Disney’s Surplus Skeletons
Sometimes you just get a good deal 🤷♀️
I wish I could go back and experience the Pirates of the Caribbean that Walt Disney wanted versus the one that we actually got (which I do love, don't get me wrong). Walt passed away in 1966 before this attraction opened in 1967, and the Imagineers made some significant changes to Pirates after he had passed. Besides the surplus skeletons, there was also going to be a man walking the plank off of the pirate ship, complete with sharks circling below, among other things.
Here is the full skeleton story from an interview Alain Littaye had with Imagineer John Hench in 1996:
“When you get in, you see on the door:
Pirates of the Caribbean. So you expect to see pirates. Then you get on the boat, so you think: ‘This is okay. We're going to see pirates.’ The boat goes out and the first scene that you see is the restaurant. So people think: ‘Hey, these are not pirates. These are people having lunch. What happen to the pirates we are supposed to see?’ Then we go down the chutes, and it's where the pirates were. But they're all gone.
There is nothing but skeletons down here!
Well, it was never supposed to be like that. Walt died before we had finished it.
The original idea of Walt was that you came down there, into the caves, and there were no pirates. But they had been there just seconds before! There was a hot meal on the table, steaming. There was no jewelry. Walt wanted this atmosphere: they were supposed to live here, they've gone outside somewhere, but they could come back at any minute and catch us....
Then you were supposed to discover the city, where they were. But because somebody liked skeletons and discovered that they were available at a cheap price, we used too many skeletons all over the place, and the public got the wrong message. Now people didn't know what it was and what was going on.”
On a personal note, the music is from my husband @eliotgrasso who recorded this album Standing Room Only when he was 15 😱 He’s a brilliant Irish musician and uilleann piper and I’m so proud of him 🥰
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