History of Disneyland

When Walt Disney needed funding for Disneyland, he'd made the unusual arrangement to produce a weekly TV series for the ABC network in exchange for their investment in his park. Walt used TV to get the general public primed for the concept of Disneyland and inadvertently changed the culture forever. While he'd appeared on TV before this in two different Christmas special that sold his films and had done the same with radio before this, it was this long-running TV series that made Walt Disney a recognizable pop culture figure to this day. The series would switch networks and change names as it continued airing long after his death in 1966. This is the debut episode where the concept of Disneyland is first revealed and Walt with his team give a glimpse at what's coming in the upcoming TV season including the debut of Davy Crockett and his hit song. It's also important to note that in this debut episode Walt showcased a scene from his beloved and now purged film Song of the South. It's the only one of his films Walt showcased on both of his previous Christmas specials as well as this debut show. Rounding out this debut is a highlight of one of Walt's first successful creations, Mickey Mouse. Original airdate October 27, 1954 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

On this episode of Walt's TV show we see the early stages of Disneyland under construction. It's amazing seeing this footage of what later became Disneyland. Walt built his park in a year and a day, like the King Arthur legend of Camelot. Walt narrates this footage with his typical humor. This episode also shows how the construction of Disneyland was filmed, often by vets from the True Life Adventure film crews. There's also footage of the very first audio animatronics under construction for the Jungle Cruise. When this episode originally aired it was paired with the True life Adventure Nature's Half Acre. We have only included the Disneyland documentary portion of the program for historical purposes. Nature's Half Acre was released to DVD in 2006. Original airdate February 9, 1955 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

Throughout the 1954-55 television season, Walt Disney had been showing viewers progress reports of the construction of his theme park, Disneyland. The first of its kind on such a grand scale, Walt had agreed to do this TV show in order to both co-fund the construction of and to advertise his park. This seldom seen final progress report works as almost a mini documentary on the ingenuity it took to build Disneyland. Many of the problems these craftsmen faced had never been attempted before and you see how they brilliantly solved them. Disney legend, Winston Hibler both co-wrote and narrated this show. He'd been a Disney writer for years and is best known today as the narrator of Walt's documentary films such as the True-Life Adventures, which he also often wrote. Throughout this episode you'll also see other Disney legends hard at work on different aspects of the park such as Harper Goff, Claude Coates, John Hench and others. Another Disney Legend, Bill Walsh co-wrote this episode. The first half of the program focuses on how some of the animatronics and ride vehicles were constructed while the latter half focuses on the construction of the buildings on the property itself. Of course, walt would continue adding to his park in future years but this footage shows us what it took to just get the doors open. This was the first time anyone had ever filmed this much behind the scenes footage of such an undertaking before and much more was shot than ever ended up on TV. Hundreds of hours of raw footage still exists to this day as well as time lapse photography of Disneyland rising up from the orange groves. During a sequence showing some of this footage there's a montage of Walt Disney's most popular songs in rewritten versions to reflec the construction of Disneyland. It proves characters from Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Song of the South, and others were all celebrated and members of the Disney family on equal footing. Like the Empire State Building, which only took thirteen months to build, the construction of Disneyland is a modern marvel. This was a time before restrictive big government regulations where such undertakings could happen at a breakneck pace. What's so impressive is Walt built Disneyland in one year and a day, trying to replicate the King Arthur legend of the creation of Camelot. In fact, Walt had intended to do a King Arthur film in England just prior to the construction of Disneyland but it fell through at the last minute. In design work the castle at Disneyland was described as King Arthur's castle before it was rechristened Sleeping Beauty's Castle, tying in with a film that would take four more years to complete. Media at the time also claimed the castle was either Snow White's or Cinderella's castle as well even though it has no resemblance to the castles in all of Walt's animated features. This is an important piece of Walt Disney and American history chronicling the achievement of an army of men and women united behind one man's innovative vision. Editor's note: When this originally aired, the second half hour of this hourlong show reran a segment from the first episode on the career of Mickey Mouse. We've only included the first half of the show as it originally aired that focused on the construction of Disneyland. Original airdate July 13, 1955 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

