We got a rare look inside Walt Disney’s time capsule office

At The Walt Disney Studios, there’s a street sign that leads to nowhere. It sits at the intersection of Dopey Drive and Mickey Avenue, real streets on the lot, but the other directions — such as Ink & Paint, Multiplane and In Btween — aren’t directions at all. They’re steps in the process of making an animated film. 

I stood there under the sign, in a place so elusive that I felt like I had won a golden ticket to get inside, and looked down at the ground. There was a fire hydrant, bright red and gleaming, and in the pavement in front of it, three paw prints. The fourth, which should have been closest to the hydrant, was missing. That’s the leg that would be raised if a dog were, say, making use of the spot. It was Pluto’s Corner, after all. 

The Walt Disney Studios is easy to spot off Interstate 5 in Burbank. The giant Sorcerer Mickey hat, attached to the Animation building, is a dead giveaway that there’s some magic happening inside. Until I was finally able to buy a ticket and take one of the studio tours, I didn’t know exactly how much. 

The tour took our group into the Walt Disney Archives, where we were able to hold a real Oscar, one of the 32 that Walt Disney won in his lifetime. Our guide took us into the tunnels underneath the old Animation building where artwork would be transported over to Ink & Paint, so it wouldn’t go outside and be exposed to the elements — and where numerous pranks were undoubtedly played, given what notorious pranksters early Imagineers like Rolly Crump were.

But the real highlight of the tour was a place I never thought I’d be able to go, one that I wasn’t even sure existed anymore: Walt Disney’s office, where some of the greatest innovations in entertainment were dreamed up and made real, and which has been preserved in meticulous detail.  

I knew I wasn’t really walking into 1966 when I walked through the doors, but it was as close as I’m ever going to come. The midcentury vibe was strong, in everything from the low, angular couch to the dark wood built-in bookshelves to the piano, which had been altered to look more modern to fit the decor. It’s where Disney would listen to the Sherman Brothers play the songs they were working on, like “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” one that plays in the Enchanted Tiki Room attraction at Disneyland countless times a day. According to legend, he would call the brothers in, simply requesting, “Play it for me.” In Disney shorthand, that meant he wanted to hear “Feed the Birds” from “Mary Poppins.”

After Disney died in 1966, the rooms where he worked were dismantled, but Disney Chief Archivist Dave Smith put everything into storage. Some years later, the suite was restored with Disney’s original items, recreated from photographs of the time. On the desk in Disney’s formal office, there’s an array of ashtrays, including a desk lamp with an ashtray cup built into the base, and a prototype model of a plane he had in development. Behind it hang portraits of his daughters Sharon and Diane done by Norman Rockwell. 

Over that couch, there’s a tiny birdcage that holds a big legacy. The story goes, as my guide told it, that Disney found that birdcage, which is a music box, on his European travels. He brought it home and tasked his Imagineers with figuring out how the little mechanical bird inside worked. They took it apart, learned the mechanics and applied those ideas to the development of the Audio-Animatronics used in attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean today. 

Through a door in the formal office, we made our way to Disney’s working office, where the real company work happened. On the wall is an enormous aerial photo of Disneyland, detailing not just where the attractions were, but where the future ones would be. The Haunted Mansion, one of the last rides that Disney personally worked on, is on there, but not yet built. “Haunted Mansion,” it reads. “Future home of 1001 ghosts.” That ride, famously contentious between Imagineers who had different visions for the project, ended up with slightly fewer. Now there are “999 happy haunts” in the place.

Because the company moved to that area in 1940, a huge amount of early Disneyland development actually happened on the property, from the construction of ride cars to the testing of the seaworthiness of the submarines that went into the first Submarine Voyage ride in Tomorrowland (called “New Tomorrowland” on the map). In fact, the 40 acres adjacent to the studio lot is where Disney first thought he’d build Disneyland. When the space proved too small to contain his vision, the company had to move south.

Unlike other Los Angeles studios like Warner Bros., where you can just buy a ticket and go, Disney doesn’t just let you walk through the gates. Tours happen very infrequently, especially since the start of the pandemic, and aren’t advertised outside of D23, Disney’s official fan club. It took me a couple of years of intermittent searching to finally find a Walt Disney Studios tour that was upcoming and, crucially, wasn’t sold out. 

The simple fix, I know now, is to buy a gold-level D23 membership, to get access to those tours in the future. Otherwise, just keep checking the site, and see if there’s a golden ticket available for you that day.