All You Can Eat

I loved the Disneyland ticket book system when I was a kid. I felt powerful and independent with my ticket book. It was like money given to me to spend on the rides of my choosing. Managing my own coupons was an exciting component of the Disneyland experience. When my Mom deemed me old enough, she handed me a full ticket book at the start of the day, and I was completely responsible for its use. If I lost it, tough luck. My destiny lay in its care and keeping. I will always remember the adult feeling it gave me to possess my own tickets and to make my own decisions about how they would be used.

Of course, ticket books are now a thing of the past. Disneyland stopped selling any kind of tickets to attractions by 1982. If you are a baby boomer like me, you remember those glory days. When I was a kid, paying for a day at Disneyland was pretty simple. If you just wanted to walk through the gates and look around, you paid a mere $2.00 general admission fee. If you wanted to ride any of the attractions, you had to pay extra. In 1972 there were about 42 rides and attractions in the park that required a ticket for admission. Rides were priced according to their relative value. So, a two-minute ride down Main Street on the horse-drawn trolley was a relatively low-cost excursion compared to the highly elaborate Pirates of the Caribbean.

So Disney, in the clear logic of the day, set a price for each ride. Made sense to me. To avoid hair-splitting debates over whether It’s a Small World should cost more than, say, the Jungle Cruise, Disney categorized attractions into five broad “value” groups. Those rides considered to be the cheapest were classified as an “A” ticket ride. In 1972 there were six “A” attractions, including the Main Street vehicles, King Arthur’s Carousel and the walking tour through Sleeping Beauty Castle. The classifications continued with “B”, “C”, and “D”. The “E” ticket category was added in 1959. The “E” ticket rides were considered the most exciting and extravagant, and deserved the ranking, except maybe (in my estimation) the Enchanted Tiki Room. How did that ride get an “E” rating while the Santa Fe & Disney Railroad ride through the Grand Canyon and Primeval World only got a “D” rating? And for that matter, who decided that Alice in Wonderland should be a “B” ride, but Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride should be a “C” ticket? I tried not to over think it, or it would make me crazy.

The lettering system was a little subjective, but thank goodness it wasn’t set in stone. The Jungle Cruise, for example, started out in 1955 as a “C” ride. In 1956 it was bumped up to a “D” ride, and in 1959 it was elevated to full “E” ticket status when the new category was introduced. And demotions have occurred as well. America Sings and the Mine Train Thru Nature’s Wonderland were downgraded from “E” down to “D” before being closed.

You could buy these tickets individually from ticket vendors throughout the park if you only intended to ride one or two rides the whole day, or to save money Disney sold these tickets in books of 10 or 15 for a discount. In 1972 a child’s (ages 3-11) 15-ticket book cost $4.95. That was a good bargain, since the 15-ticket book included 5 “E” tickets, which would cost $3.25 for a child if they were each bought individually.

Now, here’s what I loved the most about the ticket book system. Those tickets did not have to be used on the date of purchase. They never expired. In other words, if you did not use up all 15 tickets in one day (and face it, who could?), you could save your leftover tickets and use them the next time you came to the park. That was pure genius marketing to encourage us to come back another day.

I saved my unused tickets like paper money. I stored them in a little metal kid’s safe in my bedroom, you know, the kind that has a revolving dial in the door that you twirl to enter the combination to open it up. That safe was the keeper of my personal archives, where I stored precious belongings. In its time my little safe was the repository of an old two-dollar bill, a used super bowl ticket from the early years, rocks, keys, foreign coins, a Civil War bullet, and of course, my unused Disneyland tickets.

Usually I had a few unused “A” and “B” tickets at the end of the day, but I might have the occasional “D” or “E” ticket left over as well. Over time I amassed a stack of so many tickets that I could return to Disneyland with only a general admission and my handful of leftover tickets for a full day of fun. On those days I would use up all those “A” tickets riding up and down Main Street on the trolley like a drunken sailor. Mustn’t let those little “A” coupons go to waste.

OK – so much for the history lesson. The point is, for about 25 years when I bought a ticket book at Disneyland, I bought a set amount of rides. Period. And Disney honored the deal for as long as it took me to ride those rides. No deadlines.

Now, I admit, the ticket book system had its flaws and limitations. For example, in the 1970s there were 42 rides in the park and only 15 tickets in a book. On top of that, there were eleven “E” ticket rides in the park, but I only got five “E” tickets in a 15-ticket book. I had to make some tough choices. My brain sounded like a NASA control room: “OK, we have “go” for Haunted Mansion, “go” for Pirates, “no go” for submarines . . .” And if I chose to ride the Jungle Cruise twice, well, that cut just my other rides down even more. Tiki Room never made the cut, and I could live without the Monorail, the Mine Train, and the Pack Mules. It was extra frustrating when I would meet up with a buddy and want to share a ride only to discover he was out of that particular ticket. Oh, my kingdom for a ticket.

In the 1960s Disneyland was the big dog of amusement parks in Southern California. I could go to Knott’s Berry Farm instead, but why? However, by the 1970s real competition emerged about 50 miles north of Anaheim, in Valencia. A new and exciting amusement park called Magic Mountain opened in 1971 and set its sights on taking down the Big Dog. To muscle in on Disneyland’s action, Magic Mountain made three strategic moves. First, it established itself as a family-friendly place by inhabiting the park with Warner Brothers cartoon characters, like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, and so on. Second, it courted the teenage set by creating bona fide thrill rides like giant roller coasters. Third, it created an admission package that permitted guests to ride all the rides they wanted all day long for one set price. Borrowing the concept of buffet restaurants, Magic Mountain established an “all you can eat” price that revolutionized amusement parks.
The strategy was a winner. No longer did you have to make those tough choices over rides like we did at Disneyland. And if you were looking for thrill rides, forget the Matterhorn – you could ride the Colossus roller coaster at Magic Mountain all day long as many times as you could stand it.

