All language subtitles for How Disney Built America s01e03 Destination Disneyland.eng

[gentle music]

- Before Walt Disney
is even a teenager,

he's earning money to
support the family.

- He's expected to work
through a paper route.

We're talking, like,
600, 700 homes,

but he doesn't get
to keep the money.

So Walt would take some
of the extra papers

and then sell them
locally in the trolleys

so he could have
some pocket money.

- He's got a great work ethic,

but there's not a lot of fun

in the life of
young Walt Disney.

Then this one
bright spot emerges.

[bell clanging]

- [Conductor] Electric Park.
This stop, Electric Park.

- Here you go, sir.

- At the end of the trolley
line is an amusement park.

This glowing, glittering escape.

- Electric Park in Kansas City,

it was an amusement park filled

with about a hundred thousand
electric light bulbs.

- For a kid who's working,
trying to make ends meet,

suddenly at the end
of the trolley line,

there is this glorious place

meant for fun and entertainment.

- You're coming, kid?

- Do you know what
time the park opens?

- Not 'til noon.

- I'm gonna wait.

[dramatic music]

[bell clanging]

- That boy, with the
little bit of cash

he's earned on his paper route,

sitting there with the
exuberance and anticipation

of entering this
glowing world of escape,

would eventually create
the happiest place on Earth

where we all could escape.

- Disneyland is something
new, something crazy,

something no one had
ever done before.

- [Narrator] Walt Disney will
transform an American pastime.

- He was breaking
every convention

on how to build
an amusement park

because he wasn't trying
to build an amusement park.

- [Narrator] Creating
an entirely new,

multi-billion dollar
industry: theme parks.

[fireworks booming]

- How much is this
park going to cost?

- [Adam] 12 times the
cost of "Snow White".

- That's how insane
this idea is.

- [Narrator] Against
impossible odds.

- The whole thing needs to
feel like you're flying.

- It's never gonna work.

- It was a huge problem,

and it was a problem
they had to solve fast.

- [Narrator] Disney will lay
15,000 cubic feet of concrete.

- I don't care how much
it costs, just do it.

- [Narrator] And pour 20
million gallons of water.

- I was just at the bank.

What is going on?

- [Narrator] To make
his dream a reality.

- It's become an entire
industry that didn't exist

before Walt created it.

[dramatic music]

- I'm building that park,

with or without the studio.

[dramatic music]

- By 1920, amusement
parks were a huge part

of the American landscape.

They were kind of
pegged to mass transit

like trolley systems.

- Ingeniously, trolley companies

set up amusement parks
at the end of the line,

because typically ridership
dropped off during the weekend,

and so now you had
all these workers

getting on the trolleys

to go get their affordable
form of entertainment.

[people screaming]
[dramatic music]

- Around 1930, there are some

2,000 amusement parks
across the country.

Every town of any
size has at least one.

- But after World War II

is the great era
of suburbanization

of highways spreading
out from cities.

- You start to see the
breakdown of public transit

because you have the growth
of the automobile industry.

- Cities are ripping
up their street cars,

and along with the
trolleys going away,

the amusement parks go away.

- By the late 1940s,

you have fewer than
300 amusement parks

still in existence.

- The ones that are left,
they're kind of down market.

- You'd have peep shows
and pachinko machines,

and they were a little seedy.

- [Narrator] By the time
Walt Disney is a father,

amusement parks have
lost their luster.

- Walt Disney
can't take his kids

to an amusement park like
he had when he was a child,

because you got the kind
of questionable characters

hanging around these places.

[clown laughing]

- [Narrator] So Walt decides
to make his own backyard

a little more fun.

- Somewhere in the late '40s,

Walt Disney became really
interested in model trains.

Not just little trains,

but trains that you
could ride around on.

- He laid out the
tracks in the backyard.

It went under trestles
and through tunnels.

It was a whole, elaborate setup.

- And this is his newest,
latest, greatest obsession.

- [Narrator] It's an obsession

that seeps into his
time at the studio.

- The studio builds
his locomotive,

but the incredible
thing about Walt Disney

is he's so hands on.

