Disneyland The Happiest Place on Earth turns 56 on Sunday. Much has been said and written about the groundbreaking amusement enterprise in Anaheim, Calif. But even after more than five and a half decades in operation, some interesting nuggets can still be unearthed. For instance, not many people are aware that during the first few years of operation, not only could you visit the park during a ...

TV show named "Gunsmoke" made its debut, and another named "Make Room for Daddy" won two Emmys. Elvis Presley and Pat Boone had young hearts all shook up, and for the first time, they could listen to those crooners and others on a new gadget called a pocket transistor radio. A new car cost $1,900, gasoline was 23 cents a gallon and rents averaged $87 a month.. It was 1955. On July 17 of that year - a ...

Disneyland is now past the half-way point in a spring construction program that will add 1 1/2 million dollars in new rides and amusements to Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom in Anaheim. Major areas of activity are Frontierland and the Tom Sawyer Island in the Rivers of America. More than $250,000 is being spent to make the island a "playland out of a youngster's dream." On the island -- named for and ...

Disneyland fans have just a couple more months to enjoy Frontierland's Rivers of America before Disney closes it, and all its related attractions, for more than a year to make way for the construction of Star Wars Land. So let's honor Disneyland's Rivers of America with some fun facts that you might not know about this section of the park. On a personal note, the Rivers of America is my "home" ...

The Walt Disney Company recently announced that an entirely new land based on the Star Wars universe would be coming to Disneyland, likely in 2019. The 14-acre mini universe will feature two major new rides and other attractions including a restaurant based on the Mos Eisley cantina in the films. I'm not a big Star Wars aficionado, but I hear that the designers working on it are, and genuine fans can ...

Disneyland is said to be the "Happiest Place on Earth." For one day (or several depending on your trip schedule) people of all ages from toddlers to seniors can have fun, let loose and become a kid again. It's a place filled with magic, music, your favourite characters and rides to fit whatever you're in the mood for. It opened its doors on July 17, 1955, and was the masterpiece of Walt Disney's ...

Twenty years ago," Walt said as we drove toward Disneyland, some 25 miles southeast of central Los Angeles, "I was always trying to think of a place to take my two small daughters on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon - a place where I could have fun, too. "At an amusement park the only fun provided for a father, besides having his bottom dropped out from under him on the roller coaster, was the same he ...

Disneyland really started more than 20 years ago, when Walt got the idea for an amusement park that grownups as well as children would enjoy. "I had all my drawing things laid out at home, and I'd work on plans for the park, as a hobby, at night." At the time, amusement parks were dying all over the country, "I talked Disneyland but no one could see it," Walt recalled. "So I went ahead and spent my ...

Part of the magic of the Magic Kingdom, of course, is that despite the slings and arrows peppering the outside world, it somehow remains as seemingly immutable as one of Aristotle's First Causes, or Walt's immortal mouse, whose 60th birthday the park-itself pushing a healthy 33-is celebrating this year from March 19 through September 8 with a new Mickey at the Movies Parade. However, as any Disneycologist ...

You 're probably familiar with Tom Sawyer Island, an attraction at Disneyland that was inspired by Mark Twain 's classic novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. While most are acquainted with Twain 's stories, you might not know that the classic attraction was once open for fishing. In the late 1950s, there was a location within Tom Sawyer Island called Catfish ...

"I'm not Disney-obsessed, but I never discount the effect it had on me as a child," says the pop-culture humorist and author, best known for blending comedy and commentary in shows based on other people's family and vacation slides. "It helped make me a visual person in terms of recognizing motifs and themes. I like to say I studied at the Disneyland School of Style." It's no surprise, then, that the ...

Disneyland was Walt Disney's baby, a dream he nurtured for years which eventually turned into a flat-out obsession ... an obsession that had as many skeptics as it had bank creditors demanding that Disney make good on all the loans he needed to make his pie-in-the-sky come true. Tomorrow, The Happiest Place on Earth celebrates its 55th anniversary. Five and a half decades after the world's first ...

Disneyland spokesman Tim O'Day, hired as a parade performer in 1976 and knowledgeable about virtually every Disneyland detail, is practically the grand marshal of the theme park's rich history, including its integration to motion pictures. The co-author of Disneyland: Then, Now and Forever talked with Box Office Mojo about the Happiest Place on Earth. Box Office Mojo: Which principle defines ...

Disneyland, which celebrated its 55th birthday in July, drew more than 1,300 rabid devotees to a two-day, sometimes irreverant, sometimes reverential convention starting Friday at the Disneyland Hotel. Being a Disney fan, I was there, feverishly taking notes in the dark as "Disney Legends," men and women who made Disneyland what it is today, pop singers and behind-the-scenes "Imagineers" -- the people ...

About five or six months ago I received an e-mail from the 1313 Club & Ape Pen Publishing Informing me of an event to take place at the Disneyland Hotel. The event, "The Marvelous Mechanized Magic Kingdom" was to feature the talents and stories of current and former employees and imagineers as they worked for Walt over the years. The 1313 Club and Ape Pen are both are created and run by Carlene Thie, ...

“Twenty years ago,” Walt said as we drove toward Disney­land, some 25 miles south­east of central Los Angeles, “I was always trying to think of a place to take my two small daughters on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon-a place where I could have fun, too. “At an amusement park, the only fun provided for a father, besides having his bottom dropped out from under him on the roller coaster, was the ...