] Blaine Gibson was, was one of the, the early imagineers with, with Walt Disney. Uh, Blaine famously made a bust of Walt Disney and Walt said, I don't like this because nobody gets a statue made out of them unless they're dead. So he killed him. And Blaine Gibson killed Walt Disney. He injected him with lung cancer. No, Walt, take the filters off. It's fine. It's fine.

[00:40:10] You're not a real man unless you, uh, take the filters off. Oh no. Uh, but yes. Blaine is the, he's the villain of this story. Yeah. Blaine. Blaine is going to sculpt all of history's worst villains. Our United States presidents. That's not far off. Wow.

[00:40:40] Uh, for the whole of presidents, never a good time to do this episode. Yes. This is a, this is, this is timely. I like that we did this now. Uh, yeah. Blaine worked meticulously to capture the likenesses of each president. Uh, he looked at the paintings of presidents. We've got a lot of paintings of presidents. We've got photographs of presidents there. They're the most important people in, in the world when it comes down to it. And, uh, obviously.

[00:41:10] And, uh, so there, there are a lot of, there's, there's a lot of evidence that shows what they look like. So he took their, their likenesses and life masks where we're available as in the case of Lincoln. We've all heard about the, the life mask that was made, uh, that, that became president Lincoln in, uh, 1964.

[00:41:34] Which is such a creepy thing, but like looking back at like the absence of other technologies, it kind of makes. To capture like this. Yeah. They'd be like here, let me put goo on your face. All right. Your essence. It's almost smoking a cigarette for an hour while you do this. And it's, it's, it's so, it's so interesting.

[00:42:00] Cause like it's, it's, it's almost like perfect for this. Cause it's just like, oh, we just so happened to have these things that they did. Oh yeah. We can take a cast out of this thing. We can just use this thing. Yeah. So Lincoln was famously the first president photographed. Right. Right. Who formally sat for a photograph.

[00:42:26] Um, but yet he was the only person who was able to sit still for 45 minutes while that photograph took place. That's right. Mr. Brady. Um, anyway, so the point was that I wonder how many other inconsequential people got their face plastered. You know what I mean? Like before it went to Abe and like, are there, are there just hundreds of rando life masks out there? There's, there's gotta be.

[00:42:55] Cause I mean, also keep in mind that like people were, people are, have always been narcissists to some extent. Right. Sure. Like it's not new. And I would imagine anyone with any amount of like notoriety or, or like expendable income would probably be like, Ooh, do me, do me.

[00:43:17] So I guess I wonder if the technology of the life mask came before the photograph because the photograph was new and that's how they used to preserve people in their likenesses. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know that that was that photograph. Is that the photo photograph? I'm going to look into life masks. You guys keep talking. Okay. Yeah. The photograph seems more interesting where it's kind of like, I've got this camera. Can I, can I try it on you? Random farmer. Yep. Yeah.

[00:43:45] But I guess my point is that before the photograph, there was no way other than through paint to capture an image. And I wonder if, if the life mask wasn't the proto photograph. But there aren't life. I mean, think about of like, think about like ancient Egyptians, like we have full body casts of these people. Well, that's a little different, I guess. Was that for preservation in the afterlife or, or sorry, Jimmy, what did you say?

[00:44:15] I think, I think you're onto something. They were going for something religious there. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, like the, the, the, the full body cast of ancient pharaohs to preserve. But William Howard Taft didn't have a full body cast done. He had a full body bathtub. True. Um, 18th century sailor, I think, and this is again, just like based on very quick research.

[00:44:44] Um, it looks like it does in fact go back to like death masks in the middle ages. And yeah, death masks are, that was the thing. Hearing about, but. And I think the idea of a life mask was sort of novel. And because it was novel, a lot of people in eight, 18th and 19th centuries were like, again, it was like that. Do me, do me kind of thing. Yeah.

[00:45:13] So that, that's why they call it a life mask. Cause they had the death mask. That makes sense. The difference is you're choosing what the person looked like. And I wonder how many people had them in their homes. Like this is uncle Wilbur. And you know, this is what he looked like. We, we captured it after he died, but we may as well do it while they're still alive. Right. And then just like anything, it probably becomes a thing where it's just like, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to choose to have one done now because I, I would rather people remember me like this or whatever, you know?

[00:45:43] Right. Before I get interesting, before I get old and wrinkly. I'm planning on getting real fat. I'm planning on getting real fat. Yeah. And I think, I think also, again, going back to that thing of like, people have always been narcissists. That's just part of our psychology to some extent. Um, and again, like boredom, like they didn't have social media. They didn't have, you know, yeah, they could read, but a lot of them were illiterate.

[00:46:10] I think that they're, I think, I think looking at history in general, we don't really take, we don't appreciate the power of boredom as much as we might. I mean, think of like the. Oh, you lost Dan. Is that me? No, it's me. Um, am I back? I think to Dan's point, you know, everyone is the hero of their own story. Right. Yeah. So whether it's narcissism or just, you know, am I back?

[00:46:36] Who else is, who else loves us more than ourselves? I don't know. Anyway. Yeah. Hey. Um, do we wait for this opportunity? Let's take this opportunity, Eric. I don't know if you want to timestamp this, but how, how far do you have research up to what, or do you have it all done? I, I have a decent amount of the history is so weird on, on this attraction.

[00:47:04] So here, let me timestamp it anyway. Uh, about 50 minutes pause. Um, Oh, he's gone. Yeah. I've got, I've got a lot of random cause this attraction is so much history and it's not. Hello. Hello. You're back.

[00:47:30] Um, what I, I want to finish the point that I was making when you, are we still recording? Are we still recording? We're still recording. Yes. Okay. But Dan, we were, we were just sidebarring. I was, I heard everything you guys were talking about. I think this episode is going to be brought to you by a spectrum cable again. Um, did we want to, do you want to start a new recording? So it's easier to edit or do you want to keep going? I can just write down the time. Okay. Just as easy. Okay.

[00:48:01] Let's do it. Um, where, where did you, yeah. Okay. Where did you, where did I cut off? I have no idea. Narcissism. Okay. You were talking about narcissistic people and then you kind of froze. Okay. So what I was saying is that like, people have always been narcissistic just because that's like, I mean like a healthy narcissism, right? I'm not saying like kids these days with their screens, like that kind of thing.

