by Bob Thomas
There was one drawback in the use of studio art directors to plan Disneyland: they were accustomed to designing movie sets which were normally used for only a few days, then dismantled. They had no expertise in planning buildings that would resist the onslaught of weather, aging, and millions of visitors. And so Walt brought in an expert in civil, electrical and air-conditioning engineering, Sam Hamel, and hired the firm of Wheeler and Gray to assist as structural engineers.
Walt also needed a construction boss. He found him through C. V. Wood, the former head of Stanford Research Institute in Palo Alto who had joined Disneyland as General Director. Wood had been associated with Joseph Fowler, a consulting engineer and retired Navy admiral. One April Saturday in 1954, Wood telephoned Fowler at his home in Los Gatos, near Palo Alto. “I’d like to bring a friend over to meet you,” said Wood. He arrived with Walt Disney, who had come north to inspect the miniature railroad of a local hobbyist.
“Look, Joe, I’d like to have you come down and get the feel of Disneyland,” Walt remarked. Later Fowler told his wife, “Hell, I don’t know anything about the motion-picture business, but I’ve got an invitation from the head of a studio, so I’ll go down and stay a day or two.” When he arrived at the studio, a secretary assigned him to an office, gave him keys to a car, and said, “We’d like you to talk to some contractors.” It was three weeks before he returned home. He ended up supervising construction of Disneyland and managing the park for ten years.
Excavation for Disneyland began in August 1954, with the opening less than eleven months away.
The first step in preparing the property was removal of the orange trees. Morgan (Bill) Evans, whom Walt had hired to landscape Disneyland, had chosen trees he wanted to be spared and marked them by tying a colored rag around the trunks. Evans was upset to discover that the trees he selected had been removed with the others. It turned out that the man who operated the bulldozer was colorblind.
The announcement that Walt Disney was entering television with a weekly show stirred a rumble of controversy in the film industry. Most of the major producers had observed a strict hands-off policy toward the new medium, reasoning that collaboration would cause further decline in theater business. Theater owners bolstered that policy with threats to boycott the product of any studio that released its movies to television. Walt Disney expounded in an interview his reasons for entering television:
I’ve always had this confidence since way back when we had our first upsets and lost Oswald and went to Mickey Mouse. Then and there I decided that in every way we could, we would build ourselves with the public and keep faith with the public. We felt that the public were really the people we had to play to, you know? We didn’t care about anybody in between. Once when I was trying to sell Mickey Mouse, a fellow told me something. He said, “Mickey Mouse? What is it? Nobody knows it. Why, I can get cartoons that I know for the same amount of money you’re asking.” Then he held up a package of Lifesavers. He said, “Now if you’re inclined to sell me Lifesavers, that would be different. Because the public knows Lifesavers. They don’t know you and they don’t know your mouse.”
That hit me. I said, “From now on, they’re going to know. If they like a picture, they’re going to know who made it. They’re going to know what his name is.” And I stuck Mickey Mouse so darn big on that title that they couldn’t think it was a rabbit or anything else. The public has been my friend. The public discovered Mickey Mouse before the critics and before the theatrical people. It was only after the public discovered it that the theatrical people became interested in it. Up to that time the critics wouldn’t be bothered to give it any space, you see?
So it all boils down that the newspapers and the people who write the newspapers are only interested in things after the public is interested—or if they think they can create some interest on the part of the public. So in all of our exploitation, everything from then on we kept directly at the public. I never went to motion-picture fan magazines. I said, “No, that is not the public. That’s a segment of the motion-picture audience, but not the whole motion-picture audience.” I always wanted to go for the big periodicals. I told my publicity boys, “Look, when you get the big magazines, then you’re reaching a broader segment of the audience.”
Now, when television came, I said, “There’s a way we can get to the public. Television is going to be my way of going direct to the public, bypassing the others who can sit there and be the judge on the bench. Maybe they never see any more of the public than those in their offices or those they see at the cocktail hour. In other words, the world is that small to them.”
I decided when we got into television, we would have to control it. Now everybody wanted to buy all our old product. We wouldn’t sell it. We wouldn’t hear of it. We wanted to handle it ourselves, make good use of it. Some of the old product that should not be shown we would not show. Some of it we would frame so it would have a proper presentation for today….We won’t throw any piece of junk at the public and try to sell ‘em. We fight for quality. All we’re trying to do through television is to let ‘em know what we’ve done. And if they’re interested in what we do, they’ll come to the theaters to see it. There’s a loyalty there….
In two of the early television shows, Walt demonstrated his aim of acquainting the public with what his organization was doing. The series opened on October 27, 1954, with the Disneyland Story, which described coming attractions in both the Disneyland television show and the park itself. Two other progress reports on the park appeared during the first television season. On December 8, Disneyland presented Operation Undersea, a documentary about the filming of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The show was accused of being a “long, long trailer” to publicize the movie, as indeed it was; but Operation Undersea proved entertaining enough to win the Television Academy’s Emmy as the best show of the year.
