Kelly 0:16

Welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a Boardwalk Times podcast. This is your old pal Kelly here to give you the lowdown on this particular lowdown. For this one episode, we've walked away from our usual format in order to devote an hour to speak to Ken Bruce, the author of Before the Birds Sang Words, a riveting and absolutely indispensable book about the history of Walt Disney's enchanted tiki room and the development of Disneyland. We hope you enjoyed this week's special lowdown on the plus up. We'll be back to our regular format in our next episode. See you real soon. So, Pete, what are we talking about today?

Pete 1:00

Well, today we're doing something that we haven't done before. We're actually, we have a special guest, but before we we uh introduce uh this gentleman, uh I'll talk about what our subject is. Our subject is the world-famous, fabulous Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. We finally got there.

Kelly 1:18

Enchanted tiki room. Yeah, and and and I suspect the enchanted tiki room is gonna be one of those things that, much like the jungle cruise or the haunted mansion or any of these sort of epic legacy attractions, is gonna be something that will come back again and again and again. But we are so incredibly lucky tonight to have someone who's probably uh at this point the foremost expert on the enchanted tiki room. He is the author of Before the Birds Sang Words. He is our friend Ken Bruce.

Pete 1:53

Hey, Ken. Hello, welcome. Yay!

Ken Bruce 1:55

Hi, thank you so much. I've been uh poking around the perimeters of your site for quite a while, so it's uh really lovely to be invited to this party for sure. Thank you so much, Kelly and Peter. I'm happy, happy, thrilled to be here.

Kelly 2:10

Thank you, Ken. I now I have to warn you, because this has come up a few times as I was sort of doing a little bit of research and stuff for this episode. Ken Burns, the famous documentary filmmaker, went to my alma mater, and so I hear his name all the time. Yeah. So if I start asking you questions about the Civil War or the history of baseball, just you know, set me right.

Ken Bruce 2:35

Oh, I will I will I will answer those questions beautifully. He just cut to me, I'll be the old Southern gentleman guy. Well, they came over to the side of and I'll share additional stuff about the Brooklyn Bridge and and jazz and what uh yeah, what what do you know about Eleanor Roosevelt? Exactly.

Kelly 2:59

Oh, I think I might have gotten a spit take out of Pete, which is has been a while, so banner day for me. So we're we're recording today when there's uh a lot going on in Southern California, and I kind of want to acknowledge it. There's some horrific fires going on down there. And and before we started recording, uh Ken and us were talking, and luckily he's he's safe where he is.

Ken Bruce 3:29

I'm still not turned into Cinder yet. Yes. Thank heavens. Eventually, maybe, but at the moment, no, we're good. Okay.

Kelly 3:39

Well, that's definitely where I'm ending up. I'm hoping to have a few more years before I get there.

Pete 3:44

Yeah.

Kelly 3:46

My wife wants to do this thing where she gets wrapped in mushrooms and buried. I guess that's a real thing. Um I'm intrigued. We just went dark. Yeah, we too too much, too much right now? I don't know. But I thought, you know, what what would be interesting? I definitely want to spend uh most of the time talking about your book because it's an incredible book. Um I do, Kelly. I uh in fact, I'll I'll lead up to it by saying when I first saw it kind of popping up in feeds here and there, I thought, hmm, I'm definitely gonna get to this book. Uh but I'm not sure how deep into tiki culture I I want to dive right now. Um, I I had been to an adventureland day down at Disneyland, and ever since I get a text every single day about a new tiki mug I can buy. I was it was really getting to me. I've also I've been sober for like 10 years. So good for you. That thank you. That whole culture uh is a little bit foreign to me at this point. And then I I uh reached out to you, Ken, with a question that I think really irritated you. Doubt it.

Ken Bruce 5:04

Absolutely not.

Kelly 5:06

But you were so kind in humoring me persistently asking you about Imagine your Lee Adams. And eventually you you said, you're just gonna have to buy my book, and I did, and I got it, and I could not put the thing down. It was the first thing about theme parks at all that I had read in a long time, where I would literally put the book down and look over at my wife and go, no way. So I love the book, and I I really but before we get to it, since all this stuff's going on in Southern California, I thought it might be interesting to ask, what is Ken Bruce's Southern California like? What do you love down in LA or uh Santa Monica or wherever you spend time down there? Because Pete and I are fascinated with LA. I didn't choose to live here.

Ken Bruce 6:09

It chose me because my parents uh, you know, had me in Torrance, California, which is near Palos Verde's San Pedro, Long Beach. I mean, I certainly know the places that I go to, but um, you know, L there's an LA mythology that uh is in the movies and then and it's in TV, but it's not necessarily a reflection of the people that actually live here. And I was talking about a friend that I have who uh came here from Auckland, and of course he gets he immediately gets a red convertible and drives around, you know, down the streets of Hollywood. So this is the LA culture, and I'm gonna play it out. And uh I promise you, if you see someone like that on the road, they are not from they are not from LA. We're a little bit more um, I don't know, not that fabulous. Uh I grew up by the beach and I never went to the beach. Um so it's not quite LA is large, it's full of many different people and many different cultures, and then perhaps that is one of the reasons it's so great. You there's so much different food and energy and culture, and and it's a progressive area, so you know everybody's gonna let your you you can let your freak flag fly. Um, you know, growing up here too, it was Disneyland. So, you know, when I got to Disneyland, it was I was age five, and that if you're if you grow up here, Disneyland for so many people becomes a a touchstone. Certainly was for me. And the and of course the movie industry. So uh that's the stuff that I I align with most. I I I moved to uh Iowa for a couple years to do a job of all places, uh, which was uh a different culture altogether. But one of the first things you realize is people don't talk movies over in Iowa the way they talk movies over here. Yeah. Movies or media, and and that's my world, where we talk about the latest movie and or piece of theater or or whatever. So that I love.

Kelly 8:03

Uh yeah, no, it's a it's a great answer. And I find that, you know, we uh we're up in Northern California, we're just a little bit north of San Francisco, and we think we're very multicultural, and in some ways we are, but it doesn't blend here the same way it does down around LA. Yeah uh it's it it's uh I don't even know how to describe it. Like you you really can walk block to block and experience radically different culture after radically different culture, and it's I think part of it, Kelly, is I I th uh that that a lot draws a lot of people to uh uh LA is that you can find your tribe.

Ken Bruce 8:44

Finding your tribe is not easy everywhere you go, but here you're going to find your people one way or another. You'll you'll you will find them. Right. And once you do, it's it's absolutely um uh validating.

Kelly 8:56

So how and and Pete, jump in with anything. I have uh I have a a couple of notes here, but anyway, no, it's uh it's okay.

