Attractions Expert Q&A: After 40+ years at Disney, Rick Rothschild now directs FlyOver films

In 2008, Rick Rothschild founded FAR OUT! Creative Direction to ensure that a project’s core concepts have been organized into a well-defined story line and that proper technologies have been identified to support the story line, as well as on-site direction to guide the seamless integration of all show elements. He has continued directing special venue productions and giant screen films for numerous themed entertainment companies, major film studios, and prestigious museums around the world, including FlyOver Iceland and FlyOver Chicago.

What theme park souvenir might we be surprised to find on your shelf and what’s it’s story?

I have one of the original Captain EO dimensional logos that was the attraction’s secondary marquee. I was involved as the WDI creative lead in developing that attraction.

Years later, as this show was being removed to be replaced with Honey, I shrunk the Audience in the various parks around the world; I kept trying to salvage one while they kept getting thrown in the trash. Finally, I succeeded as some of my buddies in Paris saved one. So it’s now hanging on the wall in the foyer of my house. It’s a pretty good-sized piece – probably 5 feet by 5 feet – a big sculpture.

What theme park have you always wanted to visit but have never been to? 

What comes first to mind is one that’s been on my mind for several years now (and I doubt I’ll ever get to it). It’s not a theme park per se, The Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Hermitage is a huge museum. Visiting St. Petersburg is pretty much like visiting a big theme park – the whole city was built using Western and European architects under the direction of the Czar. So, it’s a themed city because it brought in a style of architecture unique to that part of Russia at the time. That whole area is fascinating to me.

In terms of a theme park that I’ve always wanted to visit, I would like to go to India, which intrigues me because I’ve never been. And I know there are some rather remarkable theme parks there, so that would be interesting to me.

Was there a theme park or attraction that made you want to be in this industry and how did it inspire you?

My story and what inspired me starts with my being media-deprived as a kid. I was raised in the ’50s, and we didn’t have a television because my parents thought it would rot the brain of a young child. We didn’t get a television until I was 12.

We lived a mile and a half from our nearest neighbor in the middle of ranch land in Thousand Oaks. I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time by myself in my head. So, when I think of my upbringing and youth, I immediately go to my love of climbing trees. We lived on a hill where I could climb up and be way in the air. This desire to see from off the ground has a lot of relevance to later in my life. And I created imaginary lands in each of these trees with different creatures and characters. I don’t know if it was my parents’ direct intention to keep me away from TV, but it fostered a great imagination.

The next big piece of my story was probably when I was allowed to watch television when we visited my grandmother during the summers in New Jersey. But I was only allowed to watch half an hour—my choice was the Mickey Mouse Club. What’s even more prophetic is that I have a sampler that my grandmother made hanging on the wall of my office. It’s a collage of all the Disney characters that she made in 1951.

The seminal moment in my early life probably resulted from my mom having worked at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. In the summer of 1964, we all went to the New York World’s Fair. We visited for three days. I saw all of the Disney shows, along with many of the other exhibits and attractions that were there. I remember witnessing what was, for me, the most memorable, the White Owl Cigar Pavilion. It was a big red building that must’ve been 50 or 60 feet across and octagonal.   Amazingly, it would periodically blow a smoke ring 10 feet in diameter, some 200 feet in the air. That was a pretty incredible special effect. Along with that, I enjoyed watching my first animatronic figures like Mr. Lincoln, seeing the Carousel of Progress, and It’s a Small World. I was really taken by the animatronic performances and the rest of the fair—it was amazing!

All of this piqued my interest in working for Disney.   But all that came were the rejection letters when I applied as a college student looking for work. They never accepted me.

From my interest in theater in high school, I chose it as a major in college, which launched my professional life. Ultimately, I worked on a project for a designer here in Los Angeles, who connected me with a vendor who said he knew somebody at Disney, which was then WED Enterprises (what Disney Imagineering was called back then.)  He thought I would be a good candidate for Disney park work. I told him I had plenty of rejection letters in a drawer at home. But he said he knew someone there.

So, in August of 1978, I had an interview with Eric Westin, head of Coordination and Production at WED. He took me into this big display room with all these pavilion models for Epcot and said, “We’re going to be building this. On October 1, we’re going to announce our intentions to open Epcot in four years. When we do that, I can hire you, if you can wait a couple of months.” He called me on October 2, and I started at WED two months later.

What was your favorite ride or attraction as a child, and why?

Peter Pan. I actually rode the ride before I saw the movie. The first Disney movie I can recall seeing was The Shaggy Dog well after my first visits to Disneyland. I ran screaming out of the theater because I couldn’t deal with the fact that a kid turned into a dog.