[00:48:27] Like there, it's part of our psychology to on some level be narcissistic, right? There is a healthy narcissism. That's what I'm trying to say. And then there's also boredom. And I think boredom, they didn't have social media. A lot of them didn't, uh, they were illiterate. They had a lot of extra time. A lot of them didn't have Twitter back then. Right. Uh, I think that I have a friend who is a history teacher and he talks, he likes to talk about how like, we don't really appreciate the power of boredom.

[00:48:56] Like if you ask, how did they, why did they create the great pyramids? It's like, well, you have this society where agriculture basically takes care of itself. Like it's the same thing as like Gary down the street, making his motorcycle go vroom, vroom, you know, just like, Hey, look what I could do. You know? And I think that, that, that is, there's a part, there's a chunk of this that falls into that category of like, I got nothing to do. I heard about this life mask thing.

[00:49:26] Let's do it. Yeah. I think I'd mentioned, uh, everyone is the hero of their own story. Right. So, you know, everybody's narcissist by narcissistic by just by nature to your point. Right. Um, total sidebar. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot about where things come from. Like I made waffles this morning with my kids who like took some flour. First of all, how did they figure out flour?

[00:49:56] Who took some flour and some sugar and baking powder and what's baking powder and how did that come? And then some eggs and vanilla and milk and butter and mix it all together in the right proportions and then fry it up. Like, like just who, who was the first to do all this stuff? And then who's like finds an onion in a field and cuts it up and starts to cry. Like, yeah, let's see how it tastes. I don't know.

[00:50:20] It's just, it's just the answer to any questions is, uh, uh, Buford Woffel is, uh, Belgian. Yeah. Anyway, that stuff just fascinates me. The origins of all this stuff and how many people had to die to figure out what things are poisonous. Yes. You know what I mean? It's just, there's gotta be a book about it somewhere. Anyway, that's gotta be like in some ways the beginning of animal testing where it's just like, sure. Animals are eating that. Let's see if it's any good for me. That's fair. Yeah.

[00:50:50] Anyway. And the animals are making waffles. Gosh, what's the name of the book? Okay. Hang on. I got a, what was the first dog to make a waffle? Um, anyway, waffles are delicious. I have a baby Yoda or Grogu waffle maker. Oh, the drunken botanist by Amy Stewart. Look that one up. There's a lot of really good. Drunken botanist. It's subtitled the plants that create the world's great drinks. Um, really interesting read.

[00:51:20] There you go. Yeah. Like agave. Who's like, Hey, let's age this for a while. See what happens. Let's make liquor out of this thing. That's right. Potatoes, agave plants, wheat. Anyway, let's continue the history of animatronics. Am I back? Did I freeze again? Oh, you're back. Okay. You're fine. I think this episode is going to be brought to you by Spectrum Cable.

[00:51:49] Um, let me write that down so I can make sure that we credit them appropriately. It's 56. Now's the time for commercial break, huh? Yeah, I guess it is. Uh, spectrum cable. Right. Okay. So, uh, where are we? Do we want to, I, I lost track of where we are in my, is it my turn? Is it Eric's turn to continue? How, well, he was talking about Blaine Gibson and we really never, he was talking about the life mask. That's right. We got the Gibson girl. Yeah.

[00:52:18] All the faces of the presidents. They're very photographed because they're, you know, important figures in history. So in summary, Eric tried to talk about a thing and then the show did what the show sometimes does. That's right. Okay. I tried. Let's finish. Yeah. Let's finish. Uh, really when it comes down to it, Gibson was, Gibson was the gold standard for Blaine Gibson, not Gibson girl, the ice cream girl.

[00:52:48] Yeah. Yeah. Blaine Gibson, the sculpture, not the ice cream girl. Are we good at, we, we, we clear on this. Got it. Okay. Okay. We're good. Uh, he was, uh, the gold standard for audio animatronic design. Uh, he, he looked at all of these portraits. He looked at all of these descriptions of the presidents and he created these animatronics

[00:53:17] that, that exist today. Um, you know, it, it goes beyond it. I mean, the, the work that was done on Lincoln was exemplary, was insanely detailed and continues to be insanely detailed as, as they've updated this character over the years to the point

[00:53:39] that when he stood up during, uh, when he stands up during the, the presentation, my wife gasped and wanted to run. But, uh, but this guy, uh, Blaine Gibson created all of these other animatronics of so many presidents.

[00:54:00] And, uh, he, he was going off of paintings and he created these, these likenesses that for many of them, they don't do anything. They, they shuffle about, they move around a little bit. They talk amongst themselves.

[00:54:17] They're not a huge part of the story, but he created this large chunk of, of American history that for all well and purposes, it's, it's represented representation of, of our, our history, our past presidents. And he passed away in, in 2015.

[00:54:45] And during that, during his last days, he, uh, passed on his skills to, uh, Catherine Doherty, who was the first non. That's the Gibson girl. Catherine Doherty is the Gibson girl. Uh, she created the first non-Blade Gibson president. She created, uh, Barack Obama. And, and she has worked on figures ever since.

[00:55:15] And this has been great moments with Mr. Gibson. You are my Gibson girl. All right. So now we've kind of skipped over the, the 64 world's fair Lincoln stuff. So let's get back to Dan. I have a question for Eric though. Are all of the, all of the, do all the presidents look like melted down versions of the people that they beat in the election? No, only the one. Or is that? That's just the one. Okay. Just the one. Only the one. Uh, okay.

[00:55:44] So Eric, I don't know if you covered this and I just missed it, but so we have the life mask of Lincoln and presumably every president after that, we have some, you know, photographs or some kind of. Multiple photographs. Yeah. How did they come up with dimensional accuracies and that sort of thing for the presidents one through 15? Does, is there documentation on that? It really, it's just the paintings. It's, it's paintings and it's descriptions of them. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Probably.

[00:56:14] Um, I'm forgetting the term for it, but historic primary documents. Let's say yes. Yeah. I mean, these are, like I said, and this, this isn't meant to be reductive or sarcastic. Like these are the most important people on the planet. These are people that are, especially the early presidents, they are forming a new, a new country. They are monarchy.

