FROM: Squeak of the Week Published Fridays

Cricket... Croak... Cheep... Chirp...

In a short, fascinating look at the electronic mechanics behind Disneyland's early sound effects, John Donaldson introduces the inventor of that technique, Louis MacKenzie, and tells his tale, ulimately unhappy since it led Louis to jail.

- John Stanley Donaldson, July 22, 2011

Share

If you were a teen on the scene in the Seventies, there was always that cool kid at school named Cameron, who drove a Z28 Camaro.

And above the blum, blum, dun of that souped, eight-cylinder engine, every beat and bleat of Black Sabbath, or the Blue Oyster Cult, would be blasted for blocks.

By way of an eight-track tape.

But, to what entity did he owe the origin of this auto audio?

Disneyland.

That's right. That future blare fare evolved out of Anaheim.

You see, Walt Disney wanted his theme park to be an entire sensory experience - and that meant spreading, to the tiniest of detail, a lot of sound around.

But, what technology was the best ticket for just a cricket in the thicket?

The answer came when a fellow named Louis MacKenzie developed an endless, magnetic tape loop, wound down into a small cartridge mechanism. Such "carts," as they were called, could easily be tucked about the territory.

When the bow, say, of a Jungle Cruise boat broke a photocell beam, a "Mackenzie Repeater" might roll out a roar - and then, by said thread, be set for another run.

Some one hundred and fifty units were put to Park use.

Ten years after Disneyland opened, the tidy utility caught interest of the record industry. I imagine every artist had an eight-track release.

In 1962, Louis MacKenzie received an Academy Award, scientific certificate, for his "selective sound effects repeater."

However, ability to link every plunk and plink would land the man in the clink.

He was arrested for having built the "black box."

His tone drones being sent over phones - to bypass long-distance billing.

John Stanley Donaldson, once the protege of Disney Legend Herb Ryman, is the author of Mr. Ryman's biography, Warp and Weft: Life Canvas of Herbert Ryman, which you can purchase directly from the author's site.

More: SQUEAK OF THE WEEK