Disneyland was just sick about this new ticketless innovation. Suddenly all the things that chafed us about Disneyland’s ticket book system seemed a thing of the past with the “all you can eat” admission system at Magic Mountain. I went to Magic Mountain to try it out, and I liked it. I didn’t have to worry about running out of tickets before the day was over, or worse, losing my ticket book entirely. And since the park was so new, the lines for the rides were practically empty. I could literally get off a ride and jump back in line in time to take the next car out. Say goodbye to the hour-long wait in the Matterhorn line, I thought.

Disneyland had to fight back. It didn’t want to give up on the ticket book system, but it had to keep pace with the growing popularity of Magic Mountain. And so the short-lived and ill-fated Magic Key Coupon program was introduced to the general public in the late 1970s. One day as I was at the Disneyland ticket booth to buy my tickets for the day, I was told that I could now buy a new kind of ticket book called Magic Key. I had heard of this special kind of coupon book, sold only to Magic Kingdom Club members who paid an annual fee for park discounts and other benefits. This special coupon book contained tickets with a large decorative key printed on the ticket, making the coupon good for admission to any ride of your choosing, kind of like getting the key to the park.

The once elite Magic Key program was now being offered to the general public. While you could still use your old unused A-E tickets, you could now buy this new kind of ticket. The book eliminated all worry over running out of the kind of tickets you wanted, since each Magic Key coupon was good for any ride. I am sure this was designed to approximate the “all you can eat” system at Magic Mountain, but unintended consequences soon occurred.

The Magic Key books came with 10 coupons per book for $4.00 for adults ($3.50 for kids 12-17). It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had just been sold the equivalent of 10 “E” tickets. Sure, I could use these tickets for any other ride, but why would I waste them on anything but a premium attraction? It would be silly to use the coupon for the Main Street Trolley when it could be used for the Haunted Mansion or Space Mountain.

You can imagine what happened under the Magic Key system. The old A-D ticket rides saw a sharp drop in ridership while the “E” ticket lines became even more oppressive. I wanted to go on some C and D rides, but just could not justify the waste. I was not alone. Many park guests were reacting the same way.

Finally in 1982 Disneyland gave up entirely on any ticket system at all, including the Magic Key coupons, and officially retired the ticket book system in favor of the one-price “all you can eat” format, just like Magic Mountain.

Was that good news or bad news? Well, the ticketless system definitely has its pluses and minuses. The pluses I’ve already mentioned. On the downside, consider this – under the ticket book system you were paying for a specific number of rides at Disneyland, but under the ticketless system you are buying “time”. Disneyland now sells you 12 hours of park use (when the park hours are 9:00 am to 9:00 pm), or 16 hours on Saturdays when the park is open from 8:00-midnight. Once you walk through the gates, the clock is ticking, so you better go for it. If you only manage to ride on three attractions the whole day, tough luck. You cannot come back to the park at a future date to make up the difference at no additional cost, like you could with the ticket book system. It made me not want to stop for lunch. I felt that every minute not in line or on a ride was a minute wasted. I even started running from one ride to the next. I was making myself crazy.

So, who wins under the “all you can eat” system? You are definitely getting the better deal the more rides you can squeeze into the day. If you can hit 15 rides in one day (which is only one-third of the total rides in the park), I salute you – you’re a better man than me. If the park is unusually crowded, the long lines will quickly reduce your ride time, and you are not going to get your money’s worth. My brother-in-law told me he and his granddaughter recently waited in the “Finding Nemo” submarine ride line for a full three hours. What a time-burner. There has to be a better way to die.

When the park hours are shortened from 8:00-midnight on Saturdays down to 9:00-9:00 on weekdays, you are not given a discount to offset the smaller amount of “time” you are being sold. If I am buying “time”, why should I pay the same price for a 12-hour day as for a 16-hour day? I’m getting jipped out of four hours.

There is the FastPass system now, but they only let you sign up for one FastPass at a time. Even so, I am amazed that some of the popular rides still have lines over an hour and a half long when the FastPass line is virtually empty. It’s like refusing to use the diamond lane on the freeway during the rush hour when you’re entitled. Do they just like crawling through pitiless lines, or are they so intimidated by the complexity of inserting their ticket into the FastPass machine that they would rather squander their day waiting and waiting and waiting? Let’s see – would I rather wait for an hour and a half or ten minutes to ride Splash Mountain? Give me a minute. I need to think about it.

Right now only the high demand rides utilize the FastPass system. After all, the Sleeping Beauty Castle self tour is not exactly straining from the press of people. I have used the FastPass system, and I like it. It’s a great antidote to the brain damage of long lines. You have heard of “road rage” – I believe there is an equivalent “line rage” that can make you crazy. I do not exaggerate when I say that in “the old days” the Matterhorn line literally wrapped around the mountain, with waits up to two hours for a two-minute ride. At that rate I used to think I would only get to five rides before the park closed.

I do feel a bit of melancholy at the passing of the ticket book system. I liked the option of just paying a general admission price to walk through the gates. That is what I did when I took my girlfriend (and future wife) on a dinner date to the Blue Bayou Restaurant years ago. We didn’t want a whole ticket book – we just came for a romantic dinner. You can’t do that now. I also miss all the little rituals that surrounded the use and care of these coupons. They were like money, and we learned to protect them for future use. They had trading value, taught lessons of choice and frugality, and the unused coupons made cute little souvenirs to remember our day at the park.

For you nostalgia and memorabilia buffs, you can still buy vintage Disneyland ticket books on e-Bay. For Disneyland devotees, they are great collectibles from a bygone era. Right now a complete unused 1960 ticket book in mint condition sells for $200 - a far cry from its 1960 asking price of $5.00. I am actually amazed that these unused books still exist. Do you mean that somebody bought a whole book and never used it, but instead vacuum sealed it for posterity? Who is this person? I want an explanation. And who knew that a modest paper ticket book would one day be a serious collector’s item worth 40 times its original price? It makes me wonder what other pop culture artifacts I should start collecting today for its investment potential 40 years from now.

The Ride of My Life

What is your favorite ride at Disneyland? Ask anyone that question and more than likely they will pick one of the old “E” ticket rides. You may be interested to know that in a 2008 survey asking park visitors to name their favorite ride, Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion tied for first place. Maybe for you it’s the Pirates of the Caribbean, or perhaps Thunder Mountain Railroad. If so, you are not alone. They rate very high among loyal park visitors.

