Walt Disney shifts focus from mice to men and opens an amusement park in Anaheim
Fourth of five parts
THE VISION of an amusement park grew in Walt Disney's mind. On trips to Europe and through the United States, he attended outdoor attractions of all kinds, especially zoos. As the Disneys prepared for another journey to Europe, his wife Lilly warned him, "Walt, if you're going to look at more zoos, I'm not going with you!"
He visited county fairs, state fairs, circuses, carnivals, national parks. He studied the attractions and what made them appealing, whether people seemed entertained or disappointed. Coney Island was so battered and tawdry and the ride operators so hostile that Disney felt a momentary urge to abandon the idea of an amusement park.
His spirit revived when he saw Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen; it was spotless and brightly colored and priced within everyone's reach. The gaiety of the music, the excellence of the food and drink, the warm courtesy of the employes – everything combined for a pleasurable experience.
"Now this is what an amusement place should be!" he told Lilly.
Disney realized that he would have to provide his own financing and planning for the park, since his brother, Roy, opposed the idea. To Lilly's dismay, he began borrowing on his life insurance; before he finished, he was $100,000 in debt.
DISNEYLAND became a crusade, more so than cartoons, color, animated features, and all the other pioneering innovations.
"The park means a lot to me," he told a reporter once. "It's something that will never be finished, something I can keep developing, keep 'plussing' and adding to. It's alive. It will be a live, breathing thing that will need changes. When you wrap up a picture and turn it over to Technicolor, you're through. 'Snow White' is a dead issue with me.
"I just finished a live-action picture, wrapped it up a few weeks ago. It's gone. I can't touch it. There are things in it I don't like, but I can't do anything about it. I want something live, something that would grow. The park is that. Even the trees will keep growing. The thing will get more beautiful year after year. And it will get better as I find out what the public likes. I can't do that with a picture; it's finished and unchangeable before I find out whether the public likes it or not."
Disney and his planning group worked quietly on his park. By the end of the summer of 1953, the money he had borrowed was running out, and he knew he would have to find financing. One sleepless night, he found the solution.
"Television!" Walt told his brother the next morning. "That's how we'll finance the park television!"
TO ROY, it was the first thing Walt had mentioned about Disneyland that made sense.
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