Do Go On - 20 - DISNEYLAND

Episode Date: March 9, 2016

Focusing mainly on the opening day of the original Disneyland, Matt talks Jess and Dave through what was a bit of a hot mess. Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] the show and get rewards like bonus episodes:www.patreon.com/DoGoOnPod  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hello and welcome to Do Go on a podcast where we talk about facts and hopefully things will lend to those facts. My name is Dave Warnkeke, fact number one. I'm here with co-host Jess. Is it a fact, Jess?

That's a fact. It's a fact. And we're also joined by Matt Stu underscore Art Fact. That's your Twitter handle. Hello, Matt. How are you? Yeah, I'm really good. Thanks, Dave.

And that is a fact. That is a fact. It's a fun fact, though. No, that was quite a dull fact. And I'm having a good time, Jess. And so that wasn't fun for you. Well, hopefully at the end of this show will be... You are a piece of work.

A real bloody piece of work. Are we going to be wrapping up for the show with fun facts? Is that going to be a thing? Look, I got to the end of the report, and I'm like, I really like ending with fun facts. And I tried... I squeezed their couple out. You can't really force it. Forced fun facts.

I'm going to change the name there just to remember that. Forced fun facts. They may still be good, but they won't be as fun. No, and that is a fact. They're no, they're no perko, fun fact, those. Does anyone call you perko? Yeah, lots of people. Really?

Hey, perko. Yeah, perky. JP, JP, the big bopper. Big bop. Ah, the big bop. David was a bup. So, Matt, it is your turn to present a report that will be ending in forced fun. Fact, so you often start, and when I say often, we say, I mean, all the time.

We start with a question to get us on topic, Matt. What have we got? All right, guys. The question to you is, in your minds, what is the happiest place on Earth? The happiest. Bed. Yeah, bed's pretty good. What about the couch, but I've got blue cheese on a biscuit?

Oh, wow. Pretty good. How much? Anywhere you've got blue cheese on a biscuit, really. Yeah, exactly. Bed bed with blue cheese on a biscuit. What a combo. Yeah, no, you can't top it.

So that is my answer. If you could change the couch to a banana lounge and the blue cheese to a hard cheddar, keep the biscuit, but add an espresso martini. Hello. And change the setting to a Greek island beach. You're getting warmer. So change all of it, basically. No.

So it was. a clue about the topic? No, no, I was just having a daydream about my happy place. Have you ever been to that happy place? Have you been to a Greek island? I've been to a Greek island. Have you drunk an espresso martini on a banana lounge? No, I would have had some sort of a, I think they were called mummoos.

I was drinking a lot of mumus or nunus or something. Is there a cocktail called a mumu? Maybe in... Possibly Greek. Is that Greek for... Mahito? I didn't, while I was there, I did not see or hear any people talking Greek, talking Greek. It was just like, it was...

You heard no Greek. Heard no Greek. The Greek islands are like super touristy, I guess. So it's just everyone there's... I believe there's hundreds of them. You could have gone to a non... Yeah, I went to all of them. Yep.

All of them. Wow. No, I went to two of them, and probably the two most touristy ones. Which were... Eos and Santorini. Oh. Anyway, very early on we've gotten. But the question is, what is the happiest place?

I know, this one's, it's actually the tagline for this. Is that a, is that a, it's an official thing? I would say, you heard of it? Ready together? Do you want to say together? One, two, three. Disneyland slash world. World, yeah.

Disneyland. Disneyland. We're doing Disneyland. Yeah, Disneyland. And, and, but in particular, really, it's the, the opening of Disneyland. Oh, very cool. I only read about this kind of recently. because it was, yeah, I've really just started reading about it in the last couple of weeks.

And this one came out of the hat from a listener named Evan. Oh, thanks, Evan. Thank you, Evan. Evan, a big Disney fan, apparently. Yeah, a Disneyland fan. Was he trying to expose it? His wasn't about the opening. It was about Disneyland, and I've sort of, I started doing the report about the opening and then...

That's all you got. Well, that's fine. I think it's fine. I got pages out of it. To get a microcosm of the Disneyland story. Yeah. And it was interesting because I pulled out a double out of the hat because I physically cut them up and put him into things.

So I had to do a redraw. Okay. Was Disneyland one of the two? It was one of the two. Okay. So it makes sense then. Yeah. So we had another with Cecil.

And he was so close. Oh, Cecil. Sorry, Cecil. Next time. But we're talking Disneyland for Evan this week. Now, have you been to Disneyland, Matt? I've never been. Jess?

Have you guys been? I have. Yeah? I've been to Disneyland in California and Paris. Oh, Disneyland, Paris. I've been to Disneyland, California. Yeah, right. Well, that's the one.

Anaheim, yeah. So I've never had any interest in going. I reckon after reading about it a bit, I'd like to go and see, because it's pretty amazing. I ended up, I'll talk about this in a bit, but they broadcast live on the opening day. Wow. And that is all on you. YouTube. It's like an hour. It was an hour and a half special, but without ads on YouTube,

it's like an hour and 10 minutes. Did you watch it? I watched it. Yeah, it's amazing. It was, because it was opened in 195. We didn't even have TV in Australia then. Came out the next year, didn't it? TV for us. Yeah. We're coming up to the 60 year anniversary. Does that make it? Yeah. But, yeah, so obviously Disneyland had it's 60th last year. Yeah, I was surprised and it was a pretty good broadcast. It was really, it was a, um, Multi-camera? Multi-camera.

They had 20-odd cameras there. Wow. So they were crossing between three hosts. Wow. And it was just really quick cuts and stuff. There was a few, because it was live as well. And there were a few little muck-ups, but for the most part. Was it much like our live special from the Royal Melbourne Show?

It was a little bit like that. It was a little bit like that. Really planned, very well. Just for context. You guys did a... Oh man, it was so well rehearsed. The Disney one, our one. Less so.

We talked about it as we were going to air. I haven't missed the first segment because I went to get a coffee. I had to do a live ad, like, tease ahead of the broadcast. And this is on local station channel 31. And it's on YouTube if you want to watch it. It's live at the show with Matt and Jess. Probably don't watch it actually. If you want to see two people who can hardly hear each other

because of all the loud show noises trying to get through a live broadcast. Matt tells some pigs to fuck off. I don't think I was allowed to tell him to fuck off. I think I failed on that. I think you said something like, get out of here. You could probably see me changing the wording in the moment. It's great.

So yeah, I'm assuming it's a similar sort of broadcast for the live. Similar quality. Yeah, but this one was like super well choreographed and stuff. Any celebrities? Yeah, in the Dodgeham car, not Dodgeham cars,

but there was this segment where there was some, uh, a car, Sort of like dodging cars, but it was like a little track. And Frank Sinatra was in one car followed by Sammy Davis Jr. What sort of chasing him down. Yeah, that was really cool. And they were like, they had a quick chat.

So as he went by, they sort of put the microphone in Frank Sinatra's face. That's awesome. What the fuck? That was really cool. That's real cool. But yeah, I'll talk about that a minute. Let's go through it from the beginning. From the beginning.

