The Rocket Belt Saga Part 1 - Twenty-One Seconds

What if I told you that the man who flew above Disneyland's Tomorrowland in the 1960s wasn't on wires, but strapped to actual jet engines? The remarkable true story of the rocket belt at Disney parks is more fascinating—and bizarre—than you might imagine.

Kelly and Pete explore the surprising origins of personal flight technology, beginning with Wendell Moore of Bell Aeronautics, who adapted stabilization jets from Chuck Yeager's sound barrier-breaking X-1 aircraft into a wearable rocket pack. Though limited to just 21 seconds of flight time and powered by 90% pure hydrogen peroxide, these devices captured worldwide imagination, appearing not just at Disneyland and Disney World, but at presidential demonstrations, the 1984 Olympics opening ceremony, and in James Bond's "Thunderball."

The rocket belt's journey through entertainment history connects fascinating dots between science fiction and reality. From Buck Rogers' "jumping belt" of 1920s comics to Commando Cody's rocket adventures in 1950s film serials, America had been primed to embrace personal flight long before it became technically possible. When Disney showcased these devices above Tomorrowland, they were fulfilling dreams decades in the making.

But this is just the beginning of a story that grows increasingly strange. As competing rocket belt designs emerge, the narrative takes unexpected turns involving lawn-mowing teenagers who became rocket men, alleged drug smuggling operations, baseball bat confrontations, stolen equipment, and the birth of troubling rivalries that will ultimately lead to truly startling consequences.

This first installment of a two-part rocket belt saga lifts off from the Flight Circle of yesterday's Tomorrowland and soars through a landscape where Disney history intersects with one of technology's most persistently appealing—yet perpetually impractical—dreams. Join us next time as the story grows even more unbelievable.

==================================================================

Show Notes: Bill Suitor is his name, not Robert as Kelly says early on.

Dr. Theopolis on Buck Rogers was voiced by Howard F. Flynn.

It's actually unclear if Tommy Walker booked the Bell Rocketbelt team for the 1964 World's Fair. He did, however, book Suitor to fly the RocketBelt for the 1984 Olympic Games opening as well as the team's 1965 and 1967 appearances at Disneyland.
Walker, by the way, also composed the six-note "Charge!" fanfare heard at American sporting events.

Astronaut Charles Duke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Duke

Kelly is playing fast and loose with the attraction naming. Rocket to the Moon (1955), Flight to the Moon (1967), Mission to Mars (1975).

The Jetbelt guys actually could have launched from the location of the former Flying Saucers ride in 1967 because it had been converted to the Tomorrowland stage.

Technical Debt at Disneyland article - https://boardwalktimes.net/the-cost-of-endless-magic-theme-parks-and-technical-debt-73a4bb29bb24

Jaxxon!  https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jaxxon_T._Tumperakki

Thanks for listening!

We'd love it if you would give us a cheeky little review on your podcast platform of choice. They're really helpful.

Come visit our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1511094196139406 or drop us a note to [e-mail] and let us know any questions or comments about how YOU would like to plus-something-up!

We are a Boardwalk Times production.
Boardwalk Times, https://boardwalktimes.net/
Boardwalk Times store, https://boardwalktimes.store .

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey old man, oh, hello there.
Hey, prospector, howdy, youlook like you're heading off
somewhere.
Well, actually I am.
You see, my wife helped me out.
Oh, yeah, yeah, she packed mybags last night pre-flight.
Huh, zero hour, 9 am in fact.
That's pretty early for you.
I'm going to be as high as akite by then and I miss the

(00:23):
Earth so much.
I miss my wife.
It's lonely out in space onsuch a timeless flight and I
think it's going to be a long,long time until touchdown brings
me round again to find I'm notthe man that they think I am at
hand.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I'm arocket man.
Rocket man, burn out this fuseup here alone.

(00:45):
Well, thank you, old man.
Hey, no problem, partner, andjust remember this here's the
wildest ride in the universe.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Hello and welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a
podcast where we look ateveryone's favorite theme park
attractions, lands, textures andnovelties.
We talk in over about andthrough our week's topic and
then, with literally no concernfor practicality, safety or
economic viability, we come upwith ways to make them better.
My name is Kelly McCubbin,columnist for the theme park

(01:30):
website Boardwalk Times, andwith me, as always, is Peter
Overstreet University, professorof Animation and Film History
in Northern California.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Much to cast members' chagrin at Disneyland.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
He will pop up everywhere, which reminds me hey
, pete, yes, what are we?

Speaker 1 (02:01):
talking about today.
Today, we're going to dig deepinto a very strange and sordid
affair that is a lot morecomplicated than you might think
.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Oh boy, it takes place in Tomorrowland and it's
our Rocket Beltman Boy.
We need to sexy that up, don'twe?

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, we kind of do it doesn't have a sexy title,
but, believe me, this story isgoing to be amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Oh man, this is one of the most incredible stories I
have ever read.
That's related to Disneyland,and you know we do tangents here
.
Oh, yeah, of us.
No, this is going to besomething of a tangent, but I
think it's going to pay off, foryou it's going to be all right.

(02:47):
Yeah, I think it's going to beall right, I think it's going to
be all right.
We are going to talk about theflights of the—you may have seen
these in, I believe, 1967.
It was an episode of what Ibelieve was, at that point, the
Wonderful World of Color TV showcalled Disneyland Around the

(03:11):
Seasons, and during that showyou saw a man dressed all in
white with what looked like anEvel Knievel helmet and we know
some interesting things aboutthis helmet that will come up a
little bit later.
And we know some interestingthings about this helmet that'll
come up a little bit later Withtwo actual jet engines strapped
onto his back.

(03:31):
Oh yeah, flying high aboveTomorrowland.
And you may think, as a lot ofpeople watching TV did, that
this is much like Tinkerbellflying over the castle during
the fireworks, that this issomeone on wires.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
It is not no, it's not no.
This was a real dude who reallylike if those rockets went and
we'd fall, you know?

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, and those rockets, the flight that we
actually see in the show, is notflown by the most famous of the
Rocketmen, robert Souter.
It's flown by a guy namedGordon Yeager.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Oh, any relation to Chuck?

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Ah, I'm glad you asked.
No, oh, okay, but the storydoes have a relation to Chuck.
Oh, okay, but the story doeshave a relation to Chuck.
Oh, interesting, because therocket pack that they are using
at that point and we'll back upa little bit and get more into
this but the rocket pack thatthey're using at that point is
one that was built by BellAeronautics.

