Source: Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader, pg. 61
"Inspiration
In the 1940s, a couple of Walt Disney's top animators were real train
buffs. They got Uncle Walt interested in the hobby and he set up a
miniature steam railroad that circled his house and gardens, big enough to ride.
After several train-theme parties, Walt got the idea that if his friends
got such a kick from this one ride, maybe a whole amusement park would
lure vacationers who were visiting Hollywood to star-gaze.
How Walt Got The Money
Walt proposed the idea to his brother Roy, the Disney stockholders and
their bankers...but they rejected it. In fact, they thought he was nuts.
(In those days, amusement parks were sleazy places full of carnival side-shows,
rip-off games and cheap mechanical rides.)
So Disney was on his own. He went on a relentless search for
financing. He sold his Palm Springs home and cashed in his $100,000 life
insurance policy to finance his research. He lined up corporate sponsers
who were willing to pay fpr exhibits and restaurants in exchange for name
recognition.
But the turning point came when he made a deal with ABC-TV. At the
time, ABC, a relatively new network, was a distant third in the ratings.
It was desperate for high-quality, high-name-recognition programming Disney
could provide. But Disney had already turned down offers from other networks.
Why should he join forces with a loser like ABC? The answer: financing for
his amusement park. In exchange for doing the show, Disney received a
substantial sum of money and ABC agreed to call the show "Disneyland," virtually
making the weekly show a one-hour commercial for the park. But perhaps
more important, later, in an "unrelated" deal, ABC purchased 38% interest in
Disneyland, Inc., the company set up to build the park. (Ironically,
Disney now owns ABC.)
When Roy saw the package Walt had put together, he changed his
mind and hopped on the Disneyland bandwagon. In 1954, ground was broken
in an Anaheim orange grove.
Opening Day
In the wake of its enormous success, people have forgotten that
Disneyland's Opening Day was a disaster. Nearly 33,000 people - twice as
many as the number invited - packed the park with the help of forged
tickets and surreptitiously placed ladders. Not all the rides were
operational, and the restaurants ran out of food after a few hours. In
some parts of the park, concrete and asphalt hadn't hardened properly, and
women walked out of their high heel shoes.
Also, there had been a plumbers strike during construction, and
there weren't enough drinking fountains. The press thought it was a
ploy to get visitors to purchase soft drinks. What they didn't know was that,
in order to be ready for opening day, Walt had to choose between
installing toilets or drinking fountains.
Thanks to nationwide TV coverage emceed by Ronald Reagan, the entire
country learned of the mess. The next day's headlines read, "Walt's Dream
A Nightmare," and Disbey seemed to agree: For the rest of his life he
referred to opening day as "Black Sunday"
Land of Illusuions
When Uncle Walt bought the property for Disneyland in Anaheim in the
early 1950s, he couldn't afford to buy all the land he wanted. So, in order
to fit everything in, he used movie makers' tricks to make everything
look bigger.
On trick was to use things that are familiar, but make them smaller than normal.
Unless you look carefully and measure with your eyes, you'll assume, for
instance, that the Disneyland train is full size. It isn't. It's built to 5/8
scale. Many of the Dusney buldings use the same trick, but that's just the
beginning.
If you look carefully at some of the Disney buildings, especially
those on Main Street, you'll notice there's something a little odd about
them. They are not only smaller than normal, but their second and third
stories are smaller still. This is known in art and in movie-making as "forced
percpective." By tapering the upper stories, the designers fool
your eye into believing that they are bigger and taller than they really
are.
This is done especially skillfully on Sleepy Beauty's Castle, even
to the point that the bricks get smaller and smaller with each level.
In making Disney World, this was less of a problem, because by that
time, the company could afford to buy an area bigger than most cities. It used
many of the same tricks, but on an even bigger scale.
Disneyland Deaths
According to Egg magazine, at least 53 people have died at
Disneyland. According to Egg:
The first Disney death was apparently a suicide. In 1964, after an
arguement with his girlfriend, a passenger on the Matterhorn stood up on the ride
and was catapulted onto the tracks when his car came to a sudden stop. He
never regained conciousness, and died four days later.
The Matterhorn killed again in 1984, when a 48-year-old woman fell out of the ride
and was sruck by the following car. (For the rest of the day, the
Matterhorn was closed due to "technical difficulties.")
Two people have been accidentally killed in accidents in Tomorrowland's
PeopleMover ride, two others have drowned in the river surrounding Tom
Sawyer's Island. Another person was run down by the monorail when he tried
to sneak into the park without paying; and a park employee was crushed by
the moving wall in the "America Sings" attraction
The park's first homicide occured in 1981, when a man was stabbed
after touching another man's girlfriend. (Disneyland was found negligent
in the death and fined $600,000 after a park nurse neglected to call
paramedics - and instead had the victim driven to the hospital in a park
van.)
Not all Disneyland deaths happen inside the park: In 1968, 44 people
were killed in two seperate helicopter accidents travelling between
Disneyland and Los Angeles International Airport; and in 1987 a teenage
male was killed during a gunfight in the parking lot
