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Disneyland

May 4, 2008    Category: Uncategorized   No Comments »

Disneyland is an American theme park in Anaheim, California owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of The Walt Disney Company. It opened on July 17, 1955 in ceremonies led by Walt Disney.

Currently the park has been visited by more than 515 million guests since it opened, including presidents, royalty and other heads of state. In 1998, the theme park was re-branded Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the larger Disneyland Resort complex.

Dedication

“To all who come to this happy place - welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America… with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world. Thank you.”

—Walter E. Disney, July 17, 1955 4:43pm

The dedication to all Disney Parks, begins with the phrase “To all who come to this happy place welcome…” with the exception of the Magic Kingdom park in Florida. The dedication there begins, “Walt Disney World is a tribute to the philosophy and life of Walter Elias Disney…”

History

Concept and construction

The concept for Disneyland began one Sunday, when Walt Disney was visiting Griffith Park with his daughters Diane and Sharon. His idea was simple: a place that both adults and children could enjoy. His dream would lie dormant for many years. Walt Disney’s father helped build the grounds of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. This perhaps gave Disney the creative spark from whence Disneyland originated. The fairgrounds for the World’s Fair were a cheaply constructed set of individual “Country” areas from around the world and areas representing various time periods of man, it also included many “rides” including the first Ferris wheel, sky ride, a passenger train that circled the perimeter, Wild West Show, etc. Although the 1893 World’s Fair was meant only to last a summer in Chicago,in Southern California the weather was accommodating to a “Fair Grounds” of stucco buildings that would otherwise disintegrate in the rain, snow and ice of other climates. One can see the resemblance of a “Land” filled with “rides” and a fair grounds with differently themed areas to the Disneyland created 60 years later in the 1950s as the population of America for the first time shifted West into desert climes.

While many people had written letters to Walt Disney about visiting the Disney Studio Walt realized that a functional movie studio had little to offer to the visiting fans. He then began to foster ideas of building a site near his Burbank studios for tourists to visit. His ideas then evolved to a small play park with a boat ride and other themed areas. Walt’s initial concept, his “Mickey Mouse Park”, started with an eight-acre plot across Riverside Drive.

Walt started to visit other parks for inspiration and ideas, documenting what he liked and did not like. Some of these included: Tivoli Gardens, Greenfield Village, Playland, Children’s Fairyland, and Republica de los niños. He started his designers working on concepts, but these would grow into a project much larger than could be contained in eight acres.

Walt hired a consultant, Harrison Price from Stanford Research Institute to gauge the area’s potential growth. With the report from Price, Disney acquired 160 acres (730,000 m²) of orange groves and walnut trees in Anaheim, south of Los Angeles in neighboring Orange County.

Difficulties in obtaining funding prompted Disney to investigate new methods of fund raising. He decided to use television to get the ideas into people’s homes, and so he created a show named Disneyland which was broadcast on the then fledgling ABC television network. In return, the network agreed to help finance the new park. For the first five years of its operation, Disneyland was owned by Disneyland, Inc., which was jointly owned by Walt Disney Productions and ABC. In 1960 Walt Disney Productions purchased ABC’s share. In addition, many of the shops on Main Street, U.S.A. were owned and operated by other companies who rented space from Disney.

Construction began on July 18, 1954 and would cost USD$17 million to complete and was opened exactly one year later. U.S. Route 101 (later Interstate 5) was under construction at the same time just to the north of the site; in preparation for the traffic which Disneyland was expected to bring, two more lanes were added to the freeway even before the park was finished^.

1955: Opening day

Disneyland Park was opened to the public on Monday, July 18, 1955. However, a special “International Press Preview” event was held on Sunday, July 17, 1955 which was only open to invited guests and the media. The Special Sunday events, including the dedication were televised nationwide and anchored by three of Walt Disney’s friends from Hollywood: Art Linkletter, Bob Cummings, and Ronald Reagan.

The event did not go smoothly. The park was overcrowded as the by-invitation-only affair was plagued with counterfeit tickets. All major roads nearby were empty. The temperature was an unusually high 101°F (38°C), and a plumbers’ strike left many of the park’s drinking fountains dry. The asphalt that had been poured just the night before was so soft that ladies’ high-heeled shoes sank in. Vendors ran out of food. A gas leak in Fantasyland caused Adventureland, Frontierland, and Fantasyland to close for the afternoon. Parents were throwing their children over the shoulders of crowds to get them onto rides such as the King Arthur Carrousel.

The park got such bad press for the event day that Walt Disney invited members of the press back for a private “second day” to experience the true Disneyland, after which Walt held a party in the Disneyland Hotel for them. Walt and his 1955 executives forever referred to the first day as “Black Sunday”, although July 17 is currently acknowledged by Disney as the official opening day. On July 17 every year, cast members wear pin badges stating how many years it has been since July 17, 1955. For example, in 2004 they wore the slogan “The magic began 49 years ago today.” But for the first ten years or so, Disney did officially state that opening day was on July 18, including in the park’s own publications.

On Monday, July 18 crowds started to gather in line as early as 2 a.m., and the first person to buy a ticket and enter the park was David MacPherson with admission ticket number 2, as Roy O. Disney arranged to pre-purchase ticket number 1. Walt Disney had an official photo taken with two children instead, Christine Vess and Michael Schwartner, and the photo of the two carries a caption along the lines of “Walt Disney with the first two guests of Disneyland.” Vess and Schwartner both received lifetime passes to Disneyland that day, and MacPherson was awarded one shortly thereafter, which was later expanded to every single Disney-owned park in the world.

1990s transition: Park becomes Resort

In the late 1990s, work began to expand on the one park property. Disneyland Park and its Hotel, the site of the original parking lot, as well as acquired surrounding properties were earmarked to become part of a greater vacation resort development. The new components of this resort were another theme park, Disney’s California Adventure Park; a shopping and entertainment precinct, Downtown Disney; and a remodeled Disneyland Hotel, Paradise Pier Hotel and Grand Californian Hotel. Because the old parking lot (south of Disneyland) was built upon by these projects, the six-level 10,250 space “Mickey and Friends” parking structure was constructed, the largest parking structure in the US.

The park’s management team of the mid-1990s was a source of controversy among Disneyland fans and employees. In an effort to boost park profits, various changes began by then park executives Cynthia Harriss and Paul Pressler. While their actions provided a short term boost in shareholder returns, it drew widespread criticism from employees and guests alike. With the retail background of Harriss & Pressler, Disneyland’s focus gradually shifted from attractions to merchandising. Outside consultants McKinsey & Co were also brought in to help streamline operations, which resulted in many changes and cutbacks. After nearly a decade of deferred maintenance, Walt Disney’s original theme park was showing visible signs of neglect. Fans of the park decried the perceived decline in customer value and park quality and rallied for the dismissal of the management team.

