Disney's Animal Kingdom at 20: Imagineer Joe Rohde on the park's history and future
Disney's Animal Kingdom, the newest of Disney World's four parks, opened 20 years ago on Earth Day 1998. Joe Rohde (Vice President and Executive Desiger, Creative), has been working with Disney Imagineering for almost twice as long, when he first began work on the Mexico pavilion at Epcot in 1980. Now the lead designer of Animal Kingdom, Rohde addresses where the park started, how its evolved, and where it's going in the next 20 years, in the video above.
After getting a sense of the history and future of the park, take a look at what it was like working with and telling stories about live animals in the video below:
Finally, Rohde addresses the biggest addition to the park in its first 20 years, James Cameron's Pandora from the movie Avatar, and how it fits into the world of Animal Kingdom:
