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PAGE CONTENTS:
A Few Tidbits
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Mary Poppins
1955 - Disneyland Opens
Club 33

A Few Tidbits
Animation artists love inside jokes. In the Disney film Beauty and the Beast (1991), the road signs that Belle's father encounters in the forest show the names of two California cities: one points to Anaheim, while the other points down a dark, sinister-looking path to Valencia. In truth, Anaheim is the site of Disneyland, while the rival Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement theme park is in the city of Valencia.
In 1940, Walt Disney's Fantasia was the first film in history to use stereophonic sound. Ever the perfectionist, Disney personally paid for equipping the New York and Los Angeles Cathay theaters with stereo speakers for his pet film's world premiere. Unfortunately, the film bombed at the box office.

In March 2000, the Disney company reversed its 43-year ban on mustaches for its theme-park employees. A memo sent to the 12,000 Disneyland and Walt Disney World employees said guests would be comfortable with “neatly trimmed mustaches.” Founding father Walt Disney sported his own mustache, but that didn't stop him in 1957 from banning facial hair. He did this to distance his crew from stereotypical county-fair “carnies.” The grooming code at the theme parks still bans beards, goatees, piercings, and unnatural hair colors.

In the scrolling final credits of Disney's Fantasia, the sorcerer's name is listed as "Yensid" – Disney spelt backwards.

Every plant in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, is edible. Plants in this section of the amusement park include bananas, strawberries, tomatoes, and more. Guest are more than welcome to pick their fill.

For the Disney film Aladdin (1992), Robin Williams agreed to work for "scale," the Screen Actors Guild minimum of $485 per day, plus a painting by Pablo Picasso.

H.R. Haldeman and Ron Ziegler, who helped plan the Watergate burglary for President Nixon, both worked at Disneyland when they were younger.

Box-office champ Toy Story (1995) is said to be filled with subtle inside jokes. One is in the name of the evil boy who lives next door to Andy and the toys. Sid Phillips, the wicked boy, was reportedly inspired by a former Pixar employee of the same last name who was known to disassemble toys and use the parts to build bizarre creations.

Cowboy singer Rex Allen narrated more than 80 Walt Disney films.

Discovering two photographs of nude women among the film's more than 110,000 frames, Disney Studios recalled 3.4 million copies of the kiddie home video release of The Rescuers (1977), featuring the voices of Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor.

Disney World in Florida was opened to the public in 1971. The amusement park was the largest in the world, set within 28,000 acres. It required a $400-million investment, and did not do well during the first year it was opened. Only 10,000 people visited Disney World during that initial year. With time, however, the attendance numbers rose to more than 10,000 people an hour.

Disney World in Orlando, Florida, covers 30,500 acres (46 square miles), making it twice the size of the island of Manhattan, New York.

Disney's Mulan was the first feature length production created by Walt Disney Feature Animation, Florida, located at Disney/MGM Studios at Walt Disney World.   Mulan did not do well in China. Many Chinese, especially the elderly, complained that the title character looked too Western.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
 
No one can say just when Walt Disney began thinking about undertaking his biggest project to date, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but by the summer of 1934, his ideas were beginning to take concrete form. An exploratory outline that he distributed to his animation staff, dated August 9, 1934, included the following discussion of the dwarfs' names: "The names which follow each suggest a type of character and the names will immediately identify the character in the minds of the audience." Some of the names that were considered, then discarded, included Scrappy, Doleful, Crabby, Wistful, Dumpy, Soulful, Tearful, Snappy, Helpful, Gaspy, Gloomy, Busy, Dirty, Awful, Dizzy, Shifty, and Biggy-Wiggy.   In 1938, Walt Disney received a special honor for his film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Disney was given an Oscar and seven miniature statuettes to commend his film.
 
In the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the dwarfs are indistinct, interchangeable characters. For Disney's version, more than 50 names and personalities were thought up -- including Tubby, Burpy, and Biggy-Wiggy -- before the final Seven Dwarf names were chosen.

MARY POPPINS
Mary Poppins is a series of children's books written by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard.
Van Dyke's attempt at a British accent was nonetheless widely ridiculed and is still frequently parodied. It is still often cited as one of the worst attempts at a British accent by an American actor.