Disneyland in the 21st Century

Matt Ouimet, formerly the president of the Disney Cruise Line, was promoted to assume leadership of the Disneyland Resort in late 2003. Shortly afterward, he selected Greg Emmer as Senior Vice President of Operations. Emmer is a long-time Disney cast member who had worked at Disneyland in his youth prior to moving to Florida and holding multiple executive leadership positions at the Walt Disney World Resort. Ouimet quickly set about reversing certain trends, especially with regards to cosmetic maintenance and a return to the original infrastructure maintenance schedule, in hopes of restoring the safety record of the past. Much like Walt Disney himself, Ouimet and Emmer could often be seen walking the park during business hours with members of their respective staff. They wore cast member name badges, stood in line for attractions and welcomed comments from guests.

In July 2006, Matt Ouimet announced that he would be leaving The Walt Disney Company to become president of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Soon after this announcement, Ed Grier, executive managing director of Walt Disney Attractions Japan, was named president of the Disneyland Resort. Greg Emmer retired from his job on February 8, 2008.

50th anniversary

The Happiest Homecoming on Earth was the eighteen-month-long celebration (held through 2005 and 2006) of the fiftieth anniversary of the Disneyland theme park, which opened on July 17, 1955. The Happiest Celebration on Earth commemorated fifty years of Disney theme parks, and celebrated Disneyland’s milestone throughout Disney parks all over the globe. In 2004, the park undertook a number of major renovation projects in preparation for its fiftieth anniversary celebration. Many classic attractions were restored, notably Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise, and Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. The 50th Anniversary celebration ended on September 30, 2006.

Park layout

The park is divided into realms, which radiate like the four cardinal points of the compass from Central Plaza, and well-concealed backstage areas. On entering a realm, a guest is completely immersed in the environment and is unable to see or hear any other realm. The idea behind this was to develop theatrical “stages” with seamless passages from one land to the next. The public areas occupy approximately 85 acres (344,000 m²). When the park initially opened, it consisted of five themed areas:

• Main Street, U.S.A., an early 20th century Midwest town
• Adventureland, featuring jungle adventures
• Frontierland, illustrating western frontier
• Fantasyland, bringing fantasy into a reality
• Tomorrowland, looking into the future.

Since the initial opening, additional areas have been added:

• In 1957, Holidayland, a nine-acre recreation area including a circus and baseball diamond which was closed in late 1961.
• In 1966, New Orleans Square, based on 19th century New Orleans
• In 1972, “Bear Country”, themed to the forests of the Pacific Northwest. It was later renamed Critter Country and themed around Splash Mountain’s Song of the South elements.
• In 1993, Mickey’s Toontown, themed around the Toontown seen in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit

An elevated berm supports a narrow gauge railroad which circumnavigates the park. California Adventure Park was added in what used to be a Disneyland’s parking lot.

Lands of Disneyland

Main Street, U.S.A.

Main Street, U.S.A. is patterned after a typical midwest town of the early 20th century. Walt Disney derived inspiration from his boyhood town of Marceline, Missouri and worked closely with designers and architects to develop the Main Street appeal. It is the first area guests see when they enter the park, and is how guests reach Central Plaza. At the center of The Magic Kingdom and immediately North of Central Plaza stands Sleeping Beauty Castle, which provides entrance to Fantasyland by way of a drawbridge across a moat. Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland are arrayed on both sides of the castle.

“	For those of us who remember the carefree time it recreates, Main Street will bring back happy memories. For younger visitors, it is an adventure in turning back the calendar to the days of grandfather’s youth.	”
	— Walt E. Disney

Main Street, U.S.A. is reminiscent of the Victorian period of Americana with the train station, town square, movie theatre, city hall, firehouse complete with a steam-powered pump engine, emporium, shops, arcades, double-decker bus, horse-drawn streetcar, jitneys and other bits of memorabilia. At the far end of Main Street, U.S.A. is Sleeping Beauty Castle, and the Plaza hub which is a portal to all the theme lands.

The design of Main Street, U.S.A. utilizes a process to give the appearance of height called forced perspective. Buildings down Main Street are built at 3/4 scale on the first level, then 5/8 on the second story, and 1/2 scale on the third.

Adventureland

Adventureland is designed to be an exotic tropical place in a far-off region of the world. “To create a land that would make this dream reality”, said Walt Disney, “we pictured ourselves far from civilization, in the remote jungles of Asia and Africa.” Attractions include opening day’s Jungle Cruise, the “Temple of the Forbidden Eye” in Indiana Jones Adventure, and Tarzan’s Treehouse, which is a conversion of the earlier Swiss Family Robinson Tree House from the Walt Disney film, Swiss Family Robinson. Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room which is located at the entrance to Adventureland is the first feature attraction to employ Audio-Animatronics, a computer synchronization of sound and robotics.

New Orleans Square

Main article: New Orleans Square

New Orleans Square is a themed land based on 19th century New Orleans. It was opened to the public on July 24, 1966. Despite its age, it is still very popular with Disneyland guests, being home to two of the park’s most popular attractions: Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. Hidden in the walkway near the Blue Bayou Restaurant, there is a doorway with the number 33 beside it. This is the entrance to a private members-only club inside Disneyland, that members pay high amounts of money to get into. Club 33 is the only place in Disneyland proper to have alcoholic beverages.

Frontierland

Frontierland recreates the setting of pioneer days along the American frontier. According to Walt Disney, “All of us have cause to be proud of our country’s history, shaped by the pioneering spirit of our forefathers. Our adventures are designed to give you the feeling of having lived, even for a short while, during our country’s pioneer days.” Frontierland is home to the Pinewood Indians band of animatronics Native Americans, who live on the banks of the Rivers of America. Entertainment and attractions include Fantasmic!, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Mark Twain Riverboat, and Sailing Ship Columbia. May 2007 featured the opening of “Pirate’s Lair at Tom Sawyer Island”. Frontierland is also home to the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, a show palace straight out of the Old West. Currently the comedic troupe “Billy Hill and the Hillbillies” entertain guests on a daily basis.

Critter Country

Critter Country opened in 1972 as “Bear Country”, and was renamed in 1988. Formerly the area was home to Indian Village where actual indigenous tribespeople demonstrated their dances and other customs. Today, the main draw of the area is Splash Mountain, a log-flume journey inspired by the Uncle Remus stories of Joel Chandler Harris and the animated segments of Disney’s Academy Award-winning 1946 film, Song of the South. In 2003, a dark ride called The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh replaced the Country Bear Jamboree The Country Bear Jamboree presented shows featuring singing bear characters that were original to Disneyland and were visualized through electronically-controlled and mechanically-animated puppets, known as audio-animatronics.

