I asked Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde About His Legendary Earring, He Revealed Wonderful Stories

Former Imagineer and Disney Legend Joe Rohde made incredible contributions to Disney Parks and Experiences during his 40 years at Walt Disney Imagineering. He served as the overall creative executive and supervising designer for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and some of his other major projects include Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa in Hawaii, Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! at Disney California Adventure, and the Adventurers Club that was formerly part of Pleasure Island at Disney World.

Rohde is known for his trademark collection of earrings, which he collected in his travels around the globe. Previously, during a rare podcast interview, Mickey Visit founder Gavin Doyle talked with Joe Rohde while he was still the Creative Director of Animal Kingdom. Rohde shared some insights about his career and the creation of Animal Kingdom and Aulani, but one of the most interesting parts of the interview was his stories about his earring. He talked about how the earring collection started and some of his favorite earrings from his travels.

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How Joe Rohde's Earring Collection Began

We asked about Joe Rohde's famous earring that has earned him the reputation of the “Imagineer with the Earring.” He explained the origins of when this started and how it evolved over time as he collected earrings from around the world in his travels. 

Rohde reflected, “Oh, you know I started this a long time ago; right about the time I started the Adventurers Club, as a matter of fact.  And I started actually wearing my Disney five-year pin through my ear.  Now I had a hole in my ear.  I didn’t push my lapel pin through my ear.  I already have a little earring hole, but just a normal little 1980s earring hole like anybody would have.  And I started wearing my five-year pin through my ear, because it was a really cool little pin.  And that made the hole bigger.  And so then I thought, oh I’m going to wear like two gold hoops like a pirate. So then, I started wearing two gold hoops and that made the hole bigger.

And so, somewhere around 1987, I made this decision that I was going to cultivate this National Geographic ear.  Whenever I went some place I hadn’t been before, I would find an earring and stick it through my ear, and I would end up with this ear that was like a National Geographic ear.  I did not know that starting that year, my life would change, and I would end up traveling so much that by 1989, I already had this ear.  It did not take long once I started to end up with this ear. 

And now, people would just give me earrings.  I‘ve had tribal people give me earrings, and I receive earrings, you know.  But usually, if I’m wearing it in my ear, it’s some kind of indigenous tribal earring that comes from a specific journey to a specific place, usually the first time I’ve been there.  Otherwise, I would have like 700 earrings.  So, I try to restrict myself in some way for the [Disney] rules. And I do have like a cereal bowl full of earrings at home.”

Joe Talks About His Favorite Earrings

When asked about his favorite earrings, Rohde had a few interesting ones he mentioned. He pointed out a little beaded earring from Rajasthan. “So almost every shop has a little box or a little ball–this is true all over the world–or a little package or a little thing full of junk.  It’s like the junk bowl.  And you go, “Can I see the junk bowl?”  And you go through the junk ball, and that’s where the earring is.  It’s in the junk bowl, almost always.  Like this happened in Mongolia, Rajasthan, Zambia, all over the world.  I find the earring in the junk ball.  So this one came from the junk ball in Rajasthan.”

He then pointed out a gold Nepalese earring that he's had for a long time. “I got on my first trip to Nepal.  In Nepal, it would be worn by a married person.  And when I first went to Nepal, I was in a really remote area.  Everybody had this earring in their ear.  I thought that is a cool earring.  I got to find it somewhere.  So I‘ve had that one for a really long time.”

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Then he mentioned his beaded Maasai earring. “That’s one of those things where not many people have an ear like this.  So when you go someplace where people do have an ear like this, like the Maasai–they have these giant holes in there–then everybody’s like, ‘Oh you got to have this earring, you know. You got to stick this through your ear, you know.'”

“So I get this kind of, ‘Oh you got to have this; you got to have that.'  So that one’s kind of like a gift earring from some Maasai person who I’m sure is hoping that I’ll buy like more earrings.  That happens a lot too.  People would just hand me earrings.  I’ve had Thai hill tribe people hand me earrings.  Tibetans hand me earrings.  I was on a doorstep of some hunting lodge in South Africa and some giant hunter lady hands me a leopard knuckleon a leather string. “This is for your ear” you know. So I get a lot of that too.”

Rohde commented how this is “a simple easy thing to do, and it gives you a little mission each time you go somewhere.  Because I do kind of like the idea when you go somewhere that you have a sense, even a simple sense of mission, because it pushes you into areas you wouldn’t otherwise go, right, which is something a creative person needs to always do.”

While I don't think I'll be collecting earrings like Joe Rohde, I do appreciate the sentiment of having something driving you to explore.

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