If you ask theme park fans what they love about theme parks, they may rave about whatever the newest attraction at Disney World is, but at some point, you’ll almost certainly hear the phrase “attention to detail.” Part of what makes great theme parks great is the extent they go to to make what you see feel real. However, sometimes that attention to detail comes not in what you see, but in what you don’t.
If you’ve followed Disney Parks for any length of time and learned about how they work, you’re probably familiar with the importance of paint. While it can draw the eye, there are a couple of specific colors that are used at Disneyland and Walt Disney World when the park doesn’t want you to notice something. Seeing how well it works is quite impressive.
What Are “Go Away Green” And “Blending Blue?”
If you have visited Disneyland or Disney World you have certainly seen two frequently-used paint colors in the park, even if you didn’t necessarily notice them. Because not noticing them was the point. A popular post on Instagram recently showed just how good the paint colors, known as “Go Away Green” and “Blending Blue,” are at causing your eyes to simply overlook them. Check it out.
The video gets the names of the two buildings you see at Epcot wrong; they are the World Showplace and the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind building. Still, the video does a great job of showing just how well these buildings blend against the sky, making it difficult to really notice them. The Cosmic Rewind building specifically is quite massive and would be a much bigger Epcot eyesore if it stood out more.
Disney Parks Are Great At Hiding Things
The paint is just one way that Disney Parks use to help hide the things they don’t want you to see. Ever since Walt Disney first built Disneyland, he wanted to keep the outside world away so that it didn’t invade the fantasy. This was done by creating a berm that sits between the park and the rest of the city of Anaheim, blocking the view of the city. Even the walkways, when designed by Landscape Architect Ruth Shellhorn, were designed so that certain attractions wouldn’t be viewable until you got closer to them so you wouldn’t see parts of one land from another.
Other methods are also used. One of the most famous is that the back side of the Hollywood Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which is tall enough to be seen from Epcot, is painted to look like it’s part of the Morocco Pavillion. From a distance, it just looks like another building.
Hiding everything at Disneyland isn't possible, but it's still impressive what can be done. It makes you want to pay more attention and see the things you might otherwise miss. But then that destroys the illusion, and the illusion is a big part of the fun.