Pete 9:04

Let's just let's let us proceed. I mean I mean because I I'll just to kind of give you an idea of about my background, Ken, is uh I I kind of grew up between both Northern California and Southern California. I couldn't pick between the Dodgers or the Giants, I had to pick the Yankees because I could I spent because a lot of my family came from either uh Anaheim or they came from Northridge and uh you know the Panorama City, that that that little range. I mean my parents were from that area, and then another section was from Anaheim. And so I would spend a good deal, almost like a third of my year down in LA. So I'm kind of this weird mix of a Northern California and a Southern. Like you say the word Tom Hatton to me, and I go, yay, you know, like I know exactly I grew up with all these little things that kids from LA grew up with that a lot of not not a lot of Northern Californians would get. And so um for me as a valley kid, basically, who'd come and visit enough to basically know the culture and know enough people, uh, for me it would we would be going to like Fairfax Avenue and hanging out with all of our Jewish friends. We my grandparents knew a bunch of old borscht belt comedians that would write for shows and they would hang out at you know uh Brent's Cantors. Yeah, Cantors, yeah. They would totally hang out there and we would run you know, be running all over the place. And then uh I also in 81 we adopted my grandparents did something really remarkable during the Iranian hostage crisis. They actually took in a bunch of refugees and uh from Iran, and I actually wound up uh getting an auntie from Iran, and so over time she would start introducing me to the huge Iranian population in that area. So, yeah, that that melting it's it's not a melting pot, it's it's really like a we a tapestry, and it's really interesting once you find your tribes, and whether it's the um underground comic scene or whether it's the um oh lowbrow art scene like a wacko, it's all there. You know, it's just amazing.

Ken Bruce 11:07

All there, absolutely, yeah. Um, yeah, I was struck by my niece and nephews who are like my kids, uh um are half half uh half Persian descent. Their mother is is of Persian descent. And I was walking through my neighborhood, saw a Persian restaurant, and they were like, Ken, we need to take you to a Persian restaurant that we know of. And they took me to a place, I don't know, it's a kind of near Santa Monica, Westwood, and it was an entire several blocks of just Persian, uh Persian, uh I'm not gonna say immigrants, but Persian uh uh descent descendants. And I didn't know, yeah, all the food there and the the ice cream and I yeah, like I didn't even yeah, so like and I'm naive, like there's you know, you think of Chinatown and Japantown and and Thai Town and but yeah, but an area of Persian of Persian food, absolutely. Yeah, so yeah, you're constantly discovering that all the time.

Pete 12:04

And I think there's a mentality too where there is, and I'm gonna go for my go for our segue here. Um the Los Angelino um uh culture of of adopting different cultures and embracing it, sometimes to a point of excess, especially in the 50s and the 60s. Kelly and I have talked in the past about Walt's uh th there's three stages of Walt. There's the first stage, which lasts pretty much up to Snow White, where we call him the huckster. And he's he can convince anybody, he can convince you out of your shirt. And then there's this very short space. And he did a number of times. Oh, yeah, just ask him the body works. Um but then there's another section in which there's Walt, the auteur, which everybody lauded him as this great artist, you know, uh, along with like Salvador Daly, and this is during Snow White, and he was in some ways. He was very good at assembling groups of people. Um and then there's Uncle Walt, right? But we talk about how he embraced stuff, and it just gets awkward at times, and then it actually kind of settles into something that people find a little bit more palatable, even if it's still a little tricky, but it it's not out of cruelty that this embracing of different cultures, and in this case with our subject manager, uh Polynesian culture, um it becomes this true embracing of it, and in a way where they're really trying to be heartfelt, like this is great stuff, but it's still a little awkward. So, but you would never get that type of uh embracing of a culture from say entertainers from Northern California, with the exception of guys like Trader Vic, who had started the Trader Vic's restaurant chain up in Oak you know, Emoryville, and then eventually moved to I'm sorry, it started in Oakland and eventually moved to Emoryville. Um but very few people would be doing that. It was very much more insular up here in Northern California. So it's it's interesting that that's the kind of mentality of the people from that area kind of spawns this pursuit.

Ken Bruce 14:12

It certainly wasn't Walter. You know, I I know that when I wrote my book, I had to uh you know I had to I had to discuss uh I a little bit about the you know the the the prickly subject of cultural appropriation and dig into that because uh uh some people consider it problematic. Um and the more I dug, the more I actually started to side with the the maybe the not so so progressive way of looking at it, quite frankly. Um the Tiki Pop movement is so so specifically American and it is and it is built on so many different cultural cultures. Uh cultural appropriation isn't necessarily a bad thing, too. We we do it uh without even thinking. Um it's all about whether you're doing it out of respect or you're doing it because you love the culture. Um we have the Greek gods, we have the Roman gods, they're the same, but one took from the other because it was a great idea.

Pete 15:09

Um the very word appropriation. It's from French, and we're using it as an English term. So let's just, you know.

Ken Bruce 15:16

You can't listen to any any any bit of classical music uh that isn't cultural, the cultural appropriation. Um but so the tiki culture is is uniquely American, um, and it is born out of a profound love and excitement for not just Polynesian culture, anything exotic, anything otherworldly. It doesn't come from a I'm making fun of it, it comes from a I love it, uh, for s for many different reasons. So because it is it is, you know, the rum is Cuban and the music is as what Latin American and the and the food is Cantonese and the tikis are cartoon versions of several different ideas, um, it's its own thing.

Kelly 16:04

Yeah, and um and the ukulele's came from the Philippines originally, yeah.

Ken Bruce 16:09

Well, yeah. Um I have no problem with any of it. I was expecting I might, I don't. Uh and it's so funny because so many people who um there are plenty of plenty of Polynesians who are who are like, I don't have a problem with it so long as you just it it comes from a place of respect.

Kelly 16:30

Um there's there's some stuff that you talk about in in the book that I found uh on honestly surprising uh that Camber Cross is actually quite progressive for the time. And specifically, I'm thinking about the the use of the lyrics from the original version of the Hawaiian war chant.

Ken Bruce 16:50

Right. Yeah, the Hawaiian war chant is nothing but cultural appropriation because it's actually taking a love ballad uh uh that is uh uh 100% Polynesian and turning it into uh uh the Hawaiian war chant, which is kind of a zany um jazz-infused number, which is a lot of fun, um, where we put English lyrics on it. And when it was going to be uh used for the enchanted tiki room, it was um it did have it uh it started wordless, but then they did put in the the Ralph Freed English lyrics in it, and then over time they just slowly weeded it out because one section uh was just harm it was harmonizing without lyrics, and then very late in the game, um the composer, George Bruns, or the arranger, yeah, thought this sounds really good um as just the actual lyrics of the love ballad, which makes it a little weird because it's called the Hawaiian War Chant, and actually they're actually singing the the love ballad. Um and then of course they throw in a chanting, which is actually taking the lyrics of um the love ballad for for brief sections, um and doing it in a really angry tone, which is I equate I equate it with like you know singing, you know, once upon a dream as if you're while while like hammering, you know, hammering spikes into a rail, you know, into a rail.

