Mission to Mars From 1975 Disneyland Vacationland

Click Here to Read: The Voice in Mission to the Moon and Mission to Mars From 1988 Disneyland Line

Click Here to Read: Tomorrowland: Mars And Beyond from the original 1957 press materials

Past the Moon and onto the Mysterious Red Planet

04.05.11 - In a constant effort to keep pace with time and progress, Disney Imagineers replaced Tomorrowland's Flight to the Moon attraction with an exciting rocket trip to and around the mysterious red planet.

Flugelsnoots, Gaffelnarks and The Zarkum Weed have come to Disneyland. These characters make up the Mad Mars Myths a part of the Park's new attraction, Mission to Mars, presented by the McDonnell Douglas Corporation.

In a constant effort to keep pace with time and progress, Disney Imagineers have replaced Tomorrowland's Flight to the Moon attraction with an exciting rocket trip to and around the mysterious red planet. Photographs taken by the United States' Mariner Nine Program were used to develop the attraction.

Guests first enter the pre-flight Mission Control Center where activities on the ground and out in space are being monitored. Among the film highlights viewed are scenes from America's Skylab missions from the early 1970's. Films and narration point out how these continuing Skylab missions help man improve the environment here on earth. Disney artists and technicians have made every effort, in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to make the new "Mission to Mars" adventure as authentic as possible.

After guests are escorted into the main cabin where their flight takes place, the cabin doors close and lights dim slowly as the voice of Third Officer Collins comes over the Spaceliner's public address system. "We are in final countdown and you can watch our lift-off on the lower screen in your cabin. I'll speak to you again after we're in space." Guests' eyes then turn to the upper and lower screens and two side screens in the round flight cabin. (Side screens have been enlarged from the original Flight to the Moon attraction, giving even more realism to some fascinating actual films of space flight and Disney-created sequences.)

This adventure encompasses many new and unique simulations, including a hyperspace-warp when passengers seem to be hurled through space in an anti-universe that is separate but parallel to our own. Guests are suddenly engulfed in sound and wild sights as the ship's deck and seats tilt while kaleidoscopic images stream across all of the cabin's screens. Sub-audible waves create a weird and disoriented out of this world feeling. After hyper-space-warp, the ship journeys close to Mars, and small, unmanned rockets equipped with cameras are launched, sending back television pictures of the planet's surface.

Guests get an exciting close-up view of the gigantic rift in Mars' surface called Mariner Valley, which is over three thousand miles long and ten times wider than the Grand Canyon. The camera drone also sends back pictures of the high point on Mars, Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano now known in the whole universe. It is 370 miles wide at the base and over 75,000 feet high at the top, which is two and a half times taller than Mount Everest, the highest point on earth. The photos from the drone viewed by guests were simulated in cooperation with Cal Tech's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and NASA, utilizing photos from the Mariner Nine program and specially created Mars' models.

During the flight, Officer Collins talks about life on Mars and points out that even today we have not found life on the planet but that for centuries there has been speculation about it. Disneyland space travelers are then treated to the Mad Mars Myths, a cartoon about fantastic concepts of life on Mars, produced by the Walt Disney Productions In-Flight Distribution Division! Side screens come alive with the antics of Flugelsnoots, whose principal occupation is making music which they constantly play through their noses. The Plains of Elysium on Mars are inhabited by the Gaffelnark which is quite intelligent but shy. The Zarkum Weed is shown as it grows very tall in the weak gravity of Mars, but it is kept in check by the Tharsis Bugs with their extremely voracious appetites.

At one point in the flight, guests have a slightly uneasy moment when the camera rocket is knocked out by a shower of meteoritic particles, and Officer Collins says, with a nervous laugh, "Everything's all right now, but that was a close call! Actually, the chances are a million-to-one against meeting another emergency like that, so please fly with us again. We are immediately returning to earth."

The ship's rocket engines roar again as the guests speed back to earth. Flames fill the lower screen and there is a distinct sound of a touching down.

From Disneyland Vacationland, Summer, 1975

Click Here to Read: The Voice in Mission to the Moon and Mission to Mars From 1988 Disneyland Line

Click Here to Read: Tomorrowland: Mars And Beyond from the original 1957 press materials

 

The Voice in Mission to the Moon and Mission to Mars From 1988 Disneyland Line

It Takes People

04.03.11 - George Walsh, who lent his voice to numerous narrations for Disney, voiced Mr. Johnson in Mission to the Moon, and later, Mission to Mars.

"Welcome to Mission Control, space travelers..." begins the opening remarks from Mission Control Director Mr. Johnson in the Mission to Mars attraction. The voice of Mr. Johnson belongs, coincidentally, to one of our own Disneyland Cast Members, George Walsh.

"Mr. Johnson" has been aboard the Mission to Mars attraction for many years. George has only been "on board" as a Disneyland cast member for a few months. His association with the Disney organization, however, has been a long one. He has voiced many narration spots for the Disney Studios over the years.

In addition to some educational films for the Studios, George has narrated several films promoting Mineral King and Epcot Center. George believes he may have narrated the last Epcot Center film on which Walt Disney appeared. So when the opportunity arose to do the voice of Mr. Johnson in Mission to the Moon — and later, Mission to Mars — George was well established as a Disney Studios narrator and a natural choice for the project.

George's 34 years as announcer for CBS/ KNX radio involved him in a diversity of projects. He is well remembered for being one of the voices of Smokey the Bear for many TV and movie spots. One of his most memorable achievements was announcing for a radio program called Gunsmoke, starring William Conrad, currently the star of TV's Jake and the Fatman. When the program went to an hour-long TV show, George did the lead-ins to the commercial spots for 20 years. He also narrated a popular radio show called Suspense, in which he was, as he puts it, "the spooky voice that told a tale, well calculated to keep you in suspense." He did a series of programs with award-winning designer Edith Head. When the radio division of CBS went to an all-news operation, George became a newscaster until his retirement two years ago. And somewhere among all of his achievements over the years, he was named Announcer of the Year by the Los Angeles Times.

George didn't always know that announcing would become his bread and butter. His first time "on the air" was in high school, where he took a public speaking course. He remembers that his first assignment was to describe "what I hope to become." He said, "My classmates were giving speeches about becoming doctors, lawyers, ministers and so forth and I didn't have the slightest idea what I wanted to become. So I decided to do something for laughs, just to get a grade in the class." He put together a skit, using voice impersonations of famous radio personalities. He received a good grade for his efforts. A couple of weeks later, for $15 and two tickets to the Senior Prom, George brought his impersonations act to the prom floorshow, and the rest is history. By the time George retired, he had spent half of his life with CBS and decided that it was time to try something else. So for a couple of years he "painted the house, pruned the roses, fixed up the old car and, one day last September, read in the newspaper that Disneyland was having a Job Fair. I came out to the Job Fair and left with a job."

"The voice of Mr. Johnson is alive and well at Disneyland," said George. "I've always been a Disney fan and now I have the pleasure of working here." George and his voice can be found in the Disneyana shop on Main Street where, he said, "I fit in very well with all of the old things."

From Disneyland Line, April 8, 1988