As a kid growing up in the ’70s, I spent more than my fair share of time at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. My brother-in-law and cousin worked on the construction of the “Vacation Kingdom,” so our family took a trip to Orlando every spring from pre-opening in 1971 until we moved to the city permanently in 1978.
One of my fondest memories is of “The Orange Bird,” a character designed by Walt Disney Productions and used by the Florida Orange Growers to promote Florida citrus. The Orange Bird was everywhere in the 1970s — flying with spokes-basher Anita Bryant in television commercials, represented on merchandise for sale at every roadside citrus stand and welcome center, perched behind the juice bar at the park’s Sunshine Tree Terrace, spinning on my record player, and occasionally as a walk-around character in front of the Tropical Serenade, Florida’s equivalent of Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Room, which the Florida Orange Growers not-so-coincidentally sponsored.
By the mid-1980s the Orange Bird was history, and by the early ’90s the merchandise could be had for half-off or more at any shops that still had stock, a situation I gladly took advantage of. Thus began my adult obsession with the Orange Bird. I figured I knew just about as much as anyone left alive — heck, I even tracked down the original animator of the television commercials — and last year wrote and produced a piece on the Bird for issue#1 of Magical Memories. Now I’ve discovered I probably don’t know nearly as much as I did, but not for long.
Disney artists Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily, who designed much of the fantastic Disneyland 50th Anniversary merchandise, are going to be giving a seminar at Hukilau 2007 on the topic of tiki at the Walt Disney World resort, including the history of the Polynesian Resort, the Tropical Serenade, and “more about the Florida Orange Bird than you ever thought possible.” Kevin & Jody have access to the Disney vaults and veterans who worked on the original attractions, so the information they’re going to present is probably going to widen my world, to steal a line from another classic WDW attraction. I can’t wait.
“Tiki Lands in a Disney World” seminar: $12. Saturday, June 16, 2:30-3:30 pm, part of Hukilau 2007.
Link to Hukilau event schedule
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