1023 – World of Motion

Episode 1023 – World of Motion

 

[START OF RECORDING]

 

SCOOTER:    Friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and my patron peeps; what up, my patron peeps?

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever is keeping you awake, whether it’s thoughts that you’re thinking about, like things on your mind, thinking things about the past, the present, the future.  So, thoughts, feelings, anything coming up for you emotionally that you’re feeling.  It could be physical sensations that are impacting your sleep, changes in time or temperature, routine.

 

Whatever it is that’s keeping you awake, what I’m gonna do here is I’m gonna try to create a safe place.  I’m gonna smooth it, I’m gonna pat it, I’m gonna rub it down, and then I’m gonna send my voice across the deep, dark night.  I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones.  Oh, so creaky are my dulcet tones.  They’re an acquired taste, but they’re easy to…easy not to listen to.  I also have pointless meanders, superfluous tangents, which means I’m gonna go off-topic, I’m gonna get mixed up, I’m gonna go back, then I’m gonna forget what I went back for.  Then I’ll say wait, what did I…?  Then I’ll go on a tangent about the word W.  That’ll all be to take your mind off of stuff and keep you company so you could fall asleep.

 

So, if you’re new, I’m so glad you’re here, but I really want to welcome you in and give you all the information you need.  So, believe it or not, this is an intro but it’s kinda part of the podcast, and that can throw people off.  But it’s one of the many things, so I want to…I…here’s something; have I talked about stumbling blocks before?  Because talk about a loaded word that should be more loaded…people just throw around stumbling blocks.  I mean, imagine if they did.  It feels like too broad a generalization for me, because I’ve stumbled on many…believe me; stumbling blocks…Stumbling’s my name, stumbling’s my game.  Stumbling on blocks is just one part of the game that I’m…that…but I’m not playing when I stumble on blocks.

 

Because here’s the thing; there’s stumbling…so, there’s the traditional…here’s two types of blocks you could stumble on; there’s the small children’s blocks, right, that…what are they…are those called Alphabet Blocks?  I don’t know.  They’re wooden blocks.  Kids used to…the kids still get them.  I don’t know why they call them toy blocks, but I think that’s what they’re called.  Then the other kind of block I was thinking of is any kind of block that’s long enough to bang your shin.  At first you’d say which block do I…?  Not that I should be loathing blocks, but which block do I loathe stumbling over?  I’d say well, can you stumble over a block that you hit your shin on?  I say, is that a dare?  Because I can guarantee you I shall, and I have, and I will.

 

I mean, you can definitely stumble on the little blocks but also, you could step on them, which is not pleasant, either.  But I mean, I…you could stumble over…oh, but it’s just a term.  But here’s the thing; I would prefer…how about tumbling blocks?  Blocks you tumble with.  That’s what…I’d like to take your stumbling blocks, make them into tumbling blocks.  You’d say Scoots…and I’d say come on down to Tumbling Blocks, much like our other imaginary businesses; The Ovularity Zone, Tube Town, and other businesses I for…a Velcro-zipper shop for…Velcro and Zippers for Fun.  Oh, making mud pies…all the businesses I’ve…haven’t started.  What was this bus…?  Oh, Tumbling Blocks.  It’s a tumble…it’s  a place where you can tumble, much like…it doesn’t have those bouncy…it’s a bit like a bouncy castle without the castle.

 

It’s a meta…much like this podcast, it’s a metaphor that you gotta roll with.  Okay, so let me get back.  If you’re new, this podcast is not for everybody.  I think I just did an example of why.  But this is a podcast you gotta give a few tries to.  That’s what most listeners say.  So, if you’re skeptical or you’re doubtful…oh, I was gonna give you more information.  There’s some…there’s…these are some of the tumbling blocks that could get in your way, like skepticism or doubt that this is gonna put you to sleep.  That’s very valid.  I mean, I’ve tried so many things to put me to sleep.  So, alls I can say is give it a few tries…or about the style or the nature of my bare attempts at humor.  This is also a podcast you don’t really listen to, so that takes some getting used to.

 

Just like you say wait a second, we just come down and we tumble with blocks?  What happens after that?  I say, well, then you could go to Tube Town.  What’s at Tube Town?  Inner tubes that you inflate or deflate or roll, or roll with, or…we may have a floating pool one day.  So, yeah, the…but yeah, that’s all we…so, it’s a point…it’s a bit like a pointless meander, rolling with tumbling…Tumbling Blocks; you tumble with them in a tumbly…tumble-friendly area.  Have your tumbles here.  That’s what I’d say.  Come down to Tumble Town, where your…the tumbles are free.  Costs money to get in, but the tumbles are free.  Second tumble, same as the first; I don’t know.  Oh, what was my point?  So…oh, it’s a podcast you don’t really listen to.

 

You just barely pay attention, a bit like background noise that’s just slightly more engaging.  This is also a podcast you don’t…really puts you to sleep.  It’s more here while you fall asleep.  So, you just kinda barely pay attention and then…that’s why the shows are over an hour, is that you have plenty of time to drift off.  You say okay, I could fall asleep at any time, any time I want.  You just…ideally you listen to me one moment and then you wake up the next.  But I’ll be here whether you wake up in the middle of the night or you’re listening all night because you got something else going on or you can’t sleep.  I’m here to keep you company.  So, that’s…those are other tumbling blocks.  The other things that can throw people off is the structure of the show.

