13 September 2008

Come on in

Sometimes a window is just a window. It doesn’t reference an out of print movie, it is a homage to a long gone piece of Walt Disney World, and it doesn’t honor a single individual or group of individuals that helped build some of the most magical places on Earth. These windows are especially hard to come by and are often overlooked, yet they offer one of the most priceless pieces of a Walt Disney World experience, authenticity.

Walk down any street in your hometown that still has windows that you can window shop with, though I understand they are fast being replaced by the larger chain stores, and you will see the same scrolling work and hand-crafted and created labels and titles that are sprinkled about along the windows and doors of Walt Disney World. More often than not though, the names and companies that garnish these faux features are a nod to something, or someone, related to Disney. On your street, however, you will find that alongside these named shops and proprietors are also generic advertisements and lures to bring you in. If Disney did not find a way to blend their credit windows with the generic windows of our homes, the illusion could suffer, and the real world we are trying to forget would begin to seep in.

Thankfully, the keen eyes of the Imagineers miss nothing, and we are left with only the feeling, conscious or otherwise, of being fully immersed in the story we are being told.

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