Disney – Part 2 (W.Stobrawe)
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The African Telatelist Newsletter 208 of the African Telately Association – October 2015. ___________________________________________________________________________ Walter Elias "Walt" Disney – Part 2 (W.Stobrawe) Disney and the Second Red Scare employees spending time with their children. The Disney was a founding member of the anti- idea for a children's theme park came after a communist group Motion Picture Alliance for the visit to Children's Fairyland in Oakland, Preservation of American Ideals. In 1947, during California. It also said that Disney may have the Second Red Scare, Disney testified before been inspired to create Disneyland in the the House Un-American Activities park Republic of the Children located in Manuel Committee (HUAC), where he branded Herbert B. Gonnet, La Plata, Argentina, and opened in Sorrell, David Hilberman William Pomerance, 1951. former animators and labor union organizers as This plan was originally intended to be built on a Communist agitators. All three men denied the plot located across the street to the south of the allegations and Sorrell went on to testify before studio. These original ideas developed into a the HUAC in 1946 when insufficient evidence concept for a larger enterprise that would was found to link him to the Communist Party. become Disneyland. Disney spent five years Disney also accused the Screen Cartoonists developing Disneyland and created a new Guild of being a Communist front, and charged subsidiary company, WED Enterprises, to carry that the 1941 strike was part of an organized out planning and production of the park. A small Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood. group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers 1955–1966: Theme parks and beyond and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers. Planning Disneyland As Disney explained one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman, who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland presented to the Bank of America during fund raising for the project, he said, "Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train." Entertaining his daughters and their Disneyland: aerial view, August 1963, friends in his backyard and taking them for rides looking SE. New Melodyland Theater at on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired top. Santa Ana Freeway (US 101 at the time, Disney to include a railroad in the plans for now I-5) upper left corner. Disneyland. On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his - 3 - Disneyland grand opening During 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home on a large piece of land in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. With the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, who already had their own backyard railroad, Disney developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his backyard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, came from his home's location on Carolwood Drive. The Walt Disney giving the dedication day railroad's half-mile long layout included a 46-foot speech July 17, 1955 (14 m) long trestle bridge, loops, overpasses, gradients, an elevated berm, and a 90-foot On Sunday, July 17, 1955, Disneyland hosted a (27 m) tunnel underneath his wife's flowerbed. live TV preview, among the thousands of people He named the miniature working steam in attendance were Ronald Reagan, Bob locomotive built by Disney Studios Cummings and Art Linkletter, who shared engineer Roger E. Broggie Lilly Belle in his wife's cohosting duties, as well as the mayor of honor and had his attorney draw up right-of-way Anaheim. Walt gave the following dedication day papers giving the railroad a permanent, legal speech: easement through the garden areas, which his wife dutifully signed; however, there is no “ To all who come to this happy place; evidence of the documents ever recorded as a welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here restriction on the property's title. age relives fond memories of the past Expansion into new areas ...and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. As Walt Disney Productions began work on Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, Disneyland, it also began expanding its other the dreams and the hard facts that have entertainment operations. In 1950, Treasure created America ... with the hope that it Island became the studio's first all-live-action will be a source of joy and inspiration feature, soon followed by 20,000 Leagues Under to all the world. ” the Sea (in Cinema Scope, 1954), Old Yeller(1957), The Shaggy Dog (1959), Carolwood Pacific Railroad Pollyanna (1960), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and The Parent Trap (1961). The studio produced its first TV special, One Hour in Wonderland, in 1950. Disney began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC entitled Disneyland, after the park, on which he aired clips of past Disney productions, gave The Lilly Belle on display at Disneyland tours of his studio, and familiarized the public Main Station in 1993. The caboose's with Disneyland as it was being constructed in woodwork was done entirely by Walt Anaheim. The show also featured a Davy himself. Crockett miniseries, which started the "Davy - 4 - Crockett craze" among American youth, during (the first animated film in Cinema Scope) in which millions of coonskin caps and other 1955, Sleeping Beauty (the first animated film in Crockett memorabilia were sold across the Super Technirama 70mm) in 1959, One country. In 1955, the studio's first daily television Hundred and One Dalmatians show, Mickey Mouse Club debuted on ABC. It was a groundbreaking comedy/variety show aimed specifically for children. Disney took a strong personal interest in the show and even returned to the animation studio to voice Mickey Mouse in its animated segments during its original 1955–59 production run. The Mickey Mouse Club would continue in various incarnations in syndication and on the Disney Channel into the 1990s. Above: BT phonecard As the studio expanded and diversified into other (the first animated feature film to use Xerox cels) media, Disney devoted less of his attention to in 1961, and The Sword in the Stone in 1963. the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he Production of short cartoons kept pace until dubbed the Nine Old Men. Although he was 1956, when Disney shut down the responsible spending less time supervising the production of division although special shorts projects would the animated films, he was always present at continue for the remainder of the studio's story meetings. During Disney's lifetime, the duration on an irregular basis. These animation department created the productions were all distributed by Disney's new successful Lady and the Tramp subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution, which had taken over all distribution duties for Disney films from RKO by 1955. Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based on a number of successful Disney characters and films. After 1955, the Disneyland TV show was Above: Chech Republic Phonecard renamed Walt Disney Presents. It switched from black-and-white to color in 1961 and changed its name to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, at the same time moving from ABC to NBC, and eventually evolving into its current form as The Wonderful World of Disney. The series continued to air on NBC until 1981, when it was picked up by CBS. Since then, it has aired on ABC, NBC, the Hallmark Channel and the Cartoon Network via separate broadcast rights Above: Belguim Phonecard - 5 - deals. During its run, the Disney series offered new theme park project which was to be some recurring characters, such as the established on the East Coast. newspaper reporter and sleuth "Gallegher" played by Roger Mobley with a plot based on the Although the studio would probably have proved writings of Richard Harding Davis. major competition for Hanna-Barbera, Disney decided not to enter the race and mimic Hanna- Disney had already formed his own music Barbera by producing Saturday morning publishing division in 1949 and in 1956, partly television cartoon series. With the expansion of inspired by the huge success of the television Disney's empire and constant production of theme song The Ballad of Davy Crockett, he feature films, the financial burden involved in created a company-owned record production such a move would have proven too great. and distribution entity called Disneyland Plans for Disney World and EPCOT Records. In late 1965, Disney announced plans to develop Early 1960s successes another theme park to be called Disney World a few miles southwest of Orlando. Disney World was to include "the Magic Kingdom", a larger, more elaborate version of Disneyland. It would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, known as EPCOT for short. Mineral King Ski Resort (Left to right) Robert B. Sherman, Richard M. Sherman and Walt Disney sing "There's a During the early to mid-1960s, Walt Disney Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" (1964) developed plans for a ski resort in Mineral King, a glacial valley in California's Sierra By the early 1960s, the Disney empire had Nevada mountain range. He brought in experts become a major success, and Walt Disney such as the renowned Olympic ski coach and Productions had established itself as the world's ski-area designer Willy Schaeffler, who helped leading producer of family entertainment.