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00:00:28For more information visit www.fema.gov
00:00:31Park means a lot to me in that something will never be finished, something that I can keep
00:00:41developing, a thing I can keep building as long as I can get some money to build it with.
00:00:50And I've felt that all along, all through my career, instead of talking to somebody
00:00:55about something, if I could, I'd go ahead and make something and then show it to them.
00:01:11Now the people of this country are about to see and hear a new adventure in entertainment.
00:01:16It will come upon the American scene shortly under the title of Disneyland.
00:01:22Walt Disney, this is the greatest creative genius in the entertainment business.
00:01:27He's brought new concepts to the theaters and entertained millions and millions of people.
00:01:32That was quite a build-up there and...
00:01:34You deserved it.
00:01:35Well, that's what worries me, you know.
00:01:47Walt had decided in his own mind that if he was going to make this thing work, he'd have
00:01:52to have financing that he was willing to do some TV shows in order to help get the financing.
00:01:59He's now going to try his luck on home television.
00:02:02And I'm sure the same impact will be made on the home audience as Walt has made in the theater
00:02:08audience.
00:02:09Well, I just want to assure you that we're not taking it lightly, that it's not going to be
00:02:15just a little stepchild of the Disney organization.
00:02:17It's going to be one of our major enterprises.
00:02:29Now on a site of 240 acres near the city of Anaheim, we've begun to build Disneyland the place.
00:02:36When Walt described this great park, I knew that this was not a good idea because who
00:02:42was going to drive 30 or 40 miles?
00:02:44The opening date for the park has been set for mid-summer of 1955.
00:02:49We can never meet this deadline without the complete cooperation of everyone who works here.
00:02:55Most people in Hollywood thought Disneyland would be a Hollywood spectacular, a spectacular failure.
00:03:01Though Roy Disney said, what do you mean most people in Hollywood?
00:03:05He says, that's what I thought.
00:03:08We want you to see and share with us the experience of building this dream into a reality.
00:03:51We want you to see and share with us.
00:03:55In fact, Walt had in his own mind set a deadline that was impossible to make.
00:04:00An opening of July of 1955, and I still don't see how I was ever done.
00:04:16One day he called me up and said, remember I was talking about having some kind of a
00:04:21Disney affair here in Southern California, and so I got in a car with him, and we rode,
00:04:28and we rode, and we rode, and we rode, and I thought, where that fell is he taking us
00:04:34to, and we got down through those orange groves. He said, this is all top secret stuff, and I said,
00:04:41yeah, that's right, and I didn't bother to tell him. I thought he was out of his mind.
00:05:02This is our progress report from Disneyland.
00:05:06On our first television program, we showed you a blueprint for a dream. Well, this is
00:05:11the blueprint, and the dream is Disneyland, the park that we're constructing near Anaheim,
00:05:17California. We promised to keep you informed as our dream became a reality. So, for a
00:05:23first-hand progress report, let's visit Disneyland now.
00:05:38One of our naturalist photographers is Stuart Jewell, an expert in time-lapse photography.
00:05:44We don't have these cameras up here just for fun. They keep a daily record of the growth
00:05:49and development of Disneyland. Now, an ordinary camera takes 24 pictures a second, but these
00:05:57take one picture every 15 seconds, and of course, that makes things look a lot faster on your screen.
00:06:11Disneyland is divided into four cardinal realms. The four different worlds from which our television
00:06:17shows will originate. Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, and Frontierland.
00:06:49And Walt, even at that time, had in the back of his mind how he wanted to move people.
00:06:55He was anxious to just get all the ideas possible together. It was helping him to gel his concept,
00:07:04which I think at the time was loose and fluid and all over the place.
00:07:11No, Roy always hated to be in debt, and Walt seemed to revel in the idea, because we were
00:07:17continually in debt. And it did take that extraordinary blind faith, you know, to follow Walt,
00:07:26because he had a rough time with banks.
00:07:29They couldn't see it either.
00:07:33And he was always off in left field somewhere. There was nothing he could say about something,
00:07:37except that he had a hunch it was going to work.
