Hans Perk of A. Film L.A. Blog found the original patent filed from The Walt Disney Company for the Circarama camera technology. One of the very interesting details is that Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney both share the patent as its inventors. Click through to see the actual patent filing along with sketches of how the device was mounted on a car.
The first Circarama title was “A Tour Of The West”, which opened with Disneyland in July 1955. It was followed by “America The Beautiful” in 1960. The patent for the Circarama technology was filed on the first anniversary of Disneyland’s grand opening.
Walt never intended the Circarama technology to be limited to theme parks and world’s fairs. He thought it would become a regular addition to the neighborhood theater allowing people to ‘travel’ through the world’s wonders without the expense of a costly cruise or airfare. With travel prices rising, we may just see Walt’s dream come true.
I think his dream, in this case, largely did come true. Walt just picked the wrong film format. IMAX theater are becoming pretty common in regular movie theaters and most spend at least a portion of the time running the types of travelogue that Walt envisoned for Circarama.
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