Fantasyland

Fantasyland is the area of the Disneyland of which Walt Disney said, “What youngster has not dreamed of flying with Peter Pan over moonlit London, or tumbling into Alice’s nonsensical Wonderland? In Fantasyland, these classic stories of everyone’s youth have become realities for youngsters - of all ages - to participate in.” Fantasyland was originally styled in a medieval European fairground fashion, but its 1983 refurbishment turned it into a Bavarian village. Attractions include several dark rides, the King Arthur Carrousel, and various children’s rides.

Mickey’s Toontown

Mickey’s Toontown opened in 1993 and was partly inspired by the fictional Los Angeles suburb of Toontown in The Walt Disney Studios’ 1988 release Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Mickey’s Toontown is a 1930s cartoon come-to-life and is home to Disney’s most popular cartoon characters. Toontown features two main rides, Gadget’s Go Coaster and Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. The “city” is also home to cartoon character’s houses such as the house of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. It is also home to Goofy’s Bounce House.

Tomorrowland

During the 1955 inauguration Walt Disney dedicated Tomorrowland with these words: “Tomorrow can be a wonderful age. Our scientists today are opening the doors of the Space Age to achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future.”

Disneyland producer Ward Kimball had Rocket scientists Wernher von Braun, Willy Ley, and Heinz Haber as technical consultants during the original design of Tomorrowland.^[5] Initial attractions included a Rocket to the Moon; later, the first incarnation of the Submarine Voyage was added. The area underwent a major transformation in 1967 to become New Tomorrowland, and then again in 1998 when its focus was changed to present a “retro-future” theme reminiscent of the illustrations of Jules Verne.

Current attractions include Space Mountain, Star Tours, and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage opened on June 11, 2007, resurrecting the original Submarine Voyage which closed in 1998. Innoventions is currently partially closed (lower level only, upper level is open) to allow a new version of the House of the Future to be installed on the lower level.

Theatrical analogy

Disneyland staff use theatrical terminology. This is to emphasize that a visit to the park is intended to be similar to witnessing a performance. For example, visitors are referred to as Guests and park employees as Cast Members. On Stage refers to any area of the Resort that is open to Guests. Backstage refers to any area of the Resort that is closed to Guests. Costume is the attire that Cast Members who perform the day-to-day operations of the park must wear. Terms such as uniform are not used. Show is the Resort’s presentation to its Guests, such as the color and façades of buildings, placement of rides/attractions, costumes to match the themed lands. When signing credit card receipts for souvenirs or food, Guests are asked for their autograph.

The theatrical motif extends to aspects of the park’s layout and design. For example, entering the park requires you to pass through one of two tunnels underneath the Main Street Train Station; akin to an opening curtain. The windows above Main Street serve as credits, containing names of key people who worked on the park. Each of the lands was originally presented as a unique act, with transitions between lands much like transitions between scenes in theatre or film.

Transportation

Walt Disney had a longtime interest in transportation, and trains in particular. He even built a miniature live steam backyard railroad, the “Carolwood Pacific Railroad”, on the grounds of his Holmby Hills estate. Throughout all the iterations of Disneyland during the seventeen or so years when Mr. Disney was conceiving it, one element remained constant: a train encircling the park. The primary designer for the park transportation vehicles was Bob Gurr who gave himself the title of “Director of Special Vehicle Design” in 1954.

Disneyland Railroad

Encircling Disneyland and providing a grand circle tour is the Disneyland Railroad, a short-line railway consisting of five oil-fired and steam-powered locomotives, in addition to three passenger trains and one passenger-carrying freight train. Originally known as the Disneyland and Santa Fe Railroad, the D.R.R. was presented by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway until 1974. From 1955 to 1974, the Santa Fe Rail Pass was able to be used in lieu of a Disneyland “D” coupon. Laid to three-foot gauge, the most common narrow gauge measurement used in North America, the track runs in a continuous loop around The Magic Kingdom through each of its realms. Each turn-of-the-19th-Century train departs Main Street Station on an excursion that includes scheduled station stops at: Frontierland Station; Toontown Depot, the gateway to Fantasyland; and, Tomorrowland Station. The Grand Circle Tour then concludes with a visit to the “Grand Canyon/Primeval World” dioramas before returning passengers to Main Street, U.S.A.

Disneyland Monorail System

Main article: Disneyland Monorail System

One of Disneyland’s signature attractions is its monorail service, which opened in Tomorrowland in 1959 as the first daily-operating monorail train system in the Western Hemisphere. The monorail guideway has remained almost exactly the same since 1961, aside from small alterations while Indiana Jones Adventure was being built. Four generations of monorail trains have been used in the park, since their lightweight construction means they wear out quickly. The most recent operating generation, the Mark V, was installed in 1987 when more modern trains built by Ride & Show Engineering eliminated the old ALWEG Buck Rogers-style trains. The monorail shuttles visitors between two stations, one inside the park in Tomorrowland and one in Downtown Disney. It follows a 2.5 mile (4 km) long route designed to show the park from above. Currently, the system is operating with only one monorail (purple) and offering one-way trips only while the Mark VII generation is being prepared.

The original destination of the monorail was the Disneyland Hotel. With the creation of Downtown Disney in 2001, the new destination is Downtown Disney, instead of the Disneyland Hotel. The physical location of the monorail station did not change, however the terminal is now separated from the hotel by several Downtown Disney buildings, including ESPN Zone and the Rainforest Café.

Main Street vehicles

All vehicles that are found on Main Street were designed to accurately reflect turn-of-the-century vehicles, including a double-decker bus, a horse-drawn streetcar, a fire engine, and an automobile. They are available for one-way rides along Main Street, U.S.A. The horseless carriages are modeled after cars built in 1903. They are two-cylinder, four-horsepower (3 kW) engines with manual transmission and steering. Walt Disney used to drive the fire engine around the park before it opened, on most mornings. It has also been used to host celebrity guests and used in the parades.

Disneyland Helipad

Located behind Tommorowland, Disneyland was once connected to Los Angeles International Airport via helicopter service provided by Los Angeles Airways. The service to Disneyland suffered two tragic accidents in 1968 including Los Angeles Airways Flight 417 losing 21 lives. Transportation via helicopter to the park is no longer being offered.

Live entertainment

In addition to the attractions, Disneyland provides live entertainment throughout the park.

Characters

Disney characters, who greet visitors, interact with children, and pose for photos, can be found throughout the park. Some characters have specific areas where they are scheduled to appear, but can be found wandering as well. One reason Mickey’s Toontown was created was so that there would be a place for Mickey Mouse to always be available to greet guests in his own house.

Periodically through recent decades (and most recently during the summers of 2005 and 2006), Mickey Mouse has climbed the Matterhorn attraction several times a day with the support of his friends Minnie, Goofy, and some Disneyland guests. Other mountain climbers could also be seen on the Matterhorn from time to time. As of Spring 2007, Mickey and his “toon” friends no longer climb the Matterhorn but the climbing program continues.

