76. Former Imagineer Jim Sarno on Disney’s Model Shop, SMRT-1, and The Land Pavilion Fountain

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There is so much to appreciate when you think about the original EPCOT Center. For its second Walt Disney World park, Disney took a completely different approach and built something remarkable. Looking beyond the massive pavilions and stunning attractions, there are so many little touches that made EPCOT Center a success. Legendary Imagineers ensured that nothing looked too familiar or didn’t match the pavilion’s theme. In the Land pavilion, a beautiful fountain set the right mood and connected well to the natural world. Designed by Walt Peregoy and sculpted by Jim Sarno, the fountain is forgotten or unknown to many guests today.

Sarno is my guest on this episode of The Tomorrow Society Podcast to talk about that fountain and his many other projects for Disney. He started at the Model Shop in 1979 and worked closely on memorable parts of EPCOT Center. Sarno also created the model for SMRT-1, the talking robot in the CommuniCore pavilion. Located in the Computer Central area, SMRT-1 played games and understood our voices while answering questions. A key part of the robot was its friendly look, which Sarno designed at the direction of George McGinnis.

During this episode, Sarno and I also talk about his relationships with legendary Imagineers that worked directly with Walt. He became friends with Peregoy and Harriet Burns and has great stories about fun times in the Model Shop. Sarno offers a peek at the enjoyable atmosphere while under the tight deadlines for EPCOT Center. He also worked on scenes for Spaceship Earth and Journey Into Imagination plus other non-Disney projects like Treasure Island in Las Vegas. I really enjoyed the change to learn more about Sarno’s time at Disney and stories beyond that era.

Show Notes: Jim Sarno

Check out Jim Sarno’s work for Disney and other artwork on his website at jimsarno.com.

Discover more about Harriet Burns and the book Walt Disney’s First Lady of Imagineering: Harriet Burns on the Imagineer Harriet website.

Watch a video of the original fountain at The Land pavilion on YouTube (via widenyourworld).

Catch a glimpse of what SMRT-1 was like on YouTube (via PracticalWDW)

Note: Photos were included with the permission of Jim Sarno.

Transcript

Dan Heaton: Hey there. Today on the podcast we’re going to learn what it was like to work in the model shop with so many legendary Imagineers during the late seventies and early eighties. Plus info on Epcot Center projects like the model for SMRT-1 or sculpting the fountain at the Land Pavilion with former Imagineer, Jim Sarno. You’re listening to The Tomorrow Society Podcast.

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Dan Heaton: Thanks so much for joining me here on Episode 76 of The Tomorrow Society Podcast. I am your host, Dan Heaton. It is stunning to me to look back at the history of this show and realize that we are almost up to four years of doing this podcast. The first interview I did with Ryan Ritchey appeared on August 28th, 2015. So we’re about a month away from being four years of just having really fun conversations with a wide range of people.

I’ve been really fortunate, especially in the past year, to talk with people that worked behind the scenes at Disney in a wide range of disciplines. Today’s guest is a perfect example. Jim Sarno, who started at Disney in early 1979 and quickly moved over to the Model Shop where he worked for about five years, and he was there at such an interesting time for the company with Epcot Center really getting rolling around that time.

They were redoing Fantasyland at Disneyland and then eventually would get primed for Tokyo a bit after that. This all kind of led in to when Michael Eisner was going to take over the company and really things would take off, but especially the focus was on Epcot Center. And Jim worked on models for certain parts of Journey into Imagination, a part of Spaceship Earth, also the fountain at the Land Pavilion, which is not even there anymore, which is a stunning creation of Walt Peregoy.

Then Jim sculpted it and SMRT-1, which I remember actually experiencing, which was a small robot that asks you trivia questions. For a kid in the mid eighties, that blew my mind, and that really is just the tip of the iceberg of things that Jim worked on, but beyond the thing that I really took away from this interview was the impact that the people that Jim worked with, especially a lot of the old school legendary Imagineers like Harriet Burns and Walt Peregoy, and even the influence of Fred Joerger, who’s someone who was so important to Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

Jim just has a lot of great stories about his experiences working with that group and others. I got the impression that he had a really cool time with Disney, despite only being there for about five years. It was quite an experience that made an impact throughout his life.

So it was really cool to talk to Jim. He’s going to be appearing at the Retro Magic event that the guys from the Retro Disney World Podcast are doing in October. You should definitely look into that, especially if you’re in the Florida area. It’s a stunning group of Disney legends and interesting people that have connections to the company, including Jim. There’s a link to that in the show notes, and I just had a blast talking with Jim and learning more about his story. So let’s get right to it. Let’s talk to Jim Sarno.

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Jim Sarno: What I’ve come down to now in my life is I’m teaching kids art. When I go in, I bring my portfolio and it’s a little story about how I was the little kid, five years old that had ears that stuck out, and of course my nickname was Dumbo. I grew into that even in my career, but it was a horrible nickname. I hated it. I’d come home from school crying, and somehow when I got to Disneyland, I looked around, I said, they all have big ears.

