Product Description

Think you know Walt Disney World?

You might have heard a few interesting facts about Walt Disney World over the years. Perhaps you've heard that the windows on the second story of the buildings on Main Street honor individuals of note in WDW history? Or that the company plane Walt used to survey the eventual WDW property from the air now lives at the studios park? It's all true... but these are only two of the interesting facts pointed out in this book. And those are only two of the best-known examples. Many of these stories deal with much more obscure, yet equally interesting, pieces of history of the theme parks. You haven't heard all these stories before!

Do you know the nods to now-removed attractions at Mission: Space, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, American Idol Experience, and Animal Kingdom's Discovery River? How about tributes to the Living Seas, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, El Rio Del Tiempo, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Alien Encounter, or the Main Street Electrical Parade? Do you know where in each of the four parks the opening date of the park is commemorated?

Not enough yet? How about Walt Disney's first office as a new arrival to Southern California, McDonald's former sponsorship of Dinoland, Bob Hope, or the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim?

There are tributes to Imagineers Marty Sklar, John Lasseter, Herb Ryman, Joyce Carlson, Leota Thomas, Blaine Gibson, Fulton Burley, Winston Hibler, Rick Rothschild, Harper Goff, Morgan Evans, and dozens more. Can you find them all?

The second edition greatly expands the roster of tributes. In fact, the individual items are no longer numbered, and the list wouldn't stop at 101 if the numbers were still present. There are more like 250 items explained here! This edition also adds photographs of many of the items in question, introduces a section on mistakes/gaffes in the attractions, and even serves up a section on the hidden tributes in Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104165 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-06
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• 157 pages

From the Author
There are lots of Disney guide books in the world, but where are the books detailing interesting stories behind odd theming choices, hidden tributes, or the weird references to names or numbers scattered around that probably mean something specific but aren't explained?

This book fills that void and was created to be accessible for every level of Disney fan. Newcomers to Disneyana will be bowled over by the volume of detail, the rich layers of self-reference, and the abundance of insider tributes. Readers accustomed to such stories about Walt Disney World will find a useful resource that not only catalogs such occurrences in one spot, but goes far beyond the usual, and brings a wealth of new stories and anecdotes to the table.

The individual 101 Things referenced by the title are all items you can actually point to at the parks, so that the book provides a kind of walking tour of the parks (in guided tour format, rather than "question-and-answer" format) that yields a glimpse of the deeper history percolating below the surface. Moreover, each of the 101 "interesting facts" comes with an explanation as well as an embellishment that goes in related, but different, directions. These embellishments are practically interesting new facts all by themselves, so what you get is closer to 202 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World.

About the Author
There are lots of Disney guide books in the world, but where are the books detailing interesting stories behind odd theming choices, hidden tributes, or the weird references to names or numbers scattered around that probably mean something specific but aren't explained?

This book fills that void and was created to be accessible for every level of Disney fan. Newcomers to Disneyana will be amazed by the volume of detail, the rich layers of self-reference, and the abundance of insider tributes. Readers accustomed to such stories about Walt Disney World will find a useful resource that not only catalogs such occurrences in one spot, but goes far beyond the usual, and brings a wealth of new stories and anecdotes to the table.

The individual topics referenced by the title are all items you can actually point to at the parks, so that the book provides a kind of walking tour of the parks (in guided tour format, rather than question-and-answer format) that yields a glimpse of the deeper history percolating below the surface.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
#35: The staging of animal encounters on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad pays tribute to the ride which was its creative ancestor.

When Big Thunder Mountain Railroad first premiered at Disneyland, it replaced Mine Train thru Nature's Wonderland, a slow-moving train ride through desert scenes and tableaus of robotic animals interacting with their surroundings in various ways. Some of those interactions are recreated at the Magic Kingdom's version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, such as the bobcat taking refuge from three attacking boars atop a cactus or a face-off between a roadrunner and a snake, both of which take place in the town of Tumbleweed, and are best viewed from the passing Walt Disney World railroad.

Customer Reviews

Disappointed
I bought this book looking for something that would tell me things I didn't know about Disney (I've been to WDW countless times and love everything Disney). And while there were things I didn't know presented in the book, they weren't things that I found terribly interesting.

What you get on each page of this book is a brief statement of fact...like #48's "A former test car from Test Track can be seen in the ride's gift shop at the exit" or #89's "Africa is represented by the fictional village of Harambe." After this you get a paragraph (i.e. not alot) on the statement. For #89, you're told about the real village in Kenya that Harambe is based on. There is then a 'furthermore' section which may/may not be related to the info on the page. For example #89's furthermore section is on technology that can't be displayed and the authors talk about a 'makeshift insulator' which is really a Coca-Cola bottle. This is supposed to be 'a nod to both the inventiveness of African towns and the longtime sponsorhip of Disney parks by the Coco-cola company.' If that isn't a stretch I don't know what is.

As another reviewer said, there's little meat to this book and perhaps that's what didn't hold my interest. The one paragraph of info really did not give alot of info and the furthermore sections were hit or miss about pertaining directly to what was on the page. I read through the book once and put it away as I don't think it's a good reference.

Slim book
The reading was okay, but there wasn't much meat to it. Each page has a paragraph or maybe two that tells a story. Only a handful are interesting as many explain boring stuff like where pictures of old executives are located. One of the most interesting pages told about how Disney bought up all of the FL property using fictitious companies. For the price, I was disappointed as most of it is not notable. If you're a Disney buff, get this from the library and save the $$$ - you can read it in a 1/2 hr sitting.

A pocket-sized tour of Walt Disney World
I've visited Walt Disney World several dozen times beginnng in 1986, have a shelf full of books and videos on Walt Disney World, and even was able to take two of the backstage tours (Keys to the Kingdom and the three-park backstage tour of the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney/MGM Studios). Even with all of this under my belt, I found about half of "101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World" were new to me. Many of the trivia tidbits presented by Kevin Yee are part of the tour packages, but there is so much at Walt Disney World!

Compressing four major theme parks into just '101 items' is impressive because what would you leave out in your Walt Disney World book? There are actually over 200 items presented. Things like the "hidden Kermit" in Star Tours (#78) and where the hidden Mickey (and hidden R2D2/CP3O) are on the Great Movie Ride (#71) are things I was looking for during my last visit (July 2004) but just couldn't find. My copy of "101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World" will accompany me on my next Walt Disney World visit. It's almost as good as the guided tour, and much less expensive.