Go Away Green
32 comments
·February 9, 2025piaste
pants2
I know many people in club 33, mostly daughters and wives of rich businessmen who are Disney fanatics and enjoy the bragging rights. I don't think they really care for the fine dining.
eddieroger
Club 33 is big in Disney lore. It's where Walt raised money for the Florida Project. Even though it's tucked away, those who know stand outside the door just hoping to peek in when someone comes and goes.
pesus
I don't know if things have changed in the past couple decades, but at least some of the members are just regular people there using their company's membership. I went there twice as a child because my dad did well enough at work that year or something along those lines. I was too young to fully appreciate the experience, but they had some tasty mac and cheese and a memorable elevator.
qingcharles
From the people I know with membership, it is just a flex. I don't know they actually go there very often. It's so hard to get in that you don't want to drop your membership once you're in. The ones I know are just regular rich LA residents. Hollywood-adjacent.
russdill
It's largely corporate to my understanding. So similar to box seats at a baseball game, if you know somebody there's a decent chance you might get to go one day
registeredcorn
If I recall, there's also a waitlist for those who want to even be eligible to pay the fee to join Club 33.
I would imagine it to be similar sitting in 1st Class on an airplane. Your accommodations within that area are nicer relative to the rest of the park, but probably below the standard the person who can afford it would be accustomed to.
More to the point, in the (very, very brief) glimpses of insight I've had to that caliber of people, it's less so about, "I want fancy things because I'm rich" and more so something closer to, "I want to be around people who aren't going to be trying to get me to fund their startup. Or scam me. Or rob me. Or call me a monster for being wealthy."
That is to say, it's more so about the kind of people you are around, and the interactions that keeps you away from, rather than how nice the accommodations are. Instead, the price you pay for that privacy leads to nicer accommodations by association. (The velvet rope and well-dressed bouncer don't matter; the dark lit area away from the roar of the crowd is the point.)
Basically, it gives a short break to be away from and avoid potentially dangerous situations. It gives you the chance to be left alone for a while and let your guard down for a bit, so you can enjoy your drink in peace.
To be clear: I'm nowhere near that well off, and don't know anyone that well off. I have just heard that kind of sentiment floated around on rare occasions in a friend-of-a-friend-who-knew-a-guy type thing.
riffic
corporate sponsors.
ortusdux
Maybe I have seen too many court dramas, but a gas station near me painted their bollards this color, and it made me wonder if it might open them up to liability.
tossandthrow
Nah, I don't think the bollards are considered signaling - it appears like they are often accompanied by light signals.
linkjuice4all
It's certainly better than cerulean blue.
DonHopkins
Or open them up to producing hilarious videos.
4ndrewl
I always knock on the door that's on the outside of that Alice in Wonderland animatronic...
brendanfinan
Contrast this with the virtual yellow paint used in video games to indicate something is interactable
giancarlostoro
I worked for Disney and never knew this. They certainly have a way of tucking away things. I wonder where some of these are in WDW here in Florida. Most of the examples in the article are elsewhere. I assume WDW just has so much land, it can get away with tucking away easier.
jjtheblunt
in a documentary we watched, made by Disney, it seemed there's extensive infrastructure on a lower level in the Orlando DisneyWorld. Maybe that's part of the reason it's not obvious.
giancarlostoro
That's definitely the case in Magic Kingdom, but in other parks its not quite so much, I guess in (edit from Magic to Animal:) Animal Kingdom, you don't truly need to hide it, since it makes the park look more authentic. I assume for Hollywood they just make the buildings look like they're part of a set... Leaving Epcot which can just make the surrounding countries cover any infrastructure...
Epcot is probably my favorite of the parks to be honest, there's so much that goes into it overall.
lifefeed
You get to walk around the underground backstage yourself if you take Disney's "Keys to the Kingdom" tour. Basically, everything the public sees of Magic Kingdom is on floor 2.
easton
Definitely used for fences in Magic Kingdom and Epcot, and the article noted, they've begun painting the taller buildings (guardians of the galaxy) blue to match the sky.
brisketbbq
Why would disney want to divert attention away from trash cans? Don't you want them to to visible for folks to be able to use?
