Celebration, Florida: The Unhappiest Place on Earth with Stuff You Should Know | 52

The Big Flop

Wondery

Society & Culture, Comedy, Business

4.6 • 884 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Celebration, Florida was conceived by the Disney Corporation as a magical utopian community, something straight out of a fairy tale—meticulously planned, picturesque neighborhoods replete with ice cream parlors, bike paths, and state-of-the-art facilities. But the promise of living in a theme park soon became nauseating thanks to a greedy real estate developer, crumbling houses, rampant divorces and allegedly… swingers? In the end, a confusing combo of micromanagement and neglect left residents feeling disappointed and certainly disenchanted.

Josh Clark and Chuck Byrant from Stuff You Should Know join Misha to put a damper on Celebration, Florida.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the Big Flop early and ad-free.
0:05.3	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:19.2	Laurel Rousseau is an odd duck in the town of Celebration, Florida.
0:24.7	Sure, she moved there because of its promise of small town splendor with local charm.
0:30.1	But unlike all her Disney-loving neighbors, she wasn't expecting any singing forest animals to help clean her house.
0:39.4	Nevertheless, Laurel was charmed by the town built by the mouse.
0:44.0	The architecture was unique.
0:45.9	The town was as walkable as a theme park,
0:48.5	and its downtown broke from the rest of the central Florida sprawl.
0:53.5	If she had moved in when the town was brand new
0:56.2	more than a decade ago, life may have been perfect. But Laurel never got the memo. Disney's cashed
1:06.9	out, and an evil witch in the form of a real estate developer purchased the downtown.
1:13.6	Since then, she says things have fallen into disrepair, and to her it feels downright depressing.
1:21.7	The general store has closed. There's no bakery, and even the movie theater sits empty, one less place to hide
1:30.4	from the ever-present swarms of mosquitoes. Even worse, Laurel's condo's roof has been leaking
1:37.4	since she's moved in, and she claims she can't get the property manager to do anything about it.
1:45.1	Laurel writes all her complaints down and sends a direction to the condos association's lawyer.
1:51.1	She wants to sue the owner of downtown celebration.
1:54.8	A question crosses her mind.
1:56.4	Do you think the Imagineers designed a Disney-themed courthouse?
2:10.8	A brand new town with old-fashioned values. Welcome to Celebration USA.
2:17.2	This is where people will be able to enjoy an ice cream cone as they sit on a rocking chair.
	...

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