Spaceship Earth with Walter Cronkite

Spaceship Earth with Walter Cronkite 1986-1994

In May 1986, Spaceship Earth got its first new voice. Walter Cronkite — for two decades the anchor of the CBS Evening News, and the broadcaster routinely described as the most trusted man in America — took over the narration from Vic Perrin, and for many Epcot guests of the late eighties and early nineties, his is the voice that defines the ride. The handover came with the attraction’s first major refurbishment, less than four years after opening day.

The changes were gentle but real. The smoky ascent tunnel became a field of drifting stars, the descent screens filled with children from around the world, and the finale gained the song this version is best remembered by: “Tomorrow’s Child,” sung as your vehicle turned for home beneath the turning Earth. The sponsor’s name had changed, too — the Bell System had been broken up in 1984, and its parent company, AT&T, now presented the ride, a role it would keep for the next twenty years.

Cronkite’s delivery suited the material perfectly: measured, warm and utterly unhurried, as if the evening news had simply widened its scope to 40,000 years. This recording is the complete ride-through of the Cronkite version, exactly as guests heard it from 1986 until the attraction closed for its next reinvention in the summer of 1994.

It sits in the archive between the original narration by Vic Perrin and the version that replaced it, narrated by Jeremy Irons — and if you’d rather hear the ride as it sounds today, the current Judi Dench version is here too.