Earlier this year, the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco welcomed renowned designer and creative visionary Eddie Sotto for an inspiring talk that captivated Disney enthusiasts, designers, and innovation aficionados alike.
Known for his influential work as a former Disney Imagineer, Sotto has left his mark on some of Disney’s most beloved attractions and immersive experiences, such as Disneyland Paris’ Main Street USA and Tokyo Disneyland’s “Pooh’s Hunny Hunt.” During his presentation, Sotto shared insights into the creative process behind his work, delving into the art of storytelling through design, and exploring the philosophy of “experiential storytelling” that has shaped both his career and the modern landscape of themed entertainment.
With hosted tickets, we enjoyed the full presentation however no photos or video were allowed. Here’s a look at what we learned.
The Early Years
Sotto began his talk by recounting his childhood ambitions to work for Disney as a Disneytologist, complete with home-made letterhead stationary that got him not a job offer, but a cease-and-desist from Disney’s lawyers. Undeterred, his dreams of building immersive cinematic environments were further fueled by a trip to the 20th Century Fox Studio lot in 1968 while they were filming Hello Dolly! and the epic scope and grandeur of the sets and billboards inspired his ten-year-old boy’s sense of imagination.
His next date with Disney destiny came in January 1971 where he was able to visit the Walt Disney World Preview Center with his family and was given a tour around the still-in-production Magic Kingdom construction site.
Years later, in 1986, after professional detours through Knott’s Berry Farm, Six Flags, and Sears, Sotto was hired into Imagineering and on his first day attended a retirement party for Disney Legend Don Edgren, who turned out to be the same manager who gave him the construction tour.
“‘I’m here to thank you for taking the time to see the importance of inspiring young people. You inspired me by driving me down Main Street to see that Main Street under construction’ and then he stops and goes ‘well, what are you doing here?’
“I said ‘well, I was hired to design the next one.’”
How does Disneyland Relate to a European Audience?
“The contract with the park demanded that we integrate French culture into the park. And they gave me the land that’s purely American.”
After being hired by Tony Baxter to work on Main Street USA at Disneyland Paris (then Euro Disneyland,) the team was immediately challenged by bad press reports that the project was largely considered a “cultural Chernobyl.” Quickly remembering that doing the impossible was in their job description, the Disneyland Paris team of Imagineers did a research trip around Europe to not only look at entertainment venues, but to observe how Europeans interacted with them. What do they perceive? What’s important to them? What do they love?
Of course, along with social and aesthetic obstacles, they also had physical obstacles such as the “extreme mud” that made up the bulk of the construction site.
Faced with the difficulties of competing with a society used to taking their families to museums and living in small decorative villages, the Imagineers fell back on what Disney does best: Storytelling in a Distinctly Disney fashion.
The Jazz Era
“Being a Hello Dolly fan, there’s an elevated train station with like a peoplemover style elevated train that runs through the Main Street and then we had the Speakeasy over on one side, a Hollywood kind of a tribute to silent film and all that kind of cool stuff over there.”
An early concept for Main Street in Disneyland Paris incorporated the idea of moving the clock forward to the Jazz Era, which would have the attraction of being different from all other Main Streets with an Art Deco style that would be more novel to the European market than the Victorian structures of Marceline, Missouri. Disney Legend Herb Ryman was tapped to contribute concept art for it as one of his last projects.
Herb Ryman concept art for EuroDisney
“I have one advice for you in the audience: If there’s anything you ever care about in life, don’t go on vacation. Don’t go on vacation.”
Unfortunately, after some struggles with inflating costs and difficulty landing on a final design after Ryman became too ill to regularly contribute, Michael Eisner canceled the whole idea while Sotto was on vacation. Instructed to just copy what had been done at Walt Disney World (“sounds like the lamest thing in the world”) Sotto took the project, now with one year less than the rest of the lands, and managed to deliver one of the most ornate, functional, and detailed Main Streets of all the castle parks worldwide.
Making Main Street
Everything was placed to enhance the guest’s experience as they passed through to the rest of the park. The gazebo was placed near the entrance to block the view so that guests could enjoy the reveal of the castle after they were on the street.
Main Street USA, Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris gazebo
The beautiful arcades on either side afford a cozy passage that is a Godsend in inclement weather.
The hotel, one of the first examples of a hotel built as part of a park berm, started life as a cover for the ticketing complex. When estimates to build it ran around $80 million, Sotto conceived a “Crystal Palace Pavilions sort of thing” that would have maybe a Club 33 and some suites upstairs to help pay for it. This idea met with such enthusiastic approval that the structure quickly ballooned out to become the present-day Disneyland Hotel. While Tony Baxter expressed some concern that the massive structure would be out of proportion to the Main Street behind it, Sotto put in a multitude of tiny window panes to make it fit the scale.
