This is an iHeart Podcast. Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bone Show. I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there. How did Ashes come together, Diplo? I pulled up real quick.
He was about to leave on tour. You're about to jump in your tour bus, and we had like three hours. It was really cool. He literally just like randomly showed up to my house. I'm like, oh, hey, Diplo, what are you doing?
He's like, I have a song that I want to show you. And I was like, okay. You can listen to the full episode out now wherever you get your podcast. And big shout out to my friends at Hyundai for making this possible. At a blast, cruising around the festival weekend in the all-new Palisade Hybrid.
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Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may be. apply. I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait.
It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there.
NBC News. reporting for America. Hear that? That's what it sounds like when you plant more trees than you harvest. Work done by thousands of working forest professionals, like Adam, a district forest manager who works to protect our forests from fires.
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He had ideas that were seemingly endless, impossible. little bit crazy. Walt obsessed over the smallest details? Not because anyone told him to. because he refused to disappoint.
Here's Alex Adler. Better known on YouTube as Alex the Historian. With our story. Walter Elias Disney and his older brother Roy Oliver Disney started their company back in 1923. In those times, it was known as the Disney Brothers Studio.
The stories and characters they created had become world famous and tourists who flocked to Hollywood wanted to visit the Disney studios in hopes of finding something magical. But Walt's studio was nothing more than ordinary offices and soundstages surrounded by well-tended lawns and rose gardens. he needed something that could buffer their disappointment. In the early 1940s, he thought of a themed corner of the studio where visitors could meet their favorite characters. But this project eventually grew into an idea for an 11-acre park across the street.
In the early 1950s, Walt had been offering rides on his backyard live steam railroad in Holmby Hills, California. and the sheer number of visitors the railroad received prompted him to consider that little Mickey Mouse Park idea more seriously. Roy Disney, who was CEO of the company, was skeptical about opening an amusement park. Even Waltzwife Lillian had said, Why would you want that? Amusement parks are so dirty and dangerous.
Walt simply responded, That's just it. Mine wouldn't be. Reluctantly, Roy agreed to set aside money for research, and Lillian conceded to go along with it. To get financial backing, Roy knew a pile of papers with descriptions of the park were not enough to make a convincing pitch, so he asked Walt to have artwork commissioned that helped potential financiers to visualize the concept. he turned around and called upon one of his studio's best artists, Herb Ryman, to create the rendering of the park over the weekend.
Herb said no.
Well, I'm only just seeing these plans. I don't want to create an embarrassment for you or me. Walt went to stand in the corner of the room. The stress of trying to convince people the last few years to go along with his plans for a themed park were beginning to show. Herbie said he saw a tear form in Walt's eye, and he responded, Will you do it if I stay here with you?
Herb Reiman would later admit that Watt was a persuasive person. The two of them worked throughout the weekend to generate the first image of the park that Walt would later name Disneyland. a name that Ryman lightheartedly joked had sounded somewhat egotistical. The artwork depicted the park with four themed lands: a jungle area to represent the land of adventure. a futuristic city to represent the land of tomorrow.
An Old West town complete with a river boat to represent the frontier. And a large medieval Ford court with a fairy tale castle to act as the park's visual icon. This represented the land of fantasy. complete with a carousel to pay homage to the idea that started it all. and surrounding the park would be a miniature railroad that would surpass any steam train hobbyist's greatest dream.
Roy made arrangements for Walt Disney Productions to allot $10,000 towards the research and development of Disneyland. But when Walt needed more money, Roy suggested he create a private company that would own the rights to Walt Disney's name. That way he could license the name out to Walt Disney Productions, giving him weekly funding for the project. And so, Walt created Ret Law Enterprises in the year 1950. It was the name Walter spelled backwards, and by licensing his own name to the bigger company, he received a weekly income of $3,000.
Walt hired an architectural firm to design his park, but wasn't satisfied with their concepts. He turned to his friend for advice, the famed architect Welton Beckett. He reviewed Walt's ideas for fanciful architecture built from modern materials. Walt, no one can design Disneyland for you. We don't have that kind of background for this, Beckett said.