Daily ceremonies

Every evening at dusk, there is a flag ceremony to lower the American Flag for the day.

The Disneyland Band

The Disneyland Band, which has been part of the park since its opening, plays the role of the Town Band on Main Street, U.S.A. It also breaks out into smaller groups like the Main Street Strawhatters, the Hook and Ladder Co., and the Pearly Band in Fantasyland.

Fantasmic!

Fantasmic! is a popular multimedia nighttime show hosted by Mickey Mouse which debuted in 1992. The presentation is made at the Laffite’s Tavern end of Pirate’s Lair at Tom Sawyer Island and uses the Rivers of America as part of the stage. It uses Frontierland and New Orleans Square as the spectator arena.

It consists of synchronized lighting and special effects, with floating barges, the Mark Twain Riverboat, the Sailing Ship Columbia, fountains, lasers, fireworks, thirty-foot-tall “water screens” upon which animated scenes are projected, and an automated forty-five foot fire-breathing dragon.

Fireworks

Elaborate fireworks shows synchronized with Disney songs and often an appearance by the Peter Pan character Tinker Bell. Recent presentations have become more elaborate, featuring new pyrotechnics, launch techniques and story lines. In 2004, Disneyland introduced a new air launch pyrotechnics system, reducing ground level smoke and noise and decreasing negative environmental impacts. At the time the technology debuted, Disney announced it would donate the patents to a non-profit organization for use throughout the industry.

• 1958-1999 Fantasy in the Sky
• 2000-2004 Believe… There’s Magic in the Stars
• 2004-2005 Imagine… A Fantasy in the Sky
• 2005-Present Remember… Dreams Come True

During the Holiday Season, there is a special fireworks presentation called Believe… In Holiday Magic which has been running since 2000, except for a short hiatus in 2005 during the park’s 50th Celebration.

The Golden Horseshoe Revue

The Golden Horseshoe Saloon offers a live stage show with a frontier or old-west feel. The Golden Horseshoe Revue is an old-west Vaudeville type of show starring Slue Foot (or Sluefoot) Sue and Pecos Bill. It ran until the mid-1980s, when it was replaced by a similar show starring Lily Langtree (or Miss Lily) and Sam the Bartender. Most recently, Billy Hill and the Hillbillies have played their guitars and banjos in a bluegrass-and-comedy show.

Additionally, in front of the Golden Horsehose Saloon, The Laughing Stock Co. enacts small humorous skits with an old-west theme.

Parades

Disneyland has always had parades that have marched down Main Street. There are several daytime and nighttime parades that celebrate Disney films or seasonal holidays with characters, music, and large floats. One of the most popular parades was the Main Street Electrical Parade (now at Disney’s California Adventure as Disney’s Electrical Parade). Debuting in May 2005 as part of the Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary, Walt Disney’s Parade of Dreams is presented, celebrating several of the classic Disney stories including The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Alice in Wonderland, and Pinocchio. During the holiday season, Disneyland presents “A Christmas Fantasy” Parade which celebrates the joy & wonder of the holiday season.

Tomorrowland Terrace

The Tomorrowland Terrace is a stage in Tomorrowland. It is a two-story stage where the lower stage rises from below with dramatic effect. It was popular in the 1960s with music performers of the day. Over the years, it was eventually replaced with Club Buzz, a Buzz Lightyear themed stage and show featuring the space character from the Toy Story movies. In 2006, it was restored to the Tomorrowland Terrace with the same style and design as the original. It is now home to the Jedi Training Academy interactive stage show where children are chosen as Jedi padawan and taught how to use a Lightsaber. Each child then has the opportunity to face either Darth Vader or Darth Maul. Recently, local bands have returned to play in the evenings, just as Tomorrowland Terrace hosted in the 1960s.

Other performers

Various other unscheduled street performers play and sing throughout the park, including:

• The various Main Street Piano Players play at Corner Cafe, also known as “Coke Corner” on Main Street;
• The Dapper Dans barbershop quartet often sings on Main Street;
• The Firehouse Five Plus Two, originally a band composed of WED Imagineers, can be found on Main Street. The Firehouse Five began at the peak of the California revival of traditional jazz - owing as much to vaudeville as it does to New Orleans jazz, it invoked the spirit of America’s early popular music;
• Various bands in New Orleans Square, often with a jazz influence;
• The Bootstrappers, a band of pirates that performs songs based on Pirates of the Caribbean, along with other sea-shanties;
• The Trash Can Trio, a STOMP like group that performs using trashcans in Tomorrowland;
• Merlin, appears in Fantasyland several times a day to help some lucky child pull the sword from an anvil and stone; and
• Alice in Wonderland characters staging a wacky game of “Musical Chairs” either at “Coke Corner” or the porch of the Plaza Inn daily.

During the summer months, the All-American College Band performs around the park. The band is composed of talented college students who audition for the chance to perform in Disneyland.

Also, during the Holidays, many other smaller entertainment offerings are added, such as the Main Street Carolers who perform throughout the day.

Tickets

From Disneyland’s opening day until 1982, the price of the attractions was in addition to the price of park admission.^[10] Park-goers paid a small admission fee to get into the park, but in order to be admitted to most of the rides and attractions they would purchase a book of tickets that consisted of several coupons, initially labeled “A” through “D”. The coupons were also sold individually. “A” coupons allowed admission to the smaller rides and attractions such as the vehicles on Main Street, whereas “C” coupons were used for the most common attractions like the Peter Pan ride, or the Tea Cups. As more thrilling rides were introduced, such as the Monorail or the Matterhorn bobsled, “D” and then eventually “E” coupons were introduced. Coupons could be combined to equal the equivalent of another ticket, e.g. if an “A” ticket was worth 1/5th of an “E” ticket, a “B” ticket was worth 2 “A” tickets, a “C” ticket was worth three, etc., for an “E” ticket ride one could use one “E” ticket, three “B” tickets, two “B” and one “A”, two “C”, or five “A” tickets, or various combinations; two “A” tickets could be used for a “B” ticket or three “A” for a “C”; one “A” and one “B” or two “B” tickets could be used for a “C”, etc. From the thrill ride experience at Disneyland, the colloquial expression “an E ticket ride” is used to describe any exceptionally thrilling experience.

Later Disneyland featured a “Keys to the Kingdom” booklet of tickets, which consisted of 10 unvalued coupons sold for a single flat rate. These coupons could be used for any attraction regardless of its regular value. Obviously it would behoove the buyer to use these for the most thrilling attractions or rides.

In 1982 Disney dropped the idea for individual ride tickets to a single admission price with unlimited access to all attractions, “except shooting galleries” .^[11] While this idea was not original to Disney, its business advantages were obvious: in addition to guaranteeing that everyone paid a large sum even if they stayed for only a few hours and rode only a few rides, the park no longer had to print tickets or ticket books, staff ticket booths, or provide staff to collect tickets or monitor attractions for people sneaking on without tickets.