So Walt Disney is obviously the man. It's funny that he's a real person because I just think of Disney is like... A massive conglomerate. Yeah, it's a conglomerate. But it was just this one guy. Did you know that? I did know that. I covered that on the Mary Poppins episode.

You did too, yeah. It's a bit of cross-off. But you know what I think is funny is like you think of the word Disney as like a made-up word, like a brand? And then you're like, oh no, that was just somebody's name. Like if I really worked hard, Perkins could be some kind of. of magical world. Yeah, it's like... Perkinsland.

Imagine. Like, it's like Yamaha and I think Yamaha was a family name. Toyota definitely was. Ford. Ford was, yeah. Yeah, and it's weird to think of them as, because they're all weird names as well. Like... Is Ford a weird name?

I don't know any Fords. Harrison Ford. Matt Ford. I know Matt Ford. But I don't know anyone else. Harrison Ford, all right. But apart from that... Weird name.

Well, I mean, weird, it's an unusual name. It's not, it's not that common, is it? I feel like it'd be more common than Warnocky. All right, fair point. Thanks, everyone. But how many Toyotas you know, you're going to tell me, you know, I don't know anybody. I've got a mate called Gary Toyota, my neighbor.

I don't know a single Toyota. I don't know why you're talking with that weird accent, Jess, in my act out there, but... Very offensive. I'm sorry. Oh. Hey, no one, no one's voice sounds the same when they hear it back, so that's actually what you sound like. Someone else hell, wow. I didn't know.

I wasn't meant to be offensive, but, you know. I think the listener will struggle to differentiate between the two of you. Hey, my neighbor. And what if she was English? Good day. My neighbor. Gary. Toyota.

That was like Greek at the end. Oh boy. I've got three words in tomorrow. report. All right. It's already gone off the rails. There is, I think you can, out of the three of this, my reports are always the loosest. You guys are so much, I'm like a loose guy.

And I'm happy to, you can't be tamed. And I, well, I just, I'm happy to just go with the flow on things. But you're, you and Dave, especially in Jess, to the lesser extent, are happy to bring it back. Yeah, happy to have a laugh. But at the same time, I've written a 4,000 word report. I'm talking through it. I'm usually just hungry. Yeah.

So I want to get through it so I can go. I'm usually bored with you. Whereas I've got nowhere to be. Yeah. And you're like a toddler that's just like, oh, shiny things. Yeah. So if we distract you with a tangent, you go with the tangent and then we have to go, okay, Matt, back to the report.

Yeah. That's why I've got, I do three paragraph reports and Dave does 25 page reports. That's right. Each also with many paragraphs, because I'm quite good at layout. But you can hear the difference in the quality of reports, obviously. You definitely can. Dave's episodes are much better. Dave's episodes are very, very good. But this one, I'm pretty happy with this one.

I found this story. Do you guys know much about the opening of? A little bit. I think, I heard that he, oh, actually, didn't he use some of the money from, no, that's wrong. He used the money from something. Yes, he did. He used the money from something. When you said you knew a bit about it, I'm like, what, how much could you really know? But it turns out that's quite an extensive bit of knowledge. It's pretty impressive.

To be honest, did you plan on doing this report? Okay, smart ass. Please go out with your fun little report. I think we finally got to a thing where Jess has also written a report on the topic, which is awkward, because she seems to know so much about it. I don't know much at all, Matt. I'll direct this mainly to you, Dave. You go on, Matt, and I'll jump in with my facts,

which you'll inevitably forget because my reports are much better researched. Yeah. Matt, I'm going to tell you to please do go on. Sure, okay. I'm going to tell you to, dude, go fuck yourself. No, I think that's fair. So Walt Disney used to take his daughters to visit a local amusement park called Griffith Park in Los Angeles. And as his daughters enjoyed the rides, he would sit on a bench with the other parents watching him, eating peanuts, apparently.

And just thinking to himself, you know, this is great. for them but what about the parents we've only got peanuts yeah we've only got peanuts and sitting what a ride what a time to be alive and that was where the idea sort of came about so it's quite a selfish idea then in a way wasn't it yeah it's funny it's like um so yeah what's in it for the parents you know apart from watching your kids have a great time you know enjoying your kids having a good day come on walt i want to have fun maybe try spending time with your children talking to them engaging with them. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Put down the peanut and push a swing, you prick. Bastard. So it was around that time that he started dreaming of building his own theme park. And in his mind it would be a new kind of theme park where parents and their children could all enjoy it together. All have a good time. Rather than just, you know, the parents taking them there.

We've all obviously dreamt of building our own theme park. But only some of us have enough money. Me? Yes. And influence to build one. That's right. Jess and Walt Disney, that's what you have in common.

The multi-millions. Well, he, as a turner, he probably didn't have enough money. Yeah, so he had to get the money from something. Scandal. Yeah, he did. He had to get the money from something. Fact.

He often received letters from fans asking if they could come and visit his studios in Burbank, California. But he felt that there was nothing to see. Nothing to see there. It was like a factory. and sadness. Yeah, that's right. So it's like,

well, I think you probably imagine this is a more fun place than it actually is in reality. And that started his idea of building a theme park adjacent to his studios in Burbank. And originally it was going to be called

Mickey Mouse Park. Oh. No, that was... Lame! But I guess, you know... I think that's all right. It's his biggest character.

Yeah, that's totally... Is that what Mickey Mouse Park sounds like, Jess? Yes. Is that because, Because it's fair. Because it feels like the guy going, I want to park, well, we can have fun too.

It's not too surprised that he ended up putting his own name in the... Yeah. You know what it sounds like? Well, yes, if we wanted to get technical, but I thought that we're trying to keep this as a layman's podcast where everyone can enjoy it. Much like Disneyland. You are.

He does these little like eyebrows and point. Yeah, he loves a point, but it normally does a click with his point. There it is. Because I think that's good for the listeners will know whenever you're pointing as well. Even though you've said to us off air that your girlfriend hates it. Oh, I click all the time. I click in rhythms, clicking at the butcher. Pounder steak, thanks.

Pound a steak, thanks. Yeah, that's right. It's very confusing for all. Especially me. I don't need steak. That's the best. Yeah, so if you are out there and you hear a click, I am just imagine me doing a point in raising my eyebrows slightly.

Nice. All right, please, Matt, two go on. Sorry. So Mickey Mouse World, was it? Mickey Mouse Park. As his plans developed, they got bigger and bigger in his mind. The plans soon outgrew the eight acres available at the Burbank site. So obviously that sounds big, but I think we'll find the real Disneyland's, what, hundreds of acres.

Yes. Oh, no, not hundreds, but it's, it's, a lot bigger than eight anyway. Like eight, they would have had like a small Shetland pony farm and a statue of Mickey and that's about it. So this, so when his daughters were, he was taking them to the park.

Diane, one of his daughters was called Diane. Diane, yes. I was going to write that down and I'm like, no one gives a fuck about. Diane. Diane Disney, D.D. We all know her. I wonder if that's my mom.

She's, Diane. Do you think? Yeah, probably. How many Diane? I'm directly related to Walt Disney. Through.