You have to use your own people. To build his magic kingdom, Walt needed complete control. He didn't want Walt Disney Productions' board of directors voting or vetoing his ideas before they came to fruition. In 1952, he created Walt Disney Incorporated, which was quickly renamed to Wedd Enterprises the next year. WED stood for the initials Walter Elias Disney, and it was his newly dubbed team of imagineers at Wedd Enterprises that would dream up all of the future things that would go into Disneyland.
While Roy was able to get some financial backers, such as Bank of America, he still wasn't having much luck. Walt called around to various television studios, offering that they could help fund his park in exchange for him starring in a television series he simply called Disneyland. Until then, he continued borrowing money to help pay for the development of his park. He took out $50,000 from his life insurance and then sold his Palm Springs vacation home. When his wife Lillian found out he had spent over $100,000 of their money, she was livid.
Walt reminded her that when the park would finally open, Lillian and her daughters would receive a fifteen per cent. return on any merchandise that visitors bought with his name on it. Still, Lily feared that his plan would only work if the park would open, which seemed increasingly impossible with each passing day. In early 1953, Imagineer Harper Goff explained to Walt that the current designs of the park exceeded the 11-acre land parcel across from the studio. It wasn't until Burbank City Council denied his request to build an amusement park that Walt finally admitted it was time to look for land in a different place.
Walt hired a man named Harrison Buzz Price, who was with the Stanford Research Institute to find the land required for the ever-growing ideas of the park. Walt's requirements to Buzz were that he needed at least one hundred acres which could not be located anywhere near the beach in order to avoid the types of visitors that might show up, and the park would need to be easily accessible from all corners of Southern California. It wasn't easy. Buzz scoured five counties, an area roughly 35,000 square miles in size. Eventually, he came back to Walt with a specific parcel.
200 acres of orange and walnut groves in the sleepy rural town of Anaheim, California. It was cheap land butted up against the still under construction 5 freeway. giving convenient access to both Los Angeles and San Diego. and yet it was far enough away from the big cities that they could avoid the riffraff coming in. Walt quickly snatched up all two hundred acres and went out to meet some of the farmers who sold their land.
One family went by the name Dominguez, and they had only one request. On their land were two Canary Island date palm trees planted years before during a family wedding. They hoped Walt wouldn't cut down the trees. Being the sentimentalist that he was, Walt gave his word that the trees would stay standing, a promise that survives even to this day as the two trees are both located adjacent to the Jungle Cruise loading area. Walt had purchased the land using money given to him by Bank of America, but he was still in need of construction funding.
Roy went back to New York to request more money. but they refused to lend any more unless Walt could find a major financial backer. It turned out ABC Television Network was looking to compete with more popular stations and was in need of a big name like Walt Disney to boost their popularity. ABC agreed to fund a large portion of the construction. In exchange for Walt starring in the weekly Disneyland TV show and giving them 35% ownership in the park.
When Roy left the meeting, he immediately went back to Bank of America to increase their loan to a further 8 million. Disneyland was now funded by a total of $17 million and almost no one involved was fully convinced the idea would be a success. On July 16, 1954, site leveling began. Walt was adamant the park would open the next year on July 17th. an impossible deadline even for the mid-1950s.
To save money on fully grown trees, horticulture imagineer Bill Evans suggested keeping some of the orange and walnut trees. He tied special ribbons to the trees which indicated which were to be removed and which would stay. As it turned out, the bulldozer driver was color blind and had been removing all trees using his best guess as to which would stay. The contractor arrived on the site and ran out to the bulldozer driver to stop him before he destroyed any more plants. And you've been listening to Alex Adler, better known on YouTube as Alex the Historian.
Telling the story of this crazy idea that Walt Disney had in his mind. to build an amusement park. Heck, his wife even hated the idea. And when she found out he'd invested some of their own family money in the project, She was furious. His brother didn't get it.