This is the executive who
comes down to work in the shop.

- Here you are.

They need you in animation.

The new storyboards are ready.

- Story's in good shape.

I don't need to approve
every little detail.

- Walt Disney was the idea man

and his brother, Roy, who is
eight years older than him,

was the money guy.

- [Narrator] Roy knows that
Walt's hands-on leadership

has always been the
secret to their success.

- In the 1930s, Walt oversaw
absolutely everything

from the very beginning
to the very end.

- [Narrator] From "Mickey Mouse"

and the first synchronized
sound cartoon,

"Steamboat Willie",

to "Snow White and
the Seven Dwarves",

the first feature-length
animated film,

and subsequent hits
like "Pinocchio",

"Dumbo", and "Bambi",

Walt Disney's fingerprints
were on every frame.

- And now for Walt,

it's just a 'been
there, done that'

kind of a feeling.

- At this point,
"Alice in Wonderland",

"Peter Pan", "Cinderella"

are all in different
phases of production.

And I think it's
understood by everybody

that Walt's an essential
part of this equation.

But he is playing
with his trains.

- Walt?

- Okay, Roy, let's
go have a look.

- Disney, throughout his life,

he never wanted to be bored.

He is someone that is restless.

He is someone that
is constantly looking

for something new to excite him.

[pensive music]

- [Narrator] Walt
isn't the only one

looking for something
more from Disney.

- Hello.

You like Mickey?

- Is this where he lives?

- It sure is.

- Can we meet him?
- Oh, boy.

I wish we could,

but it's hard to
find a little mouse

in a big place like this.

- Walt has people showing
up at his animation studio

and they wanna see
where the magic happens,

but it's just artists
sitting in rooms at desks.

There really isn't any
Disney to offer up.

- It's not like when you go
to Elizabeth Taylor films

and you might see her
walking out of her trailer.

You're not gonna see
Mickey Mouse walking around

because he exists on paper.

- Tell you what,

get them some ice cream
from the commissary.

On me.

Enjoy!

- We're in this, kind of like,
void moment for fan culture.

Walt is seeing all
of these people

traveling to Hollywood

to see where their
favorite movies are made,

but there's, like,
nothing for them to see.

- One of the things that
sets Walt Disney apart

is his ability to
see around corners.

Some people will see
a void as a deficit,

while Disney will see
it as an opportunity.

[dramatic music]

- I wanna create a
Mickey Mouse park

where parents and children
can spend time together

and see Mickey and Minnie
and the whole gang.

You could have a
train and a carousel,

or a few rides.

- It's a lovely idea,
but we're a studio.

What do we know about
amusement parks?

- What did we know
about sound cartoons?

What did we know about
animated features?

- The idea of an
entertainment entity

going into amusement is crazy,

and amusement parks were
all going out of business.

- His brother, Roy,
didn't get it.

Why would you stop being
in the movie business

to go build a carnival?

- Don't you see?

This is the next thing for us.

- [Narrator] Walt already
has the perfect spot in mind

to build his park.

A 16 acre lot directly
across from the studio.

- Maybe so.

It's not just me you
have to convince anymore.

- So in the pre-war era,

Roy and Walt were always
stressed out about money,

but they had a lot
of creative freedom.

When producing "Snow White",

Roy and Walt didn't
have to answer to anyone

except the bank,

but during World War II,

they decided to take
the company public.

- Now you get an
influx of money,

but now you also get
a board of directors.

He now has people to answer to.

- [Narrator] Walt
knows building a park

is a radical departure

from anything the studio
has done in the past.

So he'll need to convince
them it's their future.

- Walt Disney Studios

is about blazing new
trails, gentlemen.

And now, we're gonna do
something really different.

- [Narrator] Walt wants nearly
$5 million to build his park.

- A family amusement park

that will cost about three times

what "Snow White" costs.

- That's how insane
this idea is.

It's huge, this is big money.

And who knows how
it's gonna work?

- We tend to think of
studio entertainment

and outdoor amusements

as being part of
the same enterprise.

