Here's Where It Gets Interesting - 18. Florida: Florida Forever with Dani Coke

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

For this episode, Sharon and her guest Danielle Coke take a look into the Happiest Place on Earth - Disney World, and the man who created it. The two take their love for Walt Disney and dive deep into his past, including his unconventional approach to be involved in the US Army during World War I and his first big feature film Snow White. In this episode, you’ll learn how Walt Disney built his empire from humble beginnings and helped put Florida on the map as a massive tourist location with the opening of Disney World. As a bonus, Danielle is a former Disney employee and can confirm that these stories are not your typical Disney stories. For more information on this episode including all resources and links discussed go to https://www.sharonmcmahon.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yay, you are here and I am thrilled to be sharing this story with you. I am joined today by Dani Koch, who is a gem of a human being. You probably know her from her viral Instagram account, OhHappyDani. Absolutely solid gold, must follow in my opinion. This story is about somebody that both Dani and I have admired, looked up to. He is a household name. You already know who he is, but I have dug up some brain-tingle, mind-blown moments that Danny didn't know, and I was very impressed with myself.

So I think you're going to love this one. Let's dive into The Man Who Changed Florida Forever. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Dani, you're here, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thank you for having me. Oh, you are a delight and a treasure, and I hope you know that, and I hope you feel that on a daily basis. Your graphic design, your wisdom on your Instagram account. I've been following you for a long time. And every single time I visit your account, I have a sense of admiration for you.

I love what you do and I love how you do it. That means a lot. Coming from you, queen of Instagram. Thank you so much. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, you know, learn to rest, not give up. Yes. I hope you will do that because I know how much heart and how much work goes into doing what you're doing. Right. I love it. Really good advice. I just love everything about your account. I wanted to bring you on

because we have a shared common hobby slash thing that we enjoy. And I was like, you know, who would be so fun to talk to about this story that I wanted to share is Danny. And the thing that I noticed that you love that I too love is Disney world. Yes. Oh my God. Yes. I love everything about Disney world. So I have a great story to share with you today about Disney world, about Walt Disney. Hopefully this is some good stuff that you've never heard before. Oh, I'm excited. I've dug deep to come up with something that you as a Disney fan, hopefully do not know. Okay. But I do want to let you know something though, but you might already know this. Do it. That I worked there. I did not know that you were a cast member. Yeah. Tell me,

what did you do as a cast member? Yeah. So I did the Disney college program in fall of 2017. Okay. And I was a merchandise cast member in Epcot. And so I rotated between seven different stores. Okay. Seven different costumes. It was exhausting, but it was a lot of fun. What stores did you work in? Tell me all the things. Oh my gosh. Okay. I will try my best to remember. So there was Club Cool, the place where you can taste all the Cokes, Test Track, Mission Space, Nemo. Oh, the kiosks outside where we wore the flag shirts. Yep. And then the ride where you're going and seeing all the plants. Yeah. Living with the land. That's what it is. Yes, that's a fun ride when you're tired. Yeah, when you just want to chill for a second.

You want to chill and be like, look at those bean plants. Look at those hidden Mickeys in the sand. Exactly, you got it. So now the pressure's on. I think I still dug some stuff up that you probably don't know. I'm excited, let's do it.

Everybody, especially you as a cast member, would know that Walt Disney came from humble beginnings, that he grew up in the Midwest, and he really kind of idealized this small town that he grew up in in Missouri, and that was the inspiration for Main Street USA in Magic Kingdom. That was the inspiration for Main Street USA in Magic Kingdom. He eventually, when he was about 11, left Marceline, Missouri, which is where he spent most of his childhood, and they moved back to Chicago. And he went to high school in Chicago. He took classes at the Chicago Art Institute. He started doing political cartoons for his school newspaper. He just loved it, but I don't think he knew that it could become a career for him. Obviously, he was a pioneer of so went overseas in World War I. He was the fourth of five children. So he wanted to go too. He saw his older brothers

and he wanted to go as well. Problem was he was only 16. He wasn't old enough to join the army and fight in World War I. So he and his buddy decided we could actually run away and sneak over the border into Canada and we could join the army in Canada because Canada will take us as 16-year-olds. What? Yes. And so he and his buddy packed their bags. They were going to run away at night to go to Canada to join the army to fight in World War I. His buddy's mom found her son's suitcase and immediately contacted Walt's mom and was like, do you have any idea what these boys, his friend's name was Russell, do you have any idea what these boys are up to? They're planning to leave the country. And Walt's mom was like, that's unacceptable. You're not allowed to go to Canada to join the army. That's not okay. So he decided, you know, okay, fine. I won't go to Canada,