00:07:50Believe it or not, it wasn't too easy to sell people on the success of Disneyland, because
00:07:55there were a lot of doubting Thomases.
00:08:06And finally the ball began to roll, and it began to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And you think,
00:08:11well, now, what if this fails? What if the people don't like it? What if it's too far away? What
00:08:17if
00:08:17they go once and never come back? But that's Walt's problem. If he fails, then it's his failure.
00:08:56We could go by car, of course. It's a pleasant 50-minute trip across town. But let's be different.
00:09:03Let's take to the air. Let's go by helicopter.
00:09:31In order for Walt to take his guest by the hand and take him on a hike through a Missouri
00:09:38wilderness or anything, what he doesn't need is a high-rise building or a transmission tower
00:09:43or freeway interchange in the background. So, number one, you build a berm, because it takes a berm to shut
00:09:54out sound.
00:10:08Now you're in Walt's world. That's an important function from the landscape's
00:10:30sound point.
00:10:32Walt, he didn't want just small trees. He wanted big trees. He said, trees have no scale.
00:10:38So, he wanted a real show on there. And he used to ride herd on Bill Evans and get bigger
00:10:43and better
00:10:47trees.
00:10:49Walt didn't want to have to wait five years to get the landscape to harmonize with the architecture.
00:10:55Well, we could do that up to a point, but we ran out of dollars.
00:11:04We're striving for instant maturity within the constructions of a budget, and our budget was very,
00:11:10very, very, very meager.
00:11:25I did a quick sketch of where we were going to put berms and where we were going to put
00:11:31boulders and where we were going to put trees, but no dimensions or anything.
00:11:36I planted it all by the seed of my past.
00:11:41Crazy, man, crazy.
00:11:43Crazy, man, crazy.
00:11:46Crazy, man, crazy.
00:11:47Well, man, that thing's gone.
00:11:49But I don't know, I don't know, but I don't know.
00:11:52Why do you bear with a solid beat?
00:11:56Take my chicken there, we dance around.
00:11:58When I start rockin' for me, startin' to shout, shout, crazy, man, crazy
00:12:04Crazy, man, crazy
00:12:07Crazy, man, crazy
00:12:10And that music's gone
00:12:12Go, go, go, go, everybody
00:12:16Go, go, go, go, everybody
00:12:19Go, go, go, everybody
00:12:22Go, go, go, go, go, go
00:12:48Crazy, man, crazy
00:12:51Crazy, man, crazy
00:12:52Crazy, man, crazy
00:12:56Man, that music's gone
00:12:59Crazy, man, crazy. Crazy, man, crazy. Crazy, man, crazy. Man, that music's gone, gone. They play it soft. They play
00:13:14it strong. They play it wild and they play it long.
00:13:17You just keep playing till they break it down. You keep them rocking on. You gotta say he's crazy, man,
00:13:24crazy. Crazy, man, crazy. Crazy, man, crazy. Man, that music's gone, gone.
00:13:35Go, go, go, everybody. Go, go, go, go, everybody. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
00:13:48go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
00:13:50go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
00:13:51go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
00:13:52go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
00:13:53go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go
00:14:04But the operators take these things in stride, and fortunately, we've had no serious accidents.
00:14:13Here's the beginning of Main Street, a composite of all the small towns in America at the turn of the
00:14:18century.
00:14:19Here you can take a ride in a horse car past the old town hall, the opera house, the firehouse.
00:14:25And if you stay on to the end of the line, you will reach the hub of Disneyland where this
00:14:30camera tower now stands.
00:14:44Here we go.
00:15:08The budget in starting was $4.5 million.
00:15:12In August, it was $7 million.
00:15:14In December, it was $11 million.
00:15:17In springtime, it was anybody's guess.
00:15:23And we ran out of money and almost had to stop construction at $17 million.
00:15:31And that's what happens when you try to make a thing as special as Disneyland in a short time.
00:15:44I haven't invested money in ranches.
00:15:46I haven't got anything here.
00:15:48Here I have a home, that's all.
00:15:51But this thing, I put my own money in.
00:15:56And I borrowed on the insurance that I've been paying on for 30 years.