(04:39):
Oh, okay, and the guy thatbuilt it, wendell Moore.
He worked for Bell Aeronauticsand he worked on the X-1 jet oh,
wow, okay, yeah, the first jetto ever break the sound barrier,
nice which was piloted by ChuckYeager.
That's right, mighty Chuck.
The interesting thing thatcorrelates the X-1 to the Bell

(05:02):
Aeronautics rocket pack andwe're going to go through a
whole bunch of different rocketpacks in this story, oh, yes,
but this is the first reallyeffective one, unless you
believe the Germans.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Because German propaganda— we have been making
better rocket packs in the past.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
German propaganda about World War II was that they
had built a rocket pack thatworked.
No one ever saw it.
You know Wernher von Braun, whowas around Disneyland in those
early years, oh yeah, and wasworking at Bell Aeronautics some
and Wendell Moore was close toNever said anything about the

(05:41):
rocket pack, so the Germans wereprobably making it up.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
But he could always make it to a cocktail party in
record time, despite the traffic, don't worry.
Now I'm confident where thisone is going to land.
Little Von Braun humor there.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Nazi schmatzi, said Werner Von Braun.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh, Tom Lehrer, we love you.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
You know he's still around and he just recently put
all of his recordings and all ofhis sheet music on a website to
download for free.
He was like I don't want anymoney, don't send me any money,
just take it.
Wow, yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's cool.
Yeah, he's an interesting guy.
Yeah, tom Lehrer is a weird one, but gotta love it.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
But yeah, so the Nazis, they had created the on
the rocket thing, which theyprobably didn't, they probably
but Wendell Moore, who worked onthe X-1, what he did
specifically was he built thejets that were on the wingtips
and on the tail of the X-1 tostabilize it, right?
So they were not the propulsionjets that were going to get it

(06:52):
past the sound barrier, correct,right, they were the jets that
were using to kind of maneuverit because they knew it was
going awfully fast.
Oh yeah, big time.
Now those jets are almostexactly the jets that he used
for the Bell Aeronautics rocketbelt, oh jeez.
So if you look at Gordon Yeagerin that film flying around

(07:20):
Disneyland and he looks a littlenervous that's why around
Disneyland and he looks a littlenervous.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
that's why, If one of these goes wrong, my
equilibrium is completely off.
I'm going to be going around incircles real fast.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yes, and there's two things that are super
interesting about the way thatthis particular jet engine,
strapped onto a human being,works.
Actually, there's a lot that'sinteresting about it.
One of the two things is thatit is fueled by hydrogen
peroxide.
It is like 90% pure hydrogenperoxide.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
So it can propel you and keep your skin clear.
That's right clear.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
That's right.
The other thing is that it onlyworks for about 21 seconds.
Oops, yeah.
So this is why you know.
I say I may be getting ahead ofmyself here, but who cares?

Speaker 1 (08:19):
I strap this thing on my back.
I'm going to make it to SantaMonica in about 22 seconds.
Oh no.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
The things are deafening and you can see in
this clip from Disneyland Aroundthe Seasons, like when it takes
off, people in the crowd covertheir ears, they're shocked by
it.
Wow, because it's so loud.
Wow, which also means that thelittle dingley alarm that they
put in the helmet for the pilotto hear to say, hey, you're

(08:46):
running out of time, that didn'twork very well, oh no, so later
, what they did was they putthis thing in the helmet that
would actually vibrate the backof the pilot's skull.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
So they put a woodpecker into the yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
At about 10 seconds it would go, and then every five
seconds after that, because youknow you got 21 seconds At
about 11 seconds.
You better start thinking aboutwhere you're going to land.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Oh man.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
And this is why one of the more famous appearances
after Disneyland and, of course,its appearance at the 1964
World's Fair.
Go ahead and say it.
Q yeah, this is the one it's inThunderball, Thunderball, yes,
and you know, of course SeanConnery is not flying that

(09:45):
rocket pack in Thunderball.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
That's why the helmet is so big.
It covers his face, but it alsois to protect you for a
20-second flight.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Well, so the helmet is a point of contention with
Thunderball.
So they send Jaeger and thisguy, robert Suter.
Robert Suter is probably themost famous person to fly the
Bell rocket belt.
He also flew several otheriterations of the rocket belt
later.
But they sent them out to Iforget where they were filming.

(10:17):
It was like France something.
They sent them out to fly therocket pack because they wanted
this in the film.
They got there and they saidJames Bond would not wear a
helmet.
And so the two rocket pack ofplayers, jaeger and Suter.
They were like no, we can't dothis without the helmet.
The helmet tells us when toland.

(10:39):
Yes.
So they had a standoff for afew days where they said they
wouldn't do it.
Then they decided that theywere going to let them wear the
helmet, but they were going topaint it to look like hair?

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Hey, why not?
They had already convinced usthat Sean Connery had hair with
all of his wigs by that point.
So who cares?
I mean, he was really diggingthe Bond scene.
His head was swollen enough asit was.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
It's just Sean, so they decided eventually that
that looked ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Okay, so Bond nerd moment here for a minute.
Yeah, that part of logic in thestory bugged them because,
first off, you know he outs theguy who's dressed in drag.
You never actually open up adoor for yourself.
You should have let somebodyelse open the door for you.
And the guy with this four daygrowth of beard is attacking him

(11:36):
and stalking and heels.
Then he gets away, but he's upin the parapet of this estate
house where the pack is waitingfor him.
Who dropped that off Right?
What's that doing there?
Q's like well, first 007, we'regoing to parachute it out down
to the place for you Drop it anytime.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
Q I bet you know this .
Do you know where the rocketpack appears again in a Bond
film?

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Apart from Die Another Day.
That's it.
Yeah, die Another Day makes aquick little cameo Right Rockets
off the thing, with John Cleeselooking very.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, it's Pierce Brosnan right.
Yeah, pierce Brosnan.
Yeah, he asks John Cleese.
He's like does this still work?
And Cleese is like, of courseit does.
Yeah, zipping off Before we gettoo deep into.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
I guess we're kind of already all over, oh we're so
deep, I'm telling you I know wejust jumped right in yeah, we
did 20 seconds worth of jumpingin, 20 seconds worth of jumping
in and boy, we are deep in enemyterritory now.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, and I should point out that there were later
iterations of the rocket packthat purportedly could go a
little bit further, but not much, and that was often in great
question as to how useful thoserocket packs were.
So part of the reason thatwe're not living like the
Jetsons is that they just neverfigured out a way to really make

(13:02):
it work.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
It takes a lot to propel a human body out of the
gravitational pull of the earth.
That's all there is to it.
Yeah, because we're heavybeings.
We're not birds with hollowskeletons, we just weigh a lot.
So it's simple physics, right?
And I know Neil deGrasse Tysonis listening in right now.

(13:23):
Well, actually, guys, let meexplain something to you.
You really want to have yourmind blown.
Birthday cake doesn't exist.
So that's the kind of stuffthat Neil deGrasse Tyson would
probably do to you.
It's just like oh, you thinkyou're comfortable, do you?
Here?
Let me just prove it withphysics.
You know he just walks aroundruining people's.
He's like the Debbie Downer ofscience, like Bill Nye.

(13:46):
The science guy is like it'samazing, people can jump really
high if they have enough fuellike 20 seconds.
And Neil deGrasse Tyson is likeyou might as well just burn
yourself up.
You know Like we just ruinedyour day for you.
Kid, you don't exist.
You know, we're all going to dieanyway from the next meteor

(14:07):
shower that's going to hit us.
Thanks, Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
Out, Get out of here.
Get over there.
Let Ludwig van Dijk hit youwith his two-by-four for a
little while.
Sit yourself down there, NeilDeGrasse Tyson.
Sit yourself down there, NeildeGrasse.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Tyson Okay, where were we?

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Where did the idea of the Rocket Pack come from?

Speaker 3 (14:31):
This is a great question, I bet you have some
ideas about this.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Well, I mean, probably one of the earliest
forms of the Rocket Pack comesfrom a cartoon, I should say a
comic strip.
Not a cartoon, but a comicstrip called Buck Rogers.
And for those who don't know,think of Buck Rogers as like the
prototype of Flash Gordon,because Buck came first, then

(14:57):
came Flash.
Did Buck ever meet Flash?
Who knows?

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Probably not because Flash was on Mongo.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, he was on Mongo yeah, it's like he was busy
saving the universe.
Buck did not get a cool themesong.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
No, it's really true, and you know, Buck had his own
TV series for a while.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
He did and I have a connection to the Buck Rogers TV
series Are you ready for this?