John Fell narrates this short featurette served as a pre-show to the broadcast for the opening of Disneyland in 1955. ABC supplied this featurette to local affiliates to air before the show. There had never been a live broadcast on this scale before and ABC wanted to show the general public all that went into achieving this. Like the very construction of Disneyland itself, the opening day broadcast was an engineering marvel. Today we're used to polished live broadcasts in our digital age but back in 1955 everything was analog and far more complicated to produce. Essentially five live broadcasts were being produced simultaneously that could be intercut as needed. Miles of cable were required to pull this off and this rare behind the scenes footage shows the lengths went to in order make that happen. When this aired, behind the scenes footage was even an innovative concept. Very few featurettes or TV shows were done to showcase what it took to make anything happen. This is a rare document of both Walt Disney and broadcasting history, Original airdate July 17, 1955 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

When this broadcast aired on July 17, 1955, Americans had been primed for the grand opening of Disneyland. Every week for nearly a year, Walt Disney had come into viewers' homes to tell them about his upcoming theme park and interest was high. Kid across America were waiting eager with anticipation for their first glimpse at the part and so were their parts who had grown up with Walt Disney's creations. When this live broadcast took place over 90 million viewers tuned in to see the payoff for their investment of tuning in to a season's worth of shows. Nearly every TV set in America at that time was watching this broadcast. Let that sink in. The broadcast itself was a marvel of engineering as there'd never been a live broadcast on such a grand scale like this ever attempted before. (For more information on that look at the Operation Disneyland video.) To host this broadcast, Walt asked his friends Art Linkletter, Bob Cummings, and Ronald Reagan to host the festivities. All three broadcasters were well known to 1950's audiences from a variety of venues, and these were A-list talents leading this broadcast. Because this broadcast was live and had never been attempted, there were a few errors during it, and they didn't get to everything that had been rehearsed. The flubs and snafus are part of the nostalgic charm. Also, the reason we don't see the interiors of the Fantasyland dark rides is because these were unable to be filmed at the time. Overlays of footage from Walt's animated features were inserted into the live broadcast to make up for it. Opening Day of Disneyland was a legendary disaster story known as Black Sunday with bathrooms and water fountains not working, pavement not hardened, gas leaks, food sellouts, counterfeit tickets, and more. You wouldn't realize it from the footage as ABC has a financial investment in the parks and kept all of that content off screen. Walt himself is in grand form as his latest dream has become a reality. The Firehouse Five Plus Two, a Dixieland Jazz Band comprised of Walt Disney artists is also one of the many cameos to be found in this historic broadcast. Aunt Jemimah, a figure purged from Walt Disney history, is also seen in this historic broadcast. In this broadcast you'll also see the prayer and blessing that was held over the park by Rev Glenn D Puder. There's also a video about that with more detail elsewhere on this Rumble channel. This is the only complete version of this broadcast anywhere online. In early 2001 this broadcast was officially released in the first wave of Treasures DVD's in edited form and that version of this footage is all that's in circulation online. A pet project of Roy Disney, Jr., this series of DVD's released many Walt era animated shorts, TV episodes, and theatrical shorts for the first time. Film critic and Disney fan Leonard Maltin hosted these DVD sets with immense enthusiasm. While the overall series was applauded for being complete and unedited, this was not true for the Disneyland USA DVD set and several edits were made across the content of this it because of PC culture. The Mouseketeers were completely purged from Dateline Disneyland when they had been present in both the parade down Mainstreet USA and had their own segment. A gag with Sammy Davis Jr. was also cut to avoid paying his estate. This deleted footage was always included when this episode would air on The Disney Channel. Every copy in circulation online has been from this edited print and most people are unaware of these edits. This is how history gets revised. A copy of the Disney Channel airing was made available to us and we have edited in the missing footage. We have edited in a version of the Mouseketeers segment that was released to a later Treasures set but it isn't the correct footage. It's of a rehearsal edited into the final footage. If this deleted footage ever surfaces, we will edit all the removed footage back into the show for the historical record. If anyone has this footage and would like to make it available, please leave a comment below. People should see this content as it originally aired. After this Treasure release blunder, Roy Jr never allowed it to happen again and whenever there was an overlooked edit on a futures Treasures release, a replacement program was instituted to ensure collectors could have the complete copy of the content. Original airdate July 17. 1955 Special thanks to Dennis Mitchell for providing the missing footage to this broadcast! Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