Oh my. My God, what a way to find out. You're directly related, yeah, as in his grandson is what you would be. Yeah, that's quite direct. I really should go see his little park. You should go to the Burbank Studios. Take an interest in Grandpa's work. I agree.

That is amazing. Yeah, cool. I wonder who my granddad was that I spent all that time with growing up. It's weird. Anyway. I bet there's a story there. I'm going to ask Mum after this. I'll call her as soon as we stop.

Diane! Why didn't you ever tell me that... Your father was Walt Disney. Walt Disney? That feels like that would have come up. Where are all our millions of dollars? Yeah, this is fucked, Mum. What else are you hiding?

How am I the only one of the podcast that hasn't been to Disneyland, Mum? Answer me that. This is BS. Diane. Get in for free. Or at least two for one So it was taken his daughters in the In the, I think late 30s

Into the 40s, I think it was around those times And your mom's quite old And the park didn't start until the 50s, 55 So there was a bit of a time And the delay Supposedly was things like the Second World War happened Ugh, selfish Stuff like that

We're trying to build a fucking theme park And you have to go and have a war Yeah Now it's boom each other. I'm going to do that a lot. We can tell. A new catchphrase. What happened to well?

So, yeah, because of things like that, the idea was put on the back burner. But in the 1950s, it was time. It was time to begin. Once time to shine. Yeah. First, they had to find a location. And he had a small checklist and he got a company on to find him this place. The checklist was that it had to be at least 100 acres and also located within a freeway drive of L.A.

So easy access by road. Yep. A site was found. It was a 160 acre orange orchard in Anaheim, California. Oh. The thing that we already said and you guys have both been there. Yeah. But thanks for making that sound like you were interested in the point.

The park cost $17 million. What? Which was a lot of... In 55. Heaps of money in 55. And that was an amount of money that Walt didn't have. Oh, weird. I mean, he was a rich and famous guy.

So he had money, but he just didn't have that kind of crazy money. So he looked to investors, but that proved difficult as investors couldn't see how the project would return a profit. Is this the story where... Because you always hear that Walt went to like 300 different banks or something. But was that for the studios or like his... his animation work or the actual filmmaking, or was it to build the park? That did happen for the park.

He shopped it around to a lot of people and just couldn't get people interested. But eventually, he made a deal with the ABC television network, and they agreed that they would invest in the park as long as he agreed to produce a show for their network. And he was up for that deal. The show he made was called Disneyland. and the series opened with Walt Disney

describing the coming attractions of the Disneyland theme park followed by previews from upcoming films, some live action shows and behind the scene footage of animators working and stuff like that. That feels like a really sweet deal for him. Yeah, it's like, all right, we'll make an ad on one of the main networks, or at the time it was probably one of the only TV networks. That seems like a sweet deal.

It advertises his business and it's what like a small cheaply made documentary and they've had to invests multi-millions. Well, I think they only invested about half a million, but because of their backing, he was able to go to the banks to borrow. And so the show drew a big audience as well, so it was good for everyone. But yeah, so because of their backing,

he was able to borrow a much larger amount of money from the Bank of America, and he also borrowed against his life insurance. Oof. So he was up to his eyeballs, basically. He really, really, really, he was all in. Roll the dust. Nice.

Imagine if it all went to shit. Yeah, and a lot of people thought it was like this is a ridiculous dream. At the time it seemed pretty crazy. Were theme parks like this even a thing? Or was he sort of the first? There were theme parks. And he went around the world checking him out to do research. There were plenty around.

But this was... Not to this scale. Not to the scale. And also, yeah, this was a bit different. It was sort of supposedly this is the first one that, you know, a lot of the rides are about stories. Yeah. And that was a bit different. Normally it was just like, this thing goes around and around.

Yeah, some places have like a 100-year-old wooden roller coasters and stuff. Yep. His dad supposedly went to or worked at one of those world fairs. I think it was in Chicago in the late 1800s. And that had the first Ferris wheel. Potentially, that's where he got some of the inspiration from as well, hearing the stories from his old man. Wow.

By 1952, the name of the planned park had changed from Mickey Mouse. House Park to Disneylandia. Are you serious? I don't like that either. Disneylandia, get over it. Wow, what, that's, yeah. Or like, Disneylandia, it makes a bit more sense than Disneylandia. Disneylandia.

It's like too much stuff. Yeah. Disney, what a Disney. No, no good. And I don't think it works at all, but apparently he was talked out of that by some people at the ABC. Oh. And by the time that the... The work on the site commenced two years later.

So it took two years to get all the money and everything ready. Yeah, I mean, yeah, even longer than that. But yeah, that was the pointy end, yeah. And the Disneyland name had been settled upon by then. In July, 1954, around almost exactly a year before the opening date, which was pretty much locked in. Yeah, that's when they started constructing the site. With 12 months on the clock. That's like worse than the Brazil Olympics.

Yeah, and basically it was not enough time. Really? Yeah. But have they started selling tickets and advertising the TV show and stuff? I think the TV show was, yeah, it was... So what a great way to build up hype for something, though, having a successful TV show that was kind of all about it. Yeah, awesome.

So we skip ahead. Obviously... It's building, building, building. There's a few time lapse videos online, which you can see of... Things going out, which is kind of cool. And do they build a lot at the start, or is it expanded a lot? Well, the site hasn't changed much. Over the years, they built over the original car park.

So it has expanded a fair bit, but it was, they started out as a pretty big thing. There were the four, do you know, the four original sort of sections. It was Tomorrowland, Frontierland, Adventure Land, and Fantasyland. And I think, I mean, I don't know. Like, Disneyland is a thing that I just don't know anything about, I think there's new ones of those now. You've been there. Is it still, those four things still exist?

Ah, it is. Yeah, it's still those four in Paris. Yeah, right. Which is the most recent one I went to, I went to Anaheim when I was eight. Right. It was a long time ago. Oh my God. I also went in 1998.

Get out. September, 98 I was there. You guys are the same person. At some point you split off from each other. I'm trying to think. I wouldn't be able to lock down the time. I'll have to ask my parents. Yeah.

That's so weird. In 1998, did you go on the Indiana Jones ride? My family went on that about 15 times. I think so. I think so. One of that's still there? Probably. I went on the E.T. ride.

And you sit in the front of the, and you're on bikes. And E.T. was in the basket of my bike. So I've got the E.T. So the E.T. ride was just a bike. And what you rode around there. See, how good their marketing is? And Jess is still talking about an A.T. I've never actually been to Disney there.

My parents just gave me a bike when I was like. And they, they, look, Jess, Disneyland. Put an alien mask on a cabbage-batched kid. Chuck it in the front. They didn't even get an E.T. Dole. Come on Annie. Come on Annie P. Annie P.

All right, so let's skip, we'll skip ahead through that year to opening day, because this is what I wanted to talk about mainly. So opening a bit of a day, freaking out about it? Yeah, there's a bit of panic leading up to the day. They're rushing, like, things are being painted on the, morning. Oh, man. Whoa.