And heck, most of the folks around him didn't. The banks didn't. He had a hard time securing financing. But in the end... He got those two hundred acres in Anaheim.
and off to the races. Was Disney. When we come back, More of this remarkable story. The story of Disneyland. Here.
on our American stories. Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bone Show. I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there. Check this out.
So how did ashes come together, Diplo?
Well, uh I kind of briefly met Bailey I think at Morgan's show, one of them. And I think He's just the guy in Nashville. He's cool as hell, and I had a new kind of sound I wanted to do. I think he's the one guy that could carry it. I came to his house, I had a show.
I pulled up real quick. He was about to leave on tour. You're about to jump in your tour bus, and we had like three hours. played the record for him, we kinda like got a scratch and then he handled it on his own on the road. Yeah.
It was really cool. He literally just like randomly showed up to my house and I'm like, oh, hey, Diplo, what are you doing? He's like, I have a song that I want to show you. And I was like, okay. And then.
Now we're here playing it live. You can listen to the full episode out now, wherever you get your podcast. And big shout out to my friends at Hyundai for making this possible out of blast, cruising around the festival weekend in the all-new Palisade Hybrid. Let's be real. Life happens.
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That's washablefas.com. offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Hey, what's up? It's Mario Lopez. Back to schools, an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit.
Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions, whether you're a parent, teacher, coach, or neighbor. Check in. Ask questions. Stay connected.
Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to report at dhs.gov/slash blue campaign. I already love same day delivery was shipped, but it's so much better since I signed up for Target Circle 360. Why? Because I no longer pay price markups from the majority of stores through ship.
Only a handful of alcohol retailers and items don't count. That means no markups on groceries, pet food, even home goods and makeup.
So to recap, I have more time to catch up on life while someone shops for me and I spend less. It's a win-win. Order now at shipped.com slash 360. Terms apply. I turned off news altogether.
I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting.
Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News. Reporting for America. And we continue with our American stories and with the story of Walt Disney's Impossible Dream.
The Making of Disneyland. Let's return to Alex Adler with a story. Groundbreaking on Disneyland happened on July 21, 1954, and Walt brought in retired Navy Admiral turned naval architect Joe Fowler to manage the construction contracts and oversee the work being done. When it came to the landscaping of Disneyland, Walt was inspired by the Tivoli gardens of Copenhagen and Denmark. Imagineer Bill Evans had the monumental task of planting up 60 acres of themed park.
to look like it had been there for ages. The sheer number of foliage he had to purchase for the park easily exceeded both his company's nurseries and all the local ones from Santa Barbara to San Diego, a roughly 80 mile radius from Disneyland. With California being so limited on the kinds of plants that were sold, Bill ended up flying to countries around the world and collecting plant specimens for the park. he sometimes sneaked seeds from exotic plants into the country by placing them in his socks. In his effort to acquire the most exotic plants, Bill Evans even discovered a species of plant that would later be named after him.
Philodendron evansae.
Meanwhile, Roy Disney had been worried about how the park was going to turn a profit. Research suggested that merchandise sales alone could carry the financial burdens of the park. But he feared that all the Disney merchandise combined could not fill the numerous gift shops around the park. They would have to be rented out to third-party retailers. Park sponsorships also could help ease the cost of operation.
but Disneyland was such a risk that no company wanted to accept a sponsorship deal. That was until the Swift Meatpacking Company agreed to operate the Market House on Main Street, and their sponsorship opened the floodgates to around 40 other companies that promptly signed up. Walt was so excited to show off the progress of his park to his friend television host Art Linkletter. He made him promise that he couldn't tell anyone what he was about to see. Link letter recalled.
I couldn't believe my eyes. We were driving through orange groves and dirt roads. I didn't tell him what I really thought. That he was out of his mind. After all, it was 45 minutes from where people lived, and there was nothing there.
The first building completed at Disneyland was the Main Street Opera House, which had a massive floor space used as a lumber mill and machine shop to construct the rest of the park. The next building was the firehouse next to City Hall. Above the firehouse, on the second level, was a tiny one bedroom apartment for Walt and Lily. During the final stages of construction, Walt would stay overnight on the weekends to oversee the progress being made. offering up advice and instruction along the way.