This home movie chronicles the Barstow family of Wethersfield, Connecticut winning a free trip to Disneyland via a contest held by Scotch Tape. The film captures what the newly opened Disneyland looked on color film shortly after opening and from the unique point of view of the guest experience. The trip took place in July 1956. An audio track was added to the footage in 1995 of the father, Robbins Barstow narrating the trip. The film began showing in film festivals and gained a cult following. The film was added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 2008 and has been hailed on how it captures middle class America and the early home movie and theme park industry in southern California at this time. Of interesting note, a young Steve Martin is briefly caught in the film. He'd been a boy working various jobs in the park upon opening and what Martin learned from the experience mentored him into one day being the entertainer he later became as an adult. The Scotch Tape contest display tying in with Song of the South is also included in the film. In 2011 one of the grown Barstow children, David, went on another trip to Disneyland with his wife, Linda, and filmed the trip. That video was released as Disneyland Dream revisited and chronicled how much the park had changed in over 50 years. Original release date 1956 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

Walt Disney's People & Places was a companion series to his True Life Adventures Series. Where as True Life Adventures dealt with the animal kingdom, People & Places focused on different cultures around the world. All but a handful of the People & Places theatrical featurettes were filmed in Cinemascope. At the time, this was the only way people across America has access to these other cultures and Walt Disney brought it to them. (These featurettes have never been officially released because of wokeism rather than understanding what they really are.) For one of the 1956 entries, Walt had Disneyland filmed so he could show his park to the rest of the world. In interviews Walt often described Disneyland as am eternal World's Fair celebrating American ideal, culture and values and he hoped these things would be adopted by other nations of the earth. What is filmed is a Technicolor Cinemascope snapshot of what Disneyland looked like shortly after it had opened the previous year. This is perhaps the most important historical record of Disneyland at that time for this reason. Pay extra close attention to how Disneyland is presented in Walt's time compared with how it's presented today. This featurette was originally released with Walt Disney's Westward Ho, the Wagons! and wasn't seen again until a few years later. In 1962, Disneyland USA was reissued with the film Moon Pilot with a special premiere show gala with costumed Walt Disney characters at Radio City Music Hall. A special interactive film was produced where a costumed actor as Mickey Mouse interacted with a special film produced of Walt Disney introducing the Disneyland USA featurette. This is believed to be the final time Walt ever recorded dialog for Mickey Mouse. Disney favorite Wally Boag has a cameo as a film director scalped by American Indians in this introduction. We have edited this introduction into this presentation so you can get the idea of at it may have been like. Original release date January 20, 1956 Walt's introduction original release date April 5, 1962 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

When Dateline Disneyland aired live at the opening of Disneyland on July 17. 1955, the show ran behind schedule and the True Life Adventureland segment was severely truncated. So, when Walt returned to his theme park on his TV show in 1956, it makes sense why he focused on the construction and exploration of True Life Adventureland. Surely, the studio had received letters from viewers wanting to see more on this land since it was left off the live broadcast as well. The segment focuses on the Jungle Cruise which was originally based on Walt Disney's True-Life Adventures series of films. Today we know this section of the parks as Adventureland but originally it was conceived as True Life Adventureland and was based on that film series. There'd never been a series of films like this before and they were innovative documentaries. In 1959, Walt had legendary member of the Nine Old Men Marc Davis revise the Jungle Cruise to have more gags. This 1956 footage shows how the attraction was originally constructed. This segment originally aired with the True-Life Adventure The Water Birds, but we've only included the Adventureland segment for historical purposes. The Water Birds was released to DVD in 2006. Original release date February 29, 1956 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

In this episode of Walt's TV show Walt gives us an overview of the building of Disneyland then shows us the latest updates of his theme park. We see the construction of the park including the American Indian Village. This is a historic snapshot on what the park was like shortly after opening. When this episode originally aired the second half of the program featured Walt's cartoon of Pecos Bill, but we've only included the Disneyland documentary portion of the show for historical purposes. Although Pecos Bill is on DVD, that version is edited and digitally altered. Original airdate April 3, 1957 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.