Walt Disney's Disneyland - The Pre-Opening Report (1955)

Throughout the 1954-55 television season, Walt Disney had been showing viewers progress reports of the construction of his theme park, Disneyland. The first of its kind on such a grand scale, Walt had agreed to do this TV show in order to both co-fund the construction of and to advertise his park. This seldom seen final progress report works as almost a mini documentary on the ingenuity it took to build Disneyland. Many of the problems these craftsmen faced had never been attempted before and you see how they brilliantly solved them.

Disney legend, Winston Hibler both co-wrote and narrated this show. He'd been a Disney writer for years and is best known today as the narrator of Walt's documentary films such as the True-Life Adventures, which he also often wrote. Throughout this episode you'll also see other Disney legends hard at work on different aspects of the park such as Harper Goff, Claude Coates, John Hench and others. Another Disney Legend, Bill Walsh co-wrote this episode.

The first half of the program focuses on how some of the animatronics and ride vehicles were constructed while the latter half focuses on the construction of the buildings on the property itself. Of course, walt would continue adding to his park in future years but this footage shows us what it took to just get the doors open.

This was the first time anyone had ever filmed this much behind the scenes footage of such an undertaking before and much more was shot than ever ended up on TV. Hundreds of hours of raw footage still exists to this day as well as time lapse photography of Disneyland rising up from the orange groves. During a sequence showing some of this footage there's a montage of Walt Disney's most popular songs in rewritten versions to reflec the construction of Disneyland. It proves characters from Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Song of the South, and others were all celebrated and members of the Disney family on equal footing.

Like the Empire State Building, which only took thirteen months to build, the construction of Disneyland is a modern marvel. This was a time before restrictive big government regulations where such undertakings could happen at a breakneck pace. What's so impressive is Walt built Disneyland in one year and a day, trying to replicate the King Arthur legend of the creation of Camelot. In fact, Walt had intended to do a King Arthur film in England just prior to the construction of Disneyland but it fell through at the last minute. In design work the castle at Disneyland was described as King Arthur's castle before it was rechristened Sleeping Beauty's Castle, tying in with a film that would take four more years to complete. Media at the time also claimed the castle was either Snow White's or Cinderella's castle as well even though it has no resemblance to the castles in all of Walt's animated features.

This is an important piece of Walt Disney and American history chronicling the achievement of an army of men and women united behind one man's innovative vision.

Editor's note: When this originally aired, the second half hour of this hourlong show reran a segment from the first episode on the career of Mickey Mouse. We've only included the first half of the show as it originally aired that focused on the construction of Disneyland.

Original airdate July 13, 1955

Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.