# Animatronic Walt Disney debuts today **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** disney-hulu\ **Created:** [July 17, 2025, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973 "2025-07-17T12:23:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/1 "2025-07-17T12:23:59Z")
Here’s a [youtube video of robo-Walt in action](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY4xkgGyu9g). What do you think? Me, I think it’s an impressive piece of technology, but it gives me the willies. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/2 "2025-07-17T13:10:38Z")
Are we certain that’s all robot, and not Walt’s unfrozen reanimated head attached to a robot body? (Well, _somebody_ was going to make the joke- may as well be me 🙂) I do think those Disney animatrons are pretty cool. The animatron Lincoln was the only thing I enjoyed about Disneyland (I was a bit too old at the time- I’m the oldest of 3 kids) and the Hall of Presidents is the only thing I’d want to see at Disneyworld. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/3 "2025-07-17T14:34:17Z")
Quite disturbing. Only a lighting change away from “Friday Night at Walt’s.” ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/4 "2025-07-17T14:40:23Z")
If only there were a cadre of real people trained to dress up and act like other people. But that’s crazy talk. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/5 "2025-07-17T14:54:59Z")
Nice of Disney to create the definitive example of the uncanny valley for people who aren’t sure what it quite means. > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > But that’s crazy talk. Animatronics are an important part of Disney’s whole deal. Hell, I’m pretty sure they invented the term. They’re never going to stop using them alongside their armies of human actors. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/6 "2025-07-17T19:04:58Z")
This CNN article has a video with a little more footage and seems more in close-up-- and yes, there’s an uncanny valley element that’s a little easier to see here. But still, I think it’s a pretty good animation; at least, compared with, say, [Aria here](https://youtu.be/2HQ84TVcbMw). > **[Disney says its new animatronic is its most lifelike yet | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/17/travel/video/walt-disney-animatronic-digvid)** > > Seven years in the making, Walt Disney himself comes to life in a new, groundbreaking attraction at Disneyland. As an animatronic, the founder moves and speaks to the audience, all with a special twinkle in his eye. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/7 "2025-07-17T22:00:56Z")
I’ll grant that I haven’t seen Walt since I was a small child but it’s pinging my Fidel Castro neuron more than the Disney one. I think they made the face a little too wide and round near the ears. The underlying structure is too spherical. ---
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/8 "2025-07-17T23:13:52Z")
I regularly watched Walt introduce his “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” TV program as a kid and have strong memories of what he looked like. Looking at this Animatronic figure I am impressed by how well it moves but think that the face doesn’t look quite right. I can’t figure out what it is exactly - maybe the forhead looks a bit to wide? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/9 "2025-07-18T01:55:43Z")
Walt’s face was longer, his widow’s peak more pronounced, and the voice is completely wrong. It’s a good piece of animatronics, but a poor Walt Disney impersonator. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/10 "2025-07-18T02:25:38Z")
[Here’s a video of the actual Walt Disney](https://youtu.be/Qs7G_uyIK6o) that I looked up for my own comparison purposes. It also turned out to be a pretty interesting primer on how they created the early animatronics back in the day. Apparently, if this old newsreel can be believed and is not another ‘lemmings’ style fiction, they used a Rube Goldbergian device to capture gestures, kinda paleo motion sensor capture tech. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/11 "2025-07-18T02:44:19Z")
It’s almost like an early version tech of the more modern computer animation that created, for instance, Golum. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/12 "2025-07-18T02:59:40Z")
Heh, I first read that as _Golem_, an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. Then I realized you meant _Gollum_, the character from _The Lord of the Rings_ who was turned into a pathetic creature from his lust for the Ring, motion-controlled by Andy Serkis in the movies. Either one is kind of funny, in its own way…? 😃 🤷‍♂️ ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/13 "2025-07-18T03:02:41Z")
Ooops, I’ve read the books more times than I can count, and can’t spell that name worth a damn. 🤦 ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/14 "2025-07-18T03:49:17Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > If only there were a cadre of real people trained to dress up and act like other people. But that’s crazy talk. They have a bajillion amateur actors wandering the park dressed like various princesses and cartoon animals already. For this display, the animatronic is pretty much the point – to marvel at how neat this quasi-robot is. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animatronic-walt-disney-debuts-today/1020973/15 "2025-07-20T00:44:28Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > the voice is completely wrong They used recordings of him speaking. Multiple different ones that they had to normalize to go together, but it’s not an AI voice. For the looks, I think the neck is too thick and the nose is too small.