I was the show art director for the Dench Rehab '08. The retrofit started in the summer of '07. The heat inside the building was so bad sweat rained off the front visor of my hard hat and poured everywhere. The Show Producer was Bob Zalk who was a great guy. Such glamourous times.

I’m dreading the refurb and losing Dame Judi Dench telling me to thank the Phoenicians in my ear and falling asleep to her sweet narration when it’s a 1000 degrees outside. 😅

I worked at Spaceship Earth in 2017 on my Disney College Program and loved every second of it. You uncovered so many hidden facts that I once learned training there, but have since forgotten! Actually, because of the hassle it is to take the set pieces down during refurbishments, many are still left inside. They are just hidden from guest view. Thank you for this video and giving Spaceship Earth the attention she deserves!!

4:40 This is a key WED imagineering protocol: Walt used to say, OK, that's good, you guys, now let's "Plus It".

At 1:32 in, the concept art shown isn’t of EPCOT CENTER, that is concept art for the never built WESTCOT. They’d abandoned the idea of a “Space Station Earth” due to costs and switched to the spire design. Also I’d never heard that they completely reused animatronics for the ride, I’d always been told that they reused the face molds only, the animatronics were all new at the time. Favorite version of the ride would have to be the Cronkite version. That version gave us Spaceship Earth’s theme song Tomorrow’s Child as noted, although the imagery on the way back down left something to be desired. I love that the current version still features Cronkite in the moon landing living room scene! Pretty cool about the astronauts in Space Mountain being from SSE…always wondered what happened to those props!

Oh gosh, long time ago. I remember at the same time I was supervising some sets I co-designed for the Haunted Mansion over in the Magic Kingdom. Marty Sklar, the Pres of WDI wanted updates to the whole SSE upramp. So I tried to make it a little grittier. Bob Zalk said Marty wanted the Paper Boy set to be a "winter set" So I had my guys snow up the set and sparkle the set with diamond dust in order to make the set wintery. The paper boy had to have a new costume for the "winter" Well...the script at the time was still being written and my crew was running out of hours in their budget. I called Glendale and spoke to the writer and asked her "Listen, I have to have the headline for the news papers right now so I can get the papers made! Finally she said to me to have it say "Civil War Over". Oh great, I thought. The set and the paper boy are all dressed for winter and the Civil War ended in APRIL! So, all the snow and dust had to come off, the set repaired etc. We ran out of time and couldn't change the paper boy's costume. The executive producer told me to turn the boy around so he'd have his back to the audience. Ugh. The costume lady for the rehab was a seamstress on the movie "The Ten Commanments." So I asked her, 'can we re do Pharoah's costume to look like the Pharoah in "The Ten Commandments and she thought that would be so fun, so Egypt'd set was redone! Too funny. Oh god, what else. The computer room set was designed by others in Glendale and they made it like 6' too high and the set would have hit the inside of the ball. So I had to redesign it to fit. Wow, that was a real pain! During worklights off rehearsals when the ride was stopped, I'd get in a ride car in the "blue star" set and listen to Pink Floyd on my CD player. Ah, the glamour.

Dame Judy is the best. Forever.

Spaceship Earth 🌎 looks like a GIANT golf ⛳ ball Blessings and Hugs 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

I get to be the first commentator... Yay!!! Dude, once again you hit me with loads of great Disney factoids that I didn't know. And I'm a huge Disney fan. You have impressed me yet again, and that's hard to do. I hope this video gets lots of love; you've earned it! Thanks again!

It's criminal that this doesn't have more views

It may just be nostalgia, but the Jeremy Irons version along with its iteration of the theme music was my favorite. There was an almost spooky quality to it, it always gave me goosebumps. It’s hard to believe it’s been gone longer than it even existed!

As a Florida native and a life long Spaceship Earth fan, having redden the Walter Cronkite, Jeremy Irons, and Judy Dench versions. I prefer Jeremy Irons, maybe because I was a teenager and I had my first kiss on this version. There is something special about the music and the narration that I love. Don't get me wrong the Judy Dench version is great, but the ending is not as magical to me with the screens and all. Maybe I'm just old. LOL

This episode was fun and informative, I like the longer video format better and look for to more like it!