00:16:10Walt, I'd be walking around the enormous foundation for the railroad station and the underpass coming into Disneyland.
00:16:17And he turned to Dick Irvine.
00:16:18He said, well, by the time Joe gets through burying all our money underground, we want everything left for his
00:16:23show.
00:16:25He was really, sincerely worried about the situation.
00:16:29He was really, sincerely worried about the situation.
00:16:52He was really, sincerely worried about the situation.
00:17:23In Wilmington, California, construction was going forward on two steam locomotives.
00:17:28Vintage of 1900, probably the last of their type ever to be built in the United States.
00:17:58Walt just loved miniatures of almost everything, I think.
00:18:01And the trains were probably a kind of a personification of childhood to him.
00:18:08You know, it's what you grew up around.
00:18:24It was eight years younger than Dad, so he kind of was the little kid around the trains.
00:18:30And they were around the railroads a lot.
00:18:41When they had an uncle who was an engineer, both of them used to talk quite a lot about the
00:18:48thrill of going down and standing there by that great big locomotive and, you know, seeing their uncle.
00:19:00I learned about trains by building one for Walt, it's the one that we built that ran around his house.
00:19:07We had the drawings for what was known as the lily bell.
00:19:13But having all the drawings for the little train, we got started and manufactured the locomotives, the cars.
00:19:21So all we had to do was expand the gauge from one-eighth scale to the 36-inch gauge track.
00:19:42Back at the studio, the working models of our rides had been perfected, and we were well into construction on
00:19:48the real thing.
00:19:54The Peter Pan ride, for instance, they had one whole warehouse building over there filled up with the overhead rails
00:20:04and the cars, and we'd get the dips and the swirls.
00:20:10This was something that's completely new, too. I don't think there's ever been an overhead suspended ride in any amusement
00:20:17park. It's my nod.
00:20:23In nearby Newport, we were building and assembling miniature Autopia racing cars. These will speed along the Tomorrowland freeway.
00:20:34A most difficult problem was to build them to fit the varying sizes of growing youngsters. And to give it
00:20:41that authentic, real-life feeling, our freeway will be patrolled by miniature police cars.
00:20:48Every job that you work on with Walt is different, and you figure out what you're going to do and
00:20:54how you're going to do it just as you get started on it.
00:21:02We had no project managers. Therefore, we didn't need any coordinators. The Xerox machine hadn't been invented yet, so we
00:21:11didn't publish anything. All we did was just do the work.
00:21:15Walt never gave a thought that he was overloading people. It was like, well, okay, we're just doing it. So
00:21:23you do all this stuff sort of at once.
00:21:27You didn't dilly-dally on decisions. And it's up to Walt to run around and catch you that it's not
00:21:37going the way he wants it. That's his problem.
00:21:48And there was a lot of people that said, he's done. If it had gone down, the studio would have
00:21:56gone down with it because everything was tied up in the park.
00:22:10They had a lot of problems getting the place open by that opening day.
00:22:15They dug out the rivers of America, and they filled it up with water one night, came back the next
00:22:21morning, and it was totally dry.
00:22:22There was a sandy soil and the water just plain disappeared.
00:22:31We started an experiment with the waterway for the big river, the rivers of America.
00:22:40First of all, we used it that night or whatever it was, it was a gooey thing that was supposed
00:22:46to make it waterproof bottom.
00:22:49And that didn't work too well.
00:22:56Everything wasn't sweetness and light and beautiful during the construction.
00:23:03Walt always came down on Sunday morning.
00:23:08And he looked all around, all over everything.
00:23:13And he took a couple of big sighs.
00:23:19And he turned to me and he says, do you know something?
00:23:22And he says, I just got some figures today.
00:23:26And he said, we've spent a little over half the money that we have spent on this park.
00:23:33And he says, there isn't one thing there or there or there or there but holes in the ground and
00:23:40piles of dirt.
00:23:42There isn't one thing that any human being would spend 15 cents to come and see.
00:23:47And he said, I'm scared.
00:23:51And he was.
00:24:01And it was, you couldn't believe that he spent half this, seemed like an enormous amount of money.