When the ticket book system was in operation (1955-1982) rides were classified according to their relative value. When I was a kid an “A” ticket ride could be purchased individually for only 10¢, or bought as part of a book of tickets. The most expensive tickets – the “E” ticket rides – cost 85¢ if bought alone. We all understood that “E” ticket rides were the most thrilling, elaborate, and extravagant, and obviously the most expensive rides to create. No doubt about it, “E” ticket rides were the most popular.

In time, the “E Ticket” moniker was transformed forever into a pop culture idiom by astronaut Sally Ride. A member of the 1983 Nasa Space Shuttle team, she was asked by reporters when she returned to earth to describe the experience of takeoff, flight, and landing. Obviously a child of Disneyland, she replied, “It was definitely an E ticket ride,” and we all knew exactly what she meant.

The ticket book system is only a memory now, but before it was retired, the following rides were classified as “E” ticket rides:

1. America Sings
2. Country Bear Jamboree
3. Monorail
4. Haunted Mansion
5. Submarine Voyage
6. Pirates of the Caribbean
7. It’s a Small World
8. Enchanted Tiki Room
9. Matterhorn Bobsleds
10. Jungle Cruise

Even for rides created after the ticket book system ended, we could guess with relative certainty which ones would have probably been granted “E” ticket status, like the Indiana Jones Adventure and Big Thunder Mountain.
For me, hands down, my personal all-time favorite ride at Disneyland was, and still is, The Jungle Cruise. It was one of the original rides when the park opened in 1955, and started out with a “C” ticket classification (from 1955-1956). It was promoted to “D” status from 1956-1959, and was finally elevated to the coveted “E” ticket level in 1959. Walt initially intended the ride to contain live zoo animals, making the ride a kind of floating Wild Animal Park. The idea fizzled when the animal handlers explained that these creatures are nocturnal, and would rarely be seen by anyone. So they went to plan B: mechanical animals that would always show up on cue, look adorable, and never need to be fed.

My devotion for the Jungle Cruise ride was based on several reasons. First, I thought their costumes were the coolest. The cavalry uniforms at Fort Wilderness came in a close second (and the goofy futuristic jumpsuits at the Monorail rank last with me), but to me the safari expeditionary garb of the Jungle Cruise evoked images of the rugged adventurer, the modern-day explorer, that rare breed of treasure hunting individualists who knew how to survive in the wild.

Second, I idolized the skill and daring of real life explorers. As a kid I read books about David Livingston, Albert Schweitzer, and Lewis and Clark (all right, Lewis and Clark explored America, which isn’t as exotic as Africa, but still very cool, and America was pretty wild and dangerous in their day). I watched the classic movies “King Solomon’s Mine”, “The African Queen”, and “The Naked Prey”, “Zulu”, along with most of the Tarzan movies that came to TV. To me, the jungle was full of peril, with ferocious animals, deadly plants, and wild natives at every turn. But in the hands of a capable safari guide, I would feel completely safe. For me the Jungle Cruise ride paid tribute to these intrepid adventurers.

Above all, I loved the Jungle Cruise because it was one of only two Disneyland rides where the ride operator actually joined you on the ride and entertained you for the duration (the other ride being the Story Book Canal Boats – and maybe the parking lot tram if you count that as a ride). The Jungle Cruise is a 9-minute expedition, with a massive tongue-in-cheek script that must take weeks for a novice guide to memorize. As I sat beside the captain of my tramp steamer, I hung on his every comic description (“We are now approaching Schweitzer Falls, named after that famous African explorer, Dr. Albert Falls ...”), sarcastic insights (“Do you know how you can tell that that's an African elephant? ... It's because we're in Africa ...”), and droll commentary (“We now arrive at the most dangerous part of our journey – the return to civilization and the Santa Ana Freeway”). The guide was not only captain of the vessel, he was master of the crowd, a bona fide stand-up comedian as important to the ride as the mechanical hippos.

I thought to myself, I want to do that one day. I want to learn how to stand in front of an audience and hold them in rapt attention, to entertain, to inform, to inspire. Believe it or not, the Jungle Cruise Ride introduced me to the power and possibilities of public speaking.

I have to admit, I was always drawn to all of the live performers at the Magic Kingdom. I loved the show at the Golden Horseshoe in Frontierland, and was even chosen once to go on stage with the animal balloon maker. I stood in front of a packed house, who laughed at my slightest remark or reaction to the balloon maker. This fleeting moment of glory under the spotlight left a sweet taste in my mouth. Maybe like most performers I was hungering for attention.


Other Disneyland street performers I fancied included the roving barbershop quartet, and the “custodian” percussion drill team, a trio dressed as trash collectors who would stop along their route, produce drum sticks and turn their trash can lids into steel drums. And don’t forget the magician/cashier at the Main Street Magician Shop. I loved to stand at the counter with the other kids watching his slight-of-hand demonstrations. I fantasized that I could become skilled enough to hold a crowd in the palm of my own hand.

From what I read, the love of the stage is rare compulsion. Researchers have discovered that people are more afraid of speaking in public than they are of dying. In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, they would rather be the guy in the casket than the guy delivering the eulogy. I was an odd contradiction. While I too was terrified to stand in front of an audience, it was a place I loved to be. Was it fear or exhilaration? Those two emotions produce the same physical response, and I thrilled at the sensation. I determined that despite my natural fear of public speaking I would seek every opportunity to find an audience.

In the third grade I entered the school talent show, not with a musical instrument, but with the memorized recitation of a poem about the “Poor Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” My mother sat in the audience, beaming with expectation. The announcer called my name, and I stepped into the spotlight. My heart pounded, my knees shook, and my voice quivered, but the audience was full of kind and long-suffering parents. Much like drunks at a night club, parents watching their children perform are ready to laugh and applaud at anything. When I delivered the poem’s punch line – “Poor old lady, she swallowed a horse. She died, of course,” the crowd roared with laughter. As I took a bow, I could see Mom gush with pride, and my destiny was clear.

