Legendary Imagineer Kevin Rafferty to retire after 42 years with the company

Posted: Wednesday January 13, 2021 1:46pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Walt Disney Imagineering will lose another legendary talent later this year as Kevin Rafferty retires after a 42 year career with the company.

Kevin Rafferty

Kevin has been part of many Walt Disney World attractions, which includes The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Muppet*Vision 3D, Rock 'n' Rollercoaster, Test Track, Mickey's PhilharMagic, Toy Story Mania!, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach and most recently Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway. He leaves the company effective April 1 2021.

Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway was Kevin Rafferty's most recent project

You can read more about Kevin's journey with the Walt Disney Company that began washing dishes at the Plaza Inn at Disneyland in an interview at the official Disney fan club site D23. “I wanted to go out at the top of my game, if you will,” he explains. “It just felt right.”

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TrainsOfDisneyJan 22, 2021

Same. Even more so for regular Wishes

brb1006Jan 22, 2021

Still miss hearing Jiminy Cricket as the annoucer.

tirianJan 22, 2021

Minnie’s Christmas is a great show, and I only wish it were longer. Speaking of wish, an updated Wishes would’ve been ideal for the 50th. Sigh. If only...

UNCgolfJan 22, 2021

Yeah, you're still completely missing the point, which other people in this very thread have corroborated. I don't know why you even responded because you had nothing to say and you're clearly not interested in listening to anyone other than yourself.

Parker in NYCJan 22, 2021

I've been out for quite a number of years.

peter11435Jan 22, 2021

I forgot people these days can only handle one show element and stimulation at a time.

UNCgolfJan 22, 2021

So basically you have no rational argument against what I said, and thus are conceding I am correct. Thank you for your support and agreement that Happily Ever After is a poorly designed show in certain segments.

TrainsOfDisneyJan 22, 2021

It’s not stupid. Are you really wanting to take this down to grade school levels?

peter11435Jan 22, 2021

The argument that projection and pyro at the same time makes it hard to watch both is stupid. Also I never called you stupid. I said the argument was stupid. Which it is.

HauntedPirateJan 22, 2021

That was the feeling I got when viewing HEA. Too much going on to take it all in. Watch the projections and you could miss pyro. Watch pyro and will you miss something projected?

UNCgolfJan 22, 2021

Thank you. It's not that pyro and projections can't be in the same show; of course they can. I never said otherwise. But HEA has certain parts that are not well designed. It occasionally turns into spectacle for spectacle's sake where a ton of things are happening at once and it doesn't really matter if you can see it all. I like the projections and yet I thought the show worked better from the California Grill roof where all you can see is the fireworks.

UNCgolfJan 22, 2021

You're stupid. See? I can also make random nonsensical attacks. Do you actually have any counterargument? Of course it's a problem. It's like having two screens 20 feet apart that are playing something separate. They end up competing for your attention. I suppose you didn't actually read anything I said, though, or you'd actually understand why it's a potential issue when it's not designed correctly -- HEA has scenes that absolutely are not. Nobody said it's impossible to have both projections and pyro in the same show.

TrainsOfDisneyJan 22, 2021

I think the pyro and projections in HEA compete at times. I don’t feel that way in Disneyland Forever or Minnie’s Christmas. If you’ve only seen HEA, it’s not stupid to come to that conclusion, imho.