Speaker 3 (15:21):
I hope I didn't insult anybody, you know.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
No no not at all Trust me, it's the Buck Rogers
TV show.
How much more insulting can youget?
I mean, no, my connection is isthat when I was growing up I
spent a lot of my time.
Like a third of my time I spentin LA and about the other two
thirds I spent up in NorthernCalifornia and my grandparents

(15:43):
went to a church in PanoramaCity and they went to a little
Presbyterian church and therewere a couple of celebrity
families who grew up there andwent there to this particular
church.
Yeah, one of whom was theGilliam family.
Terry Gilliam's mom, bea, wentto this church regularly.
Oh, interesting, his brother,vance, went there for some time.
Huh, and even Terry went therevery, very briefly, but he did

(16:05):
go.
I never met him.
I met his mom a lot.
Yeah, she found out I was a bigMonty Python and Terry Gilliam
fan, so she was always.
Oh, my son is working on this.
It's a great movie called BaronMunchausen.
It should be great.
Yeah, I hear it's goingmarvelously, everything's good,
everything's fine.
You know, don't tell mom, youknow.
But she got along great with mygrandma.
But one of the other people isI used to play in the Sunday

(16:27):
school with this young kid whoturns out.
His dad was Felix Silla, arather famous little person from
Hollywood, and he was famousfor playing Cousin it in the
original TV series.
He was too young to have been amunchkin.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
He got that question a lot, so he was never a
munchkin.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
He was too young to have been a munchkin.
He got that question a lot, sohe was never a munchkin.
He was like I was a baby youknow like, how are they going to
put?
Me in there, so there werebabies in Oz, but anyway, there
was not actually a munchkin.
However, he was also famous forplaying Tweaky the Robot on
Buck Rogers, which is what hewas doing at the time.
Beedy, beady, beady hi, Buck,you know.

(17:01):
Voiced by Mel Blanc.
Yeah, the most unlikely of likerobot voices, let's get Mel
Blanc.
Was Mel Blanc also Dr Theopolis?
I don't know who Dr Theopoliswas.
I'll have to look that one up.
Yeah, but no, mel Blanc wasjust the voice.
Hiya Buck, no problem, buck,yeah, beady.

(17:27):
High alcohol content Buck, lowneckline Buck.
Yowza, yowza, yowza Should liketo get my hands on those diodes
.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Hey, hey, family friendly show.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, whoa, I don't know about family friendly, but
it was definitely on the network.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
We may not be friendly to anybody, really.
No, it's Buck Rogers, yeah, butso yeah, he was twe on the
network.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
We may not be friendly to anybody really no,
it's Buck Rogers but so, yeah,he was Tweaky the Robot and,
like everybody was like, oh,he's Tweaky the Robot and I go,
no, he's Cousin it.
My favorite moment was when Ifound out about this and I was
just like starstruck.
He goes oh, you watch BuckRogers?
I go, no, but I loved Adam'sfamily.
He goes, oh, cool, yeah, I wascousin it.
I didn't do the voice, but Iwas cousin it.

(18:05):
And I go okay, cool, that'sawesome.
Felix was a really nice guy.
Yeah, he was really reallysweet.
Felix passed away a coupleyears ago, but he was really,
really charming, very, verysweet, and his son was really
nice.
Oh, that's cool.
Okay, so enough of Pete talkingabout himself.
So we have the comic strip ofBuck Rogers.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
So there's a novel that predates it.
It was actually anthologized in, I think, amazing Stories and
turned into a novel calledArmageddon 2419.
And that came out in 1928, soit was very early.
And in that book, which I'veread and it's a lot of fun, it's
racist but it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
See the part where it's 1928, you know.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
But in that original novel Buck well, they didn't
call him Buck at that point,they called him William Rogers,
I believe William Buck Rogers hehad what they called a jumping
belt, which was a thing that hecould strap on and jump over
enemy lines and stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah so Buck Rogers had that.
And then there was anothercharacter who also inspired this
.
It was a little bit later andyou had the birth of cereals.
Yeah, for those who don't knowwhat cereals are, cereals in
the— Like Corn Flakes and RiceKrispies.
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Lucky Charms.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Means.
Oh, stop it.
No, it's short for serializedaction adventure films.
And the cereals— they're great,they're awesome and again full
of racism, full of cringe.
So if you are sensitive to this, you are warned, yeah.
But, if you can handle that andyou can just let it go and just
go, oh my, and laugh it off.

(19:51):
They're actually really reallyfun.
They're very low budget, mostof them filmed in Simi Valley
yeah, almost entirely in theVasquez Rocks, or in Malibu,
yeah, Everyone will know theVasquez Rocks as being every
outdoor scene ever shot in theoriginal Star Trek series Right.
Yeah, exactly, there was a filmcompany called Republic,

(20:12):
universal and Paramount.
They all dabbled in serials,but Republic was the most
successful, right, and one oftheir big ones was Buck Rogers,
that's right, starring BusterCrabb.
Yeah, the great Buster Crabb,the mighty Buster Crabb, born in
Hawaii.
Yeah, I think he actuallybecame more famous playing Flash
Gordon, but he was Buck Rogersas well.
Yeah, and Buster, he's charming, like you watch him.

(20:37):
He just kind of swaggersthrough everything.
Yeah, and he's willing to getsweaty and shirtless and beat up
male pattern baldness extrasand it's just great.
It's like we have gorilla men,lion men, men, men.
Here we go and that's kind ofit.
And Buster's great.

(20:57):
And they do make reference tothe jumping belt in the Buck
Rogers serial.
That's right.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Able to lead tall buildings in a single bound.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, he's close up and he turns a little dial on
his belt.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Oh, and they call it.
I have a note here.
Actually they call it theD-Gravity Belt.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
A D-Gravity Belt.
I love that, yeah, better.
So Republic Pictures put outanother one that is and there
are a lot of people who playthis character Mm-hmm, but the
character's name is CommandoCody.
Commander Cody, yeah, commandoCody, yeah.
And Commando Cody wasoriginally in a 12-chapter

(21:34):
Rocketman movie serial, and whatI mean by chapter is the way
that everybody who's youngerthan, say, 30, who's listening
to this right now?
Mm-hmm, younger than say, 30,who's listening to this right
now?
In the older days of motionpicture cinema the movies would
start off like around 10 or 11o'clock in the morning and
they'd run until about midnight,yeah, and they would nonstop.

(21:56):
But it was never just repeatingthe same movie over and over
again.
They had a whole program offilms, yeah, and in the early
days it was cartoons and serialsfor the kiddies and a couple of
news reels and maybe a Bpicture.
A B picture, yeah.
And then they would show theA-list pictures later, yeah, for
the adults and kids could buy aticket and they could stay all
day and all afternoon.
So the serials were basicallyset up.

(22:19):
So the hero usually everyepisode's about 20, 24 minutes,
yeah, and then the hero wouldprogress the story a little bit.
There'd be a fist fight rightin the middle for an action beat
, and then some villain wouldyeah see what happens.
When Buck Rogers is going toenter into our secret laboratory
.
Dr Technical is going to set upa time device that when he
opens up the door, it'll explodewith neutrino rays.

(22:41):
Oh no, how is we ever going toescape this?
Don't worry, I'm going to enterinto this room.
And he pushes open the door andyou see the explosion, but you
don't see anything happen toBuck, and then this title would
come out Will Buck Rogers Escapethis Horrible Fate?
Come in next week to find out.
It's the next episode.
So they left you on acliffhanger.

