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On the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney's death, we revisit some strange-but-true (and some strange-but-probably-not-true) tales about the legendary animator, his studios, and his famous Anaheim theme park.
1. Disneyland grew out of Walt's obsession with trains
After becoming disillusioned with the financial constraints imposed upon his film studio, and with the difficulties involved in making expensive feature length animations, Disney began pouring all his (considerable) creative energy into his childhood hobby: Pokémontrading cards. (Okay, model trains.)
In 1950, working from his home in California's Holmby Hills, he constructed the Carolwood Pacific Railroad, a scaled down, ride-able miniature railway system, which he would invite friends and family round to testing out. He also collected and built smaller engine models, and amassed an impressive collection...some of which can be seen today at the Carolwood Barn Museum
According to his biographer Neal Gabler, however, while the hobby initially offered a way for Disney to retreat from the world, it eventually laid the seeds for his most ambitious project yet.
"At first he hatched the idea of running a train around his studio. Then he elaborated upon it with the idea of providing a turn-of-the-century village where passengers could disembark," Gabler explains.
Disney's schemes soon grew to incorporate a Wild West town...and befor elong, instead of planning a village, he was planning an entire resort...and decided to purchase land in Anaheim.
2. The theme park's opening was a complete disaster
Poor Walt. After dreaming up his inspirational, educational wonderland – or as he described it, a "happy place dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America" – and watching it spend a year under construction, the animation entrepreneur was finally able to open Disneyland on July 17, 1955.
He planned a select opening event, with 6000 tickets issued to members of the press, sponsors, and Disney studio and construction workers and their families. A television crew from ABC was on standby to capture the entire event, while the construction of the park itself had also been filmed, as part of an ABC series.
Thanks to a plumbers' strike, the park's water fountains weren't working (on one of the hottest days of the year) and vendors ended up running out of food. The park itself also wasn't completely finished: in some areas paint was still wet, while women found their heels sinking into still soft asphalt. A gas leak also meant that one of the park's main areas, Fantasyland, had to be closed for the day.
The initial press coverage, predictably enough, was disastrous, and Disneyland staff later began referring to the date as "Black Sunday"
Luckily, the negative PR didn't cause any long-term problems: Disneyland, which turned 61 this year, went on to become a pretty considerable success.
Minnie and Mickey Mouse at Disneyland
3. There used to be a "Wonderful Wizard of Bras" on site
Picture the scene: you're at Disneyland, with your family. The kids are eager to experience the rides, visit Sleeping Beauty's castle, and meet Mickey Mouse. But instead, you enter a shop, on the park's famous Main Street. Everywhere you look, there are displays of women's undergarments ... and, then, lurking in the shadows, you spot a strangely sinister mechanical figure. It's a robot, dressed in stockings, a corset and an enormous ruff.
The robot slowly revolves, on a moving stage. He introduces himself (it's a male robot) as ..."The Wonderful Wizard of Bras".
Unbelievably, this occurrence (well, something a lot like it) could in fact have happened during the first six months of Disneyland. The Hollywood-Maxwell Intimate Apparel shop, run by the Hollywood-Maxwell Brassiere company, consisted of a sort of sartorial journey through time: there was an exhibition of women's under clothing from the nineteenth century through to the 1950s, and a shop where women could purchase modern-day brassieres.
The strangest aspect of the whole experience, however was definitely the shop's resident mechanical mascot, who spoke via a pre-recorded tape.
Just in case your mind's eye isn't quite up to the task, here's a contemporary newspaper picture of the wizard, with Disney vice president CV Wood, and Hollywood-Maxwell's Herndon J Norris. (Perhaps understandably, both appear to be doing their best to ignore the robot.)
4. Disney hated beards
Walt Disney himself may have been famed for his moustache (obviously, he wasn't famed just for his moustache) but, from 1957 onwards, he decreed that facial hair was a big no-no for Disneyland employees.
The rule was relaxed in 2000, but only for moustaches – and relaxed again in 2012, but only for short, inch-long-or-less goatees and baby beards.
Anything bigger is apparently still a big no-no.
In a fascinating "behind the scenes" confession in LA Mag, one of Disneyland's former cast members, who played the pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in the park, revealed that when he joined, he was made to remove his authentic Sparrow-esque beard and don a false one.
