Disney (9 page)

Disney’s next animated feature,
Peter Pan
, was more successful. It was released in February 1953, and was the last Disney film distributed by RKO. Disney set up his own distribution company,
Buena Vista
, later that year. A few critics complained that Disney hadn’t hewed closely enough to the original
J.M. Barrie
play, but audiences had no such qualms.
Peter Pan
was the top-grossing film of 1953, and earned $7 million in its first release.

The studio continued to produce live-action and animated features throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. Among the memorable titles:
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
;
Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier
;
Lady and the Tramp
;
The Great Locomotive Chase
;
Johnny Tremain
;
Old Yeller
;
Sleeping Beauty
;
Pollyanna
;
Swiss Family Robinson
;
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
;
and
The Parent Trap
.

As films streamed out of the Disney studio, Walt Disney began thinking about an entirely different venture: an amusement park. He was inspired in part by his memories of Electric Park back in Kansas City, but was also impressed by a visit to
Tivoli Gardens
in Copenhagen. The twenty-one acre park had immaculately groomed lawns and flower beds winding among shops and restaurants, with a number of classic amusement-park rides, including a wooden roller coaster, but Disney was most impressed with how clean and manicured it was.

Disney had considered building a small amusement park adjacent to the Burbank studio for his employees, but when he started talking about something more ambitious, Roy told him they should stick to making movies. The brothers were also working to protect and promote the Disney brand, which had become valuable. After considering various licensing strategies, the Disneys set up a separate company for Walt in 1952 and called it WED Enterprises, based on Walter Elias Disney’s initials. For a fee, WED licensed Walt’s name to the Disney studio.

Disney had already decided to invest his own money in the project that would become
Disneyland
, but WED Enterprises provided him a corporate entity to operate from. By early 1953, designers and architects were developing ideas for the park. Later that year, Disney acquired a 160-acre tract of orange groves in Anaheim, about twenty-five miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Disney’s vision for the property was unlike any other amusement park in the world. He wanted to create a place where traditional small-town America came to life, in village greens and shop-lined streets. Naturally, Disney movies and characters would play starring roles. Against all advice, Disney insisted there would be no Ferris wheel and no beer. Safety and maintenance were top priorities. Disney’s plan was for a park that could accommodate 40,000 people in 10,000 cars a day.

His hobby of collecting miniatures also factored into his dreams for the park. In 1953, the plans included “Lilliputian Land: A Land of Little Things,” also inspired in part by author
Jonathan Swift
’s 1726 fantasy novel
Gulliver’s Travels
. Walt described the attraction as: “a miniature Americana village inhabited by mechanical people nine inches high who sing and dance and talk to you as you peek through the windows of their tiny shops and homes. In Lilliputian Land, there is an Erie Canal barge that takes you through the famous canals of the world where you visit the scenic wonders of the world in miniature. Here a little diamond-stack locomotive engine seventeen inches high steams into the tiny railroad station. You sit on top of the Pullman coaches like Gulliver, and the little nine-inch engineer pulls back the throttle taking you on the biggest little ride in the land. And for the little people who have little appetites – you can get miniature ice cream cones, or the world’s smallest hot dog on a tiny bun.” It was never built, though shades of this idea materialized in Disneyland’s Storybook Land, and later the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disney World.

All that was missing from Disney’s plan was the $5 million he needed to build it. Roy eventually took an interest in the project and offered to arrange talks between WED and the Disney studio about investing in the park.

This was welcome news. But Walt had already begun to think of another new venture: television.

Almost every filmmaker in Hollywood feared television would put an end to moviemaking. Walt and Roy thought just the opposite. The brothers believed that television could augment their movie business by promoting new features, recycling old ones, and extending the Disney brand. It was a model other studios rushed to try and emulate. Many branched out by starting record companies, investing in Broadway shows, and merchandizing. But without the stable of marketable characters the Disneys had to draw on, the others floundered. Some studios compounded the problems with desperate grabs for profit that only weakened or killed them. They sold their film libraries to television, and in many cases, sold the studio back lots where they had once filmed for real estate development or oil drilling. Only the Disney brothers mastered this transition and their studio was stronger for it.

Walt had already had a positive experience with television when he hosted a 1950 Christmas special for NBC. The broadcast featured Disney cartoons, plus a sneak preview of the soon-to-be released
Alice in Wonderland.
Jack Gould
, a critic with
The
New York Times
, called it a huge success and proclaimed it as a harbinger of great things to come from Disney:

Of course, television was far too big for any one person to “take over,” but Walt Disney did play a major role in its ascendance. In October 1954, he launched an
anthology television series
that eventually became a Sunday night staple for generations of children and their parents. It had several different titles over the years, including
Walt Disney Presents
and
Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color
. But its original title,
Disneyland
, spoke of Disney’s grand vision.

