ALEX CHADWICK, host:
This is DAY TO DAY. I'm Alex Chadwick.
(Soundbite of park activity)
CHADWICK: Once upon a time here in radioland, back in the "Morning Edition" theme park, I used to go on National Geographic Radio Expeditions, but somehow I never got to that exotic and alluring destination right here in Southern California: Disneyland.
Unidentified Child: Oh, no! Pirate ship ahead.
CHADWICK: Yes, there are pirate ships ahead, cannonballs, ghosts, wild animals, albeit fake ones, parades, fireworks and a gigantic mouse--all in a setting that turns 50 years old on Sunday. In that time, Disneyland has become an American icon, the Mt. Rushmore of the entertainment world and Everest maybe. Well, actually Disneyland pretty much defies analogy.
Mr. JOE AGUIRRE (Disneyland Spokesman): Well, Walt wanted to create a place where families could have fun together.
CHADWICK: Joe Aguirre, a Disney spokesman who showed us around.
Mr. AGUIRRE: Years ago, before he built Disneyland, he would take his own two daughters to amusement parks or carnivals and oftentimes the rides were geared towards the children, and so the parents had to stand or sit off to the side and watch while the youngsters had fun. And he envisioned building a theme park where families could come and enjoy the attractions together.
CHADWICK: From Radio Expeditions, I know that if you go someplace new, it's good to get a guide. I used Disney connoisseur Will Abbott. He'll be seven in a couple of weeks.
WILL ABBOTT: It's a Small World--it's like you go on this boat and you get to see this town called It's a Small World.
CHADWICK: We wandered through the theme park earlier this week. It was crowded, but to get on the Small World ride, we waited only a few minutes.
Here we go by something that might have come out of "Aladdin," flying carpets.
The narrow boat held rows of seats, enough for a dozen or so people in all. We floated from outdoors into an enclosure where the canal led past costume singing dolls grouped by region, until finally the ride was over and we emerged back in the sunshine.
Unidentified Woman #1: Welcome back. Exit to the right-hand side. Thank you and have a great day.
CHADWICK: I've never been here before, but really all of us have been here before. The Disneyland experience is ubiquitous in American culture and not just American culture--television has taken it around the world. So even though I've never seen it, some of these places are familiar: Main Street, the rows of Victorian shops and storefronts, Tomorrowland with its fantasies of the future, Adventureland with the jungle cruise, and Pirates of the Caribbean, the theme park ride that inspired a movie.
ABBOTT: Sometimes we're going to see pirate ships and two cannonballs will be heading at us.
CHADWICK: We're going to get shot at by cannonballs?
ABBOTT: And they're real. But don't worry. They never hit the boat.
CHADWICK: So this is just like--we're going along at night. We're passing by these mangrove swamps and we can hear these night animals.
ABBOTT: There's going to be a crocodile.
CHADWICK: The figures this time are life-size--the animals and the animatronic pirates. `Animatronic'--that's a term the Disney people coined after they developed the technology to make these not quite robots seem to move and speak.
And...
ABBOTT: And those cannons are heading at us.
Unidentified Man #1: Here they come again, lads.
CHADWICK: They do seem to have some kind of cannonballs. Something's splashing in the water with a burst of light and throwing splashes of water all over us.
Mr. MIKE FAY (Conservationist): I went to the Pirates of the Caribbean back in 1963, '64, so yeah, I grew up on Disneyland.
CHADWICK: Even before we left to come to Disneyland, I called conservationist and real explorer Mike Fay to talk about it. Mike is so intrepid he walked across the Congo a few years ago, but he used to be a California kid, and back then he explored Disneyland.
Did that in some way, do you think, contribute to your idea that there is such a thing as conservation--when you were a little kid I mean?
Mr. FAY: Certainly what Disney did, and this is probably the greatest thing that it did, is it gave me great empathy for wild animals. It made me feel like, yeah, this deer has a brain, it thinks, it's a living being and it deserves to live on this planet. And certainly that's what Disney did for me--no doubt about it.
CHADWICK: The year before he opened Disneyland, Walt started the weekly TV show "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color." Not a coincidence, our Disney guide said.
Mr. AGUIRRE: Walt was a master showman and actually the Disneyland show--and I believe that was the original title for it--preceded the opening of the park, and that was by design because he used that show not only to mention, you know, upcoming animated features, but to market this park, to excite people, to let them know that it was about to be opened in 1955.
CHADWICK: And right after he opened the park came the daily hour TV show "The Mickey Mouse Club," with Spin and Marty and Annette and all the rest, and all that time the experts had been calling Disneyland `Walt's folly.'
It's odd adjusting to this place because it is so familiar from television. But here you are, walking down Main Street. It's just like the old Walt Disney shows except it's real. Of course, it's not real, but it is real. You're walking through a television set.
Mr. AGUIRRE: OK, we're going next to the Haunted Mansion.
ABBOTT: Yea! The Haunted Mansion is another fun ride.
CHADWICK: Even without the man from Disney, my young guide Will could find the way to the Haunted Mansion. The lines outside now were longer. That's one thing the visitors don't like, and it can get hot in the afternoon--kids get tired. But then you enter the cool interior of some ride dreamed up by the design staff that Disney called the Imagineers.
(Soundbite of ride experience)
Unidentified Man #2: This chamber has no windows and no doors, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, which offers you this chilling challenge: to find a way out. Of course, there's always my way.
ABBOTT: Look at that guy up there.
CHADWICK: Yeah.
Will never even trembled, maybe because he's been on most of these rides many times, or maybe because his dad, Bill(ph), was with us. He works in the film industry. He recognizes, even admires the calculated Disney mind-set that attends to every detail. It's not like going to an amusement park where you wander from one ride to another. In Disneyland, the park itself is the real ride and once you enter the experience you are never out of it.
Mr. BILL ABBOTT: You know, there's things about this place that are a little creepy for me as well, but as a kid, you know, you're not really aware of any of that, so it's pretty magical.
CHADWICK: Creepy because it's controlled, because you have fun in the way...
Mr. ABBOTT: Because you can't take this microphone and walk over and talk to that person over there without somebody allowing you to do it. This place is doing--they're doing very well, but they're control freaks.
CHADWICK: There is that sense of underlying control. It bothers some visitors. It's Disney, Disney, Disney all the time. When I read business news about the company, I don't like its bloat and arrogance, but in Disneyland I'm reminded of Walt's original touch, its essence, the innocence, so contrived, so appealing.
(Soundbite of ride experience)
Unidentified Woman #2: Tonight we're going to share one little real cartoon together.
CHADWICK: The fireworks show at the end of the day is not the biggest I've seen, not the most spectacular. But scaled to this space and set to music it is unquestionably the best.
DAY TO DAY producer Katherine Fox and I left to come back to the studio. Will and his dad stayed and rode the Pirates of the Caribbean six more times.
I'm Alex Chadwick, and DAY TO DAY continues in just a moment.
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