I get the desire to divert attention away from infrastructure stuff, though.
mrzool
My guess: the trash cans are perfectly visible if you’re looking for them — they just don’t want them to stand out.
null
almostnormal
Looks like primer used for aircraft, as if they forgot to paint their builings.
micromacrofoot
I believe they're following color blocking patterns in nature? I wish there was some more explanation into the why this might work (though I suppose it's all conjecture)
The dark green lower to the ground is similar to plants in the foreground that are close to you, above your head the green is more de-saturated as greenery would be in the distance on the horizon, and of course even higher is mimicking the color of where the sky would be.
This is why military camouflage is effective as well, though it's slightly different – with the speckled pattern of more and less saturated colors... we get the illusion of varied depth as if you're looking through grass or leaves... which makes it harder to see a single solid object (which humans are good at)
ryanhecht
John Hench (widely considered the coiner of the "go away" colors as it relates to WDI) brings up the concept of "go away" colors in the color theory chapter of his book "Designing Disney" when discussing how colors establish the identity of a space (this is partially quoted in the Wikipedia article):
> One particular challenge in designing the interior of the [American Adventure pavilion at EPCOT Center] was the metal safety railing we had to include by law, which, being out of place in the middle of a Colonial staircase, undermined the identity of the main entrance room. We chose a neutral gray-brown for the railing, a 'go away' color that did not call attention to itself, even though it was entirely unrelated to the Colonial color scheme. In this way ,we got a functional safety railing that satisfies legal requirements without conflicting visually with the Colonial theme
https://archive.org/details/designingdisneyi0000henc/page/11...
Given how he talks about color in the rest of the book, I think Hench and other early Imagineers were coming at it from film/scenic design perspectives rather than scientific "here's how camouflage and blocking patterns work" perspective. I agree though, I'd love to have someone connect this artist-minded explanation with a scientific one!
micromacrofoot
Thanks for the link!
Yes I think the interesting part is that artists figure this stuff out through massive amounts of observation experience and might not know why they get a positive outcome, it's very feelings based... but the fact that these feelings are often applicable on a broader human level is worthy of further investigation beyond practical application
null
bbor
Disney 'hides' unsightly objects in its parks using specially developed paint
I love me some applied psychology in design spaces, and I'm glad you posted this, but in general I'm dubious of how much this instance in particular is supported by Disney hysteria.
CharlesW
> …I'm dubious of how much this instance in particular is supported by Disney hysteria.
TFA includes a direct quote (with reference) from Disney Imagineer John Hench calling them "go away" colors, and confirming that their purpose is to camouflage.
bbor
I’m not questioning whether Disney has discussed them, I’m questioning whether it’s worthy of a Wikipedia page. All companies that buy paint buy it for specific reasons.
TeMPOraL
> All companies that buy paint buy it for specific reasons.
And 99% of that is just the same, boring reasons: style (reason for particular color choices) and protection from corrosion (reason for painting stuff in the first place). The remain 1% is the interesting stuff.
Attracting attention is the well-known case, and there's bunch of established colors with funny names to choose from (like "safety orange", or "international orange" that's hardly even orange). Camouflage is also known, but usually associated with safety or surveillance. "Go away" colors are definitely more niche (though perhaps something city councils talk about).
From the first picture in the gallery:
> Club 33 is the name of a number of private dining clubs located within Disney Parks. The first opened inside Disneyland in 1967, and was modeled after sponsor lounges at the 1964 New York World's Fair. At the time it opened, Club 33 was the only location within Disneyland that offered alcoholic beverages.
> The initial cost of membership at Disneyland and Walt Disney World was previously reported to be $35,000, followed by an annual due of $15,000–16,000.[8] In 2012, the reported cost of membership increased to $50,000 initiation fee and $15,000 annually for individuals, more for corporations.[9][10]
Interesting, I would never have guessed that Disneyland had a luxury club hidden inside.
I wonder what the members are like, and how they may have evolved over the years. "Ordinary" (if extremely wealthy) visitors, who are accustomed to fine dining and don't want to lower their standards even during a family trip? Or is it an entirely separate crowd, that travels to Disneyland specifically to have dinner and smoke Cubans there?