 

Show starts off with a greeting; friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, just like the greeter at Tumble Town, to say hey, come on in.  First tumble’s free ‘cause it’s outside.  But before you came in, that was your first tumble.  Also a tumble-friendly area.  Looked like a walkway; it was really a friendly tumble zone.  Then…oh, what was I saying?  Oh, the structure of the show.  So, that’s the greeting, then there’s support for listeners, then there’s support from listeners to keep the podcast free for everybody.  Then somewhere around six or eight minutes in the show, the intro starts, which we’re now about ten minutes into.  The intro is a show within a show to give…to ease you into bedtime.

 

It introduces you to the podcast and it gives you some distance from the day, helps you start to unwind, and some listeners fall asleep during it, but a lot of listeners are doing something else as part of their bedtime routine.  So, that’s the intro.  Then there’s business between the intro and the show.  That’s just how podcast business structure works.  That keeps the show free for anybody.  That’s like…yeah.  Then there’s a story.  Tonight it’ll be something new.  We’re gonna try visiting a theme park ride that’s not open.  Like, an overview of it.  So, the…called World of Motion.  So, we’ll talk about that.  We’ll run through what it was like and stuff like that, and then there’s some thank-yous at the end of the show.  So, that’s the structure of the show.  The other things to know that are important are…well, that you deserve a good night’s sleep.

 

I make the show because you deserve something to put you to sleep, whether it’s Sleep With Me…or you give it a few tries, it’s not for you, go to sleepwithme.com/nothankyou; you could see other great sleep stuff out there.  But also, I’ve been there, so I know how it feels.  If I can give you something that’ll help make your bedtime less stressful and take your mind off of stuff, that’s really my honor, right?  I get to do that and help you out get some rest when I’ve been there?  That’s amazing for me to have that opportunity to help you, because I know what it feels like.  I don’t want you to have to go through that rigmarole.  So, that’s why I make the show and that’s why I say give it a few tries.  See how it goes.  I really hope it can work for you.  I really work hard, I yearn and I strive.  I appreciate you coming by, and I really want to help you fall asleep.  Here’s a couple ways I’m able to be here for you twice a week for free.  Thanks.

 

Alright everybody, this is Scoots here.  This is something we’ve never done before.  I’ve kind of been procrastinating on it because I wanted to put too much work into it, and I did put a lot of work into it, but I also was like okay, let’s see…let’s slow…you gotta cool it down, you know, Scoots?  You gotta slow it down.  Watch out; you gotta do this in a sustainable way.  I’m pretty sure up until now we’ve only done…I’m pretty sure we’ve only done theme park content with Ray.  I mean, or I guess fictional theme park content.  So, I wanted to experiment with an attraction at Disney World that doesn’t exist anymore.  I thought that might be fun to do.  But so, we’ll see how this goes.  First I’ll talk…we’ll take you through an attraction that doesn’t exist anymore.

 

At first I’ll talk about why, and then I’ll take you through the ride, and we’ll just see how it goes.  How does that sound to everybody?  Really meandering and sleepy?  This may be something in the future I could work with.  I’m gonna have to reach out to somebody that has a Disney…maybe Disney podcasts or Disney history podcast or something.  But we’ll see how it goes.  So, let’s see; so, this…so, the name of this attraction is called World of Motion.  I don’t have any history about it, but…so, but there’s a great Martins Vid.  I don’t know if anybody watches those, like a ultimate tribute video that has a lot about the history of it.  But this is more about my personal history with it, and then a journey into the ride.  It was a pavilion in Epcot’s Future World.  Currently, it’s called Test Track.

 

This is a interesting place of discussion about theme park rides, particularly Walt Disney theme park rides, and change and nostalgia and budgets and all of that.  Another podcast I should check out is…did Podcast: The Ride do an episode about this?  I didn’t go all the way back into their archives to check.  But so, this ride…okay, so it’s called World of Motion and it was by GM.  As you can imagine, it was kind of a tribute to the automobile and driving on highways and stuff, though inside the pavilion…we’re just gonna talk about the ride or the…yeah, the World of Motion…whatever…it’s World of Motion within the World of Motion, ‘cause there was a Omnimover ride called World of Motion, but then there’s the pavilion World of Motion, and that had alter…some alternative stuff that I would normally rush by in a hurry to try to go on the ride again.

 

It was a big building shaped like a wheel.  It was not super-impressive even when…so, the first time I went on it was the first time I went to Epcot Center, which I don’t really remember.  I don’t remember going on it this time…maybe I kinda do, with my teacher and two of my classmates from my high school, so that would have been when I was…after my freshman year.  Then later, my family, we would go.  So, this was 19…let’s see, I think it was February, 1990 when we…my family went.  I’m not sure if it was this trip, either, so I may be getting my facts mixed up.  But I don’t…so, I don’t know when this ride closed, either, but somewhere…could have been…Scoots, that was the ride…like, that would be wild.  They’d say, the ride was closed in 1988, before you ever went to the theme park.  I’d say holy moly, that’s interesting.

 

Okay, so talking about the building; so, the building was shaped like a big wheel and it was clad in stainless steel.  So, you could see it from far away.  Oh, but it wasn’t as grand as…it was easy…it was memorable but I remember from going there as a kid and coming from Syracuse, New York, just like the Imagination Pavilion and the Land Pavilion and the Spaceship Earth…like, those buildings…just being like, I’ve never seen architecture like that.  Again, this is…you know, this is a lot of people’s experience.  I realize there’s people with more knowledge and more…exposed to more things, but I hadn’t been exposed to this kind of stuff before.  Like, you want to see a cool building with metal on it, go to the de Young Museum in San Francisco.  Now, that’s cool.