[00:56:43] A new form of government that, that has been adopted worldwide. Right. For large swaths of the world live in a democratic society, whether it's a parliamentary democracy or some version of it, but it was all created by these individuals. Yeah. So many accounts describe these people and they want to describe them in heroic terms because they're doing something new and incredible.

[00:57:11] So yeah, they're, they're, they're superheroes and they've been described in, in word written literature for so many years and they've got paintings, multiple paintings. You gotta kind of take a leap at some point. I just, I just want to jump in as my, my character from before here.

[00:57:32] I think that a finer point to be put on that is that they, so while the presidency wasn't always this like most important powerful thing, person in the world thing, it was intended to be like the mascot for the country. Right. Like constitutionally at least. And it's not until like FDR that we get the, that, that the president, the president. Yeah.

[00:58:01] And I think the head of state, which is like the prime minister, the head of government, excuse me, you know, they've got the head of state and head of government. Those are usually two different people in democracies in the world, but in, in America it's the same person. Right. Right. And I, I think constitutionally it was acknowledged very early on that like, we need this figure, the fit, literally this figurehead. You need a figurehead. Yeah. Yeah. And it has evolved beyond that to your point.

[00:58:29] Um, something just again, a little sidebar about the, uh, the democratic republic that we created, um, in this country, that the beauty part of it is that it's people that govern themselves. The problem with that, the problem with that is that also it's people that are governing themselves. You know what I mean?

[00:58:54] Cause if you have the wrong kind of people, um, anyway, it's, it's an interesting thing. Okay. I do want to jump in again and just play, I'm going to play my previous character here and put a fine little note on what you just said, Jimmy, which is that yes, it is people.

[00:59:14] But I think one of the, the biggest thing that has historically hinged on is that everybody operates in good faith. That's right. And as long as we have that. That's right. And follow the norms and follow the, yeah, that's right now. But you know, eventually that's going to go away. Eventually it was inevitable that one would imagine that it might at some point go away. Yes. Right.

[00:59:38] So, but you know, people are flawed and, and I think also we as a society, I think not even just as a society, people, you know, Loki from the Avengers said, isn't this what you want? You don't want to have to make decisions for yourself. You want somebody to tell you what to do. You crave subjugation. Yeah. You want that. You don't want to have to. And that's true for so many people, you know, the reason, hold on.

[01:00:05] But the reason that leaders, the reason that people take on leadership roles is because so few people want to make decisions, you know, so few people want to be in charge. And so when you have people who want to be in charge, there's that narcissism, narcissism you're talking about, Dan, is that usually it's the most narcissistic people who feel like they are the right people to be leaders and that kind of thing. Yeah.

[01:00:28] So, but you have this thing where people, I think, still like to revere or these people are better than, you know, look at the royal family, look at Hollywood, look at the president. I mean, the president is revered by so many people. And then by nature of our society today, which is governed so much by our social media and algorithms and everything else, it's either revered or totally despised. Right. Right.

[01:00:55] And so, but the reality is we revere these people, but they're just people. They're just people. Right. Right. And in theory, they're no different than us. And just because you have money doesn't mean you're better. Well, come on. But I think that there's enough people in the world who revere that office, revere that whatever it is, whether it's a royal family or the president or Tom Cruise, whatever it is.

[01:01:21] They're just people who have made decisions in their lives that are different than the decisions you made. Some people are, you know, are revered or thought of as better because they inherited wealth or because they're better looking, you know, traditionally, you know, whatever. But they're just people. I, I, yes. And I want to add to that.

[01:01:44] I think, I think what you're attributing to as people in being inclined to look up to certain things, I think that that is more trained than we are aware of. I think that that is something that goes, that's that, that goes back to the nature of control. And how do you form societies? How do you manufacture consent?

[01:02:12] For example, you learn to play the social game better and in a more manipulative way. I mean, it goes back to like Machiavelli, like people have been writing about this crap for ages. And one of the things that our constitution was really hinged on was that good faith thing, that idea that like people will not take advantage of the system.

[01:02:42] And if they do, the system itself will be in place to correct, but. Call them out. Yeah. To call them out. And it's a brilliant system. And its foundations. I think we've learned that it might not be as brilliant as we think because it. It. Group think is real. And it's a foundational intent. It is brilliant. There's, I'm not, I'm not, it's not a hard disagree.

[01:03:08] That's a, there's a lot there that, that needs to be discussed in order to. Yes and no. The, the, the, the, the principles that it is built on, I think are great. Yeah. However. Revolutionary at the time. Yes. And. Um. Anyway. We fought a war about that. Yeah. So anyway, I guess the, ultimately, listener, this is a tangent.

[01:03:37] This was never the intent of this episode. We do not intend to make this a political discussion. I think it's going to have to be at some point. Well, maybe. But I just, I think for the listener, at least from my perspective as the host and judge of this particular episode. That's not the point. That is not the point of this thing. The point is to cover this subject and this topic. Yeah. These two attractions. If we did this 10 years ago. It'd be different. We probably, it's a totally different world, right? Yeah. It would be impassioned.

[01:04:04] I think when I, to be clear, when I say, I think it, it needs, it's going to have to be political. What I mean is not necessarily which political point of view is the correct one. I'm talking simply about like the nature of politics. How can this not have some elements of that? Well, of course. I mean, it's in the definition of the, yeah. Anyway. Right. So we, we, we, we talked about Blaine Gibson making all the sculptures of the presidents.

[01:04:33] We've kind of leapfrogged over Mr. Lincoln. So let's get back to Dan and the origins of Lincoln. Right. And just. The robot. To level set for everyone's comfort. Look, I do have the, and I'm going to drop the whole character real me thing for a second. Yeah, it's fine. I, I, it's clear that I have the political. Yeah. I'm kind of over it too. It's clear that I have the political opinions that I do. And I definitely have, you know, those strong opinions.

[01:05:02] I am going to do my absolute best. I will absolutely sprinkle little bits of like, isn't it ironic that we live in this? That's again, that's what I do. Like you said, but I, when I get into this political thing, I want to be clear that I'm really trying to approach it from a bird's eye view of just like politics as an idea. Not so much like you should believe in this thing or I'm right because of this.