There was no connecting tissue
like this in Walt's lifetime.

This idea couldn't be further

from the center of Walt
Disney Productions.

- I don't want this
company to stand still.

We have prospered before
when we have taken chances

and tried new things.

This is our golden opportunity

to move into an
entirely new field.

- Walt,

we're a film studio,
not a carnival.

The answer is no.

- Most people would
have walked away,

but Walt was always different.

The real pixie dust
was an imagination

of a person who's
really curious.

- The moment when Walt Disney
has done the very thing

that other people and logic
have told him not to do,

have been his greatest triumphs.

Breaking new ground,

pushing boundaries,

things that had been considered
crazy, dangerous, and risky,

that's Walt Disney's
comfort zone.

[tense music]

- What are you doing, Roy?

- What are you doing, Walt?

I was just at the bank.

They said you borrowed against
your life insurance policy

and took out a loan?

Is this about the park again?

- [Narrator] The studio
may have turned him down,

but it's not enough
to stop Walt Disney.

He's continued to work
on his park concept.

- Walt, if he
believes in one thing,

it's his own dreams.

So he's gonna just
fund it himself.

- He will hawk his
life insurance.

He will sell his vacation
home in Palm Springs.

He will do whatever necessary
to make that dream a reality.

- What is going on?

- I'm building that park,

with or without the studio.

- Walt's burning through
money and Roy's worried.

He knows this is
not sustainable.

- At this point, he's
borrowed roughly $100,000,

which is over a million
dollars in today's money.

So if this fails, it's not
just a shattered idea.

He will leave both himself
and his family penniless.

- When Walt starts
designing the park,

he doesn't have any
idea how to go about it.

- The smokestack's wrong.

The old Western engines
were wood burning.

It's gotta have a
big balloon stack.

- It really was
just an expression

of all the stuff he loved.

- When he's sketching
out ideas for his park,

he's like, "You know what
would go great there? A train.

And then if you're
gonna have a train,

maybe you should have,
like, a steamboat."

- And his ideas outgrew

that little plot of
land near the studio.

He was thinking
bigger and bigger.

- [Narrator] Walt's new vision

expands far beyond Mickey Mouse.

- Walt starts calling
his park Disneyland.

Well, I think Disneyland is a
really appropriate name for it

'cause it is essentially the
world according to Walt Disney.

- That's better.

- I keep thinking,

you've gotta have a
better funding stream.

I can't let you
bankrupt yourself.

What becomes of
Lillian and the girls

if something happens to you?

- You wouldn't
have a Walt Disney

if you didn't have a Roy Disney.

As brothers, there
was a bond there

unlike any other partnership.

- And Roy comes to grips with
how much this means to Walt

and he's not gonna
simply be able

to let him go off by himself.

- Nothing's gonna happen
to me, I'm Walt Disney.

- That's exactly it.

You are Walt Disney,

but you're not the
only Walt Disney.

- Roy Disney is a bit
of an unsung hero,

especially in this case.

- The studio's been using your
name for 30 years for free.

I think it's high time
you get paid for it.

- Roy Disney's brilliant,
outside-the-box idea

is to license his brother's name

back to his own studio

and create this
ancillary revenue stream.

- That's 160,000 a year

to spend on whatever
project we want.

And the shareholders won't be
able to say a word about it.

- We?

You said whatever
projects we want.

- Without the ingenuity
of Roy Disney,

there's no Disneyland, period.

We owe so much of
that to Roy Disney.

- Well, I guess we're gonna
have to find some land.

[intense music]

- [Narrator] But finding the
right place to build Disneyland

will be no small task.

- In the early 20th century,

you would build around
the end of trolley lines,

but now we're really
in the automobile era.

He's forging into
new territory here.

- [Narrator] So Walt seeks
out professional help.

- If you were to build today,
your best bet would be here.

Right downtown, three miles
east of the train yards.

- The Stanford
Research Institute

tracked land sales,
population centers,

utility rates, and land rates.

Walt knows that this is exactly
the information that he needs

to find a place
to build his park.

