Celebration: Disney's Town of Yesterday

In 1994, Disney built a town called Celebration. This is the story of the town, and those who lived there.
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Chapter 0 - 0:00
Chapter 1 - 6:50
Chapter 2 - 15:32
Chapter 3 - 23:49
Chapter 4 - 31:39
Chapter 4.5 - 43:41
Chapter 5 - 46:45
Chapter 6 - 1:21:22
Chapter 7 - 1:29:25
Credits - 1:51:55
Want to watch this documentary in individual chapters? Click here: • Celebration: Disney's ...
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A Documentary by Tyler Thompson
hellotyler.com
Instagram: @watch.tyler
TikTok: @watchtylerfilms
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A Special Thanks to:
- Andrew Ross
- Peter Rummell
- Jerry Ray
- Jackie Flanigan
- Tom Vitale
- Bob Rhodes
- Rene Castillon
Primary Sources:
- The Celebration Chronicles by Andrew Ross
- Sunbelt Blues by Andrew Ross
- Celebration U.S.A. by Doug Frantz and Catherine Collins
All music used with permission under Universal Music for Creators.
Sources for videos and photos are listed at the bottom right of the video. My best attempt was made to correctly attribute credit to each piece of media. If you find anything belonging to yourself that was uncredited or misattributed, please send me a message, and I will put any corrections in the description. Thank you.

[@yrobtsvt]

The KZbin recommendation gods have blessed me with this video. Come on over, Defunctland subscribers!

[@watchtylerfilms]

Thanks for watching!

[@reefman10]

Came here to say this. This just showed up in my feed, and my God am I impressed. Job well done

[@Eightball007]

Kevin would be proud

[@vila777_]

it’s a damned shame that this idea didn’t take off in the states. suburb culture has isolated people there. remote work and the pandemic made it worse, now many people spend all day on their private territory and only occasionally venture out into the public. a lack of exposure to other people’s lives makes the idea of “other people” feel like an abstract concept, because there is no physical proof of it in front of you. like the trend of calling other people “npcs”, some people nowadays can’t imagine that others have inner worlds. maybe that’s why so many people act rude in public now. we’re too isolated from one another. everyone in the grocery store is a stranger that we’ll never see again, so why care? each person is no different than an npc. communities like celebration are needed for humans to thrive, not just survive.

[@simplyselina]

I grew up in central florida for a time from like 97-02. Celebration is a part of my family’s history too. Going there during Christmas they’d make fake snow out of foam and put on winter wonderland displays. When my dad was ending this life my friends and I parked up there to do teenage/early 20s things and forget the world in a place that seemed just as magical but way less expensive than Disney. Really interesting to watch this video and understand the full story. I honestly thought it was still “Disney’s celebration” haven’t been since 2017 though and back then I had way too much to deal with to have actual thoughts. Miss you daddy, forever grateful for the memories we made in Florida.

[@jul.escobar]

Thank you for sharing. ❤ My dad also created magical memories w me in Disney. He is gone now too. I'm glad we got to experience this time w our dad's. We were blessed.

[@addyvalencia]

I have absolutely no recollection of this place at all, but I was born here. It was always so strange to put “Celebration” as my birth place, but I haven’t known anything about it as my family moved away from Florida shortly after I was born. Thanks for the video and thanks YT gods for the rec! ♥️

[@NormanAllan53]

Fascinating documentary. My family have lived here since late1996 when we did participate in the original lottery. Our two boys attended Celebration school with great success. In spite of Disney denials, during the early months we were the early family that constantly met "paid" dog walkers in the downtown parks. So clean our excited dog Casey loved to walk and baptize hundreds of trees long before any other dogs. Both our sons graduated with full scholarships and went on for great professional careers. Today's Celebration is similar to what was hoped but now has become so large and spread out you'd never recognize what was dreamt for in the early days. There is NO affordable housing and virtually no shopping within walking distance. To be honest it is now a town dominated by wealthy seniors. Quite a few second homes owned by the elite from many larger American towns. Easily half the town now owned by foreign investors. In our case 3 of our neighbors have never stayed in their vacation homes more then a few weeks a year. Walk around Celebration at night and much of the year it is more like a ghost town. Crime exists but you'll seldom hear or see anything about it. In the end, it is a great town .Much like Walt wanted it is a veneer of the original plans and will probably stay that way forever.

[@watchtylerfilms]

Thank you for watching!

[@mr.fahrenheit7009]

New celebration point is in walking distance.... If you live near there of course 😅

[@joereuben4909]

Awww... someone with their head still in the sand. literally.

