How Disneyland Came to Be | Hacker News Reader

How Disneyland Came to Be

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70 pointswell_i_never43 comments

The Disney+ show The Imagineering Story does a pretty decent job going over the history. https://www.disneyplus.com/series/the-imagineering-story/6ry...

It's an outstanding show. It's quickly become my favorite content on Disney+. They could triple the amount of episodes and it wouldn't be enough. It's produced and directed really well with tons of great content.

Fun fact that's clear in the credits but not necessarily in the show itself: the Director Leslie Iwerks is the daughter of (several times interviewed) Imagineer Don Iwerks and granddaughter of classic Disney animator Ub Iwerks. Kind of neat the family connections embedded in the show (as is the story of the Art Director and her mother from one of the episodes).

Meta but what's with this recent trend of taking quotes from two-paragraphs-ago and inserting them into the middle of the text in a big font? How is that useful to me as a reader? I already read that part... is it for the benefit of people scrolling through quickly?

The advertising in this page is strange. At first I thought it was part of the article.

This is the future of advertisements on the web.

The ads are integrated to the page so it doesn't look or feel like an advertisement. The code doesn't specify it as an ad.

The ads do directly advertise, they do so subtly.

The advertisement image and video are hosted on the main same domain.

All of this is to prevent browser ad blockers and our own ad blocking instincts.

>the code doesn't specify it as an ad

For me at least, the video was inside "player_advertising_unit_365"...

Agreed. It made me wonder if sites should blacklist certain ad categories based on the article content.

Disneyland has been undergoing endless improvement. My parents visited there in the 1950s and it's fun looking at the photos and seeing how primitive it looked then.

I have vague memories of my first visit which must of been in 1961 or 1962 and I was 6/7. This was back when they sold ticket packs containing some number of "A" through "E" tickets. The "E" tickets were the coveted ones as they were the big rides. The "A" tickets were things like the Main Street trolley. We always ended the day with only "A" and "B" tickets. Of course, crowds weren't insane like today and we didn't have to wait more than 20-30 minutes.

My first visit was in 1966. I remember being quite enchanted with it, having had no idea such a place existed.

On the other hand, Disney World at least seems to be losing a lot of the inspired, imaginative ideas it once had, in favor of synergizing the whole experience with other Disney IPs like Marvel, Star Wars, Frozen, etc.

Great article but way too short. Could have read much more for sure. Will have to check out the book.

I found "Walt Disney - The Triumph of the American Imagination," a fairly thick biography on Disney, to handle Disneyland's creation pretty well.

They could also provide a larger image of that sketch. I can make out the larger features but it would be nice to compare it against what was actually built.

A wee bit of searching, and I managed to find a pretty good sized version[0] from a twitter account. There's another that has a close-up of the castle[1].

Side note: that castle looks a whole bunch like Hogwarts, or more accurately Hogwarts looks a whole lot like the original idea for Sleeping Beauty Castle.

[0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBXNLlgUIAQvMG_.jpg:large

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBZwfkVUIAEZz7i.jpg:large

All these book publications seems to be orchestrated around starting of Disney+.

Recently Bob Iger (Disney CEO) published his autobiography..

Ride of a lifetime

https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Lifetime-Lessons-Learned-Company...

Kinda interesting ... I'd be really interested in an exploration about how a sizable number of American adults have become Disney(land/world) fanatics. It strikes me as very strange and regressive behavior.

I'll bite. I think "fanatic" is too strong a word, but I enjoy going to Disneyland, and have occasionally bought an annual pass despite living a day or two drive from Disneyland. I've also made a point to visit other Disney parks when I've been near them (Florida, Paris, Tokyo).

Fundamentally, it's fun escapism. You go spend a few days enjoying some of the same stuff you enjoyed as a kid. My wife enjoys going too, so it's something we can do together. For those of us with kids, it's a fun family activity. Walt Disney was explicit about making a place that was fun for both kids and adults when he conceived of the park. I'd say Disney has succeeded. I enjoyed going before having kids too, though. We don't take every vacation there by any means, but a couple times a year we go and have a blast.

Personally, as an engineer, I really enjoy the work of the imagineers. It's engineering and art combined to bring joy to people, which to me is a pretty pure expression of my own reasons for being an engineer. Incidentally, I started my career doing engineering for effects for live theater, and I also spent time at a company that at one time was a major robotics subcontractor for Disney parks. So there's a component that is admiration for people that do the things I do, but are the best in the world at it.

Beyond that, Disney(land/world) is unquestionably the highest-tier theme park in terms of quality. Everything is just top notch: customer service, theming, ride quality, immersion, cleanliness, etc. So, if the question is why Disneyland instead of Six Flags or even Universal, part of it has to be that Disney is the best in the category they're competing in.

What makes you return there each year over other things you could reach with the same amount of driving? If you're near California or Florida, you are a day or so from a huge range of amazing places. Is it ease and familiarity?