- But we don't wanna know

where the ideal place
for a park is today.

We wanna know where that place
is going to be in five years,

10 years, 20 years.

- How can you possibly know
where the ideal place will be

20 years from now?

- I don't.

But the California
Highway Commission does.

- In the 1950s,
Southern California

is one of the fastest growing
regions in the United States.

- During the war years,
there's lots of new jobs.

LA, in that whole era,

was the center of the
aerospace industry.

- After World War II,

people are moving
there in huge numbers.

- With the G.I. Bill,

the returning American soldiers
are able to buy new homes,

and of course, now
they're gonna need a car

to be able to get around.

- The highway system is the key.

It gives birth to the suburbs,

and they were spreading
out in every direction.

The growth you have in
LA, it's phenomenal.

It is the golden
age of California.

- And so SRI look at
areas around Los Angeles

that haven't yet been
built out substantially.

- [Narrator] The strategy
is genius in its simplicity.

Figure out where the
highways are going

and buy before they get there.

[tense music]

- The Stanford Research
Institute identifies Anaheim

as an ideal location
for Disneyland.

One, because it has
a temperate climate,

two, because the population

is slowly moving
in that direction,

and three, because
it's relatively cheap.

- Located about 30 miles
south of Los Angeles,

Anaheim is mainly farmland
and citrus groves,

but it promises one
key element Walt needs.

- The Santa Ana freeway is
gonna come right along there

in less than a year.

- Walt is hoping that the car

that actually killed the first
generation of amusement parks

will bring people to his.

- Walt.

It's almost 900,000.

There'll be nothing
left to build a park.

Hell, we don't even know
what we're gonna build yet.

- [Narrator] It's
a massive gamble

for a bit of remote farmland
with an unknown future.

- Maybe let's slow down.

Put a plan together
for the park first.

[tense music]

- We'll take it.

[dramatic music]

- He's building
an amusement park

in an era where amusement
parks are closing,

and he's plopping
all of his money down

in a bunch of orange groves
in the city nobody goes to.

Cool, cool, good idea, cool.

- [Narrator] Walt
Disney has purchased

160 acres of land in
Anaheim, California

for his dream of Disneyland.

- Disneyland was a radical
concept for anybody,

but I think especially
for Walt Disney.

- It seems totally crazy.

One, amusement parks
are in decline,

so it's not exactly like
entering a growth industry.

Second, he is a studio head.

Since when do studio heads
open amusement parks?

- This isn't the final report,

but it gives you an idea of
what works and what doesn't.

- [Narrator] Walt turns to the
Stanford Research Institute

once again for some hard data.

- He hires SRI to
research existing parks

to find out what are the
best standards and practices

for him to make this
a profitable venture.

- One critical point,

you need a Ferris wheel
or a roller coaster.

Put light bulbs on it

and it basically becomes a
big billboard for your park.

It's free advertising.

[people screaming]

- Amusement parks at the time

were very focused on
getting crowds in.

They would have
multiple entrances,

so it was just, get in the
door and start buying things.

- Rides are closely
placed together.

No connection between them.

There's really
not much cohesion.

- It's really just about profit.

The customers are kind
of marks and suckers,

and every single aspect
of the experience

is just meant to separate
the fools from their money.

- The average visitor stay time

is two and a half hours.

- Only two and a half hours?

- They say you have to pump
them for all the money you can

before they get
frustrated and leave.

- Thank you.

That was very helpful.

- Everything about what
Walt was thinking about

was the opposite
of those things.

- There would be
no roller coaster,

there would be no Ferris wheel.

- An amusement park that is
not featuring a roller coaster,

that's like saying you're
gonna build a baseball stadium

but no one's gonna
play the game.

It would just be
insane to do that.

- Everybody thinks he's
crazy, but for him,

he's really going back
to the very beginning.

- [Narrator] Before Snow White,

before Mickey,

even before Oswald
the Lucky Rabbit,

there was Alice,

Walt's very first attempt
at an animated film.

- In the Alice comedies,

he took a real girl and
put her into the animation.