(23:02):
This is where the termcliffhanger was really born.
Absolutely, it was during theserial, because it literally
came from a Yakima Canutestunted Western in which he
literally hang off a cliff.
What's going to happen to ourhero?
And so it became upping theante Like what ridiculous
cliffhanger can we come up withthis time Right?
And it just became a staple ofthe serial finger.

(23:24):
Can we come up with this time,right?
And it just became a staple ofthe cereal that?
That's how you get the kids tocome back and spend their 25
cents for their ticket Becausethey need to see the next thing
what happens?
I got to find out what happens,you know.
So Commando Cody was anotherone of these cereals and he
belongs to, kind of like someorganization, military slash
police organization of theuniverse, and they're taking out

(23:44):
zombies of the stratosphere.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
And he was very.
He used the rocket pack a lot,didn't he?

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, well, yeah, it's from 1952.
Yeah, it's Republic Serials.
It was directed by Fred CBrannan and written by Ronald
Davidson Mm-hmm, and theLeidiger brothers were the
special effects supervisors.
Okay, the Leidecker brotherswere Howard and Theodore
Leidecker and they were a teamprimarily working as contract

(24:10):
staff members of RepublicPictures, and they were known
for doing tons and tons of likewire work and making miniature
buildings and models.
So anytime you need to makeanybody fly or have a building
explode, the Leideckers were thecheap alternative to, like the
50s equivalent of ILM.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
I have an interesting little bit of trivia about this
.
Yes, commander Cody obviouslyvery popular, and he did.
There was a number of CommanderCody serials, but the very
first one, which was Radar Menfrom the Moon all of the jetpack
flying that's in that was froman earlier serial.
It was not a Commander Codyserial, it was from a serial

(24:52):
called King of the Rocket Men,yes, where they put a guy on
wires through a bunch of it andthen they just took all of that
jetpack footage and reused it inRadar Men from the Moon and
said, oh, it's Commander Codynow.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, and the character's actually named
Rocket man.
Yeah, and the description isreally interesting.
Let me read this descriptionoff to you of what Rocket man
looks like.
Yeah, he's wearing nice tankhaki pants that are actually
jodhpurs.
They kind of flare out to theside.
He's got a boot.
He carries a pistol, uh, andhe's got this.

(25:29):
It looks like a backpack whereit straps in the front, with
this big belt and control modulein the front.
He wears a bullet shaped helmetwith a pair of visor goggles
and a little mouth cut out forsome reason, where you haven't
figured that one out yet.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
So it's basically the same thing you wear to go to
work Pretty much yeah, and he'sgot this duo outlet rocket
strapped to his back.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
And if that sounds familiar to you, that is the
inspiration for anothercharacter that would feature
later on in our story.
So just think about like oh yeah, I know exactly what that
sounds like.
Well, you're thinking correct,little boy, because that's
exactly where we're going.
These were very, very popular.
There was like five differentguys who played Commando Cody

(26:13):
and the Rocket man and it's allthe same stuff.
Yeah, little fun, little trivia.
Fact that the pack, the helmetand I think even the jacket are
owned, and actually one of themodels of the guy flying from
the Leidecker brothers iscurrently owned and curated by

(26:34):
Mr Bob Burns.
Bob Burns Bob Burns is acollector and an archivist of
Hollywood memorabilia and movieprops.
Okay, and an archivist ofHollywood memorabilia and movie
props.
He's most famous for playingTracy the Gorilla in the 1974
filmmation version of theGhostbusters.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
And he also found and restored George Powell's time
machine, which is in his home,right, I mean, he's a great
collector of these items and hehas a lot of Republic cereal
props.
Yeah, this is one of them.
He said he owns the helmet andthe pack and, yeah, he actually
did his own Commander Rocket orsomething like that, you know,
like homage to Rocket man, whichis really really cute.
Oh, so he's, he's.

(27:15):
He's a big geek who loves to dohis own, you know, his own
stuff.
He put on these elaborateHalloween shows, right, but he's
the curator.
So those props still do exist.
Wow, that's Right, but he's thecurator.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
So those props still do exist.
Wow, that's really cool, yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
So they make the rounds every once in a while,
and so we go from the serials toWorld War II, right.
And then this pursuit of wemust have a rocket strapped to a
man's back.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
Yeah, Supposedly the Nazis had invented this device
that they called theHimmelsstürmer Ah, which I guess
my German is probably terribleand there's an umlaut in there
that I don't know what to dowith, but it translates roughly
to the.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Skystormer, wow yeah, wait, wait, wait, I'm flashing
back.
Let's cut to the flashbackmusic.
Here I'm hearing Stan, stan Lee, uh inside of the secret layer
of the red skull.
That's right, dr Zola, we aregoing to invent what's it called
the storm.
The Himmelstormer.

(28:15):
The Himmelstormer, hail Hydra.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
You know, like this is Hydra stuff man.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Oh, it totally sounds like.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Hydra stuff.
It's so evil and so good, youknow, like the sky storm, like
what you know that it doesn'tseem like they actually ever did
this.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
It seems like it was probably just nazi propaganda.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
No one's ever found any indication that it happened
you know, at the time I know Iwould be like good yeah.
But you know, in retrospect thelittle nerd in me is like, oh,
come on I wonder what that wouldlook like.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
What would that have been like?

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, Like you know, it probably wouldn't have looked
very good.
No, just guys wearing flaps ontheir heads and flamethrowers or
something.
Let us say that you arestorming a castle in France and
if you have to make a quickescape, you leave your rocket
pack up on the battlements andyou beat up a person in drag and
you run out and you grab yourrocket pack and jump over the

(29:09):
wall.
But, mein Führer, the wall isonly six feet high.
I could easily climb there,shut up.
We've spent great experience inmaking these rocket packs.
You will use it Also no helmets.
No, helmets, we will paint itto look like your face.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
People will think you're jumping backwards.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
There's a happy smile on his face, by the way.
Disclaimer, a little disclaimerhere the lowdown and the
plus-up does not condone Nazism.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
The.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Lowdown on the Plus Up is a BoardWalk Times podcast.
At BoardWalkTimesnet you'llfind some of the most
well-considered and insightfulwriting about the Walt Disney
Company.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Disney history and the universe of theme parks
available anywhere.
Come join us atBoardWalkTimesnet.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
The obsession with rocket packs with like human
rocket packs is strange and itstill goes on today.
People are still inventing newones.
They still don't work anybetter.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
They don't need to make better rocket packs.
They just need to make lighterhumans.
Yeah, that's why it'll neverwork in America.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, we'll just drill holes in your bones so we
can get some of that marrow outand you'll be lighter like a
bird 3D printed pilots.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Hi there, I'm Rex.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Remember kids Captain Scarlet is invincible, but you
are not.
Don't try this at home.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, super Dave is going to—Super Dave Osborne is
going to get on here and we'regoing to strap this thing on my
back.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
That didn't hurt.
You know who Super Dave'sbrother is right?
No, Albert Brooks.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Of course it is.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
And their— I thought you were going to say Chuck
Yeager.
Their father was the old, like30s, 40s comedian Parkey Carcass
.
Oh, wow, yeah, wow.
And their real last name—seetalk about a tangent.
Their real last name Brooks isnot his last name.
It Wow and their real last name.
See, talk about a tangent.
Their real last name.
Brooks is not his last name,it's Einstein.