Kelly 18:28

Like you're trying to intimidate your rugby opponent.

Ken Bruce 18:32

That does not make any sense. Yeah, you do not intimidate anybody by singing once upon a dream like you're angry.

Pete 18:38

I might also imagining like, you know, hi ho, but it's done as a haka. I don't, you know. Yeah, exactly.

Ken Bruce 18:44

But ultimately, my my my point ultimately is that uh yeah, and it's in in a way it's it it was kind of progressive because it was George Bruns going, We don't we don't need the original, we don't need the Ralph Freed lyrics because uh it sounds so beautiful in Hawaiian. No one he understood is going to understand what they're saying. So no nobody would have back in 1963 you know heard a love ballad. They just hear the this beautiful melody and and the the Polynesian um language. Um yeah, a bit of a head uh unexpectedly ahead of its time.

Kelly 19:21

And the and the the original lyrics they were by Hawaiian royalty.

Ken Bruce 19:24

Can you rem can you remind me who God um I can't and I don't want to know um in fact I knew I knew right as I finished the book, it's like oh I'm gonna be doing speaking engagements, and people are gonna ask me questions, and I'll be like, I wrote it down, but once you Kelly, you write a book, and I promise you, the moment you write it down, you forget it. It's gone. Um But it was it was uh it was royalty. The prince, I believe. I want to say princess like like I want to I could be wrong. And it was you know a simple a simple ballad about two lovers, you know, yeah in a in a in an in a fern uh uh uh a fern garden in a you know embracing um and uh yeah and absolutely pretty. And then we came along and called it the wine war chant. Yeah, nothing.

Kelly 20:17

Turned it into a Spike Jones style little like novelty hit.

Pete 20:21

On the island of Lulu.

Kelly 20:25

Yeah, exactly. So uh the book it it covers so much ground. So we we have the history of of tiki culture in America, um which which was way more interesting than I expected it to be. It is, yeah. It really is. Um it has it certainly has the uh history of this specific attraction, um, which the number of revisions this thing went through and the number of times that Walt seemed to walk into uh an almost fully fledged attraction and go, nah, and restarted is astonishing.

Ken Bruce 21:09

Because I want to say absolutely like the the fun of the fun of uh uh one of the things that was so fun about uh writing this story is how Walt was uh it's incredibly personal attraction to Walt. I mean Walt had his hands all over it. Um uh kind of his his his idea, kind of his idea from start to finish, but how it was it was Walt making this thing up as he went. It was evolving. Almost everything Walt starts with keeps growing and growing and growing and getting more daffy and crazy and bigger and more audacious. And this was just that sort of thing. Um, Walt's sensibilities all over it because again, he had everything to do with it, was his money. He was paying for it. Literally his money, right out of his pocketbook. And yeah, when you when you break down a timeline like I did. Over so many years, and you start to put the pieces together, you realize this was Walt building it from the ground up. Yeah. Nothing but things coming together uh in a in a in a random, crazy way, um, and how it changed constantly, and yet it was always evolving and getting more ridiculous and and daffy as it went. Um and yeah, not just that, not just in in tone, but uh in tech. Uh-huh.

Kelly 22:32

Yeah.

Ken Bruce 22:33

I'm gonna bring up that word again. It it is the most just from a technological standpoint, it is the most consequential attraction at Disneyland. It changed everything. Um not just not just with animatronics, but the very tone of of the show, the very magic and enchantment of it. It it it kind of there was there was Disneyland before, which was to today's perspective, not very interesting park. Not not as not as revolutionary as we give it credit for, but once the enchanted Kiki Room lands, uh Disneyland knows what it is. Absolutely knows what it is. Um we are we are here to spell bind you. We're here, we we can infuse um uh joy, enchantment, magic. It's one giant magic trick after another. Um we we know we know what we we know what this park is about. Yeah. There are a few other things too, but really the it's it's like pre-preiki room and post and Disneyland now has wings and is flying to what we really know today.

Kelly 23:42

Yeah, I think I think you know, I I I think I'm probably the oldest guy in in the virtual room here by a little bit. And if you were to ask me as a kid what represented Disneyland, I think it's very likely that I would have said the enchanted tiki room. Yeah. I might have said Adventures Through Inner Space, but I was a weird kid.

Ken Bruce 24:06

But I was doing a lot with a little, yeah. We have to remember too, uh, before the tiki room, there was no pirates of the Caribbean or Haunted Mansion or Small World, or you know, it was a handful of dark rides, and the major attraction was uh Jungle Cruise, which was still constantly evolving, does to this day. The submarine ride was there, Matterarm was there, but yeah, it changed everything.

Kelly 24:29

Nothing that came alive in that way.

Ken Bruce 24:31

Yeah, yeah. Well, and also that's when imagineering uh really, really took a toehold in uh understanding the uh value of uh surprising an audience. Uh we take that for granted, but the idea of actually how how can we how can we do this thing where the audience just absolutely didn't see that coming, whatever it happens to be? A room stretching. I oh, I just went down a waterfall and then went back up. Uh you know, how many in the later attractions were they able to pull off uh with great, great effort? You know, maybe two or three, but the enchanted tiki room, count 'em, has 10 for 1963 audiences, 10 bona fide, holy cow, didn't see that counting moments. And that is incredibly hard to pull off, and that became Imagineering's North Star ever since. You know, that that we strive, we strive to create magic is the word you hear constantly when you're at the park. It's like stop already. Um but it was it was well earned with something like the enchanted tiki room because people just didn't know how how they pulled that off. Right down to right down to expecting uh when they left the tiki room that the ground would be wet because there was a a rainstorm out there. There was a storm, right? Uh you know, we giggle now, but people were able to suspend their disbelief in ways that we we cynical people today don't do so well. But my bigger point is how difficult that is to pull off, and holy cow, they did it.

Kelly 26:04

Yeah. Yeah. And and and I do think you're right. I think it's much tougher now because we are uh a bit more cynical and we we know a little too much. However, I will tell you that the first time that I took my kid into the Enchanted Tiki room, they thought a storm had happened. I mean they they believed it absolutely.

Pete 26:25

I mean they were like seven, but uh but still at least you didn't do what I did, Kelly, which was follow my kid afterwards, and I had a cup of water, and I was like sprinkling her behind just feed off all about the immersion. Evil, evil, evil. You know, Maynard was very angry, let's put it that way.

