Wednesday, May 4, 2005 | 3:12 a.m.
"Disneyland is your land. Here, age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future." -- Walt Disney, July 17, 1955
There were plenty of reasons to question whether Disneyland had much of a future in store on that stiflingly hot summer day nearly half a century ago.
Opening day - "Black Sunday" as it would become known - offered its share of fiascoes to the more than 28,000 visitors (including such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Kirk Douglas and Debbie Reynolds) who swarmed the Anaheim, Calif., amusement park.
Gas leaks and power outages, overcrowded and broken-down rides, and food and beverage shortages plagued "The Happiest Place on Earth" - hardly the stuff of which cherished childhood memories are made.
Luckily, such large-scale disasters have been fewer and farther between in the years since.
Disneyland is closed to the public today, but reopens Thursday to kick off its "Happiest Homecoming on Earth" celebration, in honor of the park's 50th anniversary.
"We are inviting everybody back to kind of enjoy memories of the past, but also make new memories," explains Tim O'Day, director of print and online publicity for Disney Resorts, of the homecoming theme. "People want to come back and immerse themselves in the memories they've made in the past, but yet they want to see something new and exciting and that's very much what the 50th anniversary is all about."
Also launching Thursday is the "Happiest Celebration on Earth," an acknowledgment of the milestone at Disney's other theme parks in Florida and around the globe. It's a safe bet that events at Disneyland - including the unveiling of a pair of new parades and a much-anticipated fireworks show - will go much smoother than those of five decades ago.
The "Homecoming" festivities have been at least two years in the making, and plenty of elbow grease has gone into sprucing up the amusement park and many of its attractions in advance of the 18-month-long celebration, which runs through fall 2006.
All fired up
For its golden anniversary, the place is awash in gold paint: Lampposts along Main Street have been given a shiny coat, and one vehicle from each of the original 1955 rides that remain - including Autopia, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Snow White's Scary Adventures, King Arthur Carousel and Mad Tea Party -- have also "received the Midas touch, if you will," O'Day says.
Meanwhile, Sleeping Beauty Castle has undergone a face-lift of sorts: Five gold crowns were placed on its turrets, and its facade was studded with "precious stones," among other enhancements.
The pink castle will serve as the backdrop for "Remember ... Dreams Come True," which the company is touting as "the biggest fireworks spectacular in Disneyland history."
The 17-minute show pays pyrotechnic tribute to several of Disneyland's signature rides -- among them Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion and Star Tours -- and music via a soundtrack that is "kind of this trip down Disney memory lane," says Steve Davison, creative director for Disney Worldwide Entertainment, who has overseen development on all the 50th anniversary entertainment at the park.
The fireworks show also features perennial favorite Tinkerbell, who will follow a new seemingly gravity-defying flight path over the park as part of the program.
"We call it, 'Tinkerbell for the next generation,' " Davison said during a recent call from his Anaheim office.
Updated technology will allow the fairy to make "return flights" throughout the show, among other feats.
"She's lit completely differently; she flies completely differently; she interacts with all of the lighting and the pyro," Davison explains. "Everything is programmed within an inch of its life."
Davison, who has worked for Disney for 23 years, also oversaw the creation of Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams, what he calls "an epic parade" composed of floats depicting "the qualities of Disneyland" with the help of several of the company's most notable animated characters.
The "Alice in Wonderland" float, for example, "is about the laughter of Disneyland," while "The Lion King" entry "is about the adventure," he explains. The "bigger-than-life" vehicles are "filled with fountain effects; they're filled with bungee effects; they're filled with trampoline effects."
He adds: "It's one of those parades that you probably have to see again and again to really see everything that's gone into it because there are animatronic figures ... there are repuppetted characters, and it's really just kind of this overwhelming piece."
Debuting next door, at Disney's California Adventures theme park, is Block Party Blast, an interactive parade that doubles as a street party led by characters from Disney/Pixar's hit animated flicks ("Toy Story," "A Bug's Life," "Monsters, Inc.").
"They're a little irreverent and a little wild, so when we mixed that with music that everybody's known for the last 50 years and made these kind of wild, interactive things about it, it's amazing," Davison insists.
"We have such a sophisticated audience now with kids, and it's tougher and tougher to get a 'Wow' to happen," he contends. "I think that's been the big challenge for us, to see how we could kind of push the envelope again in entertainment and really succeed at it."