but I did find another way that I can contribute, which is I could drive an ambulance for the Red Cross. Wow. And they would let me do that if I was 17. So he asked his mother for permission to alter his birth certificate. What? So that it would appear as though he was 17 and he could become an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in France during World War I. And his mother said, okay. And so he took his considerable art talent and altered his birth certificate so that it looked like he was born in 1900 instead of 1901. And he presented himself at the Red Cross and was like, I would like to be of service. He later described in an interview that he felt like he did not want to grow up and face his children and have his children say, what did you do to contribute to the war effort? What

did you do for your country? And for him to say nothing, he just couldn't stomach that idea. He was willing to lie to be able to go do something, make some kind of contribution. They say, okay, great. You're 17. You could be an ambulance driver. We're going to send you here to the training facility, which was outside of Chicago. You're going to get some training on like, here's how to fix an ambulance. Here's how to, you know, do all the things you're going to need to know how to do. While he was in the middle of training, the Spanish flu pandemic hit the United States in such a significant way that a huge chunk of the people he was in this training program with were killed by the Spanish flu

pandemic. He had family members that died. And then Walt got sick with the Spanish flu. The people at the training program said to him, do you have the ability to go home? Because if you go to the hospital, you are probably not going to make it out of the hospital. That's how bad it is. Can you go home? And the training program was not far outside of where he lived. And so he said, yeah, I can go home, but he was too sick to make it home. They had to bring him home in an ambulance and carry him in a stretcher up the stairs to his house. And his mom answers the door and there's her son in a stretcher. Needless to say, he lived, but it delayed him leaving for France to be an ambulance driver.

Delayed. So that means he still ended up doing it. That's right. So he had a dream clearly in September of 1918 is when he got sick and he eventually ended up leaving in November of 1918. But the war had already ended. The war had ended and he was like, I still need to go. And they said, we still need help. There's going to be an occupation period where we're going to have this transition. We're going to still need help with ambulance drivers. So he sailed across the ocean to France on a cattle boat. Talk to me about a cattle boat. I know, right? Like they took out all of the stanchions that cows would normally have where they put their head in. It kind of keeps them from walking around. They took all of those things out and retrofitted it so it could house artillery and it could house weapons. And then the people could sleep wherever, probably down below.

There was some kind of hold. But it was not luxurious accommodations by any stretch of the imagination. It was a cattle boat. Oh, my God. A cattle boat to France. France. This man was not playing with anybody. No.

He gets to France and he gets assigned to the countryside in France where he is billeted, where he's told he needs to sleep in this kind of abandoned chateau where there was no heat of any kind. And he would have to wrap himself in newspapers to try to stay warm at night because it's winter in France. And after a period of time, they transfer him out of this chateau and into Paris where there's bigger, busier hospital. And he worked for a number of months. He was in France for close to a year. One of the things that he did while he was there was as men who

had been in the army were leaving to return home to the United States, many of them wanted a souvenir. They wanted something to take back home to be like, I fought in that war. And one of the things that Walt did to make money while he was in France was he painted military helmets to look as though they were German sniper helmets and that they were battle scarred, like they had dings and bullet holes. It made it seem like to somebody who wanted to buy one of these, like I've got this helmet from a German, like, you know, I defeated them and I got his helmets. Somewhere out there are some of Walt's souvenirs that he painted. He made a considerable amount of money painting those and sent the money home to his parents and contributed to the family with his artistry, even when he was a really young man serving

in France. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday.

Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. So he arrived back home in the United States, September of 1919, and he immediately gets a job doing cartoon work, drawings, political cartoons, all of that kind of stuff. He starts a little cartoon company called Laugh-O-Grams. And Laugh-O-Grams ultimately did not do super great because he was forced to declare bankruptcy. And this was by 1923. He was 22

years old and had already done all of this stuff, started this business. Ultimately, the business didn't go super well, but he was out there trying. He was trying, right? Like you can be Walt Disney. Yes, and fail. Completely fail, have to declare bankruptcy. After he declared bankruptcy in 1923, he and his brother, everyone who knows Disney knows that he and his brother Roy were partners in this endeavor. He and his brother Roy moved to California because the movie industry was really starting to heat up in the early 1920s in California. And they started their own business called Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, which they of course later changed to Walt Disney Studios. And we all know about Steamboat Willie, his revolutionary Mickey Mouse cartoon. He didn't actually draw Mickey Mouse, by the way. He was not