[01:05:31] So in those moments, I'm not, I'm not trying to interject the like, oh yeah, let's read some marks kind of stuff, but more like, like Jimmy, when you talk about the, the control versus, uh, or the, you know, what you were just talking about that does go all the way back to like debates between Hobbes and Locke that like, this is like, this is, these are things that have been talked about for centuries, you know?

[01:05:58] Um, and I think it's, it's, it's worth it to throw in that like, okay, yeah, where we are now, however you feel about it, it's things are tense. Right. Um, and made more so by a 24 hour media and social media and algorithms. It's just made worse because of the technology, the need to get that opinions out there.

[01:06:28] That's right. You're correct. But what I'm trying to point out is that that in itself doesn't come from nowhere. That, no, I get that. That comes from like us, you know, 30 or so years ago saying like, oh, I could put my phone number in and get, you know, 10 cents off of this jug of milk. Okay. Thank you. You know, it's, it's, this is, these problems have always existed, but things are just way amplified now. It's the same signal turned up. Sure.

[01:06:58] Yeah. I, I'm fully aligned. I hate that phrase. Um, I'm with you. And by the way, listener, if he ever refers to Marx, he's, he's referring to Groucho and Harpo. Exactly. Or Richard. Well, yeah. Richard Marx is, uh, his writings on the, uh, the nature of labor. Fantastic. Um, that's right. Plenty of Marx is to choose from all the Marx is Harpo. Actually Adorno is where it's at, but whatever.

[01:07:26] Um, so, okay. Just for the sake of time, we have, uh, the Disney, Disney, Disneylandia project, which I didn't know about. Uh, it was tiny Americana scenes like granny Kincaid's cabin from a little movie called so dear to my heart that I'm pretty sure nobody has seen, but it is a Disney movie. I don't know what that is necessarily. And I'm not going to watch that movie, but you know, we were talking about coin operated traveling dioramas on train cars.

[01:07:55] So guests can pay to see animated displays. They played that a little bit. Yeah. What wanted to do? He made it himself. Really? So you know about set himself, the miniatures, Lilliputian land, right? He loved miniatures. And then do you get into animatronic evolution in like the jungle cruise? Oh, I sure do. Okay. And we, we can jump there. So basically we're going from, yeah, no, we, we should.

[01:08:22] We're going from that, from animation to the Disney, Disneylandia, Disneylandia project. Yeah. Oh my God. But eventually at some point he sees the little new Orleans bird on a maton that we've heard about in connection with Tiki room in the episode that we will get to. In fact, I'm going to leave it for that. We have to. So we have something to look forward to.

[01:08:48] Um, then we get to, uh, Disneyland's earliest mechanical figures. So we get to a point from animation to we're going to make a Disneyland is the jump I'm making. Um, so when Disneyland opened, he wanted it to feel alive. He being, uh, Walt Disney, there were early mechanical figures that acted kind of a stepping stones toward the animal and audio animatronics that we know today.

[01:09:20] And just to be clear, there wasn't a, like, we need to be able to make a Lincoln. It was just like, Hey, this is cool. This is as far as this can possibly go maybe, but let's see how much further we can take it. Um, so we got the jungle cruise, uh, boats passed by hippos and drafts and elephants. Uh, they were operated by camshafts convert that converted rotary motion into linear motion for repetitive loops.

[01:09:46] Uh, hidden underwater tracks controlled the movement with animals tethered to levers or pulleys. Uh, he wanted, of course, as we all know, real animals, but that would not have worked. Some challenges were that water added mechanical stress, uh, algae growth often interfered with tracks. Hydraulic systems required frequent maintenance to avoid fluid leaks. By the way, what color is hydraulic fluid? Fluid both of you? Red. That's right. We'll get to that later.

[01:10:13] Oh, um, in the rivers of America, we had figures that operated on simple lever systems powered by electric motors. It was jerky, repetitive, uh, figures were prone to stalling in the cold water. Um, and let's see, there were, there were, uh, chiefs that raised their arms in that certain way that people can raise their arms.

[01:10:38] Uh, women grinding, grinding grain and grinding, women grinding men saluting. Just like, just like today. Um, we had the mind train through nature's wonderland in 1960, where guests saw animated animals such as bears scratching their backs, beavers building dams and deer, deer a grazing. And, uh, some of the problems there were that partial builds allowed for simplified mechanics,

[01:11:08] such as like half submerged beavers. Really thought I was going to stutter on that one. Didn't you listener? I did too. Uh, movement was controlled by a gear driven pulleys, uh, concealed in rock work or water. Bears use flexible rubber limbs for scratching motions, which added visual believability. Uh, we also had static figures and dark rides. We had 2d figures, 3d figures. The 2ds were hinged flat cutouts of characters.

[01:11:35] Um, and 3d, we had captain hook dueling Peter Pan. Um, some of the mechanisms, mechanisms there were just basic electric motors powered small cams or levers enabling nodding or waving. Uh, they were painted with bright colors, of course, to stand out in the black light, uh, rotational motion achieved with a single axis cam shaft, limited range of motion that relied on carefully timed lighting to enhance realism.

[01:12:04] Uh, and of course having them be in complete darkness made it a lot easier. Um, do we want to get to Tiki room now or Eric, do you want to hold on? Not the full Tiki room, just the piece in the history. Oh, I thought. Or Eric, do you want. Yay. I'll just go ahead. So we, we can end up with Lincoln. Uh, so yes. Well, yeah, I was going to say like there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of.

[01:12:31] Uh, oh, there's a lot more history and we're running low on time. I know. I was just wondering, um, yeah. Yeah. Where we're going to go. Cause I've got a, an exhaustive list of, uh, presidents who were near their audio animatronics. There's a lot more history for Lincoln. So where do we want to go? So, okay. Tiki room.

