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“Welcome to Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room”

If you’re a first time visitor to Walt Disney World, it can be easy to miss.

What lies in that building that towers over the carpets is descendant from one of the most important attractions ever built. One could argue that without it, the parks as we know them today would not exist. While designing and building this cheerful little show, the Imagineering department needed to step outside of anything that they’d ever built before. They needed more than just the slight movements that were still stunning crowds over at The Jungle Cruise, and Uncle Walt pushed them to create something new, something with realistic movements synched to sound, what would become known as Audio-Animatronics. Bringing the birds, flowers, and Tikis to life created a whole new technology, one that would set the standard for Disney Parks moving forward.

But why? Why Tiki? With a park filled with Davy Crocket, Snow White, and Mickey Mouse, why a tropical revue? What was it that led Walt and his team to create this classic attraction? The answer to that will bring us back over a hundred years, take us halfway across the globe, involve famous explorers, the Great Depression, World War II, Clark Gable, and a whole lot of rum.

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