Walt gave liberally of the studio’s backlog of films to television in the first season, showing Alice in Wonderland, Seal Island, So Dear to My Heart, Treasure Island, Wind in the Willows, and Nature’s Half Acre, as well as several of the short cartoons. He also presented original shows, all of which far exceeded the $100,000 budget. One of the most expensive was Man in Space, a prophetic view of space exploration which had been prepared with technical advice from Willy Ley, Heinz Haber and Wernher von Braun.
The television shows were introduced by Walt Disney himself; he agreed to appear after the network and advertising executives convinced him his presence was necessary to provide continuity and identification. He admitted to being “scared to death” when he had to face the camera, and he found fault with his performance, especially his voice. “It cracks,” he complained in an interview. “I have a little laryngitis—because I smoke too much. And I talk too much; all day long I’m talking in meetings and wherever I go. I have a nasal twang, a Missouri twang. And my diction. I get sloppy and I say, ‘Now we’re gonna present something or other….’ Everybody says, ‘That’s fine, Walt, perfect,’ but the little script girl says, ‘Yes, but you said “gonna” instead of “going to.”’ So I gotta do it over, because children are looking, and you can’t have sloppy habits.”
He grumbled over his dialogue and refused to talk about himself or praise his own product. His chief writer, Jack Speirs, a radio writer who came to the studio in 1952 and developed the knack of writing natural dialogue for Walt, sometimes misguessed Walt’s desires. The writer provided a glowing introduction to a film that Walt recognized as one of the studio’s lesser efforts. “It’s a good idea to sell the picture,” Walt told Speirs, “but I won’t lie about it.”
Walt’s inability to lie extended to the television commercials, which he agreed to deliver on rare occasions. He would talk about the sponsor’s product only if he believed in it, and he did a commercial about an Eastman camera which he himself had found useful. But when the Eastman Company brought out newer models, he declined to extol them on television. “I like the old one,” he insisted.
&n
bsp; The hit of the first Disneyland season was Davy Crockett. Walt had been contemplating a series of television shows on legendary American heroes—Johnny Appleseed, Daniel Boone, Mike Fink, Big Foot Wallace, Davy Crockett and others. The first one concerned Crockett, and Bill Walsh prepared storyboards with a writer, Tom Blackburn. Walt liked the saga, which took Crockett from the frontier to Congress and finally to the Alamo. An outsized actor named James Arness was recommended to play Crockett, and Walt ran a science-fiction film in which he starred, Them. “That’s Davy Crockett,” Walt exclaimed, pointing not at Arness but another giant in the film, Fess Parker. He was hired, taught to ride a horse and sent off to film Davy Crockett in North Carolina.
Davy Crockett was designed to occupy three hour-long shows on Disneyland, but when the film was assembled, it fell short of the length. Walt first tried spacing out the gaps with sketches, but that proved ineffective. One morning Walt visited the office of George Bruns, a new composer at the studio, and mentioned the problem of bridging from one adventure to another. “George, can you get a little throwaway melody under the narration some way?” Walt asked. In half an hour, Bruns had composed a song that fit lines from Tom Blackburn’s script: “Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee…” When Walt dropped by Bruns’s office the next morning, the composer sang it for him.
“I can’t tell much from your singing,” Walt said, “but it sounds okay. Bring in a small group and make a demo.” Tom Blackburn added more words to the song and Bruns made a demonstration record. Walt approved it, and the song was played and sung throughout the three segments.
The demand for “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” began when a small part of it was heard in the preview portion of the first Disneyland show. After Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter appeared on the ABC network on December 5, 1954, the avalanche began. The song was number one on the Hit Parade for thirteen weeks, and ten million records were sold. Fess Parker became a star, and Buddy Ebsen, who played Davy’s sidekick, George Russel, gained a new career.
When the Disneyland television show was in the planning stages, the Disney merchandising department licensed manufacturers to issue products with the Frontierland imprint, presuming that the Davy Crockett films would be merely a transitory feature of the television series. However, Phil Sammeth of Disney merchandising believed that Crockett might inspire sales of coonskin hats, and he made inquiries in the industry. The results were discouraging. The fur-hat industry in America had almost disappeared; the biggest manufacturer, a Chicago firm, had stopped making fur hats after suffering a $200,000 loss on them. The only market for raccoon skins was Red China, and because of the trade embargo, a California warehouse had been filled with undeliverable skins. After much persuasion, and a 50-percent cut in the usual merchandising payment to Disney of $5,000 (to which was added 5-percent royalty on gross sales), a firm named Welded Plastics agreed to become licensee for Davy Crockett coonskin hats. Sammeth found a veteran fur cutter to oversee production of the hats.
The Crockett television shows brought an unprecedented demand for furry headgear. Manufacturers, Disney-licensed and otherwise, worked around the clock to produce hats. The wholesale price for skins jumped from fifty cents a dozen to $5. The warehouse in California emptied, and when raccoon skins disappeared, hat makers used anything from Australian rabbit to mink. More than ten million Davy Crockett hats were sold.