Dumbo lives here, Goofy, Pluto, Mickey, and everybody loves them. When I go home to school, they hate me and make fun of me. So I told my parents I want to live here. Of course, they wouldn’t leave me at Disneyland where I wanted to be because I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and when I got home, I got a shoe box.

I was filling it with all kinds of stuff. My mom said, Jimmy, what are you up to? I said, I’m going to build my own Disneyland. So in my mind, from an early age was this thought, I definitely want to be part of that. It was all in miniature because here I was doing little models as I was a kid and of a loner that stayed in the house doing artwork all the time, and I went to Cal State Northridge and wanted to study toy design, found out that was in New York, didn’t want to move there.

So I said, well, Sesame Street or whatever’s going on in LA that has to do with kids in art. I fell into this wonderful position with Sid and Marty Croft, if you don’t know the history of that, the boss that I worked under who hired me was Ken Forsse. Do you know his name?

Dan Heaton: Only slightly. I would love to learn more for sure.

Jim Sarno: Okay, so I know that you had an interest in the rehab of Country Bear Jamboree, or at least hopefully thinking of it. He worked on Country Bear Jamboree. He was in the Model Shop working with all the people I ended up working with probably in the sixties and seventies. So he was there with Rolly and Harriet and all kinds of wonderful old timers and model shop. He ended up at Sid and Marty Croft running their model shop, and he hired me to work for them.

While we were working, he was working on this teddy bear called Teddy Ruxpin that came out of the fact that he worked on Country Bear Jamboree, and he said, wouldn’t it be great if kids had their own teddy bear that could talk and sing? So it was pretty amazing that just this fluky job I started in would introduce me to him and he knew I wanted to work at Disney, and when he had to lay me off, he got me an interview in the model shop with Bob Sewell.

They were getting ready to sign the contract with Tokyo for Tokyo Disney, and Bob said he wanted to hire me. Everything was delayed. It didn’t happen. Ken had to lay me off. He said, Jim, if I ever do this teddy bear, you’re coming to work for me. So years later, Ken got in touch with me, and this was after Disney. I went and worked on Teddy Ruxpin. Then it was quite a nice start, and in between I moved to Hawaii.

I came back and I went to work for Hanna-Barbera working on The Flintstones and all their characters that were full-sized costumes for Marineland. Actually, that led to me seeing a newspaper article that MAPO was hiring for body parts, somebody to make animatronics. It didn’t say animatronics, it just said fiberglass fabrication. I said, well, after doing the characters for Marineland, I think I could qualify for that.

I pretty sure I found out what MAPO was before I went and in the interview, I’m trying to think of the guy’s name, I’m always forgetting him in the interview. He says, Jim, it looks like your portfolio says you belong in the Model Shop. I wasn’t going to be stupid enough to say yes. I didn’t see any ads for Model Shop people.

And my dad had taught me, if you want to get in somewhere, go in and sweep floors if you have to. So I said, well, I know fiberglass and I know body parts. And I said, no, no, no. I am really into sculpting and fiberglass work far from the truth. But I got hired, I took the job, and every day, oh, the guy’s name was Rick Goldie. Every day he’d say, Jim, how you doing? How do you like your job? Oh, I love it.

I love it. Well, I’m itching from all the fiberglass during the first couple weeks when lunch came or breaks, you could wander all over the lot. Of course, I wanted to see the Model Shop, and sure enough, I belonged in there. I wanted to be there. It was the huge Epcot model in the middle of this, the room. And I said, wow, how can I ever get in here? Well, I met Maggie Elliot, the manager at the time. She wanted to see my portfolio. They needed people. Of course, it wasn’t advertised in the newspaper. She said, Jim, I’d like to hire you. Great. She says, where are you working now? I said, MAPO, I’m sorry. We can’t hire you.

I went back to work at MAPO. I said, if Rick asked me tomorrow, I’m going to be bold and tell him. So sure enough, Jim, how do you like your job? I said, like it, but I want to talk to you. Told him I had met Maggie. She wanted to hire me, but he said, Jim, come to my office. I go to Rick’s office. He makes a phone call. Okay. He’s talking to Maggie, hangs up. He says, Jim, don’t tell anybody what’s going on. But on Monday he reports to the model shop.

Dan Heaton: Wow.

Jim Sarno: Isn’t that amazing. I don’t even know how it happened, but it’s one of those magical times in life where something’s working beyond you.

Dan Heaton: Yeah. So you moved over to the Model Shop, and what was that atmosphere like? You mentioned the big EPCOT model and so many amazing people worked there. What was that like?

Jim Sarno: Well, it’s nice for me to reminisce and think about these things because when it happens, you’re just kind of in shock. It’s very exciting. But when I think now of what had happened that I didn’t realize at the time, so I get there and Maggie gives me a booth, and we each had cubicles around the big model. Now the model itself is so impressive. I know we’re working on this huge last dream of Disney, and I can’t believe I’m going to be part of it. What tops it off is either that I am in the cubicle that Fred Joerger is at. Do you know who he is?

Dan Heaton: Yeah. There were so many legends there at that time.

