Walt Disney Archives: Uncrated has the Ark of the Covenant
A new D23 exhibition recreates the Archives’ storage warehouses, spaces normally restricted to Disney archivists. Statler and Waldorf are there too, off the front of the Hispaniola.
The Ark of the Covenant is sitting on a convention floor in Anaheim.
The prop from Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the items in Walt Disney Archives: Uncrated, a new exhibition that debuted at D23 Thursday night. Laughing Place documented the contents during the media preview.
It’s the first time the Walt Disney Archives has built an exhibit around its own warehouses.
What’s in the Uncrated exhibit
More than the marquee piece.
Laughing Place spotted items from the Game Grid in TRON, Weebo from Flubber, and Statler and Waldorf as they appeared mounted on the front of the Hispaniola in Muppet Treasure Island.
MouseInfo reported additional Muppet material including costumes and props from MuppetVision 3D*.
Costumes across Disney’s film and television history are in there, along with puppets, character pieces, and objects tied to the theme parks.
Why the Muppet*Vision material lands differently this year
MuppetVision 3D* is closed.
The attraction and the Grand Avenue area around it are being replaced by Monstropolis at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which has its own display a few hundred feet away in the Imagineering pavilion.
So the show floor has the future of that plot in one booth and pieces of its past in another. Nobody planned that as a statement, but it reads as one.
How the Uncrated exhibition is set up
As a warehouse, not a museum.
Items are presented as though they were pulled straight from Archives storage, arranged in themed displays built to look like shipments. The framing is that guests are walking through spaces that have historically been open to archivists alone.
Which is the actual pitch. Plenty of these objects have appeared in traveling Disney exhibitions before. The novelty is the room they’re pretending to be in.
Can you see Uncrated without a D23 ticket
No.
The exhibition runs on the show floor at the Anaheim Convention Center through Sunday, August 16, and access requires event admission. Disney has not announced any plan to tour it.
A separate Walt Disney Archives exhibition, Capturing Life, Creating Character, opened August 8 at the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center in Anaheim and runs through November 1. That one is open to the public.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Laughing Place (August 13, 2026), the media preview walkthrough identifying the Ark of the Covenant, the TRON Game Grid pieces, Weebo, and the Statler and Waldorf figures from Muppet Treasure Island
MouseInfo (August 13, 2026), the Muppet*Vision 3D costumes and props
The Walt Disney Company (July 2026), the official Uncrated description and the show floor announcement
Disney Parks Blog (April 2026), the Capturing Life, Creating Character exhibition dates at the Muzeo