This past summer, as in previous summers, millions of people streamed into Disneyland, the self-proclaimed "Happiest Place on Earth." Not a single one of them, it's safe to assume, wondered how every retail shop and fast food stand kept their shelves fully stocked. You just don't think about such things in the Magic Kingdom. But in the Disneyland warehouse, that's all they think about. How to supply ...

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 ...

Associate Editor Stephen Koepp still likes Pirates of the Caribbean best. "As a kid growing up in Wisconsin, whenever I went to Disneyland, I was always yearning to get out of the boat and join the pirates." As writer of the main story in this week's cover package on the burgeoning Disney empire, Koepp was able to revisit Disneyland and Pirates of the Caribbean, and, of course, childhood. He reports, "Once ...

Once upon a time in a popular tourist destination called the Magic Kingdom, there lived some very prosperous characters. They were happy all the time (except for Grumpy, but it was his job to be that way). They produced souvenirs, cartoons and movies that were the delight of families around the world. But one day a great disenchantment fell over the kingdom, for the magic no longer worked. Tinker Bell's ...

Walt Disney's vision of a vacation kingdom that everyone in the family-children, parents, and grandparents alike-could enjoy forever changed the family vacation experience. "Like Alice stepping through the Looking Glass, to step through the portals of Disneyland will be like entering another world," dreamed Disney, who risked his personal fortune to create the "magical little park" called Disneyland, which ...

Mickey Mouse, who hits the big Six-Oh this year, is still shaking money from vacationers the way a hurricane shakes fronds off a palm. Attendance at Walt Disney theme parks in Florida and California rose only 9% last year, but revenues grew 20% and income 36%. How does the little fellow do it? By jacking up prices, that's how. In 1984, when Michael Eisner came aboard as Disney's chairman and CEO, a ...

"Just hook up a bottle of Greensweep to your garden hose and spray. . . the goof-proof way to healthier, more beautiful lawn," reads the promotion for this line of synthetic lawn care products. We wonder at the use of the word healthier when the products contain herbicides like 2,4-D, and insecticides like carbaryl-substances know to have toxic effects on humans, animals and the environment. What's ...

The tears were still damp on the powdered cheeks of Gretchen Elizabeth Carlson when she announced to her waiting public that the very first thing she was going to do now that she was Miss America was go to Disney World. Her decision was not altogether unexpected, since the Orlando playground and its progenitor in Anaheim seem to be the destinations of choice these days for big-time winners. Doug ...

Sixty years ago, in a state of shock, a struggling young animator boarded a westbound train in New York. Walt Disney had traveled east to negotiate a better distribution deal for his cartoons starring Oswald the Rabbit-only to be told that his distributor owned the rights to the rabbit and had signed up Disney's key artists. Defiantly, Walt told his wife, Lilly, that he'd think up a new character. As the ...

Just remember: two d's, two s's and three emotions.Thirty-six pencils record this information in notebooks, ensuring that their owners will know, if asked, the names of the Seven Dwarfs: Doc and Dopey, Sleepy Sneezy, Happy, Grumpy and Bashful. The mnemonic for Snow White's friends is an essential element of the curriculum at Disney University at Walt Disney World, whose principle function is to ...