Friday, January 04, 2013
Souvenir Friday- MAPO Sign Glendale California
A sign from MAPO (Manufacturing and Production Organization) which was the division within WED (and later WDI) that manufactured the ride systems and Audio Animatronic figures. The acronym also relates to Mary Poppins (hence the image of Mary on the sign) and the fact that profits from Mary Poppins were used to expand this division and for Walt Disney Productions to purchase WED. This sign is fairly recent, most likely left over from when WDI contracted with Garner Holt productions in 2012 for the manufacturing and maintenance of the Audio Animatronic figures.
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4 comments:
I miss the old names like MAPO, WED Enterprises and Walt Disney Productions. They just seem to evoke more magic than the newer names. Probably just the era I experienced.
I have the very first MAPO nametag in my collection. I must say, it's one of my favorites.
I first found out about this from a friend who had worked on the Haunted Mansion. He had old blueprints which had notes pointing to the "pop-up" ghosts in the attic, "Ghost by MAPO".
He described it to me as the "Mary A Poppins Organization" with the similar backstory you relate. This is the first I have heard of the Manufacturing and Production Organization acronym. I bet there was a brainstorm to develop that tag to match.
Thank you for this cool reminder.
JG
Mapo, was contrived from MAry Poppins, the official lengthened name indeed being Manufacturing And Production Organization. The Mary Poppins tag and logo stemmed from the fact that MP box office profits were used to purchase WED from Walt in 1965, and to formally establish MAPO, rather than having to depend so much on outside contractors for fabrication, and the Studio Machine shop for construction. When I was was a Cast member 30 years ago, both WED and Mapo were still divisions of Buena Vista Distribution Company, Disney's distribution arm.
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