The little-known story behind one of Disneyland's most recognizable ride songs

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When Xavier “X” Atencio was plucked by Walt Disney successful 1965 to beryllium 1 of his aboriginal taxable parkland designers, helium was slotted connected a fig of projects that placed him retired of his comfortableness zone.

Atencio, for instance, ne'er would person envisioned himself a songwriter.

One of Atencio’s archetypal large projects with Walt Disney Imagineering — WED Enterprises (for Walter Elias Disney), arsenic it was known astatine the clip — was Pirates of the Caribbean. In the mid-’60s erstwhile Atencio joined the Pirates team, the attraction was good underway, with the likes of chap animators-turned-theme parkland designers Marc Davis and Claude Coats crafting galore of its exaggerated characters and enveloping environments. Atencio’s job? Make it each marque consciousness by giving it a cohesive story. While Atencio had erstwhile dreamed of being a journalist, his enactment arsenic an animator had led him astray of a writer’s path.

Atencio would not lone fig it retired but extremity up arsenic the draftsman of 1 of Disneyland’s astir recognizable songs, “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me).” In the process, helium was cardinal successful creating the template for the modern taxable parkland acheronian ride, a word often applied to slow-moving indoor attractions. Such vocation twists and turns are elaborate successful a caller publication astir Atencio, who died successful 2017. “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of an Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” (Disney Editions), written by 3 of his household members, follows Atencio’s unexpected trajectory, starting from his roots successful animation (his resume includes “Fantasia,” the Oscar-winning abbreviated “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom” and adjacent stop-motion enactment successful “Mary Poppins”).

For Pirates of the Caribbean, Atencio is said to person received small absorption from Disney, lone that the park’s patriarch was unhappy with erstwhile stabs astatine a narration and dialogue, uncovering them leaning a spot stodgy. So helium knew, essentially, what not to do. Atencio, according to the book, immersed himself successful films similar Disney’s ain “Treasure Island” and pop-cultural interpretations of pirates, striving for thing that felt borderline caricature alternatively than ripped from the past books.

An animator astatine a table drafting a dinosaur.

Indeed, Atencio’s words — immoderate of those quoted successful the book, specified arsenic “Avast there! Ye travel seeking escapade and salty aged pirates, aye?” — person go shorthand for however to talk similar a pirate. The archetypal country written for the attraction was the mid-point auction sequence, a conception of the thrust that was changed successful 2017 owed to its outdated taste implications. In the original, a arrogant redheaded pistillate is the pb captive successful a bridal auction, but contiguous the “wench” has graduated to pirate presumption of her ain and is helping to auction disconnected stolen goods.

At first, Atencio thought helium had over-written the scene, noticing that dialog overlapped with 1 another. In a now-famous taxable parkland moment, and 1 retold successful the book, Atencio apologized to Disney, who shrugged disconnected Atencio’s insecurity.

“Hey, X, erstwhile you spell to a cocktail party, you prime up a small speech here, different speech there,” Disney told the animator. “Each clip radical volition spell through, they’ll find thing new.”

This was the greenish airy that Atencio, Davis and Coats needed to proceed processing their attraction arsenic 1 that would beryllium a tableau of scenes alternatively than a strict plot.

Tying it each together, Atencio thought, should beryllium a song. Not a songwriter himself, of course, Atencio sketched retired a fewer lyrics and a elemental melody. As the authors write, helium turned to the thesaurus and made lists of accepted “pirating” words. He presented it to Disney and, to Atencio’s surprise, the institution laminitis promptly gave him the motion off.

“Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me),” Atencio would relay, was a situation arsenic the thrust doesn’t person a emblematic opening and ending, meaning the tune needed to enactment with immoderate pirate vignette we were sailing by. Ultimately, the song, with euphony by George Bruns, underlines the ride’s humorous feel, allowing the looting, the pillaging and the chasing of women, different country that has been altered implicit the years, to beryllium delivered with a playful bent.

Robotic pirates are auctioning stolen goods.

The opus “altered the trajectory” of Atencio’s career. While Atencio was not considered a philharmonic idiosyncratic — “No, not astatine all,” says his girl Tori Atencio McCullough, 1 of the book’s co-authors — the biography reveals however euphony became a signature facet of his work. The abbreviated “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom,” for instance, is simply a humorous communicative astir the find of music. And elsewhere successful Atencio’s vocation helium worked connected the band-focused opening animations for “Mickey Mouse Club.”

“That 1 has a beauteous chill benignant of modern instrumentality medley successful the middle,” Kelsey McCullough, Atencio’s granddaughter and different 1 of the book’s authors, says of “Mickey Mouse Club.” “It was interesting, due to the fact that erstwhile we lined everything up, it was like, ‘Of people helium felt similar the thrust needed a song.’ Everything helium had been doing up to that constituent had a opus successful it. Once we looked it astatine from that perspective, it was benignant of unsurprising to us. He was doing a batch astir music.”

Concept creation of a achromatic feline with 1 reddish eye.

Atencio would spell connected to constitute lyrics for the Country Bear Jamboree and the Haunted Mansion. While the Haunted Mansion vacillates betwixt spooky and lighthearted imagery, it’s Atencio’s “Grim Grinning Ghosts” that telegraphs the ride’s code and makes it wide it’s a celebratory attraction, 1 successful which galore of those successful the afterlife similar to unrecorded it up alternatively than haunt.

Despite his newfound euphony career, Atencio ne'er gave up drafting and contributing concepts to Disney taxable parkland attractions. Two of my favorites are captured successful the publication — his abstract flights done molecular lights for the defunct Adventure Thru Inner Space and his one-eyed achromatic feline for the Haunted Mansion. The second has go a fabled Mansion quality implicit the years. Atencio’s fiendish feline would person followed guests passim the ride, a carnal said to despise surviving humans and with predatory, possessive instincts.

In Atencio’s conception art, the feline featured elongated, vampire-like fangs and a piercing reddish eye. In a motion to Edgar Allan Poe’s communicative “The Black Cat,” it had conscionable 1 eyeball, which sat successful its socket with each the subtlety of a occurrence alarm. Discarded yet — a raven fundamentally fills a akin relation — the feline contiguous has been resurrected for the Mansion, astir notably successful a revised attic country wherever the kitty is spotted adjacent a mournful bride.

Xavier "X" Atencio's status announcement

Co-author Bobbie Lucas, a comparative of Atencio’s colloquially referred to by the household arsenic his “grandchild-in-law,” was asked what ties each of Atencio’s enactment together.

“No substance the antithetic benignant oregon nary substance the era, there’s specified a consciousness of beingness and humanity,” Lucas says. “There’s a consciousness of play.”

Play is simply a fitting mode to picture Atencio’s contributions to 2 of Disneyland’s astir beloved attractions, wherever pirates and ghosts are captured astatine their astir frivolous and jovial.

“I similar that,” Lucas adds. “I similar idiosyncratic who volition enactment their bosom connected their sleeve and amusement you that successful their art.”

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