(31:47):
His name is actually AlbertEinstein.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Wow, wow, all right, okay so.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
I don't even know where we are now.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
No well, so let's, before we really get.
I don't think we've made arenow.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
No well, so let's— I don't think we've made it to
like the 50s yet.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
No, so let's actually go post-war here and let's
actually talk about thedevelopment of the actual rocket
pack, Because there's otherfictional stuff that we'll get
into later, but for right now wereally need to kind of get into
this world of the actual rocketpack, Because it is stranger
than any fiction.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
Oh man, it's so crazy , what you've told me it's
weirding me out, and the furtherwe go into the story or the
weirder it gets.
I do want to give some credithere.
I've heard glimpses andinklings of this story kind of
all over the place.
I found a great book that tellsthe whole thing, Just, you know

(32:48):
, starts at the creation of therocket pack and goes pretty
modern, and it's a book calledthe Rocket Belt Caper A True
Tale of Invention, Obsession andMurder by Paul Brown.
This book is great.
It's less than 200 pages.
I read it in a day.
I couldn't stop reading it.

(33:08):
And while I am going to talkabout some of the stuff in this
book, I would like the listenerto rest assured that I'm telling
you about a quarter of it.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
So buy the book, because this story is really
complicated.
I cannot wait to read thisthing, but Kelly's been regaling
me with this.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
It's so great.
So, yeah, again, the RocketBelt Caper by Paul Brown really
really worth it and I want togive him credit for writing a
great book, awesome.
But yeah, so you know, like wesaid before, the guy that did
the sort of guidance jets forthe X-1 decided like, hey, I
think I have an idea Like Imight be able to do this.

(33:46):
He's actually out at the testsites for the X-1 talking to
other scientists and likedrawing sketches in the sand
with a stick about how to builda rocket pack.
And you know the Army isinterested.
Of course the Army goes in andout of being interested in the
rocket bell for a long, longtime and he eventually builds it

(34:09):
, wow, and you know he puts ittogether.
He figures out the hydrogenperoxide mixture.
It does this interesting thingwhere it like leaks the hydrogen
over this like reactant meshand that's what causes the
explosion.
Wow, um, really fascinatingstuff.

(34:29):
Wendell moore himself tests itfor a long time.
Uh, eventually there's a mishapthere's lots of mishaps in this
story and he ends up, uh,fracturing his knee during a
test I swear it'll be up herefor 23 seconds yeah.
I told you I could do it.
So they start training otherpeople with the Bell rocket pack

(34:51):
and you end up getting severalother pilots coming in.
They end up flying the rocketpack for John F Kennedy in the
early 60s.
Like they literally like fly.
You know, flying the rocketpack for John F Kennedy in the
early 60s.
They literally fly over theWhite House grounds and land in
front of Kennedy and salute him.
It's a huge deal.

(35:14):
It's really inspirational forKennedy.
Shoot the through.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, does he do the superhero landing?

Speaker 3 (35:22):
So I read the account of the guy doing it and I think
it might have been.
Who was it?
It was Hal Graham, who was oneof the early Rocket Pack guys.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
That is mighty impressive yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
He talks about.
He's just like, oh, just getthis right, get it right, get it
right.
You know, there's a ton ofpeople standing there.
He's flying straight at thepresident of the United States.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
Doing the shepherd's prayer the entire way.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
Oh Lord, please don't let me Don't hit Kennedy, don't
hit Kennedy.
International incident if.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
I hit him.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
They'll probably blame Oswald.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
It'll be Jay instead.
It'll be Jay instead.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
But so he does that It'll be Jay instead.
It'll be Jay instead, but so hedoes that.
It's a big deal they end up.
So the Army's still interested,but they're kind of like.
You know, we're noticing thatyou have to train these people a
lot.
They're very difficult to flythis.
Well, I say these things,there's an A series and a B

(36:24):
series and there's just two ofthem.
So could you prove to us thatthat's possible?
Could like, say, a young manwith no previous flight

(36:48):
experience?
Could you train him to do itreal quickly?
And Wendell Moore says yeah,and takes the kid who is 19,
who's mowing his lawn for aliving, and hires him this is

(37:08):
Bill Souter.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Oh my, that's Bill Souter.
Yes, oh my gosh Bill.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Souter was 19.
He was mowing Wendell Moore'slawn and a couple other people's
lawns.
He was doing like handyman workaround the neighborhood and he
was about to join the army andhis dad did not want him to join
the army because this was 1964and things were starting to heat

(37:34):
up in Vietnam.
Yes, and Wendell Moore alsoliked the kid and didn't want
him to join the army, and sopartially because he was the kid
that was around and partiallyto protect him that's kind of
sweet Wendell Moore goes out andsays hey, you want to be a
rocket pack guy.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Okay, yeah, sure thing, can I trim the hedges
while I'm here?

Speaker 3 (38:01):
And Bill Souter becomes the Rocket Pack guy.
He in fact becomes the mostfamous of the Rocket Pack guys,
the Rocket man.
Yeah, he's really the guy,Though he doesn't fly most of
the Disneyland flights.
I think he flies one of them.
Most of that's Gordon Yeager,but otherwise he's the guy.

(38:22):
You see.
Yeah, his first flight in theRocket Pack is at the Sacramento
Stadium at the 1964 CaliforniaState Fair.
Wow, he takes off from theracetrack nearby Right and he's
supposed to go and land on thestage, on this stage.

(38:44):
Now there's an orchestra pit infront of the stage and he comes
in pretty low.
The orchestra, they're allhitting the deck Because this
damn jet engine with a guystrapped to it is flying over
their head.
Oh my god, sheet music's flyingeverywhere.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Did he fall in the tuba like in a Warner Brothers
cartoon?
He, actually, he made Get meout of here.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
He made it to the stage, okay, but he didn't.
But it was close, it was touchand go.
He ends up being hired.
I think he's hired by TommyWalker, who is Disneyland's
earliest entertainment guy.
Right, he's the guy that putsall the entertainment together

(39:32):
for Disneyland, but he's doingsome work for the 1964.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
World's.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Fair.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
It wasn't a World's Fair, which wasn't a World's
Fair.
It has to come up every singleepisode.
He hires Bill Souter to fly atthe World's Fair several times.
Wow, so he does that.
He flies the California StateFair.
Then around that time they hireBell to fly the Rocket Pack at
Disneyland.

(39:57):
So Disneyland there's actuallykind of two series of it.
One is right before the closingof the old Tomorrowland and one
is right after the opening ofthe new one.
Okay, so most of these areflown if not all of them are
flown by Gordon Yeager and a guynamed Doug Michaeljohn.

(40:21):
Okay, they do most of these.
But I wanted to stop here for asecond just to kind of talk
about what Tomorrowland was atthis point.
So prior to it reopening withcool things like adventures
through inner space and stufflike that, it was Disneyland's
afterthought.
It was.
It really was, it wasDisneyland's junk drawer, kind

(40:41):
of.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, it really was, it was Disneyland's junk drawer
kind of yeah, we got what, wasit six weeks or something like
that to get the whole thingtogether.
Something ridiculously short.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Right, because Walt originally wasn't going to open
Tomorrowland with the rest ofthe park and then at the last
minute I was like meh go ahead.
And you know, calling back toWerner Von Braun, he called him
in to try and make some displays.
I'm sure that made Reagan happy.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, who let that Nazi in here?
Von Braun is troubling, yeah,yes, well, I'm wearing my cowboy
hat that was given to me by LBJ, which I got to handle, by the
way, did you really?
Yeah, I worked on a museumexhibit on NASA over in

(41:29):
Stockholm called NASA HumanAdventure and one of the
artifacts we have was a good old10-gallon Texas hat in a cream
white, given to Wernher vonBraun by LBJ President Lyndon
Baines Johnson, by LBJ PresidentLyndon Baines Johnson.
Yeah, and you know, it's like Iimagine this.
You know, operation Paperclipscientist going.
Oh, they're not going toexecute me.
Yeah, whatever funny hat youput on me, mr President, yeah,

(41:52):
it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
During that exhibit actually, alittle quick little note, in
front of Ron Braun, I got tomeet Charlie Duke Mm-hmm and I
asked him what are some thingsabout space?
What do you think about all thepeople that think that the moon
landing was fake?
Are you like Buzz Aldrin, whereyou just want to punch their
lights out.

