The Dark Side of Disney (25 page)

Path Shane swam from River Country to Discovery Island

Once you hit land, you basically had no idea what was there, right? I mean, there could be polar bears like in “Lost”! Were you jumping at every little noise? Was it stressful being there, or was the total abandonment and desolation peaceful in some way?

Yeah, we had absolutely no clue what we were going to run into. We were definitely tense pretty much the entire time we were there. We were most definitely NOT alone on that island, there must have been thousands of birds nesting on the island and they all made their presence known. There were a lot of crashes and movement going on in the woods around us and everything was incredibly overgrown. We also were trying to use as little lights as possible to avoid being seen from the land so we really had no idea what was in the woods around us. We did take some video footage while there, I’m sure at some point I’ll get it digitized and share it on my site for people to be able to have a better idea of what it was like on that island.

WTF was with the snakes in the jars and Coke bottles?! Any theories about that?

Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they were snakes that were found on the island that someone kept to try and identify?

And you had a run-in with vultures?!

Yeah, they were relatively young and hadn’t grown feathers in. They were in a collapsed building and were not terribly happy to see us. They made a lot of hissing noises and charged at us a few times trying to scare us off. We took a few photos and a bit of video and left their little area.

You’ve explored many corporate ruins; how does Discovery Island compare to the rest of them, and what does leaving a theme park to rot instead of cleaning it up and/or bulldozing it say about Disney as a company?

Discovery Island is a pretty unique thing in that it is totally abandoned and is reverting to a natural state. Most of the other theme park related things I’ve seen are behind the scenes areas or are only temporarily closed. I don’t think it really makes a lot of sense to bulldoze the island, from what I saw there weren’t a ton of buildings to begin with, just a lot of wilderness. I think letting the island revert to nature is a pretty obvious choice if they don’t have a viable business plan for revamping it.

Any official kick-back from Disney? I know you waited until the statute of limitations ran out to post about the story, but there was talk of them banning you from the parks for life….

I haven’t heard anything from Disney in any official way, but I also haven’t tried going to any of their parks. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I were banned from the parks for life. If anything, it would make for a good story to tell.

Your series of nudes are absolutely stunning. Have you done any WDW nudes?

Thank you, unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to shoot any nudes at WDW. I’m not really sure Discovery Island would work for my series, but I’m open to the possibility if I found a location that was good enough for it.

What’s next for you? Any upcoming Urban Exploration projects on the horizons that you can talk about?

I’ve got a few things in the works, but I really don’t like talking about that sort of stuff before I do it for obvious reasons. This year I’ve also been focusing more on having some gallery shows and establishing a bit of a presence in the art world.

Thanks, Shane! Be sure to visit Shane’s website at
http://shaneperez.blogspot.com
, where you’ll find all of the photos from that evening, along with an incredible gallery of nude photographs taken in a variety of abandoned industrial locations.

INTERVIEW WITH HOOT GIBSON

Next up is Hoot Gibson, of the recently infamous Hoot and Chief duo. These two seemingly came out of nowhere in 2010 and shocked the WDW fan community with their blog at
http://mesaverdetimes.blogspot.com
, which features extraordinary stories of off-limits explorations of Horizons, the much-loved EPCOT ride that was torn down in late 1999 to make way for the much-maligned Mission: Space.

I remember first finding out about Hoot and Chief when someone sent me a link of a static video taken from
inside
one of the sets from Horizons.
Inside
meaning, not from the Omnimover vehicle, but from a video camera that was obviously set on a tripod, filming from a perspective that riders would not be able to see from their vehicles. I assumed it was unearthed raw footage from a Disney-shot promo video, which was cool enough. But soon afterwards Hoot and Chief unleashed a ton of incredible behind-the-scenes videos, photos, and audio clips on their blog, and slowly but surely revealed the mind blowing story behind what I (and many others) believe to be a historically significant documentation of a now-extinct attraction.

Hoot Gibson, molesting an Animatronic on the set of Horizons

Their often heart-pounding blog entries detailed paranoid and over-planned escapes from the Omnimovers, discoveries of hilarious props hidden by Cast Members in the sets (notably a giant black dildo in the Mesa Verde fridge), the secrets behind some of the best special effects in the ride, and cat-and-mouse chases between them and security guards through backstage areas. But most of all, the blog entries show an over-abiding love of an attraction that they knew was close to death, a thought which in their mind demanded action, risks be damned.

