Customer Reviews

Walt Disney and the 1964 World's Fair

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Collectors will enjoy this set of 5 CDs (clocking in at over 3 hours) covering the contributions of Disney to the 1964/65 World's Fair in New York. Disney was anxious to interest the East Coast in his theme park in Anaheim, California, and the World's Fair was the perfect vehicle to showcase what Disneyland was about. Many on the East Coast had difficulty understanding what Disneyland was, thinking it was not much more than a run-of-the-mill amusement park. Ambitiously, Disney put together no fewer than 4 major exhibits, including it's a small world, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Carousel of Progress, and The Magic Skyway. In one form or another, each one of these attractions were eventually installed at Disneyland and then in Orlando at Disney World. How successful was Disney's ambitious gamble? 90% of Fair guests attended the Disney exhibits, and these were the ones that people mainly remembered and raved about, especially the Mr. Lincoln exhibit.

This set contains 4 CD's plus a bonus one:

1. Progressland: A total of 17 tracks covering the Carousel of Progress and the famous Sherman Brothers song, "There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow."

Bonus Disc: Progressland--Carousel of Progress (Alternate Universe Version): Discover this fully-scored, full-length performance of the Carousel as you've never heard it before. An alternate script is used here.

2. Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln: 7 tracks featuring the memorable exhibit that is about to return to Disneyland at the Main Street Opera House. Includes Royal Dano's dialog recording session and interpretation of the 16th American President. Includes the dramatic "Battle Hymn of the Republic" finale from the show.

3. it's a small world: If the song drives you crazy, you may want to skip this disc, containing 10 tracks from the exhibit originally sponsored by Pepsi. Hear demo recording's, Walt's original welcome speak, isolated vocal tracks, and more.

4. Magic Skyway: 14 tracks covering the Ford Exhibit which allowed guests to board Ford automobiles and experience a 12-minute journey into the past (complete with Dinosaurs and Caveman) and the future. Tracks include the recording session of Walt's narration and 9 tracks of the atmosphere music for the International Gardens.

This set also includes a well-designed 24-page booklet, beautifully illustrated with full-color photos and concept art, as well as informative notes on each attraction. My one beef here is that the booklet is heavy on the concept art, but light on photos from the actual Fair. I would have been interesting to see how these exhibits actually looked in vintage photos.

Overall, huge thumbs up to this set! The quality of the recordings is truly amazing, especially considering the rarity and age; over 40 years! I highly recommend this one to Disney, Disneyland, and World's Fair afficionados.

I read another post that this audio CD package has DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection prohibiting you from ripping the content with iTunes. I DID NOT have any problems ripping the content using iTunes. Like many people I no longer use CDs for audio playback, and need to rip CD for playback through iTunes and my iPod. So I was concerned when I read the previous post claiming this package had DRM protection. I really enjoy the audio tracks, and packaging - thanks Disney Imagineering! Let's hope there is more items like this for us vintage Disney attraction audio. I highly recommend this - if you're a fan, buy it!

This five-CD set is a delightful look at those famous attractions the brilliant Walt Disney and his staff of creative geniuses did for the
1964-65 World's Fair in New York.It's full of memorable music,songs,
and moments form such exhibits as "Progressland"("The Carousel Of Progress" is a hoot!),"Great Moments With Mr.Lincoln"(Royal Dano's
narration is perfect),and especially the charming "It's A Small World"
(you won't get that cute song out of your head!).Those are the first three discs,and they're the set's highlights.But the fourth and fifth
discs,"Magic Skyway" and the bonus disc,are also full of treasures.
The informative and beautifully illustrated book is a major plus.
This whole set shows why Disney's exhibits became the Fair's most
popular and memorable attractions,and why Walt Disney was so successful:
he knew his audience.He knew how to entertain people while also educating them at the same time,and he did it better than anyone before or since.
The set will bring back many wonderful memories for anyone who saw the
World's Fair at the time(or perhaps may have seen some of the attractions in Disney's theme parks),and will also be a delightful history lesson for others.Whichever you are,you will love this.Sit back and enjoy!

I purchased this CD set about a month ago and have been listening to it almost exclusively since I received it. The audio archives presented are amazing! Each attraction built for the World's Fair has its own CD: It's a Small World, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Magic Skyway, and The Carousel of Progress. There is also a CD of Progressland - an early, unused version of The Carousel of Progress. My favorites are It's a Small World and the Carousel of Progress mainly because these include the great songs "It's a Small World" and "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" written by Richard and Robert Sherman. All CDs include isolated music and vocal tracks of the songs and rides which are foundations of the Disney Parks. Being a music teacher, I am fascinated to hear these isolated tracks. I hear something new each time! To hear the isolated instrumental tracks for all the various international versions of It's a Small World played by native instruments is a special treat. There's no way to appreciate the care taken with the arrangement and performance of the music while on the actual ride which was designed so that everything was happening simultaneously. The isolation really brings new appreciation to the attraction. The Magic Skyway disc includes previously unreleased background score from several Disney classics such as The Absent Minded Professor and Zorro which was used as environment music for these attractions. I highly recommend this set for all die-hard Disney fans! No Disney fan would regret this purchase!