As a young teenager I accepted speaking assignments at my church. Those engagements were easy to come by. I might read a Bible text, call for the offering, or apprise the membership on the progress of missionary efforts across the ocean. There are never enough volunteers to help out in these capacities at church, and audience expectations are particularly low. This gave me ample opportunity to speak to a congregation that would politely listen no matter how dull I might be.

In high school, with considerable speaking experience already under my belt, I entered temperance oration competitions, a quirky annual event that challenged participants to concoct a 7-minute speech decrying the evils of one of three vices: 1) alcohol, 2) drugs, or 3) tobacco. With gusto, I borrowed a page from the protest playbook of the 1960’s to fashion my speech. For example, where activists across America were protesting the senseless wasting of lives from the Vietnam War, I protested the senseless wasting of lives from smoking cigarettes. This twist on the “protest” theme won me regional awards two years in a row.

As the head of my high school’s Temperance Club, I spoke to local high school audiences about the health dangers of cigarettes. It was a surreal experience – teenagers warning other teenagers about high risk behavior. When I took questions at the end of my presentation, I got the oddest queries. One student seriously wanted to know how many years he could smoke before he needed to worry about cancer. Another asked if drinking water right after he smoked might reduce the risk of throat cancer.

In college I majored in communications, and joined the school’s drama club, where I acted in, and eventually directed, university productions. In 1978 I earned a Master of Arts in Communication Arts at California State University at Fullerton, and in 1983 I completed a Ph.D. at the University of Southern California in Communication Arts and Sciences. For a few years I taught public speaking at the university level.

In my spare time over the next 20 years I wrote and toured a one-man play on the life of James White, a colorful 19th century religious leader and founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. That production took me all over the country and even to Canada.

Today I periodically tell children’s stories as part of my church’s worship service. I am not a minister by any means, but for a few minutes I play the role of story-teller. The kids in the sanctuary are invited to come down to the front as I share a short five-minute object lesson, complete with my own sound effects, elaborate gestures, and over-the-top facial expressions. It is a sermon in miniature, and a weekly tradition designed to both entertain and inspire children of all ages – including the grown-ups.

I never became a Disneyland Jungle Cruise guide. I hear there is always a long line of applicants, and I am not surprised. It just looks like one of the most fun jobs in the park. Although I have never applied for the position, I am tanned, rested, and ready for my audition. In the meantime, I am thankful for the inspiration it provided to me at a tender age to explore the possibilities, the power, and the rewards of public speaking. My favorite ride at Disneyland ultimately took me on the ride of my life.

The Land of Fatherless Children

It is ironic that while Walt Disney intended Disneyland to be a place where families could come together, the park is so full of fatherless children. I am not talking about the park visitors. Everywhere you look there are fathers sharing the day with their kids (Here I am with my family on one of our many visits). I am talking about the many Disney characters that inhabit the park. For most Disney characters their father is either absentee, dead, or simply not depicted as part of the character’s life.

I don’t think this creative predisposition reflected Walt’s life. From what I read, Walt’s father, Elias, was an important inspiration in his life. His older brother Roy characterized their dad as a strict, hard guy who gave in to the impulse of his temper, occasionally smacking his kids on the back of their head with his open hand. However, Roy refused to label his father as mean or brutal. Walt remembered his dad fondly, stating, “I had tremendous respect for him . . . I worshipped him.” Elias established a contracting business in 1895, and late in life he even participated as a building contractor for the construction of Disneyland’s Riverboat Mark Twain. Walt honored his father by etching his business name in a window above the Emporium on Main Street

Elias Disney
Contractor
Est. 1895

Nevertheless, for whatever reason, many of the classic Disney characters share in the absence of a father figure. Many of these characters are boys (Peter Pan, Christopher Robin, Pinocchio, Mowgli, Bambi, etc.). Even Mickey Mouse himself has uncertain ancestry. I could never tell his age. When we were introduced to him in 1928 he was old enough to pilot a steam boat. Did he have a family? A father? Siblings? Those details of his life were never explored.

Boys are not alone in their pain. The Disney trifecta of female heroines (Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty), all grew up fatherless. Sure, Sleeping Beauty had a father, but rather than protect her himself from the evil Maleficent, he banishes her to the distant woodlands to grow up fatherless. What about Simba in “The Lion King”? Yeah, he was born with the idyllic father, but Disney kills “dad” off while Simba is still a lad. What gives?

As I grew up, my own life mirrored the lives of my Disney cartoon heroes with our lack of quality time with “dad”. As a medical doctor, my dad had his own private practice, but also served as the chief of staff for a small hospital, and filled his evening hours making house calls to home-bound patients. In the wee small hours he took emergency calls and delivered babies for three generations of families. I had to be sick or bleeding to get on dad’s radar screen, otherwise his time was spent curing disease for the greater good of Los Angeles. I never felt that he didn’t love me. We had shelter, clothing, food, and spending money to fill the hole left by his absence. I just felt that my need for his time, attention, and direction was no match for the medical needs of the community. In time I became a sympathetic comrade with the childless Disney characters that wandered the Magic Kingdom. I commiserated with their pain and turned to them for answers in coping with my loss.

One of the reasons I returned to Disneyland so often was my identification with these brave orphans and maladjusted delinquents. Their lives were instructional. Their victories spurred me to meet my challenges, their mistakes spared me from repeating their failings.
Among these many characters, four stood out as principal role models for me. First, Peter Pan was an inspiration in many ways. He was fearless, clever, and a defender of right, all qualities I aspired for myself. He argued that it is not fun to grow up, and that we don’t need parents anyway. His life was full of adventure, with enough pluck to best a pirate in mortal combat.

But there was a sadness about Peter’s fatherless existence that spoke to me as well. He was so anchorless that he literally floated off to his world of fantasies that propelled him to his next adventure. Yes, he could fly, but I suspect he would have traded his flights of fancy for a loving father. I know I would. I don’t think Peter Pan really believed all the bluster and bravado he preached to his band of lost boys. Like me, the father he lacked, I wager, would have brought peace and calm to his restlessness.

