Fired Disney Workers Angry
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Orange County Register
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Several former Disneyland employees are crying foul after being fired late last year for allegedly stealing complimentary passes to the theme park.
One worker, Jacqueline Madory, filed a lawsuit against Disneyland on Feb. 18 in Orange County Superior Court.
Madory, a 16-year Disneyland veteran, said she was held five hours in a "freezing cold," windowless room, denied food, and allowed to go to ...
Judge Backs Fired Disney Worker
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Orange County Register
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An administrative law judge has ruled that a Disneyland employee fired for allegedly stealing complimentary tickets is entitled to unemployment benefits because the theme park did not provide proof of his guilt.
Betty G. Leiter, a judge in the Orange County office of the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, said in a Feb. 17 ruling that Disneyland had offered no evidence to challenge a sworn ...
Fired Workers Say Disneyland Played Rough
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Los Angeles Times
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Raising new questions about hard-edged Disneyland security tactics, some former guest-relations workers contend they were threatened during lengthy interrogations, then fired improperly for allegedly stealing passes to the Anaheim park.
The workers, normally among the park's most trusted, are authorized to print free tickets for patrons who complain of bad experiences--a rained-out parade, say, ...
Celebrating a Disneyland Milestone
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Disney Magazine
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On paper, the new 45 Years of Magic procession at Disneyland might look like just another gala parade. The real thing, however, is closer to kinetic art. That, at least, is the vision of Jean-Luc Choplin, the creator of an extravaganza opening on February 18 as part of the park's yearlong forty-fifth birthday celebration. An old hand on the parade route (he was responsible for Disneyland's Mulan entry), ...
Disneyland In One Day
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Disney Magazine
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The First Hint that my mission will be daunting: I tell the cast member in Guest Relations the title of the article I'm researching, and she starts to giggle. Disneyland in a day? Who am I kidding? "It might be a little hard," she says, handing me my tickets, "to do it all in a day."
Disneyland has its own special feel, and nostalgia is only part of it. Yes, it's the only park Walt Disney lived to ...
Frontierlands Keel Boat Ride
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E Ticket
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Well, howdy there, pioneers and sod-busters ... welcome aboard the ol' Gullywhumper ... Ya know, this here's the boat that ol' Mike Fink used a while back when he took on Davy Crockett for the wildest keel boat race this river has ever seen ... well, we ain't goin' to be doin' no racin ' today, so ya'11 sit back, relax, kick off yer shoes and we'll get a first-hand look at what's happenin' out on the ...
Disneyland's Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship Resturant
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E Ticket
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Walt Disney's first Fantasyland was designed to give the impression that Sleeping Beauty Castle (with its rockwork turrets and extended walls of stone) was the single permanent structure in the area. Fantasyland's rides and concessions were arranged in the castle courtyard as if part of a traveling fair or medieval tournament. Peter Pan and the other dark rides (housed within the castle walls) had entrance ...
Sunday Dinners With The Iwerks Family, A Call To The Studio, Autopia Chassis
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LaughingPlace.com
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It all started with cars. Some folks on my paper route in 1944 always had neat cars. A few years later, one of the kids that lived there was in our same car club, the "Road Burners". Name was Dave Iwerks. We went hunting and fishing together. His dad had a short first name, Ub. After I returned in 1953 from a year designing cars in Detroit, I was a regular visitor at the Iwerks home. Ub was a quiet guy; ...
Security Chief Sued Before
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Orange County Register
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The head of a Disneyland security unit accused recently of heavy-handed tactics against park employees has been sued in at least three previous security jobs, according to court records.
Numerous former and current Disneyland employees have criticized the park's 10-member "loss-prevention management" division, headed by Christopher S. Penton. They told The Orange County Register that the division's ...
Disney Delights
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Travel Agent
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Disneyland features new shows, attractions, rides and a dedicated agent Web site to keep retailers excited and informed
The road to Disneyland may be laden with bulldozers and big plans, but the destination is worth it, both before and after the opening of the next big Disney venture, Disney's California Adventure, makes history. This year Disneyland is celebrating its 45th anniversary with a new ...