the animator of Mickey Mouse. They had a friend that did that, but he was the voice of Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney was the voice of Mickey Mouse? Yes. He was the voice of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie. I did not know that you got him. I didn't know most of this, but that is really cool. Yep. He didn't draw it, but he voiced it. And Steamboat Willie came out when he was 27. So he is already out there changing the world, being super innovative by the time he was 27. So he is already out there changing the world, being super innovative by the time he was 27 years old. He was having all of the success and he really wanted to start getting into feature animated films. Again, most Disney fans know that Snow White was his first animated feature length film. And he knew it was going to be extremely expensive to produce

because everything was hand-drawn. I mean, computer animation is also very expensive to produce, but when you have to hand-draw and hand-watercolor every single cell of an animated movie, a feature-length movie, it costs a lot of money, takes a lot of time. Banks rejected his idea for Snow White 300 times. They said, that's not going to work. Nobody's interested in that. No one will go to see that. And he persisted. Talk about persistence, right? Most people would give up after five rejections, maybe. A good two rejections. And I'm like, all right, maybe. You would be considered persistent if you persisted through 10 rejections. Yeah. Right? Like, dang, 10 rejections and you kept going? 300 times bankers rejected his idea

for Snow White. Obviously, he ended up getting the movie made and it was wildly popular. It made $1.49 million during the great depression, which is significant. It is the equivalent of $27 million in today's money during the depression. Oh my gosh. So that just shows how committed people were to seeing it, how much they loved his work, that they were willing to spend what little money they had to see something so extraordinary yes and the beauty and the fun fantastical aspects of it it reminds me a lot of why illustration is so impactful in hard times people see it it's nostalgia it connects them to something that has a positive impact and they're like, this might be hard out here, but this movie right here, this illustration right here has me. Yes. It really is like a moment of escape. Amazing. I love it. Snow White was so successful that the following year after Snow White came out,

three universities awarded Walt honorary master's degrees. Honorary master's degree from Yale, from Harvard, and from USC for his contributions. From that one movie? Just from his contributions to animation. Oh, in general. Just in general, his contributions to the world. But that happened in June of 1938, and he and his brother had done so well that they were able to buy their parents a house in California. You know, isn't that kind of the dream of a lot of young people? Like that is how you know you've made it when you can set your parents up. So he buys his parents a house. They moved to California. And in November of 1938, his mother called him and said, I think the furnace is leaking. Could you come take a look at

it? And so he sent over a couple of people from his studios to just take a look at his parents' furnace. They fixed the furnace and left. His parents' housekeeper came to their house the next day and both of his parents were unconscious. The housekeeper dragged both of his parents out onto the lawn. His father was hospitalized and was very sick and his mother, Flora, died. No. She died from a gas leak. The idea that number one, he bought this house. Number two, he sent the people over to fix it and it killed his mother was gut wrenching to him. He never wanted to talk about it. It was something that was so painful for him that he really just kind of stuffed it down inside that he was somehow responsible for his mother's death. Some of his biographers have noted the correlation

between how Disney movies frequently do not have a mother character and how he viewed himself as responsible for his mother's death. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, this is so true. Get out a list. And a huge chunk of them have some kind of evil stepmother, dead parents, mother who dies, you know. Tragic mother.

Yes, yes. Yeah. And some of that does have to do with, it's a mechanism to help a character grow up faster if they don't have loving guidance. They're forced to confront adversity more quickly. You can understand as a plot point why sometimes that is a device that's used,

but some biographers have said there is a correlation between his mother's death at a relatively young age and the future lack of mothers in Disney movies. And it makes complete sense. Yes. Also, have you noticed in Sleeping Beauty, one of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty is named Flora. Flora. Which is his mother's name. Oh, my goodness. But you're blowing my mind. I knew none of it.

I call these like brain tingles where you're like, what? Where you feel like you didn't know that and it's exciting to learn new things. I love those kind of moments. Yes. I've just had like five of those. So Walt's a very patriotic man. You know, he goes to France and underage because he needs to. During World War II, he got contracted by the United States government to produce propaganda films for the United States during World War II. One of the films that he was commissioned to make

was called The New Spirit. It was commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, and it was designed as one of those little movie shorts that run before the movies. And it was meant to encourage people to pay their taxes as part of a war effort. Like, support our troops, pay your taxes. Wow.

