Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln Articles
Disney Know It All's
As a Disney "know it all" and contributing writer here at DLDHistory.com I have to admit there are times when I am quite annoyed when listening to another fan talk about material concerning the history of Walt, his Family and the Disney Theme parks. I often have examined (in my head) my rational for having such feelings and why I get so bothered about. They usually range from the following thoughts ...
Scariest Place On Earth Just Got Scarier
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Disneyland is advertising its annual Halloween fright fest and, as usual, I'm confused. The theme park is scary year-round as far as I'm concerned. So, what happens in October? It gets even scarier? Oh, my. Halloween Time, which continues at the park through the end of the month, features a specially decorated Main Street, retooled rides like "Haunted Mansion Holiday" and "Space Mountain Ghost ...
Walt Disney King Of Fantasy
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Walt Disney and friends. Walt Disney, whose Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck brought laughter to the world and whose Disneyland is a playground for the world's people, calls his home at Smoke Tree Ranch, "my laughing place." Whimsical, as always, he refers to the Uncle Remus story where Brer Rabbit oh-so-casually mentions his "laughing place" and makes it sound so intriguing that Brer Fox insists on ...
Machine Tooled Happyland
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The wondrous devices of Disneyland take on startling importance in the mind of a science fiction seer Two thousand years back, people entering Grecian temples dropped coins into machinery that then clanked forth holy water. It is a long way from that first slot machine to the "miracles of rare device" created by Walt Disney for his kingdom, Disneyland. When Walt Whitman wrote, "I sing the Body ...
Mystery Of Mr Lincoln
Fellow Disneyland Historians and Fans, I have a mystery that hopefully someone reading will be able to solve or provide further insights or clues to aid in this endeavor. Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln has been a wonderful mainstay at Disneyland blending the old Disneyland with the current day Disneyland. The show reveals the passion of Walt Disney for his boyhood admiration for Abraham Lincoln ...
Court Tells Disneyland To Study Segway Use
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A California appeals court told Disneyland it must consider allowing use of two-wheel Segways by disabled people. Disneyland currently allows disabled visitors to use wheelchairs and scooters at the Anaheim theme park, but the justices of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said it's time for "The Happiest Place on Earth" to study the idea of adding Segways. "We have every ...
Disney Top 10 Innovations Of All Time
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The Walt Disney Company is known for its creativity, innovative thinking and technological advances. Who, but Walt Disney, could have given us a motion picture like "Snow White," the first full-length animated feature film which was a movie industry first? Who, but the Walt Disney Company, could have given us Epcot, perhaps the most unique theme park experience in the world? On a recent ...
Great Moments With Mr Lincoln Gets A 5 Million Dollar Makeover
A classic Disneyland attraction starring an audio-animatronic figure of President Abraham Lincoln will undergo an extensive refurbishment that will give the Great Emancipator a little TLC and improve the Main Street U.S.A. theater. Disneyland filed building permits valued at $5 million with the city of Anaheim to replace show elements, lighting, audio and show systems on the Great Moments with ...
Disneyland Adding A Stunning New Animatronic To The Park
It 's hard to overstate Walt Disney 's presence in Disneyland, even almost 60 years after his death. But for the first time, the man himself will be featured in a park attraction. At the D23 fan convention in Anaheim, the company announced that Walt Disney is getting his own animatronic, which will be featured in an all-new show.
“The reason that we're together tonight is because of ...
How Futurist Bob Gurr Shaped Disneyland Past
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In his 27 years as a Disney Imagineer, Bob Gurr was known for doing the impossible: He designed a submarine fleet, the cars of Autopia, and the Monorail that soars above the park on a single beam. With the opening of Tomorrowland in 1955, Gurr shaped a vision of the future (1986 to be exact) that still feels out of reach. Six decades after Gurr began creating ride vehicles for the theme park, director Brad ...