Jim Sarno: Fred is like, he’s the beginning of Disneyland. He’s out there on the property, he’s making models, he’s doing the installation. He’s just extremely important. Well, I don’t know him or know anything about him until I realized that I’m sitting right next to Harriet Burns. Yeah, wow. I didn’t know who she was. I was this innocent young guy who was just thrilled to be part of being in the Studios. So as I get to know Harriet, I start to realize who this is I’m sitting next to, and she and I became best friends. We played and laughed and had the best time irritated Maggie to death, because here she’s watching her shop and she sees these two cackling away and telling stories. But that was Harriet. Everybody came to visit Harriet. She, do you know much about her?

Dan Heaton: I know her basic bio, but I, I know she has a book that I believe her daughter wrote about her that I would love to read that’s on my list.

Jim Sarno: So Harriet’s daughter, Pam, and I was always concerned about Harriet because she was getting older. We worked together for five, six years, and then I got laid off. She continued working, and when she got retired or when she retired, I was concerned, you know what? If something happens to her, I’ll never know how to find out.

Well, it turns out that she did go in for a very serious heart surgery at 79, and I got somehow put in the link of understanding the procedure, and I had spoken with her right before her surgery, but I knew I needed to be in touch with the family. So somehow I got on this link and they kept updating me on her condition. She passed away. The heart surgery didn’t go well. She had said to me before, she says, Jim, I made up so many glues to build Disneyland.

She goes, they got to find a glue that’ll patch my heart together, and it didn’t work. So she passed away and her daughter Pam got a hold of me and asked me to speak at her memorial. And I said, well, Harriet has all these dear friends. I said, why are you asking me? She goes, all the rest of ’em are dead. I knew that Pam had the same sense of humor as Harriet just said, whatever, just full of fun.

She said, Jim, you’re a friend and a colleague. I would love it if you could speak. So Pam spoke, Marty Sklar, and myself. Then her idea was to put this book together with all the crazy characters that knew Harriet and everybody write a page or a story about their time working with Harriet. I came up with an idea to design a scarf because Harriett was like a little southern belle, and she wore pearls and a scarf and gloves.

So I said, wouldn’t it be great when people buy this book, they get a scarf that has all the symbols of Harriett on it? I designed that for them, and then the book took off and everybody enjoyed it. So there’s a story in there about me with Harriet, and it happens a few times where both of us are out sick and the shop was like a playground for creative people. We were all similar in age.

There was the older group and the new younger ones. It was like the dream come true of me wanting to live at Disneyland. I got to live in the shop with the most creative, entertaining people you’d ever meet. Harriet and I are out sick a few times, and we get razzed like, what are you two up to? They knew what fun we had together. So sure enough, one day Harriet comes and she goes, Jim, we were both out yesterday.

You know what they’re going to do to us? I said, oh, yeah. She goes, I got a plan. I said, what? She says, first person who asked us, we’re going to tell ’em. We took off to Acapulco and eloped. We’re now married. This was serious sense of humor. So throughout our friendship, there was always a joke about Acapulco at our favorite place. I would go to Acapulco on trips and I’d send her gifts.

Well, in the end, when she passed away and I’m helping clean out her house, I’m finding all the things they gave her the cards from the postcards, the playing cards, all the Christmas cards. She had said to me when I first met her, Jim, I used to have a friend that we both sent a naughty birthday card. Would you like to do that? I said, sure. Anybody who knows Harriet, as improper as she was, she could tell the dirtiest jokes.

I think she learned to do this because here she’s in the ‘50s in an all male shop, and there’s Harriet, and I think she knew to survive. If she could tell a dirty joke and embarrass the guys, she was one up on them. So she learned the skill and it continued throughout her life. So here we are sending these cards to each other, and we continued until her passing. I found out later that she had done this with Fred Joerger.

So I was now the replacement, which I didn’t know I was, but I learned after her passing, and she even began to call me this nickname, and I didn’t know where it came from. She called me Bushy, Bush Ape. And I just thought, well, it’s a term of endearment. I’m not going to question it later in what we called the dig, where we would go through Harriet’s things and the family didn’t know what these things were and the value of these things.

So I was helping them understand the history of the things Harriet had kept. We ran into cards from Bush Ape, and that was Fred Joerger’s name. So the whole thing was as magical as you would think it might be working there. And then when I find out that I’m in Fred’s spot, and then I start working with Walt Peregoy, and I’ll tell you how this all began.

It was at the very beginning when I showed up that first day, Maggie took me up to Rolly Crump’s office and Rolly Crump was in charge of the Land pavilion. Walt Peregoy was one of the main artists designing it. I walk into this room with Rolly Crump and Walt, and they’re talking about this fountain that they want me to build the model, which we didn’t know where we’d go from there, but here I am meeting these two guys.

I don’t really know who they are except Rolly; I knew his last name because a girl I went to school with Roxanna Crump, now how many Crumps are in there in the world. So I asked him, and he said, that’s my daughter. So here I am friends with Rolly Crump’s daughter, and then my first job is with Rolly Crump and Walt Peregoy.