 

But anyway, I’m not trying to crit…well, I guess I am offering some criticism because it was just…now, the good thing was the Florida Sun…I mean, I can remember looking at this building and seeing it and saying okay, well, there it is.  It’s easy to see, and it was really big.  Okay, so, that’s what I…so, that’s the building and the timeframe.  Why are we talking about this?  The biggest reason we’re talking about this is just one of those things that’s really unrelated to the ride.  It was just this one moment in time that to me felt…a combination of magical and sad, I guess, looking back on it.  Mostly magical, but a little bit sad.  So, okay, and then I’ll also talk about how does this fit in the…theme parks and stuff like that.  So, the World of Motion was supposed to be this promotion of GM.

 

Oh, a promo…slightly educational about the history of trans…wheeled transport or transport in general, the world of motion, and entertaining at the same time, right?  Now, the pavilion had other things.  Again, when I think about the…it had three or four different things.  Then you say well, maybe these people that talk about Disney a lot have a point of like oh, this park is past its prime.  Now, one thing I was struck by watching the tribute video was that how many people had to have worked on this ride, and that probably that priorities have changed with companies.  Like, whether it’s the company sponsoring the attraction or the company that runs the theme park saying well, that’s too much…I can…I’m just trying to put myself…not empathetically but like, be like huh, why haven’t things changed?  They say well, that’s a lot of labor.

 

I think…I don’t think labor costs…I mean, without inflation, were any different back then than they are now.  Maybe they are, but just that companies’ priorities and their shareholder needs and all that stuff has changed, I believe.  I guess…and that’s more of an A-S…I’m making a rear out of me.  But so, it was a attraction mostly made up of animatronics and set pieces.  So, in the 1990s, the…or ‘89…when did I say?  Oh yeah, 1990, maybe, or 1991.  ‘89, ‘90…1991.  February, 1991.  That’s when I’m guessing this happened.  So, for someone from Syracuse in February 1991, to go on an Omnimover attraction which is just one of the ones where you sit in a car and it’s really just one big train of cars and they move at a slow pace and the cars turn towards the set pieces and it’s very…a lulling pace, just like this podcast.

 

But to see animatronics is absolutely amazing.  I think that’s one thing that drives some of this displeasure…like, or resistance to change at Disney from fans.  I’m not saying with Disney…is…that first experience for those people of those generations of seeing that, it really was a pinnacle experience ‘cause of just nostalgia and moment in time and being exposed to something new; to see animatronics.  They say…this is, again, just a made up ‘they say’, but they say well, that’s not a popular attraction anymore.  The number of people that ride it’s down.  We gotta make something more exciting.  They did make something more exciting in Test Track, which is one of my favorite rides just for the outdoor portion where you go fast.  It is one of the best ten seconds in all of the Disney parks.

 

The rest of the ride probably could use some use, and it’s been…it already was refurbished in the last five or six years, so it probably won’t be again for a while.  But the part of the ride that goes fast is cool.  Then they have a kind of a similar ride setup at Cars Land in California.  I don’t know if that’s the same layout or anything.  You always say…that’s what I always can’t understand; people say Indiana Jones and Dinosaur are the same track layout.  I say, what?  My brain can’t process that.  But at Cars Land, they’re the same ride vehicles.  So, I don’t understand if there can be all these animatronic…I mean, Spaceship Earth still is animatronic-heavy, and maybe the park can only handle one…’cause it used to have all animatronic rides on that side of the park.

 

It had Spaceship Earth, Universe of Energy which was some dinosaur animatronics, Horizons which was animatronics, and World of Motion; animatronics.  So, I don’t know.  Then, again, like I say, it takes a lot of…I mean, the good thing, it was…kept a lot of people working, and I’m presuming they’re at least decently-paid jobs ‘cause there would have been craftspeople and artisanal…artist jobs.  But okay, so, that…but for a kid, whatever; I wasn’t a…I guess I was a kid, but I wasn’t a little kid.  I was just like, holy cow.  So, that was one reason I have nostalgia for this ride.  The second one was because it was a Omnimover, I think something like three thousand people an hour could ride this ride.

 

Because it was a Omnimover, it just constantly…even if the line was long, which will be a main part of why I’m talking about this, that the line was almost always moving unless the ride had to stop for a little while.  It was always moving ‘cause people were always getting on and off because of the way the Omnimover attractions work, like the Mansion of Happy Big Farm Friends is a Omnimover attraction.  So yeah, so, when you’re…so…okay, so those are a couple pieces of information.  Another thing is…and I don’t know which…if this was our first or second trip to Disney World as a family, but it was a big deal.  But I was also a very independent person, and I had my brother and my sister that were two years younger than me.  I think on our first trip and maybe even our second trip, we also went with my cousins and my aunt and uncle.

 

My cousin was the same age as me.  Then I had a cousin slightly younger than me that was close to the same age as my sister.  We were old enough that we could go to a park as a family and then split up.  I think my father would give us, whatever, ten or twenty bucks for the day.  He’d say okay, you have to feed yourself with this money, those of us that were in like, middle school and high school, which I guess is a little bit different nowadays, parenting.  But also I guess when you only have…when you have six kids, you probably don’t want to be around all your kids because…especially me; I was angsty.  But so, we would split up and a lot of times, I was…I really loved — just like Ray talks about — suspending my disbelief, like seeing how much…I remember waiting in the line by myself.

 

I liked to walk around by myself and I would create these storylines in my head or I would go with the ride’s storyline.  Like, there was this one ride in Epcot that’s gone now called Body Wars.  I didn’t even remember…the queue kinda helped you suspend your disbelief, and I would just try to fully do it.  I would try to see how much I could convince myself that I was in some…you know what I mean.  That’s why I make a sleep podcast.  So, this…so, the benefits of this World of Motion attraction were one, it had animatronics that were cool, it was air-conditioned, there was long lines but the lines were always moving, it had music, and you constantly felt like if you were getting on a ride, you were winning.