You can Google the new spirit and see some of Walt's propaganda films. There were some that involved very unflattering caricatures of German soldiers where they're being depicted in an evil manner. But he made a number of those kind of shorts as what he viewed as his contribution to the war effort in World War II. Wow. In a different way. That's

a very full circle moment. Yes. Like now I have the power to contribute in a different manner. Wow. Everyone knows that Walt Disney opened Disneyland in the 1950s. He spent $17 million building Disneyland, which is the equivalent of $165 million today. Isn't that crazy? That is wild. $165 million. And of course, it was a wild success. One of the things that he started noticing shortly after Disneyland opened was he bought this parcel of land, which was an orange Grove to convert to being Disneyland in orange County, California. Very quickly, all of the surrounding areas got bought up and businesses opened on all of the property surrounding Disneyland. And he didn't like that. He felt like, I don't want to drive past a shady whatever on my way to Disneyland. He wanted

control over more land. He also did market research and found that only 5% of his guests came from east of the Mississippi. It was largely West Coast guests that were coming to Disneyland. Only 5% came from east of the Mississippi and 75% of Americans lived east of the Mississippi. So he knew that I should look for a parcel of land where I can create something bigger. I can create something that I have more control over and I can have easier access to the entire East coast, which is where most people lived at the time. So it took him a number of years to find where he wanted to locate in Florida. We all know he located Disney world in Florida and surveyed all these properties from an aerial perspective, finally honed in on central Florida.

And one of the reasons he picked that area was U.S. military bases made it so that there were roads and an airport so that it would be easy to travel to. It wasn't in the middle of absolutely nowhere where people couldn't get to it. He eventually purchased over 30,000 acres of property. Disney World's incredibly vast, but he didn't want people to know that he was buying the land. He didn't want this giant run on speculation where everybody would buy up all the surrounding land like they did at Disneyland. So he bought all of the property under fake names. He created all these fake corporations called like Latin American Development and Management Corporation, or the I-4 Corporation, spelled A-Y-E-F-O-U-R, which is about Interstate 4.

Interstate 4, yes. Yes. Another one's called the Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation. Reedy Creek. Reedy Creek. So all of these were just shill companies for his land acquisition. A lot of the land was really easy to buy because it was swamp. Nobody wanted it, but he didn't want anybody else to know what was going on. Also, did you know that Tufts University owned the mineral rights to the land underneath all of this property that he was purchasing? And so he did not want to have to deal with them down the road where they were like, we have discovered oil underneath Disney World. Disney World. So he then had to separately negotiate with Tufts University to buy out their mineral leases so that they could not come back and try to mine for anything underneath

Disney World down the road. Wow. He did his best to try to keep all this land acquisition secret. People started noticing that a lot of the land was being purchased and they thought, I wonder if it's NASA. I wonder if it's the Rockefellers. I wonder if it's Ford Motors and the Orlando Sentinel, the newspaper there in, in, started doing some sniffing around. They interviewed Walt Disney directly at an event at Disneyland and they asked him point blank, are you buying all the land in Central Florida? And he flat out denied it. He lied. He lied. The reporter was a woman and she was like, I don't know if I believe you. So she kept digging and finally figured out it is him. And they ran this big front page story. It's definitely Disney. And his cover was blown. And he had not wanted to make

an announcement until November of 1965. He wanted to have like a big announcement with the governor of Florida. And he was forced to make his announcement early. And the governor of Florida said, this is the greatest attraction in the history of Florida. He didn't like how it had to come out, but ultimately it did. So then Walt died the next year. He died in 1966 before Disney World could really even get started. He had bought the land, but nothing really had happened yet.

It was sad, but Roy was committed to seeing Walt's vision come to life. Walt's vision come to life. And they had to build 50 miles of levees and canals to drain the water. They needed to remove it from the waterways, but still leave it in place because they needed access to the fresh water. It was a very complicated system to even prepare the land to build it. They had to scoop out Bay Lake and clean out all the muck from Bay Lake. And then they constructed Seven Seas Lagoon, which I know you know is a man-made lagoon where a lot of the resorts are around. And they took the dirt from Seven Seas Lagoon to build the Magic Kingdom, which of course sits on the second story. And most people know there's tunnels, a whole network of utilidor tunnels underneath the main level. Yeah, we got to walk all in there.

I think that's so fascinating. I would love to do that tour someday. So the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971. I'm sure you know that too. And it took 9,000 And it took 9,000 construction workers over 18 months to build it. And it cost $400 million, which is today $2.6 billion. Magic. It is. And currently, Disney World has annual payroll of over $3 billion a year, which is insane. But there's one other little thing I want to drop on you. Well, maybe two things.

We basically have Walt Disney, this talented but humble man from the Midwest, to thank for almost all of Florida's influence on things like presidential elections. George W. Bush is probably president because of Walt Disney. After Disney World opened within one year, the population of Florida had increased by half a million people. In the 1970s, Florida had 15 seats in the House of Representatives. And now after the 2020 census, they're going to have 28. They're the third most populated state in part because of Disney World. Political scientists in Florida say there's just no doubt that Florida is what it is because of Walt Disney.