How Walt Disney Obsession With Futurism Inspired Tomorrowland
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Back in 1972, when New York City was a post-apocalyptic hell hole overrun by crime and on the verge of bankruptcy, architect Peter Blake opined that to save it, the government should be banished and Manhattan should instead be turned over to an unlikely savior. "The only new towns of any significance built in this country since World War II are Disneyland . . . and Disney World," Blake wrote in New ...
Blaine Gibson Disney Legend Behind Pirates And Haunted Mansion Dies At 97
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Legendary Disney animator and sculptor Blaine Gibson, who designed some of the most iconic images in the company's theme parks around the world, died on Sunday, according to the Orange County Register. He was 97. Gibson worked alongside Walt Disney during the development of Disneyland, and his sculptures were used to create the faces on characters in rides such as "Pirates of the Caribbean" and ...
Disney Voice Over Actors Bring Theme Park Rides To Life
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Voice-over actors are the hidden artists who provide the audio atmosphere and essential back stories that bring theme parks to life.. From the parking lot tram spiel to park-wide announcements to ride narrations, the best work of voice-over actors often goes unnoticed simply because it blends so seamlessly into the overall theme park experience. During the upcoming ScareLA convention on Aug. 8 ...
Disneyland A New Wonder Of The Amusement World Nears Completion
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A wonderland of delights such as the World may never have seen before is rising out of the orange groves in this sunny suburb of Los Angeles. It is Disneyland, a 17 million dollar paradise for children. When the gates are opened on July 19, customers will see an amusement built on the scale of a World's Fair. The fantastic world of Disney films will be transformed into three dimensional reality. ...
Disneyland Jumping During Tencennial
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Opening of "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln" plus a new Victorian restaurant and spectacular nighttime entertainment will make Disneyland's Tencennial Summer the most exciting in its 10-year history. "Mr. Lincoln" will provide a new three-dimensional "experience with history" for guests of the "Magic Kingdom." Its West Coast premiere is set for about July 1 at Disneyland with special opening-day ...
Disneyland Capital Investment Grows
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During its first 10 years, Disneyland's capital investment grew from $17 million on opening day to more than $53 million. In the next five months, the figure will jump another $20 million with the completion of four new gigantic attractions. "What we will do by this summertime," Walt Disney said after announcing the new attractions last week, "is to raise our investment more than the whole of ...
Disneyland And Imagineering Part 6
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Did you know that although Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is largely considered the first color animated feature length film by most, when in fact it isn't ? It's true. Because of Walt Disney's reputation and his ambitious efforts in both film, television and finally amusement parks, it is conceivable to see this recorded improperly. In the early 1900s, records that were kept were in their ...
This Is How Disneyland Looked And Changed In The 1960s
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It was the '60s, a decade of change. And just like society, Disneyland would change too - in dramatic fashion. 1960 Just like previous years, Walt Disney was constantly tinkering with Disneyland as the decade started. The first year of the decade, he added more scenes to the Rainbow Ridge Mine Train, and changed its name to the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. The mules got a new name, ...
This Is How Disneyland Looked In The 1970s
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The seventies at Disneyland started with an invasion, then went into space, and ended with a wild ride in the frontier. Unfortunately for Disneyland, the riots that had been happening in cities across America during the latter half of the sixties and some of the protesters turned their attention to Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom. On Aug. 6, 1970, the Yippies (an offshoot of the hippies of the sixties) ...
Disney Parks Want Us To Escape Reality But Real-World Conflicts Are Sometimes Unavoidable
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On June 29, Disney announced that as part of its ongoing renovation of old attractions, it would be removing the "wench auction" scene from its popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Many people online have expressed outrage. "Never have any of these wonderful scenes ever made me think of negative things!" wrote one fan on the Disney Parks Blog. Another posted, "I want to point out that the attraction ...
Every Town USA
The final stop on my lovely tour of Disneyland, at least until "Star Wars Land" is completed, is the entrance to the entire park. Said to be inspired by Walt's hometown of Marceline, Missouri, "Main Street, U.S.A" is designed to look like the idealized center of a town at around 1910. One of the designers, Harper Goff, showed Walt some pictures of his childhood home in Colorado and Walt liked the ...