Yeah, but let's go through how the day went. The opening day was actually the day before the pub, it was open to the public, the day before, which is what is now seen as the official opening. That's where all their anniversities are and stuff. That's when the broadcast was on ABC, but it was an invite only day. Oh, exclusive. I read two numbers, either 6,000 or 12,000. That's a lot of invite.

Invites were sent out for opening day, and they were given different, there were staggered times, to sort of give it a soft start. Oh, so you can morning, afternoon type thing? Yeah, exactly. And that was also meant to, you know, because it was, everyone working there was their first day. Everyone was learning how it all worked. How to make popcorn and fairy flowers. Yeah, exactly, and how the rides worked and, you know, just everything.

Surely the rides must have had some, a lot of testing, though, right? Yeah, the roller coaster safety. It would have been some testing for sure. What about, so this six or 12,000, either way it's a lot of people. Are they VIPs or friends of the workers? It's a bit of a mix. You've got, it was kind of a press day, so there was a lot of members of the press. There were celebrities, like Franks and Archon and stuff like.

Dignatories, sponsors, like representative of some of the sponsors. Pepsi was a big sponsor. They had an exclusive right to the soda pop or whatever they call it in America. Some of the construction workers, which is cool. And, I mean, they were there anyway, still finishing it. So, you're invited. I'm painting a fence. Yeah.

When you're done with the fence, you should have a go out this ride. Come on over a hot dog. I've got to paint that hot dog van. I think I just said paint that hot dog. They see someone eating a hot dog. No, it's not finished yet. Smashed it out of Frank Sinatra's hand. The chairman of the board.

Frank. So that's like a hot dog. Frankenfeert Sinatra. That's where he got the nickname. Of course. His actual name is Gary. Gary Sinatra. For that day, yeah.

They started going on Frank Sinatra. Yeah, interesting. So those 6,000 to 12,000 people, I'd say 6,000 because I saw that more. 6,000 people actually kind of ballooned out. Back then the tickets, which were the invites for the tickets, It was, believe it or not, pre-barcodes and holograms and those sort of things you see on tickets these days. So they were pretty easily forged, meaning that around 22,000 extra people rocked up. Oh, no.

Someone just wrote, one ticket signed Walt Disney. Here it is. Mate, I just saw you write that out in front of me. It says Walt Disney. Come on in? Come on it. All right, mate. Can I argue with that.

So, there's sort of smallish start. ended up just becoming a crazy amount bigger than they wanted to be. Way more people than they were ready to handle. I imagine, you know how you said at the start? They wanted to be small because people are learning their job. The people that need to learn their job are probably the ticketing staff from this soft start. They're not doing so well.

But I think the forgeries were very good. Like you couldn't tell. So it was sort of hard. You just had to let them in. And people who bought them were buying them off. They probably didn't. realize either. Also, people were forging them and then selling them rather than everyone forging their own

tickets. Yeah, totally. Oh, cool. Five dollar tickets. Sure. Yeah. Some sweet entrepreneurial skills being learnt there. Also, apparently there was a guy, another entrepreneur who had a ladder and he was charging

a couple of bucks for people to climb him over using his ladder to get in. How long does that last before security notices? Well, they had other shit to deal with. Yeah, 22,000 other people. That's great. So the huge crowd meant that arriving times kind of went out the window. Everyone wanted to get there early anyway. So it was just the cues were crazy.

Inside the park for rides, everything, but also outside the park just to get in. And there was a seven-mile traffic jam on the centre and a freeway. Seven miles. Yeah, just a car park on the freeway. And supposedly that the traffic in Southern California is awful. But apparently even for their standards, it was... Like real bad. Brutal.

Oh, wow. They had this thing. I don't exactly get how this happened, but I read it a few times. The celebrity guests were scheduled to arrive every two hours. But somehow, because of the traffic, it ended up that they all got there at the same time. Well, at midnight. Like six hours too late, Marilyn Monroe steps out of the car. Oh, God.

Classic Marilyn. I was reading the lists of the celebrities, for the most part, I was like, I have no idea who any of these people. Because it was 60 years ago. Yeah. But you can't remember. When Bieber wasn't there. Weird.

It was like weird. JT. JT.T. Jizzy T. Oh, JT. He was there. Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Of course he was.

He was a big Disney movie guy, wasn't he? He was Simba in the Lion King. He was young Simba. He was young Simba. Fact. Do you know who JTT is? Yes, I do. I'm the same age as Dave.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement of you are younger. Randy? Oh. Was he? Randy or Brad? Randy. Randy. Brad was the, who was the, like the jerk?

I didn't like that. What a 90s name, Brad. Brad. Brad was a dick. But Randy? Happy with Randy? What was the little brother's name? There was three of them.

Toby? No. Tim Jr.? Yeah, Tim Jr. Definitely, tiny Tim. So, did you remember any other celebrities apart from Sammy Davis and Franks and Arthur? Well, I only noticed them from the broadcast. Yeah, that I

They were the only Like the hosts Were naming people all over the place I'm like, no idea of that is A lot of them were governors and stuff You know, politicians I'm sure at the time it was like Whoa

Yeah I think it was It was a big deal Like if you've got Frank Sinatra Just going around on a little car Then yeah Who are the big guys going around on the saucepens Or whatever? Saucepins? Yeah

Dishes T cups Tea cups T cup Teacup ride. I was going cups and sauces. Do I say saucepins? Yeah, you did.

Fucking idiot. I'm so dumb. I don't want to go about of the saucepins. Because of the huge crowd, the restaurants and chaos were well and truly understocked, and a lot of them ran out of food and drink pretty quickly. Oh, shit. So many people. Huge lines to get food and.

It sounds like a badly run music festival, wasn't it? Yeah. The Port-a-Lose were overflowing. There was no food, no shade, no sunscreen. But of course the first day went badly, you know, like as if it was going to be smooth sailing and nobody had to line up for anything ever. Oh, look, I agree that there were probably, there was always going to be some issues.

There's always cheating issues. But this is like, I mean, I've only just started the list of things that do it. So it was a pretty amazing amount of things. A lot of it was bad luck as well. So for instance, the day was unusually hot, hitting over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which hit around 38 degrees Celsius, which was hotter than they were used to.

Certainly back then, you know. Global warming. Global warming now, I mean, it's always 38 degrees, but around that time and place, that was unusual. They were in a real hot spell. Heat wave. Heat wave. Nates.

Yeah. Just double click. That was good. We clicked at the same time. You are the same. You're the same person. So, yeah, in a rush to get the park ready, the asphalt was only poured for Main Street USA.

I saw something saying that morning, which can't be true. I heard other people say a day or so before. Just still not enough time. So pretty fresh. Were they putting it? Main Street. So it's the main Street USA.

Where they do the parades and stuff out. Yeah. Yep. and because of the crazy heat it started melting and turning into a sticky tar which was swallowing ladies high-heel shoes

so they're just getting stuck in this to a theme park yes which apparently high heels that's just what people wore back then particularly ladies but that's what people wore out to the theme parks it seems amazing just in their heels dresses

watching the footage it was just like people were dressed up like they were going to, you know, a dinner party or something, some sort of formal event. They did dress up more back then, though. Yeah. Like when I went to Disneyland, maybe we should put up photos of ourselves at Disneyland too. Oh, I'll find, I'll have some. I've got one of me, I'm in shorts and sneakers, because I mean business that day.

