It’s A Big Park — Someone’s Got To Furnish It
Searching props for Disneyland Paris
WDeye magazine, #9, Spring 1991, pp. 16–18
by Jean Lee, photographs by Jerry Schneider
Lists in hand and armed with determination, a team of intrepid explorers searched the world over for hidden treasures — not for the gold sought by certain Caribbean pirates, nor the jewels mined by a septet of dwarves — no, these hunters were in pursuit of a vast array of odds ’n’ ends, the sorts of things reminiscent of wild scavenger hunts.
But these were no ordinary adventurers, mind you, these were Imagineers — thirteen sturdy souls who successfully completed a two-year “scavenger hunt.” And what a hunt it was to track down all the goods required to decorate the shops, restaurants and attractions of Euro Disneyland. Operating out of their Glendale headquarters, prop designers Joan Kuba, Jodi McLaughlin and Bethann Morris, coordinator Ginger Stanley and secretary Cecilia Gonzales have gathered enough props to fill up a whole theme park…or at least half of one (Main Street, Frontierland and Discoveryland).
The other half was collected by Imagineers across the Atlantic. Prop designers Bill Koressel, Kim Lange and Ken Gomes (who was “borrowed” from his home base in Glendale), along with coordinators Beverly Barritt and Fabienne Bedos, secretaries Michél Cabrolier and Valerie Gillot, and consultant Rafael Calparoso, scoured their own European neighborhoods for props to be installed in Fantasyland, Adventureland and Discoveryland. This quest led them to Morocco, Portugal, Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands — even as far as Egypt and Zimbabwe. These globetrotters couldn’t even stand still to have pictures taken for the WDeye. Says Bill: “I’m only ‘home’ (in France) about four days a month!”
Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, the WDI prop team was shopping primarily within the boundaries of the United States, buying everything from grandfather clocks to baseball gloves, chemistry sets to china urns, shaving mirrors to elk horns. “I’ve looked for cannons, 2000-pound anchors and coconuts,” says Bethann Morris. “Real coconuts, minus the husks.” Like the other prop designers, Bethann is a real stickler for authenticity. When she was in Colorado with senior production designer Pat Burke to search for Frontierland props, they considered shipping a 3000-pound boulder with holes hand-drilled by miners during contests held in the late 1800s.
Indeed, few stones were left unturned. Aside from local antique shows and not-so-local antique districts, WDI prop designers discovered that swap meets were veritable treasure chests. At the Rose Bowl swap meet in Pasadena, Joan Kuba happened across a musty, gilded birdcage, occupied by a tiny mechanical singing bird. After some tuning and polishing, the birdcage is ready to hang inside Walt’s, the Main Street restaurant that highlights Walt Disney’s life and times. “Like most props, there’s a story behind this one,” says Joan. “Walt picked up a birdcage just like this in New Orleans and the bird led to the idea for the first Audio-Animatronics® figures — those musical birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland.”
Going nationwide with the scavenger hunt, the WDI prop team also embarked on a dozen buying trips. Most of the time, each trip meant one to two weeks in the Midwest, SouthWest, or on the East Coast. On the road, they met one-of-a-kind people who collect one-of-a-kind things. “Whatever odd object you can imagine, there are people who actually collect them, and we’ve managed to meet them all! I even know a guy who collects apple corers — he’s got hundreds of them,” laughs Jodi McLaughlin. “People were flattered and excited that we came all the way from California to buy something from their shops to display at Euro Disneyland,” says Bethann. “They even sent us to their friends — ’Joe’s farm down the interstate’ — who had pieces of farm equipment or a music machine we might be interested in. Those trips resulted in a lot of good connections and a lot of memorable stories.”
One hot day in Oaxaca, Mexico, Jodi and Ken met an 80-year-old tour guide named Pepe, who drove them to little villages specializing in woodcarving, pottery, rug-weaving and other crafts. Jodi smiles as she remembers that day: “Pepe drove a ’72 Impala with no air conditioning. A little fan mounted to his steering wheel blew the hot air around. We swerved off the unpaved mountain roads as we passed trucks carrying chickens. My heart was pounding, and all the while an eight-track tape recorder was playing Perry Como. Pepe was a delightful person and a great resource. Through him, we found some wonderful Mexican artifacts.”
According to the team, nothing is impossible to find. Unless, of course, it doesn’t exist. “If a prop is fantasy-oriented and we know we can’t find it in the real world, we’ll have it made,” says Bethann. You name it and the prop team will find someone who can custom make it. “We even have a vendor who made the Bride’s decaying wedding cake for Phantom Manor.”
A popular first impression is that it’s glamorous to shop for a living, but the team is quick to emphasize that they’d sooner shop at rodeos than Rodeo Drive. They’ve got a limited budget, as well as a limited amount of time. “But we make the most out of it,” Jodi explains. “We start early in the morning and follow almost every lead we get. We’re always thinking, ‘just one more shop…’ And by 10:00 or 11:00 at night, we literally have a van full of props. Then we have to unload, document, and take photos of everything, as well as arrange to store the props and have them picked up. And then there’s always the administrative follow-up. It’s hard work!”
Joan and Bethann will never forget the time they drove five long hours to a Hopi Indian reservation in the middle of the Arizona desert, hoping to find the perfect Kachina dolls, only to discover that the proprietors of the trading post had taken an unscheduled day off. However, they persevered (patience being a prop designer’s virtue), drove an extra ten hours, and got the dolls the next day.
Of course, the Euro Disneyland Imagineering (EDLI) prop designers also met unique challenges on the road. “I speak college-level Swahili, 12th-grade German and Spanish, plus a little Turkish and Arabic,” says Bill Koressel (in English). He says the other EDLI prop designers also pick up on foreign languages easily, which really helps. “Before we leave, we use dictionaries and check our pronunciation with the hotel concierge. Speaking the host country’s language has opened up some fabulous doors, like the time someone told me about a dark, hole-in-the-wall souke (shop) in Marrakesh, where I bargained for a magnificent tapestry from a sultan’s palace for Adventureland.” However, Bill cautions, “Even though bartering is a way of life in most countries, each differs in culture, customs and exchange rates. We always have to be aware of this when buying props.”
Despite the hardships, the prop team finds it all worthwhile. “We actually see the show in creation,” says Cecilia Gonzales. “All the props seem to fit naturally together like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.” Ginger Stanley adds, “It’s great to be contributing to EDL. In a way, a little bit of me will be hanging from a restaurant ceiling or suspended from a bridge somewhere.”
The “propping” of EDL was the scavenger hunt to top all scavenger hunts. Everyone got into the act — show producers, show designers, interior designers and prop designers all collaborated on the initial prop list. And, give or take a few items, the prop team bought everything on that list. Sometimes they found props they knew would work in a certain spot, although no one thought of it at the beginning. “They do have certain requirements to meet, but the important thing is that they capture the right atmosphere,” says Interiors manager Eduardo Alfonso of his team.
Occasionally, if a prop couldn’t be found in Europe, a prop designer here in the States had better luck, and vice versa. This combined effort really paid off as the entire EDL scavenger hunt netted a grand total of 45,000 props (and that’s a modest estimate), the most ever for a Disney theme park.
Now that the long scavenger hunt for props for Euro Disneyland is over, the team can enjoy a sense of accomplishment — Jodi sums it up for everyone: “Finding those few remaining props after years of looking was like finding buried treasure. We want to shout, ‘Eureka!’”
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