History lessons
The president has left the building -- at least for a while. The audio-animatronic favorite "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln" is on what O'Day calls "a temporary vacation" from the Main Street Opera House, where "Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years," an exhibit of artwork and models of the park, has been installed.
The show's highlight is a lighthearted film starring comedian/actor Steve Martin (who once worked as a guide on the park's Jungle Cruise ride) and Donald Duck. The duo present rarely seen footage from Disneyland's opening-day festivities.
"To get (Martin) to come back and do all these jokes with Donald Duck is hysterical," Davison says. "And there's all this great historic footage, a lot of people haven't seen it. At first you're like, 'Oh, it's gonna be a history movie,' and then they turned it into this really fantastic experience."
Additional history -- that of some of Disneyland's 500 million visitors during the past five decades -- is also on display throughout the park as part of "The Happiest Faces on Earth ... A Disney Family Album" photo-collage project.
The big cheeses at Disney put out the call last year for folks to send snapshots of themselves taken during trips to the theme park. "Hundreds of thousands" of pictures were received, O'Day says, and were grouped into several murals that from afar depict famous Disney movie characters and scenes.
Ready to ride
New in Tommorowland is Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, which opened earlier this year. Similar to an attraction at the Magic Kingdom in Florida, the Disneyland version is based on the high-flying hero from the "Toy Story" movie series. Riders drive Star Cruiser vehicles, firing at enemy targets and scoring points along the way.
"I think it's a terrific ride," says David Koenig, a Disneyland aficionado who has authored a trio of books about the park, including the recently released golden-anniversary edition of "Mouse Tales: A Behind-the-Ears Look at Disneyland" (Bonaventure Press, $35.95). He also contributes a monthly column to the Disneyland-fan Web site www.mouseplanet.com.
Koenig, who is the editor of a group of business-trade magazines in Newport Beach, Calif., says he rode the Buzz Lightyear attraction shortly after it opened at Disneyland, and says it is "the type of ride people will want to go on every single time they go to the park because it's always different and you're interacting with the ride."
Another crowd pleaser, Space Mountain, is set to reopen in July following a two-year closure during which the ride's twisting, turning track was rebuilt. The attraction will boast newly designed rocket vehicles and a new soundtrack, as well as other upgrades.
Over in Adventureland, an extensive rehab was recently completed on the beloved Enchanted Tiki Room. The attraction was refurbished inside and out, with its signature singing audio-animatronic birds given much-needed makeovers. Similar efforts were conducted on the neighboring Jungle Cruise, and other rides throughout the park.
Party for the ages
Such overhauls are "the best thing to me" about the celebration, says 42-year-old Koenig, who estimates he's visited the park "close to 200 times" since his childhood in the late 1960s. For the anniversary, he says, Disney execs "have restored the crown jewel" to the park.
Koenig, who tracks and reports on preparations for "Homecoming" festivities and other Disneyland news in his column for www.mouseplanet.com, says in recent years the park has been "Rehab Land," with many rides and attractions "closed down; things were breaking down. Things like the Tiki Room were in awful, awful shape. There were fewer and fewer rides, yet bigger and bigger crowds," he contends.
Beginning Thursday, "I suspect Disneyland will look the best it's ever looked in 50 years. Everything will be freshly painted, freshly oiled, the screws will all have been tightened. I can hardly wait."
Still, Koenig questions whether the anniversary celebration can live up to the hype that has preceded it.
"I had huge, gigantic hopes that this would be the biggest celebration to end all celebrations ... and it's not shaping up to be quite the greatest thing in the history of theme parks," he says.
"If you go there expecting five new E-ticket rides, you're gonna be extremely disappointed," Koenig says, referring to the days when access to the park's rides -- with "E" designating the most exciting attractions -- was through ticket books. "If you go there on just a normal visit to Disneyland, you'll probably be blown away."
"The one thing I really wanted -- expected, thirsted for -- from this celebration was a chance to step back and be a kid again; to remember what it was when I first visited Disneyland in the late '60s; for them to somehow re-create those feelings and those expectations ... I don't know how close they're gonna come to doing that for me, because I don't know if they really care to do that for anyone."
Nevertheless, "My fingers are crossed."
Lisa Ferguson is a freelance writer for the Sun. Her Laugh Lines column appears Fridays.
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