When I got out of the meeting, I went to Maggie. I said, why on my first day are you giving me this huge project with these two incredible designers? She said, well, you said you could do this and you want it in here bad enough. Let’s see if you can prove it. Oh boy, what a test fire. But I got in and Walt and I hit it off. A lot of people had trouble working with Walt. Do you know of Walt Peregoy very much?

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah. His work on the animated films is incredible from even in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Jim Sarno: Yeah. What an amazing artist, a true artist spirit, very unlike most other designers in the theme park business, but with animation and theme park designs. He was a very unique artist and man, and people had a hard time with him because he was very passionate and he was very outspoken, as maybe you’ve heard some interviews. But Walt and I just hit it off and we got along great. He liked my work. He would do the two-dimensional sketch and I would sculpt out of wood, plastic, whatever, what his vision was and miniature. So he called me in.

Anytime he had a project, I had no problem with them, and he and I just worked very well together. He was best friends with Harriet. So you can imagine here I am, I’m probably in my late twenties. They’re in their fifties. Walt and Harriet both became my best friends, and I have said they were the youngest people I’ve ever met in my life. Playful, fun, crazy, naughty, and wonderful. Here’s a weird link. Fred Joerger was close to both of them. Have you heard of Fred’s house out in, I don’t know if it was Pecos or Sun Valley?

Dan Heaton: No, I haven’t. I haven’t heard about his house. I would love to hear about it though.

Jim Sarno: His house was like you walked into a Hollywood set. He had forced perspective gardens, a huge cool fountain that is made by Walt Peregoy, and I don’t know how many fireplaces he had. He had a stream that came in through the living room. Fred Joerger was very private, but he was very close to Walt. Walt and I are working together, and Fred invites Walt to come to his home because he’s built a special room to showcase Walt Peregoy’s artwork. His paintings were set into the wall with lights inside the wall. So the room was definitely a showcase for Walt. He said, I want you to come over and see the room I built around your work.

Walt calls me and said, Jim, we’re going to lunch at Fred’s. I said, why am I going? He says, well, he invited me, and I said, I wanted to bring you. So Walt was very much my mentor, and he wanted me to learn everything he knew and just kind of take me in. So I went to Maggie and I said, I’ve been invited to Fred Joerger’s house. I said, I don’t know how long I’ll be. Do you mind if I take a little extra time? She goes, Jim, nobody goes to Fred’s house. She says, go and spend as much time as you want, and I want to hear all about it.

Dan Heaton: Wow. Because his involvement is so in Disney World, but especially in the original Disneyland and some of the castle and everything. Wow. That’s something,

Jim Sarno: I mean, you can imagine, I’m telling the story and sometimes I have to pinch myself saying, how did all these unique, wonderful experiences come past me? So I was sitting, I remember bringing two bottles of champagne and we sat and drank the two bottles. We were all buzzed, and here I am sitting with Fred Joerger and Walt Peregoy, and we’re all buddies. Said, this just doesn’t happen. But it did.

So of course, Maggie wanted the whole story when I got back, and that was one of those times where you just can’t believe you’re really experiencing something. So that was how things started. My relationship with Harriet was just amazing. Then all the projects that Walt would bring me in on as well as Rolly; the Fountain was the big one. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Fountain and the Land paving.

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah, that’s a big one. That’s a really stunning fountain. It’s just really too bad that it’s not there anymore. But that pavilion, I’d love to hear your stories about working on the sculpting of that with Walt, doing the sculpting for such a cool fountain.

Jim Sarno: Well, it started out with foam. I’m trying to think of the name of the foam we used. It’s a very dense foam, similar to florist foam, but much more rigid. So I sculpted the plan that Walt had for me, gave me a three-dimensional drawing, four basic food groups, and I sculpted this and then coated it with an epoxy while it was all white and that it was color lit with gels.

As I’m working on this, Marty Sklar and John Hench were the supervisors that came around and saw what we were doing, liked it, didn’t like it gave us advice. So the day we’re going to present the model, Walt is not in which he’s very much a huge part of this, but I’m there doing the presentation, and he had designed a top that we put on top of the fountain, and Marty and John both said, but we love the fountain.

We’re not so sure of that top. They said, look, we got to get this going. I know Walt’s not here, but can you do something different? I said, well, I guess I could. So that night I took foam pieces home. I went in the bathtub shower, pulled the curtain because this foam went all over the place, and I sculpted something that was a little more organic.

Walt’s design was a little more space age, and they wanted something that fit the fountain with the theme of foods. So I did some kind of abstract leaves that were on the top. I brought it back the next day. They saw it and said, that’s it. Go ahead with the fountain. Then at that point, the decision was that I was going to sculpt it out of clay, oil-based clay, which is what was used in the sculpture department, Blaine Gibson.

Now Blaine is the head of the sculpting department. He is the sculpting department, and he finds out that they have given me the job of sculpting, and he went to Maggie and said, this doesn’t belong in the Model Shop. You did the model, but now that it’s full size, it should come to the sculpting department. So he and Maggie kind of worked something out and he said, okay, let’s let Jim do it.

