One of the best things about having a Disney+ subscription is being able to go back and watch over 100 years of entertainment produced by the company founded by Walt Disney and his brother Roy. Classic animated shorts starring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse are there. Disney’s original animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, can be experienced by new generations at any time. You can also go back and watch some of Disney’s earliest forays into television.
71 years ago this past week, the first episode of the Disneyland TV series debuted on ABC. It was called “The Disneyland Story” and was, for most of America, their first exposure to the theme park idea Walt wanted to create. However, the Disneyland TV series didn’t just share a name with what would become an iconic theme park. It was a key step in making the park happen.
Walt Disney Embraced Television While Other Studios Shunned It
In the post-World War II era, the United States saw massive growth in domestic television use. TV sets were becoming widely embraced by the populace, which was good news for the industries buying commercial time on the networks, but it was less good news for the primary entertainment industry of the day: movies.
Most movie studios shunned television, believing it was a threat to films. Why would customers pay for a movie when they could watch TV for free? Instead of embracing television, studios invested in new wide-screen formats, Technicolor, and even the first foray into 3D films to offer things TV could not. Walt Disney, however, was one of the few studio heads who saw television as an opportunity.
ABC Helped Fund Disneyland In Exchange For The New Show
Specifically, he saw television as a marketing opportunity. It could be used not to supplant upcoming movies, but to promote them. In addition, a Disney television series would help Walt get the word out about his theme park project, which, to him, was more important at the time than any film. It could also provide the thing he really needed to make Disneyland a success: money.
Walt approached NBC and CBS with an offer: a weekly Disney television series. Considering how popular the Disney name was at the time, both networks were very interested. However, Walt wanted more than just money to make the show. He was looking for investment in Disneyland, as the construction was going to take every penny he had, and more than a few pennies he didn’t actually have.
Considering that the “theme park” was an untested idea and one that a lot of people simply didn’t understand, there wasn’t a lot of interest in investing in his wild idea. Both networks turned him down.
This led Walt to go to ABC. It was a young network compared to the other two, and a Disney show had the potential to turn its fortunes around. If that meant throwing extra money at the crazy theme park idea to close the deal, so be it. Forty years before Disney would buy ABC, the two made their first deal, and it was a big one.
Disneyland Was As Much A Commercial For The Park As It Was A TV Show
Disneyland’s first episode introduced guests to the general concept of the Anaheim-based theme park. People learned how it would be divided into lands, including Fantasyland, Frontierland, Adventureland, and Tomorrowland.
Disneyland, the show, would be divided up the same way. Each episode would be based in one of the lands, and have content that was associated with it. Fantasyland episodes would offer guests animated shorts or even edited versions of previously released animated Disney movies. Frontierland episodes would include a new series about Davy Crockett that would, among other things, provide one of the biggest musical hits in Disney history with the famous “Ballad of Davy Crockett.” Adventureland episodes would offer viewers Disney’s Oscar-winning True Life Adventure documentary series. Tomorrowland episodes included original documentaries on America’s endeavors in space exploration.
But in between all of it, the show was ultimately an advertisement for the park. Walt Disney acted as host for the series and would take time in between segments to give viewers little updates on how things were coming along. Sometimes, entire episodes would be dedicated to Disneyland's progress.
It’s hard to understate the importance of Disneyland, the TV show, to the success of Disneyland itself. It's unlikely that the park would have opened on time or at the scale that Walt wanted without the ABC investment.
It also got the word out and showed viewers so much of what the park had to offer. Millions of people wanted to visit Disneyland simply because of what they saw on TV. In 1955, when Disneyland opened, the TV special Dateline: Disneyland became one of the most-watched episodes of television ever at the time. Walt's crazy theme park idea that so many did not have faith in became a hit overnight.
The Disneyland TV Series Has Survived To This Day
Disneyland is actually one of the longest-running television series of all time, even though you may not have heard of it. In 1958, the show was renamed Walt Disney Presents. In 1961, the show would jump networks to NBC and become Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, and begin to be broadcast in color. The name would be used for a Disney California Adventure attraction decades later. Ironically, part of the reason for the network change is that Walt was unhappy that ABC was refusing to sell its stake in Disneyland back to him (though ultimately it would).
The show would continue to change names a few more times, becoming The Wonderful World of Disney in 1991. Disney's CEO at the time, Michael Eisner, took over as host, the only person to have that role other than Walt. This is the name the show still uses today when airing on ABC, though it’s no longer in regular broadcast rotation and generally appears as a television special.
While several of the original movies made for The Wonderful World of Disney can be found on Disney+, a depressingly small number of the original episodes can be found there. Still, some can including “The Pre-Opening Report From Disneyland,” which aired just prior to the Happiest Place on Earth opening to the public.
If you’ve got a Disney+ subscription, seek out the episodes of the show that are available. It’s an interesting historical snapshot, and maybe if enough people watch it will convince Disney to put more episodes of the historically important show on the service for all to enjoy.