Kelly 26:49

Maynard was angry. We were talking about like kind of Walt revising the attraction over and over again. I got a real sense from your book, kind of how Walt worked. And and and you and I and I've read this sort of thing about him before. Walt has pluses and minuses. Um yeah, he's a he's a human being. He's a human being. Um but but I think what's really interesting in you guys. Endlessly grumpy. Yeah, you had to be careful around him. Endlessly grumpy, yeah. Uh tended to have his Kelly, he did not give compliments. I think I I heard someone, and it might have been Rolly Crump saying that he heard him once say good enough and then walked out. And I was like, that's the most. That'll do. That'll do. But I but I love this sense of he maybe he probably didn't really know what he was going for. He just knew that it kind of hadn't gotten there yet.

Ken Bruce 28:00

Yeah, I mean, that's fair. I think with the with the tiki room, it was it was a series of of discoveries for Walt where his people proved that they could do X, Y, or Z. And once they did, he was like, Well, if you can do that, can you do this? And they would be like, Let's go for it. So, so he was, you know, it started as such a small little idea. This needs to be underlined about a hundred times. The tiki room started as it was just gonna be a cafe. Yeah. An intimate little cafe, then became a restaurant later. Uh, but it started as just a uh, you know, the idea was okay, Lillian can finally have her tea room, quite frankly. Uh it was gonna go on Main Street, but it never they never got around to it. So Walt was like, oh, we can do a you know, a Tahitian style cafe of some sort. Right. So so what's my point? So it starts from that, and then John Hench just inadvertently for fun, probably just because he thought it was fun decoration, he he did, he wasn't thinking beyond, I just want to make a kind of a pretty picture. He put in birds in his interior sketch, uh, because Walt needed, of course, to see what the place was gonna look like inside. And he wasn't ready for Walt to go, what are you doing? Stop like we can't put birds in here because they're gonna poop on the food. And he didn't use that word. Um and then it was all about like I've gotta make the boss, I I gotta, I gotta evade um complete um embarrassment right now. So he's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Walt, they're they're just stuffed birds. Well, I have I will have already told a story once you get to that part of my book that Walt was not going to be doing taxidermy anything in his park because they hadn't done that before, and it was uh just kind of terrifying to Walt the idea that they're using real animal skins for say creatures on the mind train through nature's wonderland. Um, so he was against taxidermy, and then uh John Hench was like, Well, no, no, they're mechanical birds. And Walt uh Walt was always uh transfixed by mechanical anything, um, toys onward. He had a huge collection of them, and and like like all of us nerds, the idea of an inanimate object coming to life was transfixing. So it started with, okay, well, we'll we'll just fill this restaurant, well, this cafe with these birds, and they they it will not be a show, it's not a musical review, it's kind of in that rainforest, it's in the rainforest cafe vein, which is while you're eating, maybe the birds just tweet across the room, and that's where it started. Because yes, we can do birds, yes, they're already working for another uh another show we're working on. Um but but well, if the birds can work, what else might we have come to life? And it kept growing and growing and growing and getting sillier and more audacious as it went until one day Walt was like, This is too good. Every time it it these guys proved that they could do this thing, Walt is transfixed. Walt is having so much fun. The amount of fun Walt had with this thing, seeing it grow, uh it cannot be understated. Um, so it just kept growing.

Kelly 31:42

Lowdown on the Plot Up is a Boardwalk Times podcast. At boardwalktimes.net, you'll find some of the most well-considered and insightful writing about the Walt Disney Company, Disney history, and the universe of theme parks available anywhere. Come join us at boardwalktimes.net.

Ken Bruce 32:12

So it just kept drawing, and Walt couldn't stop. Like he was like a kid in the candy store. He could hardly wait, like Steve Jobs, to hold up this this iPhone for the first time. Right. Uh and and like Steve Jobs, was absolutely focused on the idea of this is going to blow people's minds, because it's blowing his mind. Right. Um so it grew and grew and grew. Uh, the story of how it became uh went from a restaurant to a show is not just because Walt thought no one would be able to eat anything in there because they'd be too mesmerized. Right. But it was also predicated on the idea that he was having a not a good relationship with the Stoffer's company, uh uh who had already started the first of three restaurants that they were right next to each other that that they were going to sponsor. So um Walt was ready to get out from under that. And and um I think the first idea was Vernon Stoffer's group is not working out. It's a horrible, horrible arrangement for us. Um, well, if it's not working out, do I need them at any like I have to, I'm going to be getting rid of them. So who's gonna take over the tiki room? Eh, no one needs to take over the tiki room. I think this is this can stand on its own. So once that decision was made, it was still a happening. It was not a show. It didn't have MCs, it didn't have an opening number, it didn't have uh words to some of the songs, it didn't have jokes, it didn't have, it did have a three-act structure, but it was just weird. It didn't, it did it was scary. It was yeah, it was it was surreal and weird and frightening. Now we need to make it into a show. Um, and once we sell the idea from the very beginning of this thing with an opening number that hadn't been written, um, that this is a lot of fun, then people will have fun. And they did. Yeah. So yeah. So just the story of how it evolved, but then it was always evolving, but how it became something else. Yeah. It was meant to be one thing and then it became something else.

Pete 34:32

You you mentioned the the evolution of um going from potentially live birds, you know, the dimension of a live bird to taxidermy to mechanical birds. Um, I have something here from my collection that I wanted to share with you guys. It might be there's talk always about Walt handing out a group of these to the imagineer saying, play around with these, see what you can do with it. So I have one here. Yeah, and it's one of these Swiss made for some reason my there you go. It's a Swiss-made bird in a little cage. He's made of wood and twine and little feathers uh attached to him. And so I'm I mean, I'm not sure if we're doing anything visual with this particular show, but for audio, um but for audio.

Ken Bruce 35:22

Who is the manufacturer?

Pete 35:24

The manufacturer, uh, there is not a manufacturer's mark on this, but you tell us if you know.

Ken Bruce 35:30

It might be a bontum's bird, and that's part of the mythology I break down from page one is that that that bird didn't inspire the Tihy Room. It certainly was played a role in in inspiring the early Imagineers in their quest for animatronics, for sure. Sure, yeah. Um and then there's also the the the kind of like, oh, and Walt buys an antique. Well, the Bontum's company made those all the way through the 1960s. So it might not have been an antique. Yeah. But it but it's still that technology has not changed since 18 whatever, 78. Um and it's great. Yeah, it's ch charming. I want one.

Pete 36:11

Yeah, it's it's really it's really sweet. So I'll try and get this close to my mic so the our listeners can hear it, but that's lovely. And he chirps away and he moves his little tail in tune with it, and his head moves left to right, and the beak still opens. Uh this one is actually from uh the 1950s, based upon what so this is this is not like an old antique, antique one, but this is very much a much later one.

Ken Bruce 36:39

But still the same technology that dates back to leather and paper and wood, that's it, and brass works, that's it.

Pete 36:45

And the bellows.

