The Imagineer who helped invent the rotating theater that debuted in 1964 is reportedly consulting on the new Carousel of Progress

Imagineers spent a year tracking down three books, all so that a single shelf beside Walt Disney would be accurate in the opening moments of the reimagined Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress at Magic Kingdom.

That detail came out of a panel at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, and it arrived alongside a bigger one: WDW News Today reports that Bob Gurr, a retired Imagineer and Disney Legend, is advising on the project. Gurr helped build the original.

Why that name matters: Gurr was at WED Enterprises, now Walt Disney Imagineering, in the 1950s and 1960s when Carousel of Progress was built for the 1964 New York World's Fair. He and Roger E. Broggie headed the group behind the rotating carousel theater, the mechanism that spins the audience around a fixed ring of stages instead of walking them from room to room. He also helped design Disney's first human Audio-Animatronics figure, Abraham Lincoln, unveiled at that same fair in Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

Disneyland's first 15 years hold most of his other credits: the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the Disneyland Monorail, the Autopia cars, the antique vehicles on Main Street, U.S.A., and, per WDW News Today, the Haunted Mansion Doom Buggies. Disney named him a Legend in 2004.

One caveat worth stating plainly: the consulting news comes from WDW News Today's report on the panel. Disney has not mentioned Gurr's involvement in its own coverage of the reimagining, and as of publication no other outlet has picked it up.

A year of shopping for one bookshelf

The new show opens on a scene inspired by the 1964 television special "Disneyland Goes to the World's Fair," with a Walt Disney animatronic. Imagineers told the panel audience they have been sourcing period props to match that special, including cups, glue and boxes.

The books were the hard part. Imagineers said they spent a year collecting the three volumes that sit on the shelf beside Walt in that special. All three concern Lincoln and the Civil War, a nod to Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. In the panel photo, the spines are legible: "The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War," a volume titled "Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose," and an American Heritage Junior Library edition of "The Battle of Gettysburg."

Disney's own account of the project, written by Imagineering portfolio executive creative director Chris Beatty, describes the same prop hunt without mentioning the books. "The team is having a lot of fun sourcing and replicating many of the props seen in that special, like the prototype Tiki bird, the Tower of the Four Winds model, a doll from 'it's a small world,' and so much more," Beatty wrote.

What else is changing

The ride's timeline is moving forward. Act 1 now starts in the 1960s rather than the early 1900s. Beatty framed it as a callback to how the show was built in the first place: at the World's Fair, Act 1 looked back roughly six decades, to the turn of the century, and the new version does the same thing from today, which lands it in the 1960s.

Disney used the same D23 stage to announce that Jamie Lee Curtis, herself a Disney Legend, and Bryan Cranston, an Emmy winner, will voice the mother and father. Neil Patrick Harris delivered that news to the crowd, and also gave the audience a first look at a new 1980s scene.

Carousel of Progress is temporarily unavailable. Beatty says the new version will debut in late spring 2027.

Sources

• WDW News Today, "Bob Gurr Consulting on Reimagined Carousel of Progress at Magic Kingdom"
• Disney Parks Blog, "A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow: The Ever-Changing Carousel of Progress"
• Blog Mickey, "Voice Actors Announced for New Carousel of Progress, Opening Late Spring 2027"

Image credits: D23 panel photos by WDW News Today. Act II concept art by Disney.