Attractions Expert Q&A: Ty Granaroli

After his time at Landmark, Ty Granaroli worked at Paramount Pictures for 25 years, most recently as executive vice president of themed Entertainment, guiding the studio’s location-based entertainment projects around the world.

What theme park souvenir might we be surprised to find on your shelf? What’s the story behind it?

My favorite theme park souvenir is the Disneyland map that I got the first time I visited the park with my family in 1963. I always refer to it when I’m working on theme parks. I look at that map and all the cool illustrations, characters, and little attractions along the sides. I have a few other maps, but that one from my first trip to Disneyland when I was five or six is my favorite.

What theme park have you always wanted to visit but have never been to? 

I have never been to Efteling, but I’d like to visit it. I’ve heard it’s beautiful and charming — the epitome of a European theme park.

Was there a theme park or attraction that made you want to be in this industry and how did it inspire you?

Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. To me, that attraction is the absolute best combination of ride, environment, story, music, and lighting — the whole thing. I think it’s hard to top. The version at Disney Shanghai is extraordinary, and what they did with that was incredible, but the first one always meant the most to me.  

I didn’t have any idea about working at Disneyland until much later and that people actually designed those rides. I was in the parade at Disneyland when I was in high school, but I never thought of designing theme parks, even though I loved them. It was beyond my understanding — the inspiration I got from Pirates of the Caribbean was just to be a pirate.

I loved Disneyland and Disney World. My family went to Disneyland twice a year, and then we drove across the country to visit Walt Disney World soon after it opened. We stayed at the Polynesian Village Resort, which I couldn’t believe. It was just extraordinary. We vacationed there for five days, and going to that theme park every day was unbelievable. At that point, there was only one park. But there were all kinds of fun things to do on that big lake, and the hotel itself was, to me at the time, like being in an exotic locale on a distant island in the middle of the ocean. I really fell for those immersive experiences and never wanted them to end.

What was your favorite ride or attraction as a child, and why?

Pirates of the Caribbean. There’s that moment on Pirates where you come down — I think it’s the second drop — when you feel a breeze and the boat floats, and then you hear the music rising and the voices of the pirates. And it’s so good. Those moments are what we do less of. Everything today is about these giant moments, but it’s the small moments that have really stayed with me from parks like Disneyland.

When I went to Disneyland as a kid, I always felt that I wanted to live there. I wanted to stay in that world because I felt it was real, and Pirates of the Caribbean probably the most. It was a place I wanted to be in and inhabit; I thought it was so cool.

Was there a ride, attraction, or character that frightened you as a child?

When I was a little kid, the Matterhorn was a bit scary. I also remember being frightened going on the stagecoach at Knott’s Berry Farm. There’s a great picture of me and my mom, and I’m just bawling my eyes out, and she’s holding onto my back. The coach was bouncing so much that she thought I was going to go flying off. That terrified me when I was a kid.

What’s the oddest or coolest job you’ve had in your career?

I was hired a long time ago by Landmark Entertainment Group because I had a background in dance. Somebody thought because of that, I would be good at programming robots. So, for my first job at Sanrio Puroland, I ended up programming all kinds of robots. And I used to think I was pretty good at it, even though I had no background in doing anything like that.

Somebody extrapolated that because I had been a dancer (with the American Ballet Theatre in New York) and understood movement, I qualified. And actually, I wasn’t bad, and I really enjoyed it. We spent hours and hours programming these robots, and I ended up being so adept at it that I moved off my main attraction and programmed robots on other attractions. I only did it one time, and it was odd and unexpected, but it was super fun.

Electrosonic created this incredibly user-friendly system. It was ahead of its time, allowing anyone to sit down at this console with joysticks and toggles and make the robots dance. In the old days, you had to write code, but in this case, the user interface was very direct, like playing a video game. You would pick a part of the body you would work on, then play the music and choreograph the whole thing.