Ken Bruce 36:46

Yeah, and the belly. And uh my understanding too is is that uh when you wind it up, it doesn't just well, I don't know about that one, but the bontamus bird, the bird, the birds that Waltbot had uh, they you wind them up, but they had a mechanism in that that could could stop it and start it over 45 minutes, I think.

Pete 37:04

Yeah, but you start it and it stops, but it'll come back to life later. Yeah, this one has it. If you hold, if you there's a little lever here that if you if you rotate it to the center, it will do that timed bit. So every once in a while I'll think you'll put it back in its over. You think it's done. It just starts singing again. It's like, shut up, you stupid. It's doing it now. So there you go. So anyway, I thought you guys might have a little fun little bit with that. It's on my list.

Kelly 37:33

I think, I think I don't remember if it was in your book, Ken, or if you just told me that maybe both, that Walt was handing those out all over the place.

Ken Bruce 37:44

Yeah, there's always yeah, and everybody, yeah, everybody got a stab at it. And it's like, okay, so he buys this gift for his wife, and then he hands it off to other people to take apart. No, he bought a lot of them. Uh sorts of places. They were selling those at Knott's Bury Farm. I'm sure he picked up three of them. He had two or three in his office. Um so I'm sure one of them he handed off to his people, and he handed them off to more than one person. One of them, your dear, your dear friendly Adams, who apparently has told the world that he is the uh the you know the father of animatronics. You know what's you know what's I would give that title to either well both Roger Brogy and Waethel Rogers. Waitel Rogers is the guy that uh was tasked with the impossible. And and uh, you know, can you imagine a guy a guy who just likes some mechanical toys and builds them in his spare time, but he's in the animation department, and Walt says, I've got some jobs for you. And with with a later one being, I need to do a restaurant full of animated birds, and Wafel was like, I sure, Walt, I guess because you believe in me, but then is able to, after having a mini stroke on his way home, uh gets to it and figures this stuff out. Yeah, does it expect for engineers? Um, and I'm gonna call them engineers. My dad was an engineer. Yeah um the the art of of uh the impossible, figuring, figure out, figuring out how to do something that has never been done before. And that's waffle through and through. Yeah, and then there's but they immediately go to the old school. Like I have to start somewhere. So old school is that bird, and um, so he digs into it and figures out how it works, and uh the first sort of exploration of of animatronics is probably this nine-inch dancing figure that was for a completely different project that Walt was playing with on a spare time. That's a whole other story. Um, but yeah, that's when the bird was brought out and said, take a look at this. This dates back till whenever. But Walt Walt knew that we can't do this, but at least start with it. Like take a look and and and from there, I know you guys can do something better. So get to it. I believe in you. And and that's all they needed, and they did they did amazing things. So yeah, Lee Adams was in the sound department, so he was more linked to how sound could trigger movement.

Kelly 40:18

He was a he was an electrical engineer, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I and the only reason uh so yeah, I I saw the same things you saw about Lee Adams, where he seems to have popped up in like Wikipedia articles and things, and he's long gone.

Ken Bruce 40:32

I and that is the first few hurdles of writing this book is sorting through endless mythology. Yeah. For some strange reason in the Disney universe, some fanboy or girl starts a story that is so enchanting and it just is retold so often that people just buy it. And uh they had antique bird as one, there's a there's so many others, but but um you know, one of them was about the the uh the the the Barker bird outside the TV room, and there's a lot of baloney associated with that. Um but there's so much mythology, and uh and I argue constantly, you know, sure, that story is cute, but it's absolutely misleading. And if you dig into the truth, it's a lot more complicated, but it's a lot more interest rewarding. Yeah, yeah.

Kelly 41:33

Yeah, agreed. We we've run into that actually doing this podcast quite a bit. And interestingly enough, I think the Lee Adams thing uh was a bit of a spanking for me, where I just took people's word and I was like, oh, of course, and you too. Yeah, right. And and then I started looking and was like, no, this doesn't seem to be true. And and and so as we moved forward, as we were looking into stuff, I started questioning a lot more and it had the same uh effect. I I started to realize, oh dear, a lot of these things are not true at all. And and if you if you can't get back to, if not the source, at least one person away from the source, it's unlikely to be true, the thing you're reading.

Ken Bruce 42:22

We didn't don't always don't always trust the source, you know. Ark Goff was a shameless fibber. Yeah. And Walt, and and Walt was a was a raconteur and he liked a good story, you know. Yeah, you know, when Walt was asked, where did you come up with the idea for Disneyland or why do you why do you want to park? The actual answer is I don't know. Yeah, no, the actual honest to God truth is I just wanted one. So Walt struggled with a constant press going, well, tell us the story of how Walt, whatever. And then he invented, then he he didn't invent, but you know, he did tell the story of how he'd sit in front of a carousel and think about a park where you can where yeah, where you you know sit in front of the carousel at Griffith Park. And that that that is sure, that is probably true. He probably didn't mean that while he sat on that bench, he came up with the idea for Disneyland. He had wanted it since he was, you know, in his 30s, maybe even earlier. Um for no other reason than I just think it would be cool, I think it would be great. I can. Because I can, yeah. Yeah, you know, if you really wanna, you know, and then and now and now what do we do? We go to the the Disney Family Museum and we go to whatever, and they always have the the uh a park uh park bench from Griffith Park, yeah, you know, mythologizing Walt's dreaming of Disneyland. And if they really wanna do it right, they should find his you know shower stall from his, you know, from his early home and put that out there because. Because that's probably where he did more thinking about Disneyland than anything else.

Kelly 44:07

We do we did some looking into because we were talking about um the Main Street electrical parade, and so we we did some looking into uh electric park in Chicago. As you look into it and you see what was there, you kind of go, hey, a lot of this looks like Disneyland. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, if you really want to see an origin story, that's a pretty good one too.

Ken Bruce 44:29

That's a good that's a good start too, yeah. And he would peek into that park. We always I I love the idea of like uh we always we always pine for that which we don't really get enough of as a child. Yeah and the electric park was one of them. He did get to go to electric park, but early all he could do was look in because his family couldn't afford entry. And that was when uh the idea of electric light bulbs was relatively new. So just seeing one electric light bulb was magic to a kid. Imagine now a thousand uh uh dotting a building at the end of a rail track uh line, uh, and how mesmerizing for a kid and magical that is for a kid. Oh, yeah. Um uh so the idea of I can't get in, and so as an adult, you become you know, it it it it links perfectly with I'm gonna have my own main street and it's gonna be lined with more light bulbs than you can imagine. Yeah and it's gonna be as mesmerizing uh today as it was then. Well, uh the tiki room, the very tiki room, the idea tiki room really is a um um a toy shop come to life. Yeah, Walt loved mechanical toys like crazy, and as a kid, what happens is he uh his father doesn't believe in their value uh in any way, shape, or form for the development of a kid. No, we no, you you you you don't get any toys. Yeah. Um but while Walt is out as a kid uh running the the uh newspaper route, he sees toys on people's stoops, and uh he gets off his bike and plays with these toys right there on the stoop. Uh before as as the sun is coming up, yeah, uh, and then he and then just as the sun comes up, he hops back on his bike and finishes the route. That is so telling because again, it's it's what they don't get as a kid that when they become an adult, they they go nuts and collect every last bit. I I have a similar story. Like I I I wanted to, I would have loved to have gone to the theater all the time as a kid and we would see commercials for whatever, a vita. And I couldn't I never went. Uh, but what happens as an adult? I I become someone who goes to the theater every week, it seems. Um because I'm kind of catching up for lost childhood or lost wants as a child. It's kind of a nerd thing.