Like, I've got places to be, people. Yeah, you've got like, in my comfy clothes. Wearing a nappy, no toilet, stop for me. My hair is up. It will not get tangled in the wind on the rides. We've got a hat for SunSmart protection. Yep. You've got to be smart.

You got to be. Imagine if we were there on the same day. Just imagine it. Oh, man. Wouldn't be so cool. Oh, if there's one of the rows. Yeah, look through our photos of like, you know, me and my mum staying in front of the castle, and then you're just in the background.

Probably throwing a tantrum in the background. So good. You're this tiny, tiny child. We're the same age, but for some reason, like half my size. Well, he is now, so. I probably would be. Yeah. Little Davy Warnocky.

The boy who never grew up. The boy who couldn't hold a pencil. I can hold a pencil now. Tiny hands. Tiny, tiny hands. Hands are normal. I don't know how they got so normal. When did your hands have a growth spurt?

Had surgery. These are not the hands I was born with. Hand augmentation. That's the technical term. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. So is it, we get into a point where you're thinking this is, not a good day, like particularly bad.

Yeah, it's not sounding like a good day. I guess it's especially bad for Disneyland because they're making no money because no one's paid, but it's also good because people can't really complain, can they? Because their shoes are being swallowed. Do you think, I don't know if you've come across any journalists in the past, reviewing a thing? Oh, yeah, okay, yeah. And it's mostly impressed, yeah.

And then they would be pretty savage about it, actually. And also, so I'm thinking in terms of being one of the people visiting the park, be a little bit deterred because it'd be like, well, there's no food and my feet are sinking and it's a bit shit. And also, as Walt Disney, he'd be like, I'm not, this is not going well at all. Well, the funny thing is that Walt was totally unaware of all the issues. Because he was, he was a big part of the live broadcast. And apparently you didn't find out until much later that it was a disaster. What he was thinking, guys, that was great. How good was that? I mean, if you watch the, the broadcast, it was, it all went pretty smoothly. It looks

pretty, to me it was amazing, but amazing is not the right word. It's in black and white too. I was surprised how smooth it all went. Even though there were a few issues, which I'll talk about, even on the broadcast, but they were relatively minor. Or actually, one of them is a bit fucked, but anyway.

Talk about it in a sec. Okay, so we've got, you know, overcrowded food stalls. Traffic jam. Traffic jam. Super hot. People's good Sunday best are being destroyed. Yeah.

by sweat. On top of all those things, California had been going through a plumber strike around that time. Oh, God. Which ended only a day or so before. I mean, I've read this in different ways. Some say that the strike went throughout, but I'm pretty sure it ended just before.

And Walt Disney, so Walt got his team of plumbers back. And he was given the option of either having working toilets, in time for the opening or working drinking fountains. And obviously for the working toilets. Yeah, right? And that's what he did. Oh, thank God.

I was going to say, well, please don't choose the drinking fountain. But it meant that there was no drinking fountains either on a 38-degree day. Yeah, and they're running out of drinks and food and there's a line to get any... Oh, no. So there's no water in the heat. So people are getting dehydrated and whatnot. Also, another one, there was a gas leak in Fantasyland. That makes me laugh especially because on The Simpsons, they have itchy and scratchy land, a parody of Disneyland.

And because they like to kill each other, one of them is called Searing Gas Pane Land, one of the areas. Unnecessary Surgery Land is another one. But Searing, Gaspan, Land. So that's a... Yeah, based on a true story. Oh, no. So they have to close down big sections of the park. different times.

Oh. I love it because fantasy land and there's a gas leak. You'd probably... Everyone's tripping. It would make the, you know, the fantastical rides seem. Even more fantastical. Yeah. And during all this, there was the live broadcasts we're talking about on ABC TV,

which I watched last night. And I reckon you should flick through it. The broadcast was hosted by some of Walt's Hollywood mates. So I guess these guys would be. stars at the time but I've only heard of one of them. Art Link Letter was the main host. Oh, art. He was great. Like, the way he worked under pressure. So good. Did you remind you of a young you from Channel 31? It was much like a young me at the show. Bob Cummings and also a man named Ronnie Reagan.

Ah. Who went on to become... To be a future present of the United States of America. Ronald Reagan, which is kind of cool. Very cool. one of the co-hists and like over to you Ronnie and everyone's going hey break it was fine you know it was good pretty good at he was wearing a bow tie sort of tuxedo get up on a 38 degree day that's how professional he is yeah wow but i i found it pretty fun that's cool that's really

cool um yeah that one found him quite interesting uh the broadcast had some issues um at one point link letter sort of late in the broadcast link letter crossed the coverage of the over to coming so they were they were sort of separate places in the park and they were throwing to each other and they were saying stuff like when they got the throw and it was pretty clear they had no idea what was being thrown from but they were just like thanks so much for that bob uh really well explained just like really vague stuff like oh yeah you talk that through beautifully sort of stuff like almost not worth saying yeah thanks bob love your work yeah um but link led across the coverage over to He wasn't ready.

He was on a pirate ship and he wasn't ready. Are you kidding? He was on a pirate ship. Yay! Thank you for that, Ronnie. It wasn't even a shot anywhere near him. He was sort of on a long lens and he sort of figured out what was going on and then he started chatting to.

He had some sort of celebrity that I'd never heard of. He was Chandoo briefly. It was a kid actor in Treasure Island or something and he'd grown up a bit. And then he tried to throw... back to link letter, but found that link letter was searching for his mic. And then, so, Cummings started... What do you mean, just looking for it? Yeah, he was sort of running around, and Cummings was sort of going,

he's like, I think he can't find his mic, and he sort of started commentating it. Left it in the haunted house. He's got to run back. Which, you know, I mean, that's a fairly minor thing. And that were the kind of things that was like, oh, that's pretty handled pretty, pretty, pretty professionally, just sort of not going on. Oh, shit, what do I do? Yeah.

I just turned into a bit of a, what I imagine in the 50s. Some of them, like, I'm like, gee, look at them, just freeballing it. Yeah, wow. It's amazing. Do they have, like, earpieces? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how the technology was back then. They must have, but, yeah, I would, I was surprised any of this stuff was possible.

Why, TV in the 50s? I can't believe anything existed back then. I just thought people were sitting around in barns. Pirates ships? Yeah, pirate ships. Amazing. Food. They had food.

They had food. Well, not much, but some. I couldn't. I could not. Toilets. But no drinking founts. Yeah. Surprise, surprise.

Amazing. I read this one, but I couldn't spot it watching it back. But apparently, in Frontierland at one point, the cameras caught Cummings making out with a dancer, one of the hosts. What? Are you kidding? I mean, no, I'm not kidding But could you find it? I couldn't find a bit of, yeah, it's a bit of, yeah, it's a bit of, you know, it's a bit of grainy, but a bunch of different sources noted that.