 

At some point in these few family trips I made, I would also fall in love with the shows at Epcot, but I don’t think I was there on this trip yet.  Maybe I was.  But so, those are some pieces of information.  So, at some point…I had already ridden this ride a few times but I said okay, I’m gonna ride it again.  My family had gone to Epcot Center and we had split up.  I was by myself and so, I got on this…so, I walked towards this big, shiny wheel.  What you would do is you would walk towards it and in the…there would be a cutout in the center of the wheel where the entrance was, and spiraling up the entrance was the Omnimover.  It went in a spiral around a mirrored column outdoors and back into the building.

 

It went from inside the building on the first floor and spiraled upwards into the second floor for the attraction.  The cars were blue, the building was red, and the thing it went up was blue, too.  Usually the line would be outside and it was…you’d go in on the left side of the building to get in line for the ride.  But usually the line was long enough that it was going all the way outside.  But like I said, it was always moving.  So it was like a thing; you’re like oh, even if the line’s long, I might as well get in it.  This was a different era where you just waited in line anyway.  You didn’t even have a phone.  That’s why I was like okay, I’m just gonna try to suspend my disbelief here.  So, I waited in line.  So, you’d wait in line there and what you would do is you’d go into the building and there was a queue.  There was a couple benches.

 

It was a pretty boring queue.  I think there may have been some murals.  That was another thing Epcot and Disney used to have going for them, was these amazing murals.  But they had the song…I think was playing over the loudspeakers, which was It’s Fun to be Free.  I’ll try to link to some of this in the show notes.  So, you’d kinda…and it was in a 70s…I don’t know, 80s-type vibe, the music.  Kinda silly, a little bit above…a little bit different than the Disney anthems that are like…that Simpsons had made fun of.  Like, we’re gonna feel…those kinda songs.  Feels good to feel good or whatever you want to…you know.  This was more campy in a good way, versus trying to be…I don’t know, self-help with song or something that a lot of Disney stage shows have.  So, it was fun, I guess, ‘cause it was fun to be free.  That was the song.

 

Then you would get on the attraction; you’d go up a little bit of a ramp as you were queuing, and then you got on the Omnimover.  Then the Omnimover would go up, and we’ll go through that part of the ride in a second, here.  But you would eventually start to cycle up and you would go outside and you’d be spinning around.  Of course, you’d be looking…I mean, I would be looking outside.  This is the main reason why I wanted to talk about this, is like…so, I was on the…I was in a car by myself and I was looking outside.  Then right in line by himself was my brother Carl, like outside just waiting in line.  To this day…I mean, I guess moreso now that I’m an adult; it’s not as exciting, but at the moment, I was yelling.  I couldn’t believe that he was in line for a ride I was on for some reason, and that I just happened to see him.

 

I don’t know.  This was no cell phones or nothing.  It was just one of the coolest, random moments.  I mean, the theme park is pretty big, so I guess part of me is like, well…but then it’s like well, if you both started at Point A, you may have ended up at Point C together.  I’d say okay, fair enough, fair enough.  I also remember eating by myself, probably before I went on this ride.  There was an…a restaurant called The Electric Umbrella.  I got some sort of Burger King chicken…the old-school Burger King chicken sandwich.  Like, something like that there.  I really liked it.  Plus, it kinda felt like…for me, again, coming from a big family in Syracuse, New York, and…my family was pretty…we didn’t go out to eat a lot or anything.  Eating at a fast food restaurant alone was like…had this elicit thrill.

 

I think that was part of the…just something about it.  It didn’t feel adult or wrong, but it just felt fun to be free, I guess, in a different sense.  But so, I don’t know, that’s just one of my favorite memories of the park, is…of going to theme parks, is just looking out from that attraction and seeing my brother and just my mind being blown.  I guess the sad part…you say well, what’s the sad part?  I say well, maybe that I was so independent that we could have been sharing that moment together or something.  But that’s my internal critic saying that anyway, or saying well, I wonder…I may have waited for him after the attraction because I was so excited.  I may not have, ‘cause it would have been a while.  But that would have been fun too, of seeing if you wait for the person and then you don’t find them.

 

But it was also like you’re trying to go on as many…those…Horizons and World of Motion…if I was at Epcot Center on those first two trips I had made, I would have tried to ride those rides as many times…between those three rides; Spaceship Earth, Horizons, and World of Motion…usually because they had such high capacity even if the lines were long.  You could keep riding them and then you felt like…I don’t know.  You just felt a sense of accomplishment.  Then there was the Seacabs in…what was it ever called?  Sea-based elf…I can’t…The Living Seas was what it used to be called.  But that one, I think you had to wait in line to get on the Seacabs, so that one was not as free-flowing.  Then Living with the Land; again, it was not as free-flowing ‘cause that was a boat ride.

 

The Imagination one, that was a Omnimover, but it always seemed like…it seemed like we went on it a bunch, but not as many times.  So, that side of the park was just good for trying to re-ride as much…you know, just get your value.  You could just…you would just see and notice more things.  So, okay, so that’s it.  So, yeah, we’re approaching…let’s close our eyes now, and you see this big, circular seal…pavilion in Future World.  We’ve probably passed…there’s this good set of restrooms on the way there.  To your left…I don’t know where…I guess to your left in the pass would have been Universe of Energy and Horizons.  But I can’t really remember.  Then to your right would have been Wonders of Life, maybe.  Somewhere around there, but straight ahead is this big, silver building.

