It was sometime in the 1940s, and a young father sat on an amusement park bench, licking a Popsicle and feeling slightly disgruntled. While his two daughters rode the merry-go-round, he waited restlessly, wondering why there was no amusement park that was equally "amusing" for children and adults. Had this been anyone else, the thought might have disappeared with the last slurps of the Popsicle. ...

In honor of the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney's birth-on December 5, 1901--Disneyland in Anaheim and Walt Disney World in Orlando are offering a variety of special year long activities: DISNEYLAND, A Walk in Walt's Footsteps : is a two-and-a- half-hour guided tour that shows the park(from the perspective of the man who loved it most. $16 for adults; $14 for children (in addition to park ...

Disneyland has been shooting pyrotechnic chemicals into the evening sky since shortly after the amusement park opened in 1955. In the beginning, the fireworks shows were confined to weekends and school vacations. In 2000, the park added its third fireworks show. With the debut of Disneyland's New California Adventures, the blazing tracers and wall-shaking blasts of exploding skyrockets have become nearly ...

Morgan "Bill" Evans, the landscape architect who planted a group of orange trees upside down so the gnarled roots would look like exotic jungle branches on Disneyland's Jungle Cruise ride, died Saturday in his native Santa Monica. He was 92. If you love the topiary, or animal-shaped plants, around It's a Small World, or the miniature plants dotting Storybook Land, or the luscious growth that renders ...

Once the last visitor straggles out of Disneyland each night, the trucks roll in, the tools break out, and the work begins. Nearly 1,500 resort employees begin their shifts under the moonlight - polishing props, testing rides, replacing parts and baking cakes in time to open the gates again in the morning. From Main Street to the California Screamin' roller coaster's 120-foot peak, crews of ...

The Disney Resort is teeming with rats, according to current and former Disneyland employees reacting to media reports of rodent problems inside the Goofy's Kitchen restaurant at the Disneyland Hotel. Longtime complaints by Goofy's Kitchen workers about rats, rat feces and mold at the cafeteria-style restaurant were recently chronicled in the Weekly (""Rats and Rat Shit Everywhere,'" Sept. 13; "Goofy ...

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 ...

August 29, 2002 4:30 p.m.:--Space Mountain triggered a standard ''cascade ride stop,'' which is supposed to stop the rockets, one at a time, as they enter the next brake zone. Unfortunately, one rocket shot through one of the last brake zones without stopping :-- and smashed into the rear of a rocket that had been stopped just before the station. ''We had the usual cascade, but one ...

December 7, 2002:--Just before midnight, 50-year-old James Margolin and his son took one last trip on Big Thunder. After exiting the ride, the two walked about 500 feet, when Margolin complained of chest pains. He collapsed and lost consciousness, according to Susan Gard, spokesperson for the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH). Disneyland emergency personnel quickly responded and ...