You can’t convince me it’s not a giant golf ball! 😂😅

This is a great video. But, you did not mention the fact that the ride vehicles were originally planned to make an additional rotation up another level. This was changed as the angle of descent from the higher level was too extreme. I was on a Cast backstage tour several years ago and we were able to walk on that surface. It was really fun.

That sphere is crazy. Just a magnificent structure.

That fiber optic city skyline was so cool. Only saw it once back then but it burned in my memory ever since.

Also wanted to add some more detail regarding the garage scene at the end. My father was an imagineer during its reovation. He always told me it was Steve Wozniak and that they basically told him to them it on a 1970s garage. So he included a coke bottle, epcot coffee mug and a bunch of other thrifted tools, bikes, etc.... Also fun fact the car outside has a bucket of water next to it and inside the bucket is a hidden mickey.

There was an ATT lounge for employees in Space ship earth. I visited it with a friend who worked for ATT.

Love learning facts about Disney. Great job. Looking forward to more. The way you present the info with humor was entertaining.

Judy Dench did an incredible job with this. She adds so much to the experience.

I love the dad pushing the kid out of the way getting into the car at the 64 world's fair

Bravo! And yes Judy Dench.

Not seen your videos before, but this is nothing short of brilliant. Great work! I'm looking forward to more interesting stuff about Epcot.

Amazing video. I know you won't see this but I just wanted to say this is the first video I've watched and I can't wait to watch more. Disney should hire you for a Disney plus show. Very well done.

wow…. Amazing job. This was my First Video on your channel. You received a subscriber right away. Awesome Work 👍🏻

Great job! Looking forward to more . This was my first vid of yours but plan to watch all past and future vids.

Fantastic video!!!! Thanks so much!

This was really well done. I learned some new things about Spaceship Earth I didn't know.

I loved the historical overview. I had probably seen the evolution, but never in the context you gave.

Well, that was fantastic! 🤩🙌🙏

Moments of complete apathy are the best for new creations.

Fantastic video, thank you so much.

GREAT JOB ON THIS! You really did your research!🙌 I’m watching on Oct 1, 2023, the 42nd Anniversary of EPCOT, my favorite Disney park! 😎 Thank you!

This was amazing!

Great job!

Tron arcade is totally the concept for the "play" pavilion that was supposed to be built in the wonders of life pavilion

Thank you for this video. I wasn’t expecting to learn anything new and you blew that notion out of the water! I never knew there was a reason to debate the original narrator of the attraction (maybe it was both?) While World of Motion and Horizon were my favorite opening-era attractions of EPCOT, SSE picked up the slack when they left the scene. I rode the Perrin version twice and the Conkrite version once. The Irons version is my absolute favorite! It was the 1st version I videotaped, the 1st version I experienced during a week-long trip to WDW (we used to pick one park to visit on our vacations to FL,) and it was the only version I experienced as a season pass holder. I loved Irons narration and script, I loved the music and I loved the ending. With so much love and research put into this, I’m wondering why Dench’s version is your favorite?

Awesome show. Thank you bro. Would have watched for hours. Thank you Best part was hear scar narrate. It gave me goosebumps

This is A+! #subscribed

Best ride in the world!

Outstanding video of my first attraction in the first park I went to in 1991. What a first impression!

Your videos are simply outstanding

Such a great video. Subbed!

Well done! Ty!

I really REALLY like your videos, and have subscribed to your channel, but I’m compelled to point out something; the characters in Spaceship Earth are not “recycled presidents.” The MOLDS for the FACES of the characters ARE recycled from the presidents and Carousel of Progress. There’s a big difference between using actual Audio Animatronics from Hall of Presidents and the molds used to make their heads.

Love the Dame Judi Dench version of the ride, but prefer the Jeremy Irons narration.

As a spaceship earth cast member,I find this is a great video. Only thing is the lights you see as you’re going backwards, is not mirrors, they’re strands of lights 😃

3:21 me again.. See the piles of books? I had to create stacks and piles of 'stone' data tablets for a silly con valley gag a few years ago and this scene was the inspiration. (my tablets had to be glued into solid stacks with one loose tablet on top for the actors or whatever)

Great content

Wow finally a great Disney history channel! That’s well done and has humor! Great work man! Ps is this your only Chanel? Because you sound a lot like thunder? Who plays call of duty!?