 

It has a sign out front that says World of Motion and a circular planter.  Then there’s the open part of the building where we see the ride circling up to the top, and the other signs that say GM’s World of Motion.  There’s red walls and the blue track circular…another thing that would have been good is that the mirrors on the thing were good.  I don’t remember what this ride looked like at night.  Then we see a line of people on the left getting ready to go on, but man, is it moving smooth.  As we proceed up the ramp, we’re hearing music playing.  It’s fun to be free, man.  It’s fun to be free and free as a bird…you know, to go anywhere and do all that stuff, man.  It’s fun to be free.  We’re going up there and we got one…there’s metal; there’s a couple white plastic benches that look high-quality.

 

Some of the queue is a rope on poles, and then some of it is that metal queue.  Every once in a while they say please don’t sit on the queue.  Hopefully this isn’t a ride where I cut the line.  Then we see these plastic Omnimover cars; gray seats, blue cars, or light-blue seats.  We climb in.  There’s two rows to a car, but it’s basically a train anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.  We get in and they say, your clothes…your vehicle doors will close automatically.  Please keep your hands and arms inside your vehicle and remain seated while traveling.  Thank you.  We slowly circle up to the left, so a clockwise spiral up.  We can see Spaceship Earth as we go.  Then to the right we see the Universe of Energy.  Don’t really know if Horizons is to the right, too.  I can’t really remember.

 

But that wedge-shaped…oh, we see…yeah, no; Horizons and Wonders of Life is to our right as well.  So, yeah, I thought there was something…or, to our left.  We start to go up into this red building and there’s doors a bit like the stage…it looks a lot like the stage entrance…the beginning of a Looney Tunes cartoon?  That was another thing I always remember.  So, Looney Tunes always had this thing that looked like a thing.  I don’t know.  You know what I mean.  Or maybe you don’t, but you’ll see.  Then we hear ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary; welcome to the wonderful World of Motion.  General Motors now invites you to travel the open road and to discover that when it comes to transportation, it’s fun to be free, which is probably playing in the background now.

 

We go around the ramp still, and then we enter through the corridor that looks like the Looney Tunes, but it’s only a distraction for me.  As we leave Spaceship Earth and the rest of Future World behind, we hear me say throughout the ages, we’ve searched for the freedom to move from one place of the other…to the other.  In the beginning, of course, there was foot power, but with our first wandering steps, we quickly discovered the need to improve our basic transportation.  As we go into the building, we see…the first thing we see, which is really cool, was these stone walls.  You say oh boy, this is where you’d find some cave paintings, and that’s a figure…wow, that’s…they made that…whatever they did, they made that archetypal.

 

But then there’s glow-up footsteps; bare feet walking that kinda goes with that…the narration that’s gonna come up.  We hear throughout the ages, we have searched for the freedom to move from one place to another.  In the beginning, of course, there was foot power, but with our first wandering steps, we quickly discovered the need to improve our basic transportation.  We see a couple of people that look like they lived thousands of years ago, early humans.  One of the humans is…he has hot feet from walking, so he’s blowing on his feet to cool them down.  Maybe they’re…I said, were you guys at a Disney waterpark or something?  Because that’s what happens to my feet at…or at a pool or hot beach?

 

The other one…the other early human is waving his hand over his hot feet with a fan, maybe a leaf, trying to cool it down.  We also hear other things; sound effects.  Also, you say…when you look at the one blowing his feet, you say wow, he has a haircut a bit like mine, but he has…his eyes are open, his cheeks are actually puffing and even red from blowing.  His feet are red and he has big, wide eyes like you would do if you were blowing on your feet, which again, is…it’s cartoonish but I don’t know.  Again, you say wow, they don’t have…never seen anything like this before where I come from.  Then the narrator says after years of stumbling around, we launch a new idea; our first safe highway, water.  Then this was another way they really had success.

 

Now it seems like theme parks lean too heavily on it, because it’s not…it’s like a projection but it doesn’t look like it’s projecting on a screen.  It’s like…this…back then, dark rides were dark, meaning if…in the ideal situation, they were so dark you couldn’t see between the scenes.  Like, the transitions were darkness to light.  I’m sure that was to hide stuff they didn’t want you to see, but then it was also…it was…in a way of suspension of disbelief.  It was cool because you were constantly being told where to look.  You say okay, don’t look in the darkness; you’re looking towards what we want you to look at in the light.  Sometimes the car would turn that way or the track would.

 

But it was also just weird because it wasn’t like you pull up to a screen and you’re supposed to watch it and you watch some action unfold and then you go to another screen.  You were constantly in motion, so your view was changing.  So, we see what seems like a projection, but it’s…it looks like mobiles, actually.  Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t projection, ‘cause they’re all moving.  There’s a canoe, a raft, a sailing boat, a couple other things.  Let me see on the video here.  A couple different types of boats.  Then we see, actually, a big…we see…then we see a…we go into a set now, so we go from the projection to a set where someone’s sleeping on a raft and they’re about to get a surprise from a forest friend.  But you say, holy moly.  Then we go to our next scene after…oh, wait.

 

On land, our animal friends give us new freedom and we test drive many new models.  So, we see…this is…so, that scene was on our left; this is on our right.  There’s a toll booth with…there’s a person riding an…kind of a house on a elephant, and then someone actually controlling the elephant.  These are full-sized animatronics.  Then there’s a person on a bull and the bull seems displeasured with be…the bull’s supposed to be pulling a sled.  I don’t know if the bull was steaming.  There’s someone totally chilling on a camel, kicked back ‘cause they’re waiting, someone on an ostrich, there’s actually someone with a magic globe on a flying carpet, there’s someone trying to get a zebra to move, but the zebra’s like, I’m not going anywhere; please don’t tell me.