[01:12:57] Well, let's just say there was stuff in the Tiki room that we, that you could listener. You can look it up on your own or we'll get to it. Or a tin of audio animatronics. We'll get to it, uh, this year for sure. Absolutely. So we finally end up at the world's fair, which was the genesis of great moments with Mr. Lincoln. Uh, so, uh, at the new work at the, at the world's fair, Disney's motivation was to showcase

[01:13:26] his innovations to a wide, wide range of potential sponsors. And in so doing, he gained found sponsors to help them do that. We had Pepsi Cola, which I'm drinking a little bit of Pepsi myself right now for it's a small world. You had Ford for Ford's magic skyway. What? Traitor. Uh, we had general electric that did chaos and all the progress and the state of Illinois ponied up some money for great moments with Mr. Lincoln.

[01:13:55] Uh, so they wanted to pride their favorite son and they were most likely aware of Walt Disney's personal reference for the president. Of course, the original concept was as Eric was talking about the hall of presidents. So this kind of gave him the, the opportunity to see if a single figure could work, which then could lead to more figures.

[01:14:22] Um, we replaced pneumatics with, for smooth fluid motion. Uh, that, and the, the, this was hydraulic systems that replaced the pneumatics, uh, that provided the strength to lift and lower limbs. Once again, what color is a hydraulic fluid red? That's correct. Uh, they use magnetic tapes for the programming. Uh, they had signals for that encoded for multiple art actuators that controlled speech

[01:14:52] gestures and expressions. And I believe if you listen to those signals, it's just like, um, uh, this enabled synchronized motion across complex systems. Listener, I'm sorry if I've set off your animatronics at home with that signal. Um, everybody's local Lincoln has started running around the room. Alexa, what's the history of great moments with Mr. Lincoln? Oh, even better.

[01:15:21] Alexa, please share the history of Tiki room with this listener. That's how we should do this show. Yeah. No, no, I'm just waiting on this episode. We've been wasting our time. Uh, the original Lincoln had Duraflex skin, which is flexible, durable material that mimicked human texture. It was resistant to wear from repeated motions. Uh, there were actuators in the face.

[01:15:50] They were little miniature, ministrized hydraulics that powered, uh, subtle expressions like eye movements, mouth synchronization and what's not. Uh, some of the challenges they faced were, uh, of course the audience was familiar with Lincoln, uh, which meant that the figure had to be highly convincing and there's durability, uh, concerns because of course this thing is going to be operating like constantly. So they had to make sure that it was a robust as possible.

[01:16:20] Um, and of course the emotional presence, this is people are watching a robot, right? How do you make it work? One of the ways you make it work is you get someone called Royal Dano. Is he related to Paul Dano? No, he is not. Um, but Royal Dano is dead. He's not actually. Um, he, uh, has, he had played Lincoln in several different settings.

[01:16:47] Uh, I do have a whole history of Royal Dano himself that I thought would be fun, but since we're short on time, I will save that for the Tiki Room episode. Uh, Eric. Well, I'd like to talk about Lawrence Dobkin who, who introduced the audience to all of the presidents. Uh, no, uh, we, we could probably save that for later. So, uh, they got for the Tiki Room.

[01:17:16] Lawrence Dobkin didn't do anything with the Tiki Room. He was just the, the hall of presidents and initial narrator. But if we're gonna, if we're gonna stop listing names. Oh, well, no, here we go. Uh, Royal Dano was personally selected by Walt Disney. Um, he also did the voice for hall of presidents for, uh, Abraham Lincoln. Oddly enough. His film debut was an undercover girl. He was also known for, uh, killer clowns from outer space. He played farmer Jean Green in Ghoulies 2.

[01:17:47] Oh. And once again, he is, oh, he was also in Twin Peaks. Um, oh yeah. Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Rifleman, Twilight Zone. He is not related to Paul Dano. Um, he was learned to have worn. Lawrence Dobkin was, uh, began his prolific career in television in 1946. He, uh, was a guest star on Alan Hale Jr.'s, uh, Alan Hale Jr. being, uh, the skipper from, uh, Gilligan's Island.

[01:18:15] Uh, his short-lived CBS espionage series set in the Cold War. Biff Baker USA. Biff Baker USA. Biff Baker USA. Biff Baker. All right. Back to Dan. Okay. So we also. Wait, wait, wait. Yep. I found it, uh, Eric. The original concept for the hall of presidents was called, uh, one nation under God. Yes. One nation under God. Liberty Square. Yeah. Liberty Street. Sorry. So before I get into. Oh, we're getting back to real facts.

[01:18:43] So before I get into bringing great moments with Mr. Lincoln to Disneyland, uh, I want to talk about the main street opera house briefly. Um, it, it originally started as what did it start as Jimmy? It was the first building built at Disneyland and it was like a workshop. Yeah. It was the lumber mill. Um, it served as utilitarian purpose, uh, during its construction and during the parks construction phase.

[01:19:12] And it kind of stayed that way for a while until in 1961, it became an exhibition for babes in toilet. The movie that everyone thinks they have seen, but then when they watch it, they're like, Oh, I thought Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was this movie. And it's not. Um, it's, uh, let's see. It's architectural design is a Victorian.

[01:19:37] It, it fits in with main street USA as of course an opera house and an opera house in main street USA would have been Victorian and ornate and fancy and all of those things. And the, uh, the opera house is indeed that, uh, so all I have left is bringing great moments with Mr. Lincoln to Disneyland and different versions of great moments with Mr. Lincoln. Eric, is this a good place for you to take over? Oh my goodness.

[01:20:07] But I, yeah, I don't know that we have time with the, the multiple, the multiple Lincolns and one didn't work and they had a backup Lincoln at the world's fair, et cetera. Right. I mean, yes. Just worth noting. Yes. I mean, yes, that's it. I'm trying to, I'm trying to condense. You're good. But those are all things that are true. I would, I would love to hear more about the different versions of. Yeah. That's going to be a part of the, the next episode, I think. Yeah.

[01:20:36] Because I, unfortunately, I feel like there might be some points to be gained from that. I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Some of that, some of that's kind of, kind of big. So let me just tie it up then with bringing it to Disneyland and then Eric, you can finish this out with whatever you have for history, whatever you have left for history. Cause that would be a good, then we're at a good starting point, I think for the attraction. Yeah. I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, obviously more history to, to your point and show element.