In 2006 this film ranked #6 on the American Film Institute's list of best musicals.
Magic Performed
* Blows other potential nannies arriving at the Banks home away in a gust of wind.

* Flies to the Banks home with an umbrella.

* Pulls out the Banks children's ripped advertisment from her pocket.

* Sits on the Banks staircase railing and slides upwards.

* Pulls out a hatstand, potted plant and lamp from her carpetbag.

* Cleans up the children's nursery by clicking her fingers.

* Duets with her reflection.

* Leads Bert, Jane Banks and Michael Banks to jump into a street painting.

* Leads Bert, Jane Banks and Michael Banks on a walk above the London rooftops.

* Flies away from the Banks home with her umbrella.

Songs Performed
* A Spoonful of Sugar
* Jolly Holiday
* Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
* Stay Awake
* I Love to Laugh
* Feed the Birds (Tuppence a Bag)
* Chim Chim Cher-ee 

1955 - Disneyland Opens
by Jennifer Rosenberg, About.com guide.

When they were little, Walt Disneywould take his two young daughters, Diane and Sharon, to play at the carousel at Griffith Park in Los Angeles every Sunday. While his daughters enjoyed their repeated rides, Disney sat on park benches with the other parents who had nothing to do but watch. It was on these Sunday excursions that Walt Disney began to dream of an activity park that had things for both children and parents to do.

At first, Disney envisioned an 8-acre park which would be located near his Burbank studios and be called, "Mickey Mouse Park." However, as Disney began to plan themed areas, he quickly realized that 8-acres would be way too small for his vision. 

Although World War II and other projects put Disney's theme park on the back burner for many years, Disney continued to dream about his future park. In 1953, Walt Disney was finally ready to start on what would become known as Disneyland.

The first part of the project was to find a location. Disney hired the Stanford Research Institute to find an appropriate location that consisted of at least 100-acres, was located near Los Angeles, and could be reached by a freeway. The company found for Disney a 160-acre orange orchard in Anaheim, California.

Next came finding funding. While Walt Disney put up much of his own money to make his dream a reality, he didn't have enough personal money to complete the project. Disney then contacted financiers to help. But however much Walt Disney was enthralled with the theme park idea, the financiers he approached were not. Many of the financiers could not envision the monetary rewards of a place of dreams. To gain financial support for his project, Disney turned to the new medium of television. Disney made a plan with ABC: ABC would help finance the park if Disney would produce a television show on their channel. The program Walt created was called "Disneyland" and showed previews of the different themed areas in the new, upcoming park.

On July 21, 1954, construction on the park began. It was a momentous undertaking to build Main Street, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland in only one year. The total cost of building Disneyland would be $17 million.

On July 17, 1955, 6,000 by-invitation-only guests were invited for a special preview of Disneyland before it opened to the public the following day. Unfortunately, 22,000 extra people arrived with counterfeit tickets.

Besides the huge numbers of extra people on this first day, many other things went wrong. Included in the problems were a heat wave that made the temperature unusually and unbearably hot, a plumber's strike meant only a few of the water fountains were functional, women's shoes sunk into still soft asphalt which had been laid the night before, and a gas leak caused several of the themed areas to be closed temporarily.

Despite these initial setbacks, Disneyland opened to the public on July 18, 1955, with an entrance fee of $1. Over the decades, Disneyland has added attractions and opened the imaginations of millions of children.

What was true when Walt Disney stated it during the opening ceremonies in 1995 still stands true today: "To all who come to this happy place - welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world. Thank you."
©2010 About.com, a part of The New York Times.  All rights reserved.

Club 33
Contrary to popular belief, Disneyland has a full liquor license which is used when the place closes down to the general public to accommodate private parties. But there is one place in Disneyland that is always open to sell booze: Club 33. Club 33 is a private club located in the heart of the New Orleans Square section of Disneyland. Officially maintained as a secret feature of the theme park, the entrance of the club is located next to the Blue Bayou Restaurant at “33 Royal Street” with the entrance recognizable by an ornate address plate with the number 33 engraved on it. Fees for joining range from 10 – 30 thousand US dollars and membership comes with a car park. If you want to join the club, you have to go to the end of the fourteen year waiting list.
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