Disney Shaves Facial Hair Ban
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Workforce
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Disneyland is anticipating a new look among some male employees since its announcement that mustaches are no longer banished from the Anaheim, California, theme park's male grooming code. Beards, goatees and shaggy sideburns are still not permitted, but the shift is a significant step, especially for a classic rule in place for 45 years running.
The ban on facial hair, originally instituted in 1957 by ...
Autopia's New Wheels
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Disney Magazine
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If the new Autopia at Disneyland needs a slogan, it could be "Cars are people, too." At Tomorrowland beginning June 29, guests will have the choice of three personality-filled vehicles to "drive": Suzie, a cute, curvy compact; Dusty, a rugged and roomy SUV; and Sparky, a Ferrari-like sports car. "Today, being on the open road is a common experience, but the thrill of trying on a new car is still there," ...
A Talent For Topiary
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Disney Magazine
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At Disneyland, you'll find several delicate swans, sculpted from plants, set amid the grassy slopes at Sleeping Beauty Castle. You'll see topiary Dumbos on location at the Flying Elephant ride. But perhaps the most famous Disneyland topiaries are set in the forecourt of Fantasyland's "It's a Small World."
The animals reflect the cultural diversity found inside: a 12-foot-tall giraffe shares the ...
More Cars To Design, WED Life At The Studio, Beyond The 'Carneys'
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LaughingPlace.com
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My regular week-day job as a designer at Channing Wallace Gilson Industrial Design in Hollywood, just a mile from where Walt and Roy first set up camp in the 1920's no longer seemed like fun. Not when I could draw car sketches at night, then spend all day Saturdays at the Studio in Burbank caught up in the excitement of "Designing Disneyland".
Walt wanted an antique car for Main Street.....maybe a ...
Chevron and Disneyland Unveil Redesigned Autopia
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PR NewsWire
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Disneyland and Chevron today unveiled a remodeled Autopia featuring restyled cars and roadways with interactive surprises, visual puns, unexpected road hazards and humorous billboards.
The new attraction, which officially opens to the public tomorrow, combines the Fantasyland Autopia and Tomorrowland Autopia roadways into a single attraction with access through a new boarding area in Tomorrowland.
...
ColorShift Effects Capture the Imagination of Disneyland
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The color of tomorrow is at Disneyland today. Thanks to a new innovation called ChromaFlair(R) light interference pigments, the cars in the completely redesigned Autopia ride appear to have captured a rainbow as they circle the track. The color shifts from blue to purple to red and all shades in between displaying an emerging trend in automobile design.
The Autopia ride, one of the original rides at ...
Autopia Manufacture
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LaughingPlace.com
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Some thought Walt was nuts to get into the automobile manufacturing busines. Why not just buy one of the typical carnival type midget autos that were commercialy available. Why go to the trouble of developing Disneyland's own little Autopia car? Well, to buy just any car certainly was not Walt. His park was going to be "his" and so the cars going to be "his".
An importer of German amusement cars had ...
Autopia Testing
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LaughingPlace.com
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By April 1955, the first Autopia car body was finished and mounted on the hand-built production test chassis. The Disney Studio Machine Shop now had a complete car ready for test driving, but without any bumpers. Kaiser Aluminum was to be a sponsor of Disneyland, and their salesperson, Mel Tilley, suggested we use their aluminum for the Autopia wrap-around bumpers. WRONG! I was to find out too late that ...
Takin' It To The Streets
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Disney Magazine
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In his and rhino hat, Disneyland guest coach Kevin Rogers plucks park visitors from the crowd and prepares them to participate in the daily 45 Years of Magic ... Parade of the Stars. We caught up with Rogers as he was being mobbed by folks hoping to grab their 15 (or in this case, 22) minutes of fame.
DM: What do you look for when choosing guests performers for the parade?
Rogers: ...
Greetings From Disneyland
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Disney Magazine
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If Imagineers David Mumford and Bruce Gordon have gained fame among Disney fans, it may be because they haven't forgotten their roots. Gordon spent his childhood building Disneyland models in his garage and went on to become a show producer on the park's new Autopia. Mumford, meanwhile, filled his early years with Disney memorabilia and worked his way up to his current stint as art director for the Mermaid ...