Unfortunately, that system was really easy to program but virtually impossible to put into the permanent rack so that it would play back the show. So we would do hours and weeks of programming, and then when we tried to put it in the rack, we would lose the whole show. It happened three or four times. I forget what they finally did to fix it, but it was an extraordinary burden for all the technology people on the project. But they figured it out in the end, and somehow, the robots did indeed dance.

What ride or attraction do you think everyone needs to experience and why?

To me, the Hogwarts Express is a piece of genius because it links the two parks from one land in one park to another. It adds such incredible commercial value to Universal Studios that they can sell combo tickets, and you can go right from one area of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter world over to the other in this beautiful, seamless way. It’s a great attraction in itself, but the way it solves so many problems and is so elegant that I love it. I really think everyone should see it and learn from it.

I can’t think of any other way to link those lands. If you went through the theme parks, it’s quite a long walk and really unfulfilling. But the Hogwarts Express allows you to stay in that world for so long and in such a beautiful way that I think it’s one of the best applications of a clever idea that has ever happened.

If you were tasked with creating a new theme park food, what would it be?

I’m so taken by clever foods like squid on a stick at Tokyo DisneySea, which is so popular that people wait in line. And the Dole Pineapple stand at Disneyland, with the Pineapple Whip. Foods like those become such a part of the fabric of going to a theme park. When my family visits Disneyland, we have to get a Dole Pineapple Whip every time we go. People will wait in line forever, and Disney hasn’t decided to put in more locations so you can get them faster. It’s exactly like it was a long time ago.

I’d like nutritious food you could carry around the park: grab-and-go food. I also want to see people eating and drinking in line. It’s the perfect place to enjoy a cool drink or a Dole Pineapple Whip, like carts in New York where you can buy a slice or a hot dog. Why aren’t we doing that more in theme parks? We spend the most time at theme parks in lines. Maybe you can only get that drink or snack in line on that ride. It would make for a better guest experience, and it’s revenue-generating.

You’re a walk-around character for a day; who do you choose?

I was a chicken in “Disney’s Fantasy on Parade” (a dancing chicken in the Barnyard Bash unit), but I always wanted to be Peter Pan, one of those face characters. I don’t want to wear one of those big heads. It’s hot, and you can’t see that well.

In “Disney on Parade,” it rained once and got very slippery, and with the shoes that the characters wore, many of them were falling. We had to go around picking them up because certain characters have arms that aren’t functional when they’re in a costume. Like the dwarfs, their arms held little fake hands that they manipulated inside the costume, so they couldn’t take their hands out to help them stand. We were picking up all the dwarfs. It was a nightmare.

What types of attractions would you like to see more of and why?

I am a big story guy, so I like attractions that combine multiple elements, and I think that’s something we did at Star Trek: The Experience (with Landmark Entertainment Group), where you get transported into another world, and it’s a walk-through that becomes a ride. They’ve certainly done it with “Star Wars,” and I love those kinds of combo attractions where there’s some surprise. It’s operationally challenging, but I think it’s great for the guests to have multiple stations to visit along the way to an attraction. I wish there were more of that — more storytelling.

I also think that instead of just saying we’re going to replace an attraction in 10 years because it’s old, planned serialization of attractions would be really interesting. There would be a plan that, in so many years, you will have a certain attraction change over time. I’d love to see something like that where everyone says you should go check out this attraction at least once every three years because it’s evolving, and it’s going to tell a story as it does. We’re already conditioned to that with streaming shows, so I think that would be really fun.

Were there any challenges or surprises in your career?

Many. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve ended up onsite with a piece of technology that we have to program, and even the most talented and experienced designers would say, “Boy, that’s what it looks like? What are we going to do with that?” And in some ways, that’s been the most fun part of my career: working with really talented people in the field and saying, “Okay, we’re going to have to zig a little bit here because we thought this was going to be more impressive, or bigger,” but that’s what’s incredible about this business.

I think there’s nothing harder than creating a quality theme park attraction — it takes so many different disciplines. It has to last forever, be entertaining, and be safe — and yet people go into it saying, “Oh, this one’s going to be easy” and “We can do it faster than that” or “It can be done cheaper.”

