Calls To Change Walt Disney's Face After Comparison To My Pillow's Mike Lindell

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3 days ago

A new attraction at Disneyland Resort has fans talking for the wrong reasons (Photo by ... More AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
When Walt Disney introduced his Audio-Animatronic model of Abraham Lincoln at the 1964 World's Fair audiences were left spellbound by the way the life-sized robot could stand up from a seated position and moved its mouth in time to audio of a speech supposedly given by the former president. Just over 60 years later Disneyland in California has debuted an Audio-Animatronic of Walt himself which has again sent fans into a frenzy, but this time for very different reasons.
Walt was famously a futurist and Audio-Animatronics were amongst his most cherished inventions. His first test run was in 1951 when he built a nine inch-high model of a tap-dancing vaudeville theater performer dressed in a boater hat and a linen suit.
The tiny dancer cast a powerful spell as it convinced Walt that robots could populate attractions in Disneyland which was under development ahead of its opening in 1955. Nevertheless, it still took time for the first Audio-Animatronics to arrive in the theme park and when they did, they were birds not humans. They are the stars of a show called Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room which opened in 1963 and features more than 200 robotic birds with moving beaks which are synchronised to a tropical tune.
The show took off and was copied at Disney World in Orlando as well as Tokyo Disneyland. It still plays in all three parks and set the scene for much more elaborate creations. The first was Lincoln which was moved to Disneyland's Opera House on its turn of the century-themed Main Street, U.S.A. The Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln show opened as part of Disneyland's tenth anniversary celebrations in 1965, one year before Walt's passing.
It was soon joined by the Carousel of Progress, a theater which rotates around a stationary stage and shows how technology has changed the life of the American family over the years. Disney hasn't looked back ever since and Audio-Animatronics are now a hallmark of its attractions.
In the early days, the robotic characters were powered by pneumatic systems and programmed on a device called an Animation Console which features a silhouette of the figure with an array of knobs and buttons on it. Each one activates movement from the flick of an elbow to the tilt of a head and a blinking eye. A show programmer recorded each movement in sequence with the audio and both were stored on magnetic tape. This was then transferred to a Digital Animation Control System for automated playback with the audio signals triggering the mechanisms that caused the figure to move.
Disney's ride designers, known as Imagineers due to their imaginative use of engineering, still need to program the movement sequences of Audio-Animatronics figures though this data is now stored digitally. Likewise, the figures themselves move much more fluidly than their ancestors thanks to tiny electric motors hidden inside their bodies.
One of the most significant advancements came in 2008 with the introduction of technology pioneered by Nasdaq-listed Palladyne AI, known at the time as Sarcos Robotics. It developed motors which have greater torque enabling robotic limbs to move faster and look more lifelike. The first character to feature them was the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz which appeared in an attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios park in Orlando. It moved in such a realistic way that it wasn't uncommon to hear guests ask whether the witch was a robot or played by an actress.
The neighboring Magic Kingdom park was home to another Audio-Animatronics milestone in 1998 when Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin swung open its doors. Guests compete against each other in the ride by shooting laser beams at targets in scenes based on the Oscar-winning Toy Story series of computer-animated movies made by Disney's subsidiary Pixar. Although the ride is traditional and slow-moving, when it opened, the queue was a whole new world.
It features a human-sized Audio-Animatronic of Buzz Lightyear himself and instead of having physical features, its face was digitally animated by Pixar and projected internally onto a curved screen in the character's helmet. It paved the way for the technology to be used in a boat ride based on Disney's hit animated movie Frozen.
Frozen Ever After's Animatronics were Disney's most advanced yet (Photo by Matt Stroshane/Disney ... More Parks via Getty Images)
Called Frozen Ever After, it is found in Disney's futuristic Epcot park in Orlando and features the same digital face technology as Buzz Lightyear. However, whilst that character was rooted to the spot, those in Frozen Ever After appear to walk, have natural arm movements and, most impressively, turn to face the boat, with their eyes tracking it, as it travels through the room.
