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The Disneyland Report > Disney News > Disneyland turning 50 Disney NewsDisneyland turning 50By Alan Solomon Here's the deal with Disneyland. The two women ahead of me in line were Elizabeth and Lexi, twins from Winnetka, Ill. Elizabeth is a communications and political science major at the University of Southern California. Lexi is a philosophy major at Yale. They knew the words to ''We Can Fly,'' a song from Walt Disney's ''Peter Pan.'' It's the song the chorus sings when Wendy, John and Michael, powered by pixie dust, fly with Peter from London -- pausing at Big Ben -- and off to Never Land. I knew the words too. I am much, much older than Elizabeth and Lexi, and it didn't matter. In that line for Peter Pan's Flight, a ride at Disneyland, we sang the song together -- good and loud, in the words of the late Harry Caray -- without any sense of embarrassment at all. ''When there's a smile in your heart...'' Says it all. It was 1955 -- two years after Peter and Wendy and Hook and that very silly ticking crocodile hit the big screen -- that Walt Disney gave the world Disneyland. Anaheim, and a sizable chunk of the world, are better for it. Naturally, the Disney folk are planning a 50th Anniversary Celebration next year. The party officially begins May 5 (That's 05/05/05. Get it? The Mad Hatter would.), even though the actual anniversary is July 17. What was it like here on July 17, 1955? Well, it certainly wasn't your average zip-a-dee-doo-dah day. Statement, in a news release, attributed to Disney CEO Michael Eisner: ''The dawn of the theme park industry rose from one man's dream as he walked Anaheim orange groves more than 50 years ago, and today, the sun never sets on Disney's global theme park landscape.'' That's nice. Here's a 1955 eyewitness account of the dawning, by the Associated Press: ''An estimated 30,000 persons visited Disneyland today as the $17 million amusement park was opened to the public.... A gas leak that forced officials to close part of Fantasyland Castle (sic) for an hour and 40 minutes was repaired.'' Which pretty much coincides with this retrospective: ''Opening Day was generally regarded as a disaster.'' That last quote is courtesy of John McClintock, a spokesman for what's now Disneyland Resort (Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure and related Anaheim properties) and a truth-teller from whom we will hear again. The 50th Anniversary hoopla, which will hoople at all the Disney tourist magnets (including Orlando, Paris, the cruise ships and under-construction Hong Kong), is, of course, a marketing and merchandising decision, like so much that is today's Disney. So let's address that quickly and move on. Undeniable fact: Disneyland always has been as much about selling stuff as it's been about expressing the founder's fixation on trains, Victorian main streets, dwarfs and a certain rodent. And yet... On this latest visit, there was a moment. It came at a performance of ''Snow White -- An Enchanting New Musical,'' which is notable, among other things, for combining the name of a show and in-house critical acclaim. Anyway, the live-action show had just ended, and the big, fully enchanted crowd was applauding. This one little girl -- I'm guessing she was 4 -- was standing on a chair, her stance steadied by her mother's hands, and excitedly clapping. Prince Charming, from the stage, spotted her in the crowd. He waved. The little girl waved back, and turned to her mother, absolutely beaming... So if you want to tell kids waiting in an autograph line that inside the Goofy suit is some out-of-work dishwasher from Oxnard, go ahead. I, for one, choose to believe -- for hours at a time, at least -- that elephants can fly without a magic feather, pirates are very cool, that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true -- and if you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all. On the other hand: Opening Day in 1955 was a disaster. Asphalt was still soft, trapping high heels. Rides broke down. Gate-crashers with phony tickets overwhelmed the place. Tomorrowland almost didn't open until... well... sometime beyond tomorrow. All this, of course, was nationally televised (with a succession of technical glitches) on ABC, co-hosted by, among others, General Electric pitchman Ronald Reagan. ''Not much was here in 1955,'' McClintock said, standing in today's Tomorrowland near the place where a rocket (brought to you by TWA) once waited eternally for liftoff. ''It was very, very much a rush job.'' Over in Fantasyland... ''There was a boat ride here, which was pretty much a boat ride through nothing,'' said McClintock. ''It was just a river and, as I've heard it described, piles of mud.'' In short, Disneyland on July 17, 1955 was Adventureland. (Which, by the way, had only one working ride.) What's interesting, given the shaky beginning, is how much of the original 1955 Disneyland is still here, in good working order, nearly half a century later. The lifesize Mark Twain Riverboat -- the most popular ride in the park's early days -- still paddles its way along the Rivers of America. The Hatter's cups still spin madly at the Mad Tea Party. Dumbos (which debuted a month late) still carry passengers, unlike TWA. ''I think some of the elephants are the original elephants,'' said McClintock, others having flown to Paris in 1990, ''and I'm virtually certain some of the teacups are originals.'' The Frontierland Shootin' Exposition -- a shooting gallery -- continues to draw, even though rifles that once shot actual pellets now fire only laser beams. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventures (now temporarily closed for upsprucing) and, yes, Peter Pan's Flight -- all there in 1955 -- are all there today. Sort of. ''It's not the same ride,'' McClintock said of, for example, Peter Pan's Flight. ''It's obviously the same concept -- but, for example, the stars on the ride now are fiber-optics. In the early days, the stars were Ping-Pong balls painted with fluorescent paint.'' Ping-Pong balls. The Boat Ride to Nowhere (formal name: Canal Boats of the World) was shut down by September 1955, eventually added a Monstro entrance (the mouth of Pinocchio's sneezing whale) and miniature stuff, and morphed into the Storybook Land Canal Boats. Autopia, an instant hit, the ride that let unlicensed tots drive cars on a scaled-down superhighway of the future, still does (thanks to Chevron; sponsored attractions remain a Disneyland tradition) -- but on a different highway and in different cars. Another original and enduring favorite, Adventureland's Jungle Cruise, hasn't changed the boat-driver's silly patter -- except for minor tweaks -- since the beginning. And that's good. One line: ''Now that's something you don't see every day. I do.'' A recent change: Our trusty driver-guide doesn't shoot the menacing hippos anymore. Some people were uncomfortable with the shooting of unarmed fake hippos with a fake pistol. ''I was surprised when they stopped,'' said McClintock. ''Not because I had any great stake in whether we shot the hippos or not, but because that shot was actually a distress signal. If you shot more than once, it meant something was wrong with the boat.'' Imagine robotic hippos having their way with a stalled boatload of helpless guests... Sleeping Beauty's Castle (also being freshened up for 2005) hasn't moved. Right behind it (though moved from its first location), King Arthur's Carousel -- a genuine antique -- continues spinning merrily as it has since the opener. But if Walt Disney suddenly showed up to check things out (and contrary to the legend, he is not in a freezer somewhere; his remains rest warmly at Forest Lawn in Glendale), he'd no doubt be most delighted to find 1) the miniature trains still run on time, and 2) Main Street U.S.A. hasn't changed much at all. ''The Opera House, which now has Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, was the first building built at Disneyland,'' said McClintock. Only the signs are post-1955. The wooden Indian outside the Smoke Shop is still on guard, but the shop sells DVDs and music now, not smokes. The City Hall building, once filled with offices of some company execs, isn't the executive office building anymore. Some other shops have changed functions, but the exteriors -- judging from old photos -- are pretty much as they were. Upstairs of the Fire House, right off the town square, was Disney's private apartment. It isn't a living quarters today; a small light, always on, glows from a front window in tribute. ''He would spend nights there frequently,'' said McClintock. ''When I came to work here (in 1987), there were still some old-timers who had stories. They'd come in to work at 6 a.m., and Walt would be taking a walk through the park, to see what he wanted to change. ''What he supposedly said was that he was frustrated with filmmaking because when you finished a film, that was it. Whereas the park -- it constantly evolves. He could add new things; he could close down things he didn't like; he could change things.'' One of his first changes: shutting down a circus attraction starring the not-so-merry first generation of Mouseketeers. Over the decades (Disney died in 1966) there have been more changes, some that likely would please him, some not. Cotton candy -- he didn't like cotton candy (too messy) -- is sold at the park now. Hot dogs, another unfavorite, are peddled from carts. The Rocket to the Moon attraction went the way of TWA (it's now Redd Rocket's Pizza Port). The coral still exists in a lagoon, but the Submarine Voyage doesn't dive there anymore. In the beginning, there were just four ''lands'' (Adventure, Frontier, Tomorrow and Fantasy). Now there's also New Orleans Square (which -- like its feature attraction, 1967's Pirates of the Caribbean -- Disney helped plan); Mickey's Toontown (Mickey and Minnie have separate homes there; no word on whether there's a secret tunnel); and Critter Country (domain of Pooh and pals, along with the super-popular Splash Mountain ride). Change happens: The Mike Fink Keelboats (1955) vanished in 1994, reopened in 1996 and shut in mid-1997 after one of them, the Gullywhumper, held an unscheduled splash party, with injuries. The Swiss Family Robinson Tree House (1962) was sublet to Tarzan (1999). ''That,'' said McClintock, ''has been the history of Disneyland for 50 years.'' Look closely, and here and there in the ''Happiest Place on Earth'' are bits of Disneyland archeology. Those tracks at the edge of Frontierland that lead nowhere are from the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train (1956-1959, then renamed, then closed in 1977). Stations for the Skyway (1956-94) -- which carried folks high over the park (and through the Matterhorn) in gondolas -- are, unlike the gondolas, still around. So are old ticket booths (look for the big mushroom alongside the Alice in Wonderland ride, for one). To read the rest of this article, click here. Return to Disney News. |
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