[@Donyourmom]

@@joereuben4909it’s almost like people are allowed to share differing opinions from your own, crazy.

[@sublimecelluloid5734]

This video is fantastic!! I figured you were a well known creator with a very established channel. Damn was I surprised to see that you’re just starting out! You deserve so much, and I am happy to be one of your first few subscribers :)

[@watchtylerfilms]

Thank you so much!

[@najattehawkins21]

Ii😊😊

[@iluvcruising]

@@watchtylerfilms It is so well put together, and the details that were supplied show that you did your homework. I can remember when Celebration started, Thanks for all the back stories and for making it so interesting that I watched the whole thing.

[@pattieb8214]

I can't imagine the hours of research you have dedicated to this project. It is the most comprehensive, truthful look into Celebration I have seen. Congratulations and thank you.

[@zzz6valvoline]

Walt would be horrified at how car dependent the US has become.

[@brettsavoie6332]

This video is incredibly well done. I don't really know what drew me to this video in this first place, but once I started I couldn't stop. Amazing work, one of the best youtube docs I've seen

[@tomprincipato7679]

Great job on this! I have dreamed of reopening the theater here someday as an entertainment flex space and arcade. The last person who tried this couldn't work out the right deal with Lexin, but I'm hoping I can

[@JohnMedved]

Great video! We've lived in Celebration since June 19th, 1996 and what you have reported is pretty accurate. We're still here and both of our kids went to the K-8 and then the HS. We still love the town.

[@kristenjmaddux]

Tyler, I’m only on the 4th chapter but must stop to give you kudos!! Unbelievable work here. This feels like award-winning research and documentary narrative - I hope somehow you get that due! I am a Floridian, 90s Disney girl who remembers all this WELL. We were all so excited about Celebration. I especially loved the Disney Institute. I took MANY classes there and was always blown away by all they offered to us “regular” people who just wanted to have fun and learn something new - and under some of the best professionals around! Amazing. There was a lot of cool, groundbreaking stuff Disney was trying out during this time and I really respect that.

[@Wilderness-Will]

This is the best researched and presented about Celebration I've ever seen. EPCOT and Celebration have always fascinated me because while the original plans grandiose and even kind of bizarre, I think Disney (the man) was way ahead of his time in recognizing that the postwar "build baby build" philosophy toward zoning and community planning would have disastrous consequences for the sense of community in American towns. We still haven't really reckoned with that problem today-- but Disney wanted to try, half a century ago, and he had the resources to set some powerful precedents-- he just didn't have the time. I have to wonder whether the world would be any different if that man had been granted five more years of life. Celebration was a failure that I don't think necessarily deserved to fail. Cotino and Asteria deserve to fail, and I pray they do.

[@jeffsnyder979]

I just moved to Celebration less than 2 months ago and I hope I never have to leave! It’s very uplifting to live in such a vibrant and beautiful community. Thank you for such an informative video!

[@Used2flyn]

I live in Celebration and love living here. Just the other day on a Celebration Facebook group a Celebration neighbor posted that they had a flat tire and were too old to change it and needed help. Neighbors sprang into action and in a couple of minutes there were several people ready and willing to come help. This is a beautiful town but the hearts of the residents are even more beautiful despite what anyone might say. This town is a treasure. I love Celebration. ❣️

[@officialmichaelcarrasco]

This

[@lightdarksoul2097]

Nice to know some of the original idea still lives on in the people

[@Reubachi]

Pretty sure my neighbors help each other all the time, and we don’t need to live in shoddy several million dollar homes shoehorned next to a corporate money pit.

[@officialmichaelcarrasco]

@@Reubachi ...still upset you didn't win the lottery, huh? 😜

[@kevinmccoy781]

Me, ninety minutes ago: "okay, another KZbinr-basically-reads-the-Wikipedia-article video for background noise." I was so wrong. Original interviews, a site visit, and a well-structured narrative made this an incredible treat from a channel with shockingly few subscribers. Thanks for making this and good luck with your future success.

[@sarahc3927]

Collect your “I was here before this channel blew up” ticket here 🎟️🎟️

[@jul.escobar]

I'm here. I agree

[@peterson88keyz]

Thought I’d check this out for a few minutes and ended up watching the entire thing straight through. Very professionally done - your year of hard work easily shows. Thank you.

[@watchtylerfilms]

Thank you for watching!

[@seanhaugh4232]

It's interesting to see elements of how ahead of its time it was. Like the school segment really stood out, our elementary schools here in town are largely groups around tables now instead of individual desks, and incredibly successful. And I had the same reaction, oh wow this is so different than what I had, but I gave it a chance and my kids have done so well by it.

