Disney employees are cast members, and so things that happen out of the sight of the general public are considered to be going on backstage. The stage is where the general public is, and Disney has metaphorical mirrors placed all over the park that help reflect the realism and the rightness that goes on in the eyes of the public. This blog entry will give you a brief, tantalizing peek behind the mirror, into some of the secrets and tricks that Disney has perfected to make a person's experience at Disney seamless and enjoyable.
Many people have heard rumors of tunnels underneath the Magic Kingdom. Secret passageways within which people can travel around the Hub unseen. Used by celebrities to magically pop up and then quickly disappear to regain their privacy. These rumors are absolutely true. The story goes that when Walt Disney saw, in Disneyland, a worker from one land walking through another, he decided that broke the vale that he worked so hard to create and ruined the story he worked so hard to tell. This caused him to plan Walt Disney World, specifically the Magic Kingdom, a bit differently. When you walk along Main Street, U.S.A. you are not on the ground floor, as it looks like. The ground floor is where the tunnels, or Utilidoors (a mashup of utility and corridors) exist. These Utilidoors allow workers to travel between lands without being seen, thereby keeping the illusion alive. There are also special employee entrances at EPCOT and other parks for the same reason as the Utilidoors at the Magic Kingdom. However, the Magic Kingdom is the only park that features Utilidoors.
Along with not seeing cast members from Frontierland or Tomorrowland as you walk down Main Street, U.S.A., there's something else different, something else out of the ordinary. Although buildings appear to be full size, two-story structures, that is not the case. The various Disney parks employ a technique known as forced perspective to make things seem as they are not. By canting the sides of the buildings in slightly, the eye perceives height which is not actually there. This sort of technique also works inversely, and Disney takes advantage of this too, however not at the Magic Kingdom. The American Experience at EPCOT is a very large building as it has to house a stage with fly-in sets and audio-animatronics. At the same time, the building had to look like something from colonial New England, where even the biggest buildings rarely broached three stories. So, by upsizing all of the building's features, including doors and windows, the building appears to be smaller. Just go and get your picture taken outside of the American Experience and take a look at how small you look against the comically large features of the building. A way to make a huge building look smaller, and also a way to make a smaller building look full size.
Finally, I want to address one of my favorite parts Disney in brief. Hidden Mickeys are such a major feature of Disney that they deserve their own full entry. But in brevity, a Hidden Mickey is a Disney character hidden in the park, on a ride, in a hotel, or somewhere on Disney property. The most common is the 3-circle silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head. Just when someone thought that they had seen everything that Disney had to offer, there remains something so big that there are books published on the subject. Hidden Mickeys are huge and they are small, they are straightforward and abstract, but they are all fun. If this sounds like your cup of tea, then look forward to a full blog entry on them in the future.