The Mowgli child in “The Jungle Book” was the second of Disney’s fatherless figures that I admired. He not only found himself without parents, he was abandoned as an infant to the wild jungles of India to fend for himself. While the dangers of my own life were meager in comparison, I applauded the way Mowgli navigated the perils of pythons, Bengal tigers, and psychotic apes. He taught me that in the absence of a father you must choose your adult male companions wisely. His fortunate union with Balou the Bear and Bagera the Panther provided him the fatherly protection and direction that every boy aches for.

Pinocchio was not so lucky. The third among my favorite of Disney’s fatherless children, he strayed from his grandfatherly guardian Gepetto, and fell into the unscrupulous hands of Stromboli, Honest John, and The Coachman, eventually evolving into a literal jackass on Pleasure Island. His fall from grace was a cautionary tale to me in my formative years. I learned that looking for fatherly validation from strangers can result in catastrophic consequences.

Finally, to me the most poignant of Disney’s fatherless children was Bambi, and I ached at the telling of his tale.
Born to a prominent family, Bambi’s father was the aloof “Great Prince of the Forest,” a noble stag with the burden of leadership. But Bambi’s dad was never home, so the duties of child rearing fell to Bambi’s mother. I saw this movie and a bell rang within me. “This is MY story,” I thought. As a doctor, my dad felt the burden of the healing physician, and logged in long hours to eradicate disease. Like Bambi, I lost my dad to the greater needs of the herd, but we both accepted our absentee fathers as children who neither know nor feel they deserve better. Like Bambi, I could only admire my father from a distance, as Bambi pined at the sight of his father’s silhouette on the hill’s crest.

We filled our days with the other woodland creatures. Bambi had his sanguine Thumper and I found my playmate in my next door neighbor David Santangelo. He was my same age and equally bored with home life. He was lean of build, though I would not call him scrawny, with a head full of black hair, a big smile and infectious laugh. Like me, his dad was rarely home. When I wasn’t at Disneyland, he and I commiserated together. We explored the neighborhood, tested our marksmanship throwing rocks at trees, and conquered the vacant hillside with a bold ascent. For two years he and I held sway over our home block, until his family moved away and our joint dominion ended.

At the death of Bambi’s mother my emotions ran from pain to anger. I internalized Bambi’s pain and imagined the crushing weight I would feel if that were my mother that died. Like Bambi, she was my primary caregiver. But my pain turned to anger at the blame that fell to Bambi’s father in my mind. Sure, Bambi’s mother strayed too far into the clearing, but did Bambi’s father care so little for his own family that he couldn’t be bothered to stay close to home to watch over his loved ones? Instead of guiding the herd, he might have paid more attention to his own.

And so, I returned to Disneyland over the years to join my band of brothers, to share their pain and make peace with my circumstances.

So, where does a boy go in the land of Disney to find a father hero figure to emulate? For me there was only one clear choice – Pongo from “101 Dalmations”. If you are looking for the ultimate fatherly role model, look no further. A tender homage to the family unit, this movie set the bar for a father’s love for his children, and the lengths he will go to defend and protect them – even against the likes of Cruella. I never tire of watching that movie. And I say kudos to Disney for this touching tribute to fathers. It made a deep impact on me as boy. I wanted Pongo to be my dad and hope I will always rise to the level of Pongo as a father.

So Real It Looks Like Disneyland

In 1997 my wife and I took our kids on a sight-seeing vacation to some of the nation’s most scenic natural wonders. We drove to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, and gazed down the breathtaking gorge to the Colorado River below. We went to Cedar Breaks National Monument, a miniature Grand Canyon that stretches for three miles. Next stop was Zion National Park to view the stunning Zion Canyon – 15 miles long and a half mile deep. Finally, we witnessed Bryce Canyon at sunrise and watched the breaking day turn this cathedral into a glimmering display of red, yellow, and orange rock spires. Words cannot adequately describe these magnificent formations, shaped and molded by eons of wind and water. We stood in silence for some time as the early morning warmed the walls of the canyon. I finally broke the silence by uttering in hushed tones, “This is so real, it looks like Disneyland.”

As ridiculous as that statement is, I truly admire the meticulous research and detail that goes into Disneyland’s recreation of the American vista. When I first rode the Mine Train Ride Thru Nature’s Wonderland in 1960, I had not actually seen real geysers, bubbling mud pots, or balancing rocks. I hadn’t been to Yellowstone, the Southwest desert, or the real Calico mines, so the Disney facsimile was my only reference point to imagining what these natural splendors must look like. The same was true for the Grand Canyon. I had not been to Arizona’s Grand Canyon when Disney’s diorama premiered in 1958. His 300-foot long 3-D replica was my orientation to this scenic wonder. I even got a little music appreciation thrown in, with the strains of Ferde Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite setting the mood for the ride.

When I visited many of these actual sites in my 20’s, I had to tip my hat to Disney, for I was overwhelmed with déjà vu. Gazing at the Grand Canyon for the first time, I felt I had been here many times before. I could almost hear the Grand Canyon Suite in the breeze. Disney had given me a sense of knowing without experiencing. Like watching your neighbor’s slide show of their trip to Hawaii, you can get an idea of the place without actually going there.

The Disney designers have a knack for capturing the essence of a place or a moment in time, then distilling and romanticizing it, so that the thing appears better than real – it achieves our ideal. Take for example, Disneyland’s Main Street. Main Street is a Norman Rockwell air-brushed recreation of the vintage American town at the turn of the century, before the malling of America brought an end to our quaint individual storekeepers, when the mega home improvement centers swallowed up the corner hardware store. As Walt put it, Main Street is a place to “relive fond memories of the past.”

These days my job takes me around the country to small towns that seem frozen in time, with the old town square that was the model of city planning in the 1920s and 30s. As I drive past the town hall, soda shop, jewelry store, and drug store, I find myself whispering, “This looks like Disneyland.” Look at the pictures below. Which of the following photos (if any) was (or were) taken on Disneyland's Main Street? (See the answer at the end of this post):

(A)
(B)


(C)

(D)




(E)
















(F)





I guarantee it is hard to tell the real from the make-believe. Only the Disney version is stylized and sterilized, with fresh paint showing off shiny store fronts, spotless streets, and immaculate landscaping. The truth is, no real town looks like Main Street. No slums. No litter. No traffic. No graffiti. It’s just a toy, a miniature, a fantasy, a fond memory of the past.