[@watchtylerfilms]

Thanks for watching!

[@stubbs3023]

So cool that you got interviews from the people involved! I’m sure they were so excited to talk about this again, crazy that it is not more well known that they were so innovative!

[@littleflecks]

I rarely comment on KZbin videos, but I have to commend you on this documentary. I expected it to be around 10 or 15 minutes long, so I was surprised to see it was nearly 2 hours. I watched the entire video and was very impressed by the thorough research, interviews, and editing. The documentary was engaging and well-structured. Well done!

[@ghostsophy4332]

I sit here shocked watching this. Somehow seeing my town in a KZbin video makes me not be able to conceive how I lived here from 9 to 17. Especially because we couldn’t afford it the entire time.

[@ursulacosta307]

Great documentary! 👍 My husband and I lived in Celebration for 6 years. For 5 of the years we rented a garage apartment (which was beautiful) Then the owners decided to sell their house, so we rented a condominium for our final year living there. The town center always had plenty of people walking around (mainly tourists) but even though the town’s motto was: ‘The front porch community’ I never saw anyone sitting on their porches, or even outside (other than walking their dogs) The only thing that I liked about Celebration was living so close to Disney World.

[@IntoTheAntVerse]

I enjoyed watching this. I watched the whole documentary! I lived in Orlando and Kissimmee throughout my teenage years. My family knew that I would visit Celebration frequently. The restaurants, the culture, and the attractions all fascinated me, and it made my family feel very at home. I always wondered what it would be like to live in Celebration, go to Celebration School, and be one of the neighbors in the community. Even today, I find myself intrigued by that thought and always hope to one day be able to own a home there. This made it even more intriguing. However, I’m not too sure if this is something I can commit to now. It has a lot more growth, but I do admire how the townspeople helped build it and continue to make it even more beautiful.

[@CamNelz]

Honestly, as a Celebration resident it’s a pretty nice and awesome town, it’s always expanding and it’s always renovating into something new and cool. I do wish it was in the hands of Disney still, but with the stature of the town today, it’s a pretty nice town still and I think it is getting somewhat better.

[@nawyca]

I love seeing a beautifully made documentary with a nuanced point of view! You happened to be the first person/video to tell me about Celebration and its history, and I'm glad you were. I loved being able to hear about the opinions of the people on the inside, especially from people who were trying to and wanted to make it work, like the teachers and residents. This was an interesting and fascinating watch, thank you so much!

[@inventedcool1076]

I disagree with Jackie - the school isn’t the heart of the community anymore, purely because less people are having children. In a Disney town, I see a strong likelihood of getting millennial Disney adults, which are likely not to have kids. Her experience is valuable, but I think she is looking at community from the lens of history and her experience. You have to accommodate the lifestyles of who you want to live there, otherwise it will fail.

[@lucylolo2535]

This was fantastic, thank you so much for your work and thank you KZbin for recommending this to me!

[@DavidGreelish]

Very detailed and thoughtful. I enjoyed the story and your analysis very much, especially taking an unbiased look and not vilifying the town.

[@pwhite48]

A first class quality piece of work : extremely well researched, thoroughly and fairly presented. I’m a local and learned loads of new things. Thank you.

[@ShadeBeee]

This is really well done!! Thank you for all your efforts.

[@jasminlynrichards9991]

The algorithm was algorithming when it put this on my feed. Sunscribed.

[@etherealdreamer777]

Wow. What a great and informative documentary of Celebration. I was just a little kid when I lived there for 6 years in the late 90s to early 2000s. I don’t live there anymore and I truly miss it. There are so many things I didn’t know about the history of celebration and even the current celebration. To be honest with you, watching this video in its entirety brought back so many memories for me. It really made me tear up and also filled with joy at the same time. You just got yourself a new subscriber!! Thank you. Please do more of these long documentaries! I would love to see what you do in the future! 😊

[@FlavorLab]

What an amazing documentary!

[@MannyCalavera87]

Amazing, AMAZING work you made! I subscribed to your channel after the few minutes of this video 😊😊😊

[@rachelmeyer2409]

Incredible documentary!!! Looking forward to your next productions!!!

[@BC-ci7cm]

Thank you for this; I just moved to north village celebration earlier this year love it here, my son starts kindergarten at the school this August

[@midnightly7918]

Wow, what an amazing video. You really took the time and care to tell the story of this town. Thanks for a great documentary!

[@-chrisburke]

Excellent video, very well researched and presented! 😊 thanks for the entertainment

[@camardo]

Not sure how I ended up here, but you did an amazing job on this.