I'm Australian but have been to Disneyland (CA) twice and Disney World (FL) once; twice with kids, once without. It's a polished experience for sure, but we spent a lot of time baffled by people in themed t-shirts, spending days there or returning year after year in place of other holiday options.

We live 75 minutes from Disneyland. That means we can do things like time our visit so that the last night is Sunday night, stay in a hotel there, and then do the drive home as a commute to work. In any case we do a quick visit annually as a sanity thing after the silly season each fall.

But within California, we also go to places like the Sierra Nevada mountains and the central coast of CA that we can reach in a day or less by car.

> If you're near California or Florida, you are a day or so from a huge range of amazing places.

What makes you think they don’t go to those places as well?

Personal experience talking to Americans who particularly like Disney properties. Obviously no drama either way, just curious to hear what drives it.

Some people wondered why we were only there for the day rather than a full week.

I think that's because at Disney World, it's somewhat impossible to see everything in one day, even if you were to filter the list of attractions to things that you wanted to do. There's simply too much to see.

Same applies almost anywhere I guess. I didn't get to every US state on that trip or every national park or every hike in each park. In one day at Disney World's main area, we knocked off a fair few rides - from opening, until late at night with shattered kids. If I'm choosing between seeing the highlights of a whole new place, or getting to a few extra things that I didn't prioritise and missed at Disney, I'll usually take the former. The queueing to thrills ratios tips the scales too even with Fast Pass and Rider Share.

A few weeks after blowing $1k on a day at Disney World, we visited the Amazeum in Bentonville, Arkansas, to the tune of about $40 and my 7yo preferred that. Amazeum and Crystal Bridges as a day out was excellent, for anyone ever in the area.

I have travelled lots of other places too. I’m lucky to be able to travel maybe more than the average American. I like going to Disneyland. That doesn’t mean it’s the only place I go or that I don’t also like traveling to other places in the country and the world.

> You go spend a few days enjoying some of the same stuff you enjoyed as a kid.

Dunno, the stuff I was actually enjoying as a kid was the dangerous stuff parents wouldn't approve.

Seems like it's more of a conception of 'what adults think a child would enjoy' rather than what children enjoy.

It depends on the age of the kid. When my daughter was 3 she had an amazing time meeting all the Disney princesses.

I went to Disneyland once, as a six year old, and enjoyed it then, but as an adult and parent I’ve come to hate Disney with a passion for the way they just keep buying up or otherwise appropriating _all_ the popular cultural artefacts and turning them into products, churning out an endless series of repetitive, polished, just-above-mediocre lowest common denominator structured entertainment units.

It’s like watching all your favourite restaurants slowly get replaced by Cinnabon outlets.

I agree with you. I'd take Vienna's Prater park - or even better, De Efteling in the Netherlands - over Disneyland any time of day. All the staples are there - none of the slick, expensive shine.

Plus, you don't have to spend most of your day waiting in line.

My experience with Disney resorts is limited to an evening spent on my company's nickel while at a conference. With that said, I could see that Disney sweats the details of entertainment in myriad ways to make the visit easy and pleasant for people. I left my jacket in one of their restaurants, called them when I got back home, and they had an entire streamlined system just for dealing with lost items. My jacket was at my doorstep the next day.

I lost my rental car keys somewhere at Disney World. The rental company was completely useless, so I asked for help from the Disney hotel we were staying at. They sent their private locksmith over to the car, and he spent over 3 hours trying to make a key that would work using the keycode. Ultimately he was unsuccessful because the key had an electronic component. He did get the doors open though, and his professionalism and dedication were top-notch.

I worked as a Disney "Imagineer" for several years. Don't underestimate the sophistication of Disney fans.

I've met many elitists who look down upon anything that's popular. These people miss out on many great things, from profound art to good clean fun. Disney has both.

I'm a developer and am interested in this job. Any tips on how to become an imagineer?

Do you think it has a different underlying root than being a [whatever else] fanatic?

There's been some research done into sports, for instance.

Sports don't tap into tribalism in the same way Disney does. Sports also have loyalty to an inferior product. Disney would not be Disney if it were the media version of the Cleveland Browns.

That’s part of it. Disney’s brand is to be the elite of whatever it’s doing.

I married into the fanaticism and have been mostly converted.

My spouse essentially treats the trips like she is cosplaying being Royalty. She dresses to the nines, Everybody greets her with a smile and a friendly word and she “jet sets” to exotic locations. She takes in world class entertainment and cuisine, and has a grand ole time.

For myself, I find always leave with motivation. Figment, the imagineers, and the endless pursuit to make the magical appear real never fails to make me believe in a better tomorrow.

In short, the branding is truly a magical and motivating experience. The brand extends to the things you can do outside the parks like “the skyliner,” and even the stores in the malls.

I assume you meant that the other way around? Sports fans are the definition of tribal.

I did; not sure how that edit slipped through, but now it's too late.

I've worked with a few of them. This song sums it up pretty well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLIfkiF8NeQ

> sizable number of American adults

How much is sizable? Can you give an example of a specific Disneyland fanatic? Why only American adults?

FYI: https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1802/do-disney-mov...

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