【Disneyland】Disneyland (1/3) - The Muddy Road to the Magic Kingdom-

In a nutshell

1. I was talking about Disneyland trivia and ended up with a pretty big blog post. I plan to post it in three parts as Disneyland Week from 11/11 to 11/15.
2. From the poor land of the American Midwest, the boy Walt Disney dreamed of a magic kingdom.
3. Unable to draw, Disney decided to create his own magic kingdom.

Disneyland Week

I was talking about Disneyland trivia in my last post and thought I could write a lot about Disneyland. It was also well-received. 【Disney】Reiwa Hackers - The people who buy an annual pass to Disney and use it as an office-

As I was writing, it turned into an unexpectedly long piece. So, from 11/11 to 11/15, I'd like to do a Disneyland special and talk about the unknown history of Disneyland.

The reference book is "Disneyland as a Sacred Place" (by Masako Notoro/Iwanami Shinsho). The author is a cultural anthropologist specializing in American history, but she also has experience working on the Tokyo Disneyland launch project from 1980 to 1983, where she was responsible for teaching the history of Disney and the culture of Disneyland to the Japanese cast. The book was published in 1990, so it's a bit old, but it's full of interesting content.

Dreaming of a Magic Kingdom in the Poor Land of Missouri

In 1955, Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Southern California. In his opening speech, Walt Disney said:

Welcome to this happy place. Disneyland is your land. Here, adults can recapture the happy days of the past, and young people can dream of the challenges of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, dreams, and hard realities that created the nation of America, and at the same time, it is dedicated to them. And I hope that Disneyland will be a source of courage and inspiration for people all over the world.

In a television interview, he always answered the question of why he created Disneyland as follows:

The plan for Disneyland actually began when my two daughters were still young. On weekends, we would often go to a nearby amusement park together. While my daughters were riding the carousel, I would sit alone on a bench, bored, eating peanuts, and I would think to myself, "There should be a better place, a place where adults can have fun too." In the end, it took me 15 years to create it.

The author dismisses this reason as a feel-good comment for television. He says that Disney's obsession with Disneyland lies in his upbringing.

In the American Midwest. In the 1900s. In what is now Marceline, Missouri, Walt Disney had a miserable childhood. He was the youngest of four brothers, and his father had hopes of pioneering the American West and had set up a farm. But his hopes were in vain, and life in the Midwest was extremely difficult. Freezing to death in blizzards, droughts that occurred every year, and sandstorms that attacked every night. The western pioneers of the time would stay at home every day, draw pictures of rich rural landscapes on their windows, and die wrapped in their delusions. His father also suffered from the effects of the drought and had trouble managing the farm, and then he contracted typhoid fever and was unable to work. Walt Disney was 4 years old at the time. The eldest and second eldest sons struggled to manage the farm, but four years later they were forced to give it up.

Another major obstacle for farmers at the time was mud. At that time, America was developing the transcontinental railroad and other pioneering projects, but many farmers lived far from the railroad stations, and the roads were mostly unpaved mud roads. Goods and mail from the railroad stations were rarely delivered. Perhaps the suffering of that muddy road in his childhood led Disney to insist on the magnificent paved main street of Disneyland.

In today's Disneyland, there are many structures that are the complete opposite of Disney's childhood. It is no coincidence that "Mickey Mouse," the first character Disney created, is a formally dressed mouse, in contrast to the unclean image of a mouse. In Disneyland, there is always a main street leading to the castle, and it is filled with artificial structures that are almost completely unaffected by nature. Almost all of the street trees are evergreen trees that do not lose their leaves, and the flowers are replaced with full-blooming flowers every day, or they are artificial flowers in the first place. Animals existed in the early days of Disneyland in the "Jungle Cruise," but they were immediately replaced with artificial objects. For Disney, "the happiest place on earth" was a country that did not allow for the room of nature.

Disney, who couldn't draw

The plan to build Disneyland began in 1950, when Disney was hitting it big with animated films such as "Pinocchio" and "Sleeping Beauty," but the public's expectations for Disney were high, and a certain degree of stagnation had set in. He is said to have told his subordinates with a self-deprecating tone:

I'm getting tired of having other people draw and color. I'd like to try making something myself for a change.

In the beginning, there was no location plan or funding plan for Disneyland; it was simply Walt Disney's idea. His older brother Roy, who was a co-owner and treasurer of Disney Studios, was also against the Disneyland plan. This was because the European market, which had been a major market, was closed due to World War II, and Disney Studios itself was in a financial crisis with huge loans from banks. In such a situation, Disneyland was simply unthinkable.

However, Walt Disney, who could not give up on his dream, went on a pilgrimage to the bankers who had long supported Disney Studios to raise funds. However, because "an unprecedented outdoor entertainment" was too much of a dream, he was completely unable to raise funds.

So, Disney came up with a brilliant idea. He proposed to the cable network television companies with which he had a deep connection at the time that they invest in the Disneyland project on the condition that they sign a contract to produce Disney programs. At that time, the proposal to produce Disney programs was attractive in terms of ratings, but because the Disneyland project was too much of a fantasy, each company turned down the proposal.

Would the Disneyland project end as just a dream? Disney, thinking that the reason was that there was no concrete image, thought that an image that would bring persuasiveness, an image of the Disneyland theme park, was necessary.

One morning in September 1953, Herb Ryman, who had worked for Disney in the 1940s and was then in charge of art at 20th Century Fox, suddenly received a call from Disney and was summoned to Disney Studios.

As soon as he arrived at the studio, Ryman was told by Disney about the construction image of Disneyland and that his brother would be going to New York in two days with the drawings to negotiate for investment.

"So, where are the drawings?" asked Ryman. "You're going to draw them now," said Disney.

For the next two days, Ryman was cooped up with Disney, and Disney talked about the image of Disneyland day and night for two days. Ryman spent two full days drawing the magic kingdom on a white sheet of paper.

Two days later, his brother Roy left for New York with the drawings and made a proposal to the three major networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC. CBS and NBC turned him down, but only ABC showed a favorable response. At that time, ABC was lagging behind the other two companies and was looking for a way to get ahead of the competition. The president, Leonard Goldenson, saw Ryman's drawing and said one thing:

Tell Walt to do as he pleases. We're in.

ABC Television promised a total of $5 million for the construction of Disneyland in exchange for a groundbreaking contract for Disney to produce a one-hour television program for seven years. Thus, the first step was taken from the muddy road of Missouri to the magic kingdom.

Aside (Recommended Book)

A recommended design book. It's packed with design tips that you can use forever. I use it often myself.