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Posted by wordglyph 15 hours ago

I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978(wordglyph.xyz)
403 points | 154 commentspage 5
notxorand 10 hours ago|
Great stuff! Reminds me how I used to bother a lot of game publishers when I was younger
wazoox 10 hours ago||
In 2000 I was in a startup which used yellow and blue colours for all its graphic design (website, app, etc). For a big trade show (IBC Amsterdam) someone thought it would be cool to give away M&Ms, but only in yellow and blue of course ! So we bought many bags of M&Ms, and sorted them out by hand... That wasn't a good use of our time, plus we had tons of red, brown and green M&Ms to eat while working and we were getting diabetic fast. So Marie called Mars to ask if it was possible to buy only yellow and blue M&Ms for our trade show. And you know what happened? Mars sent us a huge bag of each colour for free !

In the following years, they made it possible to order custom M&Ms (for a price...) and how you can even have your logo on them.

foxglacier 8 hours ago||
I suspect his persistent confidence was already there to lead him to write to Disney in the first place. As a kid, I had an idea like that and my Dad was going to write to the company but he never did, I never had the inclination to do it myself, and now I'm not an actor.

It also takes some awareness to state your age at the start of the letter. That's what makes people respond so well to it. I would never have thought age was relevant, or even that it was shameful to admit you're just a child. I didn't understand how people think. This guy apparently did, so again, he was already cut out for acting, I'd say.

wordglyph 6 hours ago|
Good insight. Yes, I do remember at the time, purposely thinking I must lead with my age knowing instinctively that somehow that would help me and they would be more likely to pay attention.
TZubiri 11 hours ago||
>"It's called the quadrupler"

Drop the "It's called" it's cleaner that way.

wordglyph 11 hours ago|
Note to self. Build time machine and fix this.
aurea 12 hours ago||
Now, with a tear in my eye, I wanna know about Tom. I hope this post gets to him somehow.
lysace 11 hours ago|
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Tom_Fitzgerald

He had just joined WED the same year he sent that reply (1979). Worked there until 2020 in various leadership roles. Seems to have been particularly involved in the making of EPCOT.

A web search shows all kinds of interesting interviews etc.

wordglyph 11 hours ago|||
He sent the letter in April 1979! He was only 3 months into the job.
lysace 11 hours ago||
Classic, have the new guy deal with the fan mail.
wanderingmoose 11 hours ago|||
He still works at WDI.
lysace 11 hours ago||
Nice!
RyanOD 9 hours ago||
"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"
eboy 7 hours ago|
[dead]