Later Disney introduced other entry options such as multi-day passes, Annual Passes which allow unlimited entry to the Park for an annual fee and Southern California residents’ discounts.

One-Day, One-Park, Adult Admission Prices over time

Year	1981*	1982	1984	1985	1986	1987	1990	1991	1993	1994
Price US$	$10.75	$12.00	$14.00	$17.95	$18.00	$21.50	$25.50	$27.50	$28.75	$31.00
Month & Year	Jan 1999	Jan 2000	Nov 2000	Mar 2002	Jan 2003	Mar 2004	Jan 2005	Jun 2005	Jan 2006	Sep 2006	Sep 2007
Price US$	$39.00	$41.00	$43.00	$45.00	$47.00	$49.75	$53.00	$56.00	$59.00	$63.00	$66.00

* previous to 1982 passport tickets were available to groups only.

Fastpass

In 1999, in an effort to offset the long waits for the most popular attractions, Disney implemented a new service called FASTPASS. At attractions featuring Fastpass, a guest can use their park admission ticket to obtain a Fastpass ticket with a return time later that day printed on it. If the guest returns to the attraction at their return time, they can wait in a shorter line and typically be on the attraction within ten minutes. Initially, only a few attractions offered this service, but Disney has adjusted the system by adding and removing Fastpass attractions, which has meant that the list of Fastpass equipped attractions has changed over time.

Closures

Disneyland Park has only had three unscheduled closures since it opened in 1955:

• In 1963 due to President Kennedy’s assassination.
• In 1970 due to an “invasion” and demonstration by Yippies in August. The stated reason for the attack was because Bank of America — a sponsor of Disneyland — was financing the Vietnam War, which they opposed.
• Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, both of the resort’s parks did not open for the day.

Additionally, planned closures included:

• In the early years, the park was often scheduled to be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays during the off-season. This was in cooperation with nearby Knott’s Berry Farm, which closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays to keep costs down for both parks, while offering Orange County visitors a place to go 7 days a week.
• On May 4, 2005 for the 50th Anniversary Celebration media event.
• Due to various special events, the park has closed unusually early to accommodate them, such as, special press events, tour groups, VIP groups, private parties, etc. It was common for a corporation to rent the entire park for the evening. The corporation’s guests would be issued special passes, which were good for admission to all rides and attractions. In the late afternoon, park employees would announce that the park was closing, then clear the park of everyone without the special corporate passes.

Management

On a minute-to-minute basis, the parks are run by stage managers, who are identified by their radio call signs. These managers respond to situations throughout the park and are empowered to open backstage areas for crowd control purposes, close specific locations, or even close the entire park.

Theme Park One is Disneyland’s senior on-the-ground manager, a position which rotates among a group of managers in the resort’s Theme Park Operations department. Theme Park Two is Disney’s California Adventure’s equivalent to Theme Park One. Guest Service Managers from the park’s several business units, including Attractions, Custodial, Foods, Merchandise, and Security, report to the Department Director who in turn reports to Theme Park One, and are given call signs such as Attractions One or Merch One. Various assistant managers, in turn, report to their business unit’s duty manager, and carry call signs such as River One (the manager in charge of the Critter Country and New Orleans Square rides). As of 2007, most Departments have only one manager with the others being Guest Service Managers (GSM), Temporary Salaried Managers (TSA), or Management Interns (MI).

A Rank of “General Lead” was briefly used in 2002-2003 to save on the cost of labor but actually got the Assistant Managers in trouble for delegating most of their job functions to the general leads who in turn, did a better job on stage with both the Guests and Cast Members. Lead status was suspended in the early 1990’s with mixed results (mostly positive) and again, as a cost saving measure, but proved to be impossible as the Managers and Assistant Managers were unable to keep up on supervising duties. The problem was determined by senior park management that the Cast members were not as trust worthy as the Cast Members at Walt Disney World on many fronts including reporting for shifts and using good judgment. It should also be noted that the Cast as a whole is much younger at the Disneyland Resort, with the bulk of the Cast Members being in their early 20’s where as the bulk of the Cast at Walt Disney World averages early to mid 30’s in age.

Ranking Structure for most Departments: Vice-President, Director, Operations Manager, General Manager, Guest Service Manager, Lead, Trainer, Cast Member.

Past presidents include Jack Lindquist (1989-1993), Paul Pressler (1994-2002), Cynthia Harriss (2002-2003), and Matt Ouimet (2003-2006).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/

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About Walt Disney

May 4, 2008    Category: Uncategorized   No Comments »

1901–1937: The beginnings

Childhood

Walt Disney was born to Elias Disney an Irish-Canadian, and his mother, Flora Call Disney, who was of German-American descent. His father moved to the United States from Canada after his parents failed at farming there. After Walt’s birth, Elias along with his family moved to Marceline, Missouri. While in Marceline, Disney developed his love for drawing. One of their neighbours, a retired doctor named “Doc” Sherwood, paid him to draw pictures of Sherwood’s horse, Rupert. He also developed his love for trains in Marceline, which owed its existence to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway which ran through town. Walt would put his ear to the tracks in anticipation of the coming train. Then he would look for his uncle, engineer Michael Martin, running the train.

The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years, moving to Kansas City in 1910. There, Walt and his sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School where he met Walter Pfeiffer. The Pfeiffers were theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Soon, Walt was spending more time at the Pfeiffers’ than at home.

Teenage years

In 1917, Elias acquired shares in the O-Zell jelly factory in Chicago and moved his family back there. In the fall, Disney began his freshman year at McKinley High School and began taking night courses at the Chicago Art Institute. Disney became the cartoonist for the school newspaper. His cartoons were very patriotic, focusing on World War I. Disney dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to join the Army, but the army rejected him because he was underage.

After his rejection from the army, Walt and one of his friends decided to join the Red Cross. Following his joining the The Red Cross, he was sent to France for a year, where he drove an ambulance.

He then moved to Kansas City to begin his artistic career. His brother Roy worked at a bank in the area and got a job for him through a friend at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio. At Pesmen-Rubin, Disney created ads for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters. It was here that he met a cartoonist named Ubbe Iwerks. Both of them became close friends and decided to start their own art business.

In January 1920, Disney and Iwerks formed a company called, “Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists”. However, following a rough start, Iwerks left temporarily to earn money at Kansas City Film Ad Company. Disney followed suit after the business venture was taken over by his New York financial backers Winkler and Mintz.

Hollywood

Together with his brother, Disney pooled in money to set up his first Hollywood cartoon studio in his uncle’s garage. Disney sent an unfinished print to New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who promptly wrote back to him. She was keen on a distribution deal with Disney for more live-action/animated shorts based upon Alice’s Wonderland.