What I liked so very much was the flying aspect of Peter Pan – seeing the perspective of the world the way that ride allowed – from the medium shot over London to the long shot of Neverland to the close-up of Captain Hook. Most of the other attractions didn’t have that – most were just close-ups, but this had these amazing high-altitude views. Plus, I was infatuated with being in the air and being able to fly.

Was there a ride, attraction, or character that frightened you as a child?

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. In the end, basically, you’re going to go to Hell. It was a funhouse ride. That ride took you on a very sharp weaving track.   The vehicle would make sudden and fast turns, so you were physically being thrown about, which is the whole point of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride – it was a WILD ride.

The WED designers took it to heart to make it a wild ride, and the things that happened, as a result, were more effectively scary for me than a ride like Haunted Mansion, which had never felt as scary. Haunted Mansion was always more intriguing and fun. Mr. Toad was designed to put you in the dark, then when you go around the corner… poof! There’s somebody in front of you, or a road sign pops out. It was one of those early attractions beyond the most classic funhouse ride, designed to be scary and make you laugh.

What was the oddest or coolest job in your career?

Much of what I’ve had the opportunity to do in my career has been a rewarding and joyous experience. It was challenging, but in the end, remarkably fun because of all the people I’ve ended up working with and the creative challenges that we’ve encountered. Luckily, in most cases, we found ways to overcome. The opportunities at Disney and over the past 15 years working with others in our industry, I’ve helped produce some really great entertainment for people, and long-lasting in many cases.

One of the features of my career is what I refer to as being The Little Dutch Boy, going around helping plug up the leaks in the ongoing productions. I was asked often by Marty (Sklar) – and I don’t know where it started, but it became more than a habit – where he would ask me to help come in and fix shows that just weren’t quite working to management’s satisfaction.

Along with the many shows where I was able to start with a blank piece of paper, there were many where I was thrown in the middle of production when something wasn’t quite working right and needed some extra help. Whenever that happened, the job tended to be short-fused, with the pressure of an opening date not too far away.

One of the most memorable was the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter show at Florida’s Magic Kingdom. I was in the final stage of finishing Honey I Shrunk the Audience at Epcot while a group was working on another show at the Magic Kingdom. I’d been hearing bits off and on from colleagues that things weren’t going as expected.

So just before Thanksgiving, while I was finishing Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, Marty and Tom (Fitzgerald) asked me to preview this other show. Michael Eisner had initially championed it but had recently seen it and felt it was not working. But he had a sense it could be a great attraction. And so instead of saying, “Let’s just scrap the thing,” he said, “let’s fix it.”

After previewing the show and finishing Honey, I headed home for Thanksgiving. Monday after the holiday, I met with Marty and told him what I thought. He said, “Okay, you have a month to recommend your fix,” and that month included the Christmas holidays. That’s when I first got to know Jerry Rees, who had been on that project as media director. Jerry is an incredibly talented animator and director who started at the Disney Studios long ago. They partnered us up along with a wonderful collection of extraordinarily talented and dedicated Imagineers. The majority of the team had spent many years creating this attraction and wanted to see it reach an audience. We quickly worked to dissect what seemed to be at the core of what needed to be reworked, adding in a few other Imagineers to help with all of the course corrections we felt were necessary.

Bran Ferren had just joined Disney. He had been running his own company on the East Coast and had a whole crew of talented and creative effects people in his group. Many of them had done theatrical work, with some of Bran’s notable work on Broadway. The following 40-plus days were a major undertaking for us. When we pitched the show to Michael in early January, he said, “That’s great; let’s have it open by Summer.” We had six months to perform a massive reworking of a show, developing unproven new effects, reformulating an animated figure, and building several more.

I moved to Florida with a team in February, and we had four and a half months. What was really fun about this whole affair was that since we were so under the gun, Imagineering management just let us loose. The only thing they worried about was the schedule. It had to be opened by summer. The next four and half months were like my theater days again. It was not one of these shows that were arduously created, going into months, if not years, of design and then years of production. Many times with Disney attractions, it could be three, four, or five years from inception to opening.

This was “do everything in six months,” which I was used to before I came to Disney with the hundred-plus productions I’d worked on. I loved that rhythm and the fun that came with it. We had a great time because we were let loose to eat, breathe, and virtually sleep while collaborating as a team.