- Walt was looking for a new
way to push his audiences

into an immersive world.

- Part of that comes from

what Walt had always been
looking for in his life:

escape, fantasy, and control.

And that's what he wanted
to do with Disneyland.

- He understood Disneyland

was a way for him
to tell his stories

so that you can live
your own hero's journey.

- This was your chance to
actually jump through the screen

and be in it.

- In a movie, we
control the camera.

But there's no camera here.

- The visitor is the camera.

- Right.

So how do we get them
to go where we want?

- So much of what Walt
did with Disneyland

was born of the movies,

and you were going into
Walt's world of storytelling.

Scene one, scene
two, scene three.

- In a film, you're
able to manage

how the people experience the
story based on the camera.

Walt needs a similar
type of control

in terms of how they experience
moving into his park.

- Exactly, one entrance.

- [Narrator] By creating
one single entrance,

he can control the starting
point of your story.

- Now, put a train
station above here.

- You pass under the railroad
track, through a tunnel,

leaving the outside world.

- It's like going
through the rabbit hole

in "Alice in Wonderland".

- City hall here,

gazebo here,

fire station, movie theater.

Yes, that's coming along nicely.

- As you enter the park,
you go up Main Street,

and that scene one, inspired
by Walt's home town.

[inspiring music]

- Marceline, Missouri,

it's a small town with
small town values.

- He only lived there
for about four years,

but Walt was kind of in love
with his childhood at Marceline.

- It was the main street of
turn-of-the-century America,

a place of trains,
and petticoats,

and barbershop quartets,
and soda fountains.

A return to innocence that
America didn't have anymore.

- Main Street is
just the first stop.

How do we get people
to keep moving forward

towards the heart of the park?

If we put something in the
distance that they can see.

[dramatic music]

A castle.

We put a castle in
the middle of the park

with different lands
coming off of it.

- The castle at the center
of the park serves as a hub.

And then from that hub,

you can move out into different
lands of your choosing.

- These lands that
are based around

the films he's producing.

Fantasyland is a fairytale.

Adventureland is documentaries.

Frontierland, you
have the westerns.

And then Tomorrowland is
interest in the future.

- What's nice about
the design is,

you're never gonna
find a dead end.

There was kind of a big
circular element to it.

Every direction brings you
back to where you started.

It's a genius design for a park.

- He was breaking
every convention

on how to build
an amusement park

'cause he wasn't trying to
build an amusement park.

- He's creating a theme
park, a story-based park.

Something that doesn't
currently exist

anywhere in the world.

- That's a thing of beauty.

- You think it's enough
to sell them on it?

- I guess we'll see.

- So there's one big problem
in making Disneyland a reality.

This is gonna be
an extraordinarily

expensive project.

- He kept going to banks.

They didn't understand
what he was talking about.

But there was one place

where there was a good
possibility of finding funding.

- If this works,

we're not only gonna
be building a park,

we'll be in the
television business too.

- [Announcer] The entire
world began to pour

into American homes everywhere.

- The 1950s are basically
the decade of television.

- Everybody's
buying a television

in the same way that everybody

was buying a personal
computer in the 1980s.

- By 1955,

well over 50% of
American households

owned a television set.

- [Narrator] Television
networks scramble

to add programming.

- They were asking

all of the different
movie studios for content,

and the studios were
all fighting it.

- They want nothing
to do with television.

Television is this giant threat.

It's going to destroy
the movie industry.

- Because why would
you go to a theater

when you can go sit at home
and turn the TV set on?

[family laughing]

- So theater chains
threaten to boycott

movie studios that move into TV,

and Walt Disney Productions

is a company that is
almost entirely focused

on making films
for the big screen.

- But now with
Disneyland on his mind,

Walt saw an opportunity.

- Roy and Walt cook up this
audacious plan to finance it.

- Everyone's going right,
Walt's going left.

- [Narrator] The rest
of the film industry

has declared war on television,

but Walt Disney is
willing to take a gamble.

- Film studios are
trying to kill television

before it kills them.

And now, into this battlefield
walks Roy and Walt Disney

going against
their own industry.

