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)