This is a rare behind the scenes look at Walt Disney's contribution to the 1964 New York World's Fair. It was where Walt unveiled four new unique attractions paid for by sponsors, that would in turn create terrific demand and excitement for the Fair, raise much needed cash for the Walt Disney Company, and forever change not only Disneyland, but greatly influence the future of Disney Theme Parks yet to be imagined. Randy Thornton, the producer of many of the audio CD's from Walt Disney, including the animated feature soundtrack CD's, has restored yet another set of historic music tracks. This new 5 CD set has over 3 hours of audio from the 4 attractions that Walt Disney built for paying sponsors at the 1964 New York Worlds Fair. Three of those attractions were moved to Disneyland after the Fair with financial help from the sponsors, and a portion of Ford's Magic Skyway was moved in the form of Primeval World since the sponsor did not want to pay for relocating the attraction. The portion kept is the diorama of dinosaurs seen while riding the Disneyland Railroad, and the last rehab of the attraction has kept it in great condition for a 35 year old attraction. Included in the oversize CD case is a tall 24 page booklet filled with pictures of concept art from the design phase of the attractions. While I am a big fan of Disney concept art, I like to see the actual finished attraction photos to compare it with and so I was dissapointed at the lack of photos from the final attractions. Nevertheless, the art shared here is terrific including many items that I had never seen in other Disney publications. I especially enjoyed the maps and diagrams. I would love to see Disney release a bigger book on their participation in the 1964 Worlds Fair. The restoration of the audio is perfect, and it all sounds brand new.

The Worlds Fair may have had a bigger impact on Walt Disney and his plans for Disneyland and his later plans Walt Disney World and Epcot than any other influence from the 1960's decade. The research and development process of the Fair attractions for Walt Disney, funded by big money from the sponsors, allowed the company to leap ahead in attraction development, especially in audio-animatronics and ride capacity. For example the development of the Small World flume boats paved the way for Pirates of the Caribbean - which had been originally planned as a walk-through. The Small World attraction was a miracle in a way, as the company had only 1 year to design and build the attraction from the day they received the go-ahead, with no idea of just what they were going to design. Another reason Walt participated in the Fair was to determine if the Disney attractions could be as popular on the east coast as the west, and the answer was a resounding "yes", leading to plans for Walt Disney World. Best of all, he was able to talk some sponsors into paying to move the attractions to Disneyland after the Fais and continue their corporate sponsorship of the attractions, giving him some new exciting attractions at Disneyland at very little cost.

Disc 1 - The GE Progressland exhibit, The Carousel of Progress includes 9 versions of the Sherman Brothers song "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow", including the later version created for Horizons at Epcot.; brief excerpt from early taping sessions; a demo recording with Walt Disney and the Sherman Brothers that was used to in a film to help sell the concept to GE (I would like to see this film); the complete attraction soundtrack, followed by the Skydome (an attraction that was a film projected on the ceiling), the talking birds of Electric Utility Show, the Medallion City (all electric city with homes full of GE appliances), and the Mirror Maze. The attraction was moves to Disneyland after that Fair, and still exists at Walt Disney World, but is not open daily.
Disc 2 - The Illinois Pavilion. It starts with the audio of a promo film narrated by Walt Disney; The Pre-show; Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln; the isolated music track without vocals for both the pre-show and the main show ; recording session for dialog with Royal Dano, the voice of Lincol; Isolated chorus of Glory Hallelujah.
Disc 3 - 10 tracks of It's a Small World, including 2 variations for Disneyland Paris, the non-vocal version used in the line queue; demo recording; isolated vocals and chorus; exit music; the welcome narration only used in New York to promote Pepsi and UNICEF, the sponsors of this Pavilion; A nice treat is the huge 20 minute number titled the Its a Small World Ultimate Megamix. This last one has the complete audio track of each country shown in the original attraction, but strung together seamlessly. Most collections I have seen isolate some of these as separate tracks. After the ride was moved to Disneyland, a new building was designed to contain it with a stunning facade designed by Rolly Crump, to replace the loss of his Tower of the 4 Winds, that was too difficult to bring back to Disneyland.
Disc 4 - This is the real treasure in the disc, as many Disney attraction sound buffs have had access to most of the material on these discs in other forms. The inclusion of Fords Magic Skyway and World of Tomorrow in this set is a first for the audio releases from Disney, and it is the biggest reason for me to get this disc. The Magic Skyway was an attraction that Disney was hired to create for the Ford Motor Company, after General Motors decided not to use Disney for the same. In the attraction you entered a brand new convertible Ford on a moving track instead of a ride vehicle, which had radio buttons to allow you to select which language you wanted to hear the attraction narration in. The ride took you back in time to the age of the dinosaurs, up through mans invention of the wheel and on into the future. There were several smaller exhibits in the building designed by Disney as well. The disc has the entire ride through narration of the Fords Magic Skyway with music and dialogue, but unfortunately without sound effects. The 8 background music scores for the other exhibits in the Ford Pavillon (like the International Gardens, scale models of buildings from different lands in the past and present) are included, some of the instrumental tracks were actually written for other projects like Disney movies but as instrumentals worked quite well in the attractions, such as the fun Flubber Waltz, or even the Serengeti Serenade from the Jungle Book movie. The music track Disneyland '61 is here, and the 9 minute music track prepared for the Auto Parts harmonic band, (a set of musical instruments made up of Ford auto parts that played music as the line widened by to other areas of the pavillon). The jaunty 6 minute Get the Feel of the Wheel song, and an 8 minute dialog recording session with Walt Disney round out the disc.
Bonus disc - Has an alternate version of the Carousel of Progress attraction.