Disney hosted the show and introduced its material in his friendly, warm manner. Some of it was animated, and some was live-action. Much of the content was from studio’s archives. Disney’s presence perpetuated the impression that he was responsible for every aspect of the studio’s productions. Disney told a story about an encounter with a young fan:

Disney may have invented this story for publicity, but he was bothered by his inability to draw even his most well-known character. He asked his animators to show him how to quickly sketch Mickey to punctuate his autograph for fans and worked to duplicate the familiar signature that had become a trademark on all Walt Disney products.

Disney’s television shows had a major impact on American popular culture. In 1955, a
three-episode series
on the life of American frontiersman
Davy Crockett
spawned a craze that swept the United States. The theme song, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” dominated the airwaves and boys across the country sported Davy’s
coonskin caps
. That same year, Disney launched a daily after-school show called the
Mickey Mouse Club
. This quasi-educational variety show featured two adults leading a cast of child actors called Mouseketeers who sang and danced to a different theme each day of the week. Cartoons and serials from Disney films were interwoven into the show. The show was an instant hit.

The original
Mickey Mouse Club
ran on ABC from 1955 to 1959, when it was cancelled due to weak advertising revenue and contract disputes between the network and Disney. Although the show never became the reliable revenue generator the Disneys had hoped for, it proved an invaluable tool in promoting Disneyland. The program carried regular promotions for the project, and sometimes, Walt Disney himself appeared in his conductor’s cap in the locomotive of his Carolwood Pacific Railroad to highlight progress in different sections of the park. By the time the park opened on July 17, 1955, millions of children were clamoring to go.

Construction of Disneyland broke ground in July 1954, and was beset with problems almost from the start. The ground was oversaturated from California’s wettest spring season in years. Disney’s constant tinkering and demand for perfection did not make things any easier. He ordered changes even after work was completed – a large tree he thought too close to a walkway had to be uprooted and moved; fence lines were adjusted to slightly enhance a view. Union crews and saboteurs caused delays by tearing down completed projects so they could profit by doing the work themselves. Disney’s vision for the park blossomed, along with its cost – which went from $5 million to $12 million, and then topped out at $17 million. Still, Disney pressed his ambitious deadline: Disneyland would be built in a year.

Four days before the park was scheduled to open to the public, on July 13, 1955, Walt sent out a special invitation to a select group of about 300. The guests were to include celebrities and Hollywood heavyweights, such as Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Louis B. Mayer, and Walt’s old polo buddy Spencer Tracy. The occasion was Walt and Lillian’s thirtieth wedding anniversary. The invitation read:

Six months earlier, on December 10, 1954, their daughter Diane had given birth to Christopher Disney Miller. Diane’s husband was Ron Miller, whom she had met while attending the University of Southern California. Ron was a football player at USC and would go on to play professionally for the Los Angeles Rams, before taking a job at The Walt Disney Company. Walt was ecstatic about being a grandfather for the first time, but groused about his daughter’s choice of a name for his grandson. “Diane pulled a name out of the blue,” he wrote in a letter to an associate. “She seemed determined no son of hers was going to be tagged with my name. She had a particular aversion to the ‘Elias’ part of it.”

Disneyland was decked-out for its first party. Hours before, Walt rushed about the park, scrutinizing details and making small adjustments. Lillian, more uncharacteristically, was discovered on the deck of the Mark Twain riverboat with a broom, sweeping off sawdust on the still-untested vessel. Walt stood at the gates, wringing his hands when many of his guests were delayed by traffic. Finally, he greeted them with arms spread wide to his fantasy world, directing them to horse-drawn carriages that carried them down Main Street, U.S.A., to Frontierland.

It was a lavish affair, with guests sipping mint juleps on the riverboat and cancan dancers kicking their heels at the Golden Horseshoe saloon. Walt seemed intoxicated, perhaps on euphoria more than alcohol; Diane said later she didn’t think he had much to drink. A stage show in the saloon featuring comedian Wally Boag as the cowboy hero Pecos Bill, popping off shots with his play pistols, moved Walt to join in. He dangled from a balcony over the stage, the finger and thumb of both hands mimicking his own six-shooters. His guests gasped as he awkwardly climbed down to join the show, and then shouted, “Speech! Speech!” Disney basked in the glory, the pressures of the work still ahead forgotten for the moment.

Meanwhile, time was running out for Disneyland’s public debut, which meant cutting corners: Many of Disney’s demands could not be met; some details would have to be added later on the fly. Sections of the park were left barren, or overgrown with weeds. Tomorrowland, true to its name, would have to wait for another tomorrow; the path to this unfinished attraction led nowhere for the time being. The night before Disneyland opened, Disney busied himself with last-minute details, at one point grabbing a can of spray paint to help crews finish a giant squid at the
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
ride.

When the big moment finally arrived, Disney addressed the opening-day crowd, saying: “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.” Disney’s daughter, Diane, said he was as happy as she had ever seen him. Lillian was absent for Walt’s crowning achievement.