[@grey6703]

I have been binge watching any sort of theme park adjacent deep dive videos recently, and this was perfectly up my alley as i have visited celebration many times. my family would go to orlando yearly to visit with a family doing the disney marathon, and we would get food at restaurants right around the corner from the old theater. i remember walking around it vividly from our car to the restaurant and liking the way it looked

[@hellorst]

Interesting documentary! Great job.

[@Gowicklesswithmel]

What an amazing film. Thank you for this!

[@redcenteno7150]

Such a great video, super thorough and engaging! Hope more people see this soon!

[@Becauseimme]

Great work, I know you put many hours into this project and it shows.

[@mellifluou]

Extremely well done, great job!

[@cheers4life100]

amazing video!!!! everybody knows about celebration but nobody ever talks about it and this deep dive was incredibly fascinating!!!

[@cwaltw6242]

Dude this is stellar work. Awesome vid. Glad to find you early on!

[@BradleyJH]

This video is 🔥!!! How’s this dude only have 400 subs?

[@mobias1616]

Loved this. Great work!

[@Miguel-Raton]

WHOAH!!! I've heard & known about Cotino for a while a now & felt like whenever I heard/read about it, I had a feeling like it reminded me of Celebration. But I had no idea it was a Disney project!!! Rancho Mirage is like a 15, 20 minute drive frome my current home!!! This is blowing my mind right now...!!!!

[@djvt574]

this is so so good. impressed with how little (not any?) stock imagery you've used. brilliant doc

[@Haydensky23412]

Amazing!! Thank you!

[@TheSocialAdvocate]

Excellent documentary!!!

[@jazzyboi1700]

This was excellent! I have subbed and I patiently await more documentaries.

[@jamesbaxter6016]

I have family that live there. When I visit them I feel like I’m on a movie set. It’s like a real utopia

[@BumblyBear]

This is extremely well done and put together 👏

[@jesse9177]

Amazing video! I spent a lot of time in Florida growing up and was a teenager when Celebration was being built. It sparked my fascination with New Urbanism that continues to this day.

[@juliagaida1502]

awesome video!!! i love orlando lore videos

[@traxmachinedj]

Amazing video! Huge fan of Disney history and oddities. My family stayed in celebration at a hotel last year and piqued my interest about Celebration. Thanks for the video as it answered all my questions.

[@tedsmart5539]

Well done Tyler. Great work.

[@MinnesoTristan]

I attended Celebration School from 1999 = 2002, and I missed the chaos of the first two years. I know the school sent a disclaimer with your transcripts explaining that they did things differently, and that many of my classmates didn’t get into their first choice universities.

[@mr.fahrenheit7009]

Awesome I went between the years of 2010 to 2019

[@gcjc41]

Awesome job dude!!

[@pookiedookiedoo]

this was such a fantastic, well put together video. i am so so impressed with your video creation skills and i am proud to say this is a documentary i will recommend to everyone i know :)

[@caitlinsmith2096]

incredible work

[@charliemacsart]

This was a fantastic documentary! Really interesting to learn the history of the town and what it's actually like.

[@jacknightingale4428]

Incredible video!

[@HumblElephant]

Commenting for the algorithm but also to document that this guy’s at 967 subs right now - this channel is going places

[@curtishopkins2934]

Awesome video bro!

[@gretchenmiller3639]

This is an awesome documentary! I'm a huge Disney fan and somehow had never heard of this town? My husband laughed and told how common knowledge it was? Lol! Oh course he worked for the Disney Store back in the early 90's.

[@granthuang577]

Great documentary!

[@jul.escobar]

Great video Tyler!

[@christophermcknight5405]

Fantastic video. Excited to be one of your first few hundred subscribers, cant wait for you to blow up soon!

[@hardyenigma1003]

great video!

[@aspen_clouds]

This is so interesting !! I srsly hope you get a lot of traction in this

[@shawnmcgill1900]

This is fantastic and so well done!

[@watchtylerfilms]

Thank you!

[@Peppmintleaf]

I never lived in celebration but I have heard about it, this is probably the most detailed and well rounded documentary about this subject! The only other videos that I recall that talk about this subject was those "Celebration is a cult" type videos and one from a true crime channel, but I've never knew it had a school system! I'm not sure why but when you began talking about that section my eyes lit up lol Their concept did seem unorthodox to many but I liked the whole "community learning" aspect of it all. Especially how I was a student who had trouble learning in public school, math especially, and always felt like I was...punished?? or made to feel like I was the "dumb/low achieving" student when most of the time, I just needed the concept to be explained to me in a different way and given more time to fully process it. It's a shame that when restructuring the celebration school system they couldn't work out a compromise to not only please the parents who wanted a traditional school system but keep some aspects of their original vision. Idk, I don't know much about schools and the educational system but I just liked that "community learning" concept.