00:24:07And there was nothing there that anybody would give a darn about.
00:24:13He just sat there. He didn't, didn't say anything for long.
00:24:17And it really impressed upon me on what responsibility was and what worry was.
00:24:22Because I was worried about little things about whether this was going to get done and whether this and that
00:24:27and all.
00:24:27But this is something that hadn't occurred to me because I didn't know anything about it.
00:24:31But this is, this is what worry is.
00:24:35And I was brought home to me that day.
00:24:42The End
00:24:43The End
00:25:19Inside stage three nearby, we started construction on a 105-foot American riverboat, the stern
00:25:26wheeler Mark Twain.
00:25:28Since the deck slopes from one end to the other, each piece of wood had to be individually
00:25:32cut and fitted.
00:25:35Constructing such a large boat inside a building 50 miles from water caused a lot of raised
00:25:40eyebrows, but unlike the fellow who built a boat in his basement and couldn't get it
00:25:45out, we had a plan.
00:25:51Well, we fooled nearly everyone, for it was designed to come apart in sections for shipping.
00:26:29Walt, right from the beginning, made up his mind that he would have something different.
00:26:34He would have the concept of the family amusement park, and we were highly criticized at the
00:26:42beginning by some of the old time operators of the amusement park as spending too much money,
00:26:50going into too much detail.
00:27:04Before the park opened, we went to various key amusement parks in the country and manufacturers,
00:27:11to see if they would be interested in manufacturing things that we had designed.
00:27:15almost invariably, the manufacturers would say, well, that would be pretty hard to do.
00:27:20Why don't you buy one of our things?
00:27:23So there's a typical amusement park ride, you know, they were for sale.
00:27:28But with Walt, we can't do this.
00:27:30And so these beautiful things were all made, and they were not practical, and he knew they
00:27:35were not practical.
00:28:33I don't know.
00:28:46The idea for a Disneyland lay dormant all those years.
00:28:50It came along when I was taking my kids around to these kiddie parks, and I'd take them around.
00:28:54We used to go out, I mean, every Saturday and Sunday.
00:28:58Their mother wouldn't go with us, we'd be gone.
00:29:00I took them to zoos.
00:29:02I took them everywhere.
00:29:04And they used to love to go with me those days, and that was some of the happiest days of
00:29:09my life.
00:29:18All my life I heard him talk about doing this kind of a park, and as the years went on,
00:29:23from the time I was five and until he finally did it when I was 21,
00:29:29the dream just grew from a very humble little thing that maybe would be contained on the studio lot to
00:29:36something quite grand.
00:29:42And I think everyone thought he was crazy, like they did when he said he wanted to do a feature
00:29:48-length cartoon.
00:29:55You have to look at this in some respects as a kind of a, it was a huge experiment.
00:30:05This was the genesis of that kind of park.
00:30:11What Walt started out to do, for heaven's sakes, was to do something as radically different from Coney Island as
00:30:17he could dream up.
00:30:59What Walt knew everything that went into that park, he knew where every pipe was.
00:31:04The only thing that he didn't realize, and that was hard for him to learn, the necessity of building concrete.
00:31:11He thought we could build it like a motion picture set on a temporary basis.
00:31:22So he never got over and was awful mad at the Adventureland waterfall because of all the concrete that went
00:31:27into it.
00:31:37That river, other workmen were just as busy solving the problem of how to build a rock.
00:31:43Creating beautiful rock formations is nothing for Mother Nature, but it wasn't so easy for us.
00:32:15I was supposed to look at the cost sheets when they came in every day.
00:32:18But I had never, I failed in arithmetic in high school.
00:32:23And I didn't know whether we were in the black or in the red.
00:32:26But if nobody had come over and said, you're running over, I didn't say anything.
00:32:30And Walt would come in and he'd say, how much money have you spent so far on this thing?
00:32:34And I said, well now let me see.
00:32:35And he said, I'll tell you.
00:32:36And he'd tell me exactly.
00:32:52When Disney night was under construction, there were so many people at the studio all working on this crazy idea
00:32:58for an amusement park.