 

Then there’s someone on a mule or a burro or something, and they’re all waiting in line to pay a toll for the toll bridge.  Again, this is all full-size.  I don’t know, it’s so funny ‘cause it’s an ostrich in a thing.  I don’t know, just so many little jokes hidden in there and so much little motion of the animals breathing or the zebra sticking its tongue out.  That’s all underscored by the song Fun to be Free.  Then a revolutionary turn of events; the wheel.  Now things really get rolling.  It’s fun to be free.  It goes from just the music to someone singing It’s Fun to be Free.  Then we see three inventors with spinning wheels.  One’s like a triangle, one’s like a hexagon, and one might be a square.  They’re all spinning but they’re kinda being…they’re saying this is not working, man.  This is just not gonna work.

 

They all have their heads kinda hung down like their designs have been rejected.  But then there’s someone with a round wheel facing a throne.  There’s someone on the throne laughing hysterically while somebody else is in the…here’s the thing; so, the wheel is actually…the inventor’s actually barely rolling the wheel, and that’s the piece de resistance, that it’s like, the wheel is sitting up and it’s wooden.  The inventor’s just barely rolling it.  Like, see how this is gonna work?  Just a subtle motion.  Then the king laughing hysterically’s just funny, ‘cause it’s kinda rando.  Let’s see, then we go…there’s all these weird wheel effects as a transition; projected wheels spinning around, like all sorts of spacey stuff here.  Then with our newfound freedom, empires expand, cultures flourish, trade and commerce grow.

 

You say wow, really?  Only a colonist could have written that.  But we do see a chariot being pulled by a horse with someone on it, and they’re ready for action.  Then we see a man being pushed in a cart with another person pushing the cart, like holding it up and running along.  Then we get to what looks like a temple and there’s vases that have…so, this is where it’s really cool; so, there’s vases, like Roman…Greco-Roman style painted vases, but the vases have projections on them.  Like, one’s a horse running and then the other is a…one of those half…a centaur?  Half-man, half-horse and…on the vase, but then we see in person there’s one, and a woman is…she’s in charge of him and she seems a bit like, okay…she’s kinda blushing.  I was like, how subtext…like, what is going on here?

 

Then we see all these used chariots that are for sale.  We’re at like a used car lot but it’s a used chariot lot.  You could see there’s prices that are discounted.  Then we see all these people…on sale.  Then we see a salesperson making a deal, like a couple people getting sold chariots.  It’s kinda comical.  They use, yeah, Roman numerals.  Then there’s this one really expensive chariot up top that seems to be for sale.  They say yeah, so, lend me your ears.  This is a Colossus bargain, just like new.  Beautius Maximus, loaded with extras; power, reigns, marble floorboards, four speeds, suitable for the throne of Venus.  Fly on the wings of Mercury, all…past anything on the Appian Way.  This Colosseum cruiser is fit for the gods, truly glorious.  Caesar’s wife had one.  This one was ridden…driven by Caesar himself.

 

Then we start the transition on the left to a new scene.  With proud new ships, we sail forth in search of worlds, undaunted by age-old myths…the myths and silly superstitions.  We see a pro…another cool dark ride, like a map projection.  Again…so, the…what’s projected on is also a part of the set and it looks like scrolls.  So, it’s made to look like a map that’s come to life.  It’s like this old map where the end of the world…the wind would blow from a god and the god’s blowing the ship off the edge of the Earth.  Then we see a water friend.  You say hey, I’m a water buddy.  But then it’s on the map; then you see it in person and it’s a bit like Puff the Magic Dragon.  It’s looking and it has its eye open.  Then we see a sailor looking through a looking glass.

 

It’s looking right into the eye of the…and the sailor’s on a ship…again, a set piece, and then looking into the eye of the…our water buddy.  Apparently this is Columbus, according to this.  Then we go to the Age of Renaissance, where great minds are turning from works of art to flights of fancy.  We’re at da Vinci’s Workshop, and they actually have this Mona Lisa that…I don’t know if it’s lit or projected, that…like an actual animatronic posing and waiting for da Vinci.  There’s projected windows or scene-painted perspective windows of countryside…so, just the level of detail…again, you say okay, wait a second; little Scoots might have had a point here.  There’s, again, a good way…there’s too many things for your eye to take in, so it does become very…gives you a sense of place.

 

I guess I can see when you’re trying to just return value on stock, you might say well, we don’t need those windows.  But so, she’s waiting.  She looks cool, just the way she’s lit.  She’s lit to look hyper-real and like Mona Lisa.  But the thing is, it looks like Mona Lisa but in 3D.  We have her…then a painting of her to reinforce that that’s not finished, and da Vinci’s working on…like, an Icarus rig.  There’s a man up there with his Icarus rig say…and I think there’s even pigeons.  Is that what this says?  So, I don’t know.  Just multiple…oh yeah, there’s a couple pigeons.  It is…I can’t tell, again, if the windows are projected or just…again, another set, but so well-done.  So, they’re trying to get Icarus off the ground and da Vinci’s making notes.

 

Then we go and we see a couple other flying contraption…mobiles, balloons, and tight…and stuff people are imagining.  That changes the scene.  Then we see someone in…kinda like one of those wigs that the upper class used to…in London would wear.  They’re in a balloon but they’re with their farm friends, so they’re in a balloon with a goat and a pig.  Say, interesting.  Maybe even a chicken, so it’s just comedic, I guess.  But again, full-size; full-size balloon.  Everything had motion, so it just looked cool.  Then we go from hot air to the power of steam.  Now nothing stands in the way of progress on the open road.  We approach a steam-powered carriage.  We see it on the right; it looks like a horse-drawn carriage, but it’s a steam-drawn one.

