Naturally, after all these years of Disney on the brain, it was a simple extension of the normal universe to expand from family to friends. Of course, a trip to WDW requires kindred spirits, and O’C, of the famous Cinderella autograph, was an obvious starting partner for such a trip, and he was onboard from the start. It was then similarly obvious that the Traveling Tabroom, which has a great time working together but also enjoys goofing around together but gets few chances to do so, would similarly enjoy such an event (if nothing else, as anthropologists studying the bizarre habits of the natives like me and O’C), so I invited them along too. For seasoning I threw in my cousin Denise, the one I went to Disneyland with when I was in college. And my family, of course. A few other folks were invited early on but demurred, for one reason or another. Too bad. WDW is the kind of place where you can indeed batch up a large group of people, sometimes hanging together, sometimes on their own (for instance, there’s no way any of us would wait two seconds for Cinderella’s autograph, so if O’C is on the hunt for it again, he’s going in solo, while I think Kate and I could ride Everest all day, eliminating some of the ribbon clerks in the group from our particular pleasure). There’s a lot of great food opportunities at the interstices, plus there’s a central miniature golf tournament in the plans. Overall I’m expecting a fun few days toward the end of summer, right before we kick into the next debate season. By the way, if you want to meet up with us, the dates are August 27-September 2. O’C would love someone to stand in line with him while he waits for Cinderella’s autograph.
Anyhow, back to business. Disney Business, that is.
The myth of Disneyland is that one day, while taking his daughters to an amusement park and sitting on the bench bored to tears, Walt was struck with the idea of an amusement park for the entire family. He immediately started working on Disneyland. Well, not really.
Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Studios, offered people tours of his studio starting back in the days of the Silents. Movies were popular and people wanted to see how they were made. He ended the practice in the early ‘30s, when, according to Wikipedia, sound came in, making the idea impractical. Universal started it up again, of course, in the ‘60s, until now we have Universal parks around the world.
Walt Disney also founded a movie studio, and built a nice place on which to situate it. You can see, in the archives, plans for an adjacent (or nearby, I forget which) little amusement park, designed much like Uncle Carl’s tour, to show people the world of the movies. This was way before Walt was sitting on that bench waiting for his daughters. Walt was also an inveterate train buff, and had visited an expo for the like-minded, not to mention that he built his own miniature railway around his house; Walt’s father worked construction on the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893; Walt’s tinkering led him to construct miniatures that he would send on a train tour of the country until eventually that idea morphed into building non-miniatures that would stay in one place; and there is a clear connection of Tivoli in Copenhagen as a direct inspiration to Walt in building Disneyland. Walt himself was also quoted as saying that kids would come to his studio because they thought that was where Mickey Mouse lived. (Fairly dumb kids, I think; I never recall a time in my life where I thought cartoons were real. That’s why I liked them, among other reason. Still do.) The point is, there were many, many influences that went into the creation of Disneyland, and some of them were Walt’s own and some of them were spurred by others. This takes away nothing from the execution of the park that was Disneyland in 1955. Far from it. Walt synthesized all of this, and he made it happen, and it was nothing like anything anyone had seen before, although its influences were clear. The official histories have sort of buried those influences in the myth, probably because it makes a simpler story. But not a better one. And besides, whatever its source or sources, it would be the park itself that would matter.
When it opened in 1955, it was almost ready for prime time, although there were glitches, and Tomorrowland especially was less than there. But that didn’t matter. It was an instant phenomenon. There had been amusement parks before, but this was both the apotheosis of the amusement park and the beginning of something totally new, the theme park. And for Disney, it would become the focus of the rest of his life. He still had a movie studio, but his day-to-day connection with it lessened as his connection with the park (and its extensions) grew.
But I think we also need to talk about World’s Fairs. They are not a disconnected subject, but one that eventually intersects with the subject of theme parks. Next time.
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