Rolly Crump Interview Excerpt

I mentioned in an earlier post, our first two interviews for the movie were "in the can." I wanted to share with you a short excerpt from our interview with artist Rolly Crump. Again, for those who don't know, Rolly worked as an in-betweener at Disney animation, then moved to imagineering (WED) where he had a big hand in the design of several rides including The Enchanted Tiki Room, and the Haunted Mansion.  

For the world's fair, he contributed to the Disney-created attractions, especially the Magic Skyway and it's a small world. As part of the Small World pavilion, he designed a huge "Tower of the Four Winds" kinetic sculpture. When the fair ended, there was debate at the company as to whether the tower should make the trip back to Anaheim, or be scrapped (as it ultimately was.) In this clip Rolly explains some of the internal debate that led to the decision:

Our First Interviews: Imagineers Rolly Crump and Bob Gurr

Artist Rolly CrumpPhew! What a week it was! Last week was our first big production trip. Stacy and I headed to Anaheim to do some "recon" at Disneyland (any project with a theme park trip as part of research, is fine by me!) and an interview with artist / former imagineer Rolly Crump. If you're not familiar with Crump, he was responsible for the design of the Tower of the Four Winds sculpture outside the it's a small world attraction at the World's Fair. That doesn't really begin to describe the work he did on several of the Disney-created attractions at the fair. It was a great time, and we got to hear some wonderful stories, all of which won't fit into the final film, but we'll share some outtakes here on the blog, and with our backers. (You can become one today!)

Rolly put us in touch with Bob Gurr. Bob is responsible for just about every vehicle design at Disneyland from the original Autopia cars to the original Submarine Voyage submarines. He too spent a great deal of time on the World's Fair attractions, focusing on the ride systems, and the Abraham Lincoln audio-animatronic.

Attraction Designer Bob GurrOne of the interesting things about the experience of these men is the multi-disciplinary approach to creating attractions. In today's world of ultra-specific job titles, it's incredible to imagine the small (less than a dozen people) groups who created iconic attractions at the fair and beyond.

Both of these guys deserve documentaries of their own.

We'll post some video clips later this week.