He’ll stay in the Model Shop, but would you mind if I oversee this and train him? So another freaky thing, I get to be trained by Blaine Gibson. So yeah, he would come, give me little tips, give me tools that he let me keep. And later in life, it is strange because Blaine Gibson ended up as a partner to Harriet Burns. So I would come and visit them in Santa Barbara where I live now, and Blaine and Harriet were an item.

Her husband had passed away, and the two of them hooked up, hooked up as a horrible term, but she’d love that. So I’m seeing Blaine off and on, and I said, Blaine, do you remember the tools you gave me? He goes, no, I don’t remember. I said, I’m going to bring ’em to you. I want you to sign ’em for me. So he signed those pieces for me and remembered the fountain and the thing I didn’t tell him or anybody, including Walter or Rolly, but I knew that the fountain would have no identity to me.

It would never say sculpted by Jim Sarno. Now they do now, because in this day and age we’re allowed to be known, but at the time, everything was Walt Disney. So I came up with a crazy idea that in the panel where the fish food group is, a lot of curves, I would sculpt Sarno, kind of stylized and hide it six feet across the fountain. So I did, and it ended up In the fountain, and when I was there for the opening.

I heard a guy saying, we’ve heard the artist sculpted his name in the fountain, but we don’t know the name and we don’t know where it is. I could walk right over and tell ’em, but I’m just going to leave this be a secret. So there it stayed, and I said, if I said anything, I could see them bonding over it that I just said, I’m just going to keep it my secret.

I had transitioned from building the model to the full size, when it came time for it to be sent to Florida and installed, they had somebody else take over. I said to Maggie, I said, I’ve been on this project since that day. You threw me in that office. And I said, now that it’s going in, I’d surely like to follow it through to the end. Well, we didn’t plan on that.

She goes, okay, okay, you’re going to go. She says, you’ll go tomorrow. We can’t get you on a commercial flight. So tomorrow morning, go to Burbank airport, you’re on the Mouse. I didn’t know what that meant. And when I arrived the next morning, there is Walt Disney’s private jet with Mickey on the tail, and I get on board, and I cannot believe and apologize, we can’t get you on Delta. So you’re going on Walt’s private jet.

Dan Heaton: That’s terrible.

Jim Sarno: I know. Can you imagine? I almost said, no, I won’t go; I sat at Walt Disney’s desk and wrote postcards to everybody I knew, you’ll never guess where I am. I get to Florida and right there at Orlando Airport, right on the tarmac there, they’ve got all our cars lined up; I guess there were maybe eight or 12 of us, and they gave us our keys and you drove from the private jet over to the property. They put me up at Fort Wilderness, and I had a canoe to roll over to Epcot and get out and oversee the installation of the property.

Dan Heaton: Was that a challenge to just get in the canoe and go to work?

Jim Sarno: What do you mean a challenge?

Dan Heaton: Well, I dunno.

Jim Sarno: You mean how would you get there?

Dan Heaton: Yeah, do you have materials you got to bring or…

Jim Sarno: No, see, everything had been shipped there. My only job was to work with these very difficult Southern construction people. Now, for me, I had a mustache. I’ve always had one. Whenever I went on the property in Florida, the people would freak out, and I thought, why are they acting so strange when I show up? Because in Disney World, and I think even Disneyland, you couldn’t have any facial hair.

So if you had facial hair, I learned later that meant you were somebody pretty important because not everybody could do that. It was a very strange experience, but I kind of made it fun and I thought, well, yeah, I could drive over there, but a lot more fun to look on the map, see where the waterways go. I’m just going to canoe to work. Didn’t need anything except my drawings, my hard hat, and that was it.

Part of creativity, whether it be building a model, sculpting whatever is living creatively. Now that I teach kids, I tell ’em, creativity is about everything in your life. It’s not just about art. It’s about thinking outside the box, doing things that people wouldn’t do, just making life an adventure. So I think I’ve always done that without even knowing what I was doing. When I look back now and think of all the things that came about, because I just let myself be adventuresome, curiosity and adventure, it just made his life pretty exciting. It was pretty amazing. Then to be there when Walt would come and he was working on that big entrance mosaic wall, and so we’d look at that and then we’d go in and check the fountain and the balloons, and he did a huge backdrop that was a restaurant called Four Seasons.

That was up across from the balloons on the second level of the Land pavilion. He did these four Japanese women in kimonos for the four seasons of the world. So it was pretty wonderful to be there at that time, watching all this go in. They had me work on Imagination a bit, not but in miniature, so making a grotto where Figment lived, just sculpted again out of that green foam.

I even attempted making Dreamfinder’s Dream Machine, but it got rejected. So there were many projects you worked on that were tried, and then if they liked it, it worked or it got dismissed and they went onto something else. They even had me work on the TRON model from the movie, and the movie didn’t make it in the original form, and so that ride did not happen.

Dan Heaton: Oh, I’d love to learn a little more about that. So what was the model?

Jim Sarno: The model was going to replace Monsanto, so it was all going to be black light and just a lot of strings of light and the characters jumping around. So the whole model was built, and then the movie just didn’t do well. So they said, well, we’re not going to use that. They went on to something else on Imagination.

