MouseStation 288 – The History of Disneyland on Television with Rob Klein
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Show run time 0:43:41
In today’s show, we have Part 1 of Steven Ng’s conversation with Rob Klein of the Disney Archives about the history of Disneyland as portrayed on television over the years.
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Feature: The History of Disneyland on Television with Rob Klein
Steven Ng sat down with Rob Klein of the Disney Archives as last summer’s NFFC National Convention drew to a close to discuss Rob’s presentation, entitled “The Adventure of Disneyland Through the Television Media,” at the convention on Disneyland’s television history.
Rob’s main task at the Disney Archives is to collect props and costumes from around the company, and he also creates exhibits for display in various locations. In the Frank Wells Lobby right now is a display entitled “Hats off to Disney,” which looks at 50 years of hats worn by Disney talent, including Fess Parker’s coonskin cap from Davy Crockett, Mary Poppins’ hat with cherry blossoms, dive helmets from “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” and Sharpay’s (Ashley Tisdale) hats from High School Musical 2 (only one is on display, though they have them all at the Archives). They actually have a plethora of stuff from HSM2.
Rob’s talk was on coverage of Disneyland from Walt’s conception through around 1989. There were specials after that, but Rob decided to stop there. Folks at the Archives are encouraged to be historians as well; he’s a film historian, and he’s passionate about Hollywood history. Since nobody ever did a chronological history of the Disneyland TV series, he decided to do that, and created his presentation for employees of the Studio, and then he was asked to do the presentation for the NFFC.
The Disneyland television series started as a way to raise funds for construction of the park; the deal included ABC putting funds into Disneyland’s construction in exchange for Walt doing the series. The show started with The Disneyland Story, which was the pilot for the series (airdate: 10/27/54) with Walt explaining the park and how the series would tie in. During the show’s run, Walt did A Progress Report – which shared the show with Nature’s Half Acre (airdate: 2/9/55) – the first half of the show was an update on the park’s construction, including a helicopter flight showing the route to the park and the current status of construction. A Further Report on Disneyland (airdate: 7/13/55) – four days before the park’s opening – primed audiences for the live broadcast of Dateline: Disneyland. The grand opening brodcast was groundbreaking because live multi-site broadcasts were unheard of at the time. There’s a featurette on the Disney Treasures: Secrets, Stories and Magic DVD, which was done to document how much of a technical feat the broadcast was for 1955.
After the park opened the TV shows continued, including A Trip Through Adventureland (airdate: 2/29/56) , which aired with The Water Birds, and which focuses on the Jungle Cruise attraction. Shows on park progress were often paired with True Life Adventures for the broadcast. Disneyland ’59 was considered to be the actual official second opening of Disneyland because so many attractions opened on the same day. Officially called Kodak Presents Disneyland 1959, the show focused on the Matterhorn, the monorail and the submarines. Then-Vice President Nixon cut the ribbon on monorail. Art Linkletter, Guy Williams from Zorro, and Robert Loggia from Nine Lives of Elfego Baca were also there. Disneyland ’59 was lost for a long time, but was finally found and released on the “Your Host, Walt Disney” treasures set. Disneyland After Dark started a change in coverage, people kept talking about how the park was so different at night because of the lighting and entertainment, which prompted a show that focused on nighttime entertainment and other features. Disneyland After Dark featured the Osmond Brothers (their debut), Annette Funicello (at Carnation Plaza Gardens), Louis Armstrong (aboard the Mark Twain), and Bobby Rydell; it also showed a fire dance at the Tahitian Terrace (with looped dialogue), including a boy blushing while watching a hula dance. Chuck Oberleitner of the NFFC helped out with some details during the interview. Another show about the Golden Horseshoe’s 10,000th performance featured Wally Boag and the rest of the show’s cast, plus extra performers including Ed Wynn doing some of his Vaudeville act and Annette Funicello in a saloon girl’s outfit.
Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair (airdate: 5/17/64), also recently released on Secrets, Stories & Magic, featured Walt at WED working on the four World’s Fair attractions: “it’s a small world”, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, the Carousel of Progress and the Primeval World diorama from Ford Magic Skyway. In 1965’s Tenth Anniversary Show, Walt takes Julie Reihm (the first Disneyland ambassador) on tour of WED and introduced some of the staff while showing her what’s coming. These were the first episodes to show some of the key Imagineers at work, including Marc Davis, John Hench, Rolly Crump, Claude Coates, Harriet Burns, Blaine Gibson, probably all Walt’s favorites. Chuck was watching with this portion of Rob’s presentation with Bob Gurr, who noted that Walt refers to John Hench as “Johnny Hench” throughout the show as a dig because they had been arguing all of that week. Rob believes that there should be audio commentary with all of the old guys while they still have all of the anecdotes to tell to help everyone understand about Walt.
Most of these shows were presented on these Walt Disney Treasures DVDs: Disneyland – Secrets, Stories & Magic and Your Host, Walt Disney. The former is available new for $75, while the latter is still available in initial release for about $24.
During a discussion of the World’s Fair show, Mark talked about remembering some of the footage of the World’s Fair show, including the programming of the Carousel of Progress (though he misremembered who was in the control harness – it was Wathel Rogers, not Blaine Gibson).
We’ll have Part 2 of Steven’s interview with Rob next Thursday, including Walt in New Orleans Square, animatronics singing with the Pointer Sisters and more. We’d like to thank Rob Klein for chatting with Steven Ng, and Chuck Oberleitner and the NFFC for setting it up.
Listener Feedback
Kim Liddle is excited about the announcement that a private company is planning on building an express train from LA to Vegas, and she thinks that it might make a good story. Mark said that we’ll keep an eye on that and we may do a story on that as it gets closer to completion.
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Wrapping up
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