The Disney merchandising division quickly recovered from the surprise of the Davy Crockett boom. A new member of the Disney organization, Vincent Jefferds, sent telegrams to major department stores warning they would be liable for damages if they sold unauthorized merchandise. It was a bluff, but it gave Disney time to enfranchise manufacturers for products bearing the title “Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett” and a picture of Fess Parker. Jefferds dispatched posters of Parker with rifle and frontier outfit to stores everywhere. Costumes, coloring books, toys of every kind, most of them bearing the Disney imprint, sold by the millions; it was the greatest merchandising sweep for any national craze, before or after. Disney offices in New York were so besieged by offers from hopeful licensees that the telephones had to be shut off for a time. One of the most popular items was a wooden Davy Crockett rifle, and the Disney merchandisers suggested a Davy Crockett Colt .45. “Absolutely not,” Walt declared. “They didn’t have Colt pistols in Crockett’s time.” He paid little attention to merchandising but he insisted on two things: All articles must be authentic to the period; and products had to be of good quality.
Walt had spent $700,000 on the Crockett films, even though he was assured of only $300,000 in revenue from television. The gamble paid off in other ways besides merchandising. Walt had an important star in Fess Parker. The three segments of Davy Crockett consolidated Disneyland as the most popular show in television, and merchandising provided substantial income. The Walt Disney Music Company, which had been formed in 1949 for sheet-music sales, thrived for the first time. The success of Davy Crockett led to formation of another subsidiary for phonograph records. Then the Davy Crockett films were spliced together and released in theaters. To charge money for an attraction that had already been seen free by ninety million people was inconceivable. Yet Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier earned a theatrical profit of almost $2,500,000.
Diane Disney met Ronald Miller on a blind date during a football weekend in San Francisco. He was a handsome, towering, powerfully built football end for the University of Southern California, and his roommate arranged the meeting after the Stanford University game. Ron and Diane began dating on the U.S.C. campus, and Diane took him home to meet her parents at the family Christmas party. The dates developed into romance, and Diane and Ron talked casually about marriage. Both Walt and Lilly were impressed by Ron; they had expressed little regard for the boys Diane had brought home before. One evening as she was about to join Ron in his car, Walt remarked, “You know, Di, we like this fellow Ron.” Her mother added, “Yes, if you want to marry him, it’s all right with us.”
Diane was flabbergasted. Her father had always told her and Sharon that they should wait until they were twenty-five before getting married; Diane was twenty. When she related to Ron what her parents had said, he was as startled as she was. When Diane arrived home later that evening, she told her parents, “He thinks it’s a good idea, too.”
Both Diane and Ron preferred a small wedding with close relatives and a few friends attending. So did Walt, but he also wanted the ceremony of a church wedding for his first-born. Diane and Ron picked the date, May 9, 1954, and the setting, a small Episcopal church in Santa Barbara. They were baptized in the church the week before, with Walt and Lilly as their witnesses.
Sharon came home from the University of Arizona to be her sister’s maid of honor. Walt led Diane down the aisle, then stepped back as the ceremony began. As the minister intoned the ritual, Diane heard a little sob. She turned around and saw her father with tears rolling down his cheeks. She gave his hand a squeeze, and he looked at her soulfully.
“Who gives this woman to be married?” the minister asked.
“Her mother and I do,” Walt replied falteringly. He recovered his composure at the wedding reception, held at the Santa Barbara Biltmore Hotel. While posing for photographs, he stood on his tiptoes in an effort to shorten the gap between himself and his new six-foot-five-inch son-in-law. The wedding cake had the Disney touch: the two figures on the top depicted Diane in Levi’s, Ron in Bermuda shorts and bare feet—with a football helmet.
Ron was expecting to be drafted, and he dropped out of the university to go to work for his father-in-law, as liaison between WED and Disneyland. He was inducted in October and left for basic training at Fort Ord. Diane, who was expecting their first child, lived in Pacific Grove, near the camp. The baby arrived in the spring and was named Christopher Disney Miller. Walt was delighted to have a son in the family at last—although he was privately disappointed that Ron and Diane hadn’t named the boy Walter.
TELEVISION proved its power to attract wid
er audiences for Disney films; both 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Lady and the Tramp were immensely successful. At last the company no longer had to “live from one picture to the next.” Also, the effectiveness of television as a selling medium permitted a wider range of story material for cartoon features. Formerly Walt had relied on universally known fairy tales for immediate audience recognition; he demonstrated with Lady and the Tramp that television could acquaint the public with entirely original plots and characters.
The movie profits added to the financial health of Walt Disney Productions, but they were not enough to accomplish the financing of Disneyland. The company sent emissaries to major corporations, seeking participation and advance payments. Some sparked to the promise of Disneyland and paid to have their corporate names associated with the park, others did not. Roy Disney and Larry Tryon, the company treasurer, made repeated visits to the downtown Los Angeles headquarters of the Bank of America to plead for new transfusions of funds to meet the Disneyland needs. Al Howe, who had succeeded Joe Rosenberg as the bank’s liaison with Disney, was sympathetic to the project, but the Bank of America had no experience in financing amusement parks. The nation’s unsettled economy in 1954 added to the bank’s reluctance to continue pouring funds into Disneyland. As the budget rose from $7,000,000 to $11,000,000, Bank of America enlisted the Bankers Trust Company of New York to take a shared participation in the Disneyland loan.