Walt Disney Imagineering has shared a post on Instagram detailing the creation of HERBIE, the robotic companion to The Fantastic Four for his Tomorrowland meet and greet.
Walt Disney Imagineering and HERBIE
In the clip, Josh Gorin, an Executive Research and Design Imagineer shares that as soon as Imagineers saw the early cuts of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, they wanted guests of Disney Parks to fall in love just like they did. Several engineers, designers, artists, and scientists then joined forces to translate HERBIE from film to park.
The movie version of HERBIE was created and shown using a lot of computer graphics, but they needed his likeness to be “real world” for the parks. Thus, the team designed an actual robot that can balance on an eight-inch sphere to interact with guests at Disneyland Park.
This spherical base allows him to glide effortlessly, pivot, and constantly adjust his angle in any direction with outstanding precision. To keep HERBIE balanced, multiple internal sensors measure his precise motion, angle, and orientation 250 times per second, providing constant feedback to a series of rollers that constantly adjust his position to keep him upright. This gives HERBIE his dynamic, lifelike motion that feels straight out of the film.
Disney Parks Blog also shared that HERBIE’s voice actor Matthew Wood even worked with Imagineers to record new phrases and conversation starters, such as singing Happy Birthday. Custom decals and stickers on his body replicate details straight from the film.
The Fantastic Four Meet & Greets
Guests can find the Fantastic Four and HERBIE in Disneyland Park’s Tomorrowland outside a special area dressed up for the occasion. Disney stated in the original announcement that each character would meet individually, rather than as a team or “as a family.” However, when we visited, the characters were meeting in pairs apart from HERBIE, who was separate from the pairs.
Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps is in theaters now. Read our review of the film!
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