Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Disney & More has published a two part article with an interview with Walt Disney discussing his operating philosphy on Disneyland. There are some really wonderful quotes, including my favorite when he seems to go into a rant when asked about the park's high admission fee: "By the time this article comes out, I'm raising it to two dollars because I'm adding all these new rides. And to extend my ticket book to take care of the rides, I'm putting this to ten rides for two dollars. Figure it out. It averages twenty cents a ride, doesn't it? It would cost an adult three dollars and a junior two dollars and fifty cents to get in and get ten rides. If they don't want that, they can pay their buck and pay their fifty cents for their kid and they can come in. They can sit on the park benches, take up the space, dirty up my toilets, litter up the street. They can do all of that if they pay their dollar-fifty. They can ride as they want to. They can sit around and hear my band; they can visit my free shows. They can do all that and more for their dollar-fifty." Part one: <a href="http://disneyandmore.blogspot.com/2012/07/its-disneyland-57th-anniversary.html" target="_blank">http://disneyandmore.blogspot....ary.html</a> Part two: <a href="http://disneyandmore.blogspot.com/2012/07/its-disneyland-57th-anniversary_16.html" target="_blank">http://disneyandmore.blogspot...._16.html</a>
Originally Posted By SuperDry Putting those costs in today's dollars, general admission was about $7 for an adult, and then another $14 for a book of 10 ride tickets.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <They can sit on the park benches, take up the space, dirty up my toilets, litter up the street> Best Walt quote ever!
Originally Posted By TP2000 Hans, what a great find! Thank you for sharing it with us. A couple of quotes from Walt struck me. Like this one... "We even have to pay government tax on admission. So it's really ninety-one cents to get in." California no longer taxes theme park tickets, and they haven't in at least a couple of decades. I wonder when that changed? The late 1960's when Ronald Reagan was governor, perhaps? There were rumblings a few years ago when the Governator was in office that Sacramento wanted to tax theme parks tickets again, but it died quickly. And Governor Brown hasn't mentioned it, even in the financial crisis this state is in. If his tax hikes fail at the ballot box this November, I wonder if Sacramento will come after Disneyland ticket taxes again? Then there's this little bon mot from Walt circa '56... "On the jungle ride, I want to get more animation in the animals. I want to really fix it. My monkeys have gone to pot. And I want new monkeys. I'm going to take them out Monday because I'd rather not have them in there looking like that." -Walt Disney, 1956 Gawd, I just love that! In the 1950's there was no such thing as political correctness or corporate psycho-babble. Can you imagine Bob Iger saying such a thing in one of his scripted, tight, airbrushed public statements today? The best we ever got out of Iger was about five years ago when he fainly acknowledged that DCA was a massive failure and needed a Billion dollars to fix it, when he said "in the spirit of candor, we have been challenged". And that type of language from Iger was seen as boldly honest. Puke. Walt was a man who spoke his mind, as men of the mid 20th century were want to do. Now we have half-men executives who only speak in talking points and carefully crafted wordsmithed corporate blather who say something yet say nothing at all. How I wish we could get back to that 20th century concept of honest speech aimed at honest adults. Walt Disney woulnd't know how to respond to life in the 21st century. And if they let him talk for more than five minutes there would be calls for boycotts and protests because he dared speak his mind in an honest manner. So sad, and yet so hilarious to read 60 years later.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA This is a great read. It was a televised interview, and a few clips were shown in "The Walt Disney Story" when it appeared in Walt Disney World.
Originally Posted By fkurucz "Walt: Oh, it’s four adults to one child. That is we are counting the teenagers as adults. But of course, in the winter time, you can go out there during the week and you won’t see any children. You’ll see all the “oldsters” out there riding all these rides and having fun and everything. Summertime, of course, the average would drop down. But the over all…the year round average…it’s four adults to one child." LOL! Even back then it wasn't "just for kids".
Originally Posted By crapshoot " . . . we have in the summer when we have the half million plus people a week." Which equates to 71.5K daily average during Summer way back then. That shows to me that Disneyland has been impacted with guests for way too long. Why it took Disney this long to add a second gate I can't even begin to understand.