Of course, the 2000 presidential election, so hotly contested. Nobody knew who won for 36 days. They were recounting and recounting and recounting and recounting just the state of Florida. Just Florida. Just the state of Florida. It came down to whoever wins Florida is going to be president. Yeah. Literally. I'll save you all the gory details. But the bottom line is that George W. Bush won the presidency by approximately 500 votes. And it came down to Florida because Florida was large enough to swing the presidential election in one direction or the other. And Florida was large enough in large part because of Walt Disney. It's fascinating.

And Florida was large enough in large part because of Walt Disney. It's fascinating. And the former governor of Florida said there are three events in Florida history that have the biggest impact. Number one is its, quote unquote, discovery by Ponce de Leon, right? Number two is the building of the East Coast Railway connecting Florida to the rest of the country. And number three, Walt Disney World. It's right up there with being landed on by European explorers. Yes. Quite the legacy.

And here's my last little tidbit, which is my dad helped build Walt Disney World. Oh, wow. Isn't that cute? Yeah. That's awesome. What did he do? He's a carpenter. And in the 1970s, this is before I was born, he just heard that there's tons of work in Florida, like more work than they know what to do with. This was after the Magic Kingdom opened. So he didn't work on the attractions in the Magic Kingdom, but he worked on the surrounding resort areas.

He heard there was tons of work, and this is what it took for him to get a job. He packed up his station wagon and arrived in Winter Park, Florida, found the office for the Carpenters Union, walked in and presented his union card from where he lived in Minnesota, was like, I'm a carpenter. And they were like, super. When would you like to start? Oh, wow. Yeah, literally. Just like that. That was all it took was just presenting his union card to the Carpenter's Union office in Winter Park, Florida. And he got himself an apartment and, you know, all that kind of stuff and works building portions of Disney World for a couple of years. That's amazing. He was very proud

of having worked on Disney World. He talked about that frequently. We went several times together and my husband loves Disney World. And I like to imagine my dad passed away a few years ago but I like to imagine uh him in the 70s working on all this behind the scenes stuff about a place that is near and dear to my heart yeah and mine and yours yay that was the best I learned like 4,000 different things just now yay I'm glad you enjoyed it I really wanted to pick something that you would enjoy and that I would enjoy. And we enjoy the same thing. That's exciting. Oh my gosh. That's the best. Give me very quickly. What are some of your top favorite attractions? My favorite attraction of all time is Soarin' at Epcot. It's so good. It's so good. You just get in there and

you're literally floating over the world and it's just so magical. I just get in there and you're literally floating over the world. And it's just so magical. I just love that I could smell things too. I love the smells. So that's number one. Number two, Flight of Passage. So good. It's remarkable. Soaring, but better.

Don't tell them I said that. So yeah, that's the second one for sure. And then I would have to say that Lion King show. It's so good too. I love the Lion King show. Yeah. I've seen it so many times and I'm never tired of it. So good. So, so good. But yeah, those are definitely probably my top three. And then Happily Ever After, that's its own thing. The fireworks spectacular that they have now.

So special. I will sob. I will just cry. I cry every single time I watch it. People are like, it's fireworks. No, no, no. It's the reason why I believe that I will just cry. I cry every single time I watch it. People are like, it's fireworks. No. No. No. It's the reason why I believe that I can do anything. Yes. Every single time I watch it, I am just like, oh my God, anything is possible. Anything is possible.

Oh, it's so magical. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things, though, I consistently love about Disney World is the creativity in its attractions. It's not just about being the biggest, the tallest, the fastest, the most upside down things. It's the ride queues are spectacular. Everywhere you look, there's something special to see. The parks are so pristinely maintained. There's a reason they call it the happiest place on earth.

Absolutely. Dani, this is absolutely a pleasure. So much fun. Tell everybody where to find you. Oh, yes, of course. Well, you can find me on Instagram or anything at Oh Happy Dani. And there's two H's, Oh Happy Dani. And my website is OhHappyDani.com.

If you want to check out some art about anti-racism and empathy and just ways that we can be better neighbors to each other. I think that'd be awesome to see you. Yes. All of the governors need to go visit right now because what you do and how you do it, I think really embodies the governor ethic. Oh, the governors are world changers. Let me just say, it's amazing. Absolutely are. Well, I would love to have you back any day. Yeah. It was an honor. Thank you again. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon says so podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling

extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind-blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.