For Steve McElveen, living in retirement with his wife Karen along the Sebastian stretch of the Indian River Lagoon is all the magic he needs.
But for 31 years, he made magic for tens of thousands of other people as one of the behind-the-scenes masterminds of the Magic Kingdom. As a master mechanic and scuba diver, he helped wow the world by allowing the creations of the Disney “Imagineers” to come to life, moving and often vocalizing with startling realism.
While Karen worked with Disney information technology,
Steve McElveen joined the effort just as Walt Disney had introduced his cutting-edge “audio animatronics,” which went on to mesmerize generations of starry-eyed visitors to Disney World.
McElveen’s task was to ensure that happened perfectly. Every time.
McElveen’s first experience working for The Mouse was on one of the original rides, as an employee of an electrical subcontractor working on the Magic Kingdom’s Jungle Cruise.
Familiarized with the intricacies of animatronics, he was made a Disney employee. After a year as a mechanic and heavy equipment operator, he took the intensive, six-week class in audio animatronics.
After three decades, the thrill hasn’t diminished. “It was so much fun!” he says.
His task at the Jungle Cruise was to ensure the hippos all stuck to script, popping up from beneath the serpentine river to the surprise and delight of tourists. He also made sure the elephants squirted water at just the right moment, the snakes were properly slithery and the monkeys engagingly hyperactive.
Although the Jungle Cruise boats looked like they were being controlled from the wheelhouse by the captain-slash-tour guide, who bravely steered away from the angry hippos at the last moment, the boats were actually on tracks and safely kept to a specific route.
And of course, the workings were all underwater.
“I worked as a diver for seven years,” says McElveen. “We’d hit the water at 5 a.m. to check everything, and we had to be done by 9 a.m. when the boats started the day.”
His crack-of-dawn schedule involved a lot of maintenance.
“We had to keep the water clean, and it contained chlorine and bromine, which was hard on the equipment.”
Much of the machinery was hidden within fake rocks and ridges. Set along the riverbanks, they were actually hollow.
“We called them rock rooms,” says McElveen.
Supported with rebar, they were filled with mechanical and electrical equipment which staff could access unseen if the ride required attention when the park was full of visitors.
McElveen’s scuba experience was put to use again when he was assigned to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, another of the park’s original rides. There, visitors would become passengers aboard Capt. Nemo’s submarine, the Nautilus, for a scary “undersea” adventure.
McElveen would awaken early to be suited up, in full dive gear, by sun-up. He and a partner would access the submerged animatronic units via a “floatboat” to make sure all of the sea creatures were operational – and safe – including the giant squid that caused Capt. Nemo and his crew so much trouble.
Of the hundreds of incidents that could only happen at Disney, he tells of one at 20,000 Leagues.
“One day we had a couple of girls who decided to go skinny dipping, just jumped right in. Well, everybody was on the radio immediately. You would not believe how many employees wanted to take care of that one.”
McElveen and the dive crew also had the job of “search and recovery” in all the many locks and canals throughout the complex.
“People would drop all sorts of things into the water – shades, cameras, rings. Even vehicles – the kids would sometimes take the golf carts on joy rides and go right into the water.”
He clearly recalls his first assignment as a greenhorn diver. He was changing the huge 20- to 30-inch light bulbs under the Monolith, a giant waterfall, and his work had to be done at night. The wiring was encased in long, thick rubberlike cables. When unbeknownst to him, his crew had gotten a very big, very lifelike rubber snake from the theme park’s magic store, about the same size as the cables. As they all watched from the bridge, the “snake” was tossed down on top of McElveen who responded exactly the way his howling crew hoped he would.
McElveen spent a lot of time in, on and under Space Mountain’s roller coaster.
“The ride was in the dark and it was actually two separate coasters,” he recalls. “We were in constant radio contact with one another and, when a problem arose, we’d have to isolate it, under a lot of pressure.”
The Space Mountain computer was the “electronic eyes” of the ride and could detect the smallest problem. “If someone’s hat blew off, it would stop the ride.”
“It’s all about safety,” he says, repeating that mantra often as he talks about his Disney experiences.
He and his cohorts would go through the “trains” – any of the variously configured passenger vehicles that move on a track – inspecting every axle, bearing and bolt “up one side and down the other to make sure everything was up to snuff,” he says.
One crack in one axle that hadn’t caused a problem nevertheless prompted a 24-hour long check of every single axle. “That’s Disney,” McElveen says.
McElveen got a kick out of maintaining the creature at Alien Encounters, teleported from outer space to terrorize audiences for several years before being retired and replaced by a gentler, less slime-flinging alien named Stitch.
The original alien was one of the most intricate of all the animatronic creatures. It was also high-maintenance, often “wetting himself” with hydraulic oil, his caregiver reports. Its many extremities were operated by tiny cylinders called actuators using 1/8-inch hose and hydraulics.
The animatronics were also impressive in the Hall of Presidents, McElveen says. It was here that life-size figures spoke with incredible realism, moving and gesturing naturally, down to the most subtle facial movements.
“Those guys were pretty doggone cool,” says McElveen.
“You can’t imagine the hundreds and hundreds of mechanical and electrical lines just on their faces, even their mouths.”
And then there was the iconic “It’s A Small World” water ride, boats floating along the winding stream greeted by plump pairs of children in the costumes of the world’s countries, forever bobbing, twirling, smiling and singing.
Endlessly singing.
“When I worked on that one, I could not get that song out of my head for weeks,” he says.
Radio communications started with a buzz and a crackle, followed by an urgent command: “Go check out Mr. Toad, Section 3!”
And there were the E-stops: occasionally someone would actually get off one of the rides, in mid-ride. Then there’d be an E (for emergency) Stop, everything would immediately shut down until McElveen and his crew rushed to the scene.
McElveen brings out a pair of statuettes, in Magic Kingdom themes, of course, two of the several he and his wife Karen received in recognition of their landmark years with Disney. He still wears a gold watch presented to him at his 20-year mark.
“They get their money’s worth out of their people,” he says. In return, they supported their employees in many ways, he says. “It is a model company for the world.”