Another project that comes to mind, which took much longer but was equally rewarding and filled with both levity and lunacy, was Pleasure Island for Walt Disney World. As the creative lead, I made a decision that I didn’t feel it could all be done with existing Imagineers – I believed we needed an equal number of “outsiders” who had no appreciation, understanding, or were in any way influenced by having been an Imagineer or having learned to think Disney. I felt we had to find the right balance between really creative thinking Imagineers and people who had no understanding of Imagineering but had a unique perspective on entertainment and nighttime adult fun. Then, push it all together.

I searched for talent with more adult entertainment experience, knowing this would help us conceptually push the boundary to discover a middle ground. We often referred to this project as bringing Tijuana or New Orleans to Walt Disney World. We called it Pleasure Island purposely because we wanted it to be edgy while still being Disney.

Once the project was given the go-ahead, we were given the opportunity to move our team into our own building – we were our own little unit of 35 or 40 people creating this thing, and that was really fun, simply because we were treading into territory that the company hadn’t been allowed to wander into before. And that’s a lot of what Imagineering was while I was there for much of my career – treading into creative territory that had not been explored before, whether it was EPCOT, the Studio Tour, or Pleasure Island (and so many more). As I see from a distance of both time and no longer being inside Imagineering, it seems to be a different place now. We were an era of Imagineers who were blessed with these amazing opportunities.

When I started there, Imagineering was a unique entity that reported directly to whoever was the President of the Walt Disney Company. Originally, WED was directed at Walt because it was his theme park company. Then it was Card Walker, then Ron Miller, while Marty was WDI’s creative leader, who had a direct reporting relationship with the head of the company, not to management in the theme park division, not in the resort division, not anybody in consumer products. It was Imagineering that stood alone.

At the same time, there was always a push on Nunis’ part (Dick Nunis, former Chairman of Walt Disney attractions) back in the days when he was running Walt Disney World and the resorts, that he thought Imagineering should be under the Resorts Division. Marty fought that incessantly over many years because he felt that would be the end of Imagineering, that Resorts would just use us as a tool and wouldn’t allow the birth of unique and new ideas and thinking. When Eisner and Wells came in, they celebrated Imagineering as this unique place and creative culture, using it to develop many new and fun projects. Eventually as time passed, the fate of WDI was put in Bob Iger’s lap.

With that, change began. First, Imagineering was combined with resorts – which was what Nunis had always wanted. The next thing corporate did was to combine a whole bunch of business units under what they called Consumer Products. With that, Resorts went under Consumer Products, which is where they and WDI are today.

Basically, Iger separated the company into halves. One half was the IP maker; the other was assuring the IP makes money. Seems logical enough. Anything that makes money off the IPs that come out of the studios is part of Consumer Products. Whether it’s the resorts or the stores, it’s making money off the IP – that’s a really simple way to look at the Disney company. Of course, there’s more to it than that, with how the IPs work and how much emphasis is on streaming and all that, but fundamentally having these two basic halves to the company, I think neutered Imagineering pushing many of the creative opportunities that it had as its mission, all the way back to when Walt first founded it. This is not to say that they don’t do interesting and creative things, but they are most often bound and guided fundamentally by the phrase, “Here’s an IP; now do something with it.”

What ride or attraction do you think everyone needs to experience and why?

There are so many different interests people have that bring them to enjoy a theme park. There isn’t just one reason that someone goes to a theme park. Part of that is because some guests like to be scared, some like to be thrilled, and some just like to enjoy beauty and a well-told story. There are so many different reasons, whether it’s a Disney theme park or another park, that appeal to people, so I don’t think there is just one ride for everyone.

I think part of the fun of the breadth of Disney and other operators in our industry is how they work to ensure broad appeal to pre-teens, teens, and adults, as well as young kids. I believe that a ride that transports you – as opposed to pure thrill rides, which simply challenge you physically to face your fears – and provides a unique visual perspective and emotional ride, like Peter Pan, is a good example. I would advise people to experience “transportive” attractions.

If you were tasked with creating a new theme park food, what would it be?

My immediate reaction is that I like variety. Just like all of the different kinds of attractions in a theme park, I think the fun and enjoyment that comes from food comes through variety. To me, that’s where success lies in the delivery of such. I think Disney, Universal, and theme parks, in general, work to do that.

Themed foods and themed experiences are something that enhances the park experiences for sure. They used to do big barbeques behind Big Thunder in Frontierland. They were mostly outdoors, ranch-style, with live country western music. Being there would transport you – not quite to Texas or Oklahoma – but at least bring a sensory, immersive experience.

You’re a walk-around character for a day; who do you choose?