[@jbmiller3280]

The Celebration School concept seems to be emotional torture for introverted kids that would otherwise thrive in a 20-30 student classroom.

[@baralisabeth]

Thank you!

[@thehumanexperience454]

Great video man, its a shame you only have 1k subs, ill do my best to pass this around like a business card. great example of Florida history and an even greater example of a documentary.

[@lovedfriend2020]

Thank you for making this. I like this better than each chapter as a video. I just listened, and it was great to hear about this. Back in 1994 my family and I went to see the town, and we loved it. I wanted to move here knowing it had fiber and cool stuff. I don't know what fiber internet was like in 1994?

[@brianmarini1888]

I would have loved to be hired by Disney to just... walk dogs and smile at people all day.

[@QuincyDisneyVegan]

Tyler, you totally are the next Kevin Perjurer from the DefunctLand KZbin channel. Great start to your channel!! I'm liking Forward to seeing where you go and how you grow

[@FermentDpickles]

Wow, super interesting!!!

[@watchtylerfilms]

Thank you!

[@simplyfilms3153]

Amazing work.

[@watchtylerfilms]

Thanks for watching!

[@10ambeer58]

Hello from Cambodia! Great Channel!! :)

[@kelarly]

I live o my a few minutes from Celebration and love to visit whenever I can. It’s a pretty town with great trails connection. I would live there if it weren’t so expensive. Though, just outside the town in the surrounding Osceola County and SR192 area is one of the most uncomfortable places to witness. My wife worked in the schools here and there were so many children who lived in the run down hotels illegally.

[@thedollbabys1073]

Such quality work! Deserves much praise. I LOVED the Opening Credits/Info with the blue grid and the line looping around the neighborhood. I'm not even a Disney Superfan and I watched the entire Doc. Great work and so well done!

[@watchtylerfilms]

I’m glad you enjoyed! Thanks!

[@kiwisausage]

Love the video! It is so well researched! One thing I would suggest is choose less repetitive music next time please 🙏 or at least play it for less time in the video

[@HelenAdara]

I went to Celebration several years ago and it was super unsettling, it gave me serious Truman Show vibes...

[@ah7910]

I feel sorry for you. If clean, polite and neighbourly surroundings leave you unsettled - I’m sure Celebration would rather not have people like you even visit. The comments section here is full of people saying charming, friendly, kind place it is to live.

[@HelenAdara]

@@ah7910 bro get a grip 😭 why let a one-off youtube comment upset you so much like it is not that serious

[@HelenAdara]

@@ah7910 I am perfectly content not to live in a creepy over-priced place full of rich old people LMAO

[@HistoryWhiskers]

Ah, what a splendid revelation on Master Tyler Thompson's channel! To think, in the year of 1994, our grand entertainers at Disney waved their magical wands and conjured up an entire town, aptly named Celebration! The whimsy and charm of such a place spring to life splendidly in your telling, dear Tyler. As Baron Whiskerwald, I am thoroughly enchanted and tickled by the notion of living in a town spun from the dreams of storytellers. Bravo for unearthing such a delightful tale!

[@MrGreed2000]

great content but please turn your keyboard lights off - during your interview with the woman who lived in the town you can see them flickering on and off. keeep up the good work

[@rafaeldume2901]

great video! thoughtful entertaining and informative, I appreciate the work you put into the video.

[@johnpauljones9244]

Well done 👏 🎉

[@MsDisneylandlover]

I was recommend this 2 #DisneyDiva ❤

[@jordanabendroth6458]

I love it when the KZbin algorithm recommends me videos like this, I'm only a few minutes in but holy cow you should have a ton more subscribers

[@lagoonmermaid]

This documentary was brilliant and really interesting... but the thing I can't stop thinking about is that Disney said to the school you're going to teach 100 kids and all the teachers went okay, let's do some baseline tests and split them up... because you actually can't teach 100 kids. Who were these educational experts behind this? It sounds like they misunderstood a lot of pedagogy coming out of Finland at the time.

[@markrichards6863]

Celebration? I think living at Disney World would be hell. If you think an HOA has a lot of rules, imagine how strict WDW would be.

[@mr.fahrenheit7009]

Lived in celebration my entire life im 19

[@alexjayne_]

Hey I live there 😊