(42:12):
He goes no, I just laugh attheir face.
I go why he goes.
Well, first off, we had spiesin Russia.
They had spies in the UnitedStates.
Everybody was paying attention.
No one was going to get awaywith faking it.
Yeah, yeah, that theory liketotally ignores the fact that we
had spies everywhere.
Yeah, it was the Cold War.
Give me a break.
Yeah, we knew what breakfastcereal you know Khrushchev was

(42:35):
eating.
Yeah, you know, for goodnesssakes.
Yeah, he says the other part ofit is watch the wonderful World
of Disney specials about goingto space, in which Wernher von
Braun is talking about hisrockets.
Yeah, they look like somethingstraight out of Amazing Stories.
Or Buck Rogers, they've gotfins.
Yeah, they're painted, you know, candy apple red with silver

(42:56):
stripes and big number seven onthe side and Wernher's like very
proudly, you know, obviouslyWard Kimball has made these
models for him, or Harper Goffhas carved them for him, but
they look like straight out oflike Amazing Fantasy or
something he says.
Do you think that if we werefaking it I mean, this is the
American public we were so muchin space fever Our cars started

(43:17):
to look like those rocket ships.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
That's right.
They put like rocket fins onthem and stuff.
Yeah, do you think?

Speaker 1 (43:23):
if we were faking it, we would have made the
spaceships that we actually hadlook as dumb as they did.
The Moon Lander is made ofcardboard, for goodness sake, I
mean, it's so like the walls ifyou touch it it's going to break
.
That's a good point, stupid.
But they were all practical.
They worked because that's whatthey were built for
practicality, not looks, whereasif we were faking it we would

(43:45):
have made it look a lot sexier,right?
So you know, because Disneysold it, those specials really
got people on board.
The average mom and pop ofAmerica were like oh, you don't
have to send nobody into space.
That's crazy talk.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Yeah, and it's interesting too, the man in
Space special, the one that WardKimball directed for that show.
It got a lot right.
It really did, yeah, it reallykind of did predict how we were
going to do that pretty well, ohyeah absolutely.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
It was very instrumental in the space race.
A lot of people at NASA talkabout that special, of getting
the American—if nothing else,the American people just needed
convincing.
You know you had Kennedy going.
We choose to go to the moon.
Yeah, you know you got thatgoing on, but you have Disney.
Well, we've got our friend overhere, ward Kimball, who's going
to show us all about what it'sgoing to be like going up into

(44:35):
space.
Thank you, walt.
Yeah, we have our friendWernher von Braun talking about
rockets.
Yes, I will show you how we'regoing to put the rockets up into
space.
They're like don't, don't putany.
Ludwig von Drake in thisepisode.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Tone it down.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Tone it down.
Paul, just go take a break.
Will you Go help X with piratesor something?
Would you please?
We'll make a Doughboycommercial.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
And it's interesting because you do have some of that
stuff in the Flight to the Moonattraction at Disneyland at
that point Tomorrowland, and youknow I'm certainly not old
enough to have seen that, but Isaw the Mission to Mars one that
took over from it and waspretty close to the same
attraction, though it had thatsuper cool pre-show.

(45:27):
Yeah, you know a lot of that.
I think some of that footagemight have actually been from
the man in Space special.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Oh yeah, very easily.
Yeah, let's save money.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
But past that Tomorrowland was pretty lost.
It had, you know, we talkedabout a number of episodes back
the World Beneath Us, theRichfield Oil thing, oh yes, and
you know Richfield Oil alsoproducing the Autopia.
So it had that stuff.
It had, you know, space StationX-1 for a while, which sounded

(46:02):
actually pretty neat, but Idon't think it was there for
very long.
They had 20,000 leagues wherethey just kind of put up the
sets for a while.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
It worked.
It was fine.
Sure, it looks neat.
It was a hit.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
And then a huge chunk of real estate was taken up by.
Depending on how you look at it, it's two things or one thing
the area called Hobbyland andthe Flight Circle yes, and
really they're kind of part andparcel of the same thing.
Hobbyland was just what itsounded like.
It was a bunch of vendors withmodel kits and erector sets and

(46:35):
stuff like that, where peoplecould just go in and try them
out.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Brought to you by DuPont?
Yes, absolutely, because it'slike DuPont presents Hobbyland,
because they're selling modelcement, right?
Hey kids, you really want to beable to see the moon Take off
the cap of the—don't actually dothis, kids, yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Stop.
So they, you know, and it wasuseful to the—it was useful, in
a way, to the American publicwho, at this point, so you know,
we're talking about the late50s, early 60s, yeah, where
post-World War II they had someexpendable cash.
We were the only major economythat hadn't had the crap blown

(47:16):
out of it and we had a wartimeeconomy that we were turning
around really fast and Americanssuddenly found themselves with
some money and some leisure time.
Yep, and hobbies became a bigthing, yep.
So Hobbyland made a certainamount of sense, and attached to
Hobbyland was the thing calledthe Flight Circle, which, if you

(47:36):
look at it so it's right wherewhat used to be the people mover
boarding circle is and therocket jets on top and now the—
Rocket rod.
Well, it is where that was too,but now the observatron, that
thing that doesn't spin anymoreup there, is up there, but it

(47:59):
pretty much took up that wholesort of central chunk of real
estate, yeah, and it was a bigcircle with like a nautical star
kind of carved into it, andattached off to the side was a
little moat like a little minilake and it was mostly all
chain-linked fenced up.

(48:21):
And it was mostly allchain-linked fenced up.
And what they would do is theywould go into the circle and fly
these model airplanes.
They're not really remotecontrol airplanes, but they're
the kinds of airplanes thatwould attach to a tether and
you'd hold them in your hand andyou'd spin and kind of make
them go up and down and theywould.
You know the guys that did thiswould get really good at it,

(48:43):
and so you know there was guysthat could do like three planes
at a time and kind of make themswoop in together, and you know
obviously a lot of it was justthis commercial attempt to sell
these, you know planes, yeah,these little toy planes, but
that's what the flight circlewas for a long time, and the
moat was for toy boats that youcould remote control, yep, and

(49:05):
there was a little kind of trackaround where the planes were,
where they could do littleremote control cars, and that's
all it was.
But it was a huge chunk ofTomorrowland real estate, mostly
because they just didn't haveanything else.
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So when you see Gordon Yeagertake off in that special, where

(49:25):
he's taking off from is theflight circle.
Oh, okay, so they've clearedthe model guys out.
They seem to have taken downthe fence too, which is probably
a good idea.
Yeah, and that's where he'slaunching from and he's kind of
going up.
They use some camera tricks inthe special that makes him look
like he might be going aroundthe castle.
He can't get that far.