Which I was like, oh, he was the younger, I think he would have been the youngest one of the three, and it's like, ah, he's having a crazy time at Disneyland, you know? It's a place where adults and children can have fun, I guess. Oh, but that's not against the Disney Holesome movie, so right? Yeah, that's what I thought. So I read that before watching it, so I was kind of looking for it. Looking for watching it. Every time Cummings is on just watching him. You dirty dog.

When I read it, I assumed that, you know, Cummings would have been a single guy sort of thing. So I was surprised when early on in the coverage that Cummings introduced us to his wife and kids. They're there. Yeah, they're there. And is his wife dancing at all? No, she looked like she was not in any sort of dancing attire. Oh, dear. But I couldn't find anything about it.

the fallout from that. It feels like that is... No good. Not cool. For an hour of your life, you know there's a possibility of you being on live TV. Why would you make out with anyone? Yeah, it just was not in a comings' work from then on. That's the reason Matt and I did not make out on that TV. Because you knew that was live.

Yeah, both of our wives and kids were. I'm so alone. So yeah, overall, though, as I've said, I thought the, broadcast was pretty impressive. Watching it, I was surprised and it couldn't have been that hot. No one looked like they were... Are most people wearing jackets? Yeah, everyone's sort of dressed up.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Wow. So some of the press at the time, this was from the Associated Press said, probably for the first time in his career, Disney disappointed thousands of youngsters. And for years to come, Disneyland workers referred to opening day as Black Sunday. Wow. During Walt's lifetime, they didn't count it as an official day of Disneyland. The official opening was always seen as the day after,

but now after he died and they've sort of moved on from that, they see that as the opening day. So they have their anniversary on the whatever day. I wonder how they recovered to open again the next day, like just restocking all the food, trying to get the taps working. Yeah, we've hard, people are working all night. But at the same time, in my mind, what I'm thinking is

no one has ever been to a proper theme park before. Do they know how good it usually run? Do you know what I mean? Like, they might be like, sure, the asphalt is melting and there's lines for food, but maybe this is just the norm. You know what I mean? There's nothing to compare it to. Yeah.

In your mind, no one's ever been to a massive theme park before. So it still probably seems pretty cool. Yeah. In comparison to your boring 1955, And I mean, I've heard of, I listen to a few interviews with people who were there, including there was one guy who was just a kid at the time. And it's like, it's hard to even explain how amazing it was. Yeah, like it would be amazing, right?

Yeah, it's like, and so another kid at the time was saying they remember seeing Walt Disney there. Because he was, his plan was to greet a lot of the people at the gates. 22,000. But yeah, that wasn't possible. But someone saw him and I was just looking at it was like, they said, I saw you, I've seen you on the TV. And then they were like, he just looked like a giant. They were just mesmerized by this crazy man.

It would be weird. Like imagine something, I'm still like, well, Disney was a real person. Yeah. Weird. He, another thing that happened during the broadcast was he started, as they opened each part of the park, he'd read out this little poem sort of thing or a little blurb. and one of the ones he was reading out and someone signalled off camera

and he's like oh okay thinking they were saying we're not on air yet and then he started again so that like there were little blips like that far into it was he it was like a three page epic poem it would have been you know ten seconds in or something

it was a bit awkward but luckily I mean if it was me I would have like oh fuck I don't know Walt just like oh this is fucked cancel it tear it down the banks were right goes out the back and kills himself

And that was the last We ever heard of Walt Disney Somebody Like shoot away a fly And he took it like Oh my poem's fucked Is it? Well you're all fired

You're all fired You're all fired You're double fired Instead of personally greeting people He just personally fires everyone in the park Oh that's our old Yeah That's classic world behaviour

Wait In this bizarre University. A lot of us to tell you, Matt, that we haven't been recording this whole time. We have to start your report again. Oh, this is bullshit. You can get fucked.

You Jess Perkins can fuck off. That's impressive of Walt Disney there. If you were still alive. When that time Walt Disney told me Jess Perkins to fuck off. Yeah, remember it well. And, but yeah, interestingly, guests from all over the world

seemed to love it. And as we all know, the park became a major success. Sure did. 90 days later, the one millionth guest entered the turnstub. So a million in three months. Yeah. That is great. It's over 10,000 people a day.

If it's open seven days a week, I don't know if it was. Yeah, well, it is now. That's a pretty crazy number. So, yeah. A million people in three months. Imagine if you can make a million dollars in three months. But that's the thing. So he was so far in debt, but all the debts were paid off within a really quickly.

Really quick amount of time. Wow. And yeah, it was a sweet investment. And things like, so he had to sell a lot of things off, like a lot of the shops inside were outside businesses. Oh. Eventually, he took all them over, so they're all Disney shops now. And that was only within a couple of years. He was able to sort of buy everything back.

Wow. People were disappointed with some things, like, apart from all those issues, there were also a lot of the rides weren't ready like they should have been. Tomorrowland was hardly ready at all. Wow, it's called Tomorrowland. Yeah, that's right. Look, it's not called Todayland. Yeah.

Fuck heads. I'm sorry, children. I always get that confused. Come back tomorrow. Yeah, fuck heads. I was listening to an interview with one of the guy who worked there at the day and he's just like, it was such a stressful day. And the interviewer was like, yeah, how did you feel at the end of the day? And he's like, I'll tell you like this.

I got really drunk. Does that answer your question? It was a tough day. at work and I went out for an alcoholic beverage. A little unusual, I know. Nobody else does that when they're a bit stressed. So that's the way we did it in 1955. It was a different time.

I think if you guys are ready, I'm going to get on with my new segment called Forced Fun Facts. I like it. I like it already. I just got a few here. Here we go. I'm excited. I haven't been this excited since 1998 when I went to Disney. Anyone's with numbers, you know, they're not fun. No, they could be.

It's just a fact. We were listening. So in 1955, as I was saying, in the latter half part of the year, because it was only open for part of the year, they had about somewhere around a million visitors. Then that, the last number I saw was 2014. The number was up to 17 million in the year. Wow. Which is 17 million per year. Yeah.

That's crazy. The number up to recently, through the park overall, they've had more than 750 million visitors. Oh, in the 60 years? Yeah. Wow. That seems like a lot of people. But there's also got to be a few repeats, you know. It's funny what I know about numbers is not a lot, right?

So I read it, and the first way I read it was the most recent year was 650 million. I'm like, yeah, that's really good. That's a lot, yeah. And then like, oh no, that's forever. also a lot I guess I have no idea but you're thinking that they could have two million people come in a day yeah

I was like wow yeah great yeah like one quarter that's a good business I imagine like as long as overheads aren't too crazy I reckon they're making a profit with 650 million people in a year

imagine how big the car park would have to be for two million people to come a day really big I imagine maybe you know say three or four people per car some people in buses What is that like 7 million car parks? Can you get a minivan? Nine million.

Look, I don't know. You get a minivan? Minivans, all right. Well, that probably makes it, well, let's say that makes it, what, 15 million car parks. Easy. Jeez, Dave, drive McQuay. Is that kind of the right math to say? 20 million car parks.