Kelly 46:48

It's it it's it's almost it's almost a fetishization of the thing that you couldn't have when you were younger.

Ken Bruce 46:55

And Disneyland is a fetishization of the things that Walt um Walt revered and and felt felt like he lost in a way that he wants back. Yeah. Absolutely. I think the thing that I always say, that I say, I think in the in the very introduction, is if Walt if Main Street is an e-vocation of Walt's nostalgia for his childhood, the tiki room is an e-vocation of that very child. Um that that is Walt's toys come to life. Um and it tracks with Walt's enthusiasm for that project, and and it tracks with his with his constantly bringing in VIPs uh into that room, both at the both when it was a mock-up and both when it was a Disneyland, where it was just him and whoever, you know, Julie Andrews or or uh Tommy Steele or whoever. Yeah. Just them in the room and him just you know clicking his fingers and wait and and thinking, wait, do you see this? And he was he was like that proud papa. He called that thing his baby.

Kelly 48:10

Yeah, yeah. And and did he uh as I understand it, uh Wedd owned the train and did it also own the tiki room? Is that why they were separate, there was a separate admission to the tiki room?

Ken Bruce 48:22

No, it was his it was his company uh and uh for many different reasons. Uh his his personal think tank, he loved it, uh, and uh much of it was related to it being a great tax break. People people making Walt's income were taxed 50% of their income. So a tax haven was to create your own business and then write up a lot of stuff. So that was part of that was part of it. But uh so so Wed was his WED was was its own company because basically everybody other than Walt believed in the Disneyland project. Everybody thought he was nuts. He had every right to had every good reason to believe he was nuts. Uh um, but Walton believed in it, so the only way he could move forward was to create his own company. And uh the tiki room was his own money. Wed uh uh Wed uh Wed owned technology and and design and all that stuff. So he did have to lease out the building at Disneyland to do it, but uh the early days of Disneyland is uh because Stoffers was no longer aligned with the project, uh, you had to buy a separate ticket to go into the tiki room right there at the building. Um no one seemed to know who were buying, like, you know, why am I buying a separate ticket? Blah, blah, blah. There's a whole other thing that they did. That was to keep the books separate so that the money going to the tiki room could go could cleanly go back to Wedd Enterprises. Um that eventually was worked out. I I don't know, five years later. I don't know, a few years later.

Kelly 49:55

I forget. As I as I recall, like similarly with with the railroad, I think Wedd had to pay that remained that remained Walt's property for much longer. Yeah, and they they had to pay right of way to the park for a long time, which was very strange. So let me let me let me jump off track off this track a little bit and and ask so how does some uh a Ken Bruce who is a storyboard artist for a lot of big films, um survivor of John Crick Felusi.

Pete 50:32

Um I teach animation. I teach animation, so it's like I've I've interviewed a lot of people there.

Kelly 50:40

So how how does he end up going? You know what I want to do is I want to write a book about the history of the enchanted tiki room. How did you get to that point?

Ken Bruce 50:48

I think the first I think the first thing to mention is that this was this was the book I wanted to read my entire almost my entire life. Yeah. I really, really wanted to read a deep dive. I didn't want a coffee table book. I wanted a deep dive into this because I knew, always knew how consequential it was and how important it was to the history of the park. Um and no one had written it. Yeah that didn't mean that I thought I was the one to write it, but what happened is I'm at Pixar. Uh uh I'm at a uh backyard luau at Pete Doctor's house, and Pete Doctor says, Ken, I want you to meet someone. Well, it was two people, Kevin Kidney and his partner Jody Daly, and they're big names in the in c in the Disney Collectibles, and they just finished a project doing uh the costumes for the New Country Bear, and they put raid floats and restorations and just amazing work. Anyway, so I meet Kevin, and Kevin is like me, totally fixated with old school Disneyland. Yeah, you know, kind of Walt era Disneyland and that that all that history. Um and he as a side note, he goes, Well, yeah, and he worked at the park, he worked as a as a cast member when he was younger at both the tiki room and the and the uh and the uh tree house. Yeah. Um and the jungle crews. You just rotated. So um so he loved all of that. And you know, for a good chunk of his life, he was always grabbing anything that wasn't tied down that was related to the tiki room, but he had a great collection, and he goes, Ken, uh I now that I know you're as much a nerd over the tiki room as I am, I have a collection of stuff on CD RAM ROM, pictures and whatever. Um and I'd be happy to share that with you. And he said as an aside, I don't, it's nice to know that someone is as interested in this as I am, and that I can share this with you. Um and I don't know what what use this is to anybody else, unless I guess they were to write a book. And that was when the earth shook, that looks like because I immediately thought that's the book I always wanted to read. Yeah, and I thought, holy cow, I guess it's me. If it's a book you want to read, and you're just handed kind of the tip of the iceberg. There was plenty, I always say there's plenty of other shons, I was gonna say S loads, of uh research. Of course, I had to do over 10 years, uh 16 years actually, but that was a great, that was a great start. That was the first, that was like the great trunk, and everything could branch off of that. After mulling it through and and really, you know, really thinking, can I do this? I was like, yeah, I can do this. And um I guess I I guess I did. And again, it was 10 years of of formatting and researching and six years of writing after that. So 16 years, that was a 16-year project. So when people say, What's your next book? I'm like, that's it.

Kelly 53:50

Yeah, I got it. I did it.

Ken Bruce 53:53

Yeah, I'm I'm done. That's my that's my masterpiece. I have at it. Um, but boy, did I quickly find out that it was the book that that it it was a book worth writing. I think the Diki Room is a pop culture masterwork. I think it's a work of art. I think it's uh should be, you know, they always say Disneyland is not a museum, and um, and yet the Diki Room has earned a place in one, it's that important. So yeah, I marched forward with writing that book uh because I felt like I was the only one. Who else?

Kelly 54:27

Smith enough, crazy enough, who knows?

