The Sorcerer's Guide

Disney has carved a strange place in the consumer’s mind. Few other brands command the love and respect of a group of fans the way Disney can. Not many people set goals to see every Six Flags park, collect every variation of Great Value pasta, or to decorate their homes like natural architecture symbols. But Disney fans try to visit each of Disney’s parks, impulse buy pins, plush, figurines, and hundreds of other collectibles, and decorate their homes to match Disney architecture. Simple themes – like the American Frontier, a European Village, or a Tropical Paradise – are instead labelled as Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Adventureland, whether they are actually connected to the Disney places or not. This is partly because of Disney’s skilled marketing teams. But the reason these teams have been so successful can be attributed to nostalgia. Disney thrives on nostalgia. Here are several websites that describe Main Street as nostalgic – one , two , three ,. It’s a common claim, but there...

It was 1948, and Walt desperately wanted to go to the Chicago Railroad Fair. Knowing Lillian and his daughters wouldn’t want go, Walt invited his friend Ward Kimball. Walt and Ward enjoyed the fair, and when Walt started building Disneyland in 1954, he knew he had to have a train. This wasn’t the first time Walt and Ward talked about trains. Back in 1945, Ward let Walt drive one of his engines at the Grizzly Flats Railroad, Ward’s personal railroad. We can’t say for sure, but it’s very likely that Walt’s Lilly Belle came because he wanted to have a railroad just like Ward’s. Now Ward Kimball is immortalized in the Ward Kimball engine at Disneyland. The Person Ward Kimball was an animator for Walt Disney. Hired in 1934, Ward started on the Silly Symphony cartoons. He went on to help animate many films including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Fantasia, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. Ward was one of the studio’s “Nine Old Men”. He was a brilliant animator, known f...

It’s been 65 years since the Happiest Place on Earth opened to the world. To celebrate, here are 5 facts you may not know about Disneyland’s opening. If it failed, it would have become movie sets Disneyland was expensive to build, and Walt needed more money for it. Roy Disney was the company’s financial leader and was responsible for finding all the funding they needed.. To convince lenders to hand over more cash, Roy told them that the project was low risk. His story was that even if the park proved unpopular, the park could close to the public and turn into movie sets. Frontierland could be used for westerns, Adventureland for adventures, and Main Street for turn-of-the-century stories. I’m not sure what they could have used the Fantasyland circus tents for, though. July 17th was supposed to be a smaller party Disney sent invitations to a selected number of people for the grand opening festivities. The park was meant to open to the public on the next day, July 18th. However, some ind...

Walt loved trains! He knew he had to have one in the park, so when plans were drawn, it was included from the beginning. Its first test run was on July 10, 1955, just days before the park opening. Original Main Street Station The route was set up a little differently back then. Plans were made for two trains to take guests on a “grand circle tour of the Magic Kingdom.” But unlike today, each train stopped at only one station. A passenger train pulled by the E.P. Ripley only stopped at the Main Street Station, while a freight train pulled by the C.K. Holliday only stopped at the Frontierland Station (now the New Orleans Station). The track split at those 2 stations so the trains could pass each other. This lasted about a year before the trains began stopping at both stations. The Frontierland Station was rebuilt in 1962 to make room for New Orleans Square and the second track was removed. The Main Street Station still has the original 2 sets of tracks though. Original Frontierland Stati...

Have you ever heard of the Moonshine Express? It would have been an awesome attraction. 30 years ago, before Splash Mountain came to Critter Country as a part of Disneyland, there was Bear Country. It was the same outdoors, woodsy theme, but there weren’t any little critters in town – only bears. This was the home of the Country Bear Jamboree – including its seasonal overlays – and Teddi Barra’s Swinging Arcade. When the Imagineers decided they wanted to build a log flume at Disneyland, they picked a spot in Bear Country. To fit the bear theme, the flume was going to be filled with bears. It was called the Moonshine Express. The idea was that you had the civilized bears just on the outskirts of New Orleans Square. These were the bears that performed in the Country Bears theater. But if you went deeper into the forest, you found the meaner, rough-and-tumble moonshiners. The bear sheriff enlisted the riders’ help in going after the moonshiners. Each rider was given a rifle to shoot the s...

Marty Sklar passed away at his home in Hollywood Hills in July of 2017 at age 83. He was an Imagineer for 54 years and remained active in the Disney community after his retirement. He has received many awards from the theme park industry: The Buzz Price Award for Lifetime Achievement (Themed Entertainment Association, 1995). Disney Legend (2001) Window on Main Street in Disneyland (2001) International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) Hall of Fame Inductee (2008) Diane Disney Miller Lifetime Achievment Award (The Walt Disney Family Museum, 2016) Career Marty was hired to work at Disneyland part-time by Card Walker. His first assignment was to write The Disneyland News. He wrote speeches and marketing materials for Walt. Many quotes we think of as being from Walt were actually written by Marty: I hope that we never lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse. We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curiou...

