Introduction

Disney has been so prolific and successful that it is hard to imagine that many of its most intriguing projects despite significant investments of time, talent and money ended up abandoned and forgotten.

Disney developed enough unfinished projects to fill several books. In fact, I wrote an entire book about one of them, the famous unmade animated feature film Gremlins based on the novel authored by Roald Dahl. (Gremlin Trouble, Theme Park Press 2017)

Projects ranging from Disney’s America theme park in Virginia to the animated feature Chanticleer to the Dick Tracy’s Crimestoppers attraction that would have been in a 1920s Chicagoland area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios are missing from this book along with so many other things because of space limitations. There are more stories left to tell.

Many reasons can prevent a project from going forward including lack of sponsorship to help offset the cost, lack of existing technology to make something work, unresolved problems with the story, and not having the right talent that can make the dream a reality.

Of course a big reason is lack of money. Disney, after all, has always been a business and to remain in business must produce projects that will return more than enough money to compensate for the total cost of the project as well as a healthy profit to invest in new projects.

Imagineers and animators constantly dream up new things but most of them never get any further than some concept artwork. In some cases, perhaps a small model was prepared. Most of these dreams never materialized and it is just part of the normal development process.

Some ideas were put aside and brought back years later for another project. Walt conceived of the idea of the prince and princess dancing in the clouds for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) but when he couldn’t use it there, he considered it for Cinderella (1950). It finally appeared in Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Because things in this book were abandoned projects, Disney did not always maintain full documentation, artwork and definitely not models connected to them. Sometimes the only information that still exists comes from official publicity announcements or perhaps the people who worked on them and the few written souvenirs or photos they may have saved for their personal enjoyment.

When the plans for a Switzerland pavilion for Epcot’s World Showcase were cancelled, the stunning concept art painting was simply tossed into a dumpster because it was no longer needed. It was saved by an Epcot executive who had it framed and hung in his office until his retirement. He generously explained details on it to me one day when I was working in his area including how it would have featured a version of Disneyland’s Matterhorn.

A friend who worked as an animator on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) showed me artwork intended for the never animated scene of the funeral of Marvin Acme. One sequence had a Fleischer Studio Superman on his knees and sobbing while holding in his hands Mighty Mouse who was also crying at the loss of their human friend who meant so much to their animation community.

As Imagineer Eddie Sotto told me when I interviewed him about several Disney projects he worked on that never got made:

The unbuilt pavilion concepts never suffer budget cuts and always have the unfair advantage of being flawless in our imagination! There are always more ideas than there is room to put them or pay for them.

I have always been fascinated by things that were announced but never completed. I have also been equally fascinated by the stories behind those projects and why they never developed. Here are a few of my favorite stories.