The Horizons Story (Part 1)

Hey everyone. I'm putting together a very special series of blog articles that I'm calling "The Horizons Story". This will be an ongoing, multi-part exploration of the history of Horizons, one of Epcot Center's most unique and imaginative attractions. I hope you all find the history of this attraction as interesting as I do, and going forward, I will continue to revisit more attractions from Epcot Center and theme parks around the globe. I hope you all enjoy this first installment of the Horizons Story. -Max

Prior to his death in 1966, Walt Disney conceived an idea for a Utopian city of the future: a functional, populated urban area that would, “take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry.”

Walt planned for his vision to be constructed on recently-acquired property in Orlando, Florida, and it called for the construction of a commercial center, residential areas, local businesses, and schools- all of which would be interconnected by a mass series of transportation systems in the form of monorails. He wanted his city, called the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT for short, to serve as a test bed for city planning. He had hopes that it would spring off into something greater, prompting for further expansion and commercial development to be made within the worlds of technology, innovation, and creativity. Walt’s idea never materialized. Not exactly.

Enter the late 1970s, when Imagineers at WED Enterprises were developing a second theme park for Walt Disney World that would supplement the Magic Kingdom, which had been growing tremendously in popularity since it opened in 1971. They had previously abandoned Walt’s EPCOT concept after having concerns about maintaining a real, working city, but aspects of the EPCOT idea, including the name, were revisited when the concept of a futuristic, technology-focused park came to fruition. This was the beginning of the 1980s after all, and technology was becoming more relevant than ever.

On October 1, 1982, the park, then titled ‘Epcot Center’, opened its gates to the public and marketed itself as ‘the beginning of the 21st century’. Its overall concept had been changed and evolved from a futuristic community to a worldwide celebration of human achievement through technological innovation and international culture.

The park, which sits on a whopping 305 acres of land, doubled the size of the Magic Kingdom and was divided into two halves. The back section of the park, known as World Showcase, encircles a massive lagoon and contains 11 different pavilions, each specially designed to represent a specific country. Usually these pavilions would be sponsored by their respective countries, and for this reason some concepts, like the Spain or Israel pavilions, and would have to be put on hold or scrapped entirely if their national government denied Disney’s sponsorship proposal.

The front section of the park would be known as Future World, and would much more resemble Walt’s original vision of EPCOT as an urban hub that embraces human innovation, creativity, technological development, and science.

Like World Showcase, Future World was planned out to consist of several different pavilions, each housing different attractions and dedicated to a different aspect of science and human development. The various pavilions encircle the park’s icon, the globe-shaped Spaceship Earth, which houses an attraction in itself. Each of Future World’s pavilions could easily be identified by guests by colorful symbols that both represented the area of science they celebrated and the attractions they housed inside.

One of these pavilions would be known as ​Horizons, and it housed an attraction dedicated to the future of humanity. Like Communicore, the central spine of Epcot, it would take aspects from all the surrounding pavilions and combine them to provide guests with an insightful view of what the future of human civilization might look like.

The ride took guests through time, space, and across landscapes of different geographical regions. This single attraction represented everything Epcot Center aimed to be, and stood as one of the defining attractions that made the park so unique, thanks to its theme focusing on the next generation of families and human civilization. It was the closest Epcot came to replicating Walt’s original concept, and would become known to many as one of the greatest attractions Walt Disney Imagineering would ever develop.

For most attractions created by theme parks, and especially by teams at Walt Disney Imagineering, there are often multiple concepts and variations envisioned before the final product is approved and constructed. Horizons was no exception to this stage of early development. In 1979, ideas of an Epcot attraction that would serve as a celebration of everything Future World represented materialized and were pitched by show designer George McGinnis.

During its development phase, Horizons saw several name changes. It was originally pitched as Century 3 in order to acknowledge the third century of human civilization, but imagineers didn’t think people would understand or appreciate this title, so they settled on a simpler one- Futureprobe.

It did not take very long for someone to realize that this was a bad idea.

Disney officials eventually settled on the Horizons title and work picked up on the overall development of the ride. There were several concepts pitched for the general theme of the ride as well. Reginald Jones and Jack Welch, two CEOs of General Electric, came up with the idea of the ride focusing on Thomas Edison and his line of work, which would act as a type of origin story of the General Electric company.

A second pitched concept was for the ride to focus on the future of the United States of America alone, but since Disney wanted to appeal to a worldwide, international audience, the idea was shot down.

Disney eventually settled on the concept they felt best fit Epcot, and work began on the enormous dark ride in August of 1981. The ride would be located between the World of Motion and Universe of Energy pavilions. The final product saw the attraction become the unofficial sequel of Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress, which was a show that could be found at the Magic Kingdom and formerly at Disneyland.

Rather than a family dreaming about what the future could bring, Horizons would take a very similar family to the 21st century in order to show how much technology changes and evolves overtime. Support for this theory could be seen through the audio animatronic figures in the ride, as they bore an uncanny resemblance to the family members in the Carousel of Progress. Also, the attraction’s signature song, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” was present throughout some of the various scenes.

Exactly one year after Epcot Center opened in 1982, phase two of Future World opened to the public and saw the addition of several new attractions, the largest of which being Horizons. Like World Showcase, Future World functioned on the basis of Disney reaching out to various companies to financially sponsor their attractions in exchange for free advertising and marketing within the rides they designed. Sponsors were also given their own private lounges in each of the pavilions, so who could turn an offer like that down?

General Electric would sponsor Horizons, and the company’s presence was reflected through the ride's show scenes and dialogue.

On October 1st, 1983, Horizons, (presented by General Electric), was finally opened to the public and received praise for being “a careful synthesis of all the wonders within Epcot, and applies the elements of communication, energy, transportation, creativity, and technology to a better lifestyle for the family of the future.”

That's all for now, please stay tuned for the next installment in the Horizons Story.

Until next time. -Max