10 Interesting Things About Disney

Ten interesting things about Disney

The Disney Corporation, the Disney parks, and the people who created it have become legend. This legend has many facets and interesting things to it. Whether it’s the art, the movies, the shorts, the parks, or even the clothes there have been a lot of people who have had their hands into creating this fascinating world. Here are ten interesting things about Disney.

1. Disneyland was started as 500 acres and Disney World was started as 27,000 acres. Each of these were orange groves when they first started, and then leveled when they were created to be parks. Both of these parks were both created from the bottom up…the subway and underground system was the first built and still exist in both parks today. To add to the interesting thing about both parks, they’re both in Orange County.

2. Walt created Disneyland park so that both the parents and the kids could have fun together. He was hanging out in Griffith Park in Los Angeles watching his daughters ride a carousel and wished he could have fun with them. He created a miniature train system in his back yard and envisioned his park in a similar fashion. What was created is exactly what he wanted, a park for young and old alike.

3. When Walt Disney wanted to create an animation studio, he decided he couldn’t do it without his hero and best friend – his brother Roy Disney. When they first started the company Walt had $40, Roy had $250, and they borrowed $500 from an Uncle. But remember this is 1923 money, if we convert this to today’s standard it would be: Walt putting in $518.00, Roy putting in $3242.00, and their Uncle putting in $6485.00, even today this isn’t much money to start an animation studio with.

4. Often when acquiring money to buy the Disney properties, they would use many different names so that people couldn’t drive up the prices just because they were selling it to Disney. Bay Lake Properties, Ayefour Corporation, and Reedy Creek Ranch are just some of the assumed names that they used. Of these property names, two of them have become synonymous with Disney. Reedy Creek Corp. is still a viable corporation under the Disney umbrella, and still is the pseudonym of the Disney Worp. when it goes out to buy properties. Ayefour Corporation became the name of the I-4 interstate that runs from Daytona Beach to Tampa Bay in Florida, and which runs directly through the Disney World property.

5. As you walk through Main Street U.S.A in both Disney World and Disneyland there are shops on both sides. In order to keep the realism in tact they created storefronts for each of the building up and down Man Street. This gives the illusion that you are actually passing by separate stores and businesses. In fact, these are just a front for the large gift shops and restaurants that hide behind them. However, every name on the business windows are people who have helped create Disney World to be what it is today.

6. Roy Disney was the moneyman behind the Disney machine. A point that has become legend in itself states that Roy himself once said that it was his job to make sure that Walt could do the things he wanted to do. It was Roy who bought the properties, sold the animation, sold the movies to the producers, and even sold the Disneyland TV show, which would become the Mousekateers, to ABC.

7. Just because they had 500 acres of land didn’t mean they knew what to do with it. After many attempts to make it work, Walt decided that his and his brother’s ideas were too much like parks they’d seen before and carnival like atmospheres. Finally, they met a man who could do it justice and his name was Marvin Davis. It took Marvin 69 tries to come up with the first plans of Disneyland. He was also the person who decided where the castle was going to sit, and that all roads would lead to the castle.

8. You can get anywhere in either park to any other place in the park within minutes. This has come in handy many times because of theft, riots, brawls, and natural disasters. All of this happening and quickly being moved out of the public eye. How is this accomplished? An entire subway and underground system. There is an entire world equal to the size of the park under the parks themselves. You leave a spot, take an elevator to the tunnels, a subway to another part, and then up an elevator to the next spot. It’s an amazing system.

9. There are millions of people who live and breathe Disney. A young man recognized this and started an online community. It started as a laugh but suddenly became the place to go for Disney info, Disney conversations, and to talk to other Disney fans. Disney eventually took it over and it’s now called D23. It’s at disney.com/D23 and is advertised as “The official Community for Disney Fans.”

10. The castle is an optical illusion. Actually, all of the castles are an optical illusion. They are the correct size at ground level, but as they rise they become smaller and smaller. This way of scaling down the sizes and construction of the castle makes it appear larger than it really is. It also allows the castle to take on a larger more ominous look to it. If you ever want to see the true scale of the castle, watch the size of Tinker Bell when she gets ready to fly through the air to start the fireworks.


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