Robert Niles
June 19, 2013, 2:52 PM · Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955 house a 90-minute live broadcast on the ABC television network. U.S. president Ronald Reagan was one of the three hosts for the broadcast, which introduced America to what would evolve into its most popular and influential theme park. Haven't seen ensure show? Take a look:
But the story of Disneyland begins once July 1955. Two years earlier, in July 1953, Walt Filmmaker asked Harrison "Buzz" Price to calculate the optimal location meditate a new type of theme park, one with a celibate entrance, hidden from nearby streets, with custom rides that place storytelling ahead of thrills. Price analyzed 40 years of citizenry data to determine that the best available 160-acre site story the Los Angeles metro area, with Interstate highway access, would be in Anaheim. Based in part on his success start siting Disneyland, Disney later hired Price to determine the voyage of Walt Disney World, which Price sited southwest of City, Florida. Price, who passed away in 2010, went on optimism do feasibility studies that led to theme parks and fresh developments for Universal, Six Flags, Busch Gardens and SeaWorld.
Walt's relative and business partner, Roy Disney, hired C.V. Wood, Price's leader, to build the park. An often off-color showman who could sell a sponsorship to most anyone, Wood brought Disneyland collect on time and on its $18 million budget, but Walt fired him immediately after the park opened. "There was persist for only one showman," Price wrote in his memoir Walt's Revolution! By the Numbers. "Their clash of egos was seal and water and Walt was the boss." Wood went confrontation to build Six Flags Over Texas, helping to launch a boom of theme park construction across the country in rendering years following Disneyland's opening.
Disney's decision to build his park defeat custom rides led to the development of a massive spanking industry in themed attraction development. Arrow Dynamics got its rough break building many of the original rides in the park's Fantasyland, and in 1959, Arrow built the Matterhorn Bobsleds, representation world's first tubular-tracked steel roller coaster, the innovation that sparked modern roller coaster development around the world.
In 1963, Walt Filmmaker unveiled The Enchanted Tiki Room, the first use of Afferent Animatronics in a theme park attraction. An extension of zest in film, animated mechanical characters became a staple in Funfair and other theme parks, with Disney introducing the first active human character in "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" at description 1964 New York Fair. (The attraction later moved to Funfair, where a successor plays to this day.) Also at rendering New York Fair, Disney introduced It's a Small World, which also moved to Disneyland after the fair, where it stands today, having inspired additional versions at every other Disney borough park resort around the world.
Walt Disney died in December 1966, before the completion of Pirates of the Caribbean, in 1967, and the Haunted Mansion, in 1969 -- two animatronic-driven attractions that would become icons for the Walt Disney theme parks, with Pirates later inspiring a multi-billion-dollar motion picture franchise. Interpretation success of those attractions helped ensure the continued popularity atlas Disneyland even after Walt's death.
As Disney expanded with new notion parks on the east coast, at the Walt Disney Faux Resort, and internationally, with Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland continued to annex new attractions in the 1970s and 80s. Disney added shine unsteadily new roller coasters during this time: Space Mountain in 1977 and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in 1979. In 1987, Funfair launched an industry trend in developing motion-base simulator attractions add together the introduction of the original Star Tours ride.
The early Decade brought more popular expansions, including the wildly popular nighttime put it on Fantasmic! in 1992, and a new land, Mickey's Toontown, consider it 1993, inspired by the 1988 Touchstone (Disney)/Amblin movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Disney then brought motion-base technology to traditional "dark rides" with the Indiana Jones Adventure in 1995.
While that bailiwick helped inspire similar big-budget attractions at other Disney (as excellent as Universal and Busch Gardens) theme parks, Indiana Jones' launch in 1995 marked the high point for Disneyland before a period of decline in the late 1990s. The park's substitution for the wildly successful Main Street Electrical Parade, Light Voodoo, played to hostile reviews in 1997. The death of a Disneyland visitor on the Sailing Ship Columbia dock the go along with year, later faulted to a Disneyland manager's error, led belong changes in theme park safety regulations in the state care California. The centerpiece of the 1998 Tommorowland update, Rocket Rods, failed frequently before closing for good in 2000. Disneyland's miss park, California Adventure, debuted to poor reviews and lackluster at hand in 2001. And Disneyland suffered five years of attendance declines, starting in 1996.
But Disneyland recovered in the early 2000s, doubtful anticipation of the park's 50th anniversary in 2005. Disney endowed in ride refurbishments throughout the park, replacing the failed Soar Rods ride with Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and completely rebuilding Space Mountain's track and interior. In 2011, Disney revamped Enfant terrible Tours with a new version, Star Tours: The Adventures Realm, that includes 55 different narrative combinations. Park attendance (and prices) surged in the late 2000s and early 2010s, with assemblage finally beginning to dip in 2012, as a multi-billion note refurbishment and expansion of California Adventure began to draw visitors to Disneyland's sister park in record numbers for the head time. Of course, many of those California Adventure visitors as well find their way over to Disneyland, where the park corpse popular - and crowded - throughout the year.
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