5. He also hated communists
Shockingly, the ultra-conservative Disney even reported his own staff members to the US authorities as possible Marxist agitators, after some of his studio workers launched a strike in 1941.
According to documents from the time (via muckrock.com), in 1947 Disney spoke to the House Un-American Activities Committee, a body set up to help weed out "disloyal" US citizens, about how animator David Hilberman was most likely a communist, on the ground that: “1. That he had no religion and No.2, that he had spent considerable time at the Moscow Art Theatre studying direction, or something”.
6. But not all communists hated Disney
Children across the world dream of visiting Disneyland – and so, apparently do Soviet leaders.
In September 1959, the Soviet Union's Nikita Khrushchev was on an official visit to the US. But a trip to Hollywood and a meeting with the passionately anti-communist 20th Century Fox President Spyros P Skouras didn't go too well, after Skouras decided to challenge the politician's anti-capitalist views, provoking an angry outburst.
But the trip really took a turn for the worse when Khrushchev found out that he wouldn't be visiting Disneyland, due to concerns about his safety among the crowds.
His subsequent temper tantrum was more than a little impressive:
"And I say, I would very much like to go and see Disneyland. But then, we cannot guarantee your security, they say. Then what must I do? Commit suicide? What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me?"
7. Leaving human remains in the park is (allegedly) a thing
First things first: before anyone gets carried away, we should make it clear that we're talking about burnt human remains – as in, the ashes of cremated bodies – rather than full-sized corpses.
In 2007, Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction was closed, after a woman was spotted surreptitiously sprinkling an unknown powder into the ride's water. While the substance was never officially identified, bloggers and news outlets across the world were later contacted by Disney employees, claiming that the case was just the latest example of a visitor scattering human ashes in the park, and giving a loved-one a Disney-style send-off. Some bloggers even claimed that this is a widespread trend, with the Haunted Mansion and It's A Small World attractions also being popular "ash-ing" sites.
Rob Doughty, a Disneyland spokesman, told ABC News that there has never been a confirmed case of human ashes being discovered in Disneyland.
8. But that definitely doesn't include Walt's cryogenically frozen corpse
The persistent rumour that Disney's frozen body is buried somewhere in Disneyland (some people say it's under Sleeping Beauty's Castle) appears to have been sparked by that fact that the entrepreneur was known to have a strong interest in cryogenics and in futuristic science.
Disney died of lung cancer on December 15 1966, and was cremated two days later. But according to Bob Nelson, the head of the California Cryonics society, the decision to cremate was made by the movie producer's family.
Hd Disney been given the coice, Nelson believed, he would have opted for preservation.
“Walt Disney wanted to be frozen," Nelson revealed in a 1972 interview. ‘Lots of people think that he was, and that the body’s in cold storage in his basement. The truth is, Walt missed out. He never specified it in writing, and when he died the family didn’t go for it. They had him cremated. I personally have seen his ashes. They’re in Forest Lawn. Two weeks later we froze the first man. If Disney had been the first it would have made headlines around the world and been a real shot in the arm for cryonics. But that’s the way it goes.”
9. Disney planned a top secret club - but it didn't open until after his death
The exciting news is that there's "secret" club inside Disneyland where you can escape the crowds, sip on fancy cocktails, eat at a five star restaurant, and hang out with celebrities (rumoured members include Elton John and Tom Hanks). It's called Club 33, first opened in 1967, and is located inside the resort's New Orleans Square.
The slightly less exciting news? Membership of the club costs $12,000 a year, on top of a $25,000 initiation fee, and there's a 15 year waiting list.
While it first opened six months after Disney's death, Club 33 was in fact the brainchild of Walt himself, who envisaged it as a sort of VIP area for corporate sponsors and important guests.
11. The Disneyland designers can really get up your nose
The Disneyland "imagineers" believe that visiting a theme park should be a multi-sensory, immersive experience. And there's arguably no sense more evocative than smell.
Consequently, imagineer Bob McCarthy developed and patented a device known as the Smellitzer. Essentially, the Smellitzer system uses a series of vents and atomizer-like sprays to ensure that, wherever they may be in the park, guests are being exposed to the right scent.
If you're walking down Main Street, you might encounter the aroma of freshly baked cookies (even if there aren't any actual cookies being baked on site at the time). If you're on the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride, you'll be exposed to the tang of salty sea air. It's a subtly effective way of creating atmosphere, even if it does sound a little creepy (and even akin to mind control).