Ken Bruce 54:30

I and I don't know how I I kept the fire under my hiny to do it, but I I I marched forward. When you tell enough people you're gonna do something, I guess you better do it because it's very, very embarrassing if you don't. So I just kept I just kept marching forward. My deadline was the uh I guess the 60th anniversary, and I pretty much made it. I was happy about that that I did it. And it's a and it is a really great story. It's a great it just became more interesting as I went. Yeah.

Kelly 54:56

Yeah, and and and what you've done is is um not only have you given a great history of the tiki room itself, and not only have you given a great history of American tiki culture, you've given a great history of uh audio animatronics.

Pete 55:12

Yeah, yeah.

Kelly 55:13

In fact, I I can't think of any other example that has gone in as much depth about the history of audio animatronics. Like I thought I had a pretty good handle on this stuff, and I didn't. Uh I I know much, much more now from having read the book.

Ken Bruce 55:30

Yeah, I was like, I'm not I'm not an electrician or a machinist or uh engineer, but I was like, I'm going to I'm gonna have to find a way to explain this to someone like me in a way that I go, oh, okay, I I guess I get that. Animatronics has gotten insanely, especially with computer tech, uh so complicated and complex. But it starts with some rudimentary, you know, uh problems to solve. And so I dig into them. And uh, you know, that was one of the things that was interesting too. Even though this is old school, old school tech, and that Peter, that bird you you put up is also very old school. When you when you actually dig in, it is no less genius. Yeah, yeah. No less yes, we have moved on to much more sophisticated ways of moving, you know, three-dimensional figures. But knowing the time and the era and the problems that they had to solve, um how they did it was utterly ingenious, and it still is astounding to me. Very, you know, again, clunky and old school as all heck in in 2025, but again, absolutely no less fascinating and magical. Yeah.

Kelly 56:50

They they they took the tools that they had and they went further than anyone could have dreamed they could have gone.

Ken Bruce 56:55

They solved problems that had really never quite been solved while you know borrowing from the Defense Department.

Kelly 57:06

I I had always wondered, because I had heard those clips of of Walt saying, oh, these are we use the same technology as you know, the what the Polaris submarine fleet. Yeah. And I was like, what does that mean?

Ken Bruce 57:19

And that was my job too, because I was exactly the same in the in the same boat, Kelly. I was like, what are you talking about? So I had to figure that out. Yeah. Um, and when when I did, there it was like that was so great because I felt like I'd stumbled upon the holy grail. Like I had always like, what's the Polaris missile? And what do you like? What do you what specifically are you taking? And blah, and how did this happen? Like, and when I finally kind of hit upon the answer, I was like, oh wow. Yeah. Like I'm so happy I figured that out. Yeah, well, I'm so happy you did too, because I'd always wondered. Well, I mean, there's two things that come to my mind right off the bat, which is one, it wasn't lost on people in in the 1960s that you know the tiki room was using um, you know, hardware that was essentially meant to, you know, kill people for joy, for the for for the for cultivating joy. Yeah. Uh um, uh a bit ironic, but and then I forget what the other thing was I'm gonna say. Uh that that oh that uh that Walt was uh Walt wasn't taking stuff that they were necessarily using. They had already, they had already, like, the Defense Department had already started to figure out brand new ways of doing what that old tech was doing. So when when Walt stumbled, Walt's people stumbled upon that stuff, the Defense Department was like, yeah, have that. It's no longer a secret. It's we're we're doing something else. You can have it like a garage sale, you can have it for cheap. Yeah. But even then, the amount of research and development they did, Walt was very clear. He was like, we couldn't have done this without their without their research and development and all that slash money. Walt always was talking about how something how much something cost. You know, he would get on his TV show and this cost more money than we should have paid, but we're ready to build now.

Kelly 59:16

Well, let me let me ask kind of as as we sort of draw this to a close.

Ken Bruce 59:20

So I was Oh dang, are we have to go?

Kelly 59:22

No, we we don't have to. We can talk for forever. Um so I I was at the um the Walt Disney Family Museum. Pete was there, my wife was there. Um we uh and I got in a conversation with I uh the guy who I think is the guy that runs the gift shop there where your book is proudly displayed.

Ken Bruce 59:42

You can which was a political um challenge.

Kelly 59:52

I asked him at one point, I was like, how does someone get a book in here? And he's like, oh, basically this person in the hierarchy of the museum has to have read it and decided they liked it. And I'm like, well, what are the odds?

Ken Bruce 1:00:04

But so uh so I I had to I had to get I had to get Pixar to knock on a few walls, and I had to get a lovely woman who uh uh Marcy Caracter Smothers, who wrote a couple great books. Uh she has been such a great ally, and there's a story uh there's a story between me and her that is worthy of being told, but I won't tell it now. But she was a great rival and she knows everybody at the museum. So she she knocked down a few walls as well, God bless her. And uh so it is not even then when I was like, can you guys, can you guys, can I, I would love, can you guys take a picture of my book there? Because it's so thrilling that it's there. Like, I'm so honored. And they're like, Yes, you can, but can't, but don't post it on social media because before you do that, we have to go through a legion of lawyers to make sure that that's all right. Because everything is tricky everywhere. And I still haven't succeeded. I haven't, I haven't gotten the word back on whether I can even take the picture, say, that you took, and and be and proudly, you know, proudly post that anywhere. So it's a it's a problem. And I get it. It's uh it they they are there for to to protect the the sanctity of of Walt. Uh and and so you have to there's a there's a lot of cross-checking that they have to do.

Kelly 1:01:26

Yeah. So I was talking to the guy at the shop, and I said, Hey, have you checked this out? This is a great book. And he said, Really, um, can you tell me like just a short thing that I can use to tell people about it? Like what what what's exciting that you can give me in kind of a sound bite?

Pete 1:01:47

Yeah.

Kelly 1:01:47

So I I'm gonna ask you, I'll tell you what I told him. But I I was curious if someone asked you that question, what would you say? That's a good one.

Ken Bruce 1:01:55

I think I was on a an earlier podcast and all of a sudden I found my mouth making noises. Uh, but I think it was I think it was a good a good link, and that is what if what if an attraction at at a theme park uh went from a fun little attraction to a verifiable work of pop art? Yeah, what what happens when something that was meant to be maybe ephemeral turns into something profoundly um consequential and artful? Like I do, I I do equate the tiki room, Walt Disney's enchanted tiki room, this with a very personal piece of of pop culture that is a wonder of the world, quite frankly. So what happens? What how how do you how do you manage that in a park that has to remain relevant? Um it's it's that important. The history of that it is that important, and uh what it what it remains to this day is that important. So I I I that's a lot of words, but it's basically that it's that what if, you know? Yeah. Um you stumbled upon that. Thank you, Marty Sklar, because he would always he would always run around saying, please guys, you can't follow, you can't you can't fetish size the these things at the park. Walt wanted this park to change. Um Walt, this park is not a museum. Right. And and yet, uh the frustrating thing is attention needs to be paid to the enchanted tiki room as as something much more important than just a lightweight uh musical review with a bunch of birds. It's it it it it it's made its mark on culture and it's kind of weirdly sacred. Sacred is a word that I hesitate to use, but I have to. Yeah, it's that important. You know, we we get because it's so important it's so personal to Walt. Yeah. Uh so personal. It is kind of the last little vestiges at the at his at his original park that is uh such a reflection of his his interests and his and his personality.

