Legendary Disney Imagineers and Landmark Entertainment!

Since 1980, Landmark Entertainment has designed some of the world’s most iconic themed attractions. And, over those decades, many Disney Imagineers have gone on to work on some incredible projects for Landmark. 

Below, we’ll share just some of the tantalizing stories of how Disney’s most creative people worked magic for Landmark…

Back thirty or so years ago, Landmark Entertainment designed an indoor Six Flags theme park project called Phineas T. Flagg’s Power Plant in Baltimore, Maryland. It was called “Power Plant” because the park would be built on a historic power plant near the waterfront. Marc Davis, who retired from WED (Imagineering) in 1978, and Imagineer Herb Ryman worked on the project design. Ryman designed the main character, a magician called Phineas T. Flagg, as seen below:

 

Davis, meanwhile, worked on the design of animatronic robots for a Home of the Future show. This park was steampunk before steampunk was a thing.

 

 

 

He also designed models for the Power House show “Tribute to the All-American girl.

 

 

There would also be a Toy Circus Parade:

 

 

Phineas T. Flagg, being a magician and all, also had his own magic show in the park (artist unknown)

 

Landmark also worked on a Monopoly theme park project. Here is an overview by Herb Ryman.

 

Marc Davis, meanwhile, was working on a project for Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, CA called The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. It got to the model stage before being shelved due to budget.

 

 

The Jumping Frog, a quintessentially Marc Davis character, would have been the star of Calaveras County.

 

 

Jim Michaelson was an Imagineering artist who did some of the beautiful works of Main Street, U.S.A. in Disneyland Paris, worked on a concept before Disney’s Dixie Landings Resort called Dixie Landing. “The good-time riverboat showplace” at Dixie Landing was never built.

 

 

Dan Goozee, famous among Disney fans for his original rendering of Expedition Everest, did this Wilderness Lodge inspired casino for The Sands in Las Vegas:

 

Dan also worked on “Dream Home” a Science Fiction/Fantasy simulator attraction for an Asian theme park.

Claudio Mazzoli must have been impressed by earlier WED work, because in 1981 he made some familiar-looking concept art for the Haunted Graveyard of Niagara attraction at Niagara Falls. The piece is called “Spirits Emerge From Crystal Ball in Haunted Mansion”!

And that’s our theme park history lesson for today. It’s always mindboggling to look at concept art and wonder what things would have been like back in the day or if budgets would have held out. There’s just so much work that Disney’s clever Imagineers have done for companies beyond the mouse. More soon, I promise!

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All artwork: copyright Landmark Entertainment. And my deepest thanks to my dearly departed friend Alaine Littaye, who did so much research on this subject. We miss you every day. 

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