The name itself is apparently a play on the military "howitzer": rather than launching shells, the Smellitzer launches shells. (As puns go, it's not really that funny. But we'll let it slide.)
12. The original water added to the It's a Small World ride was pretty special
Disneyland's famous It's A Small World attraction was originally constructed and displayed at the 1964 Paris World's Fair (as seen in Brad Bird's 2015 film Tomorrowland, in which it contains a secret "portal" into the future).
Sponsored by Pepsi, the ride, which featured animatronic children singing the now-ubiquitous – and, to some, intensely irritating – It's a Small World theme, was designed to promote an idea of "togetherness", and celebrate the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef).
When the attraction was later moved to Disneyland itself, in 1966, Disney had children from "16 ethnic groups" pour water from the "seven seas and nine major lagoons" into the ride's waterway; he himself poured in liquid contributions from the great American rivers. (That said, given that water generally just looks like water, it's unlikely that anyone would have been able to tell the difference had Disney cheated.)
While It's A Small World may have been popular with guests, its original sponsors, Pepsi, apparently couldn't stand it, and objected to the lack of product placement. Consequently, when the ride moved to Disneyland, the sponsor was changed from Pepsi to Bank of America.
13. But they've had to add more, possibly because people are getting larger
In 2007, the LA Times reported that the boats used in Disneyland's It's A Small World attraction were unexpectedly coming to a stand-still at certain points during the ride, with passengers occasionally being asked to step out to "lighten the load". According to the stories, Disneyland had to increase the amount of water used in the attraction, and take measures to improve the buoyancy of the boats themselves.
While the LA times was quick to link the problem to that of heavier guests, and the US's expanding national waistline, a Disneyland spokesperson instead claimed, somewhat unconvincingly, that the issue was being caused by "layers and layers" of fibre glass, built up by maintenance teams across the years.
14. Walt originally wanted alligators in his California park
A diary by landscape designer Ruth Shellhorn, who worked on the construction of the Anaheim park, reveals that: “Disney had a wild idea about an alligator in a pen…. Disney wants a pond and less paving [near the front of Adventureland]".
According to the Disney History Institute, the project wasn't quite as far-fetched as it sounds. When Disney was planning his park, one of Anaheim's most popular tourist attractions was the nearby Buena Park Alligator Farm, which used reptiles shipped in from Florida.
15. But the cats and geese are probably quite enough to be getting on with
According to an insider report from a Disneyland worker, the park is home to hordes of "dangerous" cats and geese.
"If a cat gets onstage, we've got to keep them from getting close to the guests for obvious reasons -- getting clawed by a stray cat at Disneyland is a good way to get some kind of terrible infection and a great way to get Disney in a sh----load of trouble," explained Disney employee Robert Evans in a 2014 post: 6 Hidden Sides of Disneyland Only Employees Get to See.
"But believe it or not, the geese are the real threats. If you've never been around geese, they're kind of dangerous. They're extremely territorial, they hiss, they bite, and they will chase you while hissing at you and biting you."
16. Space Mountain looks pretty different with the lights on
Ever wanted to "ruin the mystery" and see what Disneyland's Space Mountain ride looks like with the lights on? Writer John Frost, from The Disney Blog, was able to do just this in 2012, after he visited the park and found that the ride was out of operation. The video below was captured by Frost as he entered the Space Mountain attraction and rode alongside the track in a People Mover vehicle.
The website Mentalfloss has also shared a lights-on video taken by a somebody actually riding the rollercoaster: again, it's a pretty interesting (if slightly surreal) watch.
Funnily enough, back in the Fifties, Disney was convinced that fast, exciting rides had no place in his theme park. According to Disney Park History, he only changed his mind after he witnessed how successful the relatively speedy Matterhorn Bobsleds attraction was.
He asked ride engineer John Hench to begin working on a space-inspired roller coaster, but the idea was temporraily dropped after Disney's death in 1967...and Space Mountain eventually opened in 1975.
17. There are two special, secret paint shades
If you're walking through Disneyland (presumably in a state of Smellitzer induced bliss), one thing you probably won't notice is anything painted grey or green.
The company has apparently apparently created two deliberately dull paint colours, known as "Go Away Green" and "No Seeum Gray", to draw the eyes of guests away from any objects that they want to hide, or blend away. These objects range from utility buildings, to fences and walls, to the door of the famous Club 33.
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