When it came to Tomorrowland, Walt wanted to showcase the innovations of the near future. At this time, freeways across California were being constructed, and Americans were excited to see a highway that featured no stops. It was this that inspired Walt to create an almost utopian auto motorway for Disneyland, and he would call it Autopia. Bob Gurr was fresh out of school for auto body design and was hired as an imagineer for WED. Bob's first task was to design cars for the Autopia, which was a task much more difficult than it seems.
He needed a miniature car that could be operated by one pedal and could drive all day on low gear, withstand constant impacts without cracking the frame, and could easily be driven even by a child. This immediately required the transmission to withstand such rigorous work, especially with a modified clutch. It was Bob's ability to think on the spot and offer insight that Walt would also appoint him to help design other ride vehicle projects around the park. While vehicles gave Disneyland its motion, the wonder that the park would inspire was the result of the shape of its landscape. A magic kingdom with flat land doesn't leave much of an impression, especially considering that Walt didn't want the public to be able to see inside the park from the outside.
And he didn't want the incredible landscapes within to be shattered by views of the surrounding city. When earth movers had dug out lakes, riverbeds, canals, and streams around the park, the massive amounts of dirt excavated from the ground were then used to create a system of berms that surrounded the park.
some of them towering 30 feet high. There was even enough dirt to create rolling hills and islands. In fact, there was so much dirt that it would have cost too much money to move it off site, so the extra earth was piled up next to the castle in a mound that was lovingly nicknamed Holiday Hill. Over in Frontierland, the rivers of America was carved out and filled with water, only for crews to arrive the next day and find that all the water had soaked into the sandy Anaheim soil. Admiral Joe Fowler discovered a local clay, and he had the river lined with it to prevent the water from being absorbed into the ground.
The city of Anaheim had to annex 800 acres of land surrounding the park in order to provide it with public works. The farmers that had lived on the property before Disneyland had mostly lived off-grid, without access to sewage lines, rainwater sewers, and some homes didn't even have electricity. Nearly two miles of clay pipe was laid down Harbor Boulevard to connect Disneyland with the city's sewage systems. new power lines were erected to supply the park with enough power to light a small town. Funds for Disneyland continued to run thin.
Fowler explained that there may not be enough money to complete the Mark Twain Riverboat. Walt mortgaged his remaining home to fund the completion of it. His wife Lily protested this, and of course he got into a heated argument with his brother. Roy pleaded that he consider postponing the opening of the park in order to ensure its proper completion. but Walt was adamant that he gave the public his word.
The park would open on July 17th, come hell or high water. If it didn't, they might lose the confidence of all the creditors and sponsors, and the company would suffer as shareholders might pull out. causing a rippling effect that would doom the park and the studio. The studio itself wasn't producing any live-action movies as the various sound stages were being used as fabrication sites for ride systems and special effects. everything they worked up to.
everything they built over the last 27 years was sunk into Disneyland. and it all hung in the balance, entirely predicated on the success of the world's first theme park. With time running out, construction on the attraction we know today as Storybook Land was facing new challenges. Bill Evans had exhausted all the nearby plant nurseries and there was nothing left to plant the canal boat ride. Walt instructed Bill to label all the weeds growing around the dirt hills of the boat ride with their Latin names, hoping to disguise the situation as an intentional feature of the ride.
To help speed up construction of the park, cutting-edge techniques were used. Parts of the buildings and their facades were prefabricated in the opera house and installed in sections in their final location. The layout of Disneyland was also something Master planned. Many amusement parks often tried to maximize land use by placing rides and buildings wherever space would allow. But Walt noticed that this resulted in people getting lost and walking unnecessary distances.
