As one who always has part of her brain on Disney, I looked at these banks and wondered would at an Imagineer would do with them and how they could be used to support (or improve) the story being shared with guests.

And so, this week’s challenge was born.  Behold–the cheeseburger bank!

Here are your Imagineering exercises based upon this item:

1.  If an Imagineer were to put the bank somewhere on Disney property, where would it be?

2. Who would be using the bank? (Which character/what storyline is being supported by this bank?)

3. For what purpose is the money inside the bank being saved?

Have fun with this juicy challenge!  Next week, we will start with some holiday-themed fun!

The post Wanna-be Imagineers: Sink Your Teeth into this Challenge! appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

This week, we are exercising our creative muscles with an image submitted a great friend of WDW Radio: Jamie Robbins-Longoria!  She sent in this picture, and we thought it would make a great subject for conversation.

And so, we ask you, our fellow Imagineers in training, to consider these questions.  Please post your answers in the comments below!

1. Where in Walt Disney World would YOU put this image?

2. Who are these women, and what story are they telling?

3. If these women were to run into Mickey Mouse, what would the conversation be about?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

The post Wanna-be Imagineers: What Story Do These Women Tell? appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

Happy Friday, my friends!  It’s time once again to channel that deep-seated desire to one day be a Disney Imagineer and brainstorm how to use an everyday object within the Walt Disney World Resort.

Today, I present for your consideration this most interesting lamp.  I laughed when I saw it and could not grab my camera fast enough.  It’s too unique. It tells a story.  It makes people talk.  In other words, it’s a perfect artifact to place somewhere in Disney!

And so, my friends, here are some questions for your consideration.  Discuss with your family–have fun!  Then post your answers to these questions in the comments below!

1. What is the name of this little balloon animal?

2. Where in the Walt Disney World Resort would an Imagineer most likely put him?

3. What is this little guy’s story?  (How did he get his/her head stuck in the lamp shade?)

Have fun and enjoy… and remember, one day, one of us may be able to say our career at WDI all started with… a blog.

The post Wanna be Imagineers: Who Doesn’t Love a Balloon Animal? appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

This question–what event could I actually compete in–is one I have considered since I was a child, watching Dorothy Hamill win gold.  The options have constricted on me a bit.  It was a bitter pill to realize that at the age of 7 I was probably too “old” to realistically try figure skating competitively.   The badminton court I established on my front lawn never did much for me.  Running cross country in high school was a painful chore.  At this point in my life, I feel my only Olympic options left are archery (I have trouble threading a needle, so I am not sure that’s a good choice) and curling (again, there is a certain aiming skill I just don’t have…)

So…. I have decided, after many years of being an unfulfilled Olympian, to think outside the box.  Why not make our OWN Olympics? A DISNEY Olympics.  It will be an international event that allows us all to feel that champion inside.  And make no mistake–there will NOT be any “traditional” Olympic events involved.  With apologies to “Coach” Happy and the WDW Radio Running Team–you have your runDisney events.  This Disney  Olympics is for those of us who have unique Disney theme park “talents” and DO NOT want to run (or jump, or hurdle, or complete a two-and-a-half inverse pike while eating a Power Bar.)

I have seen guests who could undoubtedly medal in Strategic Parade Seating, Effective Toy Story Mania FastPass Procurement, and Clever Use of Dining Plan Snack credits.   I’m pretty sure we know a certain lovable podcaster who would medal in multiple culinary events within the Disney parks.  As for me, I am holding our hope that I can win gold in Finding a Seat at Casey’s While Balancing Three Kids’ Meals.  I’ve been working on that one for years and think I have a good strategy in place!

So join me, my wanna-be Olympians and my wanna-be Imagineers:  what unique Disney talents do YOU have that should be made into a Disney Olympic event?  Share your thoughts in the comments below…and enjoy these last few nights of the amazing London 2012 Games.

The post Wanna Be Imagineers: Let’s Create a DISNEY Olympics appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

So, let’s be wanna-be Imagineers.  If YOU could help create an EPCOT holiday parade, what would it look like?  Where would it process?  Who would be in it?  Would you have Santa’s on stilts (shout out to the Sage of Time)?  Would there be massive puppets of the Christmas elves?  Would it feature holidays from around the world?  Share YOUR ideas in the comments below!

Merry Christmas in July!

The post Wanna-be Imagineers: Let’s Create an EPCOT Holiday Parade! appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

My children and I easily spent fifteen minutes looking at them all, playing the ones that moved and (I am sure much to the Hallmark employee’s “delight”), playing the musical ones over and over and over.  One of my daughters started commenting on “if I could make my OWN Disney ornament….” and we all started discussing what we would love to see in Disney ornaments…  thus, this week’s Wanna-be Imagineer topic was born.

