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Before the Birds Sang Words

he result of more than a decade of research, Before the Birds Sang Words is a scholarly, fascinating and playful deep dive into the creation of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, the timeless Audio-Animatronic musical revue that’s been delighting Disneyland audiences for over sixty years. Detailing not only the genesis and evolution of the revolutionary attraction, this is a story that also explores the contributing influences and passions of the man who spearheaded it—in turn becoming one of Walt Disney’s most personal projects.

The result of more than a decade of research, Before the Birds Sang Words is a scholarly, fascinating and playful deep dive into the creation of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, the timeless Audio-Animatronic musical revue that’s been delighting Disneyland audiences for over sixty years. Detailing not only the genesis and evolution of this revolutionary attraction, this is a story that also explores the contributing influences and passions of the man who spearheaded it—in turn becoming one of Walt Disney’s most personal projects.

The result of more than a decade of research, Before the Birds Sang Words is a scholarly, fascinating and playful deep dive into the creation of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, the timeless Audio-Animatronic musical revue that’s been delighting

Praise

“A masterwork. The best book ever written about Walt Disney’s creative process. As a former Disney animator and lifelong student of the Disney company's creative accomplishments, I did not think there were many stories I had not heard about Walt, but Ken Bruce's book proved to be an astonishing revelation. Ken traces the evolution of Walt's vision for the unique and groundbreaking attraction that was the Tiki Room, and in doing so reveals the plethora of interests and experiences that made Walt one of the few true geniuses of entertainment. Ken Bruce completely grasped the story and tells it with wit and clarity. The definitive exploration of Walt Disney’s creative identity.”

Bill Kroyer - Director / CGI Pioneer
“One of the best single-attraction histories ever written. Ken Bruce delivers an exhaustive and thrilling book on one of the best theme park experiences of all time.”

Kevin Quigley - Host Thirty20Eight Podcast
“Torn between not putting it down and spreading it out because I don’t want the ‘ride’ to end.”

Tom Fitzgerald - Senior Creative Executive - Imagineering
“Profound. This might be one of the best books on creativity, or the creation of Disneyland, ever written. Ken Bruce’s research presents Walt not as a producer, executive, or visionary, but as a very human artist who requires creativity to be happy—whose disparate, meandering, and long gestating creative process, so often derided by our culture, built the most popular and lucrative creative enterprise on the planet. Inspiring and illuminating, this is a must read, not just for Disney enthusiasts, but anyone with an artistic mind.”

Mark Walsh - Animator, Supervising Animator / Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille
“As a 34-plus year Imagineer, I can say this is the best book I’ve ever read about my company.”

Kyle Barnes - Interior Design, Principal / Imagineering
“Ken Bruce’s spectacular new book about Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room is a great read and a must-have.”

Didier Ghez - Author, Disney Historian
“ I am blown away. It is absolutely fascinating.”

Laurence M. Boag - son of Disney legend Wally Boag
“I can’t remember when I have enjoyed a book this much. Ken Bruce’s book is everything you might hope it would be, an E-ticket in book form. The writer has done spectacular research, and it really pays off. What he has built with that information is as intricate and dazzling as the subject he honors, a complex mechanism that defies (or leaps beyond) sheer logic. By the end you find yourself smiling, stupefied by how quickly you consumed it all, despite its density. Because once you begin, it has you in its spell. It is a phenomenon; it is magic.”

Martin Treu - author Signs, Streets and Storefronts
“Ken Bruce's masterful book chronicles the history of The Enchanted Tiki Room with an extraordinary level of depth, humor, and thoughtfulness. It's a remarkable attraction that now has THE companion book that makes us appreciate the Disneyland staple even more.”

Brett Nachman - Notably Disney Podcast
“It’s a spectacular book.”

Todd James Pierce - author Three Years in Wonderland - Host DHI Podcast
"Ken Bruce’s unexpected opus Before the Birds Sang Words was so thorough and so compelling to me, that I “almost fell out of mine upper perch!” His exhaustive telling of the development and execution of the ground-zero Animatronic Disneyland show is essential reading for both students and fans of theme park history. Ken adds context and clarity with a historical context rarely seen in writing about the Disney parks today. It is masterful in its execution, and likely the best written work on the development of a theme park attraction ever attempted. Run, don’t walk to pick this one up."