Is that right? That's if everyone drives themselves. Everyone drives 10 cars. Well, it's the United States of America. Who knows? It's the age of excess, so that's how I'd do it. I drive a counter to Disneyland, I walk back to my hotel, drive another car. Repeat ten times.

Yeah. It's the only way I live. And the hotel is quite a while away. It's worth it. I have never been on the ride. Fuck them. I don't give a shit. Do they want to build...

I leave those cars there as well. They're garbage to me. I don't need them. I have another ten cars the next day. If they build a hundred million... car park, someone's going to use it. Yeah. Fact. And that's a fact.

And that's a fact. Take it to the bank. So we're talking about the different areas of the park. Tomorrowland, which was pretty much underdone, was initially based on the future time of 1986. Oh, what a world. A magic time. A couple of the predictions that they'd made. And they said it wasn't just like, you know, this wasn't fantasy land.

And this was Tomorrowland where, and they had scientists and futurists mapping out how they actually saw 1986 to be, which as we know is always. Some things they get right. Some things. But a lot of it is just like... Yeah, what do they predict? A couple of the predictions were that a trip to the moon will be an everyday thing. In 30 years.

Yeah. Wow. Why? I haven't been since the 70s. Yeah. No one's been. No one's been. Every day.

Do we even know it's still there? Yeah, I have no idea. No proof. I can't think of a way of finding it I just can't You have to go there And no one has And if they're not going there's probably not there

There's a reason for this thing You reckon Do you reckon it goes all the way to the top Yeah All the way to the top of that bank Where you cashed the fact before The other one Which so the

That's a pretty grand idea It's amazing The moon every day And 30 years later No That's not a thing The other one I liked, which is probably slightly less grand, was that there'd be a clock that could show the time anywhere in the world.

At the same time, with like hundreds and hundreds of seconds, minutes, an hour hands. Yeah, it's just really ridiculous. You just can't tell. You can't read it at all. But they had it. I think it's seven o'clock somewhere. They built one, and it was one of the, it was the big statue thing in that area of the park, was this clock that could show the timing.

Yeah, a huge thing that was super unnecessary. Why anyone would need to know that anyway. Yeah. Sorry, I was getting distracted by Savi Michael Eadis. Doing that funny voice he does. I'm looking forward to saying this show. Oh, it's going to say it's so good. It's a late-night show, so we should all be able to go.

Yes. Okay, so I reckon that was a funnish fact, even if it was a little forced. No, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. This one to me is amazing. I love this fact so much. A couple of weeks, this isn't strictly about the opening, but it was a couple of weeks after the opening.

A tiger and a panther in a circus parade broke loose and staged a furious death struggle on Main Street in USA. That is amazing. That was a direct quote, furious death struggle. As in they were fighting each other to the death? I think that should be the name of your heavy metal band. Furious death struggle. Oh man, so good.

Well, I imagine that the tiger would have absolutely destroyed the Puma. Right. Yeah. Interesting. You're not sure? It brought some facts to it. That was all, I didn't look into it anymore. Furious death struggle was all I needed.

You don't know who won the furious death struggle. But you're right. Tigers are the biggest cats in the world. By far. Oh, yeah. So Pumas are one of the smaller end of the big cats. A lion's not bigger than them? No, lions are bigger.

second? Yeah, but tigers are longer, stronger and heavier. Long, strong. And heavier. I'm about to get the friction on. Because there's, um... Oh, like in a death struggle kind of way, Jess. Your face is saying that I was talking about sort of a sex thing.

I was just talking about a death struggle. Yeah, just struggling to kill the other one. I think, because there's often a debate about whether a lion or a tiger would win. Sure. And I think most people conclude that a tiger would win because they, hunt solo but lions hunt in packs like dickheads

like dig heads and also tigers are bigger and I think there's been a couple of instances where a tiger and the lion of both broken loose and the tiger usually wins you've got tigers on your t-shirt I do too

I do have tigers on my t-shirt because I back a winner so that death struggle one which I enjoyed clearly much more than you guys did I definitely I just want to know

just like yeah Don't do actouts on a podcast I know the tiger's trapped in the asphalt He's like yay a tiger Oh my God And I was also picturing it like What do you

What's the word for making animals humans Animomorphing them To like a couple of drunken guys That are doing a bar fight Where they're like putting their paws around each other's throat And then they're flipping ones underneath I think the way of thinking for is Anthropos

Anthrophymorphis. Anthropophores. Well, I did not say that right. No. It was just repeating what you said. One more time. Anthropomorphs. Anthrophomorphs.

Anthrophorophos. And what did I say? What did the word I say name? I said animorph. Anamorph, which is that 90s show where they could turn into animals. Okay. In a way, I was right. Okay.

Okay. So what's your... What's your beef? What's your beef? So this one's from History.com Within a couple of weeks of the opening Nearly all of the 36 cars On the Autopia

Which was Walt's dream of a utopian miniature freeway Which children could learn respectful rules of the road Oh, sounds like a lame ride Within a couple of weeks of that opening Nearly all of those 36 cars Were wrecked by aggressive drivers Who crashed into one of other vehicles Yeah

What even in? What? Because dodging cars are way more fun. So people are smashing the cars for fun. Are they like little cars you can just drive around the park? Oh my God, that's such a great idea though. Yeah, oh, there was a track. So there was a...

That's really cute. It was fun. That's what Frank Sinatra was in. Ah, I see now. So little car, but then people just kept crashing them into each other. Prime suspect number one. Yeah. Yeah, wow.

Cool. Oh, I think he was known as Gary, I guess, so that's saying. Yeah, Gary Sinatra. Yeah, it's pre-Frank. Yeah, Gary Sinatra. I mean, yeah, later that day, the... the name has started getting around a bit. But, you know, like, there wasn't social media then.

You couldn't spread a nickname as quickly, so. There was a, hashtag Gary Sinatra. There was a bit of time where he was known as Gary Frank Sinatra. And then eventually, like, Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Yeah, exactly. Gary the Frank Sinatra. Yeah, and then he dropped Gary and then he dropped the Tha. The Tha.

So he was the Frank Sinatra for a little while. The Frank Sinatra. Yeah. Well, it was the Frank Ferdas Sinatra. And then just Frank. I mean, you don't need the whole body. He went through a serious phase. Yeah, it did.

It's kind of like how Prince was the artist formerly known as Prince for a while there. It was a symbol. It's kind of like that. Yeah. The artist formerly known as Gary Frankenfert Sanatra. It's interesting. We haven't had a hashtag tag tag Gary Sanatra is. You just did one.

Yeah, hashtag Gary Sinatra. I reckon that's the winner. Although we did get a tweet this week saying hashtag leave the hashtags to Jess. Sure did. Well, I've... Well, we got that a few weeks here whenever we got it. We got it at some point. I've got a few more minutes to come up with one. Okay, great.

Well, if you can beat hashtag Gary Sinatra. Good luck. So, yeah, I thought that was fun. I was just like, it wasn't that fun or funny, but it was super heartbreaking. You just picture Walt Disney with this thing. It's going to be a utopia. Everyone's going to learn respect for the road and each other. And like within weeks.

