Golden Dreams: A 50th Wish List

Golden Dreams: A 50th Wish List

Promotional photo © Disney

Three short years from
today Disneyland will mark its 50th anniversary. Any special
promotions could be unveiled as early as 12 months beforehand — to
coincide with the start of the park?s 50th year. If Disney is serious
about putting together an eye-popping, jaw-dropping celebration, time is
running out.

Certainly the much-rumored upgrades of classic attractions
such as Pirates of the Caribbean would be a nice anniversary present, but
I don?t foresee millions of new visitors squeezing through the Main Gate
because a handful of decades-old attractions got a good scrubbing and a
few new special effects.

Worse would be a cheesy, superficial promotion marketed at
6-year-olds, a la Disney World?s 25th anniversary fiasco. Remember
Cinderella?s Castle defaced like a gaudy birthday cake? Disneyland needs
more than streamers and a silly slogan like “50 Years of Magic!?”

A theme park?s Golden
Anniversary is a once-in-a-lifetime promotional event. Tenth,
20th, 25th, not that monumental. Anything more than 50 — 75th, 100th —
sounds ancient. I envision the characters ambling around on walkers.

No, the 50th provides is the perfect opportunity to please
Disneyland fans like never before, to pack them into both parks in record
numbers, and make them happy to fork over record amounts of cash.

Remember, the job of not each cast member but also of
Disneyland itself is to “create happiness.” Disney merely needs
to rediscover why people love to come to Disneyland in the first place —
and why many return year after year. Guests want to be part of the magic,
to walk around in wide-eyed wonder and misty-eyed nostalgia, and to be a
kid again. The 50th shouldn?t be sugary fluff and, worse, it shouldn?t
be a boring history lesson. Keep reading to the minimum. Disneyland is,
and always has been, a place to have fun. Let?s celebrate that.

It worked before.
Disneyland?s best year for attendance — 1996 — was the farewell season
of the Electrical Parade. For one final evening, 30-year-old parents step
back in time and relive their childhood — and take their own toddlers
with them, sharing the same sight and sounds.

The second best year for attendance? 1995, with the
opening of the last of the E-tickets, the Indiana Jones Adventure. What
many might forget was gate counts were padded that year because of a
decent 40 Years of Adventure promotion, featuring a clever giveaway that
kept people returning to the park for 40 consecutive days to collect a
different trading card. For the 50th, why not give out reproductions of
old postcards?

Better yet, Disneyland
must figure out a way to package that Farewell Season nostalgia.
Maybe a “Parade of Decades,” with floats and performers from
processions of the past, such as America on Parade, Party Gras, and the
Lion King Celebration.

Devote any unsponsored acreage in Innoventions to
recreating segments of long-gone attractions. Step into a room of the
House of the Future, rest your rear on an inflatable seat from Mission to
Mars, or take a peek in disbelief at the Crane Bathroom of Tomorrow.

Whatever it is, make it fun. No need to get too cute or
too clever. And, keep speeches and back-patting to a minimum.

That doesn?t mean
hard-core Disneyland fans can?t be given an immersive experience,
if we?re willing to pay for it. I want to truly step back in time at
Disneyland and visit the Disneyland of my childhood — and the Disneyland
that came and went before I was born. My idea: during the fall of 2004,
close the park one particular night a week at 6 p.m., clear out all the
day guests, and reopen from 8 p.m. till 1 a.m. for another $50 bucks a
head to allow guests to step back into Yesterdayland.

Limit attendance for each “Flashback Friday” or
“Throwback Thursday” to, say, 10,000 people so everyone can
enjoy everything without spending the whole night waiting in line. To
control operating costs, run just eight or 10 rides, ones that can be
affordably resuscitated or redressed to their original glory. Overlays
also must be modest enough that they can be installed during the hour or
two between the regular park closing and the event?s opening.

Guests at the event ride an old yellow-and-blue parking
lot tram to the entrance, passing old signs for the Donald and King Louie
sections. At the Main Gate, your A through E replica ticket is swiped by a
friendly ticket taker who, like all other cast members that night, is
dressed in a vintage costume.

Main Street USA could,
more of less, be left as is. Perhaps revive the old silent
films with the Keystone Kops, Williams S. Hart and Gertie the Dinosaur at
the Main Street Cinema.

Main Street would also be used as a staging ground to
display requisite limited edition merchandise. But to minimize everyone?s
enjoyment, no standing in line. Shoppers, at their leisure, could view
samples of each piece, then fill out a form noting what they want, along
with credit card and shipping info. Edition sizes would be large enough
that every attendee could get at least one of any item. These nights would
be more for those who collect memories than merchandise.

Turning left to Adventureland, you?d hear the barker
bird that greeted bypassers during the early days of the Tiki Room. At the
Jungle Cruise, skippers in period costume would deliver the overly
dramatic spiel of 1955, guns once again blazing. The “Swisskapolka”
would blare from the Treehouse.

In Frontierland, guests could enjoy a gun battle between
Black Bart and Sheriff Lucky, a restaging of the original Wally Boag-led
Golden Horseshoe Revue, a trip on a recommissioned Keel Boat, and jazz
onboard the Mark Twain inspired by the moonlight Dixieland cruises of the
Sixties.

Visitors to Tomorrowland
would be greeted by the Spaceman and Spacegirl and wave to live
mermaids in the Submarine Lagoon. A Sixties rock band would perform at the
Tomorrowland Terrace. Hostesses in 1967 polyester would welcome guests to
a 360-degree film in the Circlevision/Circarama Theater, the 3-D
“Magic Journeys” in the Magic Eye Theater, or aboard the
resurrected People Mover.

In addition to a reborn Motor Boat Cruise, Fantasyland
would offer photo ops in vintage vehicles (such as a two seater Mr. Toad
car or a Skyway “cage” from the late Fifties) or with characters
in primitive costumes. Care to pose with the 1955 Mickey Mouse clad in
black tights, the two-person Pluto costume, or the old, giant rubberheaded
Mad Hatter or Winnie the Pooh?

Of course, the small details would make an evening like
this. Unalterable areas could be left in darkness. Stick recreations of
the old pre-grand opening signs on the gates to the Haunted Mansion and
Mickey?s ToonTown.

Promotional photo © Disney

Imagine the publicity
such events would generate for the more mainstream-oriented
50th anniversary promotion that could start in January 2005. Some of the
props, costumes or attractions could even be reused in the general
festivities — and when they?re over, send everything to California
Adventure for an exhibit on Disneyland, a “true California
classic.”