America Sings was a Musical Revue at Disneyland. Musical Revue shows were popular among the Imagineers in the 60s and 70s. Shows like The Tiki Room and the Mickey Mouse Revue don’t take up a lot of space, but can get reasonably high capacity, making them great attractions from an operational perspective. Due to differences in the type visitors, shows don’t stay as popular at Disneyland as they do at Walt Disney World. The waning popularity, mixed with some awkward theming, eventually led to the show’s closure. America Sings Exterior – Taken from the People Mover Loading Platform Concept America Sings opened on June 29, 1974. It was created to replace the Carousel of Progress, which had moved to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World the year before. The show involved six animatronic sets – an introduction, a postlude, and four acts – that showcased music from different eras of American history. Because the show was in the Carousel Theater, each scene was in a different location in the ...

Did you know that FastPass was developed to enhance guest satisfaction, not to decrease lines? Neither did I till I did some research and heard how FastPasses came about. In the mid 1990’s, Disney realized that guest satisfaction was declining because lines were getting too long. No one is very happy when you spend your entire day waiting in line and only get to go on a few rides. After discussing different ideas they started testing in the late 1990’s. It started in Animal Kingdom with 2 different groups. Each group was given a diary to write down everything they did that day (what time they got in line, what time they got on the ride, what shops they went into, etc.) One lucky group was given a special card to show the cast member at any attraction they wanted to ride. The cast member would look at the current wait time, let’s take 45 minutes for example, and then tell the group to return to the ride in 45 minutes. When the group returned they would be directed through the exit and b...

The Fantasyland Theatre of today is home to Mickey and the Magical Map. This stage should not be confused with the other Fantasyland Theater, which closed in 1981. The difference between the use of the British and American spellings of “theater” may be coincidence, or it may have been to help distinguish these very different attractions. The Theatre is used for live performances. But the Fantasyland Theater was used for showing recorded videos. The Theater opened as the Mickey Mouse Club Theater shortly after the rest of Disneyland on August 27, 1955. Along with The Canal Boats of the World and a lot of Tomorrowland, the Theater wasn’t quite ready for opening day of Disneyland. Regardless, the Mouseketeers performed in Fantasyland as part of the Disneyland Grand Opening. Since this was several months before the Mickey Mouse Club first aired, this was the Mouseketeers’ debut to the world. The theater was also special for the Mickey Mouse Club because, at one point, it was home to 3D Jam...

I'm something of a late comer to Disney World attendance. My home park was Disneyland. I did go when I was little, but my memories are pretty vague. So going back as an adult has been fun, because a lot of the attractions seem new. But, I've been going back through some of the old attractions, trying to get a feeling for what I missed and how the parks have changed. Gran Fiesta Tour is an interesting one for me. I rode it, not knowing that the Three Caballeros were a relatively new addition. I thought it was a cute way to use some old characters. But I was surprised that those characters were there, because the Three Caballeros had always seemed so obscure to me. Don't get me wrong I thought the characters were great, I just didn't think anyone know who they were. Then I found out that the ride had originally been called Rio del Tiempo, I was just about cruise through Mexico. That made sense to me. It's a right showing off the country, which is something that belong...

 Edison Square was a planned land at Disneyland that was never built. The area was intended to be a turn-of-the-century city block inspired by the inventions and innovations of Thomas Edison, the famed inventor and businessman. Some of it's planning was designed to mesh well with the then-planned Liberty Street, which turned into Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom. Although the land was never completed, it remains an interesting part of Disneyland history and a fascinating look at what could have been. The concept for Edison Square was first introduced in the 1950s, shortly after Disneyland opened. The land was designed to showcase the technological advancements of the early 20th century, with attractions and experiences centered around the inventions of Thomas Edison. The area was meant to be located between Main Street USA and Fantasyland, and would have featured a variety of shops, restaurants, and attractions. Some of the proposed attractions for Edison Square inc...

In our house, the Main Street Electrical Parade has become known as “the parade that never ends”. This recent run is its 4th at Disneyland; it had a run at California Adventure and 3 runs at the Magic Kingdom. Park guests love the parade, and Disney just can’t leave it alone. So, lets take a look back in time and check out the history of the Electrical Parade and see how far it’s come. Original Debut Electrical Water Pageant in the 1970’s The original idea for a light parade came from the Electrical Water Pageant in Walt Disney World. It consisted of fourteen screens that were decorated with electrical lights and floated across Seven Seas Lagoon. Card Walker, who was Disney’s CEO at the time, and the Disneyland executives were looking for a way to keep people at Disneyland later in the evening. They loved the idea of the lights and so a plan was made that put similar lighting elements on parade floats to give Disneyland a nighttime show. A Chicago-based company was hired to construct t...