[01:21:05] I would love to also Dan, if we can, and I can do that on my own, if you'd like the Walt Disney story in conjunction with great moments. Yeah. If you'd like me to take that. That's in the, and yeah, if you want to take that and get into more detail, that'd be great. Um, cause to me they're synonymous. Yeah. Yeah. We're literally part of the same name. Yeah. Well, I mean, they're no, it's kind of no long. Ironically, they went away.

[01:21:34] They, it didn't start with that and then they had it and then they went away from it and now they're very much bringing it back. Yeah. So. Another reason we're doing this episode because that, that show is changing. Yes. Yes. They're both changing, which is why we're, we're doing this. Uh, so let's see after its debut in the 1964 world fair, great most, Mr. Lincoln found a permanent home in Disneyland's main street opera house.

[01:22:02] Uh, this marked the first time that such a historical and technology, it's technological advance had entered into the park before the, the most intricate sort of animatronic thing that they had there was just the tiki room birds. And all of a sudden it's like, Hey, it's a person. Um, so while Disney believed that Abraham Lincoln represented the best of America,

[01:22:28] uh, so he felt that it just resonated with what he wanted Disneyland to be, which was a celebration of those things of optimism and innovation. So, and again, it was like, this is his part. So this is, I think he, he was needless to say, very proud of this thing. So of course he's going to show it in his park.

[01:22:52] Um, in terms of the importance of it being on main street USA as the symbolic heart of Disneyland main street was kind of the perfect place to put that because this is where for lack of a better term and at the risk of over sentimentizing, whatever, uh, this is kind of like where Walt lives in a lot of ways.

[01:23:17] Um, and at the opera opera house just made a lot of sense because this is a cutting edge performance. We're going to show it at the opera house where in this imaginary world of main street, that's where it would go, right? That's where Mr. Lincoln would probably speak if he spoke to these people. Um, Mr. Lincoln started as an E ticket and then was downgraded to a D ticket, but every child's ticket book included a ticket to great moments of Mr.

[01:23:47] Lincoln. Uh, fun little fact that I, that's right. I think the only thing I'm the only person I think that cares about this, but, um, in every doorway, every, you know, everything everywhere where employees, it's like an employees only area. Of course, employees are cast members. This building, which was the first building built to Disneyland, the only place in the park that does not say cast members is around the backside of this building.

[01:24:16] It says employees only behind the Mad Hatter, right? Yes. Yeah. If you're, you're going towards where the parade comes or goes listener, if you go around that corner on the right hand side, it says employees only. Fact of the show. Woo. That's something we do here, right? Yep. Uh, yeah, sure. Yeah. So if you're facing the opera house from, uh, town square, it would be on the left side, actually, not the right. Cause right. Okay. If you're coming from the castle,

[01:24:43] if you're coming from the main entrance on the right hand side. Yes. North. Um, however, I don't know. The north side of the building. North side. Sorry. That's right. This is what happens. We really need to celebrate autism awareness month. At some point. Um, some of the challenges in relocating, uh, was of course, we're adapting the world's fair design. Uh, it was designed to, Oh,

[01:25:12] Disneyland's higher foot traffic needed even more flexible design. Um, because it was definitely going to be operating for a longer period of time. Uh, they needed to integrate the hydraulic systems. They had to be re re-engineered for longterm use in a theme park environment. Of course, hydraulic fluid is red. maintenance demands, uh, made it so that continuous daily operation, um, they would basically have,

[01:25:41] everything was cranked up. They would have to do more work to make this thing continue to work. Um, they wanted to, the tone was different because Disneyland usually had a lot of, it's a fair amount of humor in the attractions, but this one was very serious. Um, deadly serious, deadly serious. So that's why when you go see it, you, it's always introduced with this tone of like,

[01:26:11] you will not laugh at this. You will not make fun of this. You will sit and respect this robot. And everyone just, Oh, okay. Um, of course this was the, this offered a huge refinements in audio animatronics technology. Um, let's see. We've got new materials, which we already talked about. Lighting was used to create a more intimate atmosphere than they probably could have at the world's fair, which emphasized his presence.

[01:26:40] They had more control over the environment itself because it's, it was, it's, it's their space, their theater. Yeah. Right. So they could, they could think about where the sound goes. What do we do with the sound? Do we add extra elements? Um, it kind of became this thing that they could think about? Well, what does a great moments with Mr. Lincoln do? What does it look like? Uh,

[01:27:07] they redesigned the queue and the pre-show it's showcasing. It originally showcased artifacts and exhibits related to Lincoln. Um, and it kind of prepared guests for the solemn tone of the performance. Now the debut was on July 18th, 1965. Walt personally oversaw the installation and the reception was, uh, uh, people were kind of amazed to be honest. Um, they were,

[01:27:37] it, it, it worked and it's, it's weird to think about now because, you know, I think it's a robot. It's a robot. And people who, who have seen it before, they're like, Oh, it's a, it's a robot, but this was new. So it, people were understandably shocked. Some people thought it was a live actor and they would actually throw things at it to make him like flinch. Um, and it kind of set a new standard for what theme,

[01:28:06] what a theme part attraction could be like both in tone and, well, not both. There's a lot of things I'm going to say. Tone, format, quality. It's, it, it became this, this sort of, of course, like not everything has that same somber tone, but we don't get like a circle vision without this, for example. Um, how do you make that leap? Circle vision is boring. This is boring. If circle, circle vision is about,

[01:28:36] about innovation, um, more than anything. This is really honestly more than anything about innovation. Yeah. It's about Lincoln, but you don't go to see Lincoln. You go to see the robot that is convincingly a person. Um, I guess what I'm trying to say is that like it went where we went from a place from, okay, now we're going to get a book report of this Disney movie that everybody knows

[01:29:03] and loves to now we're going to have an experience that could possibly even be kind of challenging. If we choose to go there with it. Talk faster. I've got seven minutes. That's all I got. My thing. That's all I got. Eric, go for it. As far as I got, you've got 17 minutes. Oh, 17. Oh, Oh, okay. Oh, well, um, then I can talk slightly, slightly slower. Yeah. Lincoln success of the world.

