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Diving Into Early EPCOT Center: The Shape of Confusion

🕑 Added 2024-09-25 01:07:22 +0000 UTC

Comments

thejesteban

I think your “science center” explanation is spot-on. I feel like center is interchangeable with “institute” in that context.

Chad Haefele

excellent, looking forward to it. I'm the exact target audience for these videos.

Defunctland

I think Marty Sklar’s explanation is likely a nomenclature retcon, I believe that’s the internal reasoning they put behind the name to make it sound purposeful, but I don’t think that’s where it “came from” based on the earlier uses of Center. In Part 2, I’m planning to touch on this idea of retcon reasoning even more than I did in this one.

Chad Haefele

I need to revisit the book, but I think Foxx Nolte's Hidden History of Walt Disney World talks about the Epcot Center name, and says Disney briefly considered branding all of WDW as their implementation of the original EPCOT idea - with this park, "Epcot Center" is the core of it. That idea didn't stick, but the name did. The Danny Kaye Who's on First routine goes along with that. I think there's truth in all of these ideas, I'd guess it came from multiple places. I really enjoyed this video, thank you.

David A Behlman

I’m glad they got Danny Kaye to clear that up. And they knew exactly how crazy these naming conventions are!?

Jose M Luna

Re: the Epcot Center naming bit. Just last month I was writing something about the original Epcot Center and I read the Epcot Center book they published when the park opened. In Marty Sklar's introduction, he says this, "Implemented by the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the Epcot Building Code, embodying Walt Disney’s philosophy for Epcot, is firmly in place as the foundation for future development. What was lacking was a public focus for new ideas and concepts, a ‘center’ for the communication of new possibilities for the future, directly to the public.” Which definitely checks out with your theory as to why they chose the word "center"