Building a Better Mouse: The Story of the Electronic Imagineers Who Designed EPCOT, 30th Anniversary Edition

Note: There is an updated 40th Anniversary Edition of this title available!

On October 1, 1982, The Walt Disney Company opened its EPCOT Center to the world, heralding changes that would take the Disney property in Florida from a mere theme park to a world-class resort destination. Authors Steve Alcorn and David Green were there, as employees of Disney’s WED Imagineering. ＂Building a Better Mouse＂ tells the tale of the ＂hundreds of mostly young, mostly bright and all embarrassingly idealistic people＂ who worked on Epcot, and gives a unique insider’s perspective on what it was like to be in the trenches as a Disney Imagineer in the early 1980s, from pixie dusting - when new employees are indoctrinated into all things Disney - through the craziness of the engineering design process, right up until the last frantic dash to opening day. It is a breathtaking, breezy, E-ticket ride of a book, required reading for both hard-core Disneyphiles and people interested in the business side of themed entertainment.

Steve Alcorn Steve Alcorn is an entrepreneur, engineer, inventor, author and teacher best known for his involvement in the theme park industry. In 1982 he joined Walt Disney Imagineering (then known as WED Enterprises) as a consultant, where he worked on the electronic systems for EPCOT Center. During his two years with Imagineering he designed show control systems for The American Adventure, wrote the operating system used in the parkwide monitoring system, and became Imagineering’s first Systems Engineer. In 1986 he founded Alcorn McBride Inc. The company’s show control, audio, video and lighting equipment is used in most major theme park attractions around the world. Mr. Alcorn is the author of several novels available at themeperks.com. Through Internet instruction provider Education To Go, Mr. Alcorn teaches online classes at over 1000 universities and colleges worldwide. He also teaches a survey class in Theme Park Engineering at imagineeringclass.com David Green David Green is the president of Visual Terrain, Inc. (www.visualterrain.com), an internationally known lighting design firm for Architecture, Attractions and the Arts. In addition to his three years at WED working on EPCOT, Tokyo Disneyland, Fantasyland Rehab and Houston WEDWay PeopleMover, David spent another 11 years at other divisions of The Walt Disney Company. He is a trained journalist and published author in non-fiction, fiction and poetry. David was previous president of Monteverdi Creative, Inc., a creative consultancy whose clients included the Walt Disney Company, Technifex, The Hettema Group, Thinkwell, Dedica Group, MOTO Design Group, Smart Design, Concrete Pictures, DIRECTV and others.