Acquired
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.
02:43:11 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[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. [02:43:58] S1: You could describe Disneyland as lots of things, but carnival like atmosphere, clearly, did not get the vision. [02:44:05] S0: Right. The the magic is that it isn't. Exactly. Easily could have been. So they need to find a bigger plot of land, and they need to, work with a team that is really good at odd research based tasks. And you're never gonna guess, listeners, where he goes for this. It is like a a crazy nugget of history. He goes to SRI, the Stanford Research Institute. If you've heard SRI before, it is one letter off from Siri, which was a spinout of SRI. Yes. That SRI. [02:44:44] S1: That it was. I was just gonna say that you you just triggered, like, you know, probably 2,000,000 phones.
02:44:44 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[02:44:44] S1: That it was. I was just gonna say that you you just triggered, like, you know, probably 2,000,000 phones. [02:44:51] S0: Some of which are running, the betas, so they'll have the new Siri AI. [02:44:55] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [02:44:57] S0: Yes. Yeah. SRI. [02:44:58] S1: SRI is the research firm that Walt hires to go identify what ultimately becomes Anaheim. [02:45:09] S0: The perfect spot. They absolutely knock it out of the park. But when you describe it, the site sounds completely nuts. 10 times bigger than the original site, a full a 160 acres. [02:45:20] S1: Yep. [02:45:20] S0: 25 miles away from Los Angeles. It is currently just some orange groves. Anaheim itself was a small farming town. There wasn't even a highway connecting it to Los Angeles. [02:45:34] S1: There was a planned highway. [02:45:37] S0: Yes. So there's a quote from the animated man by Michael Barrier. The SRI analysis from August 1953 took into account a large number of factors, including likely population growth, freeway construction, and the effect of terrain on television transmission since the idea was that TV will play an important part in the promotion and development of Disneyland. The study pointed toward a location Southeast Of Los Angeles in Anaheim in Orange County just off the Santa Ana Freeway. That freeway was then under construction, but most of it between Downtown Los Angeles and Orange County was scheduled for completion. The foresight of all the factors that they considered there. [02:46:16] S1: Just incredible.
02:46:16 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[02:46:16] S1: Just incredible. [02:46:17] S0: So, there is one problem though, which is great. We found the perfect site. It's a 160 acres, and we're gonna do this much bigger and better than we were before. We're gonna need some money. [02:46:27] S1: We're gonna need a lot of money. So Walt goes back to the company. [02:46:33] S0: Yes. And remember, they had no interest in pursuing this, which is why he had to set up wed in the first place. It's becoming clear that this is happening. I mean, Walt Disney is a force of nature, and Roy becomes supportive or at least as supportive as [02:46:47] S1: strong armed into supporting this.