That piece of art out front is the wallpaper for my phone

When Disney was really Disney!

Wow😮❤

Great job of this video! Regarding using the faces from the various Presidents, they do that because it costs a lot to produce a new face so they just reuse the same mold to make another copy. It's much cheaper that way and no one usually notices. It might be why they dimly light the figures. I went there 10 yrs ago and again during covid and I couldn't hardly see anything. It had changed allot since the last time I was there. I didn't care for it. They had a big room, maybe the whole upper sphere, with projected stairs on it. It was very cheap looking. I recall seeing it in the 80's, it was much better then.

I have actually been to spaceship earth twice and my life and my 1st visit has a very interesting fact about me. My very first memory of life in this world is actually right by the entrance of spaceship earth as a 1-2 year old in 2001. and i even specifically remember that my 2nd ever memory is me actually watching the milienum celebration show. i never knew that actually existed or even its name until now. my 2nd visit in 2010 for my birthday, Epcot was the 1st park i visited on my week long trip to Florda and the very first Disney ride i ever remember riding was in fact spaceship earth, and i remember that version well! This ride has been at the very cornerstone of my existence!

One small correction at 19:08 thats actually the father from carousel of progress.

The original father from carousel of progress is also the mandolin player too.

As a FL annual PH - I guess because it was my intro to Spaceship Earth in 95, the Jeremy Irons version will always be my fav. In fact I have that narration on my iPhone, put in ear buds & often play it instead of the Dench version while on the ride! It still works for 90% of the ride. I love Dench as an actress but the script jokes fall flat - a few examples Egypt " Papyrus makes better record keeping for plans, designs, & unfortunately taxes" ~ Phoenician traders "remember how easy it was to learn you A-B-Cs? Thank the Phoenicians!" ~ Rome "Rome built the first world wide web & it's leading us into the future." ~ Mainframe computers "What if everyone had one of these in their house? There was only one problem, they were as big as a house." ~ Ugh bad Dad jokes with a Brit accent, no thanks.

There’s a wonderful post on WDwmagic about the abandoned space station prop that on one of the last few pages of threads shows the current condition of the paperboys face (from 2023) It’s still intact.

Almost lost me with geometry. Kidding, this is excellently presented(despite the Dench over Cronkite sacrilege). Well done, and thank you.

Originally that sphere was supposed to be a BWR Nuclear Power plant (per early Disney plans). Apparently that got scrapped before it got any real plans.

I laughed at the image of Scar doing the narration. When I was a kid, that was the version I heard first and is the iconic one for me. Also, I was associating the "choose your own interactive future" as a Horizons thing not as a Spaceship Earth thing. But Horizons' choices were pre-set and not interactive, right?

Strange narration and inflection

There is video out there somewhere of Spaceship Earth as the Star Wars Death Star.

The Walt era was the best 1986-1994

Spaceship Earth/the EPCOT ball has been through at least a cat 4, Hurricane Charley in 2004 went right through Central Florida and did massive damage. Meanwhile, I was watching 101 Dalmatians on a portable DVD player in my mom's closet and having anxiety about our roof blowing away. Lol

You mentioned the art. I'm SO bummed the Mary Blair murals in the DL Tomorrowland entrance were not preserved.

Cronkite was my first and Dench is my favorite

You think Judi Dench is the BEST?! WHAT?!? WOW. You have to be kidding…. They destroyed the ride with that one. Hard to even ride it ever since that change, the magic is gone. Or at least dormant, until better narration, soundtrack, and an actual ending is reintroduced.

A Cat5 absolutely could hit Orlando. EPCOT is only about 58 miles/93km from the nearest coast (Cape Canaveral) as the crow flies.

Well done sir…

love the ride but wish it would have a referb.

FYI Walter Cronkite's narration of Spaceship Earth was the original when the attraction opened.

I can also confirm the newspaper boy has a face 😂

18:50 I don't think this is correct. They reused facial molds to cast copies of the faces, but they didn't recycle the actual animatronics.

Hey! I just wanted to let you know that there's an error in this video. Those same two astronauts have always been in Space Mountain since it opened in '75. They are not from Spaceship Earth.

As an FYI, those aren't line array speakers, those are point source. Line array is for a totally different use case.

12:10 😂

I miss the music from the 94-2007 version.