- We think this could be a
unique opportunity for ABC,

and for Disney.

You might call it a partnership.

- [Narrator] Desperate
to fund Disneyland,

Walt sends his brother to
pitch a weekly TV series

with one unique element.

- In order for Walt to
get into television,

he wants the networks to
buy into his theme park.

- Basically, to help bankroll
the creation of the park

in exchange for creating a
television show for them.

- How much is this
park going to cost?

- Walt figures about 2 million
to 5 million to get started.

[tense music]

I'd say closer to 10.

- We weren't your first
stop, were we, Roy?

- NBC and CBS both
turned us down.

- NBC and CBS, they want Disney.

They don't want Disneyland.

And so ultimately, Roy
went to the third place,

fledgling ABC network.

- ABC didn't have a single
show in the top 25.

It was such a small fish
that one of the names for it

was the "Almost
Broadcasting Company".

- And this television program
would be what, exactly?

- A mixture of live
action animation.

Some original, some
from our library.

With a weekly update in
the park's progress.

- Walt sees television
as an opportunity

to communicate directly
to the American family.

- How long to build a park?

- Aiming to open in
less than two years.

Summer, 1955.

- ABC knows they need to somehow

catch up to the other networks

if they're going to be
viable moving forward.

[executive exhales]

- All right, Roy,
you have a deal.

But we are going to hold
you to this 1955 deadline.

[dramatic music]

- Deal.

[glasses clink]

- Disneyland.

- So ABC signs off on the deal

and they're gonna pay for
the building of Disneyland

as long as they get
the television series.

Who really wins in this deal?

Walt Disney.

[magical music]

- [Announcer] Walt
Disney's Disneyland.

- Now we want you
to share with us

our latest and greatest dream.

Disneyland: A place
of hopes and dreams,

facts and fancy, all in one.

- Walt Disney is able
to pull off a major coup

by using the television series

as free advertisement for
the theme park itself.

- We want you to see
and share with us

the experience of building
this dream into a reality.

- And pretty quickly,
ABC has captured

40% of American viewers,

which is a quarter of
all American households.

- [Narrator] With millions of
Americans tuning in each week

to watch Disneyland's progress,

the pressure is on for
Walt to get it built.

But construction crews
are having issues,

throwing them behind schedule.

- They keep telling me that
the scale is all wrong.

It changes from one
building to the next.

Sometimes one floor to the next.

- Who cares about scale?

Hollywood set designers
do this all the time.

It's about what looks right.

- Disneyland was not
designed by engineers.

- They had
traditional animators,

they had scenic painters.

They used techniques
that are common

to the filmmaking process

but just don't translate to
the typical construction world.

One of those being
forced perspective.

- We're shortening
the upper stories

to make the building
seem taller.

I have to trick your eye into
seeing what I want you to see.

- They use force perspective
all throughout the park.

That's why the castle has
larger bricks at the bottom,

then they get smaller
as it goes up.

So if you look up,

it seems like it's much
taller than it really is.

- Construction crews
really struggled

to understand this concept.

- They're behind schedule.

Opening day is less
than a year away.

This is a massive
obstacle for Disney.

- I get it, Walt.

It just isn't done like this.

- I don't care.

This is how we're doing it.

- [Narrator] As
Disneyland's construction

ramps up in Anaheim,

Walt and Roy turn
their attention

to a key addition to
Walt's vision: attractions.

- Walt's original
idea was essentially

a walk around themed experience

where you can go from
world to world to world.

But then he realized
the attractions

actually could tell a story.

- Yes, we've gone through
your entire catalog.

We're looking for something
altogether different.

- It's a "Peter Pan" ride.

Passengers will sit in a ship

and fly over London
onto Neverland.

The whole thing needs to
feel like you're flying.

- You're talking
about a one-off.

It's never gonna work.

Why don't you take
a Tilt-a-Whirl

and paint a pirate
ship on the back?

- In the movie, "Peter Pan,"

one of the great
sequence of all times

is that flight to Neverland.

