Document details

Disney Imagineer Chris Runco
Part 1 - on the Model Shop, Star Tours’ RX-24, and More
Dan Heaton

One of my favorite parts of doing this podcast is learning stories about the people that created Disney’s theme parks. Their paths to reach Walt Disney Imagineering are always so different. A perfect example is Chris Runco, who started as a portrait artist at Disneyland in 1970. Six years later, he joined WDI in the model shop alongside legendary Imagineers. His skills as an artist led him to a remarkable career of more than 45 years with Disney.

Chris joins me on this episode of The Tomorrow Society Podcast to talk about his background and work at Disney. EPCOT Center was just getting started when Chris arrived. He worked on the models and was closely involved with classic attractions like World of Motion. Chris also had the chance to interact with amazing designers like Marc Davis. His stories are fascinating and show the importance of those mentors. Chris also worked on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad during the late ’70s.

One of Chris’ most exciting projects was the original Star Tours in the mid-’80s. He designed robot characters for that attraction, including droids for the queue. Chris also created the pilot RX-24, memorably voiced by Paul Reubens. The look of this rookie on his first flight came from a wide range of sources, including junk found anywhere. Chris describes the full design process and what it took to bring RX-24 to life. He also explains what it’s like to see his creation in Oga’s Cantina at Galaxy’s Edge today.

Player

The media player embeds third party contents from YouTube, Vimeo, the Internet Archive and various other sites into this page. If you choose to use this feature, the site serving the content will register your request without you explicitly accessing it. Please check our Privacy policy for more information.

Clicking the button on the right you will activate the mediaplayer until you close your browser. The setting is saved in your browser using a cookie.

Persons

Source

Title
Source type Podcast
Volume 134
Published
Language en
Document type Interview
Media type audio

Metadata

Id 5926
Availability Free
Inserted 2021-03-20