Great video... but William Henry Harrison was the 9th President. Still love the video though!! Very informative

The imagineers only implement ride systems. Schwarzkopf did a lot for the rides, just as Vekoma did a lot for the roller coasters. The actual ride systems are made by ride manufaturers. But yeah, the imagineers also did their part. I am just not sure how much.

Spaceship earth is also all about storytelling the history about album 💿 sequencing song structure and also the history of the telling a story through lyrics aka words and why we listen to album 💿 on cd 💿 example In your opinion why are album 💿 are viewed as one big story? And why are album 💿 are viewed as one big story? IAMLXGEND 8 months ago It is a cohesive collection of songs used to tell a bigger theme or project an overall vibe. Think of an album as a book. And your songs as chapters. Every book has chapters. Every album has songs. Each chapter is different. Each song is different. But the collection of chapters (the collection of songs) is what tells the full story of the book (of the album). Every song has a story. Some albums are just a collection of songs without the intention of telling the bigger story. Some albums are designed to tell a bigger story. Sequencing might be only about the way the music flows, but if the album tells a story than sequencing can do that too. Nathan Eswine 5 months ago I think artists try to sequence their albums in a way they feel best captures the journey they want a listener to go through. Nowadays, this isn’t as popular... kind of feels like some artists just try to pack single after single back to back for 10-12 songs. But at its core, album sequencing can help drive home the main theme of the album. Similar to the chapters of a book 👊🏻. To me, it does still count as one whole story, even if there’s no segue between tracks. I think it’s just an artistic choice to use segues. I think even if the songs start and stop on their own, they can still point back to the big theme of the album 👍. Usually the songs on an album are the result of an artist’s creations during a season of life. This means the songs can all speak to a similar set of themes, ideas and topics. So the aim of an album name is to try and sum up the big story/concept that all the songs pull from when they were written. It’s not always like these, especially today. But traditionally, an album is like a “book” with the songs inside being like “chapters.” Fun stuff! (I think 🤓) . Thanks to the pharaohs that created book 📖 aka Papyrus is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, papyrus papyrus, a wetland sedge. Papyrus (plural: papyri or papyruses can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined side by side and rolled up into a scroll, an early form of a book. An album (Latin albus, white), in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees, edicts, and other public notices were inscribed in black. It was from this that in medieval and modern times, album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs and the like are collected. This in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item.

Awesome video but you might want to check the pronunciation of “debuted”. Otherwise very professional.

Whilst this is very interesting and mostly correct. Space Mountain opened in 1975 with the astronauts already so I think Disney just got rid of the spaceship Earth ones. =)

The music at 25:30 still gives me chills and great memories. And... they dumped it. Removing the old Communicores and replacing them with what essentially are parks really ticks me off. I don't like paying $100+ to walk amongst trees when I can do it free in my own backyard. But they aren't finished yet so we shall see.

You make a pretty good documentary. I have to say though, the meme cuts lessen the experience and make it all a bit unprofessional.

The Sphere in Las Vegas ripped off the Epcot ball change my mind

I'd argue science fiction as a classification was predated by fairytales, we are still trying to rudimentarily find how to understand what we can't explain with a scientific brain, also how I think religions start but thats another topic

Correctly, you would say, "It's design and construction".

1:01 -- You need to update your video - as Disney copied both Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome design and the name from his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. at 4:46 - you said Disney hired Buckminster Fuller to design Epcot's big ball - but apparently he did NOT and was NOT hired by Disney.

He ran out of money, so he had to stop playing poker.

A Hurricane 5 lol? Who says it that way?

Very nice video, but the Smithsonian is properly an Institution, not an Institute.

I miss old spaceship earth ride. The new one is tame, unimaginative and completely forgetful.

Promontory Point, not Promontory Peak.

Well done! !!

The "t" in debut is silent. It's pronounced "day-byu". Your videos are fantastic in all aspects, but this little thing is driving me nuts. Sorry.

The astronauts were supposedly traded for the cinema booth ticket lady from Magic Kingdom's main street that is now before the computer age scene. The original Radio scene had three figures. You missed some of the PC changes that were made over the years to a few scenes

Wow... fantastic job friend!!! 💜 my stepdad worked for Siemens when they partnered with Disney so I got to watch the new power plants get built.....very awesome stuff!! 🫶