Disney’s ‘We Call It Imagineering’ Series Shows off New Animatronics

We Call It Imagineering is a new series on Disney’s YouTube channel dedicated to the engineering side of the company. The first episode focuses on audio-animatronics and gives us a preview of some impressive new additions!

The short tour through Imagineering gives us a glimpse at retired and rare audio-animatronics from Disney’s past. If you look closely, you can see Zazu, who escaped the Enchanted Tiki Room fire, along with Captain Rex from the original version of Star Tours.  

This video also teases several recent additions, including the new BD-1 droids we saw parade through Galaxy’s Edge a few months back.

However, the most exciting additions shown during this first episode are those animatronics coming to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. 

The characters were shown off earlier this week on TikTok and LinkedIn, but this YouTube video gives us a closer technical look at them. The video focuses a lot on the larger-than-life Louis, the trumpet-playing alligator.

Imagineer Sonny Chapman claims Louis is the “largest and most dynamic figure” ever created for the parks. Considering its size, seeing the character in action is pretty awesome.

We learned about the give-and-take and concessions that Imagineering teams must deal with to introduce new animatronics in the parks. While Disney’s robots have come a long way over the decades, some restrictions still cloud the blue sky dreams.

The best thing about this video is the credit the Imagineers give to Walt. We’ve recently seen the company back off the man’s legacy because he came from a different time. For whatever reason, people think a man who has been dead for almost sixty years should be sidestepped because he somehow didn’t have contemporary views on social issues. 

What do you think of the new series? Do you have any opinions on the new animatronics for Tiana’s upcoming attraction? Let us know your thoughts!

[Source: YouTube]