pureimagineering:

“Walt said [to Imagineer John Hench], ‘I want to do a little Tiki Room. I just want a little Tiki-Tiki Room for over in Adventureland. We’re redoing Adventureland.’

Walt took one look at [Hench’s concept art for a restaurant] and said, ‘John, you’ve got birds in there.’ Hench said, ‘Yeah,’ and Walt said, ‘Well, you can’t have birds in there, they’re going to poop in the food!’ Yeah, he really said that.

Hench explained that they were not real birds, but stuffed birds, but Walt immediately replied, ‘Disney does not stuff birds.’

Hench replied, ‘No, no, no. They’re little mechanical birds that cheep.’

Walt said, ‘Well, maybe they can cheep and cavort with each other.’

And that’s how we started the Tiki Room. Then all of a sudden we started to develop the works of these little guys and the sounds and everything. So all of a sudden that was in production.”

— Rolly Crump, Imagineer

(via disneylandguru)