Dan Heaton: So what was that like to kind of work on that model for that scene?

Jim Sarno: That was pretty wonderful. I think the strange thing is that when we were doing this, we all knew what we were doing; I think we were so wrapped up in the fun and the enjoyment of what we were doing. I don’t think we had any clue the significance of it or how it would now, what 30 or more years later, still have an interest to people. We all knew it was Walt’s last dream. I think the best part of any of these projects were the people that we got to work with doing the projects.

That was exciting enough, but all of the old timers were brought back for Epcot. I’m trying to think of who I worked with on Imagination, but I don’t remember who was in charge of it. Walt might have been part of it. Then I was pulled from there to work on Spaceship Earth and CommuniCore. So I actually went over to the Tujunga building to do some actual props that were in Spaceship Earth. Even the entrance, which was a time tunnel where you get on the ride and get off the ride, you go up the first slope and there’s all kinds of images and black light, and then walking down the hallway on what we call the Gold Coast, where all the top designers were. Do you know the name George McGinnis?

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah. George McGinnis, Space Mountain and Horizons and everything, for sure.

Jim Sarno: So we’re walking through the hall, and I think it was kind of an accidental thing, or maybe I was sent to meet with him. He sketches on a little white paper napkin, six-inch square, Jim, we need a robot real quick. Can you do something like this? He sketches out this cute little stubby robot SMRT-1, and I said, sure I can. So I took that napkin, and I know I have that napkin somewhere, but I haven’t found it. I went to a hardware store that night and I just picked up pieces of plastic and tubing and wood and knobs for a dresser.

I went back the next day, used the band. So I cut this all up and turned it into smart one. In a day or two, I brought it back to George says, this is exactly what we need. I said, great. I thought to myself, I’m cutting this all up to make smart one who I called Robbie the robot, but I cut the second batch of parts. So this is why Retro WDW is excited to have me go in the fall to bring my box of SMRT-1 prototype parts.

So I have the makings for a second SMRT-1, so that this is how things would happen. It was a very close, close-knit group. You’d run into somebody, they’d ask you for something. Of course, it needed to go through Maggie, but like I said, I don’t remember if she sent me to meet George or we just ran into each other in the hallway, but it was from a little sketch on a napkin.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I remember, I was a kid in the ‘80s when Epcot opened, and I remember doing the trivia with SMRT-1 and that being a big thing of all the CommuniCore stuff. That’s what I remember that and the roller coaster from CommuniCore the most of anything. And it really stands out. There’s a lot of people that did that like me, that now when you bring those pieces of that model to that event, the Retro Magic event, people are going to lose their minds.

Jim Sarno: I guess so. Well, the fun part is I hear that somebody else made a replica, and I’ve got to talk to the guys to see what the story is, but they said, when you give your talk about how this all happened, we have a replica that he’s done the electronics too, so I don’t know what the SMRT-1 will do, but they’ll see that, and then I’ll be able to pull out my magic case of how SMRT-1 came to be. And for me, I think that’s the exciting for them to think, gee, we’ve loved this character and followed it and wondered all about it, and now they get to see how it was put together.

Dan Heaton: Well, yeah, because people who went probably didn’t think that much about, well, how did the model work and how did that come together? So it’s really interesting to people now to kind of think more through how it came together.

Jim Sarno: Even when I teach kids, and I realized that when I was growing up, there was nobody who said, oh, I’m a theme park designer. If that had been the case, I mean, I would’ve been all over it. So I just happened to get into it. But now to be able to tell kids or anybody who’s interested, you know, see things, you enjoy ’em, but you have no clue how they came to be or how does somebody come up with this? It’s nice that now there’s enough interest. Disney is in support of us telling our stories where before it was all top secret and hush hush.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, well, because there’s so many stories to tell, and it’s great that you’re able to do that, to tell those stories.

Jim Sarno: Again, like I say, the projects are one thing, but the people to be friends with Harriet and Walt and Rolly, even Fred Joerger, George McGinnis was the robot, and then also Frank Armitage. Frank and I worked together on the Wonders of Life Pavilion. Well, I worked with Frank, and Frank had a medical background, so he was the right person to be in charge of that pavilion. I worked on doing fiberglass body parts, which of course MAPO was exterior skin shells.

Now I was working on interiors like the kidney all made in fiberglass and plastics that were melted and stretched and turned into look like you’re riding through the body. Well, a little personal story, I was dating Karen Connolly and Karen Connolly became Karen Armitage. So like I said, this was one big party where we were all having the best time of our life, and it was our social life, our work life, our personal life, and we all connected on many, many levels.

Dan Heaton: It sounds like a great time because with Epcot Center opening, I know that it was pretty chaotic, and I mean that in a good way, but just fairly hectic because there was such a rush to get to the certain opening date. What was that atmosphere like? Was it pretty intense? Just everybody working so hard to finish?

Jim Sarno: It was intense with a light frivolity about the whole thing. Everybody was taking it very serious, but we had the best time ever. Everybody in the Model Shop was so close, there were quiet seclusive people that stayed to themself, but for the most part, it was a party and we were getting paid. It was such a good time.

