By Eddie Sotto
So many wonderful expressions and tributes have been made about the legacy of Disney Legend and first-generation WED Imagineer Roland Fargo “Rolly” Crump, who sadly passed away this week at age 93. In fact, it’s hard to imagine what hasn’t been said. I try and be original, so here’s a cute little story from 1979.
My experience with Rolly began long before I even met him. Like many of us, growing up seeing him smocked in white, painting toys or blowing the pinwheels on his Tower of the Four Winds model with Walt Disney on Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, I didn’t know who he was. I just wanted to BE him, working at WED where dreams come to life. There’s something about people in white lab coats painting dissected birds that looked like serious fun. Those optics obsessed this 9-year-old.
When worlds collide
Fast forward to being married, selling appliances at Sears and, at 21, I was desperate to be an Imagineer, but did not have any experience. I reached out to Knott’s Berry Farm to pitch my attraction ideas.
Little did I know that Rick Campbell, the design director there, was a former architect with Rolly Crump’s post-Disney idea lab, Design 27. In fact, Crump’s firm had just created and produced Knott’s Bear-y Tales, a fantastic dark ride. Afterwards, many of Rolly’s artists stayed on to form the farm’s new Design and Planning department, headed by Campbell.
Rolly Crump created a culture
Rolly was, at times, outspoken. He was also a rebel of sorts, eventually leaving Disney to lead his own counterculture of designers and artists to create themed entertainment. Design 27 was a fun group and I met many of the former members over the years as they visited the farm.
I see now that Rick was an evangelist of that free-spirited culture. He formed his Knott’s studio in that vein. Campbell looked at my crude ride designs not for what they weren’t, but for what he could do with them. Rick, to my surprise, sensed my passion and potential and offered me a job as his assistant designer with no experience!
I now realize getting that job could only be a result of the opportunity-driven culture created by Rolly Crump that Rick embraced. Crump instinctively knew what was fun and leveraged that passion in his design family. Many others careers were launched in a similar way as we too passed on that spirit.
He gave others a chance to step out of their comfort zone and try things, as his son Chris Crump will attest. I believe Walt Disney saw that spirit in him and loved him for it. Walt hired Rolly, not for his drawing ability, but sensed his straightforward creative and artistic strengths. There was a truth in his work, a childlike spark that Walt likely recognized, related to and encouraged.
Rolly no doubt saw Walt’s adept casting skills with the other artists and assimilated some of that too. It’s no accident that Rolly excelled on It’s a Small World, Adventureland Bazaar and The Enchanted Tiki Room. The decorative challenges of these attractions perfectly matched his design style and passion.
Rolly Crump and serious fun
I got to see Rolly in action at WDI when he returned to work on EPCOT and again, he built a design family. His talented son Chris and I worked together in later years and you could see that the fun in the idea was job one, but the execution and the lab coat of making the fun practical were crucial in the end.
At times, we see Rolly characterized as wild or wacky. But my experience is that, after a few early setbacks, like his delicate Tower of the Four Winds being over-engineered into something grossly tubular in his opinion, he matured into designing with a practical and realistic expectation of how the execution affected his wild designs.
He did not ask the animation to do more than was realistic in Bear-y Tales. He understood how to mix black and white light together for added effect. Breakthrough. He really knew how things worked in three dimensions from working in the model shop. That’s where problems rear their heads first, in a model.
Again, he was a master of serious fun. I respect that he had the rare skill of being true to himself as an artist and passionate about an idea with a client, but proved he could cleverly thrive in a corporate landscape of political potholes. Not easy being real!
Lessons from the headmaster
The lessons we learn from Rolly Crump are vast as others closer to him share them, but what stands out to me is that he created design families and a supportive can-do culture that Rick Campbell recreated at Knott’s, where he gave me my start.
The “counter” part of that culture was that it was not corporate. It was open and those in the family cared for each other and had a lot of fun. As someone who was given a shot, I am grateful to Rolly for setting the tone and to all who were patient enough to teach me.
I believe Rolly was outspoken because he cared about the fun. He never expected every idea to be built, but you have to have them to get to the best ones! When you know what the audience will react the most to and are forced to make cuts, you push to keep what works. That has saved many a show.
Rolly Crump connected with the audience through vivid color and bold personality. He was open to change and improvising to the budget. Model your way out of a problem, face things dimensionally, and get your hands into it.
He taught himself to sculpt Disney’s Tikis with a plastic fork in the WED parking lot. He made things happen, and he didn’t take himself too seriously. When your team is having fun building the fun, it shows in the work. Rolly’s smile is in every Toy and Tiki he ever designed.
We still feel all of it and are richer for it.
So fight for the fun! It’s a Crump World after all!
