Orange County Register

In the world of Disney, the news was earth shaking: Marty Sklar, a bonafide Disney legend, would officially retire on Disneyland’s birthday, Friday, after working for 54 years at The Walt Disney Company.

To celebrate his last day, the park honored him with a window that will be placed permanently on the second floor of City Hall on Main Street at the park.

During his time with Disney, most of which was with Walt Disney Imagineering, Sklar was there for the opening of all 11 of Disney’s theme parks, including the granddaddy of them all, Disneyland.

Marty, as he is affectionately called by Disney employees, first started working for Disney before Disneyland opened. He was tasked with writing the speeches Walt would need for opening day at Disneyland.

After graduating from UCLA the next year, Sklar returned to work at Disneyland. In the early 1960s, Walt sent him to work at WED Enterprises (as Imagineering was called back then) to help out with the 1964 New York World’s Fair projects.

In 1973, Sklar was made the head of creative at WED Enterprises, a position he has held in various forms until three years ago when he changed jobs to “Disney Ambassador.”

I had the distinct pleasure of working with Sklar — Marty — as an Imagineer from 1982 to 1993, plus an additional two years prior to that working at the Disney studios on the EPCOT Center project.

Marty was always a great listener, always paraphrasing Walt: “You never know where a great idea would come from.”

He was also a good critic and knew when to signal that a story wasn’t working.

During one story meeting I was in, a fellow Imagineer was pitching a storyline for a show in a pavilion at EPCOT Center. The Imagineer got about five minutes into the pitch when Marty got out his handkerchief, waved it and said, “I surrender.”

Marty quickly told the Imagineer that the basic premise was good, but the Imagineer needed to focus more on the story and not so much on the underlying science so it wouldn’t put him to sleep.

“I admit to dozing off in meetings while some good ideas were presented,” said Marty during his retirement party at Walt Disney Imagineering. “But I never dozed off during a great idea.”

Besides writing speeches and other special projects for Walt Disney, Marty also worked alongside other Disney greats, such as Claude Coats, John Hench, Herb Ryman, Harper Goff, Ward Kimball, and many of Disney’s “Nine Old Men.”

He hired most of the current group of Imagineers that have brought to life attractions at the parks such as “Star Tours,” “Tower of Terror,” “Splash Mountain” and many others. He also oversaw the development of more theme parks in Florida, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong and even here with California Adventure.

Marty always said he loved the idea of starting from scratch, expressing his belief that a blank sheet of paper was not something to be feared, but something that can be a great opportunity. Marty also credited others with making his career a success. During the party at Walt Disney Imagineering to celebrate Marty’s retirement on Thursday, he said: “This is really a testament to all of you and your accomplishments.”

When I asked Marty to sum up his 54 years he simply said, “It’s never been a boring day.”

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