Originally Posted By fkurucz ^^One of the vague memories I have of my first visit in 1966 was that it was crowded. I don' know if there were 70K people there, but I remember it being busy. I also have some memories of eating at the Tahitian terrace (I was 6 at the time).
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "In the 1950's there was no such thing as political correctness or corporate psycho-babble. Can you imagine Bob Iger saying such a thing in one of his scripted, tight, airbrushed public statements today?" No, I can't. Most of the "magical dreams" marketing talk bugs me because it frequently teeters close to mocking what the place is really about.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <I wonder when that changed? The late 1960's when Ronald Reagan was governor, perhaps?> Definitely after that. They used to put the price, plus the tax in small print, into the 70's at least. <One of the vague memories I have of my first visit in 1966 was that it was crowded. I don' know if there were 70K people there, but I remember it being busy.> '66 was my first visit too. Actually my first two visits. Spring for my birthday, and then Christmas when my grandparents came out. Christmas '66 was massively busy (and we still have the home movies to prove it.) They didn't have all the people-eaters they soon would either (Pirates, HM, PeopleMover, CofP, etc.) You could easily wait 2 hours for the Matterhorn (only thrill ride, with single sleds), the subs and the Jungle Cruise (then the most elaborate E-tickets)... we even waited close to 2 hours for the DLRR (!) because the dinos were new, and people wanted to go around again and wouldn't get off the dang train!
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>Can you imagine Bob Iger saying such a thing in one of his scripted, tight, airbrushed public statements today?<< I can't imagine him saying that, because I doubt he has any idea what goes on in the parks on a day-to-day basis. Granted, he's responsible for a ton of different enterprises spanning all facets of the entertainment industry, but I don't think he has a clue what most of the products actually resemble. While he may be a perfectly nice fellow, he's always seemed woefully out of touch with reality to me. Maybe not quite as much as the people who write his scripts, but the policies he's hellbent on implementing just don't seem to be the best longterm idea for the Company. But what does he care; by the time the damage to the brand is done, he'll be long gone.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <and then Christmas when my grandparents came out.> Wait. Your grandparents are gay? (stupid -- just kidding...)
Originally Posted By mawnck >>In the 1950's there was no such thing as political correctness or corporate psycho-babble.<< There was. And some of it came from Walt Disney and his PR-keteers. But this wasn't it. >>there would be calls for boycotts and protests because he dared speak his mind in an honest manner.<< He'd've had lunch at Chick-Fil-A yesterday, I am absolutely convinced of it. And I'd've been mad at him for it.
Originally Posted By mawnck PS - Now that I've actually READ the interviews .... The merry-go-round story and the "how we selected Anaheim" thing ... pure rehearsed PR, and not supported by the facts either. The cool thing about these interviews is that he does go "off book" fairly frequently, especially in the part about ticket prices. I'm sure he drove his PR flacks bananas. Thanks for the link, Dr. Hans!
Originally Posted By SafariRob Un-freakin'-believeably awesome interviews! Talk about a guy who knows what he wants and isn't afraid to speak his mind! The JK monkey quote was hands-down one of the best Walt quotes ever. I want to say something about the 500,000 people in a week (71.5k/day) thing, too. That is a LOT of people (average daily attendance for BOTH parks together today) and they were constantly looking for ways to deal with the problem. He would "...watch every part of it and find out where we need to improve our crowd control conditions to make it easier for people to get around and our shade areas..." Today? Not so much. I love this quote, too. "Chewing gum sticks up things so we don't sell it. And peanut shells...they just crumble them and throw them all over the place. And nothing with round sticks. People trip on them. The ice cream bars got flat sticks and I won't sell any of this spun candy because the kids...get it all over everything and people get it on their hands." Hilarious, but true. Here's another hot topic we've debated. Straight from the mouth of Walt: "No liquor, no beer, nothing. Because that brings in a rowdy element. That brings people that we don't want and I feel they don't need it. I feel when I go down to the park I don't need a drink. I work around that place all day and I don't have one. After I come out of a heavy day at the studio sometimes I want a drink to relax." Well said. I agree 100%. Too bad the suits don't.
Originally Posted By SafariRob While he may not have been right about everything (no one is), he absolutely hit it out of the park with Disneyland. No pun intended. It was an amazing streak of constitutionally making the right choices.