In an effort to display American culture authentically and historically accurately, great pains were taken to find actual antique light fixtures and hand-screened wallpaper from San Francisco and adapt them for European usage.
Americana was on display everywhere, from baseball to Charles Dana Gibson’s famous Gibson Girl to actual cable car memorabilia bought from a private collection.
“One thing that happened was the Statue of Liberty, right? Yeah. Statue of Liberty. Well, so we did the Liberty Arcade. That’s a diorama of what it would be like the night it was unveiled in New York Harbor.”
As far as the park leadership was concerned, Sotto had many kind words for Michael Eisner and Frank Wells who took their families on a research trip with Sotto throughout Europe and were deeply engaged in making (then) Euro Disney a great park. One decision that came out of it was to abstain from creating another Jungle Cruise at Disneyland Paris, as they saw so many cheap imitations of the ride already operating at other knock-off theme parks.
“Here at Disney, though, we believe in the power of dreams. And when you believe, miracles happen.”
— Roy E. Disney
Even in the home stretch leading up to opening day, obstacles occurred, such as having to stop and prepare for a big press event in an attempt to repair their “cultural Chernobyl” reputation. Roy E. Disney and Michael Eisner spoke, and the one ride they had that was operational by then–the train–was on display.
Last minute design elements needed to be dreamed up on the fly, such as the big Mickey Mouse clock on the Disneyland Hotel, which was inspired by a timepiece Sotto saw at the Musée d’Orsay one weekend.
Challenges abounded, one of which arose when the candy store, themed around Atlantic City saltwater taffy, was being assembled. A gorgeous design element of six-foot tall glass tubes with central lighting would be filled with hand-blown Murano Italian glass candies. When the candies arrived, each individually wrapped, it took six cast members two days to unwrap them all, after which they had to be artfully arranged so that the light was transmitted just so through the mixture. Unfortunately, when the time came to drop them into the tubes, gravity proved too much for the fragile confections and they began breaking…until they developed a delivery method using lady’s pantyhose to lower them safely down.
“We’re telling an Americana story, not a political story. So it’s rich in contrast. And I think for the Hello Dolly thing, it did have this cinematic type of detail.”
Walt’s: An American Restaurant
As a final nod to the Walt Disney Family Museum, Sotto took some time on the development of Walt’s restaurant, which tied Walt Disney into the Main Street’s presentation of American Culture.
The genesis of Walt’s Restaurant came from Sotto’s childhood ungranted wishes to go to Club 33 in Disneyland–the sophisticated private club for VIPs only. He determined that if every guest is a VIP, then Walt’s would be the Club 33 for everyone. Here, everyone would get a chance to dine on the second floor in a private room, watching the parade go by–not Very Important People, but Very Individual People.
Among the many elaborate details was a dumb waiter (no longer in service) where the guest’s reservation card was sent up to the second floor so that by the time they got there, they could be addressed by name. Note that everything is decorated with Walt Disney’s initials, as they exist on some of the wrought-iron railings in New Orleans’s Square.
Guest could then have the option of ascending in an elevator very much like the one that used to take people up to the original Club 33.
Upstairs, each dining room represents a different land of the parks, as Victorians would have done it. Discoveryland, in Art Nouveau fashion, sports an elaborate fireplace, complete with Captain Nemo’s Nautilus.
Here, guests can enjoy the same type of view of Main Street Walt Disney enjoyed from his apartment on the second floor of the Firehouse, as they appreciate not a cultural Chernobyl, but a representation of American culture that is at its heart, fun, true, and purely Disney.
“[On opening night] the electrical parade is about to come down the street and I see a gentleman dressed very, very nice in his suit and as I recall he had a pipe in his mouth, and his wife or whoever had a beautiful Chanel outfit on. I thought ‘well…kind of a sophisticated audience here. I don’t know if they’re gonna love this…’“Ohh here we go. It’s opening night and so the parade comes down the street and it’s beautiful and the cast member next to me comes out of the store. She’s crying she says ‘…I grew up in this area. This is amazing that the fields have turned into this.’
“…And then I looked at the people. They’re gone. And I see two shadows in the darkness, and they’re waltzing with each other to the music. The classical music connected.
“And isn’t it true that the inner child, whether you’re from Europe or America, Disneyland gives you permission to let that back out? We can never forget that.”
See it for Yourself
If you enjoyed Sotto’s talk, be sure to check out all the many events constantly being held at the Walt Disney Family Museum throughout the year in the beautiful Presidio of San Francisco.
Sotto can be also found sharing thoughts and images from his long history of attraction Imagineering at x.com/boss_angeles.
