Imagineer Tom K. Morris is a Disney theme park LEGEND. Heck, his story even reads like the stuff of legend! At age 12, Tom saved up enough money from his paper route to fly himself â by himself! â to the opening of Walt Disney World. At age 14, he started selling balloons in Disneyland. A few years later, Tom was drafted by Disney headhunters to come work for WED (now known as Imagineering). From there, he went on to develop fully synced on-ride audio for Space Mountain (using only a cassette Walkman!), helped create EPCOTâs original Journey Into Imagination (one of Disneyâs all-time best attractions!), designed Disneyland Parisâ GORGEOUS Fantasyland (including the castle!), served as executive creative show producer for Hong Kong Disneyland (Iâve watched the YouTube videos!), and is credited by many in Imagineering for making the design of Cars Land âwork.â
Now, after some 42 years with Disney, Tom K. Morris has retiredâŚand The Disney Elite was there to pester him!
So with a resume as varied and visionary as Morrisâ, what did I want to drain his brain about? Why, the neon Mickey âStar Traderâ sign, of course!
The Disney Elite: Hey, Tom. I donât know if you know this, but the neon Mickey âStar Traderâ sign has A LOT of ardent fans, myself included. Every time I post a photo of it here, the response is tremendous. My nephew even calls it his âfavorite part of Tomorrowland.â Iâm really excited to finally hear the story behind it. Can you tell me when/how you were first approached to work on Disneylandâs iconic sign?
Tom K. Morris: I wasnât approached to do the sign per se. I was assigned to redesign the facades of the entire building from the entrance of Star Tours to, and including, the Character Shop (former name of Star Traders). Budget and objective for the Character Shop portion were a little unclear, so I started with Star ToursâŚ
The proposal I did for Star Tours was a little more expensive than they had budgeted for, but everyone liked the design â including Lucas â so we decided to stay with it. Meanwhile, I couldnât come up with a really good idea for redesigning the front of the Character Shop without that also costing a lot of money, so we started thinking about a name change (âCharacter Shopâ never made any sense), plus a new paint scheme and an attractive sign.
Timeline-wise, I would have to go back and check, but I believe this was end of â85, early â86.
The Disney Elite: Were there any pre-existing concepts for the sign, or was it all the product of your brainium? (Iâm thinkingâŚthe astronaut look, the minimalist take on the Mickeys, etc.)
Tom K. Morris: No pre-existing concepts. Everyone seemed to be focused on Star Tours and EO. I briefly fooled around with a modernistic, abstracted Mickey form on the corner of the building, but I donât think I even showed it to anyone. I might have it somewhere in my filesâŚ
Tom K. Morris: I also found a couple scribbles of earlier conceptsâŚ
Tom K. Morris: I had been working with neon a year earlier for Videopolis (another graphic marquee I designed), and was exploring it further for a Tomorrowland restaurant project that didnât go forward, so I was intrigued by it at the time.
However, I knew it might be a hard sell because the older leadership at WDI associated neon with âthe real worldâ of liquor stores, bowling alleys and, at the time, gritty Las Vegas, so I started researching more sophisticated applications of neon. I must have put together an image board conveying some kind of rough analog of how it could look âsophisticated.â Showing the newer pallet of tertiary colors was key as people tended to associate neon with primary and secondary colors rather than what I would describe as âDisney colors.â But I canât remember any approval process beyond Tony Baxter trusting me. The project was kind of an orphan child in that everyone was focused on other things.
The Disney Elite: Do you recall how many versions you did?
Tom K. Morris: I did not do many versions, knowing that someone more skilled in character animation needed to do a final version. I might have done 2 or 3 before handing it over. I have either the last one or the second to the last one here on tissue.
The Disney Elite: Oh, wow. Thatâs awesome!Â
Tom K. Morris: I also have Mark Hennâs clean up sketchâŚ
Tom K. Morris:Â [This] is the final art that [Mark] Henn provided. As I recall, the colors were discussed in a meeting I had with LA Neon, the sign company that made it. The rep had a âsuitcaseâ that he opened up that had all the neon sample colors in it, and when he plugged it in they all lit up! So I believe I may have just selected the colors that way without ever doing a spec board.
The Disney Elite: So *thatâs* what was in the âPulp Fictionâ briefcase!
The Disney Elite: Last question! Iâve gotta tell you, EVERY TIME I go to Disneyland, I see the Star Trader sign and smile. I know Iâm not the only one. All these years later, how do you feel about your work on it?
Tom K. Morris:Â Itâs very unusual because there was probably a time 20 years ago when I forgot all about it. I always assumed it would be an interim fix until the rest of Tomorrowland caught up design-wise, and Iâd be surprised to see it still there on each visit.
Some people are really surprised when I tell them I was involved because they donât think of me as a character artist. (Iâm not, but then again I would study the hell out of Milt Kahlâs animation drawings when I was younger!) Their surprise causes me to think, âDid I really do that?â Of course, Mark Henn fixed it and put the polish on it, but now, comparing the drawings, I see that he kept a couple of my poses, which I never expected.
The Disney Elite: Throughout our correspondence for this interview, I kept remembering bigger and bigger Imagineering projects that you were a part of (on-ride audio on Space Mountain, the entire freaking Fantasyland at Disneyland Paris, etc.) and telling my wife, and she would just crack up laughing and say, âAnd youâre only asking him about the sign?!â Yep! What can I say? I L-O-V-E that sign!
Tom K. Morris: Small projects were some of my best!
The Disney Elite: Thanks so much for doing this interview, Tom. Iâve seen your name in various books and videos about the Disney Parks for years, and itâs always been attached to attractions and environments that I adore. So to finally get a chance to chat with you for a little bitâŚwell, itâs been a thrill. I literally received your answer to my first question while standing in Disneyland. Talk about a memorable moment!
I also really want to thank you for sharing that pic of your astronaut Mickey/Star Trader sketch. Herb Ryman justly gets a lot of praise for that original Disneyland painting, but for a certain sub-sub-subset of Disney geek (i.e. me and everyone who has read this far), youâve just unveiled something similarly cool!
To everyone else: Click the following links to follow Tom on Twitter, Instagram + Facebook. He posts lots of great, one-of-a-kind Disney stuff!
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