Opening Day
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July 17, 1955 Autopia Day of Infamy! About half the Autopia cars were taken from the ride and moved to an offstage area next to the Main Street Town Square for the Opening Day Parade. The first sign of trouble appeared as I started the cars using a kick starter on the engine while holding the rear engine hood open. The day was getting hotter and hotter, and the cars began to vapor lock and stall after ...
Autopia Busted! Disneyland Learns Real Engineering
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LaughingPlace.com
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At the end of Disneyland's opening week we had just two cars running out of the (37) Autopia ride vehicles built. Walt's custom car was safe on its rotating display turntable parked in Tomorrowland, while the two police cars were still running good enough for ride operators to give the tiny kids a ride. I was still repairing the cars with my own tools, working out of the trunk of my yellow Cadillac ...
Steam Freaks
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When Roger Broggie set me to work on the Autopia Mk I, he gave me a drafting board in a room with some interesting "olde tyme" characters from America's railroad past......steam freaks, I called them. We seemed worlds apart; they were mostly in their 50's to 70's while I was a green kid of 22. Steam railroads were their passion, sports cars and airplanes were my big thrill.
The whole bunch had a ...
13-Year-Old Girl Leg Became Lodged Under Ride (Injury)
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Accident Date: April 18, 2000
Accident Type: Injury
April 18, 2000 10:30 p.m.:--A Lake Forest teenager whose leg was caught beneath Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin ride is being described as a ''lucky little girl'' by hospital officials and paramedics, who said that she suffered no broken bones or serious cuts. The 13-year-old was on Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin ride when her lower right leg became lodged under the fiberglass passenger bucket, ...
Christina Moreno Suffers A Brain Hemorrhage (Death)
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Accident Date: June 1, 2000
Accident Type: Death
June 2000:--Christina Moreno, on her honeymoon with her new husband, suffered a brain hemorrhage riding on the Indiana Jones attraction, which uses jeep-style vehicles with jarring jumps and drops on a roller coaster track.
September 2000:--Christina ran up more than $1.3 million in medical expenses in her native Spain before she died.
June 2005:--In a wrongful-death lawsuit, her family ...
Jonathan Woodcock Injured When Ride Suddenly Stops (Injury)
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Accident Date: July 31, 2000
Accident Type: Injury
July 31, 2000:--A car on the Space Mountain coaster stopped suddenly when a wheel support arm came loose. The safety system on the ride, which reaches a maximum speed of about 30 mph as it winds its way through a half-mile course, stopped other cars. The lights in darkened Space Mountain were turned on and everyone was evacuated. Jonathan Woodcock suffered 13 bulging disks, nerve damage from the base of ...
Yvonne Traina Falls On Ride (Injury)
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Accident Date: August 8, 2000
Accident Type: Injury
August 8, 2000:--An operator dispatches a log on Splash Mountain before Yvonne Traina, 67, was seated, causing her to be thrown ''rapidly backward'' in her seat. When she screamed and he stopped the ride, she was thrown forward. After the ride, Traina said she complained of back pain, and a theme park nurse gave her an ice pack and an Advil. Her doctor later diagnosed her with a bulging disk, ...
Brandon Zucker Falls And Became Lodged Under Ride (Injury)
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Accident Date: September 22, 2000
Accident Type: Injury
September 22, 2000:--Brandon Zucker, 4, did not have a pulse when paramedics arrived after he fell off the Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin Ride. ''With a resuscitative efforts his vital signs improved,'' Dr. Marianne Cinat ''His injuries include a left diaphragmatic tear, a collapsed left lung, a small tear to the liver and to the spleen, and a left sided pelvic fracture.'' The ...
Blake Borbeck Foot Injured (Injury)
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Accident Date: December 21, 2000
Accident Type: Injury
December 21, 2000 11:37 a.m.:--Blake Borbeck a 15-year-old Mesa Arizona boy's foot apparently became stuck between the ride's caterpillar-shaped car and a 3-inch- high horizontal bar that keeps the cars on the track, on Alice in Wonderland ride. The boy suffered a fractured foot and minor scratches and abrasions to his ankle and heel. His foot was splinted at the scene and he was later transported to ...