Kelly 1:04:13

Yeah, yeah. I know that I think that's great. I think that um you know I've I've had discussions with people, and this is a longer discussion we probably don't want to get into right now, but I've had discussions with people about what is Disneyland, and and and I I know that sounds broad and a little cheesy, but it's like i if and so what is what is the essence of Disney being Disney? Yeah, and in in that sense, I think things like the tiki room are incredibly significant. Yeah, and yeah, things I bring up, yeah.

Ken Bruce 1:04:45

I think of you know, uh uh I kind of remember an early viewing of the tiki room, and uh an animator friend of mine was like, God, that was charming. And I'm like, we don't use the word charm that much, probably because it feels a little icky, but uh it's not a bad word, and it fits. It absolutely fits. The show is absolutely charming, and I think what ultimately uh that show sells, that I think Disneyland overall has tried to sell, or should continue to try to sell, is just a simple sense of joy. It's about joy. Yeah, it's about uh joy. Universal, uh well, that's a it the universal knows what it is. It's about you know, it's got a completely different tone and it should embrace it. Um and Disney should embrace it. And Disney and Disney has and Disney striving to be cool and hip is not a good idea. No because it never was cool or hip, and that was its charm. Yeah. Um its charm was it it it's its corniness and it's just embracing uh, you know, uh again, joy. Um, and that's and that is a a good. Thing. That is that is a perfectly admirable thing.

Kelly 1:06:05

I think there was a uh quote from Rolly Crump once where he he had gone back to Disneyland in like the 90s or the 2000s and he he was pretty disparaging and and um and he said you know Disneyland used to freaking reach out and hug you.

Ken Bruce 1:06:21

Yeah, yeah.

Kelly 1:06:22

And I and I know I know what he's talking about there.

Ken Bruce 1:06:25

Um he was also talking about how the park is uh intimate in size too. Yeah. So because all the all the foliage uh is is has grown in. You go to Disney World and that's everything is every every street is three times wider. Uh yeah, he would talk about uh the Disneyland hugged you uh because it was an intimate place. Yeah. A place that there was lots of things to discover uh you know just by turning around a corner.

Kelly 1:06:51

Well, I think this is a a a pretty good place to draw to a close. So, Ken Bruce, tell us how tell folks how they can find your book because they should read it. Oh, I think I I think they should too.

Ken Bruce 1:07:07

Don't buy the book because of me. Buy it because it is a great story that I think is riveting and full of surprises and full of twists and turns. It almost plays out like a like a mystery novel in a way. I uh and when I wrote it, I was like, God, this is playing out like a movie um with cliffhangers, for God's sake. Um look buy the book because it's such a great story and um and such a kind of a a look, I think, at people have told me to well, and I'll get to um the the idea that what uh what I think might be fresh about this too is that this is a peek at Walt, the creator, the guy who's absolutely in the in the thick of building something from the ground up that is very personal. And uh I couldn't help but tell that story through the lens of someone who is in that world of people building things from the ground up. Um so it so I think that is a unique take on Walt that hasn't really been uh seen very much. So where can you buy it? Amazon is the place I do uh to buy it, that's the easiest place. I'm still working on the brick and mortar stuff. So if you but if you do go to the Disney Family Museum, there's copies there, which is super exciting. Um Amazon has a good place. I can s I can also send uh you can also go to the the my website, which was is very easy to remember, tikiroom63.com. And there you can find I can also send you a copy of a book of the book there or uh or an autographed copy as well. Yeah. Personalized directly to you because I have nothing better to do.

Kelly 1:08:45

Which you kindly did for me, and I appreciate very much.

Ken Bruce 1:08:48

Oh, absolutely. It's so funny. A side note, uh, I uh I just automatically personalize it to whoever bought the book, and I did that, I do that with everyone. But there was a kind of an uh a not very happy woman who was like, I'm very upset because I bought an autographed book, but I bought it for my whatever son-in-law. Yeah. Um, and you made it out to me, and this makes me very upset. How can you how can you fix this? And I was like, Ugh, well, whiteout?

Pete 1:09:18

I'd uh yeah, whiteout.

Ken Bruce 1:09:21

Uh I mean I said I'll give you a discount book, but it's but we're both kind of in the wrong here. Um, but I got the website and clearly wrote in bold, you know, um, if you yeah, basically, like if you want it made out to anybody else, you gotta tell me. Yeah. Um anyway, so yeah, you can get a copy of so both of those places. Amazon is gonna be the easiest place to nab it, but again, it's uh don't buy it for any other reason than you it's a great story, it's a great piece of history, and I think it's it's a ri it's a it's a it's a really fun story, I think. I absolutely concur.

Kelly 1:10:00

It's it's it's a wonderful story. Kim Bruce, thank you so much for for doing this. What a pleasure.

Ken Bruce 1:10:08

Uh I yeah, I'm I'm so glad we finally touched base. And uh I'm so happy that I I don't know that I'm linked to you, Peter, on Facebook, but I know I've got Kelly in there and he always feels like a family member. So I'm allowed to. If I'm literally like, I wonder how Kelly is doing after his operation, you know, then there's some there's some there's some history between us now.

Kelly 1:10:33

Yeah, no, no, you actually reached out. I really appreciated that.

Ken Bruce 1:10:38

I was like, I know Kelly now. Kelly's, you know, Kelly's a buddy now, whether he wants to be or not. I'm totally in. So thank you guys. Uh uh, thank you so much for having me. I know you're breaking precedent by having someone other than yourselves on. Yeah, and keep and keep marching forward with your absolutely great podcast. Uh oh, thank you. Very good. Uh keep doing it. You're doing great.

Kelly 1:11:11

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us. And if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at boardwalk times.net. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I on our Lowdown on the Plus Up Facebook group or send us a message directly at commons at lowdown-plus-up.com. We really want to hear about how you've plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at Incompitech.com. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we like you.

Jose 1:12:15

Amigos, amigos down there, it is me up here. Amigos, Romans, and Disneylanders. Stop walking while I'm squawking. Caramba, we have something really big for you today. It is the world premiere of Walt Disney's intended Tiki Room. It is Disney Entertainment at its most exciting best time. You wait for the show right here below me in the Magic Garden where the gods and goddesses perform. Get your tickets right over here for Walt Disney's intended Tiki Room. This has been a recording.