As a collector of Disney and Disneyland audio of this sort, I am very grateful to the Walt Disney Company, and Randy Thornton for releasing this set. Also we have to be grateful to those in the early days of Disney that archived and protected the original material like this, or it would not be available at all. It is a true treasure. But I have to say that more than any other set of Disney attraction sounds I have heard, this one left me with a big yearning to see the attractions on video as well, or see a good photo book from Disney on the exhibits, the Fair, and their construction as they were back then. Hopefully that will be on the way soon! The best written publication I have ever seen is the World's Fair issue of "Persistence of Vision" a very rare and now out of business publication produced by Paul Anderson, Issue #6/7. Disney did have a promotional episode of their weekly show that aired on May 17, 1964 titled, "Disneyland Goes to the Worlds Fair". That episode is available on the DVD "Disneyland: Secrets, Stories, and Magic", also sold at Amazon.com and I recommend both the DVD and this audio set. If you like this and want more, I recommend the most complete authorized set of Disneyland audio released to date, " A Musical History of Disneyland" with 6 CDs and a big book, also sold here at Amazon.com. If you want to know more about the Fair, I would also recommend the book "Official Guide to New York World's Fair" which is very affordable as a 40 year old used book here at Amazon.com.

PS - I did not have any problems copying the CD to my portable MP3 player (Zune) using Windows Media Player.

What a treat. Originally from New York, I attended the 1964/65 World's Fair countless times as an early teen. It's amazing how the corporate pavilions influenced my life. Fell in love with Fords at the "Magic Skyway" and decided to become an engineer right on the spot. After college, I moved to Detroit to work for Ford - and stayed at "Fords" for 31 fun packed years. And I have been buying GE appliances ever since the Carousel of Progress. The original (as recorded in this CD) is still the best. The version at Walt Disney World just isn't as good. They should return the last scene to the 60's original. There are only two kinds of people in this world - Coke people and Pepsi people. I'm a Coke guy - but still enjoyed Pepsi's "it's a small world" at the Fair. And I haven't heard "Great Moments w. Mr. Lincoln" since the Fair. It obviously morphed into the "Hall of the Presidents" at WDW. All in all, this CD set was a great blast from the past. It's amazing how good all the recordings are. Disney obviously did a great job of archiving. If you remember the NY World's Fair, or are just a Disney fan, you really should add this set to your collection.

This is another must have for the Disney Collector. I have a few of the tracks on other collections, but this is longer and has other audio tracks not available on other disks.

I gave this to my Mom who is in an assisted living complex. She shared it with other residents in the main room and they enjoyed it. Lots of memories for all.

I'm so glad Walt Disney Records have released this wonderful box set. I've always heard of the attractions made by Disney for the World's Fair, but I always wondered what the Magic Skyway was like or how Progressland and Mr. Lincoln might have differed from the versions found at the parks. This audio collection is about as close as those of us who weren't able to encounter it firsthand will be able to get. The liner notes were very interesting and made me appreciate all the bits and pieces even more.

This set is simply fantastic. I was surprised by the audio quality, I expected the audio for such old recordings to be much lower but for the most part everything sounds great. There is so much here to listen to and I think that every moment of audio in the set is essential with maybe the exception of the Disneyland Paris variations of "it's a small world" which are beautiful but I'm not sure they are absolutely needed in this set. Still, I'm glad that they're included anyways. The accompanying book is good, not the most in-depth but it gives a decent amount of background information to help provide the context and background for the tracks. I love this set, I recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about these iconic attractions.