(49:46):
Dude's got 21 seconds, he'sprobably tied a string to him
and hung him off of the sky skyrafts or something he just kind
of circles around, he gets, hegets near the matterhorn and you
know they did it a couple oftimes in like 65.
Oh wow, and that was when theystill had mountain climbers

(50:09):
climbing the Matterhorn and Iguess at one point they didn't
tell them.
So the mountain climbers justkind of went flat against the
mountain because they're like,oh my god, there's a jet coming
at us.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
I saw a great letter that they wrote in 1966.
So you know, everyone should goback and listen to our Golden
Horseshoe episode.
Yes, please, we keep tellingyou and you keep ignoring us.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
It's a really good episode.
Trust us, I do balloon animals.
Yeah, he does On audio.
It's a really good episode.
Trust us, I do balloon animals.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
Yeah, he does On audio.
It's amazing but Wally Boguewas the editor of the Backstage
Disneyland magazine at the time.
Oh, wow.
And I saw this great letterfrom Bell Air Systems and it's
just to Wally Bogue and it sayswe received a copy of Backstage
Disneyland magazine from BillBeeler.
The team was very happy to seeand read about the people we met

(51:07):
and worked with at DisneylandDuring our stay there.
Everyone was very kind andcooperative, from the shipping
department personnel to the topoffice.
The team will always rememberour stay there.
It was one of the most pleasantplaces to fly.
We are proud to be ex-employeesof Disneyland.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
As opposed to the letter that was then sent
posthumously by one of thewidows of one of those mountain
climbers on the manor.
Wait what I'm joking, I'mtotally making a joke here.
Oh my God, that rocket pad cameright towards me and all of a
sudden Well played Really hardfor that gag.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
So yeah, they do some flights there After
Tomorrowland reopens.
They do a couple of flights toofor the new Tomorrowland.
I'm not sure where they launchfrom and there's no film of it
that I could find.
Maybe it was from the flyingsaucers pad.
Oh yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
That might make sense .
That seems like the mostplausible amount of real estate
that would be safe enough to doa launch from.
Yeah, yeah, because the saucerswere unfortunately,
unfortunately, very, veryshort-lived.
Yeah, yeah, they're amazing,but Bob Gurr has nothing good to
say about them.
No.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
But it is fascinating to read his— oh yeah —him
talking about it.
Oh yeah, I wrote an article ayear or so ago about technical
debt and Disneyland and it goesinto a lot of detail about what
happened with the flying saucersand why they couldn't fix it.
And it just looked great onpaper.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
So you know, did the rocket person ever fly over the
house of tomorrow?

Speaker 3 (53:01):
You know it is possible that the guy that
Jaeger Mikkel John, actually gotthat far.
That is possible.
They could have made it thatfar.
It's difficult to tell from thefilm.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Okay.
Well, the reason I ask is Iwant to take a quick little
pause in our narrative here andI want to do a quick little plug
.
Yes, I want to take a quicklittle pause in our narrative
here and I want to do a quicklittle plug.
Yes, kelly and I have beeninvited to join several
podcasters down at the MagicKingdom, down at Disneyland, for
May the 4th for an extravaganzathat is being hosted by Our

(53:37):
friend, paul Barry at Window tothe Magic.
Yeah, so we're going to bedoing a special show with a
special topic that we're goingto surprise you all with, but
we're going to be broadcastingfrom Howard Johnson's suite that
is based entirely on the Houseof Tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Yes, the Howard Johnson's suite of the retro
future.
Yep, and I've been able to bein that suite once for a small
event and it's wonderful, it'sreally great.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
Yeah, I'll be bringing lots of bottled Coke
and we'll be having lots andlots of TV dinners being served,
thanks to Paul.
Yeah, supposedly a catered TVdinner.
Yeah, so we're going to have alot of great guests that are
going to be stopping in.
It'll be a very fun show.
So, if you—please, set yourcalendars to keep your eye open
for that episode, if not, we'llprobably be down in that region

(54:27):
and say hi to us if you see uswalking by.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
We're the two tall guys wholook like they don't know what
they're doing, boy, ain't thatthe truth?

Speaker 1 (54:38):
Or just keep your eyes open for the prospector.
Trust me, you can't avoid it.
He really he does do it all thetime.
Yeah, kelly, I actually managedto get really close to
embarrassing Kelly a couple oftimes, so that says something.
Oh, you know, I love it.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
We're getting to sort of the end of the story of the
Bell rocket belt.
So Wendell Moore buildssupposedly another iteration of
it, and at this point the armyis backed out.
The army is like we just don'tsee a practical use.
Wendell Moore builds supposedlyanother iteration of it, and at
this point the army is backedout.
The army is like we just don'tsee a practical use for this.
So that's.
We all saw Thunderball.

(55:11):
Yeah, that movie is real slow,you know.
That Turns out that just becauseyou can shoot underwater fights
doesn't mean you should.
Yes, exactly.
So that is partially why Bellhas started to kind of build out
a team of rocket belt pilots isbecause this is what they're

(55:34):
doing, to now make money off ofit because the Army's not
funding it anymore.
Right, and at a certain pointMoore makes a second iteration
of it, supposedly, gets fairlyfar, but he dies suddenly.
He has a heart attack, oh, andpasses away very quickly.
And his new iteration, which Igather he either didn't finish

(55:56):
or they just didn't do anythingwith, is never used.
And at this point Bill Souterhas flown a number of these.
He flies the first Super Bowlin 1967.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
And he's opened a fabulous lawn mowing business.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
Yes, Getting back to his roots.
But he retires.
He says I'm done.
At least he says he's done Onthe day he leaves Bell, 1970, he
leaves Bell.
Someone hands him a photo.
This photo shows a young mannamed Nelson Tyler who has built

(56:33):
a rocket belt.
Oh my, from henceforth we willrefer to this one as the Tyler
rocket belt.
Okay, souter can't help hiscuriosity.
He gets in touch with Tyler.
He's like I want to know moreabout this.
Tyler invites him out to see.
It Turns out that Tyler metSuter at Disneyland.

(56:58):
Oh wow, it doesn't seem likeSuter actually flew any of the
pre-closing Tomorrowland, but hemight have flown a couple of
the post-New Tomorrowlandflights.
Souter remembers him.
He remembers him as this guywho was standing near him all
the time, like taking picturesof the rocket belt.
Oh geez, oh no.
It turns out that Tyler wasalso holding this small

(57:22):
measuring device in his hand theentire time and was
surreptitiously measuring thedimensions of the Bell rocket
belt, and then he went off andbuilt his own Okay, and seemed
to pull it off.
Suter sees this, he contactsTyler and Suter is the first

(57:43):
person to fly the Tyler RocketBelt, which he flies at the Pro
Bowl, along the way.
This guy, kenny Gibson, who isa stuntman, yeah, I've heard of
Kenny.
Yeah, he's done a lot of stunts.
He continued to do a lot ofstunts, yeah, okay, and he
becomes the second pilot of theTyler rocket boat.
Okay, so there's Suter andKenny Gibson.

(58:04):
At a certain point this guy,brad Barker.
Now we want to remember thisname, brad Barker, brad Barker.
Okay, brad Barker is a formerinsurance salesman from Illinois
and he is an old friend ofKenny Gibson's.
We just want to kind of filethat away for a second.

(58:25):
Okay, kenny Gibson and BillSouter are kind of flying the
Tyler rocket belt here and there.
They fly it over the Pro Bowlin 1971.
They fly it to a couple ofdifferent things and they're
just kind of keeping up a smalllittle business as rocket belt
pilots.
It's mostly Kenny Gibson.
At this point Souter's gettinga little tired of it.