00:33:00In one way it seemed crazy, on another way it seemed completely natural.
00:33:11We really didn't have what you would say administrative offices.
00:33:15We just had people everywhere.
00:33:33You kind of hated to go home at the end of the day because, oh gosh, you'd have to go
00:33:37home and go to bed and then get up next morning and drive all the way back and keep going
00:33:41again.
00:33:41So it was kind of an inconvenience to stop and have to go home.
00:33:46Tweedly, tweedly, tweedly-dump
00:33:51How you gonna keep that honey you got?
00:33:57Monkeys, monkeys, pieces white
00:33:59I'm gonna see my honey tonight
00:34:03Tweedly, tweedly, tweedly-dump
00:34:09Tweedly, tweedly, tweedly-dump
00:34:13Give it up, give it up, give your love to me
00:34:23Well, here we are inside Disneyland.
00:34:26Yes, we're in the park all right, but we haven't left our problems behind at the studio.
00:34:30We just concentrated a lot of them in one place here.
00:34:55When we started out, we all didn't know how to read a plan.
00:34:58Yeah.
00:34:59and he would never say so but we used to try and fool him about it so it wasn't
00:35:07soon until he not only could read a plan he could read it better than all of us
00:35:09and he had a better feeling of proportion than any of us did because he
00:35:15knew exactly what he wanted in a way of scaled-down version of Main Street
00:35:30we built Disneyland with probably not 10% of the plans to start with the plans were
00:35:35developed as we went along
00:35:54I think Walt was convinced that if his guests were exposed to good taste good quality good design
00:36:06they would sort of subconsciously perceive this not as a consequence of being
00:36:12educated in landscape design or an architecture or anything else but they
00:36:16would subconsciously know the difference between good and bad
00:36:31they were bringing in various landscape architects to do different projects and
00:36:39Walt Disney became worried that because so many people were in it it wouldn't hang
00:36:45together and so that's the way I started so I made a plan of Main Street and the
00:36:57hub and they called a meeting of all the art directors and Walt was there and they
00:37:03approved it
00:37:08Roy Disney said don't ever bother him with a problem if they have a problem come to us let
00:37:16him dream so every Saturday he would come down and we'd go around with all the art directors and he
00:37:30would have a new ideas something to be done and he did he wanted to start at
00:37:38Monday morning he didn't want plans Monday morning so many weekend I'd work till
00:37:44midnight getting out sketches or something and that's the way it went
00:37:55the thing that I remember about it is that while Walt had a temper and he could
00:38:00demand things to be done because he expected everybody to do what he did
00:38:22the the record would have a higher
00:38:24and so on
00:39:08In Disneyland, we had very acute problems there.
00:39:17I was advised by two or three of my major assistants, under no circumstances should we try to continue to
00:39:24open in July.
00:39:25We should postpone until September, but we said no.
00:39:37It was so important in the minds of the public that we're going to open in July.
00:39:43And as a matter of fact, if we had waited until September with all of our problems financially and so
00:39:48forth,
00:39:48we might never have gotten off the ground.
00:40:24It was a learning process all the way through.
00:40:28And the thing I liked the most about those days was it was a great thing to have somebody say,
00:40:33well, let's do it.
00:41:46By now, all over the studio, hammers and saws were quickly being replaced by paint and brushes, for the deadline
00:41:53was drawing near.
00:41:54The hurry up, paint up, finish up campaign began in earnest.
00:42:14Well, it seems that there's always pressure.
00:42:16I suppose it's part of the nature, I guess, of show business.
00:42:20And, of course, part of it is opportunity, and part of it is sensing the moment has come.
00:42:26And Walt, being that intuitive man he was, of course, since it was a time for this.
00:42:33And he did put pressure on us, and we did do it.
00:43:03And, of course, we did do it.
00:43:06And what were you going to do with the Tomorrowland?
00:43:09We had to have it.
00:43:11You couldn't say we didn't want it.
00:43:14And we struggled so hard.
00:43:44One day, Walt and I drove down.
00:43:46And we came together to Disneyland.
00:43:48And he said, well, he said, Herbie, you know, the worst thing that could happen to us, don't you?
