Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Disneyland Fun Facts - The Enchanted Tiki Room, Sleeping Beauty Castle & Haunted Mansion

Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. 
  
The Enchanted Tiki Room: Walt's inspiration for the Tiki Room -- the first show featuring fully synchronized Audio-Animatronics figures -- came from a small mechanical birdcage that he found at a New Orleans antique shop. He was so fascinated by the birds in the cage that he bought two of them -- one to display and one to take apart. One of the original birdcages can usually be seen in the reproduction of Walt's office located in The Walt Disney Story attraction on Main Street; however, it's been temporarily relocated to the "One Man's Dream" exhibit at Disney-MGM Studios in Florida as part of their 100 Years of Magic celebration.

Haunted Mansion: The singing busts in the Graveyard scene represent the singing group the Mello Men, who also play the parts of the singing cards in Disney's "Alice in Wonderland," and can be heard on Alice's attraction singing "Painting the Roses Red."

Sleeping Beauty Castle: A special spot just beneath Sleeping Beauty Castle marks the original center of the park, before Critter Country or Mickey's Toontown were added. As you emerge on the other side of the tunnel into Fantasyland, there's a golden spike driven into the ground -- look for it on your next visit!

Monday, July 25, 2011

1966 - Disneyland Topiaries

The tradition of Disney Topiaries began in 1966 when Disneyland horticulturalists sculpted larger-than-lifesize characters in Fantasyland, in particular surrounding the It's a Small World attraction. At Disney World, the process began 3 years before the resort’s 1971 opening and is still evolving today at the WDW Nursery!




Familiar Disney Faces at Children’s Miracle Network Classic Familiar Disney Faces at Children’s Miracle Network Classic Familiar Disney Faces at Children’s Miracle Network Classic Familiar Disney Faces at Children’s Miracle Network Classic Familiar Disney Faces at Children’s Miracle Network Classic Familiar Disney Faces at Children’s Miracle Network Classic



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Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Disney Influence and the 1964-1965 World's Fair

The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City.

The fair ran for two six-month seasons, April 22–October 18, 1964 and April 21–October 17, 1965.

The theme was symbolized by a 12-story high, stainless-steel model of the earth called Unisphere.





The longest lines at the 1964-1965 World's Fair (in New York City) were for the 4 attractions created by Disney. Walt took some of the attractions and elements of others to his Anaheim park when the Fair closed.




The fair also is remembered as the vehicle Walt Disney utilized to design and perfect the system of "audio-animatronics", in which a combination of sound, mechanical electronics and computers controls the movement of lifelike robots to act out scenes.

The Walt Disney Company designed and created four shows at the fair:




    ºoº In the "it's a small world" attraction at the Pepsi pavilion, animated dolls and animals frolicked in a spirit of international unity on a boat ride around the world. The song was provided by the Sherman Brothers. Each of the animated dolls had an identical face, originally designed by New York (Valley Stream) artist Gregory S. Marinello in partnership with Walt Disney himself.

    ºoº General Electric sponsored "Progressland" where an audience seated in a revolving auditorium viewed an audio-animatronic presentation of the progress of electricity in the home. The Sherman Brothers song "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" was composed for this attraction.




    ºoº Ford Motor Company presented Disney's "The Magic Skyway," the second most popular exhibit at the fair, using Ford cars in an early prototype of the Omnimover system to move the audience through scenes featuring life-sized audio-animatronic dinosaurs and cavemen. The Walt Disney Company had earlier been asked by General Motors to produce their exhibit, but they declined.

    ºoº At the Illinois pavilion, a lifelike President Abraham Lincoln recited his famous speeches in "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln".




After the fair, there was some discussion of the Disney company retaining these exhibits on-site and converting Flushing Meadows Park into an east coast version of Disneyland, but this idea was abandoned. Instead, Disney relocated several of these exhibits to Disneyland and subsequently replicated them at other Disney theme parks; Walt Disney World is essentially the realization of the original concept of an "east coast Disneyland" with Epcot Center designed a "permanent" world's fair in 1982 and was expressly built as a tribute to the World's Fair.
Two attractions from the fair exist at Walt Disney World, including a variation of the original "it's a small world" and the updated Carousel of Progress. The two remaining attractions currently exist as evolutions of the originals: The Magic Skyway inspired the PeopleMover, and later the Tomorrowland Transit Authority; and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln was expanded into The Hall of Presidents.






