Stupid Guest Tricks

oh my gosh!!! I've seen guests like that!!!

I remember walking from the Hub over towards the Tomorrowland entrance one day on my way to lunch just in time to see this little boy running towards the castle shouting "hey let's go on the teacups - they're right through the castle gate!!! I saw that on t.v.!!!"

What most people do not realize is that Disneyland was a TV show before it was a theme park and that the park was to promote the show and vise versa.

LOL. Close, but no cigar.

Basically, Walt had trouble getting the $$$ to build DL, so he made a deal with ABC that they would give him the money to build DL, but in exchange, he had to produce the tv show. The obvious side benefit of this was that it DID promote the park. But the park was not created to promote the tv show.

Actually, the TV show was made to build the Park, which was built to sell lots of junk food and make people feel ill by spinning them around on wild rides. All of this in order to further the sales of Pepto Bismol, of which Walt owned a big chunk of... :roll:

Yep. In 1954, ABC made a deal with Walt. They would provide $500,000 in funding, as well as guaranteeing all of WED's loans. In exchange, they got 35% ownership in Disneyland, along with a percentage of (or it may have been all... I can't remember) the food concession profits for 10 years. On top of that, as part of the deal, Walt agreed to produce a weekly hour-long show for ABC named for his park-to-be. The show was basically designed to promote his new park like mad. If you think about it, it's probably one of the best marketing deals ever made. ABC basically paid Walt to promote his own park on their network for an hour a week.

Then, in 1960, Walt bought that 35% back from ABC for $7.5 million. Of course, much later down the road (1995), Disney ended up buying ABC up in its entirety for $19 billion.

Brief yet informative very helpful Doug!!!