A Disney Employee’s Little Box of Treasures Collected From Trash

In 2010, Fritz of Imagineering Disney posted Little Box of Treasures, a photographic look inside his box of artifacts that he collected while working at Disney’s theme parks. Fritz, a former artist and graphic designer for Walt Disney Company, says “…this garbage represents a whole lot of theme park ingenuity and memories of getting my hands dirty early, early in the morning…” See his entire collection at Imagineering Disney.

While working with animatronics and props I would find myself emptying the pockets of my work clothes at the end of the day to find scraps of that day’s work. I decided to keep some of this stuff in a box so years later I could remember the variety of materials I once used.

We would remove hair and beards from Haunted Mansion ballroom ghosts once they lost their bright white shine…

In the Carousel of Progress 8mm film runs footage of a boxing match- projected from the basement below. Remember the grandma exclaiming “Give’m a left you big lug!”

Pieces of Br’er Frog’s pipe stem made of surgical tubing, covered in fabric tape and painted to look like bamboo…

Butyrate, skin, etc. from Pirate animatronics.

Coins from the Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea plants. We would find these in the dirt after they filled in the lagoon…

images via Imagineering Disney