He had a special nickname for the particular exhaustion that comes from a poorly laid out venue. He called it museum feat. Disneyland was designed in a spoke and wheel shape, with the various lands fanning out from the center. The park itself had only one exit, so that people wouldn't get confused about which way led to their car, and each land within the Magic Kingdom had only one entrance, ensuring that you couldn't get lost while inside Disneyland, because all lands emptied back into the Central Plaza. Forced perspective was in heavy use at Disneyland.
Walt wanted guests entering the park to marvel at its size, so the building facades on the north end of Main Street were designed slightly shorter than the building facades at the south end, giving the illusion of distance. And this worked well in reverse too, because at the end of a tiring day, the guests would head back to Main Street, and the larger buildings at the south end made the exit of the park look closer than it really was. Forced perspective was also used on all the individual buildings as well. Walt wanted Disneyland to have charm, a sense that could be achieved with a miniature scale. The various restaurants and gift shops, which may look multi-leveled, would actually be made from three different scales.
The bottom level of most buildings in Disneyland are nine-tenths of real size, while the second level is five-eighths, and the third level, if any, is half scale. Essentially, as the buildings rise higher, the scale decreases with each level. The park's icon, Sleeping Beauty Castle, is designed in varying scales at random in order to throw off the observer's sense of size. Walt insisted the finial caps on the rooftops of the castle's turrets be made of gold to impress park goers. Roy insisted it was too costly, so Walt ordered gold finials anyway.
Roy would later admit. The 24 karat gold finials indeed impressed park goers, and it was a good decision. And you've been listening to Alex Adler, better known on YouTube as Alex the Historian, telling one. Heck of a story. About Walt Disney.
When we come back. The rest of this remarkable story, Walt's Impossible Dream, Here on Our American Stories. Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bone Show. I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there. Check this out.
So how did ashes come together, Diplo?
Well, uh I kind of briefly met Bailey I think a Morgan's show, one of them. And I think He's just the guy in Nashville. He's cool as hell, and I had a new kind of sound I wanted to do. I think he's the one guy that could carry it. I came to his house, I had a show.
I pulled up real quick. He was about to leave on tour. You're about to jump in your tour bus, and we had like three hours. played the record for him, we kinda like got a scratch and then he handled it on his own on the road. Yeah.
It was really cool. He literally just like randomly showed up to my house. I'm like, oh, hey, Diplo, what are you doing? He's like, I have a song that I want to show you. And I was like, okay.
And then.
Now we're here playing it live. You can listen to the full episode out now, wherever you get your podcast. And big shout out to my friends at Hyundai for making this possible out of blast, cruising around festival weekend in the all-new Palisade Hybrid. There's nothing like sinking into luxury. Anibay sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.
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Hey, what's up, it's Marla Lopez? Back to schools, an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions, whether you're a parent, teacher, coach, or neighbor. Check in.
Ask questions. Stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to report at dhs.gov/slash blue campaign. I already love same day delivery was shipped, but it's so much better since I signed up for Target Circle 360.
Why? Because I no longer pay price markups from the majority of stores through ship. Only a handful of alcohol retailers and items don't count. That means no markups on groceries, pet food, even home goods and makeup.
So, to recap, I have more time to catch up on life while someone shops for me. and I spend less. It's a win-win. Order now at shift.com slash 360. Terms apply.
I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little.
NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News. Reporting for America.
And we're back with our American stories and with the story of Walt Disney and his impossible dream. Disneyland. Let's get back to our storytelling. Take it away, Alex. With so little time and money to complete the park, Walt had to make do with some alterations to the plan.
Phantasyland couldn't get its expensive fairytale village look, so Imagineer settled for a medieval fair theme. Tomorrowland was the least complete area. they had to fill the empty buildings with random exhibits like the bathroom of tomorrow. and they even installed the sets left over from the production of Walt Disney's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea motion picture. Despite the numerous setbacks, the construction crews made up for it by tripling in size closer to the opening day.
many operations were going around the clock, and crews put in double shifts. Walt would walk the park having crews tweaking the appearances of things. He even asked Imagineer Bill Evans to move a six ton, thirty foot wide pepper tree in Adventureland about six feet, just because it was too close to a park walkway. On July 4th, 1955, Walt held a U.S. Independence Day party at the nearly complete park.