Alice Comedies

Virginia Davis (the live-action star of Alice’s Wonderland) and her family were relocated at Disney’s request from Kansas City to Hollywood, as were Iwerks and his family. This was the beginning of the Disney Brothers’ Studio. It was located on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district, where the studio would remain until 1939. In 1925, Disney hired a young woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid. After a brief period of dating her, the two got married the same year.

The new series, Alice Comedies, was reasonably successful, and featured both Dawn O’Day and Margie Gay as Alice. Lois Hardwick also briefly assumed the role of Alice. By the time the series ended in 1927, the focus was more on the animated characters, in particular a cat named Julius who resembled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

By 1927, Charles B. Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business, and ordered a new all-animated series to be put into production for distribution through Universal Pictures. The new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was an almost instant success, and the character, Oswald—drawn and created by Iwerks—became a popular figure. The Disney studio expanded, and Walt hired back Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng from Kansas City.

In February 1928, Disney went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz. Disney was shocked when Mintz announced that not only he wanted to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng (notably excepting Iwerks) under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney. Disney declined Mintz’s offer and lost most of his animation staff.

It took Disney’s company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character. The Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal in 2006.

Mickey Mouse

After losing the rights to Oswald, Disney felt the need to develop a new character to replace him. He based the character on a mouse he had adopted as a pet while working in a Kansas City studio. Ub Iwerks reworked on the sketches made by Disney so that it was easier to animate it. However, Mickey’s voice and personality was provided by Disney. As many of the old animators have commented, “Ub designed Mickey’s physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul. Besides Oswald and Mickey, a similar mouse-character is seen in Alice Comedies which featured a mouse named Ike the Mouse, and the first Flip the Frog cartoon called Fiddlesticks, which showed a Mickey Mouse-look alike playing fiddle. The initial films were animated by Iwerks, his name was prominently featured on the title cards. The mouse was originally named “Mortimer”, but later christened “Mickey Mouse” by Lillian Disney who thought that the name Mortimer did not fit. Mortimer later became the name of Mickey’s rival for Minnie, who was taller than his renowned adversary and had a Brooklyn accent.

The first animated short with Mickey in it was titled, Plane Crazy, which was, like all of Disney’s previous works, a silent film. After failing to find a distributor for Plane Crazy or its follow-up, The Gallopin’ Gaucho, Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound called Steamboat Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. Steamboat Willie became a success, and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. Disney himself provided the vocal effects for the earliest cartoons and performed as the voice of Mickey Mouse until 1946. After the release of Steamboat Willie, Walt Disney would continue to successfully use sound in all of his future cartoons; soon, Mickey eclipsed Felix as the world’s most popular cartoon. By 1930, Felix, now in sound, had faded from the screen, as his sound cartoons failed to gain attention. Mickey’s popularity would now skyrocket in the early 1930’s.

Silly Symphonies

Following the footsteps of Mickey Mouse series, a series of musical shorts titled, Silly Symphonies was released in 1929. The first of these was entitled The Skeleton Dance and was entirely drawn and animated by Iwerks, who was also responsible for drawing the majority of cartoons released by Disney in 1928 and 1929. Although both series were successful, the Disney studio was not seeing its rightful share of profits from Pat Powers, and in 1930, Disney signed a new distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. The original basis of the cartoons were musical novelty, and Carl Stalling wrote the score for the first Silly Symphony cartoons as well.

Iwerks was soon lured by Powers into opening his own studio with an exclusive contract. Later, Carl Stalling would also leave Disney to join Iwerks’ new studio. Iwerks launched his Flip the Frog series with first voice cartoon in color, “Fiddlesticks,” filmed in two-strip Technicolor. Iwerks also created two other series of cartoons, the Willie Whopper and the Comicolor. In 1936, Iwerks shut his studio to work on various projects dealing with animation technology. He would return to Disney in 1940 and, would go on to pioneer a number of film processes and specialized animation technologies in the studio’s research and development department.

By 1932, Mickey Mouse had become quite a popular cinema character, but Silly Symphonies was not as successful. The same year also saw competition for Disney grow worse as Max Fleischer’s flapper cartoon character, Betty Boop would gain more popularity among theater audiences; Fleischer was considered to be Disney’s main rival in the 1930’s, and was also the father of Richard Fleischer, whom Disney would later hire to direct his 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures dropped the distribution of Disney cartoons and was replaced by United Artists. In late 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first three-strip technicolor camera, approached Walt and convinced him to redo Flowers and Trees, which was originally done in black and white, with three-strip Technicolor. Flowers and Trees would go on to be a phenomenal success and would also win the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons for 1932. After Flowers and Trees was released, all future Silly Symphony cartoons were done in color as well. Disney was also able to negotiate a two-year deal with Technicolor, giving him the sole right to use three-strip Technicolor, which would also eventually be extended to five years as well. The cartoon ran in theaters for many months, and also featured the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf”.

First Academy Award

In 1932, Disney received a special Academy Award for the creation of “Mickey Mouse”, whose series was made into color in 1935 and soon launched spinoff series for supporting characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto; Pluto and Donald would immediately get their individual cartoons in 1937, and Goofy would get solo cartoons in 1939 as well. Of all of Mickey’s partners, Donald Duck–who first teamed with Mickey in the 1934 cartoon, Orphan’s Benefit–was arguably the most popular, and went on to become Disney’s second most successful cartoon character of all time.

The family grows

Disney’s first attempt at pregnancy ended up in Lilly having a miscarriage. When Lilly Disney became pregnant again, she gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, on December 18, 1933. A few years later, the Disneys adopted Sharon Mae Disney, (born December 21, 1934) as their second child.

1937–1941: The Golden Age of Animation

“Disney’s Folly”: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

After the creation of two cartoon series, Disney soon began plans for a full-length feature in 1934. In 1935, opinion polls showed that another cartoon series, Popeye the Sailor, produced by Max Fleischer, was more popular than Mickey Mouse; Disney was, however, able to put Mickey back on top, and also increase Mickey’s popularity further by colorizing him and partially redesigning him into what was considered to be his most appealling design up to this point in time. When the film industry came to know about Disney’s plans to produce an animated feature-length version of Snow White, they dubbed the project as “Disney’s Folly” and were certain that the project would destroy the Disney studio. Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk Disney out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature. He employed Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff, and used the Silly Symphonies as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus such as the multiplane camera; Disney would first use this new technique in the 1937 Silly Symphonies short The Old Mill.

