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After 42 years with Disney, Imagineer Tom K. Morris recently took advantage of an early retirement.

Morris started at Disneyland in 1973 as a teenager selling balloons for Nat Lewis Balloons, a lessee, because he was underage at the time and couldn’t be hired by Disneyland. One of the customers on his paper route, Jack C. Sayers, who was vice president in charge of the Disneyland Lessee Relations at the time, was extremely helpful in him getting that job.

Morris was fascinated by Disney animation and wanted to be an animator or layout artist, but the work he did in high school on architectural and mechanical drafting got him an entry into another division at Disney. By 1979, he had moved into Imagineering, where he was hired as an apprentice show draftsman. His first real assignment was the original Journey into Imagination attraction for EPCOT Center.

Morris had originally requested that actor Paul Frees, noted for his many vocal contributions to Disney park attractions (e.g. the auctioneer in Pirates, the Ghost Host in Haunted Mansion), be the voice of Dreamfinder, but was told that Frees was just too expensive for the budget for the project.

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