The main attraction was for his friends and company employees to get their first ride aboard the Disneyland Railroad. even though they could only ride part of the way around the park. The party included an evening with fireworks in the sky. It would be the first fireworks show Disneyland ever had. On July 13, 1955, just four days before the park was unveiled to the public.
Walt and his wife Lily celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in the Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland. As Lillian was cutting the cake, Walt's peers cheered for him to make a speech, so he stood atop a chair to address the crowd. But as he stood there, beaming with pride and soaking in the view of all the happy faces looking back at him, He forgot to speak. For the first time, Walt got a glimpse of what his life's achievement would be like. An old western saloon in the middle of a magic kingdom.
filled with joyous grins and happy chatter. His daughter Sharon noticed tears in her father's eyes, and she went up and took him by the hand, encouraging him to make his speech. The night would end with an evening cruise aboard the Mark Twain river boat, as its paddle wheel churned the waters of the river. Joe Fowler would later find Lily and Disney cleaning up after the party. she had a broom in hand, and she swept the decks of the boat.
Fowler grabbed another broom and joined her. in just three days the park would be unveiled before the people of the world. It was Sunday, July 17th. and company CEO Roy Oliver Disney, older brother of Walt, had gotten up that morning after hardly getting any sleep. He knew that Walt and ABC Network had planned a live telecast of the opening day events.
How do you do everyone? This is Hank Weaver. For the past year, this signature has announced the opening of Disneyland the Show.
Now it announces the opening of Disneyland the Place. The people and eyes around the world are focused on these 160 acres here in Anaheim, California. This afternoon, Disneyland, the world's most fabulous kingdom, will be unveiled before an invitational world premiere. And you are guests. Nothing like this had ever been done before up until that day.
The most television cameras ever used at a live event were seven. But in order to cover the grand scale of Disneyland, it was ABC had to borrow and rent cameras from other networks, giving a total of 29 television cameras, 80,000 feet of cable. And 14 improvised forklift camera platforms to deliver the festivities to a record-breaking viewership. of ninety million across the country. Roy had started the long drive from LA to Anaheim along the brand new Five Freeway.
When he was only minutes from the park, he hit traffic. His heart skipped a beat as he wondered if there was freeway construction preventing people from getting to Disneyland. He made his way through the traffic, all the while worried that Walt's gamble on the park would cause the company they started twenty seven years earlier to go under, and render the families homeless. As Roy exited onto Harbor Boulevard, he realized there was no freeway construction. The entire seven miles of traffic he endured were for people waiting to park their cars at Disneyland.
People were lined up at the front gates in the summer heat. Reporters were taking down notes with excited smiles on their faces, and happy children bounced with glee as they waited to see the magical kingdom within. Roy saw a panic-stricken parking lot manager and asked what was wrong. The manager explained that several buses of school kids had arrived after being stuck in traffic, and now all the boys were getting out and peeing in the parking lot. Roy himself was just so relieved that everyone showed up, he simply laughed and told the parking lot manager.
God bless them. Let them pee. To host the live telecast, Walt asked Art Linkletter, who in turn asked his friends Bob Cummings and Ronald Reagan to be his co-hosts. Cables were strewn about all over the park to connect the cameras with the temporary command center.
Some cables were strung between the buildings, some lay in the middle of walkways, and others were held up high in the air as construction cranes hoisted makeshift filming platforms to capture aerial views of Disneyland. The July heat reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Dry ice had to be fed into the cameras to keep them from overheating. Women's high heels were sinking into the asphalt, which in some areas had only been poured earlier that morning. Actors missed their cues, and thirsty parkgoers felt strong-armed into buying Pepsi and Coke products since there were no drinking fountains.
