As Epcot marks its 25th anniversary, many fans and critics still measure it against what it never became, Walt Disney's "city of tomorrow."

Still, on Oct. 1, 1982, Epcot opened as an instant leader in the theme park business, and it remains so.

Attendance annually tops 10 million, making Epcot the world's third most visited theme park, behind only its older siblings, Magic Kingdom and Disneyland. Its culinary and cultural fare in 11 country pavilions and nine industrial pavilions remain unique offerings. Shows such as the IllumiNations and the International Food & Wine Festival set industry standards.

"I always think of Epcot as the place where Walt's dreams truly came true," said Jim MacPhee, Walt Disney World's vice president for Epcot.

Though few at Disney would admit it publicly, Walt Disney's most utopian Epcot dreams — for a domed city of 20,000, an industrial park and airport — were already looking impractical and maybe un-doable by 1974, when Disney officials announced planning would begin.

"The original concept died in 1967, a year after Walt's death. It was never revived," said Frank Langley, a Walt Disney World publicist in the early 1970s who is now writing a book on Epcot.

A different vision

Orlando Sentinel - Epcot Center, the second of the four Disney theme parks built in Orlando, opened 25 years ago on Oct. 1, 1982.

Today’s its golf ball-like icon, Spaceship Earth, stands as a cultural icon. So when Disney officials didn’t launch a 25th anniversary commemoration, avid Epcot fans decided to it on their own. Word spread throughout the Internet and gatherings slated for Monday at Epcot were organized. One group, Celebration 25, is comprised of more than 1,200 participants from the U.S. and U.K.

Celebration 25 co-founders, Jenn Waitt and Adam Roth, are delighted with the turnout that Waitt’s “one little spark” ignited. Roth, an Orlando high school student, summed up Celebration 25 saying, “It will be an amazing experience — getting to meet so many other active and passionate fans coming together in one place — it’s a rare thing.”

Events fan will enjoy on the anniversary date of Oct. 1 include the opening of the Innoventions West exhibit and a special presentation of the fireworks/light show “Illuminations” featuring projections on Speaceship Earth.

The backstory

Often referred to as “Walt’s last big dream,” Epcot (the name was simplified in 1993) is celebrating its silver anniversary. Walt Disney’s vision of an Environmental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) was to be an actual city where people lived and worked side-by-side with the latest technologies.

Unfortunately, Walt Disney did not live to see his dream realized, dying in 1966. Although this visionary man left behind detailed plans for the creation of his “community of tomorrow,” when it came time to execute, Disney executives, facing the complexities associated with running a city, turned to what they knew – theme parks.

Epcot Center opened amid great fanfare. Jumpsuit-clad dancers performed to an original song, “We’ve Just Begun to Dream,” while balloons and white doves were released. A television special celebrating the opening, hosted by legendary actor-singer-comic Danny Kaye, aired on Oct. 23, 1982.

Two worlds combined

Epcot is divided into two sections:

• Future World, featuring family and thrill rides plus exhibits showcasing science and technologies.

• World Showcase, comprised of pavilions representing eleven countries; Mexico, Norway (added in 1988), China, Germany, Italy, The American Adventure, Japan, Morocco (added in 1984), France, United Kingdom and Canada.

Visible from a distance is Epcot’s icon, Spaceship Earth, the only geosphere in the world. Resembling a giant golf ball, Spaceship Earth stands 180 feet tall, has a diameter of 165 feet, and weighs 16 million pounds. Inside Spaceship Earth, ride vehicles slowly spiral upwards and then return to earth, passing scenes depicting the evolution of human communication, from cave drawings to computers.

Rocky start

Initially, Epcot had difficulty attracting visitors who shied away from the educational facets and labeled the park; “another world’s fair.” As word got out that Epcot was so much more, visitors began spending time in both Future World and World Showcase, exploring and absorbing the stories Epcot’s attractions told of coming together as a global community and looking toward the future.

Disney weighs in

My brother Robert and I had been staff songwriters for Walt Disney Studios for about five years, but nothing would prepare us for what Walt had in mind when he sprung a meeting on us in late 1965. The room was full of background artists, animators, storyboard men and others, each one of us wondering: what’s the big surprise, what are we all doing here? 

The room was hushed as Walt spoke. 'So tell me, how many of you fellas have read The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling?’ Not a single hand went up. 'Great,’ he said, smiling. 'Because that’s our next movie.’

He’d read the book himself and thought the boy-reared-in-jungle story was fabulous, but he was intent that nobody else should have read it. His version would be very different from Kipling’s, and he didn’t want any of us to be influenced by it. There’d be none of the author’s murky, jungle mystique: this would be happier and lighter – classic Disney.