Early in my career at Imagineering, there were two programs called DisneyWay One and DisneyWay Two. They would select a small group of 10 to 15 employees from different parts of imagineering as well as from the studio and Disneyland.

It was a three-day experience where you spent a day at WED, a day at the studio and a day at Disneyland Park, and you learned about Disney’s culture. You got to see the archives, you got to walk the animation halls, and then everyone went to Imagineering, where Marty would talk. You’d see the model and sculpting shops and learn what Imagineering does, and those of us who were Imagineers got to be the hosts.

Then you’d go to visit Disneyland with the final experience there, offering the opportunity to be a walk-around character in the park. You’d get sized up at wardrobe, and they would give you a character costume, which you didn’t get to choose. I was Captain Hook. You had a briefing from a character performer beforehand and then went out into the park with a handler for an entire 20-minute shift. What I didn’t realize was that people don’t think these characters are humans in the costumes. When they don’t like “you” – and people don’t like Captain Hook because they see him as a villain – they kick you, they pull at you. Honestly, there were moments when I had to restrain myself from wanting to turn around and use my hook on them. An eye-opening experience for sure. I realized that cast members who do this day in and day out must be really thick-skinned and love their jobs.

If I could choose to be a character, it would probably be one that I adore…Timon. There is just something about Timon being a quirky little character who’s fun to be around. I think it would be fun to be Timon because he is one of these characters everyone likes, so I probably wouldn’t get kicked, either.

What types of attractions would you like to see more of and why?

I am a sucker for good stories, well told, appropriately staged. I have a quote on my computer desktop: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

I think that’s something I always strived for with all the shows I’ve helped create. I don’t know that I always succeed or that we as a collective have always succeeded, but this idea of transcending the reality of how we do it to create the magic of the experience is what we’re all about.

I think generally striving to bring magic into everything you do is how you can transport guests in a very special experience. I’ve worked with people, particularly outside of Disney, who react interestingly to the word “magic.” Some people outside of Disney say, “That’s exactly what Disney is, and that’s not what I want.”

So I say, “Well, let’s work together for a while, and then we can reevaluate each other’s perspective.” I think even if we’re trying to deliver something built solely on reality, like the Flying Ride experiences (I’ve done numerous – Soarin’ over California with Disney and many outside of Disney), it can deliver “magic.” We can have that whole debate later because every company has positive and negative sides, but one big positive side of Disney is making magic; that’s what endears it to guests. Magic is actually when you can lose yourself in whatever the reality is that you’re brought into.   For me, when you have a magical experience, you’ve had a transcendental experience.

That’s really what all these Flying Ride experiences are built around – the fact that nature is way more interesting than taking a synthetic flying journey. This was tried after I left Disney with the second Soarin’ experience they did. The reaction of many guests was that they didn’t find it as interesting in large part because the imagery is so much synthetically generated. There’s a difference between post-production clean-up, where you’re enhancing captured reality, if it’s rooted in reality, as opposed to rooted in fantasy. Fantasy is not the only realm where magic lives.

I like a well-told story in an interesting and compelling way, where the technology that aids you in that experience is transparent. When people come out of Rise of the Resistance and speak about the ride, they’ll talk about it from the standpoint that it made sense to them. So they were in a ride, but I think people lose themselves beyond that, and that’s one where the transparency is not completely separated from the reality that they’re physically in a ride. But I think in the flying films that we do, people lose the connection, at least I hope they do – they almost don’t quite know how to describe it.

When we did Alien Encounter, I remember listening to audiences coming out, and there was a consistent comment that people would make. When they talked about what it was, they would say that it was the most amazing ride. And I thought, but it’s a theater show; it’s not a ride. Then I realized – it’s an emotional ride. And they could only speak about the idea that they went on a ride.

This goes back to my description of a great attraction – a well-told story, properly staged and choreographed—a ride regardless of whether you physically rode anything or not — it was an emotional ride. So the Flying Theaters are emotional rides, where I hope people generally lose themselves from “I’m in this machine” to “I’m a bird” or “Peter Pan” or whatever that has the ability to see the world in a unique way that they can’t do as a human. And that is magical.

Was there any challenge or surprise in your career?

Among the many challenges, a big one was trying to balance my professional life and my personal life. It’s not easy. I understand how different the paths are for many of us through our careers because of the extreme stress and strain. From my perspective, my wife has had to operate like a military spouse without the threat of death. Adrienne is a very strong person… that’s part of why I married her. It takes unselfish support like that. I look at our three children, particularly my older son, who’s well into his career, and how he’s maneuvering through his own balance between his passion, career, and personal life. To me, it’s a big challenge for all of them.