And like I said, these people that we worked with were, they were historic, and here we were side by side. Of course, while you’re working, you’re talking about your life and stories. So to hear of all these things, one time we did a rehab of Fantasyland. It was getting old, things were made out of wood and material and things were breaking down. So they wanted us to rehab the whole Fantasyland, and this is when they pulled up the drawbridge for the castle, closed it down.

I don’t remember how long it was closed, and one day some workers that had been sent to the park to demolish things came back to Harriet with the windmills from the Storybook Land ride. They had the actual windmills that Harriet had made using wood and scholastic, these old materials, and they said, Harriet, we were throwing this out. We said, Harriet would love to have these. She made them. Now this is original Disneyland, they give them to her, and Harriet thanks them very politely.

She looks at me, she goes, Jim, what do I want this for? She said, Harriet, that’s original Disneyland. Nobody has these things. Oh, you can have them. She gave them to me. She said, Jim, why are you keeping all this stuff and collecting everything? Badges and posters and metals, and actually a key to the kingdom when we finished the rehab that they invited us to a party where they dropped the drawbridge.

The knight on his white horse comes running up to the castle fights with Maleficent, who’s a giant balloon, and there’s fireworks and everything, and the drawbridge is dropped and all the employees walk in. So they gave us a pewter key with a key to the kingdom thanking us for our work. There were things like that that happened another time. Harriet was working on a project that required her to use an animation desk. So they bring the desk in the warehouse. It’s dusty and dirty, and I said, Harriet, let me wipe this down for, oh, don’t bother. I said, please. So I’m wiping it down. I pull out a desk drawer and these little papers fall out. I pick ’em up and they’re little thumbnail sketches and pencils of the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Dan Heaton: Oh my gosh.

Jim Sarno: Harriet, look what I found. She goes, Jim, those are the original thumbnail sketches Marc Davis showed Walt Disney to get the ride going. Well, what should I do? She goes, they’ve been in the warehouse for 20 some years. Nobody knew they were there and you found them. She goes, they’re yours, you get to keep them. She said, wow. Well, I’ll take them to to mark and have him sign him for me. Oh, she says, don’t do that. He’ll think they’re his, and nobody knows they’re gone and nobody knows they were in there.

She says, don’t bring them to him. Just take ’em home and enjoy ’em. So there I have five little original thumbnail sketches, and the funny part is there’s a very classic photograph of Marc Davis, Walt Disney and Blaine Gibson looking at the sculptures of the heads of the pirates, and it’s right at my booth that I worked in. Then here I end up with these original thumbnails, another kooky thing. How does that happen in somebody’s life?

Dan Heaton: Yeah, it’s crazy to think about all the history that you were sitting at in your spot where all this historical stuff happened.

Jim Sarno: Yeah, I mean, I could have been put anywhere in that building and how these things happen. I don’t have a clue, but it sure made for a memorable experience being there, and now that it has a second life, it’s just hard to believe.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, for sure. So I know that you left Disney in late 1984, and I’m just curious about some of the other projects you’ve done since that point and some of your other work that you’ve worked on.

Jim Sarno: Well, when I left there, I actually began teaching art to young kids. They were really good in the layoff. I mean, you probably heard horror stories of people getting laid off. They actually carried them out with security guards as they were crying hysterically. But it was because people had such an identity that they were Imagineers and they worked at Disney. And now that all disappeared for me. I was kind of done.

I mean, I could’ve enjoyed it, but they kept telling us, look busy. Look busy. We don’t have anything until Tokyo comes in. Well, it’s hard to look busy, but remember Rolly, when he invented “small world”, it was a “look busy” time. He was doing these on his lunch break, little pinwheels and stuff, and it turned into that. So I wish I’d been smarter and just looked busy and created the next great ride, but I didn’t.

So I actually went in and said, lay me off. This is killing me every week. Is it me next? So off I went. They provided all kinds of resources for us to get other jobs, and Peggy Van Pelt knew of an art teacher that she thought I would like to meet, and hooked me up with Mona Brooks, and I began teaching kids art in schools. So I did that for a while.

Then, Ken Forsse called me and said, Teddy Ruxbin, come to work for me and you’re going to sculpt the characters. So I sculpted Teddy and the Fobs and Grubby and was actually offered a partnership in the company, but it was a complicated mess where he wanted me to take over a department, not tell his old buddy what was going on. I said, Ken, I cannot do that. He said, we’re going to cut you in.

You’re going to have shares. I said, that sounds wonderful, but I, we’ve got to be upfront with this guy, and if not, I can’t do it. So I walked away from that. I’m trying to think what I went, oh, I went to work for United Airlines and I kind of traveled the world. My first dream was to work at Disney. When I completed that, I said, well, what next? I said, well travel the world.

So I went to work for United and flew everywhere, and then would come back for specific projects like the Teddy Ruxpin, and I started a furniture design line of Santa Fe Furniture stenciling selling at the design centers in LA. That kept me going for a while. And then I moved up to Monterey. So from Burbank working with the airlines, I transferred to Monterey, California, didn’t know anybody but wanted to just move somewhere new.