No maximum capacity was established for the Mark Twain river boat, which was at one point filled with over five hundred passengers, and as the boat rounded the bend in the river, water flowed over its lower deck. While Walt was being shuffled from location to location for the telecast, more problems arose. Garbage was piling up backstage because the trucks never came to pick it up. bathrooms in Adventureland overflowed. The park became uncomfortably overcrowded because even though 11,000 invitations had gone out, some ticket holders wrote that the number of guests was up to 60 people.
Other tickets were counterfeited and sold on the streets. In all, the park was packed with twenty eight thousand people, which exceeded the capacity of Disneyland by ten thousand. One man stood by the park fence with his ladder and charged a fee for people to use it to climb into the park and gain access.
Soon, the food was running out. Autopia cars were breaking down, and there was a gas leak in Fantasyland that forced the closure of the rides for the rest of the day. This came as a relief to people who witnessed parents hoisting their children over the carousel barrier so they could get on the ride despite the long wait. The disasters kept mounting, and it all happened while Walt was kept oblivious to the problems. By the end of the day he was finally informed of all that had happened, and he was furious, to say the least.
he yelled and hollered for his imagineers to repair the park and get it operating again in time for the public opening the next day. Despite the bad publicity and the press nicknaming the park's opening as Black Sunday, a name which Walt abhorred, the park continued to draw in hordes of visitors every day that summer. The public could see that Disneyland was a place like no other on Earth. Average working-class people were able to experience a cruise through the exotic jungles of the world, take a romantic journey aboard an authentic stern-wheeled steam river boat. fly over London as Peter Pan.
or even hear the sharp cry of a steam whistle as an eighteen hundreds locomotive hauled happy visitors around the Magic Kingdom. Disneyland was a success, and just 90 days after opening, its one millionth visitor passed through its turnstiles. That number today is closer to seven hundred million. When people wonder why Disneyland being styled as a theme park made it more successful than any other amusement park in the world, the answer is best referred to a quote by J. G.
O'Boyle. A theme park without rides is still a theme park. An amusement park without rides is a parking lot with popcorn. Walt's Little Park in Anaheim would soon become a quintessential part of Americana. Celebrities and heads of state from all over the world would visit Disneyland over the years.
People don't just come because it has rides and characters. But because it was, and still is, a way for people to escape their woes, if only for a day. Evangelist Billy Graham was given a tour through Disneyland by Walt Disney himself. He asked Billy what he thought of the park, and he responded, I think it's a wonderful fantasy. This didn't sit well with Walt, and he fired back saying, Billy, look around you.
Look at all the people, all nationalities, all languages, all smiling. all having fun together. This is the real world. The fantasy is out there, outside the park gates, where people have hatreds and prejudices. It's not real.
Over the years, Walt would continue to change and add to the park. He was never satisfied with the status quo. He felt that there should always be a new reason for people to come, and new things for them to experience. He referred to Disneyland as his block of clay which he could continuously keep sculpting and shaping to fit the image he wanted. Walt Disney enjoyed the park for a total of eleven years.
Dying from lung cancer in December of 1966. He was sixty five years old. There was no entertainer better than Walt Disney at figuring out the best way to create an emotional connection with his audience. He knew how to deliver an experience that could take you to the corners of the earth and your imagination. and all of it could be done in one magical kingdom Built by the man who made us all believe that when you wish upon a star, your dreams can come true.
Because at least They did for him. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Madison Derricott. And a special thanks to Alex Adler, better known on YouTube as Alex the Historian. Go to YouTube and check out his work. It's as good as history can be.
Comes alive. On his YouTube channel, The Story of Walt's Impossible Dream, The Story of Disneyland, here. on our American stories. Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bones Show. I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there.
How did Ashes come together, Diplo? I pulled up real quick. He was about to leave on tour. You're about to jump in your tour bus and we had like three hours. It was really cool.
He literally just like randomly showed up to my house. I'm like, oh, hey, Diplo, what are you doing? He's like, I have a song that I want to show you. And I was like, okay. You can listen to the full episode out now wherever you get your podcast.
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Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions, whether you're a parent, teacher, coach, or neighbor. Check in. Ask questions. Stay connected.
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