It was a big secret at the time, but this wasn’t Walt’s first attempt at The Jungle Book. Just before he called the meeting with us, he’d been working on another version with a different bunch of people. But he thought it was getting too dark and too much like the book, so he just decided to start again with a new team.

To this day I still don’t know how far advanced that production got, but I know he’d had a contretemps with the previous songwriter, a very gifted guy called Hamilton 'Terry’ Gilkyson, (who’d written Memories Are Made of This in 1955). Terry had done seven or eight songs for the original version. But Walt liked only one of these, and told me and my brother to write the rest. (He was the great Walt Disney: he didn’t ask, he told. And you always did as you were told.)

He was no fool, either. The one Gilkyson song he retained was the wonderful novelty number Bare Necessities, which would become one of the most famous Disney songs. You wouldn’t believe the amount of praise Robert and I have received over the years from people who thought we wrote it.

When we began work, there was no script laid out. The first thing we did, as a team, was to create the characters’ personalities. Walt didn’t want stick-figures, he wanted individuals that came alive on screen. Making Bagheera and Baloo look good was just the start – they also had to move distinctly, act distinctly, breathe distinctly, speak lines exactly right for their character... All together, the Disney team were creating lives.

Robert and I didn’t write songs per se, either. Some may have become hits in their own right, but first and foremost they were written as 'character numbers’, to set a character’s place in the story. I Wanna be Like You is sung by the ape King Louie, who longs to be a human like Mowgli; Trust in Me is by Kaa, the menacing serpent, who hypnotises Mowgli as he sings  … the character singing was the key to each song.

The songs had to move the story forward, too. 'What’s happening while it goes on?’  Walt would ask. He never wanted just a singing head, so Robert and I would always have to think visually, too, and come up with scene ideas for each song. Something had to be happening on screen all the time.

Walt obviously had the final say on everything, and he could be very crisp. He’d dismiss your work out of hand, if he didn’t like it. I remember his reaction to the demo of  That’s What Friends are For, our song for the four mop-top vultures. With their Liverpudlian accents, they were a homage to The Beatles, and we originally wrote that song with a Beatles-style beat. But Walt insisted we change it immediately.

'I don’t want to date the song to the Sixties,’ he said. So we rewrote it as a barbershop quartet instead, to make it timeless.

Robert and I were fortunate, though, that Walt liked most of our work. Not that he’d ever, ever cover you with praise. If he liked something, he’d simply nod and say without making eye contact: 'OK, that’ll work for my picture.’ If you worked for Disney, you were just expected to produce the best. That’s the way a genius like Walt worked.

He was one of the greatest story-tellers of all time. He had this instinct, this seat-of-the-pants gift from God for what made a good story and what would entertain. And not just on film, but also in person – you’d be captivated as soon as he opened his mouth. So it made sense for Walt to be in charge of every sequence, as he was. We’d have team meetings all the time to get each scene right and, though everybody contributed, he was unquestionably team captain.

'Have fun with it,’ was his keynote during the making of  The Jungle Book, and also – you could say – his outlook on life. He knew in his gut that inside every grown up, sophisticated adult, there’s a little kid just dying to have a good time and enjoy movies like his.

But he was also a very private man, and didn’t associate socially with his staff. Even though he was very kind, he always kept a little wall up with all his employees. He kept his family and friends very much apart from his work. None of us on The Jungle Book even knew he was ill.

Sadly, he never got to see the film – one of his greatest triumphs – completed. And after he died, things at Disney were never the same again. A great void came. There was no leader any more, just a bunch of sergeants scrambling around without a general.

My brother and I left Disney Studios soon afterwards and went independent. It wasn’t a bitter parting, but how do you carry on once you’ve worked with a super-genius?

The Edge, a business weekly, said Walt Disney officials met officials from Khazanah last week on developing a park in the Iskandar Development Region.

"They (Walt Disney) met Khazanah managing director Azman Mokhtar and had discussions with other top Khazanah executives," it said.

But it said Khazanah was also in negotiations with other theme park players including Warner Brothers.

The Edge said Khazanah would make a decision on its choice of partner by year's end.

The report comes amid ongoing construction work on the Universal Studios theme park in Singapore.

Muslim-majority Malaysia has embarked on an ambitious development plan to spread growth and jobs in Johor state, and has been keen to attract investment from the Middle East.

Called Adventures by Disney, the program lets vacationers experience a private breakfast at the Taronga Zoo, Australia's greatest collection of native animals and exotic species, or a stroll along the Great Wall of China.

Reservations are available for the remaining 2007 trip, to London and Paris Dec. 20-27. One stop is London's theater district, where guests go behind the scenes of the hit Disney musical "The Lion King."