 

It’s been bumped by a bull that’s saying hey…the bull says this is my territory, buddy.  The bull has steam coming out its nose.  It’s even lifting the carriage up.  The wheels are moving.  The people in the carriage are moving.  There’s the carriage driver, there’s the carriage backup.  So, just like…you’re like, holy moly, man.  They said…the passengers say hark, what goes on?  Why are we stopping?  I should have ridden me horse.  Begone, bull.  Move to yon pasture.  You are a bull-headed beast.  Begone.  Then it goes, great boilers of steam change our sails to paddle wheels.  Then we see a paddle boat and it has a couple dancing in the window with those dancing, spinning shadow effects…other shadow effects in the windows.  It’s night, so it looks really cool.

 

There’s a man and a…a man trying to load the ship with a donkey who’s not listening.  So, again, kinda showing…maybe it’s like GM saying, see?  Trust machine.  Animals can’t be trusted to work with you.  I don’t know if that was a subtle message, but they’re trying to row.  We see the paddle wheel and yeah, he’s saying come on, man.  Then we see a boy watching the ships go by from a high thing, just chilling, saying hey, that’s cool, and maybe a couple…oh, there’s an…a couple more forest friends looking on, or maybe they’re pulling another wagon.  Oh yeah, there’s a wagon with a band, so I guess they’re playing backup music for the thing.  There’s a dog.  Beyond the Mississippi, passengers enjoy the scenic West with the freedom and adventure of the open road.

 

Then another kind of horse arrives, a steam-powered iron horse, bringing fast, dependable, safe travel to a new frontier.  Then we see a comedic level here; there’s a steam train, locomotive, that’s been stopped and people are saying hey, we’re here.  We’re stopping the train for our donations.  It looks like they cause a rock on the…they cause the train to slow down.  They say, have you ever played that game Red Redeemer 2 on the Xbox or PlayStation?  There’s other people and passengers and they’re saying hey, just make your donations.  They’re all really well-dressed, very…and there’s even some Pirate of the Caribbean effects where they say hey, I’m gonna…watch me spit on that sign.  It’ll be like a spittoon and it’ll make a pitoom sound.  So, they’re going around taking donations.

 

They’re saying hey, come on, this is called Passing the Hat.  Drop it in the hat, mister.  Come on, come on.  Hold her steady, grandpa.  Hold that box steady.  So, the narrator’s kinda blissfully aware of all this.  Says and ah, the peaceful countryside.  What a romantic…what more romantic way to enjoy it than when…the infallible combination of person and machine, the bicycle?  Then it’s peaceful countryside, and we see a person riding a tricycle, but it went in the mud and he’s…a dog’s trying to say hey, let me play with you, and he’s trying to climb a tree.  Oh no, that was one person; he tried to climb a tree where a dog was trying to play.  Then another one crashed his bike into a mud bog with two pigs.  Another one…a woman’s laughing at him while he’s there.

 

They were on a date or something and she’s like, you fell in the mud.  Looks a little bit like Samuel M. Clemens; the person’s dressed like that.  The pig kinda looks like…the pigs are kind of laughing or almost gonna kiss him or something.  Then we see other bikes rolling by, again on a projection screen, just to give us another layer of emotion.  Then we see somebody riding a big unicycle, tipping their hat.  The call of the open road brings us a new wonder; a carriage without a horse.  Yes, the horseless carriage.  We thunder full speed into the 20th century.  We see…the turn of the century, we see a garage where someone’s working on a engine on kind of a old-fashioned car.  There’s, again, motion in the engine, there’s windows with lighting.  I think the sun’s setting.

 

Then we see a delivery vehicle and we start to see this scene…oh, we see somebody with a convertible.  I don’t remember that part…going up and down.  A man and his horse are watching.  Then we see a scene behind them.  Oh yeah, he’s cranking it…some dude with a hat…bright blue car, and he’s demonstrating how a convertible works on a horseless carriage.  So, I didn’t even know they had convertibles back then.  Then we see a busy street, a projection.  This one is a movie projection though, like a black and white silent movie with trolleys and horse-drawn vehicles and motorized cars and street cars and everything.  Then we get to this big traffic jam.  This is the big set piece of this ride.  There’s kids on bikes and then there’s cars…a big mess, like spilled stuff.  A lady waving her umbrella with a big, flowered hat.

 

She’s in a car with somebody and a dog.  Seems like it’s in London.  There’s a double-decker bus, there’s a horse that’s misbehaving.  That’s what’s causing the traffic jam, not the cars, just so you know.  There’s somebody even…it looks like there was…the horse caused a dumping of fruits and vegetables and chickens.  Almost all the chickens are moving, which is just impressive.  There’s somebody with…looking out of the sewer with fruits and vegetables on their head.  Looks like they just woke up or something.  There’s a horse pulling…refusing to listen.  There’s people on the double-decker old-fashioned bus, there’s a ice delivery truck.  Let’s see what else.  Yeah, we got people…get…somebody’s writing a ticket.  Oh, one of the boys is in a wagon.  There’s a red convertible.

 

Oh, there’s kids taking ice off of the back of the ice truck, which is cute.  People are looking in off the bus.  There’s somebody ringing a bell.  The driver of the ice trunk is honking his horn and everybody’s kinda shaking their head.  Then there’s a carriage with a horse who’s like, what do you want me to do?  They say stuff like, move that hay.  We don’t have time for horseplay.  Do something with that relic.  Come on, let’s get going.  Then we invent the Sunday drive.  Now we can get away from it all to the beautiful, carefree countryside.  We see a couple having a picnic and again, the songs are playing.  This guy’s playing a banjo.  We start to get some more projections of hills and bridges and planes.  Then we see a…then there’s a family watching a air show and there starts to be more and more signs.