I think it's hilarious that they just fucking. nearly all of them were fucked. I think it's funny. I just, like, Walt, after closing, standing, looking over this pile of car rubble just with a single tear. Poor Walt. And, okay, one last, one last one last one here. Due to the lack of adequate preparation time leading up to the opening,

they ran out of time to clear the weeds that had sprouted along the banks of the canal. Canal. Canal. I'm just, I'm losing, I'm losing all confidence in my ability to read words. This is wrong. Canal, canal, canal, canal, I'm going to start again there. Canal. That's bad, isn't it?

I'm amazing. Have you never come across the word? No, no, I know, I know it well, but it's just like me going, oh no. Just overthinking at that. What's, what's happened? All I'm seeing is C anal. That's very funny. C, anal.

Otherwise, no, it's a canal. Due to the lack of adequate preparation time leading up to the opening, they ran out of time to clear the weeds that had sprouted along the banks of the canal boats. All I can see is sea anal and I read. Did I pause there? Yeah, yeah. Canal. Canal, not sea anal.

Sea anal run. Run, anal run. So there's lots of bushes on. along the sea anal can have. A lot of bushes of weeds along the sea anal boats. Is that that a bigger deal?

Of the world right. It wasn't that big of a deal, but it was obviously a bit messy. And so to cover this, Walt ordered workers to place signs with exotic species names in Latin next to them. That's so clever.

Is he serious? But that almost would have taken more effort than just ripping out the way. Yes. He's had to get to a sign writer, approve it that does that does sound

like a but maybe that is a bullshit thing because that doesn't make any sense because in the time that they like

are delicately placing the sign they could just rip out the weeds yeah there must have been a crazy amount of weeds

I guess it's a long canal and they were just sort of like sprinkling signs that's pretty funny yeah

that was that was my favourite so that I'd end on that's that's great very good have you ever seen

there's a video I don't know if it's online anymore uh John Saffran the um

sort of media personality, his radio and TV shows. His first break into media was, he did a competition on ABC called Race Around the World. Yeah. Where they sent different young contestants around the world to film videos, and he filmed one at Disneyland,

and he films himself breaking into Disneyland. Oh, my God. It's really fantastic, and then he goes on the, there's a whole world after all ride and places his own toy, and he puts up, I think, um,

Plarks underneath, Walt Disney's photos because he was a famous anti-Semite. Really? Allegedly. What? Yeah, apparently. And then John Saffranes of Jewish Heritage. And yeah, he puts up these official-looking, like, golden plaques underneath the thing.

Yeah, so it's quite an amazing video. So during the opening ceremony, they said something, I should have written it down, but they said something like, we've got representatives from all three major faiths. Protestants, Catholics, and Judaism. So they had the... Oh, they did have it there. Well, there you go. It's just a, I guess, a rumor.

I love a world where two of the three major faiths. And I mean, all three of them are very closely related. But the first two are basically, they're Christianity. Yeah. Yeah, the same. And then they had, I think it was Walt's nephew, read a prayer. And they all said a prayer. And it was all super patriotic stuff as well about America.

being, you know, having the answers and hoping that the world could get on board, you know, with their idea of freedom that they came up with and stuff like that. Did you know America came up with freedom? Well, yes, I did. Famously. They told me so. Cool. Well, yeah, that's it.

Any questions, any comments? I would like to know, and I get, you don't have it in front of you. So it's a kind of, it's a very wonky thing to do to ask. Yeah, that's right. I'm trying to put you on the spot. But I would like to know how many staff there. park has, like how many people are working there? Because, so the Apple store, right, just as an example, I used to work directly opposite

one of the biggest Apple stores in Australia, I think in Melbourne, and they had 200 staff members. They wouldn't all be on at the same time, but they had 200 staff members. So I'm imagining 100 acres, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of visitors every day, how many staff do they have? There was, I did see, and I've got it written down here somewhere, Okay, yeah. So off the Wikipedia, so you never fully know how true this is. According to a March 2005 Disney Company report, 65,700 jobs are supported by the Disneyland Resort. Okay. So that's a resort.

Including about 20,000 direct Disney employees and 3,800 third-party employees. That's not really answering your question, but it's a vaguely related. It's a lot. And you know, they have like secret tunnels underneath the park. Really? One of my friends worked there and you're not allowed to talk about it, but she confirmed there are tunnels, and that's how they get around. Because you never see, like, you never see any of the staff. You never even walk through a door.

Yeah, I guess, and especially at the characters and stuff, when they clock off, they can't just take their head off. They go through tunnels underneath. And when I was in Disneyland, my dad always tells a story of, like, this yute pulling up with all these guys with bins, so they're just cleaners. And then they start, like, playing the bits. bins and they're secret musicians. It's a little bit dismissive when you said just cleaners.

Well, no, because, yeah, but that's what I mean, because you're supposed to just think, oh, just a couple of cleaners. That's the thing, you never noticed the cleaners at Disney. Don't look twice at the cleaner. I mean, it's an important job, you know? If there's no cleaners, then rubbish is piling up. But if there's no musicians, then what? Well, you know.

Yeah, exactly. You get on with your life. No, you don't. In a way, cleaners are the heroes of the park. There's no bin musicians. is more specifically. Are you done? Well, I think we are just about done here.

So Jess and I are going to try and find some childhood photos of us at Disneyland and tweet them out and look in the background to see if we can see each other. Yeah, I'm going to look through that photo album. Yeah, and there's a great amount of photos from that day. So I'll find a few fun ones to tweet out of it. Of the first day, that would be great. I'll send out a link to the broadcast and see if anyone else can see. Bob Cummings

Macing on his Mac in the background Yeah behind the back and his wife is she was only a couple of feet away

I imagine she was But she was in the park And it was a live broadca Oh my god How do you think You could get away with it How did you think We'll be tweeting out

All this stuff And chucking on our Facebook page Which is Do Go On on Facebook And we're at Do Go On Pod on Twitter You can email us

Do Go On Pod At Gmail.com Like Evan You want us to talk about your topic I should say Yeah, I should thank Gavin for that. It was a great topic.

It was something that I'd just never, I've never had any interest. I was in America a couple of years ago. I was in California, I had no interest. I never even thought about going, but I reckon if I was back there now, just to see the place where all this crazy shit happened. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's amazing.

Yeah. It's the most wonderful place in the world. Yeah. So I'm pretty stoked with people sending in ideas like that. The hat is starting to bulge with ideas, but keep them coming. because we're going to do this for it. We'll do this forever if that's what it takes.

Until the end of time. I'm going to do it till the end, until the hat is empty, at least. So, at least a few more weeks coming out of do-go-on, pot. The problem is that the hat, there's more things going into the hat than are coming out of it. Like, we get multiple suggestions a week. Well, you're the only one who has the hat.

And I'm the only one. I should pass the hat around. Yeah, pass the hat around. For Jess, who's going to be doing the report next week. We look forward to hearing from you then. Thank you. I thought you always look forward to hearing from me at any time because my inputs are always so well thought out like this one.

Yes, we do enjoy your inputs. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I guess that's it. Thank you and see you next time. Bye-bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there.

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