All of this development and training was used to elevate the quality of the studio so that it would be able to give the feature film, the quality Disney desired. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as the feature was named, was in full production from 1934 until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. To acquire the funding to complete Snow White, Disney had to show a rough cut of the motion picture to loan officers at the Bank of America, who gave the studio the money to finish the picture. The finished film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937; at the conclusion of the film, the audience gave Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a standing ovation. Snow White, the first animated feature in English and Technicolor, was released in February 1938 under a new distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures; RKO had previously been the distributor for Disney cartoons in 1936, after it closed down the Van Beuren Studios in exchange for distribution.^[24] The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million in its original theatrical release. The success of Snow White, (for which Disney received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar statuettes) allowed Disney to build a new campus for the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, which opened for business on December 24, 1939; Snow White was not only the peak of Disney’s success, but it also ushered into what was known as the Golden Age of Animation for Disney. The feature animation staff, having just completed Pinocchio, continued work on Fantasia and Bambi, while the shorts staff continued work on the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoon series, ending the Silly Symphonies at this time. Animator Fred Moore had redesigned Mickey Mouse in the late 1930’s, when Donald Duck began to gain more popularity among theater audiences than Mickey Mouse.

Wartime woes

Pinocchio and Fantasia followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the movie theaters in 1940, but both were financial disappointments. The inexpensive Dumbo was planned as an income generator, but during production of the new film, most of the animation staff went on strike, permanently straining the relationship between Disney and his artists.

Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. Army contracted most of the Disney studio’s facilities and had the staff create training and instructional films for the military, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as Der Fuehrer’s Face and the feature film Victory Through Air Power in 1943. However, the military films did not generate income, and the feature film Bambi underperformed when it was released in April 1942. Disney successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944, establishing a 7-year re-release tradition for Disney features.

The Disney studios also created inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, and issued them to theaters during this period. The most notable and successful of these were Saludos Amigos (1942), its sequel The Three Caballeros (1945), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The latter had only two sections: the first based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, and the second based on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. During this period, Disney also ventured into full-length dramatic films that mixed live action and animated scenes, including Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart. After the war ended, Mickey’s popularity would also fade as well.

By the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, which had been shelved during the war years, and began work on Cinderella, which became Disney’s most successful film since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio also began a series of live-action nature films, entitled True-Life Adventures, in 1948 with On Seal Island. Despite rebounding success through feature films, Disney’s animation shorts were no longer as popular as they used to be, and people began to instead draw attention to Warner Bros and their animation star Bugs Bunny; by 1942, Warner Bros’ Termite Terrace officially became the most popular animation studio However, while Bugs Bunny’s popularity rose in the 1940’s, so did Donald Duck’s; Donald would also replace Mickey Mouse as Disney’s star character in 1949.

Testimony before Congress

In 1947, during the early years of the Cold War, Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, as Communist agitators. All three men denied the allegations. Disney implicated the Screen Actors Guild as a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood. However, no evidence has been discovered to support this.

1955–1966: Theme parks and beyond

Carolwood Pacific Railroad

Main article: Carolwood Pacific Railroad

During 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home on a large piece of property in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. With the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, owners of their own backyard railroad, Disney developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his backyard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, originated from the address of his home that was located on Carolwood Drive. The railroad’s half-mile long layout included a 46-foot (14 m)-long trestle, loops, overpasses, gradients, an elevated dirt berm, and a 90-foot (27 m) tunnel underneath Mrs. Disney’s flowerbed. He named the miniature working steam locomotive built by Roger E. Broggie of the Disney Studios Lilly Belle in his wife’s honor. He had his attorney draw up right-of-way papers giving the railroad a permanent, legal easement through the garden areas, which his wife dutifully signed; However, there is no evidence of the documents ever recorded as a restriction on the property’s title.

Planning Disneyland

On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. He got his idea for a children’s theme park after visiting Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, California. This plan was originally meant for a plot located south of the Studio, across the street. The original ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that was to become Disneyland. Disney spent five years of his life developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary of his company, called WED Enterprises, to carry out the planning and production of the park. A small group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.

When describing one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman (who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland which was presented to the Bank of America while requesting for funds), Disney said, “Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train.” Entertaining his daughters and their friends in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired Disney to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.

Expanding into new areas

As Walt Disney Productions began work on Disneyland, it also began expanding its other entertainment operations. In 1950, Treasure Island became the studio’s first all-live-action feature, and was soon followed by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in CinemaScope, 1954), The Shaggy Dog (1959), and The Parent Trap (1961). The Walt Disney Studio produced its first TV special, One Hour in Wonderland, in 1950. Disney began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC named Disneyland after the park, where he showed clips of past Disney productions, gave tours of his studio, and familiarized the public with Disneyland as it was being constructed in Anaheim, California. The show also featured a Davy Crockett miniseries, which started a craze among the American youth known as the Davy Crockett craze, in which millions of coonskin caps and other Crockett memorabilia were sold across the country. In 1955, the studio’s first daily television show, Mickey Mouse Club debuted, which would continue in many various incarnations into the 1990s.

As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less of his attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. During Disney’s lifetime, the animation department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (in CinemaScope, 1955), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), Sleeping Beauty (in Super Technirama 70mm, 1959) and The Sword in the Stone (1963).

Production on the short cartoons had kept pace until 1956, when Disney shut down the shorts division. Special shorts projects would continue to be made for the rest of the studio’s duration on an irregular basis. These productions were all distributed by Disney’s new subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution, which had assumed all distribution duties for Disney films from RKO by 1955. Disneyland, one of the world’s first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based upon a number of successful Disney properties and films. After 1955, the show, Disneyland came to be known as Walt Disney Presents. The show transformed from black-and-white to color in 1961 and changed its name to Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, moving from ABC to NBC, and eventually evolving into its current form as The Wonderful World of Disney. It continued to air on NBC until 1981, when CBS picked it up. Since then, it has aired on ABC, NBC, Hallmark Channel and Cartoon Network via separate broadcast rights deals.

During the mid-1950s, Disney produced a number of educational films on the space program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in Space and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957.

Early 1960s successes

By the early 1960s, the Disney empire was a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had established itself as the world’s leading producer of family entertainment. Walt Disney was the Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics. After decades of pursuing, Disney finally procured the rights to P.L. Travers‘ books about a magical nanny. Mary Poppins, released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the 1960s and featured a memorable song score written by Disney favorites, the Sherman Brothers. The same year, Disney debuted a number of exhibits at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, including Audio-Animatronic figures, all of which were later integrated into attractions at Disneyland and a new theme park project which was to be established on the East Coast.

Plans for Disney World and EPCOT

Disney World was to include a larger, more elaborate version of Disneyland which was to be called the Magic Kingdom. It would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, or EPCOT for short. EPCOT was designed to be an operational city where residents would live, work, and interact using advanced and experimental technology, while scientists would develop and test new technologies to improve human life and health.