The ride opened in 2016 but just one year later it had been upstaged with the debut of a land themed to Avatar at Disney's Animal Kingdom park in Orlando. Its boat ride travels through a dark and dense indoor jungle filled with glow in the dark plants. For the finale, the boat passes a life-sized Audio-Animatronic of one of the blue-skinned Na'vi humanoids who star in the movie. The towering model looks identical to the computer-generated on-screen characters in the movie and has arms which flail around wildly as it appears to play drums set into alien-like shells.
Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) reportedly had to develop 20 new technologies to bring it to life with its head alone having 42 degrees of freedom in addition to independent shoulder movements. Its latest counterpart isn't just more advanced, it took every spell in Disney's spell book to bring it to life.
The robot is the star attraction in Walt Disney – A Magical Life, a new show which opened in Disneyland on July 17, the park's 70th anniversary. Fittingly, it takes place in the same Main Street Opera House where Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln debuted decades earlier and, eventually, is scheduled to return, running in rotation with the new show.
The Opera House sits opposite Walt's former apartment above Disneyland's Fire Station and the location is no coincidence as the new show celebrates the legendary animator's life.
It starts with a queue inside a period-style room featuring art and designs for Disneyland hanging on wallpaper which has a floral design. The line winds around exhibits including original Audio-Animatronics from the Tiki Room and furniture from Walt's apartment in the park. Before the show begins, a screen set into a gilded frame shows a video of interviews with theme park luminaries talking about Walt's impact on the industry.
Guests are then ushered into a theater to watch a 15-minute film about Walt's life narrated by Disney's chief executive Bob Iger. Finally comes the main event as the screen rises and the curtains behind it open to reveal a meticulous recreation of Walt's Burbank office on a stage. There, leaning against the edge of his desk, dressed in his trademark grey suit, is the first-ever Audio-Animatronic of Walt Disney.
This segment of the show only lasts about two minutes and features dialogue taken from Walt's own speeches. The Audio-Animatronic's mouth doesn't just move in time to the speech, it also gesticulates to the audience, puts its hand on its hip, as Walt often did in television appearances, and even steps forward going from leaning to standing up. Its movement is eerily lifelike and it took much more than the wave of a magic wand to pull it off.
According to Disney, the sculpt depicts Disney in 1963 and it took WDI seven years to develop, from concept to creation. The designers reportedly even studied muscle structure and nuances of speaking and gesturing so that they could correctly mimic Walt's mannerisms and movements. The result features many innovations never before seen in a humanoid figure, including new methods to create more realistic skin and replicate the twinkle in Walt's eye which Imagineers established was because of what is known as a corneal bulge.
Staggeringly, despite nailing such complex details, the designers failed to hit the spot when it comes to Walt's most visible and fundamental feature of them all – his face. Unbelievably, Disney showed this off to the world before the attraction had even welcomed a single guest. It had strong similarities with a communications clanger last year when Disney released a far from perfect video of the controversial new Tiana's Bayou Adventure boat ride leading to a torrent of negative coverage.
The caliber of the footage of Walt Disney – A Magical Life came to light when media and Influencers began posting their own preview videos soon after the official one was released. "I think it looks significantly better in videos posted by content creators than the one posted by Disney's official socials," said Dakota Randall. 'Kind of stunning they went with a clip this unimpressive after the debacle of the initial ride-on video of Tiana's'
The problem was quickly spotted by Eddie Sotto, a former Disney Imagineer who was the architect of the turn-of-the-century themed Main Street at Disneyland Paris which is widely acclaimed as one of the most elaborate, ornate and immersive theme park lands that has ever been built. Talking about the footage of the Walt Disney – A Magical Life, Sotto said "in the company released videos, he seems to be lit rather flat. Lighting plays a big part in creating your impression of how face is shaped."