Christopher Merritt, Theme Park Historian, Art Director, Imagineer
"Applause! Applause! This truly is THE book I’ve waited my entire life to read. Like the fishing goddess Uti with her glowing tiki torch, Ken Bruce’s thoroughly exceptional Before the Birds Sang Words illuminates the full—and often astonishing—story behind the world’s first Audio-Animatronic theme park attraction. Fans of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room will revel in Ken’s meticulous research which succeeds in debunking more than a few well-worn myths along the way. It’s such an enlightening read. I cannot recommend it highly enough."

Kevin Kidney, Designer, Disney Parks Entertainment and Collectibles
"Prepare your scuba gear because Ken Bruce is about to take you on a deep dive into the story of an eclectic band of unlikely tinker-smiths, artisans, inventors, and wizards who were yanked from their day jobs to create one of Disney’s most virtuosic flights of fancy, Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room! In this epic tome you’ll discover the events that led to the creation of Walt’s ‘bird room,’ beginning with the crude automata experiments of the early 1950s to the post-Tiki Room developments of sophisticated park attractions that, for the first time, synchronized life-like dimensional figures with sound and music, lighting and color, magic, and emotion."

Tom Morris, Imagineer and Disney historian
"Ken has mined theme park history gold! I have listened to stories about The Tiki Room as long as I can remember. There are passages in this narrative that come as close to being a fly on the wall in Walt’s inner sanctum as anything you will ever read.”

Christopher Crump - Imagineer / son of Disney Imagineering legend Rolly Crump

The story

Not so fast. Disney fans have long bought into that narrative, content to believe that was the singular event that preordained the existence of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. But that’s not how it happened. Not by a long shot.

The actual story, far less tidy yet far more interesting, is one of chaos and confusion, countless challenges and happy accidents. Full of twists, turns and dead ends, Before the Birds Sang Words is the narrative for the rest of us—one that includes tales of 15th-century Gothic cathedrals, clockwork miniatures and nine-inch-tall automatons—magnetic tape, mismatched roofing and faux trees—piles of dirt, bundles of defense hardware and miles of pneumatic tubing. All of it came to a head with the creation of a complex, fully automated musical revue in 1963, a project so revolutionary that nobody working on it was ever quite sure what exactly they were doing.

For the first time in print comes the definitive story of Walt Disney’s beloved Tiki Room, Disneyland’s first Audio-Animatronic presentation and one of mid-century America’s greatest pop-culture masterworks.

One lazy afternoon in 1946, Walt Disney and his wife Lillian strolled into a quaint antiques shop in New Orleans. Nearby sat a small gilded cage, gleaming beneath a beam of heavenly light. Perched within was a small mechanical bird who, with the turn of a golden key, magically sprang to life, tweeting out a plaintive tune. Right then and there, Walt thought to himself, “Wouldn’t it be absolutely enchanting to have an entire room full of these things, all singing together in unison?”

Hear Walt’s ‘personal’ review here!

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Hardcover, signed - $40

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Podcasts

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Gallery

Walt Disney with Diana Lai at the Tiki Room press preview.

The Kahiki Restaurant that helped inspire the Tiki Room

Welcome to our tropical hideaway…

Before the Birds Sang Words

“One of the best single-attraction histories ever written. Ken Bruce delivers an exhaustive and thrilling book on one of the best theme park experiences of all time.”

“Torn between not putting it down and spreading it out because I don’t want the ‘ride’ to end.”

“As a 34-plus year Imagineer, I can say this is the best book I’ve ever read about my company.”

“Ken Bruce’s spectacular new book about Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room is a great read and a must-have.”

“ I am blown away. It is absolutely fascinating.”

“Ken Bruce's masterful book chronicles the history of The Enchanted Tiki Room with an extraordinary level of depth, humor, and thoughtfulness. It's a remarkable attraction that now has THE companion book that makes us appreciate the Disneyland staple even more.”

“It’s a spectacular book.”

"Ken has mined theme park history gold! I have listened to stories about The Tiki Room as long as I can remember. There are passages in this narrative that come as close to being a fly on the wall in Walt’s inner sanctum as anything you will ever read.”