I always think there are so many optimists in this business, which usually goes wrong. Often, there are surprises that can take you off course. What’s wonderful is when you’re working with a team that takes that in stride and somehow makes it better in the eleventh hour, and I’ve had that experience many, many times. And I think that’s been one of the most enjoyable parts of my career.

One of my first projects was a dark ride in Japan with 30 animated characters. I don’t know how this happened, but when they showed up onsite, none of them fit where they were supposed to go. I was standing there with the vendor, and we had to position all these figures. I was the show director, so everyone turned to me and said, “Where do you want to put them?” We had millions of dollars’ worth of figures, and if we put them where they were supposed to be, they would break because one hand would hit the wall, or two figures would crash into each other. We had to move them all. And there was no one there to ask. It was terrifying.

I didn’t have time to find whoever was running the project. We only had these people onsite for so long, so I just took out a pad and pen and said, “Okay, put him here; she’s going to fit there; those two will go next to each other.” I redid the whole thing on the fly. And it ended up great. We all came together. I had a technology guy, a lighting guy, and a person looking at the track of the boat ride and how the scenes would be viewed. It was fun, but it was a scary moment. Those kinds of experiences give you confidence in your ability to make decisions — there’s no choice but to do it. True story. It impacted every scene of that boat ride.

Can you talk about what you are working on these days?

I’m under an NDA, so I can’t say what it is, but I am working on the most challenging and ambitious project I’ve ever been involved in. It’s not my vision; it’s someone else’s vision, and it’s extraordinary, and I’m really excited to see how it progresses. I’ve been in this business for 30+ years and have done many different things, but I’m working on something that surprises me for its innovation. I feel very privileged to be able to work on this, and it makes me feel really good about the state of the industry and the creativity people are bringing to solutions.

You are going to your favorite theme park; which industry people (dead or alive) are you taking with you?

I would take Adam Bezark. I love talking about attractions with Adam. We’ve spent a lot of time discussing attractions and can get lost in why they did that for hours and hours. Like, why is that sign there? It’s just the whole process of how things happened. He’s fascinated by it, and very few people can tolerate my attention to detail in attractions and projects, but I find that Adam can, although it’s been a while since I’ve talked to him about it. I’m always interested in what goes into making a good or a bad attraction. I really believe you probably learn more from the bad ones than the good ones. But Adam’s always got a great perspective on design and content, so comparing notes with him on different ideas is fun.

I’m a big fan of people working together as opposed to everybody working from home, and I think that when you don’t have that collaboration, you miss some of those moments — those little sketches that make people laugh, and then you say, “Yeah, that has to be in the ride.” That’s fantastic.

I remember I had an office right next to Adam (at Landmark Entertainment Group), and the discussions we had between meetings were key for the projects we were working on more than the meetings themselves. I think that’s lost in this new virtual age or remote age — you don’t have that. I guess people find a way to get there in a different fashion, but there’s no replacing it, and in my new company, I’m going to make sure that we work together frequently because I don’t think you can substitute that interaction.

In our design meetings (at Landmark), the only hierarchy was that the best idea won. For example, for the transporter effect in Star Trek: The Experience, it was our technical designer, Mark Thomas, who came up with the idea. We had all these complicated ideas on how to do the transporter effect, and Mark just said, “Why don’t we fly the room out?” It’s the oldest trick in the book, and it was brilliant. We mocked it up, and it not only worked better than anyone thought — and people who worked on Star Trek will tell this story — [but] because it moved so fast, it created a vacuum or a suction effect that pulled the air out with it. It gave people the sense that they’d been transported somehow. That’s what I love about people being together: the best idea should always win.

Writer Kendall Wolf is a long-time consultant in the themed entertainment industry. She has worked with designers, producers, and fabricators to help developers create unique and successful projects around the world. In 2017, she introduced Merlin Entertainments to a development group in Sichuan province for the first Legoland park in China. Kendall continues to consult for the developer to open more themed resorts in China.