And Walt now wanted to take this

to a new level in his theme park

and literally have his
audience fly to Neverland.

- Why don't you come over here?

I'll show you some
other options.

- Conventional
rides couldn't give

Walt Disney what he wanted.

He needed to really
think outside the box,

or maybe right above the box.

- Who makes that track up there?

- [Narrator] Aerial
track systems

have long helped
factories and warehouses

move heavy goods overhead.

- Walt Disney realizes that
this thing that's just used

as a means of conveyance
in an industrial setting

can be the way to
fly to Neverland.

- [Narrator] Walt boldly decides

that his attractions
will be revolutionary,

one of a kind experiences

designed and built
from the ground up

[dramatic music]

- Walt created this combination,

this art and science
of storytelling.

And that's where the
real magic begins.

- You are boarding
the pirate ship

and soaring along the
skylines of London

with the darling children.

- When you ride Peter Pan,
you get to be Peter Pan.

- What Disney's
doing is inventing

an entire new way to
experience an attraction.

- Walt wants to connect us to
the emotion of these stories.

So in Fantasyland,

Snow White's adventure is
all about fear and danger.

Peter Pan's flight,
awe and wonder.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride,
humor and comedy.

- He literally is placing
you into the fantasy.

To be able to step into
a giant teacup and spin,

that's mind blowing.

That's surreal.

- [Narrator] But the
experience doesn't end

when the attraction is over.

Walt insists that every
experience at Disneyland

must bring to life one
of the park's themes.

- He wanted the
experience to be seamless.

He wanted the immersion
to be complete.

- So in Adventureland
at the Jungle Cruise,

they wanted you to
live and experience

the true life adventure films.

- Walt Disney originally
wanted live animals.

He wanted to actually see the
hippopotamus and so forth,

but that was not gonna work.

- The problem is that
they often don't stay

in where you put them.

So Imagineering decided
to figure out a way

to simulate the animal
encounter experience.

And they're willing
to sort of try things

that no one else
has done before.

And this leads to
brand new technologies

like the audio-animatronics.

- In Tomorrowland,

the whole theory
behind Autopia was

that freeways are our new thing

and this is gonna teach children
how to drive on the freeways.

- So I made a point that the
little car that I designed

for the first Autopia was
a believable, realistic,

future type of sports car.

- And in Frontierland,

which is sort of this homage
to the American West,

Walt loved the association with
Mark Twain and his stories,

and he loved the
idea of setting off

on an adventure down the river.

- [Narrator] Walt's
Rivers of America

will be plied by the
Mark Twain Riverboat,

a majestic Mississippi
paddle wheeler.

The first of its kind to
be built in some 50 years.

And by May of 1955,

the Mark Twain is
nearly ready for launch.

But in Frontierland,
there's a problem.

[tense music]

- We filled it three times.

The water keeps seeping out,

- Well, line it with plastic.

- We tried that.

- This is supposed
to be a river.

I have a quarter
million dollar steamboat

that needs to be
floating right here

in a matter of weeks.

[tense music]

- They scooped out the river,

and they fill it
up only to discover

that all of the water

quickly goes down into
the porous, sandy soil.

They need millions of gallons
to create that water system.

- How do you build a
massive paddle boat

and not have water to put it in?

It was a huge problem,

and it was a problem
they had to solve fast.

- [Narrator] With opening day
less than two months away,

the Rivers of America
affect a lot more

than just the Mark Twain.

- All the water systems in
Disneyland are all connected.

The same water in
Rivers of America

is the same river
for the Jungle Cruise

and the moat around the castle,

which means one
problem in one place

means a big problem
all over the place.

[tense music]

- This is what the old
timer farmers are using

to line their
irrigation ditches.

Plain, old clay.

- One of the big problems

that they have in
constructing Disneyland

is the Rivers of America.

This thirsty, California,
arid land soil

just sucks up the water.

But the farmers in the
area use natural clay

that actually creates
an impermeable surface

and the water doesn't seep in.

- Well, does it work?

- Yeah.

They're lining the
riverbed with it now.

- Well, clay it is.