We want to know:  if YOU could design your OWN Disney Christmas ornament, what would it look like?  The sky is the limit!  It can move, make noise, light up….  You can cross characters from different movies or attractions–or make one to represent WDW Radio!

Personally, I would love it if Disney were to start making attraction-specific ornaments.  Maybe just a couple ornaments each year, never to be released again–that would increase the desire to have the whole series!  Imagine how fun it would be to have a Haunted Mansion ornament that had a little button and played “There’s no turning back now!!!!”  How about a Jungle Cruise ornament that had a button that repeated three of the best Jungle Cruise puns ever.  YOU could decide which 3 puns you wanted by selecting from an assortment offered online.  I’d love a Tower of Terror ornament where you could move the car from the bottom to the top and back again using a little crank!  Finally, how about an ornament that featured an electronic countdown to your next Disney vacation? Oh, I love being a Wanna-be Imagineer!

So, let’s hear your ideas!  Post them in the comments below.  One day, one of us WILL make it out of the realm of “wanna-be” Imagineers!  I know it!!

Have a great week, everyone!

**If you head to your local Hallmark Store this weekend, you can enjoy their ornament premiere.   There is a special, five-piece, Fab Five Disney series this year called “Ready! Set! Snow!”  Each ornament representing of the Fab Five will be released a different month.  The first two (Mickey and Pluto) will be available for purchase at this weekend’s ornament event, with the remaining ones being released in September (Donald Duck), October (Goofy), and November (Minnie Mouse).

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According to a June 22 press release from Disney, a group of engineers, scientists , and astrophysicists were recent guests of the Walt Disney Resort for a presentation entitled “Science Behind the Magic,” led by Manager of Simulation and Analysis of Engineering division, Michael Tschanz.

A part of NASA’s 25th annual International Space University Special Space Studies Program, the event was held at the Contemporary Resort and was directed at preparing “post-graduate science and engineering students for careers in aeronautics.”  As Disney explained,  “The nine-week program, sponsored by NASA, exposes professionals in aerospace, aeronautical, and other related fields to an intensive, unique educational experience.”

The 175 participants of the one-day workshop learned about the  “complex mathematical and physical models of ride systems, transportation systems, Audio-Animatronics and other technological innovations at the company.”

The news of this presentation made the teacher in me curious, and made the Wanna-be Imagineer in me daydream…  If I could design an in-depth, educational program at Disney–to be presented to guests–what would I want to teach about?  More importantly, what would guests want to LEARN about in the Walt Disney resort?  History of the American Revolution through an analysis of Liberty Square?  A review of international architectural history with an EPCOT backdrop?  Habitats and ecology at the Animal Kingdom?  Can you imagine the education that younger guests could receive?

So, wanna-be Imagineers, join me in an educational moment: What do YOU wish you could learn about while AT Walt Disney World?  Tell us your ideas and how you think it should be taught!

The post Wanna-be Imagineers: What do YOU Want to Learn about Disney? appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

Recently I was in New York City and had the thrilling chance to see the Space Shuttle Enterprise being placed atop the USS Intrepid. I stood among hundreds of awestruck onlookers as this symbol of American ingenuity was lowered onto a symbol of American strength.  I was proud to see how many people stopped from the busy-ness of Manhattan to watch this moment in time.

As I rode the ferry back to beloved New Jersey, my thoughts–typically–turned to Disney.  With all the shuttles being relocated, I started to imagine what Disney would have done with a retired space shuttle.  I mean, sure, it will be amazing to tour the shuttle, but my gut instinct is that if a shuttle were located next to, say Mission: Space (the obvious choice), Disney would have found some very innovative, though honorable, ways to make use of this piece of American history.

So, my fellow Wanna-be Imagineers:  What do you think?  If you were a Disney Imagineer, and NASA called you to ask what you would do with a shuttle if it were given to Disney, what would you dream up?  Post your ideas in the comments below!

The post Wanna Be Disney Imagineers: We Are Out of this World! appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

~Dave Crawford, Principal Mechanical Engineer, Show/Ride Engineering

(quoted in The Imagineering Workout: Exercises to Shape Your Creative Muscles, by the Disney Imagineers)

Our pursuit of the creative and thought-provoking challenges like those that may face Disney’s hallowed Imagineers brings us this week to a new realm: furniture!  As Disney’s Art of Imagination Resort prepares to open, I have pored over the pictures of the new buildings (see here for blog announcements and room images) and marveled at the task of creating not just a hotel room—but a story-telling environment!  Can you imagine the unending supply of ideas that must be evoked during that creative process?