It is remarkable that Disney released a video of the robot in anything other than perfect conditions knowing how closely it would be scrutinised but that was just the start. Ironically, despite being billed as Disney's most lifelike Audio-Animatronic, its face bears little resemblance to Walt's leading to a deluge of excoriating criticism from fans.
Perhaps the biggest bone of contention is that the robot lacks Walt's extremely distinctive almost oval-shaped face. "I think a lot of it is the head shape truthfully. It throws the other features off, Walt's is a bit more oblong," said Max Taff. Tim Devine added that the 'proportions are off. Walt's head was a bit elongated. This model looks squished.'
Many observers were dumbfounded by its appearance given the length of time it took WDI to develop, the ability of the designers and the fame and importance of the subject. "It's simply his face that just doesn't look right," said Greg Tymop. "To the brilliant minds at WDI, that should've been the easiest part of this whole project, no?" Others were less forgiving.
"This is so far off visually I'm not sure how this was approved," said Elijah Erfon while KingdomParksIII analysed all the aspects which don't don't resemble Walt. 'Eyes arent right, eyebrows arent right, nose isnt right, mustache isnt right, head shape isnt right. These all contribute to him looking off...While the movements of the animatronic are honestly very impressive, his face not looking like him is incredibly distracting and hard for most people to overlook. The voice over and bad lip-syncing certainly doesn't help either.'
It soon caught the eye of leading pundits with Jonas Campbell saying "I cannot tell you how much I dislike this." It continued following the media preview as WDWInfo added that 'when I first saw the Audio-Animatronic, I didn't think it looked like Walt Disney at all, and honestly, I wondered if I was seeing things. It took a few minutes of hearing Walt's voice for it to sink in. Once it did, I was enamored, more by his words than his appearance.'
Theme park industry expert Robert Niles also attended the preview and concurred that "his head is a bit too wide, given photo and video references of the real Walt. The AA looks more like Walt's brother...or maybe Walt himself if he had not been dragging down a couple of packs of cigs every day.
'WDI edited together audio clips of Walt speaking for the animatronic's speech. Imagineers swore to me that they did not use AI for Walt's voice, but that they did have to normalize the clips to make it sound like a single speech. In doing so, I feel like they lost some of the bass and timbre that came to distinguish Walt's voice in his later years. WDI chose to visually depict Walt circa 1963, yet we hear what sounds like a younger Walt coming from an older Walt's body.'
Others saw the experience as touching and praised the emotional weight of hearing Walt's artificial voice in his recreated office. Aside from the face, the robot itself has had almost uniform praise and the same goes for the rest of the experience.
"There's going to be a lot of talk as to whether this looks exactly like Walt or not, but this project is so much more meaningful and layered than that discussion," wrote IGN. Reflecting this, USA Today's reporter wrote that 'I did not go into this show expecting, nor wanting, to see a mere physical replica of Disney. I wanted to experience his essence, to get a sense of how people felt in the legend's presence. This is something 'A Magical Life' undoubtedly delivers on.'
Some content creators tried in vain to claim that they saw similarities between Walt's face and that of his robotic representative but all it takes is a quick look at photos of them to see that this is far from the case. The deluge of disenchantment from fans and media at the preview was soon picked up by newspapers and magazines with People publishing a round-up of what it called "harsh words for the figure". The New York Times added that "fanatics are short-circuiting over" it.
The situation was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that just a few weeks ago Disney's arch rival Universal unveiled a ride in Orlando filled with ultra-realistic animatronics of classic monsters which look exactly like they do on-screen.
The coup de grace came when fans pointed out that the Audio-Animatronic of Walt looks uncannily like Mike Lindell, staunch supporter of President Donald Trump and chief executive of pillow manufacturing company My Pillow. Pictures of the two faces alongside each other went viral due to the strong similarity between them.