(58:45):
So in 1981, kenny Gibsoninvites Brad Barker out to
Mexico City to watch the RocketBelt demo.
Barker becomes kind of obsessedwith the Rocket Belt.
He sort of becomes part ofKenny Gibson's team.
Within the year Suter quits, heretires again and he's like

(59:08):
I've had it, this is getting outof control.
So Kenny Gibson is the onlyTyler Rocket Belt pilot.
In 1984, tommy Walker hires theTyler Rocket Belt.
Tommy Walker remember the firstever entertainment director at
Disneyland?
The guy that hired the BellRocket Belt to fly over
Tomorrowland seemed to havehired the Bell Rocket Belt to

(59:31):
fly at the 1964 World's Fair.
1984, he hires the Tyler RocketBelt to fly over the 1984
opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Oh, wow, wow, I remember that.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
Yeah, tyler decides that Gibson is maybe not
experienced enough and Souter'spulled out of retirement again.
So Souter takes over.
He flies the rocket belt in the1984 Olympics.
He considers it like thepinnacle of his career.

(01:00:09):
People go crazy.
I mean, you remember it?
Oh yeah, I remember it, Iremember the alien going over
the?

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
you know, the alien ship flying over the closing
ceremony.
Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
So you know at that point Gibson's continuing to fly
ceremony?
Yes, yeah, absolutely so youknow at that point Gibson's
continuing to fly, but what he'sdiscovering is that he's having
trouble maintaining aconsistent supply of high
quality, high octane hydrogenperoxide.
It's becoming harder and harderto get.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Well, like I said, during the 80s there was this
big crush for zit creams.
Those oxy stridex pads werelike using up all of the pure
hydrogen peroxide.
So all you pasty facedteenagers of the 80s, you ruined
the rocket pack, yeah so.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Tyler reaches out to a couple of friends of his Brad
Barker, who we talked aboutbefore, and a guy named Larry
Stanley.
Larry Stanley is an oldaeronautics buff.
He's from Sugar Land, texas bigoil family, so they've got a
little bit of money.
He had been friends with Barkerand Gibson for a little while.

(01:01:21):
Gibson hires them to startmaking basically a hydrogen
peroxide refinery.
What could possibly go wrong?
What could possibly go wrong?
So they start working together.
At this point they're working tomake a distillation lab for
Kenny Gibson to distillhigh-quality H2O2.

(01:01:44):
Okay, and you know, the problemis that Gibson's been trying to
buy it from all over the placeto fly the Tyler Rocket Belt but
inconsistent hydrogen peroxidecauses it not to fly so good and
so it occasionally will justsort of drop out.
There's problems.

(01:02:04):
So they're trying to fix that.
Barker has a Cessna airplanethat he bought a while back when
he was doing real well sellinginsurance in Houston and he
loans it to Larry Stanley.
From time to time Stanleydisappears with the Cessna, just

(01:02:27):
disappears, drops off the faceof the earth with an airplane.
Okay, barker, finally, is likethis guy's not coming back.
I don't know what's going on.
He calls the FBI.
The FBI show up and say wesuspect that your plane's at the
bottom of the Gulf of Mexico,gulf of America.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
No, I'm joking, no.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Gulf of Mexico.
It's like we know that LarryStanley has been using it to
smuggle drugs.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Go ahead and sit down back in the plane.
Oh, ignore that white powderover there.
I was eating donuts earlier.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Don't get any in the plane.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Oh, ignore that white powder.
Over there I was eating donutsearlier.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Don't get any in your lungs.
Whether or not this wasactually true, they did find the
Cessna.
It wasn't at the bottom of theGulf of Mexico.
Whether or not Stanley wasactually smuggling drugs, the
FBI believed that he was.
Wow, and at this point they'renot talking anymore.
Then Stanley, who's stilltalking to Kenny Gibson they
have a big falling out too.
Stanley at a certain point— DidKenny Gibson look at him and

(01:03:29):
say I'm not going to be yourfall guy, your shenanigans and
goings-on over here.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Sorry, it's all right .
A little stuntman humor there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
So at a certain point Stanley reappears and he breaks
into a storage unit.
Kenny Gibson's off doing someactual stunt work.
He's not doing Rocket Beltstuff.
Stanley reappears and steals abunch of the equipment related
to the Rocket Belt.
Wow.
So Barker, who's been friendswith Kenny Gibson longer than

(01:04:04):
Stanley and does believe thatStanley stole his airplane and
smuggled drugs with it, right,and folks, if you're a little
shy about violence, this is notgoing to be graphic.
I'm going to keep it clean, butthere's some violence coming.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
On one side of the screen we'll have a hideous Gila
monster and on the right asweet little school girl.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
So Barker, maybe he had a little lamb.
Sorry, go ahead.
Barker gets a baseball bat,uh-huh, and his friend who's a
black belt, karate instructor,and two of Kenny Gibson's
brothers and goes to Stanley'sfamily oil field.
This is Delta Force.
Yes, oh, it gets crazier whatthey get in an argument with

(01:04:56):
someone that's there.
Eventually, stanley shows up, Iguess the black belt takes down
one of the people on the fieldand Stanley goes.
Okay, I'll give you your stuffback.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Oh my God, what Fun fact.
I was making a joke.
Kenny Gibson actually was astunt coordinator on Delta Force
II, the Columbian Connectionhow about?

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
that no joke Also.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Police Academy 4, citizens on Patrol, but that's a
different story.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Along the way.
Gibson's still flying the Tylerrocket belt.
He flies it 20 different timesat Walt Disney World.
Wow yeah.
At a certain point he's aboutto fly at Walt Disney World and
there's a throttle valve it'sthe valve that actually controls
the fuel mixture.

(01:05:46):
Mm-hmm Gets screwed up,something happens to it.
And he's still friends withBarker Mm-hmm, and he says I
have to have this.
This is, quote unquote, the keyto the rocket belt.
Mm-hmm.
Can you get this fixed?
So Barker takes the littlethrottle piece, drives from

(01:06:07):
Florida to Houston where there'sa machine shop that actually
machines him a new one, bringsit back.
Everything's fine with theflight.
But Barker believes at thispoint that he knows the secret
to making a rocket belt.
Oh no, because he's been giventhis piece.
Oh no, barker at that pointdecides he's going to make his

(01:06:33):
own rocket belt, in spite ofhaving threatened Larry Stanley
with a baseball bat not thatlong ago, oh my God.
He talks Stanley into goinginto business with him on the
Rocket Belt.
And this brings us up to 1991,in which a certain film comes

(01:07:00):
out the Rocketeer.
Yes, you want to talk to us alittle out?
The Rocketeer, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
You want to talk to us a little bit about the
Rocketeer?
Yes, I mean, besides the factthat the tale so far sounds like
a Scorsese movie, it's like I'mimagining Just wait, I'm
imagining De Niro.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
Hey Lowdowners, hope you enjoyed episode one of the
rocket belt saga.
We'll be back in two weeks withpart two and, believe me, it
only gets weirder from here wehope you've enjoyed this episode
of the lowdown on the plus up.
if you have, please tell yourfriends where you found us and
if, if you haven't, we canpretend this never happened and

(01:07:42):
need not speak of it again.
For a lot more thoughts ontheme parks and related stuff,
check out my writing forBoardWalkTimes at
BoardWalkTimesnet.
Feel free to reach out to Peteand I on our Lowdown on the Plus
Up Facebook group or send us amessage directly at comments at
lowdown-plus-upcom.
Comments at lowdown-plus-upcom.
We really want to hear abouthow you'd plus these attractions

(01:08:05):
up and read some of your ideason the show.
Our theme music is GoblinTinker Soldier Spy by Kevin
MacLeod at incompetechcom.
We'll have a new episode outreal soon.
Why?
Because we like you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
I'm going to take you to.
I'm going to take you to.
I'm going to take you to to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to

(01:08:54):
, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to
, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to
, to, to, to, to, to, to, to toto.