Magic Kingdom Attraction Posters: The Tomorrowland Collection

An Introduction: Don't you just love Disney attraction posters? I do, and I have several in our home, reminding me of many visits to the parks over the years. When the internet first came around, I began searching for them. It became somewhat of a hobby to find as many as I could. The opening of the first Disney Gallery and Store and later, the option to print on demand was a boon to this ongoing quest.

Several years ago, 2011 to be precise, I first published my collection of Disneyland's iconic attraction posters, land by land, beginning with Main Street. I continued gathering these images from many, many, sources from all over the world, including auction sites and those from the great Daveland blog. But an unexpected source brought in the largest number of the pieces I had seen.

After years of searching, I was sent missing posters from my good friend (and eventually this blog's additional author) Len Yokoyama. He had gathered them from a variety of official Disney documents covering many of the parks in the ever growing Disney park universe. Upon looking at them and what I already had collected, I was astounded. I had amassed just about everything I'd wondered and heard about- and soon after, the first post appeared on the Insights blog. I had no idea this series would become so popular. (Look here.)

Naturally, I began to think about doing the same for the other Disney resorts, beginning with Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. This was more of a challenge as 1- There are fewer attraction posters created, and 2- There did not seem to be as much interest in parks beyond Walt's original.

That was, until The Walt Disney Company put together its own book, Poster Art of the Disney Parks. Covering all the Disney Parks, it is a magnificent work of love that included its own tear out poster at the end of the final chapter.

One last note as I begin this series of attraction posters in the Magic Kingdom: Over time, as I found with the Disneyland group, I keep discovering more to add, so look back every once in awhile. You may discover something new. Enjoy!
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Eastern Airlines sponsored If You Had Wings.

Tomorrowland is first. Unlike the collection for Disneyland, I have the largest number of attraction posters for this area of the Florida park. That is in direct contrast to what happened opening day when this area had so few actual attractions to enjoy!

In 1971, the beautiful Magic Kingdom finally opened its doors to guests in the midst of The Walt Disney World resort complex in Florida. The massive undertaking of building, essentially, the real EPCOT- a full city and vacation complex- placed a huge financial strain on the company. Much like Disneyland's realm of the future, the new Tomorrowland had to open with minimal attractions. With time and budget coming into play, many concepts for attraction posters came from Walt's California park.

Lots of clean up needed on this one!

A revision of the Disneyland original.

The Grand Prix Raceway was here, thrilling young kids and their parents who got to watch them drive. It sat on a huge piece of land as drivers didn't cruise by the landscape single file. No, this was an actual race between drivers. A nice twist on the original Autopia in California. Worthy of two posters.

Circle-Vision 360 was here as well, with America the Beautiful giving audiences a lovely tour of the country. Filmed attractions from the Magic Kingdom would prove to be popular inspirations for EPCOT Center, which would open a decade later. The attraction poster was a copy of the same one on the West Coast. 

American Journeys would update the original. Later, Magic Carpet 'Round the World replaced the American film. 

I have never found that poster, so the one above is actually from Tokyo Disneyland. I'm confident in time that one will surface.

Direct from Disneyland.

A version of the Flight to the Moon and the Skyway to Fantasyland rounded out the roster. (Unlike the first kingdom, there would be no train station in the land of the future.) I do not know if there was a poster created for Flight or not. Maybe you can tell me as I have never been able to get a clear answer to that question.

About nine months after the grand opening, the Eastern Airlines sponsored fan favorite If You Had Wings opened. Although this addition helped fill out time spent there, it was a massive addition to the area in 1975 that changed the face of Tomorrowland going forward. It was also one of the few attractions here that existed with two changes in sponsorship, new names, and significant re-Imagineering.

Decades late, this would appear.

In addition to the iconic roller coaster in the dark, the high flying AstroJets came into view on the skyline, and a few months later, the WEDWay Peoplemover began its grand tour of Tomorrowland.

 

Two variations.

As I wrote about in this article, eventually Tomorrowland needed an overhaul. With new attractions and a new aesthetic, a this beautiful poster arrived on the scene showing off the land's alien inspired elegance. 

This Timekeeper poster was taken from my 1999 photo.

I enhanced as best I could for this article.

The Timekeeper, starring Robin Williams as the friendly robot that takes you through history, had a poster within the land to advertise an exhibit at the "Tomorrowland Metropolis Science Center". Because the poster was located within the land and was part of the story, no "branded" official attraction poster exists. 

I would certainly love to find a better looking attraction poster for the out-of-the-box ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, but as far as I know, one does not exist. This is the best one out there.

Probably the best place for this attraction poster.

I'd like to end this article with three posters from Greg Maletic. As you can see below, even though they were unofficial at the time, these are beautiful pieces of art celebrating Tomorrowland, Space Mountain, and the long-gone but beloved attraction, If You Had Wings (had wings, had wings, had wings... Sorry, couldn't resist).

                                               

Mr. Maletic's love of Disney attraction posters eventually propelled him to create his own. As a result, Greg was hired on by Disney to create beautiful posters for Hong Kong Disneyland and California Adventure. 

That's it for today. Keep your eyes open for the next chapter in the attraction poster saga!

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)