 

There’s a billboard that says Air Show Coming Soon.  Let’s see, April 30th, County Fairground, twenty-five cents.  It’s one of those billboards where the cop hides behind it on a motorcycle, which is running.  We hear that effect.  Dashing heroes of the wild, blue yonder.  Now the sky’s the limit.  We see more and more cars watching the airshow.  Some people have binoculars.  We see plane…the projections of planes doing stunts, then there’s even a actual plane on the ground.  There’s a boy playing along.  Then we have a pilot and somebody else posing for a picture in front of a real biplane and somebody taking their picture.  Then we go to mobility is the byword of modern transportation, a way to move from here to there and for every need and every care.  It really is fun to be free.

 

Then we pass a couple generations of vehicles; the 1930s, the 1940s, and the 1950s.  They’re kind of going alongside us with projections behind them to give them motion.  There’s also these weird…the projections are on…against…on magazine covers and one is College Humor which I thought was funny, ‘cause that’s…yeah, a popular…but yeah, there’s dancing seaplanes, bicycles in water, car ads, highways, rockets, man on the moon.  One of the cars is like a Just Married, Just…car.  Another one is college students, then the last car is a station wagon full of Little Leaguers with a pendant and stuff like that.  Oh no, and then there’s one more car and a family headed out on vacation with all their luggage and their dog.  Everybody looks happy.  I don’t know if they’re going to or from Disney World or somewhere else.

 

There’s a very red, chromy car.  That’s where we see the most free…fun to be free; people are surfing and we see modern…most modern highways.  Even this car’s probably a 60s or a 70s car, maybe.  Then we go into these trippy rooms.  I don’t know how else to call them, where there’s projection effects that kinda give you motion, like you’re kinda going in a bobsled.  They would kinda work.  I remember really digging the bobsled one.  There’s also whitewater rafting.  So, you’re in these big domed rooms.  I think you go to three of them.  Then there’s…you feel like you’re under the ocean.  Bobsled, whitewater rafting, under the ocean…oh, running through the forest or maybe going on a…a forest sign and then one from a movie where it’s a vortex, space vortex or something.

 

That one starts to spin, which of course gives you that cool effect where you really do.  Then there’s a star spinner vortex, then it gets even trippier; lights passing you like you’re in…you’re going to light speed or something.  You say man, when does Pink Floyd come on, man?  This is rad, man.  Could do this all day long.  Let the…and I think if the ride…well, if the right stopped moving, it might not be as cool ‘cause the motion adds to the effects.  Then another star-type tunnel, and then again, the vortex.  So, I guess maybe there’s three rooms with different loops.  Let’s see, after we exit that, what do we got here?  Skiing…a coral reef, swirling stuff, cyclone of clouds, outer space.  Then we go into this weird…another room.  Oh wait, there’s a pix…oh, there’s a fractal room.  That’s what it’s in now, like something out of Tron and fractals.

 

Yeah.  Wow, man.  That’s rad.  Very fractal…I don’t know.  Remember when fractals were a thing?  Some helixes and some…floating question mark.  So, some of the state-of-the-art computer images that now…I don’t know what it’d be like to see them now, but they look pretty cool, kinda like…one of the scenes looks like what…one of the movie theatres used up until a few years ago at the start of their movie.  I don’t know if it was Cinemark or…it wasn’t…I don’t think it was AMC.  Maybe…I don’t know, but then you go out of that room and I guess you go…again, because it’s so dark and stuff, you go into the…you start to circle this giant, open space with a…kind of a neon or glow-in-the-dark city…yeah, that kinda looks like…it’s called CenterCore because it was in the center of the core of the building.

 

But it’s like…it’s got lights that are moving, black light stuff.  Oh, and then our narrator comes back.  Yes, our world has indeed become a world of motion.  We’ve engineered marvels that take us swiftly over land and sea, through the air, and into space itself, and still bolder and better ideas are yet to come, ideas that will fulfill our age-old dream to be free; free in mind, free in spirit, free to follow the distant star to a brighter tomorrow.  Then we pass out of the city which looks cool, into a dark tunnel.  Then we get the effect from the other ride, the Big Farm Friends, but you go into a dark room and then some lights start to move quickly.  Then you see yourself…like, your car change into a modern-looking car that you’re in.

 

It’s a really good effect, even on the video, but remembering it…because instead of putting someone in your car, it makes it look like you’re inside of a car.  It just was a really cool effect.  Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary, General Motors now invites you to share the challenge of the future.  We need…and also, I have a GM car, the Volt, so I can say this kind of stuff ‘cause I paid for…I bought it, so…four years…well, I leased it and then I bought out my lease ‘cause I love the car so much, though they stopped making it.  But all of 2020, I think I only bought gas once ‘cause it’s electric for sixty miles and then it has a gas generator.  We need you to help us shape tomorrow’s mobility.  Just ahead is General Motor’s exciting Trans Center.

 

Join us behind-the-scenes where we’re working to ensure tomorrow’s world will continue to be a world of motion.  Your vehicle doors will slide open automatically.  Please collect your belongings and step out to the right.  The platform and your vehicle are traveling at the same speed.  Then you step off the ride and you head out, and you can explore the other stuff there or you could watch Martin’s video; it has all that stuff and all the history, or you could check out something else.  Goodnight, everybody.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

(www.leahtranscribes.com)

Notable Language:

• Tumble
• Clad in Stainless Steel
• An Icarus Rig

Notable Culture:

• General Motors
• “It’s Fun to be Free”
• Mark Twain

Notable Talking Points:

• One of the best 10 seconds in all of the Disney Parks
• Subtle Message: You can’t trust animals to work with you
• Scoots has a Volt so he can say this kind of stuff