The little-known story behind one in every of Disneyland’s most recognizable experience songs

When Xavier “X” Atencio was plucked by Walt Disney in 1965 to be one in every of his early theme park designers, he was slotted on numerous tasks that positioned him out of his consolation zone.

Atencio, as an illustration, by no means would have envisioned himself a songwriter.

One in every of Atencio’s first main tasks with Walt Disney Imagineering — WED Enterprises (for Walter Elias Disney), because it was identified on the time — was Pirates of the Caribbean. Within the mid-’60s when Atencio joined the Pirates workforce, the attraction was properly underway, with the likes of fellow animators-turned-theme park designers Marc Davis and Claude Coats crafting a lot of its exaggerated characters and enveloping environments. Atencio’s job? Make all of it make sense by giving it a cohesive story. Whereas Atencio had as soon as dreamed of being a journalist, his work as an animator had led him astray of a author’s path.

Atencio wouldn’t solely determine it out however find yourself because the draftman of one in every of Disneyland’s most recognizable songs, “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me).” Within the course of, he was key in creating the template for the trendy theme park darkish experience, a time period usually utilized to slow-moving indoor sights. Such profession twists and turns are detailed in a brand new ebook about Atencio, who died in 2017. “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of an Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” (Disney Editions), written by three of his relations, follows Atencio’s sudden trajectory, ranging from his roots in animation (his resume consists of “Fantasia,” the Oscar-winning brief “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Increase” and even stop-motion work in “Mary Poppins”).

For Pirates of the Caribbean, Atencio is claimed to have acquired little route from Disney, solely that the park’s patriarch was sad with earlier stabs at a narration and dialogue, discovering them leaning a bit stodgy. So he knew, basically, what to not do. Atencio, based on the ebook, immersed himself in movies like Disney’s personal “Treasure Island” and pop-cultural interpretations of pirates, striving for one thing that felt borderline caricature relatively than ripped from the historical past books.

Certainly, Atencio’s phrases — a few of these quoted within the ebook, comparable to “Avast there! Ye come in search of journey and salty outdated pirates, aye?” — have grow to be shorthand for how one can converse like a pirate. The primary scene written for the attraction was the mid-point public sale sequence, a piece of the experience that was modified in 2017 resulting from its outdated cultural implications. Within the unique, a proud redheaded pirate is the lead prisoner in a bridal public sale, however at this time the “wench” has graduated to pirate standing of her personal and helps to public sale off stolen items.

At first, Atencio thought he had over-written the scene, noticing that dialogue overlapped with each other. In a now-famous theme park second, and one retold within the ebook, Atencio apologized to Disney, who shrugged off Atencio’s insecurity.

“Hey, X, while you go to a cocktail get together, you choose up just a little dialog right here, one other dialog there,” Disney advised the animator. “Every time folks will undergo, they’ll discover one thing new.”

This was the inexperienced gentle that Atencio, Davis and Coats wanted to proceed growing their attraction as one that may be a tableau of scenes relatively than a strict plot.

Tying all of it collectively, Atencio thought, needs to be a music. Not a songwriter himself, in fact, Atencio sketched out a couple of lyrics and a easy melody. Because the authors write, he turned to the thesaurus and made lists of conventional “pirating” phrases. He introduced it to Disney and, to Atencio’s shock, the corporate founder promptly gave him the log off.

“Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me),” Atencio would relay, was a problem because the experience doesn’t have a typical starting and ending, which means the tune wanted to work with no matter pirate vignette we have been crusing by. Finally, the music, with music by George Bruns, underlines the experience’s humorous really feel, permitting the looting, the pillaging and the chasing of ladies, one other scene that has been altered over time, to be delivered with a playful bent.

The music “altered the trajectory” of Atencio’s profession. Whereas Atencio was not thought-about a musical individual — “No, in no way,” says his daughter Tori Atencio McCullough, one of many ebook’s co-authors — the biography reveals how music grew to become a signature side of his work. The brief “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Increase,” as an illustration, is a humorous story concerning the discovery of music. And elsewhere in Atencio’s profession he labored on the band-focused opening animations for “Mickey Mouse Membership.”

“That one has a fairly cool form of fashionable instrument medley within the center,” Kelsey McCullough, Atencio’s granddaughter and one other one of many ebook’s authors, says of “Mickey Mouse Membership.” “It was fascinating, as a result of after we lined every part up, it was like, ‘In fact he felt just like the experience wanted a music.’ Every part he had been doing as much as that time had a music in it. As soon as we appeared it at from that perspective, it was form of unsurprising to us. He was doing so much round music.”

Xavier “X” Atencio contributed ideas to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, together with its well-known one-eyed cat.

(Reprinted from “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” / Disney Enterprises Inc. / Disney Editions)

Atencio would go on to jot down lyrics for the Nation Bear Jamboree and the Haunted Mansion. Whereas the Haunted Mansion vacillates between spooky and lighthearted imagery, it’s Atencio’s “Grim Grinning Ghosts” that telegraphs the experience’s tone and makes it clear it’s a celebratory attraction, one through which a lot of these within the afterlife want to reside it up relatively than hang-out.

Regardless of his newfound music profession, Atencio by no means gave up drawing and contributing ideas to Disney theme park sights. Two of my favorites are captured within the ebook — his summary flights by molecular lights for the defunct Journey Via Inside House and his one-eyed black cat for the Haunted Mansion. The latter has grow to be a fabled Mansion character over time. Atencio’s fiendish feline would have adopted company all through the experience, a creature mentioned to despise dwelling people and with predatory, possessive instincts.

In Atencio’s idea artwork, the cat featured elongated, vampire-like fangs and a piercing purple eye. In a nod to Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Black Cat,” it had only one eyeball, which sat in its socket with all of the subtlety of a fireplace alarm. Discarded finally — a raven basically fills an identical function — the cat at this time has been resurrected for the Mansion, most notably in a revised attic scene the place the kitty is noticed close to a mournful bride.

Xavier “X” Atencio retired from Disney in 1984 after four-plus a long time with the corporate. He drew his personal retirement announcement.

(Reprinted from “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” / Disney Enterprises Inc. / Disney Editions)

Co-author Bobbie Lucas, a relative of Atencio’s colloquially referred to by the household as his “grandchild-in-law,” was requested what ties all of Atencio’s work collectively.

“Irrespective of the completely different model or irrespective of the period, there’s such a way of life and humanity,” Lucas says. “There’s a way of play.”

Play is a becoming option to describe Atencio’s contributions to 2 of Disneyland’s most beloved sights, the place pirates and ghosts are captured at their most frivolous and jovial.

“I like that,” Lucas provides. “I like somebody who will put their coronary heart on their sleeve and present you that of their artwork.”