- So it's pretty low tech.

And that's the thing
about Walt Disney.

He doesn't care if it's
high tech, low tech.

If it gets the job
done, he likes it.

- [Narrator] It's also cheap,
which Walt desperately needs.

With opening day
rapidly approaching,

he's running out
of time and money.

[clock ticking]
[tense music]

- Disneyland, in its last
months of construction,

owes everyone money

and is in a
tremendously tight spot.

If it does not open that summer,

Disneyland is going
to go bankrupt.

- And so the closer it
went towards opening day,

the more worried Walt got

that more and more
things weren't happening.

- They have to decide whether

they're gonna have
bathrooms finished,

or water fountains finished.

They're able to get
one, but not both.

- I don't care how much
it costs, just do it.

- The decision is
ultimately made.

Finish the bathrooms.

- There was trouble
getting concrete,

so they had to haul
it up from San Diego,

which is like a
90-mile, one-way trip.

- The park absolutely
needs to open on July 17th.

- And here's the kicker.

We were gonna have a live
television show that day.

So not only do we have
construction equipment

for finishing the park,
we have to accommodate

all this new live television
equipment coming in.

- [Narrator] ABC will
run five control rooms,

29 cameras, and
85,000 feet of cable

for this one event.

[tense music]

But on the eve of opening,

Disneyland is not
quite complete.

- The day before opening,

they were still putting asphalt
down on Main Street, USA.

Tomorrowland was
not finished at all.

- Looks like you can use a hand.

- Walt stays up
most of the night

trying to finish areas.

- Walt was just
visible everywhere.

Not so much giving orders,

but out there kind
of urging everybody,

as, "What else do you need?

What can I help you with?"

- Almost there.

- But you know, it
was so exciting.

We're opening tomorrow.

[tense music]

- How do you do, everyone?
This is Hank Weaver.

For the past year, this
signature has announced

the opening of
Disneyland, the show.

Now, it announces the opening
of Disneyland, the place.

Thousands are coming in.

They're going through
the magic tunnel.

And like Alice in Wonderland,

as you go on
through that tunnel,

you find yourself
in another world.

- [Narrator] An estimated
90 million Americans

tune in for the live broadcast,

more than half of the
nation's population,

beating the previous record
for a televised event

four times over.

- And that built up so much
excitement for the theme park

that you couldn't sell
tickets fast enough.

- To all who come to this
happy place, welcome.

Disneyland is your land.

- True to exactly what
Walt Disney thought,

Disneyland was a
phenomenal success.

They had over a million
visitors within months.

- Eventually, the
board of directors

who turned Disney down

want to be part of Disneyland,

and they buy up ABC's stake

so that they could
be part of the park.

- [Narrator] A year earlier,

hardly anyone had heard
of Anaheim, California.

By 1956, it's one of the
top tourist destinations

in the Western hemisphere.

- Walt Disney is always on the
razor's edge of innovation,

moving forward
into new directions

that ultimately become
cultural mainstays

at a very real level.

- Giving us a theme park,

Walt completely turns the
amusement park industry

upside down and on its ear.

- Walt didn't just invent
a whole new kind of park.

He invented an entire
category of entertainment.

- After Disney's
success in Anaheim,

the theme park became a
highly duplicated entity.

Look no further than Legoland
and Universal Studios.

- But nothing has achieved

anywhere near the
cultural awareness

that Disney parks around
the world have achieved.

- [Narrator] Today, theme parks

are a $50 billion a
year global industry,

with Disney leading the pack.

- I mean, if you're going
to India and you're saying,

"I'm going to the Taj Mahal.

I'm going to France, I'm
gonna go see the Louvre."

It became our Taj
Mahal and Louvre.

Disneyland blew people's minds.

- Walt said that Disneyland
will never be completed

as long as there's
imagination left in the world.

- Despite the fact that
everyone told him he was crazy

and he was spending
money on the wrong things

and putting his attention
in the wrong places,

he bucked convention
and he was a success.

Not only was he a success,

but he created the new standard,

the happiest place on Earth.

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