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View Full Version : Disneyland 50th Anniversary article - USA Today - 3-10-05



I Heart Disneyland!
03-10-2005, 05:19 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2005-03-10-disney-essay_x.htm

This is a neat article and some cool photos of Disneyland. Talking about the 50th anniversary.

Mommy2NicknMax
03-10-2005, 05:31 PM
Thanks for posting this! I enjoyed the pics. Can't wait until May 5th!

Emma
03-10-2005, 05:51 PM
Thanks, I Heart-- That was really interesting, and I enjoyed the photos.

Opus1guy
03-10-2005, 05:52 PM
Thanks for the link. I think you should post this in the Disneyland Forum, for perhaps more or different readership.

Maus
03-10-2005, 06:55 PM
I'm surprised that USAToday doesn't have a better fact-checker. The photo gallery photo descriptions say that the park opened on Dec. 17, 1955. And another states young Robert Shriver is riding a donkey. Tsk, tsk.

sediment
03-10-2005, 07:17 PM
Great: now every traveler in the USA right now knows.

tod
03-11-2005, 12:22 AM
Those memories are especially poignant this year given that Walt's greatest early creation, Disneyland, will celebrate its 50th birthday.

Never mind Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and the Laugh-O-Grams and the two early silent Mickey shorts. Let's peg Walt's debut to the 1928 premiere of Steamboat Willie.

If we accept this, then when Disneyland opened in 1955, Walt had been a producer for 27 years already.

Disneyland an "early creation"? I think not.

--t

bradk
03-11-2005, 04:00 AM
well i don't really see how you can refer to the first animated feature with synchronized sound 'great' in the whole grand scheme of things. that's like saying there was something special about 'the jazz singer' just because it was the first talkie.

tod
03-11-2005, 06:36 AM
well i don't really see how you can refer to the first animated feature with synchronized sound 'great' in the whole grand scheme of things. that's like saying there was something special about 'the jazz singer' just because it was the first talkie.

Good point, but not what I was talking about.

My point was that if Walt Disney was actively creating in 1928, by 1955 anything he did was not an "early creation." I'm talking chronology, not merit.

And do yourself a favor and pass up the 1928 The Jazz Singer. It's mostly silent and based much of its success on the popularity and charisma of Al Jolson, a singer whose style does not age well and seems hammy and overdone today. I saw it at a 50th-anniversary-of-sound commemorative screening in 1978 and I hated it.

--t

bradk
03-11-2005, 06:50 AM
sorry, i was kidding. in my opinion, both were significant in the history of films. not necessarily for the content, but simply because they were the lucky ones to be the first to employ technology which today is so easily taken for granted.

'snow white' came out several years before disneyland opened and quite a few people consider it extremely significant, not just as a disney product, but as a feat in animation in general, mostly for being the first 'feature length' animated film in the US (as nobody really took animation seriously) - and then of course some time later, they end up being nominated for best picture at the oscars and inspiring a whole new category.

disneyland came about simply because walt was mostly done being fascinated by the animation thing and wanted to tackle new areas.