Many observers thought that the Walt Disney Animatronic looked more like My Pillow founder Mike ... More Lindell (Photo by)
"Mike Lindell: A Magical Life looks fantastic," wrote Jonas Campbell whilst Bill Zanetti added that he "just went and saw the new Mike Lindell attraction. Amazing likeness." PhantazMick01 said that "someone mentioned it looks like the MyPillow guy. And now I can't unsee it. Fix it immediately." He is part of a growing chorus.
The face of the Audio-Animatronic looks so unlike Walt that after just a few days of operations it has fueled suggestions that it could be updated, or plussed as it is known in the industry. It wouldn't be the first time as the same thing happened to Disney's Audio-Animatronic of Trump in the Hall of Presidents at its Magic Kingdom park in Orlando.
"Please please fix that awful face you designed" of Walt, said David Luis while Shawn Smith added "they might have to redo Walt." Sotto echoed this saying "the face needs to be fixed." However, he added that 'the film is a great lead in and the figure is just a part of that bigger story...Overall it's very good. Exhibits nice, film great, I enjoyed it in total.'
When asked if he thinks WDI will update any of its Audio-Animatronic Sotto replied "probably the face since there is significant pushback, but maybe not." Disney declined to comment on whether it will update the robot but it may not be long before it gets an opportunity to do work as it broke down on its very first day.
Exactly 70 years after Disneyland opened, the Audio-Animatronic of its founder reportedly came to an abrupt halt just after standing up causing the lights to go down and the show to stop.
"This whole project just continues to go from bad to worse. It's a shame really," wrote the Savethemagic account. "This is why Walt shouldn't be an animatronic. The second it breaks you dishonor the man and he's a side show attraction," added Goofy Fun. "Walt Disney's likeness going viral for all the wrong reasons," said DisneyScoopGuy. "This is exactly what I was worried about when they announced a Walt Disney animatronic was coming to Disneyland." He wasn't the only one who had this concern.
One of Walt's closest living family members pleaded with Disney not to proceed with the robot according to the LA Times. After the robot was announced last fall Walt Disney's granddaughter Joanna Miller described it in a Facebook post as "dehumanizing him". She added that relatives of late Disney artist Sam McKim told her that Walt "never wanted to be an animatronic...Knowing that he did not want this. Having your predecessors tell you that this was out of bounds...So so Sad and disappointed."
She told the LA Times that her mother, Diane, who died in 2013 and was the guiding force behind the foundation of San Francisco's Walt Disney Family Museum, also put the brakes on it building an animatronic of Walt. "Grampa deserves new technology for this museum, but not to be a robot himself," she said according to Miller.
The Times added that after her Facebook post, Miller wrote a letter to Iger saying "I strongly feel the last two minutes with the robot will do much more harm than good to Grampa's legacy...They will remember the robot, and not the man." Miller was reportedly invited to meet with Iger and members of WDI who showed her the Audio-Animatronic ahead of its unveiling. She says that when she saw it "I think I started crying...It didn't look like him, to me."
Walt Disney's grand-daughter Joanna Miller was upset by the representation (Photo by Rob ... More Latour/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images)
The Times notes that WDI has not found any evidence that Walt did not want to be turned into an Audio-Animatronic and, according to CNN, Kirsten Komoroske, executive director of the Walt Disney Family Museum said three generations of Walt and his wife Lillian's family have seen the attraction and were "so moved and so touched." It added that Roy P. Disney, Walt's great-nephew, also attended previews and supported the effort. The Times notes that there is little that could be done to stop the show anyway as the Walt Disney Company bought the rights to Walt's name, likeness and portrait in 1981 for $46.2 million in stock which Miller claims was her family's biggest mistake.
The new show comes at a crucial time for Disney. Its Experiences division, which includes its theme parks, generated just over a third of its $91.4 billion revenue last year but nearly 60% of its $15.6 billion operating income. They were record results and the same goes for the division's growth with revenue rising 5% and operating income up 4%. Heading into 2025, Disney said it expected to see 6% to 8% profit growth for experiences in the current fiscal year.
