Translated material
Dream from a bench
Half a century ago, a bored father, Walt Disney, came up with an amusement park.
One of the most famous methods of honestly taking money from child-loving citizens turned 50 yesterday. Exactly half a century ago, on July 17, 1955, the first Walt Disney theme park, called Disneyland, opened in Anaheim, California. In it, for just one dollar, parents could not only make their children happy with Mickey Mouse and Snow White, but also choose entertainment for themselves on one of 16 attractions. This, according to the legends now actively disseminated by the Walt Disney company, was the main idea of the famous animator Walt Disney, who was trying to diversify his own Sunday walks with his daughters.According to these legends, Disneyland appeared out of boredom and was invented on a park bench, where the animation genius was forced to while away the time while his children had fun, rode on carousels and ate cotton candy. Allegedly, on one of these ordinary Sundays, Walt Disney, who in addition to his artistic abilities also had extraordinary talent as a businessman, came up with the idea of creating an amusement park that would be fun not only for children, but also for their parents.
One way or another, $17 million was spent to relieve parents of boredom and build the first park, which, despite the ridiculous price of admission, paid off in less than five years. In the first half century after its opening, the park in Anaheim, small compared to all other Disneylands in the world, was visited by 515 million people. Now in the first iconic entertainment town there are already 60 attractions. Among them are those that American teenagers rode half a century ago. For example, a paddle steamer from the time of Mark Twain and a miniature railway.
At the same time, the most popular and visited Disneyland, which today attracts millions of tourists from all over the world, is considered not the first park in the network, but a real children's town in Orlando, the capital of Florida. This park opened in 1971 and was named The Walt Disney World. It was with him that the Walt Disney Company began its conquest of the global entertainment industry. Now under its protectorate the largest and most visited network of amusement parks around the world operates. In 1983, Disneyland was opened in Tokyo, and in 1992 it appeared in Paris. By the way, it is the French park that is considered the most beautiful among fans of Disney culture, however, it is also the most unprofitable. And this September, Mickey Mouse and company should also settle in Hong Kong.
It even seems somewhat strange that for the half-century anniversary, celebrated in America on a Hollywood scale, the company did not prepare stunning gifts for visitors (the Disneyland park itself, by the way, was given a star on the Walk of Fame in Los Angeles). In the parks, which were closed for several days for “technical inspection” on the eve of the celebrations, no fundamental changes were noticed. Except that the artists repainted the turrets of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, and the technicians reconstructed the “Space Mountain”. In Florida, visitors to anniversary celebrations are being promised the opportunity to be the first to ride a carousel based on the film “Toy Story 2.” Another new attraction, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster, allows each participant to briefly become a spaceship pilot.
However, the restraint of emotions is also understandable - the last pre-anniversary months of Disneyland were overshadowed by a number of tragic episodes. Unlike the middle of the last century, an entrance ticket to Walt Disney World now costs $56. And the emotions received for this money will not necessarily be purely positive - after all, visitors are also offered horror attractions. Over the past six months, Disney horror stories have literally scared three visitors to death. The last incident occurred shortly before the anniversary. After the Twilight Zone attraction. Tower of Terror" in Florida, in which people fall in an elevator from a height of the 13th floor, 16-year-old Lyn Deacon suffered cardiac arrest. A month earlier, on June 13, 2005, on Mission: Space, four-year-old Daoud Bamuwamie died from the g-forces he received after being spun in a centrifuge with double the force of gravity. And in February of this year, a 77-year-old Minnesota woman died of a heart attack on the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. It will be difficult for Walt Disney employees to explain such incidents using the half-century-cherished legend about how a brilliant artist conceived an amusement park on a bench.