Imagine working for the Walt Disney Company for four decades. Then imagine that your job is publicity writer, press agent, publicist, public relations manager, or all of the above. Just think of the experience—and of the memories.
Such experiences have been chronicled by Disney Legend Charles Ridgway in Spinning Disney’s World (Intrepid Traveler: 2007. ISBN: 978-1-887140-67-6). The book, which may be one of the most entertaining and informative books ever written on the Walt Disney Company, leads us through Ridgway’s personal 40-year time capsule as a “Magic Kingdom press agent,” with stops along the way to relive some of his most vivid memories.
This book packs into each page a treasure chest of memories, great stories, and interesting facts about Disney parks, Disney employees, Disney guests. Ridgway’s unique collection of memories comes from witnessing the creation of 11 Disney parks, two Downtown Disneys, 30 hotels, two campgrounds and four water parks in the U.S., Japan, France, and China.
The book takes us all the way back to 1954, when Ridgway was a reporter for the Los Angeles Mirror-News, and he became intrigued by what was happening along Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim. It took him a long time to convince his editor that the paper should be covering the construction effort being put forth by Walt Disney to create this thing called Disneyland. Ridgway finally got the OK, and the rest is Disney history.
Ridgway recaps the events that took place on Disneyland’s opening day, July 17, 1955, validating all that we have heard about that day, such as the rides breaking down, the high heels sinking in the blacktop, and the restaurants running out of food.
The book includes a collection of vignettes from the early days of Disneyland, from how the Disney Company went about creating and promoting Disneyland and what transpired along the way to the present.
It was in the early 1960s that Ridgway was offered a $67-a-week job as a publicity writer for the Disney Company. Ridgway notes that a big reason he took the job was his fascination with Walt Disney, whom he describes as a “…warm human full of ideas and energy, enthusiastic, someone you wanted to spend the day or the week or the year with just watching and listening.”
Ridgway provides many stories regarding the construction woes and workarounds concerning the creation of “The Florida Project.” One construction worker was nicknamed “squirrel” for the job he was given regarding the Swiss Family Robinson Tree in Magic Kingdom’s Adventureland. Ridgway also describes how giving a weekend off to the construction workers paid off in dividends in making the big deadline.
Ridgway estimates that during his Disney career he had a hand in over 110 different ceremonial and press events in California, Florida, and France.
Each page I read just added more to my thirst for Disney knowledge, and I was afraid of getting a paper cut as I rifled through each page and soaked in Ridgway’s detailed account of so many interesting events over his years working for “The Mouse.”
Throughout the book, Ridgway sprinkles some of the Disney philosophy that stems from Walt’s beliefs. For example, the main distinction between Disney and other parks is that Disney attractions tell stories.
There are a countless number of gems in this treasure book of memories and I would be remiss if I did not give you a peek into the 229 pages of fascinating stories. Ridgway talks about the secret of keeping Disney theme parks clean, why coupon books with tickets “A” through “E” were sold in the parks, what prompted the merchandising of adult Mickey watches, and so much more. He also describes how Steven Birnbaum became the originator and editor of the official guidebooks for Walt Disney World and Disneyland, or how Michael Eisner was so protective of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror concept, or what went into the selling of Epcot’s World Showcase. Heck, I even found out how that “What’s Next?” commercial got started. You know the one where the Super Bowl MVP is asked, “Hey, you’ve just won Super Bowl so and so! Now what are you going to do?” I’m sure you know what the response is.
Ridgway talks about the loyalty of the Disney employees and how protective they are of the Disney legacy and gives several amazing examples that only a Disney fan could appreciate.
For Ridgway and the Disney Company, the big turn in how to work publicity came with the technological advances that allowed for satellite uplinks. He tells us to how significant this was for his publicity department and how it basically contributed to the explosion of popularity for the WDW resort. They discovered emphasis moving from print media to television and they haven’t looked back.
For the first decade or so of operation the WDW resort relied on word of mouth for publicity. Ridgway notes that until the late 1980s the most important tools used by the publicity department were the annual Christmas and Easter Parade television shows. Long before Disneyland opened its gates, the public heard of it only through the weekly television reports given by Walt himself.
I could not help but notice a consistent theme throughout this book. As much as the words were about Ridgway’s experience working for Disney’s publicity effort, he constantly referred to Walt Disney and how much he admired him and was influenced by him. In one of his many tributes to Walt Ridgway writes, “No one but a true genius could have such a lasting effect on the people who knew him, the people who only heard about him, and on the world at large.”
Ridgway took pride in the fact that he knew Walt and put that pride into 40 years of work. What made him most proud after going through each event in which he had a hand in was hearing someone say, “No one does it like Disney.” To Charlie Ridgway, that was the highest of compliments.
Here’s one more, from me: “No one tells it better than Charlie Ridgeway.”
