Boing Boing: Disneyland Handcrafted is a new documentary about the construction of Disneyland from July 16, 1954 to its opening date on July 17, 1955. The fact that this groundbreaking park was built in one year is mind-boggling. Today, it can take five years to construct one Disney theme park ride!
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If nothing else, this article shows the importance of documenting your process, because who knows who’s gonna need it in the future. The fact that something as elaborate and ground breaking as disney land was built in under a year is frankly astounding. I wonder what sorts of hours these people were working, especially as it sounds like Walt Disney had a the show will open god damnit mentality about the opening date. I do find it a little comical that this is being used to advertise the parks, when it seems like this is video footage of highly overworked artisans creating a theme park in a ridiculous amount of time. But perhaps I will give it a watch and see what sort of stuff was going on. Its impressive that all this footage was just lying around for decades before someone decided to do something with it, but I’m glad these unsung workers and artists are finally getting some sort of spotlight.
It’s extremely impressive that Disneyland got built in a single day, especially considering how Disney now takes typically two years to build just a single new ride, and Universal just took five years to build Epic Universe. While yes, you can definitely argue that it was certainly easier to build parks that hold thousands of folks per year back in the 1900’s, and yes you can clearly see them commit violations in the article that would get a worksite shut down extremely fast now adays, I still think it all comes down to the development process and how you approach the overall view of it. You had that pressure of both the money side and public pressure side, which resulted in them speeding to get it open and worrying about fixes later. While it’s not the safest way to open a new park, it certainly worked, even if that method wouldn’t fly today.
This article is so cool! I love the Disney parks, so it is always awesome to learn more about the technicalities of them. I can not believe that Disneyland was built in one year! Something like that would never be able to happen nowadays, which is kind of crazy considering how much more advanced we are. I guess this could be because the labor laws and safety standards were much lower back then, but this is still such an amazing achievement! I also wonder what the ride safety looked like on that short timeline. They did not have as many roller coasters when they opened Disneyland, so maybe they didn't have to worry about it. I think the deadline that Disney self imposed is kind of crazy. I would have been way too stressed! I think that they were working right up to the deadline, and I have heard that people's shoes were getting stuck in the asphalt since it was so fresh. This documentary sounds awesome, and I will definitely have to check it out!
I did not realize that Disneyland was only built in a year. I wonder what this says about the efficiency of the construction team and perhaps what they left out of the process in order to get it done on time. I appreciate that they took to looking at the workers and all the details that go into making something like this happen so quickly. It’s the collection of everyone’s individual effort that makes incredible things happen. I hope that they were able to continue improving the theme park and making it even better beyond their opening date. I have never been to Disneyland before but I would like to go now simply to look at the construction and what has been around since it was opened to see if it has been changed. What’s more, I’m glad that the unused footage was able to be repurposed into something that people can enjoy and learn about an iconic attraction from.
It is still mind-boggling to know that Disneyland was built in one year. The last part of this article, mentioning the artistic shots in the documentary movie that Disney has, feels strange. Since we now know, the shots being taken and edited are all the ones that are supposed to be used for publicity reasons. Disney had always set the highest standard in the entertainment industry. Their first theme park, in Walt Disney’s view, should be a really profitable approach if he can capture the popularity across the nation. So the success of this project was really crucial to Walt Disney’s company. With that in mind, I wouldn’t be able to view the beautiful shots as artistic recordings but as something that’s more propaganda-like, but in a professional manner that TVC people can learn about. I think this whole chain of events has more educational value than memorial value to Mr. Walt Disney.
I find it so impressive that a company as big as Disney could build their iconic park in a year. Just a few weeks ago when Hudson came to visit, I remember the representative was talking about their experience working with Disney’s on creating their Star Wars ride and it seemed pretty detailed. It makes me wonder what process they went through when pre-planning the original opening of the park. Even though they only had a year, it’s crazy to think that their work set brand new standards in the industry as an immersive theme park. I find it pretty funny that the processes they took while constructing the theme park back then could have gotten them shut down today, things I never thought anyone would do. I also like how they documented so much of the construction process, it shows that documentation is very important and it’s nice to see where things began and how you built up to the final product.
I don’t know much about Disneyland, especially what it was like in the 1950s, but I still think this is an incredible feat. If it’s any competent or comparable Disney park, it’s super shocking that they would be able to get this done in such little time.
Everyone involved in making this possible must have really been nervous with such a tight deadline. I really appreciate the documentary for being a piece that highlights those workers, too. They were the reason they could complete an immersive theme park project in only one year, so it’s great to see that they’re the focus of the documentary. I think I might set aside an hour to watch the documentary and learn what it would’ve been like to take on such a daunting task in the ‘50s. It seems so interesting to look at the differences in how Disney works, and how it worked in such a different time.
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