12 Fun Things You May Not Know About Disneyland
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Test your Disney trivia mojo here. How many of these items do you already know? 1. King Arthur Carousel. The lead horse on the iconic Fantasyland carousel is named Jingles. Walt Disney wanted all horses on the carousel, and he wanted them all to be leaping, so when a classic carousel was purchased, it was supplemented with other horses and those that had straight legs were redesigned. 2. Main ...
Know It All
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Walt Disney (1901-1966) got the idea for Disneyland when kids started asking where Mickey Mouse and Snow White lived. He envisioned a place where "parents and children could have fun together." It took a little more than a year to convert 160 acres of orange groves in Anaheim into Disneyland. Construction began on May 1, 1954, and the opening day was July 17, 1955. Walt Disney borrowed against his ...
New Monorail Fleet For Disney World Original Designer Backs Up Rumor
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Walt Disney World should soon be getting replacements for its aging fleet of monorails, according to the retired imagineer who designed the original iconic trains for Disneyland as well as the Orlando resort. Bob Gurr, an 86-year-old Disney legend who was hired by Walt Disney in the 1950s, appeared to confirm recent rumors during a question-and-answer session at the end of a panel discussion near ...
24 Surprising Things About Disneyland We Did Not Know But Should
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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 ...
TV Shows Walts Plans For Small World Carousel Of Progress
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A 1964 episode of "Wonderful World of Color," a television show hosted by Walt Disney, gives old-school insights into the making of what would become classic theme park rides. The show, now available via the website of the D23 fan club, goes behind the scenes of Disney's involvement in the 1964/1965 World's Fair in New York. The footage shows preparation for "it's a small world" and Carousel of ...
50 Things You Didn't Know About Disneyland
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In honor of Disneyland's 50th anniversary, we present 50 cool, obscure and simply odd things you probably didn't know about the self-proclaimed Happiest Place on Earth. Many were culled from Mouse Tales by David Koenig (Bonaventure, $19.95). Some were provided by Disney archivist Dave Smith, and others came from 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland by former park employee Kevin Yee and lifelong fan ...
A Park With A Powerful Spell
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Disneyland opened on this day in 1955. For five decades, the Anaheim attraction has worked its magic on our culture and transformed the entertainment industry. To build his dream theme park in Anaheim a half-century ago, Walt Disney borrowed against his life insurance policy and cashed in property, including a vacation home in Palm Springs, to pay the $17-million construction bill. When the ...
Disneyland Intros Roving Animatronic Muppets; Mickey And Friends Fear Pink Slips
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The happiest place on Earth (Disneyland, not Las Vegas during CES) just got a little happier this week, thanks to a new exhibit called the Muppet Mobile Laboratory that roams the park and delights visitors with inane banter and sprays of water. Probably having nothing to do with the fact that the human costumed characters like to videotape themselves in suggestive poses while still in uniform, Disney ...
Eustace Lycett, 91; Oscar-Winning Special Effects Expert For Disney
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When Eustace Lycett was studying mechanical engineering at Caltech in Pasadena in the 1930s, he figured he'd wind up in the oil or aircraft industries when he graduated. He never considered a career in the movies. But three days after graduating in 1937, he went to work in the engineering department at the Walt Disney studio on Los Angeles' Hyperion Avenue, where he worked on the studio's new ...
The Pirates of the Caribbean's 40th Anniversary at Disneyland
March 18, 1967 Disneyland, Anaheim California - The day dawned gray and drizzly, and the passing of Walt Disney was still felt sharply, yet the Press, tourist and locals turned out for Disneyland's newest Attraction - the long awaited and much anticipated "Pirates of the Caribbean". This was the first big event at Disneyland since it's founders death, and was marked with a celebratory feeling among ...
