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Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Gillian Woodward.
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And I’m Roger Basick. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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Mickey Mouse is the most famous cartoon character. A cartoon is a drawn picture made to seem like it is moving. Mickey’s large round, black ears, wide smile, and happy personality have won fans for almost a hundred years. Walt Disney created Mickey. Ub Iwerks realized how he should look. Together, they laid the foundation for an empire. It is an empire full of joy, wonder, and a hidden world.
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Today’s Spotlight is about one of Walt Disney’s smartest ideas: the utilidors. We examine how he came up with this idea. We look at where he used it. We discuss how this idea affected his business and customers. We talk about the hidden world that developed from his idea.
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Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Oliver, started the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923. After their character, Mickey Mouse, became popular, they decided to make him the symbol of their company. After several years, they changed their company’s name to Walt Disney Studios. They began making movies and television shows. Some of their most popular characters were Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Mickey’s dog, Pluto. These characters were so popular that Walt Disney decided to build a theme park around his cartoons in California in 1955. The park would have rides and games. Disney called it Disneyland.
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One day in Disneyland, Walt Disney noticed an employee dressed as a cowboy walking through the area called Tomorrowland, a place dedicated to the future. But the cowboy’s area was Frontierland, a place dedicated to the United States’ past. Disney did not like seeing the cowboy out of place. He felt it would distract people inside the park. Disneyland was supposed to be a magical place where children and adults could escape to a world of imagination for a day. Disney wanted everything perfect for his visitors’ experience. He wanted it to feel like a wonderful dream. He needed to hide the real world. Disney said:
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“Get a good idea and stay with it. Work at it until it is done right.”
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Disney was not satisfied until his park was perfect. He was presenting a show for an audience. His employees needed to behave like actors. These actors needed a private area where they could prepare for the show without being seen. Disney wanted his staff to move around the park from one area to another without interrupting visitors. Deliveries, food service preparation, and all other supplies needed to be kept out of sight. How could Disney do this with millions of people visiting his park every year?
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The answer lay beneath his feet. Disney wanted to build a separate level below the park for all deliveries and preparations. Visitors would only see the finished product on the main level. But Disneyland was too small to add another level. His next park, Disney World, that opened in Orlando, Florida in 1971, would be bigger. Disney planned to build the park on top of a separate level for workers.
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The problem was the land in Florida that Disney wanted to build his new park could flood easily. Florida is a very wet place. Water fills the ground. Disney could not build a separate level below ground. Disney refused to give up. He wanted his new park to be a magical place free from interruptions. If he could not build lower, he would build higher. He hired retired United States Army General William “Joe” Potter. Potter had a lot of engineering experience. Together, they built a tunnel system on ground level. The tunnel formed a circle around the area where Magic Kingdom would be built. They also built a long pathway across the middle of the circle. Magic Kingdom was the first section of Disney World. Years later, park operators built three other sections. But the Magic Kingdom is the most famous.
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The tunnels on ground level were utility corridors, long passageways that had a functional purpose. Employees called them “utilidors,” combining the words “utility” and “corridor.” Disney wanted it to look like Magic Kingdom was on ground level. First, General Potter had his crew build the utilidors. They were fifteen feet high. Then these workers placed tons of dirt and sand on top. They smoothed it out to hide the utilidors. They created a new “ground floor” on top. The tunnels ran under nine acres of land.
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General Potter and Walt Disney built Magic Kingdom so guests would not notice they were gradually walking uphill. Disney did not want them to wonder what was underneath. He wanted nothing to trouble them.
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The walls inside the utilidors have different colors. The colors match a code that tells employees where they are. Without the color codes, the employees could get lost in the tunnels. On the main level, when employees finish working in their area of Magic Kingdom, they use unmarked doors to get down to the lower level. This way, no guests see a cowboy from Frontierland walking through Tomorrowland, as Walt Disney once saw.
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Employees either walk or ride through the utilidors in battery-powered vehicles. The tunnels are big enough for an ambulance or truck to drive through. The utilidors also hold the park’s security, sound, and computer systems. People make deliveries and store them in these underground corridors.
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For a long time, Disney World stored all the costumes in the utilidors for cast members who dressed like Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Snow White, and other characters. There were over a million costumes there. It was the biggest wardrobe department in the world.
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Each day, entertainment cast members pick up their costumes for the day. They often dress as several different characters on the same day. They check out all the costumes they will need for different locations in Magic Kingdom. One former cast member said:
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“Rolling black suitcases line the hallway. This allows the cast members to move their costumes through the tunnels more easily.”
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There are rehearsal rooms, administrative offices, a bank, and a cafeteria in the utilidors. They even have a barbershop if employees need a haircut.
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The millions of people visiting Disney World each year throw away a lot of trash. To get rid of it without guests noticing, Magic Kingdom uses an automated vacuum collection system, or AVAC, to collect all the trash. There are seventeen collection points around the park. The trash is sucked into underground tubes in the utilidors. The garbage moves through the tubes at sixty miles per hour. A machine pushes all the garbage into a solid block. Cast members drive the garbage cubes off the property without any visitors noticing.
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Over the years, people found out that Magic Kingdom was built on top of the utilidors. Many visitors wanted to see them. Disney World started offering a tour of the utilidors. The walking tour is called “Keys to the Kingdom.” It lasts five hours. It explores the hidden world beneath Magic Kingdom that Walt Disney once dreamed of creating. Jayme, who writes a tour blog called “The Northern Prepster,” took the “Keys to the Kingdom” tour. She said:
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“We were lucky to get a woman named Darlene who led our tour. She was able to offer us a perspective I think no other tour guide could. Her father was a Disney Imagineer hand-picked by Walt Disney himself. She shared with us her personal stories knowing Walt as a young girl.”
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A Disney Imagineer helps create and design parks, rides, and hotels for Walt Disney Studios. Darlene’s father helped Walt Disney make his dreams come true. They created a magical place where everyone’s dreams can now come true.
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Have you ever been to Disney World? Did you go to the one in Florida or somewhere outside the United States? Did you know that Magic Kingdom in Florida was built on top of the utilidors? You can leave a comment on our website at www.spotlightenglish.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and X. You can also get Spotlight episodes delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
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The writer of this episode was Peter Anderson. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this episode and voiced by Spotlight. No AI or artificial intelligence was used in this episode. Spotlight episodes are written, voiced, and produced by real people for real people, no matter where in the world they live. This episode is called “The Utilidors: A Hidden World Beneath Magic Kingdom.”
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We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight episode. Goodbye.
Questions:
Have you ever been to Disney World? Did you go to the one in Florida or somewhere outside the United States? Did you know that Magic Kingdom in Florida was built on top of the utilidors?
