Epcot : You either hump it ( tope around the world ! ) , or you think of it as “ that educational melodic theme park . ”
Walt Disney’soriginal ideafor EPCOT — the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow — was a place where mass would really live and study , developing innovative answer for community problem . Walt died before his vision could be realized , and no one at the fellowship felt comfortable taking on this behemoth of a project . rather , they retooled the commons entirely , brainstorming many dissimilar theme about the direction it should take .
Disney Imagineers have longmaintainedthat Epcot is the result of actually push together two of the theme park fashion model that come out of those brainstorm school term — a futuristic , engineering - free-base car park and a lasting World ’s Fair parkland . But the class of Robert M. Jaffray , a U.S. Air Force veteran from Ohio who pass in 2000 , says that one of those musical theme did n’t belong to to Disney .
They contend that Jaffray came up with the approximation for a “ Miniature Worlds ” theme car park back in the 1950s and pitched the conception to Disney in 1963 . Similarities , theyclaimed , include bombastic orb - like structure at the entering , outdoor amphitheaters , telling flower gardens , various pavilions , a plethora of nation , indigenous landscape gardening , and corporate funding . But not all of the ideas for the parks were so similar . Jaffray ’s “ Miniature Worlds ” plans were really that : miniature . Heintendedfor each country to be exemplify by edifice that were close to shank - high .
Marty Sklar , one of the Imagineers who spearhead the Epcot labor after Walt ’s death , deniedseeing the Miniature Worlds draftsmanship or ever meet Robert Jaffray at all . Sklar cited other sources of breathing in for most of the “ World Showcase ” idea . The thought for a giant sphere centerpiece , for deterrent example , amount fromthe New York World ’s Fairs , and eventually became a geodetic domedevelopedby Buckminster Fuller .
The lawsuit came to an end in 2004 when a evaluator eventually jibe with Sklar and Disney , ruling that the estimation were not airless enough to deserve any financial recompense for Jaffray . “ While the Epcot rendering and the Miniature Worlds painting contain similar ideas , both works express these ideas dissimilarly , ” shewrote .
But that ’s not to say that Disneyhasn’tgotten in fuss for using theme park estimate without pass on proper quotation . In 2000 , a juryawarded$240 million to two businessmen who pitch Disney an idea for “ Sports Island ” in the late eighties . Though the companionship reject the approximation , Disney ’s all-inclusive World of Sports coordination compound in Orlando open up in 1997 with a very similar layout , construct , and business plan to what the two world had originally suggested . They ended up settling out of court .