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Saturday, July 23, 2011

Friday, July 22, 2011

The Tallest Attraction on Walt Disney World

At 199 feet, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is one of the two tallest attractions on Walt Disney World property!

Do you know which is the other one?




Click Here to see the Official WDW Tower of Terror site!
Click Here to see the amazing Disneyland Paris Tower of Terror site!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Disneyland's New Ride Tickets

Disneyland replaced individual ride tickets (in use since 1955) with its new passports (single admission price to the park) in 1982.




"I remember the first day we had paying guests in the park and Walt was over at the Fire Station looking out the window. And I heard him say, 'Paying guests I love you' ... and threw  them a big kiss."

-Hank Dains (original Disneyland Cast Member)

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

John Stamos & Disneyland Sign

Actor & Disney fan John Stamos was the winning Ebay bidder for the galvanized steel Disneyland sign that stood in front of the park from 1989 to 1999. He paid $30,700 for the marquee.







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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Invisible from within Disneyland

Back in 1955, Walt Disney had an agreement with the city of Anaheim that no outside buildings could be tall enough to be visible from within Disneyland.



Monday, July 18, 2011

After the Opening of Disneyland

"We're gonna kick ourselves for not buying everything within a radius of ten miles around here."

-Walt Disney


Sunday, July 17, 2011

How Long to Construct Disneyland?

From groundbreaking to opening day, the original Disneyland [California] was built in just 365 days.




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Saturday, July 16, 2011

40th anniversary of Disneyland

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Disneyland, Disney created a series of 41 collector cards, one for each year the park had been open. A card for each year represented an event or an attraction. The cards were handed out to visitors to the park starting with the "1955" card on January 21,1995 and ending March 2, 1995 with the "1995" card.





 Tomorrow is Disneyland's Birthday :)

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Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Financing Disneyland

To finance Disneyland (July 17th, 1955), Walt Disney sold a vacation home and even borrowed against his life insurance.

Friday, July 8, 2011

1960 Monorail Board Game

Parker Brothers released the Disneyland Monorail Game in 1960. The object of the board game was to be the first player to complete the Monorail Ride and finish ahead of Casey Jr.







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Thursday, July 7, 2011

Disneyland Light

Disneyland uses over 200,000 light bulbs per year!

There are 11,000 lights alone used to outline the buildings on Main Street, U.S.A.!

Disneyland's Lamps





The street lamps on Disneyland's Main Street USA are approximately 100 years old




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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Disneyland's Sailing Ship Columbia

Disneyland's Sailing Ship Columbia was modeled after the first vessel to successfully circumnavigate the globe.



When constructed in 1958, it was the first three-masted windjammer to have been built in the United States in more than 100 years.






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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Liberty Tree

The Liberty Tree’s Patriotic Roots


Disney's Liberty Tree at the Magic Kingdom, which sits across from Hall of Presidents, is based on the original Liberty Tree in Boston that served as a gathering place for the Sons of Liberty in the months leading up to the Boston Tea Party. 

The Liberty Tree’s Patriotic Roots

The events of this time period (and the tree) were featured in the 1957 Disney film, “Johnny Tremain,” which follows Johnny, a young silversmith’s apprentice, in the days before the start of the Revolutionary War. In one scene, Johnny and his friends parade through the streets singing the song “The Liberty Tree” and stop to hang lanterns on its branches.

During the making of this film, Walt Disney became excited at the possibility of adding a similarly themed Liberty Street to Disneyland park. His vision eventually grew into a whole “land” that was added to the plans for Magic Kingdom Park.

Today, our Liberty Tree illuminates each evening with the light from 13 lanterns. Each light represents one of the 13 original colonies.

The Liberty Tree’s Patriotic Roots

Fun fact: Walt Disney’s youngest daughter, Sharon, had an uncredited role in the film, “Johnny Tremain,” playing a friend of Johnny’s. (Pictured above, right).
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