As I grew up at Disneyland, I took more notice of its carefully crafted imitations. New Orleans Square is a scrubbed up knockoff of the real French Quarter, with its two-story villas and wrought iron balconies. It’s a “Hallmark card” of the real French Quarter, free of the odors, water stains, and imperfections of the real thing. The Matterhorn is a faithful miniature of the actual mountain in the Swiss Alps. But it’s not really snow-capped. That’s just paint. The Jungle Cruise is a caricature of a Colonial expeditionary outpost, with fiber glass instead of real wood.

And the jagged Thunder Mountain looks like it was carved out of sections of Bryce Canyon in Utah, although it lacks the unmistakable smell of desert dirt. Even the mechanical duck family sunning on a stone beside the Rivers of America looks incredibly real, with the mother duck fluffing her feathers and the little ducklings bobbing for position. I have to stare at this amazing mechanical creation for several moments to know for sure.

After a while, I noticed the blurring of the real and the imitation started to bother me. I found myself touching the flowers in the meticulously manicured beds and the leaves on the exotic shrubbery to see if they were real or plastic. I rubbed my hand along the building fascia – is that actual wood or fiber glass? I tapped the antique lamp post to see if it was really iron or some composite facsimile. Are the terra cotta pots bona fide clay or some synthetic petroleum derivative? Is anything in this place real, or is it all just a clever deception? In frustration I cried out, show me truth! No more imitations – give me something genuine!

At that moment the horse-drawn trolley came to a stop at the end of Main Street, and as the passengers stepped away, the very real horse took this very real moment to take a potty break. Now that’s something you’ll never see the horses do at the King Arthur Carousel. That’s about as real as it gets here in the Magic Kingdom. OK, maybe that’s too real. So here in this make-believe town on this make-believe street I am grateful that someone has been hired to scoop up this little fresh mound of reality and dispose of it. After all, there is only so much reality you can take in a world of make believe.


(Answer to the Photo quiz: "D" and "F" are taken at Disneyland)

The Scariest Ride of All

Walt Disney may have called it “The Happiest Place on Earth,” but to a small kid, parts of it can be very scary. I’ve seen kids shriek in terror when placed beside a gigantic costumed Goofy that their parents thought would make a lovely photo. And I can tell you that some of the rides to a five-year old are anything but funny. I asked my daughter, now grown-up, which ride was scary to her as a child. She recalled that the Pirates of the Caribbean terrified her.
She saw nothing funny in the near-miss cannon fire, live skeletons at the helm, scenes of torture, attempted rape, selling women into slavery, and the looting and burning of an entire town. While Disney’s imagineers sought to turn a scene of 18th century terrorism into a comical ride, the humor of it was entirely lost on my daughter.

My son, on the other hand, was intrigued with the Pirates ride but held dark thoughts of foreboding as he stood in line for the first time at Space Mountain. . When it was introduced to Disneyland in 1977, Space Mountain was the only ride in the park that came with a warning. Guests with a heart condition, back or neck problems, and expectant mothers were advised not to ride. That is enough to give anyone pause. You have to wonder about a ride that cautions people to stay away. For my son, riding a standard roller coaster was a test of nerve, but the thought of doing it in the pitch dark, like Space Mountain, was a little too unsettling.

Actually, I thought that Space Mountain was quite a departure for Disneyland. Up until then, the closest thing to a thrill ride was The Matterhorn. With its track-bound toboggans, it only rolled along at 18 miles per hour. Actually, the Monorail was the fastest ride in the park, reaching 35 mph on the straightaway. Most every other ride in the park moved at a snail’s pace, and several floated on water to boot (Jungle Cruise, It’s a small World, the Mark Twain Steam Boat, and Story Book ride).
I don’t think Walt intended Disneyland to be a thrill zone with Ferris wheels and roller coasters, and, interestingly enough, Space Mountain did not appear in Anaheim until eleven years after his death. I think that Space Mountain, and other thrill rides that came after it, like Thunder Mountain, were an attempt to appeal to the Magic Mountain crowd. Even Knott’s Berry Farm had abandoned its pastoral roots and was adding a battery of thrill rides, including The Corkscrew, the world’s first looping coaster.

The Matterhorn never struck me as a scary ride. I guess if you count fatalities it is one of the most dangerous. All totaled, nine Disneyland guests have died on various rides over the years. Two have died on the Matterhorn (one in 1964 & and the other in 1984). Both unbuckled their seatbelts and stood up for a more thrilling ride – need I say more. Two guests died trying to swim from Tom Sawyer’s Island to the mainland (1973 & 1983). Not exactly the English Channel, but obviously more than they bargained for. Two have died falling from the People Mover (1967 & 1980), one of the slowest rides in the park – go figure. One was fatally struck by the Monorail while trying to sneak into the park along the Monorail tracks (1966), one died from some rigging that fell from the Columbia sailing ship (1998), and one died in a partial derailment on Thunder Mountain (2003). So, I guess danger lurks around every corner of the Magic Kingdom and demands a healthy dose of common sense to survive a full day at The Happiest Place on Earth.

Now, my brother Brad was scared of the submarine ride. The cramped confined seating under water triggered his claustrophobia. My sister Carol dismissed his feelings by reminding him that all he had to do was look up through his portal window to see the water’s surface right above his head. “We are not even really submerged,” she explained. But somehow the view of the waterline offered little consolation to Brad’s mortal dread of this metal death tube.

As a kid, I took self-preservation seriously, and if something scared me, I believed it was nature’s way of warning me to proceed with caution. I remember being afraid of shots – you know, the medical kind with syringes. It seemed clearly an unnatural act to permit someone to stab you with a needle, even those with good intentions. This bothered my dad to no end. As a physician, he gave shots to patients all day long, and most of them were quite stoic about it. I saw him give a shot to a friend of his in his shoulder while they were chatting with each other. To my amazement, they kept right on talking through the procedure without skipping a beat. If it had been me, the sight of that needle would have been a guaranteed conversation stopper.