I thought it would be interesting to write a book about “those who say no.” I believe there are life lessons in understanding “where do you draw a line in your career?” Where you are challenged by a request or an opportunity that forces you to make a decision to step over that line or not, to understand how saying no is okay.

I can think back to the early parts of my life when I made the decision to say no. When I said, “No, I don’t want to stay at university. I’m going to take the opportunity to accept a job in the profession I believe I want to follow.” I did that when I was 20. I can think of another time when Marty (Sklar) asked me specifically to accept a significant creative management role on a park project. After looking into what he was asking, I said no. His response to that decision was that I was “sent to my room.” I was summarily dismissed from my office for six weeks. No assignments, just “park yourself.” That’s the challenge of opportunity, making the initial decision to take it on.

Then, there’s the challenge of solving the puzzle that quite often comes when the opportunity is accepted. Part of the reason I’m in this business is that I love the challenge of solving the puzzle. How do you solve the puzzle–how do you take advantage of what Marty talked about as the blank piece of paper? He talked about it in many different ways and has written about it. To me, the blank piece of paper is the initial puzzle. And it has nothing on it – so I think, well, that’s an interesting puzzle.

Solving the puzzle necessitates the challenge of putting a team together. I love the opportunity to build a collaborative team. Early on working in theater, we didn’t talk about collaborating, we just did it. It was a community; whether you were behind the scenes, on stage, or whatever you were doing, it was a collective, a professional family, and everybody had everyone else’s back. Marty fostered such an environment at Imagineering. One that celebrated collaboration, and with collaboration, you had to tolerate collision. You have to understand how to move through that collision of personalities and ideas, take advantage of that collision, and not let it destroy the collaboration.

I was talking to Bob Weis recently – he’s now writing a book about Marty—and I said that I realized something about Marty. While a student at UCLA, Marty was Sports Editor for the Daily Bruin (campus newspaper), and he loved John Wooden, the basketball coach at the time. I thought about Marty, how he ran WDI, and how John Wooden ran successful teams. There was a lot in common, recognizing that on any team, you have these unique talents that could destroy each other’s effectiveness if they don’t collaborate.

So that’s another part of the challenge, but a fun part of the challenge of working in a creative environment.   The reward is the enjoyment of being a part of a successful team and delivering an amazing experience. And it doesn’t just mean what you deliver is successful, but that the process that you went through has been successful.

Can you talk about what you are working on these days?

I’m doing another flying project. This one is for the Niagara Park Commission on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. A Crown entity that’s existed for 150 years and is responsible for the 56-kilometer coastline from lake to lake and all that’s in between. We’re doing a new experience for them at their Table Rock Welcome Centre, their visitor center, which features a flying ride experience. It’s fascinating because it combines the place’s rich history over the past 400 years or so, along with the perspective of the 13,000-year-old indigenous people who have been there watching the falls carve their way up the river. We’ll be opening that up next summer.

I also just started developing a concept for the Chimelong group in southern China, for a new attraction they want to open in 2026.

You are going to your favorite theme park; which industry people (dead or alive) are you taking with you?

One is Walt Disney, simply because I would be interested to know what he thinks of what he sees of what Disney has become today. I think it would be a fascinating experience to have somebody who birthed all that he did, see how it has evolved, be able to comment on it, and hear what he would have to say.

Another person I’d like to talk a walk with is Randy Bright, who was one of my mentors at Disney who was tragically killed in a bicycle accident many years ago. He’d been with Disney all his life – he’d grown up at Disney from when he was a college kid working at Disneyland and was part of the Walt Disney World Opening Day WED team. He was the man who was basically responsible for creating The American Adventure story line, and I worked on the attraction with him as his assistant for a few years. Randy was conflicted about where Disney was going and was trying to decide whether to stay with Disney or do something else. And then he was tragically killed.

A lot of it is the curiosity of learning their perspectives. Like “How does this strike you in terms of where you saw things going, and if there were things you didn’t like about where it’s gone.” That’s the mature answer to your question.    

I’d also like to go with myself as the kid I was. Just to see what my little self would think about Disney now.

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Writer Kendall Wolf is a long-time consultant in the themed entertainment industry. She has worked with designers, producers, and fabricators to help developers create unique and successful projects around the world. In 2017, she introduced Merlin Entertainments to a development group in Sichuan province for the first Legoland park in China. Kendall continues to consult for the developer to open more themed resorts in China.

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