In a nod to those who have created the newest of these amazing “homes away from home,” I have selected this chair as this week’s “wanna-be Imagineer” picture.  And, in the spirit of Dave Crawford’s quotation, I have provided some questions for you to consider when imagineering this chair in to the Disney landscape:

1. In which Disney Resort hotel lobby would this chair fit in as part of the storytelling?  How?

2. Which Disney character could you see hanging out on this chair?  Why?

3. If this chair could become part of the “Living Character Initiative” (think of Push in Tomorrowland), what would it say to guests who walked by?

Don’t miss this opportunity to be creative!!   Share your thoughts and add some questions of your own in the comments section below!

Have a great week, all!  May the Fourth be with you!! 

The post Wanna Be Imagineers: Sit Back and Relax! appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

Back in the day there was a television game show called “To Tell the Truth.” Three individuals would claim to be a person who had accomplished something. Two were impostors who could lie and twist the truth to try to convince a panel that either of them was the actual person. The actual person was obligated to “tell the truth”. In the end the panelists would use the three individuals’ answers to vote on their choice for the real person. The emcee would then have the “Real Mr. X, please stand up.”

I wonder, what questions they might ask of Mr. Tony Baxter, well known and acclaimed Disney Imagineer?

PANELIST: “Mr. Baxter, did you lead the design project about Big Thunder Mountain Railroad?”

BAXTER: Yes.

PANELIST: “Mr. Baxter, did you lead the design project about the original Journey Into Imagination?”

BAXTER: Yes.

PANELIST: “Mr. Baxter, did you lead the design project about Splash Mountain?”

BAXTER: Yes.

PANELIST: “ The Indiana Jones Adventure project?”

BAXTER: Yes.
PANELIST: “Disneyland Paris?”

BAXTER: Yes.

PANELIST: The “Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage project?”

BAXTER: Yes.

PANELIST: “Have you been a major spokesperson for documentaries about Disneyland and Walt Disney World?”

BAXTER: Yes.

Yes, and yes, and yes. Tony Baxter has certainly been in the forefront of many of the major creative undertakings not only at Walt Disney World, but also of Disneyland and of Disneyland Paris. And the questions our make-believe panelists “asked” could easily have explored so many other contributions he has made to the Walt Disney Company and by extension to all of us who have enjoyed them.

One point that struck me in my research about Tony Baxter was how fortunate he is.  A man immersed in a vision, driven by a vision, and talented enough to fulfill his vision is one lucky guy. The intersection of these vision dimensions certainly makes for a wonderful force. Then you throw in that he clearly has the people skills to both engage others and to catalyze them to contribute to the vision and it gets even better.

I will leave to others the laundry list of what Mr. Baxter’s contributions to the Walt Disney Company have come to mean in addition to those our would – be To Tell the Truth panelists might have elicited from him. I sort of think it’s more important to note an how he describes that the beginning his own career in Disney:

Mr. Baxter speaks about how other, older Imagineers would selflessly take the newer ones under their wing. He speaks especially appreciatively of Claude Coats who would not only make sure that young Baxter got plenty of experiences in design of Disney attractions and projects, but also had no problem praising his charge’s own accomplishments to the higher-ups in the Imagineering group.

The title of the Innoventions attraction, “The Sum of All Thrills,” suggests that the word sum, the total, you might say the synthesis, of all thrills, is found in this attraction. I would say that Baxter’s role in the success of the Walt Disney Company while notable of its own, is more valuable when you recognize that he and his Imagineer colleagues collectively recognize they are the sum of what we all admire  in all of Walt Disney offerings.

All we can hope for that as he calls it, “A second-generation Imagineer” like himself has recognized his/her responsibility to create third-generation Imagineers as talented and productive as the ones who have gone before them. Like Tony Baxter..

Rich may be the only blogger who; had an ORIGINAL Davy Crockett coonskin cap (and wishes he still had it); watched Disney’s Wonderful World of Color in black and white; watched the Disneyland opening ceremonies on that same black and white; AND rode the original It’s a Small World in the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. In addition he is a college professor, his own Disney blogger (http://disdoc.wordpress.com/) and a grandfather of six whom he is thoroughly dis-doctrinating as often as possible.

The post The Disney Imagineers: Will the Real Tony Baxter Please Stand Up? appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.