One of our most valuable artifacts is Walt’s voice. The museum is designed so that Walt himself is the narrator, taking you through his life. In this spirit, Storyboard aims to present Walt’s own words, on a variety of topics, regularly. Here’s what Walt said to journalist Pete Martin about his plans for the upcoming World’s Fair in an interview.
Peter: What are you going to have at the World’s Fair? Are you going to take any part in it at all, Walt?
Walt: Well, he wanted us to develop the amusement area and we looked into it, but it just wasn’t for us. I wouldn’t want to try to do anything in New York. I’m not close enough to New York; and New York has an entirely different climate and a different way of living. I don’t want to do it and, on top of that, I mean, I don’t know whether I want to do any outside of Disneyland because you don’t want to spread yourself thin, you know? I don't know. But what I’m doing at the World’s Fair—I’m working with some of the companies that are going to have their exhibits there and I’m building them little special shows that will add an extra appeal to their exhibit.
Peter: What are some of the companies, Walt?
Walt: General Electric and Ford Motor Company. And we’re in what we call the Imagineering stage now. How we are going to go through with it? I don’t know, you see. But we’re meeting with the Ford [Company] the first of May. And the General Electric thing is being presented right now.
What I do is build a special show with all kinds of exciting things to establish the theme of their exhibit. I don’t go in and do their actual exhibit with products, you see. I do the show that makes people, we hope, say, “You’d better see the General Electric show—it’s very exciting.” Then, they’ll come in and, that’s where they then can bring ‘em in and get ‘em in a nice receptive mood to General Electric and they can explain what they want to explain, you know.