Hoot, introduce yourself and tell me a bit about your background and how you met Chief.

I grew up on the west coast of Florida so trips to WDW were frequent. I loved the place as much as any other kid but in 1976 the magnitude of it all finally hit me. I remember realizing that Walt Disney was a real man, he had talented men and women working for him, and REAL people created this amazing place. I wanted to be part of it.

When I graduated High School I packed my stuff and went to work at the Magic Kingdom. I applied to be a custodian because it seemed like the kind of job that would allow me the most freedom for exploration. I was right. Custodians are looked down upon by every other cast member and that's no secret. Most of them weren't very smart.....and I hate to say it.........but some were borderline retarded.

The incredible upside to the job became clear one night when I was on my way to explore the Jungle Cruise. I was making my way across the maintenance dock and POW a security guy came out of nowhere.

He asked me what I was doing back there and I said, "My Lead told me to come down here and empty a trash can but I can't find it." Security guy said, "Well that one looks like shit so empty that one." He left and I went on to sit on some Audio Animatronic elephants and photograph them inside and out.

Working at the park was far from what I thought it would be. The people there were mean and overall disenchanted with the place. I had imagined a place where I would work with the other fans of Walt Disney but it was far from that. My focus became more on gathering information and less on making a career. One crowded day on Main Street, a new guy showed up.

Chief walked onto the scene with his white uniform on and a book about Walt Disney under his arm. I said, "What are you? Some kind of Disney Freak?" He said, "Yep." I said, "Me, too." It was an electric moment for sure. We talked all day and come to find out we were on exactly the same page. That night we snuck into Jungle Cruise. The next night... the entire park. It started an amazing string of planned adventures that seemed to never end.

Chief, posing with the Animatronic dive team in Horizons

We eventually got fired from the Magic Kingdom. We didn't fit in so insubordination led to our predicted demise. I went to art school in 1987 and Chief joined me second year. We found that crazy shit happened wherever we went but the Magic Kingdom was still our focus.

On a basic level, what was it that drove you to explore these rides beyond the bounds of a normal guest? Most people are happy sitting in the ride, experiencing what they’re meant to experience. Why did you need more?

We had to KNOW more. When we were custodians we asked about art and maintenance jobs and how we might work our way up to something like that. We were only met by smart assed answers from mean people.

I have a point to make about that. Chief and I didn't like being told we couldn't do something. Especially from those in charge of the place that we had dreamed about our entire lives. It put a sour taste in our mouths and gave us one hell of an inspiration to do whatever we pleased to get the info we wanted.

As a follow-up to that, this really is sort of an ultra-geek activity. You could have been hanging out at bars, picking up chicks, or playing sports, or whatever guys do in their spare time. What did your “normal” friends and family think about this? What did girls think about it?

We didn't really talk about our adventures with other people. I guess we thought that other people wouldn't care. Chicks thought we were stupid so we didn't bring it up. We had girlfriends but they never came along or cared about what we were doing unless they wanted to lay a guilt trip on us. I remember dumping a girl because she didn't know that there were two separate tracks to Mr Toads Wild Ride! I couldn't have that :)

Hoot floats in Zero-G with the Space Station family in Horizons

It seems as if the Horizons exploration was very detailed and thorough, almost like a military operation. Describe the thought process that led up to it.

What makes the Horizons exploration special to us is that we had pretty much retired from our WDW exploits by then. Chief went off to the military, our third partner, who I can't name, got into a high speed chase with Disney security and was banned from property, and I fell in line and tried to make something of myself.

The closing of Horizons rekindled a deep feeling in me and Chief. It was an amazing piece of art that couldn't just slip away like some attractions before it. We decided to use the skills we had honed to preserve it all the best knew how. We did.

What made Horizons so special? Is there anything like it at WDW now?

There's nothing there like it now. I only go to the parks if I get in free and even then I don't even enjoy it.

Why did you decide, after so many years, to start telling the world about all of this through the Mesa Verde Times blog? It seems like you guys just came out of nowhere! For us Horizons fans it was akin to a Beatles fan finding out there were 4 unreleased Beatles studio albums hidden in a vault somewhere!

Hehe. My greatest fear is that I'll die and my pics and stuff will end up at the county landfill. I was flipping through my Horizons pics and for some reason I decided to blog about them. I didn't think anyone would care and neither did Chief. It became a way for the two of us to relive the adventure and we were happy as hell to find out that other Horizons fans are out there.