Death

Disney’s involvement in Disney World ended in late 1966; after many years of chain smoking cigarettes, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was admitted to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center across the street from the Disney Studio, where his health began to deteriorate, causing him to suffer cardiac arrest. Just before he was hospitalized, Disney was scheduled to undergo a neck surgery for an old polo injury; Disney was a frequent polo player at The Riveria Club in Hollywood, California for many years. On November 2, 1966, during pre-surgery X-rays, doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Los Angeles discovered that Disney had an enormous tumor on his left lung. Five days later, Disney went back to hospital for surgery, but the tumor had spread to such great extent that doctors had to remove his entire left lung. The doctors then told Disney that he only had six months to a year to live. After several chemotherapy sessions, Disney and his wife spent a short amount of time in Palm Springs, California before returning home. On November 30, 1966, Disney collapsed in his home, but was revived by paramedics, and was taken back to the hospital, where he died on December 15, 1966 at 9:30 a.m., ten days after his sixty-fifth birthday. He was cremated on December 17, 1966 and his ashes reside at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Roy O. Disney continued to carry out the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt Disney World in honor of his brother.

Songwriter Robert B. Sherman said about the last time he saw Disney:

“

He was up in the third floor of the animation building after a run-through of The Happiest Millionaire. He usually held court in the hallway afterward for the people involved with the picture. And he started talking to them, telling them what he liked and what they should change, and then, when they were through, he turned to us and with a big smile, he said, ‘Keep up the good work, boys.’ And he walked to his office. It was the last we ever saw of him.

”

A long-standing urban legend maintains that Disney was cryonically frozen, and his frozen corpse was stored underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. However, this was discredited due to the fact that Disney was cremated, and the first known instance of Cryonic Freezing of a corpse (of Dr. James Bedford) occurred a month later in January.

The final productions in which Disney had an active role were the animated feature, The Jungle Book and the live-action musical comedy The Happiest Millionaire, both released in 1967.

1967–present: Legacy

Continuing the vision

After Walt Disney’s death, Roy Disney returned from retirement to take full control of Walt Disney Productions and WED Enterprises. In October that year, their families met in front of Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom to officially open the Walt Disney World Resort.

After giving his dedication for Walt Disney World, he then asked Lillian Disney to join him. As the orchestra played “When You Wish Upon a Star“, she stepped up to the podium accompanied by Mickey Mouse. He then said, “Lilly, you knew all of Walt’s ideas and hopes as well as anybody; what would Walt think of it [Walt Disney World]?”. “I think Walt would have approved,” she replied. Roy died from a cerebral hemorrhage on December 20, 1971, the day he was due to open the Disneyland Christmas parade.

During the second phase of the “Walt Disney World” theme park, EPCOT was translated by Disney’s successors into EPCOT Center, which opened in 1982. As it currently exists, EPCOT is essentially a living world’s fair, different from the actual functional city that Disney had envisioned. In 1992, Walt Disney Imagineering took the step closer to Walt’s vision and dedicated Celebration, Florida, a town built by the Walt Disney Company adjacent to Walt Disney World, that hearkens back to the spirit of EPCOT. EPCOT was also originally intended to be devoid of Disney characters which initially limited the appeal of the park to young children but the company later changed this policy.

The Disney entertainment empire

Today, Walt Disney’s animation/motion picture studios and theme parks have developed into a multi-billion dollar television, motion picture, vacation destination and media corporation that carry his name. The Walt Disney Company today owns, among other assets, five vacation resorts, eleven theme parks, two water parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, six record labels, eleven cable television networks, and one terrestrial television network. As of 2007, the company has an annual revenue of over U.S. $35 billion.

Disney Animation today

Traditional hand-drawn animation, with which Walt Disney started his company, no longer continues at the Walt Disney Feature Animation studio. After a stream of financially unsuccessful traditionally-animated features in the late-1990s and early 2000s, the two satellite studios in Paris and Orlando were closed, and the main studio in Burbank was converted to a computer animation production facility. In 2004, Disney released what was announced as their final “traditionally animated” feature film, Home on the Range. However, since the 2006 acquisition of Pixar and the resulting rise of John Lasseter to Chief Creative Officer, that position has changed, and the upcoming 2009 film The Princess and the Frog will mark Disney’s return to traditional 2-D animation.

CalArts

In his later years, Disney devoted substantial time towards funding The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). It was formed in 1961 through a merger of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and the Chouinard Art Institute, which had helped in the training of the animation staff during the 1930s. When Disney died, one-fourth of his estate went towards CalArts, which helped in building its campus. In his will, Disney paved the way for creation of several charitable trusts which included one for the California Institute of the Arts and other for the Disney Foundation. He also donated 38 acres (Template:Convert/sqmi km²) of the Golden Oaks ranch in Valencia for the school to be built on. CalArts moved onto the Valencia campus in 1971.

In an early admissions bulletin, Disney explained:

“

A hundred years ago, Wagner conceived of a perfect and all-embracing art, combining music, drama, painting, and the dance, but in his wildest imagination he had no hint what infinite possibilities were to become commonplace through the invention of recording, radio, cinema and television. There already have been geniuses combining the arts in the mass-communications media, and they have already given us powerful new art forms. The future holds bright promise for those who imaginations are trained to play on the vast orchestra of the art-in-combination. Such supermen will appear most certainly in those environments which provide contact with all the arts, but even those who devote themselves to a single phase of art will benefit from broadened horizons.

”

Academy Awards

Walt Disney holds the records for number of Academy Award nominations (with fifty-nine) and number of awarded Oscars (twenty-six, below). Four of his Oscars were special awards, and one, his last, was granted posthumously.

• 1932: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Flowers and Trees (1932)
• 1932: Honorary Award for: creation of Mickey Mouse.
• 1934: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Three Little Pigs (1933)
• 1935: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Tortoise and the Hare (1934)
• 1936: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Three Orphan Kittens (1935)
• 1937: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Country Cousin (1936)
• 1938: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Old Mill (1937)
• 1939: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Ferdinand the Bull (1938)
• 1938: Honorary Award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) The citation read: “For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field” (the award was one statuette and seven miniature statuettes)
• 1940: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Ugly Duckling(1939)
• 1941: Honorary Award for: Fantasia (1941), shared with: William E. Garity and J.N.A. Hawkins. The citation for the certificate of merit read: “For their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia”
• 1942: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Lend a Paw (1941)
• 1943: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Der Fuehrer’s Face (1942)
• 1949: Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Seal Island (1948)
• 1949: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
• 1951: Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Beaver Valley (1950)
• 1952: Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Nature’s Half Acre (1951)
• 1953: Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Water Birds (1952)
• 1954: Best Documentary, Features for: The Living Desert (1953)
• 1954: Best Documentary, Short Subjects for: The Alaskan Eskimo (1953)
• 1954: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953)
• 1954: Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Bear Country (1953)
• 1955: Best Documentary, Features for: The Vanishing Prairie (1954)
• 1956: Best Documentary, Short Subjects for: Men Against the Arctic
• 1959: Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects for: Grand Canyon
• 1969: Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney

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