One night I was sick with the flu and needed a shot, so my Dad casually came into my bedroom with syringe in hand. I took one look at the size of the needle and freaked. I started screaming and squirming like he was approaching me with a poison snake. My Dad tried in vain to talk me into it, but I would have none of it. He became impatient with my hysterics, and with a frown he made harsh demands that I get control of myself, to no avail. I felt ashamed of myself, but my fear of pain robbed me of my dignity. I flailed my arms and legs until he gave up, and returned to my room later that night after I had gone to sleep to do the deed.

Two rides at Disneyland triggered my fear of heights as a kid, and I could not seem to overcome them. This fear of heights may have come from my Dad, who was also afraid of heights. The condition haunted him all his life, despite his becoming a licensed pilot to help him get over the fear. In his retirement years he had a home in Las Vegas, but I could never get him to the observation deck of the Stratosphere (the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River). As an adult, I fought back my own fears to make the ascension, but as a kid, that kind of determination would have been impossible.
The first ride that had me unnerved as a kid, believe it or not, was the Peter Pan ride. For some reason, my sister Carol shared my dread of this ride. The first time I rode it, I didn’t know what to expect. The moment we flew out of the childrens’ bedroom, we were sailing over London. The forced perspective achieved by the ride’s designers made me feel like my tiny ship was miles over the city, and I feared for my life. I had heard rumors that a kid had fallen out of the ride and his body was never recovered – obviously an urban legend, but frightening to a little kid like me. I could not get back on that ride for a long time.


The other ride that stopped me dead in my tracks was the Skyway ride. Call me crazy, but I was scared to death of climbing inside one of those little gondolas and trusting that the cable would not snap.

I remember it was a typical Southern California summer day at Disneyland, and Grandpa had joined us to lend Mom a hand with us kids. I was under Grandpa’s supervision, and had been giving him fits all day long. Earlier in the day I had to go potty. Mom ordered Grandpa to escort me into the men’s restroom and to offer any help necessary. It had been years since Grandpa had such an assignment, and the whole thought of it irritated him. He ushered me into the nearest restroom, full of customers, and found an empty stall for me, then walked several yards away to stand watch from a distance. In a few minutes a loud voice rang out from within my stall: “Somebody come wipe my bottom!” Everyone in the room froze, waiting to see who would claim me. Grandpa closed his eyes, grit his teeth, and answered my plea for help.

Now we were standing in front of the Tomorrowland Skyway, and my primal fear gripped me. I told Grandpa, “I don’t want to ride it. I can’t go. I am not going to do it.” He was in no mood for this. Like my Dad with a syringe in his hand, Grandpa tried to reason with me, but to no avail. He tried to bribe me with candy, to shame me, and then to threaten me. He was under some delusion that he could outsmart me and talk me into it. How does anything a 60-year old says make sense to a 5-year old, anyway? He gave up and we sat on a bench and watched the crowds boarding and unboarding the Skyway for several minutes. I watched with a mixture of dread and excitement. I could see that no one was dying, the cable didn’t break, the towers held fast. Did I dare to try? It was time to man up. I turned to Grandpa and said, “OK, let’s go.”

He held my hand through the line and into the next gondola. I thought if I was going down, I was going to take Grandpa with me. At the funeral all the relatives would weep, and my epitaph would read, “See, I Told You!”

As the tiny gondola lifted off the platform, I felt totally exposed and vulnerable. These little buckets had no windows, no seat belts, no safety apparatus at all. What was I thinking? This was insane. Why did I agree to this? As we swung from the cable, I prayed for traveling mercies. I could hardly gaze at the view. I just wanted it to be over. The three-minute ride seemed to last forever, and the Fantasyland terminal was a speck in the distance. I was about to surrender my soul to the universe, when the door to the bucket opened and the Fantasyland attendant invited us to get out. The ride was over. I took inventory. No pain. No blood. Just a long line of people waiting to fill our vacating seats. The sight of everyone standing in line for my seat just upped its value to me. All of a sudden I didn’t want to get out so fast.

Grandpa comforted me, “It’s over.”

I smiled and boldly said, “Let’s go again.”

I was sad to hear that the Skyway ride was removed from the park in 1994 and the holes in the Matterhorn where the gondolas passed through were filled in. The ride just got too old and too expensive to maintain. For almost 35 years the Skyway was on my “must ride” list. The scariest ride had become one of my favorites, and a signature ride that deserved better. I only hope they don’t remove me when I become too old and too expensive to maintain.

A Word From Our Sponsors

A friend of mine finally blew a gasket over the commercialization of professional football. He groaned over the way corporate sponsors have gobbled up all the attention from the game itself. At the Superbowl last year he noted that the game was played in “Raymond James” stadium, with the “Goodyear” blimp overhead. We saw the “Bridgestone” halftime show (the company which also holds the coveted title as the Official tire of the NFL), along with the “Gatorade” halftime report. Bank of America sponsored a Superbowl Fun Fest just outside the stadium. It was a five-day carnival-like affair with 850,000 square feet of sports games and interactive entertainment attractions for football fans that was shamelessly blanketed with Bank of America logos and marketing calls to sign up for football-themed banking products.

“And don’t get me started when it comes to college football,” my friend continued, “with the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, FedEx Orange Bowl, Citi Rose Bowl, and Allstate Sugar Bowl.”

OK, I get it. Companies are looking for any venue possible to position their name and create brand recognition with the buying public. How much do you think Nike paid Michael Jordan to wear its swoosh? A lot. And you can hardly see the color of a NASCAR racecar with all the corporate logos plastered from bumper to bumper.

Does it bother me? Not at all. I don’t even notice it. I am such a product of the advertising age, it all blends into the landscape. In any case, I would rather have private companies fund these activities instead of paying for them through tax dollars. But, more than that, I grew up at a place that celebrated private enterprise and set the bar for corporate sponsorships – Disneyland.