And I met McGraw-Hill, the publishing company. They were based in New York, but had a division in Monterey doing the testing for schools. They wanted somebody who was an artist and could teach, but had a design sense because they wanted their corporate offices to be decorated with student artwork. So when they heard that I had the Disney display background and that I taught art, they brought me as a consultant, and it turned into a 23-year project, traveling all over the country, teaching art and decorating their corporate offices for an artist and a teacher. To have that long gig in the corporate world was another wonderful thing that happened. Then I ended up back in Santa Barbara, and now I’m teaching at the junior college. I’ve ended up working at the Boys and Girls Clubs up in Monterey and doing donor walls for them.

So whether it be glass or marble, whatever they want, I’ve designed three of their walls, and those are big projects that keep me going and then doing my own work. I’m doing glass fussing, stained glass. I love pottery. I had a weird experience. You remember the movie Titanic that was out? Well, Rose, the character, the real character that Rose the character is built on is Beatrice Wood and James Cameron, when doing the movie, they heard about the ceramic artist named Beatrice Wood, who is a world renowned artist, but she had lived long enough and lived a similar, well, he took her life story and called her Rose and put her on the Titanic.

I had gone to see that movie in LA, and on the way back up to Monterey, people said, oh, you’re into ceramics. You should meet Beatrice Wood. So I end up meeting her and she’s telling me her life story, and at the time she was 104, and she’s telling me about her life, and I said, you saw a big movie last night called Titanic. It sounds like your life story. She goes, oh, that’s all about me.

What are the chances? Again, I’m in Beatrice Wood’s home talking to her about this movie, and she says, well, did you like the movie? I said, it’s a huge blockbuster. I said, it’s wonderful. She goes, does it have a happy ending? I look at it and she goes, maybe I’ll just see the first at 104. She’s cracking jokes about Titanic having a happy ending. What a character.

Dan Heaton: Yeah. It seems fitting given all the characters that you’ve come into contact with at Disney, and since that, that would happen. It’s a great story.

Jim Sarno: I am continually amazed at the weird circumstances that put me in touch with these people that I’m blown away that I get to meet or have anything to do with them. I’ve done a zillion things since Disney. I actually went back and worked on projects with them for Tokyo. Disney even went to Euro Disney, but I forgot a big one. People I met at Disney had a contract to work on Treasure Island in Las Vegas.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I’ve seen this. I saw the show once. I remember the Pirate show there.

Jim Sarno: What happened was Steve Wynn, the owner, wanted to create Pirates of the Caribbean into a casino, so he found some Disney people that could help with the design and the implementing of all the props. They were sent off to Kuwait to work on another project and asked me to fill in. So I went and made sure all the props and making the whole thing like a pirate village. So weird little things come up, somebody contacts you about something, and it’s a tight-knit group of people that all know each other and share when there’s work.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I mean, I’ve heard that a lot of people that worked at Disney when you did or after then, even when they’re not there officially or full-time, end up working on a lot of similar projects like Treasure Island, which yeah, you go there and it’s basically, this all seems very familiar.

Jim Sarno: Yeah, it’s got the same thing going, and it just turned into a casino.

Dan Heaton: Slightly different, but it has familiarity.

Jim Sarno: Yeah, and I mean, the fun part in that shop was we had a warehouse. It just was a big room with shelves of all kinds of goodies. Now, do you know Didier with Walt’s People?

Dan Heaton: Oh, yes. I’ve read a few of his books, and he does books on art too, which are stunning.

Jim Sarno: Yeah. So he is asked to interview me, which I did a few months back, and I’ll be in next year’s book, and he wanted to catalog all of the things like the Pirates sketches I have and Harriet stuff, all these things I’ve collected that he wanted to catalog so we don’t lose where they are. So I did that and I thought, oh, I’m going to be able to use some of those images for my talk when I go in October. But I was thinking about, another interesting thing that I acquired, Harriet Burns worked on the Tiki birds, and Walt wanted her to have a bird that she could look at while she worked just to really understand how they function.

So he bought her a miner bird, brought it to her at work, and it sat at her desk until the mine bird passed away, and she stuffed a Tiki bird and painted it black and stuffed it in the cage. So every time you talked to Harriet, there was the stuffed joker on her desk, but when she had passed away, all of her belongings from work were in her studio, and I went to the house and there I saw the cage. It just kind of shocked me because that had always been on her desk. So her granddaughter saw my reaction, and when I went to do a second memorial up north where they lived, they had given me the cage that Walt had given her with the stuffed joker inside. So all these fun little things.

Dan Heaton: That’s a great story, is a perfect example of everything that you’ve talked about for the past hour or so. Jim, this has been awesome. I loved hearing all those stories and any, it seems like everyone I talk with has things I’ve never learned before or heard, and you’ve worked on some of the more unique and creative things that happened at Epcot and everywhere. So this has been amazing. Thanks so much for talking with me.

Jim Sarno: You’re very, very welcome.