Walt's Big Idea

Walt Disney

By Susan Champlin

It was sometime in the 1940s, and a young father sat on an amusement park bench, licking a Popsicle and feeling slightly disgruntled. While his two daughters rode the merry-go-round, he waited restlessly, wondering why there was no amusement park that was equally "amusing" for children and adults.


Sleeping Beauty's Castle under construction

Had this been anyone else, the thought might have disappeared with the last slurps of the Popsicle. But this father was Walt Disney, the head of the successful Los Angeles animation studio bearing his name. And with his latest notion, Disney was to change the course of family entertainment.

Innovation was Disney's specialty. Walt Disney Studios was famous for its short Mickey Mouse cartoons and had long since weathered storms of derision when it moved from silent cartoons into synchronized sound. The studio then launched the first-ever feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, despite those who scoffed that audiences would never sit through 90 minutes of animation. And in 1940, Disney did the unthinkable: He set animated characters to classical music in Fantasia.

Feature animation projects were put on hold during the war years, but all the while, Disney was nurturing his idea of a park that not only featured games and rides but also had a unifying theme—yes, a "theme park." He hired the Stanford Research Institute to scout potential locations.

After considering factors such as population, available land and transportation arteries, he chose 160 acres of orange and avocado groves in Anaheim, buying out 17 owners to secure the spot.

I know Walt talks a lot about this Disneyland idea, but it probably won't amount to anything.

At the time, not even those closest to Disney believed the park had any merit. Walt Disney Company archivist Dave Smith says, "We found a letter written by Walt's brother, Roy, in which he says, 'I know Walt talks a lot about this Disneyland idea, but it probably won't amount to anything.'"

Ha.

Revolutionizing the family entertainment industry didn't come cheap. Ultimately, the park would cost $17 million to build—a lot in 1955 dollars. Where to find the cash? Hocking his life insurance and selling his Palm Springs vacation home helped. Then Disney found an unexpected source of financing: television.

In the 1950s, television was a huge threat to the movie industry, but "most producers thought if they ignored it, TV would just go away," Smith says. Disney, on the other hand, realized the power of the medium to promote his projects.

Disney's first television Christmas special, in 1950, heralded the upcoming release of Alice in Wonderland. When the networks clamored for a weekly show, Disney negotiated an agreement with ABC that funneled the network's money into his new project. He then used each episode of the TV show, Disneyland, to promote the park while it was under construction.


Mr Toad's Wild Ride

Disney envisioned the park as a wagon wheel, with Main Street, U.S.A. as the hub and spokes reaching out to four realms: Fantasyland, where he could bring his hit movies to life; Frontierland, celebrating the Old West's pioneer spirit; Adventureland, inspired by themes of Disney's Oscar-winning nature documentaries of the 1950s; and Tomorrowland, designed to envision the far-distant future of ... 1986!

Today, Disneyland runs like clockwork; armies of gardeners, custodians and painters work through the night to touch up imperfections. But things weren't in such an ideal state when Disneyland opened with a celebrity-studded, invitation-only premiere on July 17, 1955.

A plumbers' strike forced Disney to decide between bathrooms and drinking fountains (he opted for bathrooms). Women's high heels sank into newly laid asphalt. Counterfeiters ran off fake tickets, and one entrepreneur even erected a ladder against the outside fence and collected $2 from each person who climbed into the park.

The park opened with just 20 attractions—including the penny arcade, horse-drawn vehicles on Main Street, U.S.A., and a 5/8-scale steam train that circled the park. The few rides included the "dark rides" in Fantasyland, in which visitors rode into the world of a Disney film such as Snow White. The first true thrill ride, the Matterhorn, didn't open until 1959.


President Nixon at the official opening of the monorail

"When Disneyland first opened, amusement park insiders were skeptical," says Tim O'Brien, former senior editor of Amusement Business magazine. "They didn't think a park without traditional attractions like roller coasters could succeed. But parkgoers discovered they could leave their everyday woes in the trunk of the car, walk through the gates and escape reality—it was an immediate success." So immediate that the park received its millionth visitor after only seven and a half weeks.

Many of the original attractions no longer exist. The pack mules proved too ornery to ride, and the intimate apparel shop on Main Street, U.S.A.—the Wizard of Bras—closed in 1956.

Regardless, Disneyland has grown dramatically in half a century. The Anaheim park has expanded to include Disney's California Adventure and Downtown Disney. And now there are several Disney parks around the globe and a host of competitors.

"But Walt Disney definitely started it all," says O'Brien. "He was the first one to provide guests with the fantasy that allowed them to travel to different lands and different times."

Susan Champlin is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. She first visited Disneyland in 1966.

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