Happy 40th Anniversary to my swashbuckling comrades!

[LittleDollClaudia]

'Pirates' celebrates 40-year voyage
By SUSHMA SUBRAMANIAN
The Orange County Register


Francis X. Atencio remembers riding with Walt Disney through the dark swamp in Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride before it opened – from haunted caverns to a pirate galleon to a ransacked Caribbean seaport.
He turned to Disney and apologized as they drifted past a bustling marketplace scene, where a pirate auctioned off a woman to a crowd of rowdy buccaneers.

"I'm sorry we can't hear all of their lines," Atencio said.

Disney responded: "This way, each time people go through it, they'll hear something new."

Atencio told that story to one of the ride's fans on Sunday – the 40th anniversary of Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean.

Atencio, who wrote the "Yo Ho" song played during the ride, joined four other Disney artists who helped sculpt, paint and costume the pirates and their ships to sign pirate memorabilia and reminisce for about 250 park visitors at the Disney Gallery.

"With all the sounds, sights and smells, you really do notice new things each time you ride it," said Sandra Marshall, 31. "The ride is old, but it still holds up."

Nearly 315 million Disneyland guests have ridden Pirates since its 1967 opening, making it the theme park's most popular ride. It also inspired a movie franchise. Since then, many of the movie's characters – Capt. Jack Sparrow, Davy Jones and Barbossa – were added to the ride.

Blaine Gibson, who sculpted the pirates, recalls his wife scolding him for staring at people he saw on the street, at church or in restaurants when he was looking for inspiration to create the ride's characters. He changed one of the pirates' noses after his co-worker told him it looked too much like the nose of a man who worked in another Disney department.

Harriet Burns, who helped Gibson with the sculptures, helped ensure that visitors couldn't tell if some of the faces had been used in more that one spot in the ride by changing hair color or adding an eye patch. She had to apply each strand of hair to the leg of a pirate sitting on a bridge in one of the scenes.

Alice Davis, who costumed the pirates, reminisced about telling a Disney bookkeeper that the costumes cost twice as much as they really did so she could sew a second set, an expense that Disney officials told her they could not afford. Her husband, Marc Davis, now dead, drew up an initial vision for the ride.

A few months after the ride opened, a small fire burned a few of the costumes, and Davis revealed the extra set to Dick Irvine, one of Walter Elias Disney Enterprises' first executives.

"He didn't know whether to hit me or to hug me," Davis said.

The artists all remember their thrill over working with Disney. He handpicked each of them for the project. But none expected the ride would last long because Disney told them the attractions would change every decade or so.

Walt Disney first envisioned the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in the 1950s as a wax museum, then as a walk-through adventure. Later, the ride's creators decided to use the same type of boat system as It's a Small World.

Atencio never had written a song when he first half-sung, half-recited his lyrics to Disney.

He expected Disney to assign the job to the Sherman brothers, who had written the music for several Disney movies, including "Mary Poppins." But after hearing Atencio's idea, Disney insisted he write it. Years later, he was surprised to hear a group of kids reciting the chorus in a little boat in Laguna Beach.

Pirates was the last theme park attraction supervised by Walt Disney. He died before it opened.

"If I come back in 100 years, they'll probably change a few things, but the heart of it is still Walt's vision," said Bob Gurr, now 75, who helped build the ride's flat-bottomed boats.

"And I'll still be here signing autographs," Atencio said.

"Pirates" timeline

1961:Walt Disney initially assigned imagineer Walt Davis to design a pirate-themed wax museum.

December 15, 1966:Walt Disney died.

March 18, 1967:"Pirates of the Caribbean" opened in New Orleans Square.

March 7, 1997:The ride was redesigned to incorporate new scenes and updated technology for its 30th anniversary.

July 9, 2003:The movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," based on the Disneyland ride, was released.

June 6, 2006:Disneyland opened a redesigned ride, incorporating the voices and likenesses of the movie's actors Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy and Geoffrey Rush and a revised music track.

Next:Live pirate characters and games will become part of Tom Sawyer Island, the classic Disneyland playground designed by Walt Disney. The makeover is to coincide with the planned May release of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," the third in the movie series based on the ride