[01:29:32] Sit on down and hear a tale. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Like Dan said, uh, great moments with Mr. Lincoln was, was a huge success and it continues to be a success, uh, kind of, um, um, at, uh, at Disneyland. But when magic kingdom was being designed for Walt Disney world, imagine years revisited Walt's original idea for a presidential hall. Like Jimmy said,

[01:30:02] this was intended to be one nation under God, this concept of the founding fathers of our nation. Uh, so what they ended up doing, uh, opening the park on October 1st, 1971 in Liberty square. The attraction was a patriotic celebration of American leadership and featured all of the current presidents from the beginning to the current day.

[01:30:31] The show narrated by, uh, actor Lawrence Dobkin, um, introduced the audience to all of the presidents painstakingly so they could all nod at the audience, uh, portrayed through their audio animatronic robots, uh, in a grand roll call.

[01:30:50] The only speaking presidents were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln who are giving speaking roles with Lincoln reciting parts of the Gettysburg address and various other speeches, much like, uh, great moments with Mr. Lincoln. The focus on authenticity was extended to the, the robots. The, the, uh, their, their gestures, their physical likenesses.

[01:31:19] A lot of the costumes were designed by Bob Phelps, who is honored with a window on main street for his work on this attraction. And, uh, yeah, imagineering artists really put a lot of work into this, looking at it, taking the concept of Lincoln and extending it to all of the presidents. So the first time that an actual president recorded their, their, uh, their voice. Yes, sir.

[01:31:49] Hand up in the back. Yes. You, you with the hair. It was, uh, Bill Clinton. It was Bill Clinton in 1993. You're correct. Yeah. Walt Disney world. Imagineers showed up at the white house and recorded his statement. If you really want, I can read them. I do. Do you want, you want me to read? I want to hear it. Okay. Hang on. Um,

[01:32:20] and, and I'm, I'm doing my best at not saying anything about any nefarious things happening at the same time, cigars, et cetera. Of course, of course. Uh, like what happened with, I, I have the speeches of all of, uh, so I've got the speeches of Eric. I'm not joking. I want to hear it.

[01:32:50] If you want to do it in the next episode, that's fine. Maybe I've got Clinton. I've got Bush. I've got Barack Obama. I need to do Trump and Biden. So I'm not completely prepared. Cause none of them are, that's okay. None of them are that long. No, they're not. I would, it would be interesting to hear the evolution of what these people say and how similar they are, how scripted it is, how much is influenced by the individual. Bland it is. Yeah. Yeah. Just, I would,

[01:33:19] I would be personally fascinated and listener, you know, you can fast forward if you don't like it. I, I, yeah, maybe just save it to the next episode. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we'll save it for the next one. It maybe we'll do tongue in cheek. Dan can do some AI, but you must do it in the voice of the president. I was going to say, we could have, we could have Asher's dad's band, um, liquid horizon. Liquid horizon. Gosh. Got to put their, their album in the notes. Yeah.

[01:33:49] Uh, but yeah, I've got, I mean, I've got all of their, their speeches. Um, anyway, we'll, we'll get back to that next time. Cause we, we don't have that much time left. Here's, here's a list, uh, of presidents who were near their robots. Okay. So you mean the actual, I guess in this case we can say men, the actual men near their robots. Yes.

[01:34:19] Not, not like arm around their robot. Nobody's done that, which would be amazing. But, but isn't the list basically every president from Jimmy Carter on? It is. I think what you're saying, is presidents who came in close proximity to their own robot. Is that correct? Okay. Cause not everybody, Walt Disney world, not everybody has been to Walt Disney world.

[01:34:47] To be not every president. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Richard Nixon was at the contemporary resort on November 17th, 1973, 1973. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. The, I am not a crook speech. That was the closest he got to his robot. Hmm. Jimmy Carter, November, 1978, the 26th world Congress of the international chamber of commerce at magic kingdom. Near his robot.

[01:35:18] So if John Lennon had been a president, he would have been close to his robot. That's right. There you go. Ronald Reagan twice went to Epcot. First time was March. His inauguration. Was that his inaugural parade? Was it Disney world? His second inaugural address. Yes. Because there was a massive snow storm in DC that year. So he wasn't able to say Dan. Don't say it. What?

[01:35:48] Nothing. Go ahead. Yeah. That was his second inaugural address. So he went to Walt Disney world. Yeah. Disney invited him to go to Epcot to the world showcase to do his inaugural address on May 27th, 1985. There was a parade around the world showcase before that on March 8th, 1983,

[01:36:12] he addressed the international students would be the first class of international students working at Epcot. George HW Bush gave a points of light ceremony at Epcot on September 30th, 1991. Bill Clinton went to the Disney Institute in 1996 to deliver an address.

[01:36:38] And Barack Obama spoke in front of the partners statue at the Magic Kingdom on January 19th, 2012. He spoke about visa reform and boosting U.S. tourism for foreign nations. So literally in the Magic Kingdom, the closest to his robot. Wow. Does he win for being closest? Some of them have to have a picture with their robot. I haven't seen one. That has to exist.

[01:37:09] Wow. So Biden never saw his robot? Biden probably took his robot home. I don't know. Biden was replaced by his robot. I was going to say. Good times. If you vote for him, he'll win. Yeah. Great attention to detail was taken. Here's a random, completely random fact. Even in the wardrobe of these robots, great attention to detail was taken.

[01:37:38] If a guest were to lift the pant legs of Franklin Roosevelt, they would see he was wearing his polio braces. What? What? What? What? Why did they go to that level of detail? That's Disney for you, folks. Franklin Roosevelt. That's Disney, baby. He's seated. Is he not in the show? He is. Yeah. He's in his wheelchair. Yeah. Or is he in a wheelchair? No, he's just in a wheelchair. I think he's in a chair. I think he's in a high-backed chair.

[01:38:08] So it's like kind of, hold on. If you listen back to the. He doesn't stand up like in the movie when Jon Voight portrayed him in Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor? Yeah. Yeah. If you listen back to our March Madness of last year in the Most Attractive President series we did, you can hear all about it. It was the best. He is seated and there are no wheels. No.

[01:38:38] Cool. We confirmed that last year. That's right. Also coming soon? Best Disney theme park. What? Also coming soon? More about these two attractions. That's right. Yeah. Was that it for this episode, guys? I think so. I think that's as far as we're going to get. Yeah. All right. I think it's a good place to stop. And once we stop recording, we can talk about the schedule and how it's adjusted. Well, thank you both.

