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Fun Facts
      
Walt Disney World
Disneyland opened to a star-studded fanfare on July 17th, 1955. The opening of "the Happiest Place on Earth" was a media event that, even as late as the 1990's, has rarely been exceeded for glitz, glamour, excitement, and drama. Walt Disney himself dedicated the park and each of the individual "lands" within it's bermed boundaries. Main Street USA, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland made up the lineup at that time. New Orleans Square, Critter Country (formerly Bear Country), and Toontown have since been added. Each of the original lands has been altered -- and had new attractions added -- over the years.
Disneyland was Walt's dream. For years he dreamed and hoped of building a "little family park" where parents could take their children for a day of fun -- for both kids and adults. Walt felt that it was possible to build a different kind of park...a "themed" park that had fun attractions and a beautiful atmosphere...a park that "would never be completed -- as long as there is imagination in the world."
The first incarnation of what eventually became Disneyland was planned to be built at the Disney Studio lot on Hyperion Avenue in Burbank. Walt's grandiose plans for attractions soon made it clear that the small lot wouldn't be anywhere near large enough. With no money, and many other projects underway already, Walt shelved his ideas for the time being.
Construction of "The Happiest Place on Earth" was completed in one year, a tremendous engineering and planning success that is still to be admired. Joe Fowler, hired by the Disney Company to manage the construction effort, did a tremendous job. Even though plagued by strikes, shortages, and a lack of freeway transportation to the area.
During it's original construction and during the first decade of operation, Walt kept his own hand on the design of Disneyland. The first actual rendering of the park, drawn by Herb Ryman, was personally directed by Walt. The drawing was instrumental in securing the balance of the financial backing Walt needed. The design of Sleeping Beauty's castle, so named because the movie by that name was soon to be released, the concepts of many of the attractions, the high standards for the landscaping -- Bill Evan's domain, and much else is directly attributed to Walt.
The one thing that Walt couldn't control, though, was what happened just outside of the border of the Anaheim, California property. As it turned out, the effects were staggering. As expected, subdivisions sprang up all around -- Walt had intentionally located Disneyland smack dab in the center of the projected population center of the Los Angeles area. What wasn't expected was the high-rise hotels, restaurants, tourist traps, and such...Walt was able to keep the bawdy carnival atmosphere out of Disneyland, but he couldn't keep it out of Anaheim. Furthermore, the Disney financial experts soon realized the incredible boon that hotel resort income would have been. The Disneyland Hotel, always the flagship hotel in Anaheim, wasn't owned by the Walt Disney Company until the Michael Eisner era almost forty years after Disneyland's gates opened.
Walt always said there would never be another Disneyland. And, of course, relocating the park to get away from the Anaheim area was out of the question. Besides, Disneyland was a tremendous success. The problem wasn't Disneyland...the problem was the financial constraint that dictated the original, small size of Disneyland. A seed was germinated in Walt Disney's fertile mind. The idea for another park located far enough from Disneyland so that it wouldn't compete with the older sibling, but large enough to have room for hundreds of new ideas, was born.
The concept was tested in 1964. Disney's Imagineering department built four attractions for the New York World's Fair. There were two main reasons for Disney's heavy involvement. First, Walt planned to move the attractions to Disneyland at the conclusion of the fair. This would provide additional attractions at the park with most of the cost borne by the sponsors of the fair exhibits. Second, the 1964 fair was a test...to see if the East coast populace would respond to Disneyland-like entertainment.
The fair was a tremendous success. Most important, Disney learned that the East cost could easily support a Disney park on an even greater scale than Southern California.
Planning for Walt Disney World began in earnest even before the '64 fair. At the conclusion of the fair Disney secretly began buying up property in central Florida. The box office success of Mary Poppins provided support to the company coffers right when the land purchases and attraction development began. In fact, a separate company that Walt founded, called Mapo, was the focus of the Florida project for several years. Mapo was eventually merged into the Imagineering department several years later.
Walt Elias Disney died on December 15th, 1966. Walt's brother Roy postponed his planned retirement to take the reins of the company and start construction in Florida on another Magic Kingdom. Plans included several of Disneyland's excellent attractions. Some, like the Hall of Presidents, were expanded from their California counterparts. Others, like Pirates of the Caribbean, were cut back leaving just a flavor of their west coast cousins. Also, several new attractions, like the Country Bear Jamboree and Space Mountain were included...and eventually versions were built in Disneyland as well.
Walt Disney World was always intended to be different from Disneyland. EPCOT, the "Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow", was a cornerstone of the planning from the very beginning. EPCOT, a planned community with real-life inhabitants, never turned out to be an actual town. Even so, EPCOT Center -- a kind of permanent world's fair -- is one of Walt Disney World's jewels...a place to have fun and learn about all of those issues that communities deal with every day. Land usage, the ocean environment, transportation, health services, energy management, technology, and the sharing of culture are all highlighted in this unique place. Walt was personally involved in the early plans for EPCOT, but was not involved in the final incarnation -- or the construction. The park was completed in 1981.
In 1989, the Disney/MGM Studios Theme Park opened it's gates at the WDW complex. The Studios includes a recreation of the golden Hollywood era of the 30's. Art deco buildings, a gas station with red-colored gasoline in glass-tank pumps, and the Chinese Theatre highlight the Hollywood and Vine and Sunset areas of Downtown Hollywood. An example of "California Crazy" architecture, a giant dinosaur, is the location of a fast food stand along a small lake. The Studio's attractions include a stunt show, a sound effects demonstration, television show, rides based on famous films, a backlot movie-making tour, and a very unique animation studio tour is available. Several attractions are based on the movie industry and are just plain fun. Over the years since this park opened, it has been expanded a few times, albeit slowly and modestly. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was added in 1994, and the most recent addition is a 10,000 person amphitheater in which the spectacular night time show Fantasmic! is held.
Disney's Animal Kingdom, a themed zoological park with all of the magic that the Walt Disney Company can muster, opened in 1998. The park includes several spectacular shows, an African safari (which features real animals in their "natural" habitats), and Countdown to Extinction (which takes you back to the cretaceous period for a visit with our dinosaur friends.
Disneyland has a lot of wonderful things to see and do, but WDW has a huge number of wonderful things to see and do. The two places are almost incomparable.
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