00:43:54And I said, well, what do you mean, the worst thing that could happen?
00:43:58And he said, well, the worst thing that could happen would be that I'd go broke.
00:44:05And I said, yeah, I got that, I'd say, pretty bad.
00:44:08And he said, well, he said, I've been broke five times in my life, and one more won't hurt.
00:44:16And, of course, I've been broke.
00:44:48If your team is sympathetic and you all have the same goals, you arrive at something that's
00:44:54greater than the sum of the parts, of course.
00:44:57And I think it's well known that this kind of thing works that way.
00:45:03You build a kind of enthusiasm and you share something.
00:45:06Sometimes it becomes a little ridiculous and you just end up with fun.
00:45:10But most of the time, you turn over things by a mutual stimulation that you've never
00:45:17arrived at by yourself.
00:45:24Walt was a real master at provoking that type of atmosphere.
00:45:59Here on the shores, we come upon the realm of the creatures of the Serengeti Plain, towering
00:46:05above them all, the giraffe.
00:46:07To reproduce these animals requires the combined efforts of the finest designers, sculptors,
00:46:13and master mechanics.
00:47:00I was determined that I was going to have the first ride when the first boat got in.
00:47:06the ride with water in it, I was going to ride first and find out if the person got wet.
00:47:15Because I had conceived the idea of going behind the water.
00:47:43So I went slow and around and looked at everything and looked back to see the clearance and everything.
00:47:50And as I started under the waterfall, I got right in it and looked back to see where the stern
00:47:55was and there
00:47:56was Walt sitting there.
00:47:58My heart stopped beating.
00:47:59I was clear through the waterfall before I came to.
00:48:04He stepped on board very carefully just as I left and I didn't know it.
00:48:09He stepped on board very carefully just as I left and looked back to see where it was.
00:48:40In our mail recently, a lot of you have shown interest in our progress.
00:48:44And so this week, just a matter of days away from the formal opening of Disneyland, we want to bring
00:48:49you up to date on what's been happening.
00:48:51And let you share with us the joys and anxieties of our race against time.
00:48:57In this, our final report on building the Disneyland, I want to pay tribute to the many studio artists, craftsmen
00:49:05and engineers whose untiring efforts help bring this dream into a reality.
00:49:11Without their skills and imagination, Disneyland would not have been possible.
00:49:24Those last few days were frantic.
00:49:28I saw gardeners spraying bushes and flowers and things with paint because they had died.
00:49:35So instead of with water, they were painting the grass, bushes, trees.
00:49:58Well, prior to the opening, there was a plumbing strike.
00:50:01So the decision was, should we have drinking fountains or restrooms?
00:50:06Because there literally was enough time to get both done.
00:50:08And Walt said, well, you know, we've got to have restrooms and people can drink Coke and Pepsi, but they
00:50:16can't pee in the street.
00:50:31We had a gas leak under the castle, and you could see little blue flames coming all around the perimeter
00:50:39and the foundation of the castle.
00:50:44I was unaware of this, of course, but so I was smoking my pipe as usual and walking up from
00:50:50the hub.
00:50:52All of a sudden, the fire chief at the time came running out and grabbed me.
00:50:56We waltzed all the way back down to the hub.
00:50:59He said, you know, there's a fire out there.
00:51:01He said, you know, there's a fire out there.
00:51:01He said, blow up the castle.
00:51:02He said, you know, there's a fire out there.
00:55:08I don't think there's a thing that I owe that I'll ever get the benefit of except through
00:55:14doing things with.
00:56:4110th of July, we had a party at Disneyland, and the first time we were allowed to run
00:56:47the train or on the park was that day, and also the riverboat ran that day.
00:57:27And the other day, the first time we got to go to the park, we have to see the park,
00:57:30and
01:00:07Before Disneyland opened, everything was in utter turmoil.
01:00:14And in Tomorrowland, we had these big buildings on both sides, but nothing in them.
01:00:42We hope you all will be listening and watching next Sunday, July 17, when we present the
01:00:47formal opening of Disneyland, in an hour-and-a-half show over most of these stations.
