Acquired
02:37:17 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[02:37:17] S1: Yes. When Walt gets obsessed with something, he he goes to an unreasonable extremes. [02:37:24] S0: When he and his wife were looking at houses to figure out where what property they were gonna buy and then build a house on, A major consideration was, is there room for a giant train to be laid out? He ends up it's on Carrollwood Avenue, I believe, Carrollwood Street. Yep. And he ends up naming it the Carrollwood Pacific. The, steam engine is named the Lily Bell after his wife. It's a whole thing. [02:37:47] S1: Yep. And if you go to Disneyland or Disney World today, most of the steam engines of the railroads are named in callbacks to this period and this inspiration in Walt's life. So there's the Lily Bell engine at Walt Disney World. There's the Ward Kimball, who is the original animator that gets him into this hobby. There's the Roger Brogi, as you're saying, and, then there's also the Roy Disney. [02:38:11] S0: Oh, nice. I did not know that. So this is great quote in a PBS American Experience documentary by historian Nancy Cohn, where she's reflecting on Walt in this moment. And her quote is, I can't control my employees, turns out. I can't control the larger stage right now. I can't even completely control my company. So here's a world I can recreate down to the smallest detail that is mine and perfect. And it [02:38:38] S1: would become something much bigger that would also be his and also be perfect. [02:38:44] S0: Yes. So out of this stew comes Disneyland.
02:38:44 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[02:38:44] S0: Yes. So out of this stew comes Disneyland. [02:38:48] S1: Yes. Which is so funny because Walt would insist in interviews until his dying day that, quote, the idea for Disneyland came about when my daughters were very young. And as I'd sit there while they rode the merry-go-round, I felt that there should be something built where parents and children could have fun together. So that's how Disneyland started. It all started from a daddy with two daughters wondering where he could take them where he could have a little fun with them too. [02:39:18] S0: It's also that. [02:39:19] S1: You know, I'm sure that's part of it. Yeah. Some of both, but really the trains. [02:39:24] S0: Okay. So how did Disneyland happen? Well, the initial thing was actually pretty small. [02:39:29] S1: Yep. The initial idea. [02:39:30] S0: Yes. There was a name floated Mickey Mouse village that sort of quickly changed to Disneyland since it was much more about his new passions, trains, Americana, and miniatures than it was about Mickey Mouse. And he started working with artists to sketch out what it would be. And the constraint that he had was we've got this 16 acre plot of land that's adjacent to the Burbank Studio lot between that and the river. So that's sort of what we're working with here. [02:40:00] S1: Yeah. And that's the natural place you would put this.
02:40:00 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[02:40:00] S1: Yeah. And that's the natural place you would put this. [02:40:03] S0: Of course. Of course. So in March 1952, Walt announces it, Disneyland, to be constructed on that little strip of land for a cost of $1,500,000. A Snow White. A Snow White. Yeah. We should speak in units of Snow White. It's actually cheaper than a Snow White given the, inflation since [02:40:24] S1: Right. Right. Right. Much cheaper than a Snow White. [02:40:26] S0: It's now been, fifteen years. So he decides I'd actually like to spend some money on a a larger study for this because I've got a couple of, like, artist renderings here that include cool little river and a train that runs on this, and we're gonna figure out, you know, attractions that that go in this thing. But I we really gotta jam a lot in here, so I'd like more money. [02:40:47] S1: Roy and the board are none too enthused about this. [02:40:51] S0: Yeah. Think about everything that we have said over the last, I don't know, hour about the state of the company. And Walt is saying, hey. I found a thing I'm interested in. Can I have some money to explore building this kinda, like, inarticulate able idea, yeah, right next to the studio lot? [02:41:09] S1: Yeah. Kinda goes over like a lead balloon.
02:41:09 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[02:41:09] S1: Yeah. Kinda goes over like a lead balloon. [02:41:12] S0: Yes. So the Walt Disney company, at this time called Walt Disney Productions, does not free up the purse strings for this. So what does Walt do? He kinda talks to Roy about it, and they they they figure out a path forward. He's gonna start his own company that would get formalized later in the year in 1952 that ends up being called WED Enterprises, w e d, Walter Elias Disney. Yep. His personal company that he can do weird personal stuff with. [02:41:41] S1: Yes. [02:41:42] S0: So over the course of 1952, Walt starts poaching people from Disney to work on this thing. And at first, it's just like a half dozen people, and they're set up in a building on the back lot at Burbank. These would become the first Imagineers. Yes. And the interesting thing is the people he's poaching, these are artists, and they're animators. They're being hired to build a theme park and, like, big physical trains. This gives you a sense of Walt's leadership style. He would take a talented creative person, and he'd be perfectly willing to assign them to things that they've never done before and say, yeah. You'll figure it out. We also
02:41:42 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[02:41:42] S0: So over the course of 1952, Walt starts poaching people from Disney to work on this thing. And at first, it's just like a half dozen people, and they're set up in a building on the back lot at Burbank. These would become the first Imagineers. Yes. And the interesting thing is the people he's poaching, these are artists, and they're animators. They're being hired to build a theme park and, like, big physical trains. This gives you a sense of Walt's leadership style. He would take a talented creative person, and he'd be perfectly willing to assign them to things that they've never done before and say, yeah. You'll figure it out. We also [02:42:22] S1: just gotta pause here for a minute and really underline what's happening here. This is Walt Disney. Yes. By this point in history, he is the Walt Disney. He is the Walt Disney who has come up with a crazy new idea based on his obsessive hobby with model trains that the board of Disney Studios has basically rejected. And so he has gone full crackpot, like colonel Kurtz style, and started his own separate company on the Disney campus where he is poaching and recruiting some of the best Disney animators and artists to come over and stop doing animation and start working with him building a theme park. That is what is happening here.
02:42:22 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[02:42:22] S1: just gotta pause here for a minute and really underline what's happening here. This is Walt Disney. Yes. By this point in history, he is the Walt Disney. He is the Walt Disney who has come up with a crazy new idea based on his obsessive hobby with model trains that the board of Disney Studios has basically rejected. And so he has gone full crackpot, like colonel Kurtz style, and started his own separate company on the Disney campus where he is poaching and recruiting some of the best Disney animators and artists to come over and stop doing animation and start working with him building a theme park. That is what is happening here. [02:43:11] S0: I was about to make the, comment. Oh, this sounds a lot like Elon Musk, but none of Elon's companies have a board that would vote against him. And so that's really the only difference here. It's kind of the, like, Elon before Elon. Yes. So there ends up being two problems with this plan. One is Walt and the architecture company that he hired kinda come to the conclusion that this plot of land, it's just too small. Even with all the clever ideas to be space efficient, there's just too much that he wants to do with this Disneyland concept. It keeps growing in scope to accomplish all of it in that little strip of land. The second problem is after provisional approval, the Burbank City Council starts to learn more, and they decline the proposal since they do not want a, quote, carnival like atmosphere right there on the side of the river.