However, since then the global tourism outlook has worsened, partly due to the threat of Trump's tariffs. In May the Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC) announced that U.S.-based travel agency air ticket sales dropped 4% year over year in April marking the third straight month of declines and the largest decrease in 10 months.
"At the end of the day, travel is consumer discretionary spend and when people see capital market volatility, trade uncertainty, they tend to pull back in discretionary areas like travel and we do think that is happening right now," Trevor Young, analyst at Barclays told CNBC in June. The previous month investment research firm Morningstar reported that travel booking site Expedia was experiencing softening demand in its core U.S. market amid tariff uncertainty.
Major hospitality companies Hilton, Hyatt and Wyndham also cut their full-year outlooks in May, citing the challenging macro environment and softening consumer demand amid concerns that travelers are holding off on trips.
Perhaps most worryingly, in April the Conference Board survey showed that consumer confidence outlook had hit its lowest level since 2011 as tariff fears rose. Then, just last week it was reported that the esteemed University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey hit 61.8 in July which was 16% below December 2024 and far less than its high of over 100 at the start of 2020.
The biggest mystery is how an Audio-Animatronic of such a significant figure ended up looking like this. One user on social media suggested: "here's what I think happened. WDI developed the latest generation AA head with all the new motors etc. but it wasn't the right shape for Walt's features so rather than design and build an entirely new head, they adapted his likeness onto the existing head." In reply Sotto said 'stuff like that is more probable than you think.'
Sotto described this kind of design brief as a 'tall Order. As humans we have an innate sense of what is 'real' to us. Beyond physical comparison, so many subtle cues make up our 'likeness'. A bit of gravel in our voice, a pregnant pause, a glance. I wonder if it's even possible for an AA to emulate the charisma, passion, and 'inner child' in the eyes that actually come together to form the true 'likeness' of the Walt Disney we connected with on TV?'
Jim Shull, a former Imagineer who worked on multiple Disney parks during a career which spanned three decades, agreed that this task would not be a walk in the park. "I have experience creating a show celebrating Mr. Disney because I was the Creative Lead for 'One Man's Dream', which was part of the '100 Years of Magic' celebration at Walt Disney World. During the design and production, I discovered that delivering a show about Walt Disney is harder than it might appear. Everyone has their memory of Walt and people soon started picking at the show presented."
As leading news site That Park Place reported, the big question is 'how do you preserve the legacy of a man who was famously human, imaginative, and deeply personal, without reducing him to a technological novelty?'
The answer could come from the late Blaine Gibson, a sculptor for WED Enterprises, the forerunner to WDI. Gibson worked with Walt on the Tiki Room as well as Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and sculpted the statue of him and Mickey which stands to this day in Disneyland's Central Plaza. Gibson was reportedly asked in 1995 if there should ever be an Audio-Animatronic figure of Walt and replied:
'There are several reasons I would be against doing that..and it isn't just the 'sacred' aspect of it. I know just how crude our medium is, relative to the human figure. You can't get Walt's smile...you can't program that smile that I've got on Walt's statue and have him be able to go into that. You'd have to move from a scowl to a smile, because Walt at times would get a twisted up expression and one eyebrow would go up. He had a facial range that was absolutely beyond our capability. Lincoln is believable because we have no personal memories or films of his speech and mannerisms...Walt was a man whose movements meant something, and his expressions were so lively and enthusiastic. You can't get that with an animatronic figure.'
Ironically, Walt Disney – A Magical Life opened just a few days after Disneyland unveiled a new ornamental etched window on Main Street honoring Walt and Lillian's 100th wedding anniversary. This is ironic as it was met with unanimous applause with expert pundit WDWPro describing it as 'good for Disney. Excellent addition to Disneyland and long overdue.'
This might have been a better 70th anniversary flagship than the show as it's traditional, simple and far less controversial. However, Imagineering isn't known for taking the easy route. Indeed, Walt himself once said "it's kind of fun to do the impossible." That may end up being the perfect description of Disney's attempt to create an authentic Audio-Animatronic of him.