01:01:08These are just some of the sights that ABC undertook to show a waiting nation on the world's largest
01:01:14live telecast.
01:01:22It all started when Mr. Kentner said to Mr. Disney, how about ABC televising the opening
01:01:28of Disneyland?
01:01:29Mr. Disney thought it was a fine idea.
01:01:34After all the preliminary planning, the camera crew started rehearsing their moves.
01:01:40Calls were sent out all over the nation, rounding up equipment.
01:01:44Getting 85,000 feet of cable, including 16,000 feet of coaxial, was no easy task in itself.
01:01:54Thirteen hydraulic forklifts were brought in, and were set about building special camera platforms
01:01:59and mounting them onto these lifts.
01:02:01The forklift operators had to be rehearsed.
01:02:04There was always the danger they wouldn't stop the lifts in time and pull the cables out
01:02:08of the camera.
01:02:41My work at the time was getting Casey Jr. running, and I was testing it before opening,
01:02:50and the train started up to the first lift and started going over.
01:02:56We shut the ride down, of course, to find out why this happened.
01:03:00We discovered, well, there was no safety rail around the track, so we couldn't open the ride.
01:03:06But I was to run the locomotive once around the track to the TV show.
01:03:54Thank you so much.
01:04:09All the time we were trying to rehearse,
01:04:11the workmen were still building Disneyland.
01:04:16Another one of our small problems,
01:04:18that's asphalt, not sand.
01:04:21We did manage to get some work done
01:04:23in spite of all the frantic last-minute construction
01:04:26and men and material and trucks kept passing through
01:04:29in a frantic effort to finish on time.
01:04:34This kept rehearsal virtually at a standstill.
01:05:15Just before showtime, the last preparations were being made.
01:05:19And then, ready, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Adventureland, Main Street, Tomorrowland.
01:05:29Stand by, five seconds, and here's the show.
01:05:47How do you do, everyone? This is Hank Weaver.
01:05:49For the past year, this signature has announced the opening of Disneyland, the show.
01:05:55Now, it announces the opening of Disneyland, the place.
01:05:59The people and eyes around the world are focused on these 160 acres
01:06:04here in Anaheim, California.
01:06:05This afternoon, Disneyland, the world's most fabulous kingdom,
01:06:09will be unveiled before an invitational world premiere.
01:06:13And you are guests.
01:06:16And you are guests.
01:06:39Come on.
01:06:42And to start the proceedings, we take you to the entrance of Disneyland, and your host, Art Linkletter.
01:06:50I'm standing here on the railroad tracks, and I'm in front of the big Disneyland and Santa Fe Railroad Station.
01:06:56And down these tracks, in just a couple of seconds, will come Walt Disney himself, barreling in on a railroad
01:07:01train built to 5 eighths miniature size.
01:07:22How did the run go?
01:07:24Oh, fine, fine. The governor had her around to Frontierland, and then Fred Gurley there, he took her around.
01:07:29I picked her up and brought her in. High ball in the air.
01:07:31Hello, governor.
01:07:32Glad to see you, Art.
01:07:33Governor Knight of California, ladies and gentlemen, and Walt Disney, of course, and Mr. Gurley, the president of the Santa
01:07:39Fe.
01:07:39And of the Santa Fe and Disneyland, if you please. That's right.
01:07:53Thousands are coming in. They're going through the magic tunnel on foot, because no car can enter here.
01:08:01And, like Alice in Wonderland, as you go on through that tunnel, past the Disneyland Santa Fe, you find yourself
01:08:08in a bygone time.
01:08:10Another world. The clock has turned back a half a century, and you're in the main square of a small
01:08:15American town, the year 1900.
01:08:27I was just one of the sweaty people trying to find our way through the, oh, it was a rat
01:08:33maze down in there.
01:08:36Everybody had been out celebrating a little the night before, so there were more than a few hangovers.
01:08:44It was not the best of all days.
01:08:50Most people remember the opening day as a total disaster, because they had almost twice as many people as they
01:08:56had planned for.
01:08:57They ran out of food. Almost every imaginable thing that could went wrong.