It cost about $17 million to build Disneyland in 1955, but Walt was still running short of cash to finish the park the way he wanted, and he had to postpone building some of the rides he had in mind. That’s when the sponsorship idea came to him. Why not take a page out of the TV advertising playbook? I grew up in the pre-cable TV dark ages, when every show was “brought to you by” somebody. So, why not extend that same concept to the financing of an amusement park? Let companies pay for some of the rides in exchange for attaching their name to it. It is a win-win strategy. The cost of the park could be shared by “advertisers” in exchange for “face time” with patrons. Walt pitched the idea to some of America’s biggest companies. It is estimated that about 33 corporations signed on to sponsor attractions when Disneyland first opened its doors.
When I was a kid almost every ride, attraction, and eating establishment at Disneyland bore the name of a corporate sponsor. With familiar American company names at every turn, the park seemed more like a real community than a land of make-believe. As I walked down Main Street I passed by the Global Van Lines Locker Service, Sunkist Citrus House, Wurlitzer Music Hall, Coca Cola Refreshment Corner and the Carnation Plaza Gardens. (Trivia moment: Of the 33 original Disneyland sponsors, only three still have an active presence in the park today. Can you name them? See the end of this post for the answer.)


Corporate sponsors of Disney rides were, and still are, commonplace. The Santa Fe Railroad sponsored the Disneyland train, AT&T hosted Circarama, Atlantic Richfield Oil put their name to the Autopia, Monsanto’s name could be seen on three attractions:
the Hall of Chemistry, House of the Future, and Adventures Thru Inner Space.










The list of sponsors goes on:

Company - Attraction
Kaiser Aluminum - Hall of Aluminum Fame
Dutch Boy Paints - Color Gallery
Bell System - America the Beautiful
General Electric - Carousel of Progress
National Car Rentals - Horseless Carriage
Chicken of the Sea - Pirate Ship
Dole Fresh Fruit Company - Enchanted Tiki Room
Goodyear - People Mover
Bank of America - It’s a Small World
Lincoln Savings - Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln


Do you remember the “Kodak Photo Spots” throughout the park? Strategically located signs alerted guests to a particularly picturesque vista that showcased the park and would win the family photographer praise for his artistic eye. Now, anywhere I travel around the country, if I see a scene that cries to be photographed, I declare, “Now, there’s a Kodak Photo Spot.” I am sure that Kodak marketing idea has paid for itself many times over.

In some cases for me the sponsor’s name became synonymous with the ride itself. Monsanto hosted the Adventure Thru Inner Space (now replaced with Star Tours), but it was easier for me to just call it the “the Monsanto ride”. To me the brand name and the product had become synonymous, like Scotch Tape or Kleenex – an advertiser’s dream come true.

Some of the companies who sponsored rides would have remained a mystery to me had it not been for their participation at Disneyland. At the tender age of seven I stood in line for the brand new Submarine Voyage. General Dynamics, builder of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarines, had agreed to sponsor this attraction. I thought that was pretty cool. As we weaved back and forth through the line, we could see large placards displaying the name of General Dynamics with illustrations and diagrams explaining how submarines are built and how they work. The memory was indelible. To this day I have never seen the name of General Dynamics anywhere else, but I will always know it as the builder of America’s atomic submarines.

One of the most shameless (but thoroughly delightful) melding of sponsor and attraction was the General Electric Carousel of Progress, which ran from 1965-1973. Not only did GE host the ride, the entire journey featured the evolution of electricity in the home, from the late 1800s to the present and beyond – showing how much electrical appliances, specifically GE appliances, have benefited American life. As a sponsor, you can’t get much more mileage from a ride than for the ride to brag about you the entire time. By the way, the Carousel of Progress holds two points of distinction. First, it was reportedly Walt Disney’s favorite ride in the park, and second, the show holds the record for having more performances than any other stage presentation in the world.

Competition among sponsors can be a tricky thing at Disneyland. When I was younger, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola served as sponsors. Pepsi was the long-standing host of the Golden Horseshoe Revue, and Coca-Cola still reigns at the Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner on Main Street. To placate both companies, Disney decreed that while both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola drinks would be sold at the park, they would not be sold at the same venues.

Sometimes sponsors have flexed enough muscle to force a Disneyland ride name change. When United Airlines was negotiating to become the sponsor of the Astro-Jet ride in Tomorrowland, it objected to the name of the ride (“Astro-Jet”), which it claimed constituted unfair free advertising for its arch rival American Airlines, who called its fleet “Astro-jets”. Disney conceded and renamed the ride “Rocket Jets”.

I have noticed that several attractions at Disneyland have no corporate sponsors. I wonder why not. It seems an ideal opportunity for some enterprising company to capture the public’s eye. Of course, you would need just the right match-up between sponsor and attraction – you know, the way McDonnell Douglas sponsoring the Mission to Mars is such a logical fit. I have some suggestions for other attractions that would make the perfect marriage. How about these:

The Frontierland Shooting Gallery – Sponsored by the NRA
The Haunted Mansion – Sponsored by Forest Lawn Mortuary
Mark Twain Steam Boat – Sponsored by Carnival Cruise Lines
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride – Sponsored by NASCAR
Grand Canyon Diorama – Sponsored by The Sierra Club
Pirates of the Caribbean – Sponsored by the Internal Revenue Service (they pillage and plunder and ransack and loot . . .)

The whole sponsorship program at Disneyland was borne out of necessity, when ideas were big but money was short. But, you know, we are facing tough economic times today, and it seems money is short again. I worry about businesses suffering as people tighten their belts and spend less. That kind of “tight wallet” thinking is bound to hit Disneyland hard, the Temple of discretionary spending. If Disneyland went under just think of the ripple effect – the jobs lost, the hospitality industry, the food vendors, the souvenir manufacturers, the landscapers, the whole city of Anaheim, oh the humanity! But wait – if private capital dries up, there is always a bail-out hope from the federal government. That is all the rage these days, from banks to auto makers to the entire real estate world. Disneyland is too big to fail. If that day ever came, the government would simply have to come to the rescue. If that occurred, Disneyland would finally have the ultimate corporate sponsor, and it would be fitting for the entrance sign over the park to read:

Welcome to Disneyland
Brought to You By
The United States of America!

Answer to the Trivia Question above: Coca-Cola, Carnation, and the Eastman Kodak Company.)