Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln Articles
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 ...
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 ...
5 Disneyland Secrets That Nobody Knows
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If you're heading to Disneyland this summer, you can increase your knowledge and impress your traveling companions by sharing these 5 little-known secrets from the park. So without further ado: 1. The Disneyland "Test Bricks" If you are heading down Main Street toward Sleeping Beauty Castle, take a quick right toward the locker rentals. There, just to the right of the entrance to the lockers, ...
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 ...
50 Year Old Memories Of Worlds Fair
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It was half a century ago. This native son of Newport-Mesa was on the East Coast visiting the 1964 New York World's Fair. That fair turned out to be one of the highlights of my young life. I was 19 and stationed with the U.S. Army at Fort Slocum, N.Y., north of New York City. The fair was spread over 650 acres of Flushing Meadows territory, in Queens. The fair ran for two six-month seasons, ...
50 Years Of Disneyland
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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 ...
A Fantasy That Paid Off
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The place is surrounded by a berm, a high barrow of earth, that insulates it from the external world. There is a single gateway where admission is charged. This, the land of Disney, is more secure than ancient Troy. No Trojan horse will get into Disneyland. Guards at the main gate closely scrutinize all who enter. Not even an unseemly teenager will get past them, much less a Trojan horse. Disneyland is ...
A Great Destination For All Generations
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I had been pretty neutral on all things Disney while I was growing up, and as a young adult I didn't seek out any Disney entertainment. I had been to Disney World once when I was eight or nine, but that was pre-Epcot and all I remembered was loving Peter Pan and hating Space Mountain. But in 2006 when my kids were five and two, I had the chance to go to Disney World again. This time, it was a whole new ...
A Little Night Light
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Here's some advice for those Disneyland purists who have been howling over "Light Magic," the new show unveiled this month as a replacement for the venerable Main Street Electrical Parade: It's different from its predecessor, and entertaining in its own unique way. Deal with it! Life is about change. Hey, Walt embraced it. Even Disneyland needs to make an occasional tweak to acknowledge advances in ...
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 ...
A Restless Dreamer And A Prolific Creator
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As Disneyland launches its 50th birthday celebration, it seems appropriate to consider the founding father who turned his last name into an enduring brand and created a media giant that bestrides the planet. Walt Disney, as many have noted with varying degrees of accuracy, was not always the kindly, genial Uncle Walt who cared only about making children laugh. He was much more complex and more interesting. ...
A Visit With Uncle Walt
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Walt Disney was a virtual family member for many of us growing up in the 1950s and early '60s. Jimmie and his Mouseketeer friends provided us with entertainment each afternoon on The Mickey Mouse Club, and our families gathered in front of the television each Sunday evening to watch Disneyland (an always entertaining hour, the title of which changed several times after its 1954 debut). With a soft voice ...
Abe Gets To Stay At Disneyland
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Honest, Abe, Disneyland says you haven't worn out your welcome. At least for now. The amusement park has revised its decision to close the "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" exhibit Sunday, park spokesman Bob Roth said Friday. The park told the Associated Press last week that the exhibit, set in the Main Street Opera House and featuring a robot replica of the 16th president, was being closed for ...
An Exclusive Look Inside Disneyland's Mr. Lincoln
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Disneyofficials say the Mr. Lincoln animatronic figure will star in a new show, "The Disneyland Story Featuring Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln," as early as Dec. 18. Disney spokesman John McClintock said Imagineers - the Disney technical pros - are still tinkering with the classic attraction, which has been on hiatus for several years. The Mr. Lincoln robotic figure was innovative when it debuted ...
Analysis Liberty Street The Expansion Walt Never Built
Liberty Street at Disneyland was canceled, but Walt Disney had big plans for the proposed patriotic expansion to the park in the 1950s. According to D23, In 1956 (just one year after Disneyland 's opening), Walt Disney Productions distributed a press release, detailing the company 's plans for Liberty Street. Walt Disney 's Vision for Liberty Street at Disneyland In May 1957, ...
Bill Justice, Walt Disney Studios Animator Worked On Fantasia And Bambi
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Bill Justice, a former Walt Disney Studios animator who worked on classics such as "Fantasia," "Bambi" and "Alice in Wonderland" and later joined Walt Disney Imagineering where he helped program Audio-Animatronics figures for attractions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, died Thursday, a day after he turned 97. Justice died of natural causes in a nursing home in Santa Monica, said Ted King, a ...
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 ...
Blinkin Lincoln Animatronic Used To Go Crazy And Smash His Chair In A Robotic Fit
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The Great Emancipator who has starred as an audio-animatronic historic figure in Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln for a half century at Disneyland got off to a rough start in 1964 when he would go crazy from power surges and smash his chair in a robotic fit. “Mr. Lincoln would sit in this chair and he would start to get up and all of a sudden he would go into this robotic fit and fling his arms ...
Can The Average Person Visit Disneyland These Days
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I remember the times when my mom took my brother and me to Disneyland during summer vacation. We didn't go every summer, but I can probably count a good five times in my lifetime that we'd attended the theme park as kids. I remember looking forward to the "It's A Small World" ride, the mock President Abraham Lincoln production, Michael Jackson's "Captain EO" 3D movie...all of which I'm not even ...
Can You Name All 15 Eticket Rides Still At Disneyland It Is Not As Easy As You Think
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As Disneyland celebrates the 60th anniversary of the E-ticket, it seems like a good time to look back at the rides that earned that distinction at the Anaheim theme park. But what are the E-ticket rides of Disneyland? Naming them all is not as simple as you might think. There were 23 E-ticket attractions during the ticket book era that stretched from 1955 to 1982, according to ...
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 ...
Dinosaur Will Roam Free In Disney Park
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Walt Disney Imagineering has brought us birds that sing, pirates that wink and presidents that stand to greet us. Now, it plans to introduce the first walking Audio-Animatronic figure in a theme park. An as-yet unnamed dinosaur will begin roaming through a designated area of either California Adventure or Disneyland this spring, said Marty Sklar, vice chairman of Imagineering. This will be the first ...
Discovering Disneyland
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You have to look quickly, and you have to know exactly where to look. But if you do, you'll catch a pretty cool inside joke at Disneyland. On the Star Tours ride, just before your runaway Starspeeder exits the space station, keep your eye on the lower right side of the screen: You flash past what looks like a giant electron microscope. Old-timers will recognize it as the Mighty Microscope from ...
Disney Coast To Coast
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When I was ten years old, my parents entrusted me to TWA for a rumbling eternity in a prop-driven plane that pulled me across the continent to California. I was going to visit my aunt and uncle, but they were merely the agents of my real goal: Disneyland. The park had opened two years before, in 1955, and its effect on me was every bit as magical as the publicists had promised. I was enchanted by all ...
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 ...
Disney Legend Bob Gurr The Man Behind The Motion
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Disneyland, “The happiest place on Earth,” is known for its attractions, which transport people of all ages into a world of imagination. Park guests can voyage under the sea or even slide down a snow-covered mountain. One man to thank for this is Bob Gurr. Gurr often quips, “If it moves on wheels at Disneyland, I probably designed it.” He is responsible for more than 200 motion projects ...
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 ...
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 ...
Disney Version
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For all the natural grandeur of the west, its greatest tourist attraction is a synthetic creation: Disneyland-the subject, along with Disney's films and Disney himself, of Richard Schickel's The Disney Version (Simon and Schuster, $6.50). Those who remember Disney fondly may find this book discomforting or worse. Schickel's view is critical and frequently provocative, though not a diatribe of the sort that ...
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. ...