01:09:05Women had to wear high heels all the time, and hoes. Hot weather, like the beginning of the opening of
01:09:10Disneyland, it was a ferocious day.
01:09:15But you had to give all credit for a most impressive idea, all the way.
01:09:19You couldn't knock a man that thought like that.
01:09:26All activity on Main Street has ceased.
01:09:32Walt Disney will step forward to read the dedication of Disneyland.
01:09:43To all who come to this happy place, welcome.
01:09:47Disneyland is your land.
01:09:49Here age relives fond memories of the past.
01:09:53And here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.
01:09:57Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America.
01:10:04With the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.
01:10:31Standing here has been one of the most exciting moments of my life.
01:10:34I think, ladies and gentlemen, that anyone who's been here today will say, as the people did many years ago,
01:10:40when they were at the opening of the Eiffel Tower, I was there.
01:10:43I'm very proud to say I was at the opening of Disneyland.
01:10:46It's a fabulous thing to happen, ladies and gentlemen.
01:10:59We didn't lack faith in the idea that it was going to be something good.
01:11:04It was other people that were sure that it was not going to be a success.
01:11:08I don't think it was true with the people in the creative departments.
01:11:23All I want is that when people walk through or ride through or have access to anything that you design,
01:11:33I want them, when they leave, to have a smile on their face.
01:11:37And you say, you just remember that, and that's all I ask of you as a designer.
01:11:46Make it pretty, but make it so that the people will come out and smile.
01:11:57The press was not very complimentary to our opening, but that's part of the cost of this business, of being
01:12:03in show business in Hollywood,
01:12:05and that is they're looking for any kind of little cracks or any kind of things they can magnify.
01:12:17Right now, it's my pleasure to introduce the lovely lady and famous star whom Mr. Disney has asked to christen
01:12:24the Mark Twain.
01:12:25Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Irene Dunn.
01:12:29Hello, Irene.
01:12:30Hello, how are you?
01:12:31My, it's glisting.
01:12:32It's glisting a little because it'll be shoving off in a moment.
01:12:35And there, the boat is christened, and it starts on its daily trips up and down the rivers of the
01:12:41world.
01:12:42Of America, that is.
01:12:44Thank you, Miss Dunn.
01:12:46And now, ladies and gentlemen, I've got other places to go.
01:12:49And the Commodore, Admiral Joe Fowler, up there in the wheelhouse, looks like they're getting ready to shove off.
01:12:54So I better, goodbye, Irene.
01:12:56Goodbye, everybody.
01:12:57Have a good ride.
01:12:59There goes the whistle.
01:13:02Take her away, Admiral.
01:13:04Goodbye.
01:13:05Goodbye.
01:13:07Goodbye.
01:13:08Goodbye.
01:13:08Goodbye.
01:13:10Goodbye.
01:13:11Goodbye.
01:13:12Goodbye.
01:13:12Goodbye.
01:13:17Goodbye.
01:13:18Goodbye.
01:13:19Goodbye.
01:13:19Goodbye.
01:13:31Before our preview of Tomorrowland, I'd like to read these few words of dedication.
01:13:37A vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying man's achievement.
01:13:42A step into the future, with predictions of constructing things to come.
01:13:46Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure, and ideals, the atomic age, the challenge of outer space, and the hope
01:13:56for a peaceful and unified world.
01:14:05Those doves are, ladies and gentlemen, I hope, the harbinger of peace for the world of tomorrow.
01:14:16But I think it comes back to the way people feel.
01:14:19They feel better about themselves.
01:14:22I think if we give people confidence, we make them feel that they can handle anything.
01:14:28It seems to me.
01:14:29It seems to me it's not only reduces the fear, but it makes them better people.
01:14:33And there is hope.
01:14:56Walt, you've made a bum out of Barnum today.
01:14:59But we've got to go.
01:15:00I know.
01:15:00I know, but I just want to say a word of thanks to all the artists, the workers, and everybody
01:15:05that helped make this dream come true.
01:15:07Let's go into Fantasyland and have some fun.
01:15:10Let's go.
01:15:10Goodbye, folks.
01:15:10Bye.
01:15:12Bye.
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