[01:39:05] That's a lot of fascinating information and historical detail about. Some people ask, was this episode necessary? I don't know. But the next episode, we'll get into more of the current history and the actual attractions themselves. And we will decide which is better, the Hall of Presidents or great moments with Mr. Lincoln. Don't worry. Of course. We're going to get back to hotels real soon. That's right. Mm-hmm.

[01:39:34] That, of course, that episode, that decision will be a tough one. And then we'll have to go through the appellate process because it's going to change again. Both of these attractions will change again. Also, listener, just to get you excited about this, you know there's no way that I'm not going to be able to hold back on this. Yeah. Be prepared. Buckle up. I'm not planning on it. We just, we all know. Yeah.

[01:40:02] Well, so folks, thank you for listening. So far, we have other shows. You know them all. So listen to those things. I've been listening to Puny Pod. It's quite fun. Dan, I really did enjoy your Captain Marvel. That was a great episode. I think I'm on hour 14 of the Endgame episode. Eric, you're doing a great job. We're still recording it right now, actually. We're still recording. That's right. This is part of it.

[01:40:32] Concierge, 856 Hour Ears, vacation planning for Disney, Disneyland Paris, Disney Cruise Line, Aulani, and of course, Universal. Jason Petros of Ears Up has booked a trip with his family to Disneyland. They used concierge. He called my phone number, which is not 856 Hour Ears, but I will not share that here. And so the Petros family is going back to Disneyland for the first time in a long time.

[01:41:02] I called them out on it on the last episode, and it seems like they're committed. Or at least Taryn and Alice are committed. I think Taryn's committed. Yeah. I think Taryn is going. Well, yeah. That's what I was going to say. Where Taryn goes, so does Alice. So does Jason. So they're going to go. I'm looking forward. We're talking about doing an episode with them in advance of their trip, which we can talk about later. Listen, if you would like to hear that. If you would like to hear us talking to them and kind of like we've been getting into it.

[01:41:32] We don't do a lot of tips and tricks, but I've been bringing a lot of that into the show. If you want to hear us help them reenter the park. And this is a genuine request. If you don't want to hear it, that's fine. Then it's an idea we won't go forward with. If you do want to hear that, please email Jason and let him know that you would like for that to happen. That's Jason at earsup-podcast.com.

[01:41:57] Say, I want to hear you on the Supreme Resort or the Supreme Resort on Ears Up. Yeah. Reintroducing you to today's Disneyland. I think the prime format would be they come here first. We get them ready and then we go on their show as the follow-up. I think it would be really fun. We know where they're staying. Right. We know when they're going to be there. We know what parks they're going to. So we can give them a full touring plan. Yeah. We can get Alice on.

[01:42:27] Yeah. So if that's something you're interested in, email Jason. If you email us, we want to do it already. But I think Jason would need to hear from you. Convince Jason. Yeah. Convince Jason because I think it'd be fun. Here's the touring plan. You're going to start at Disneyland. You're staying on property. It opens at 8. Get there at 7.30. Here's where you go. Start here. Start there. No, I think that'd be kind of fun and kind of go through the whole thing. Because it, I mean, as much as they know Disneyland because they've been enough times, today's version is different. There's a lot.

[01:42:57] It's just a different thing. It could be also just a stand-in for anyone who hasn't been there. That's right. That's kind of my point. Yeah. All right, folks. Well, thank you for listening. We will get more into the action-packed nature of these two attractions, including the decision of which is better in the future. I'm not sure if it'll be the next episode or not. We have to talk about that when we stop recording. But before we go, listener, I want you to look. Sorry, Dan. I said we're going to sing a song.

[01:43:27] Well, kind of. What I'd like you to do is look at your podcatcher app and look at the show image of this episode. Just take a moment. Take a look at the show image. And while you're looking at it, I'd like to read a line from Marks. This is interesting. I wonder how we can survive this romance.

[01:43:53] But in the end, if I'm with you, I'll take the chance. Oh, can't you see it, baby? You've got me going crazy. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will be right here waiting for you. Whatever it takes or how my heart breaks, I will be right here waiting for you. Until next time, be good to each other.

[01:44:22] Court is adjourned.

[01:44:53] That is the Marx you meant, right? Yeah, of course. When you say you're a Marxist, I assume that's what that is. Is there another? Wait, is there another Marx? Is that like his brother or something? Creepy uncle. Right. Yeah, which I think any of the images. How did you get to the one of them in a shoe store? What was that search or prompt?

[01:45:21] That last image works pretty well because his eyes are closed. He's leaning into it. I did a generation where it was. Hold on. Let me read it. Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump shopping for Disney merchandise together at Disneyland. Oh, that's what I came up with? Oh, no. It doesn't really. This is AI. It's weird. I was going to say it resembles Mitsukoshi. It looks like a shoe store. Oh, kind of. But.

[01:45:52] Oh, here it is. Who's the random guy in the background? Another old man advisor. Yeah. He looks like a robot. Which one are you talking about? They've got a robot following them around. It looks like Lincoln's picking up. Looks like maybe a candy bar. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a bunch of shoes. Are they Crocs? Oh, I didn't see the shoes. Oh, yeah. No, those are shoes. They're all over the place. That's crazy.

[01:46:19] And there's one they're about to shake hands and they're in front of a cake. Uh-huh. In a shoe store. Cake in a shoe store. I'm not seeing a shoe store there. I'm seeing candy store. But the cake is weird. Yeah. But there are a lot of shoes in this candy store. It looks. They should all be gold sneakers. He's trying to shake Trump's like thumb. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. No, Trump's like pull my finger. That's what that is.

[01:46:50] But a lot of the Lincolns look like that actor who played him. Which one? Daniel D. Lewis? Yeah, Daniel D. Lewis. Some of these pictures look like Daniel D. Lewis. Well, yeah. That's probably because there's a lot of images out there of Daniel D. Lewis. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Because that's how it operates. It works off of like what it can find. It's just amazing.

[01:47:16] I had more generating, more versions that I thought would get us closer to the Lady and the Tramp thing. But it stopped. It's weird. Yeah. Anyway, I guess we could probably stop recording at this point. Probably. Probably.