Just in time for the New Year, here's aother half-frightening, half-inspiring bit of Disney magic coming out of the creative braintrust. This bit of technology foresight from Bruce E. Vaughn, chief creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering:
“Picture a day where there is memory built into these characters – they will know that they've seen you four or five times before and that your name is Bobby.”
Yeah, uh, picture a day when a child goes running and screaming, right down the path to therapy. As if park admission isn't expensive enough!
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At least this seems less creepy and nighmare-inspiring than some previous ideas, like an animatronic Mickey Mouse at the front gates.
In all honesty, the Weekly would assume that a youngster walking into Disneyland for the first time, approaching a favorite cartoon character and having them address them by name would have said youngster pretty psyched on life. The key to making this work? Having authentic character voices. And in that case, Donald Duck would have one hell of a time exciting the first kid named Francisco or Elijah or any name with more than a single syllable.
This is the sort of development that probably has Walt Disney doing a happy dance in his grave.
