Joe Rohde, the former Imagineer who helped mastermind the development of Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, was celebrated as an official Disney Legend alongside 13 others honorees this week. His presentation, held in conjunction with the D23 gathering in Anaheim, California, included a taped introduction from anthropologist Jane Goodall and a performance by the Tam Tam Drummers of Harambe, flown in from Florida for the occasion. “When I say we don’t work for awards, we do what we do the way we do it because we love doing it.
,” Rohde said from the stage at the Honda Center . “We would make art, we would sing, we would act, compose music. .
.. We would organize, make movies, write, draw, design in our garage.
We would do it anyway, because it is who we are. It is how we live. It’s how we know that we are alive.
” The entire ceremony, recorded Sunday, is available on the Disney+ streaming service. Rohde started at Walt Disney Imagineering in 1980. He is known for his work on Animal Kingdom; the Aulani project, a Disney Vacation Club property in Hawaii; Epcot’s Norway pavilion; the “Captain EO” film; and the Adventurers Club, a themed lounge at Pleasure Island, which closed in 2008 .
He’s also noted for an elaborate earring that serves as a souvenir of his various travels. Even Goodall mentioned it. “Of course, when I was first introduced to you, Joe, I was mesmerized with a collection of earrings dangling from your left ear,” she said.
“I suspect everyone is as fascinated as me. Since that first meeting, my admiration for your work and your imagination has continued to increase.” Rohde also wore a leihulu, a handmade Hawaiian feather lei, presented to him by the ambassadors from Aulani.
Rohde, 68, retired from Disney in January 2021. The Disney Legends program began in 1987, and 304 people have been selected since then. Rohde’s fellow inductees this year included Harrison Ford; Jamie Lee Curtis; Angela Bassett; composer John Williams; singer-actress Miley Cyrus; talk-show host Kelly Ripa, animator Mark Henn; filmmaker James Cameron (“Avatar,” “Titanic”); director-producer James L.
Brooks (“The Simpsons,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Terms of Endearment”); costume designer Colleen Atwood; puppeteer and filmmaker Frank Oz; comic artist Steve Ditko; and Martha Blanding, a longtime manager at Disneyland. There were a sprinkling of theme-park moments beyond Rohde during the ceremony: • Curtis reminisced about the Carousel of Progress when it was still at Disneyland, and she led the audience in a singalong of its theme song “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” (She also was seen jamming to the beats of Tam Tam.
) • Ripa talked about a family trip in her youth, circa 1973, from New Jersey to Walt Disney World, where they stayed at the Polynesian resort. “We still talk about that trip like it was yesterday,” she said. • Oz recalled playing on Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland.
• Disneyland’s Dapper Dans a cappella group performed “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” as a salute to Blanding. • Handling the actual awards were members of the Global Disney Ambassador team, including WDW representatives Shannon Smith-Conrad and Serena Arvizu, who were on stage with Harrison, Oz and Rohde. dbevil@orlandosentinel.
com.
