Disneyland Opens
Disneyland, Walt Disney’s metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy, and
futurism, opens on July 17, 1955. The $17 million theme park was built on 160
acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California, and soon brought in
staggering profits. Today, Disneyland hosts more than 14 million visitors a
year, who spend close to $3 billion.
Walt Disney, born in Chicago in 1901, worked as a commercial
artist before setting up a small studio in Los Angeles to produce animated
cartoons. In 1928, his short film Steamboat Willy, starring the
character “Mickey Mouse,” was a national sensation. It was the first animated
film to use sound, and Disney provided the voice for Mickey. From there on,
Disney cartoons were in heavy demand, but the company struggled financially
because of Disney’s insistence on ever-improving artistic and technical
quality. His first feature-length cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
(1938), took three years to complete and was a great commercial success.
Snow White was followed by other feature-length classics for children, such
as Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). Fantasia
(1940), which coordinated animated segments with famous classical music pieces,
was an artistic and technical achievement. In Song of the South (1946),
Disney combined live actors with animated figures, and beginning with Treasure
Island in 1950 the company added live-action movies to its repertoire.
Disney was also one of the first movie studios to produce film directly for
television, and its Zorro and Davy Crockett series were very
popular with children.
In the early 1950s, Walt Disney began designing a huge amusement
park to be built near Los Angeles. He intended Disneyland to have educational
as well as amusement value and to entertain adults and their children. Land was
bought in the farming community of Anaheim, about 25 miles southeast of Los
Angeles, and construction began in 1954. In the summer of 1955, special
invitations were sent out for the opening of Disneyland on July 17.
Unfortunately, the pass was counterfeited and thousands of uninvited people
were admitted into Disneyland on opening day. The park was not ready for the
public: food and drink ran out, a women’s high-heel shoe got stuck in the wet
asphalt of Main Street USA, and the Mark Twain Steamboat nearly capsized from
too many passengers.
Disneyland soon recovered, however, and attractions such as the
Castle, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Snow White’s Adventures, Space Station X-1,
Jungle Cruise, and Stage Coach drew countless children and their parents. Special
events and the continual building of new state-of-the-art attractions
encouraged them to visit again. In 1965, work began on an even bigger Disney
theme park and resort near Orlando, Florida. Walt Disney died in 1966, and Walt
Disney World was opened in his honor on October 1, 1971. Epcot Center,
Disney-MGM Studios, and Animal Kingdom were later added to Walt Disney World,
and it remains Florida’s premier tourist attraction. In 1983, Disneyland Tokyo
opened in Japan, and in 1992 Disneyland Paris–or “EuroDisney”–opened to a mixed
reaction in Marne-la-Vallee. The newest Disneyland, in Hong Kong, opened its
doors in September 2005.