Tag: Disneyland

April 12, 1905: Magic Kingdoms Here and There

Posted on by Richard Daybell

It was a Big Apple Fantasyland. Finishing touches were still being put in place on New York City’s Hippodrome just hours before its April 12, 1905, opening. Seating 5300 people, it dwarfed the Metropolitan Opera with its 3000 seats. A marvel of theatrical architecture, its stage was 12 times larger than any existing Broadway house. A four-hour extravaganza opened with A Yankee Circus on Mars, which featured acrobats, clowns, horses, elephants, and space ships, of course.  A baboon named Coco joined 60 musicians, several hundred singers, and 150 dancers for a musical spectacle.  A depiction of the Civil War featured gunfire, explosions and cavalry troops on horseback swimming across a huge water tank simulating a lake.  Harry Houdini made a 10,000-pound elephant disappear.

For the next two decades, the Hippodrome was the largest and most successful theater in New York, hosting operas, circuses, vaudeville and silent movies.The musical spectacular Good Times ran for 456 performances from 1920 to 1921 and Better Times ran for 405 performance in 1922–23.  Unfortunately leaner times were ahead.  The Sixth Avenue property that the Hippodrome occupied became too valuable for its use.  Finally, the elephants all left the stage and marched off to the Bronx Zoo and, in 1939, the Hippodrome closed its doors.

Flying Elephants Perhaps (a Clever Segue to 1992)

Could Mickey Souris really cut it among continental consumers? Would the rodent empire have the necessary je ne sais quoi to win those jaded Gallic hearts and minds? No more guessing or advance planning or idle speculation after D-Day (as in Disney) — April 12, 1992, the day Euro Disney opened its gates in Marne-La-Vallee on the outskirts of Paris. Mickey, Donald Duck and, yes, Dumbo scored. The royaume magique became one of Europe’s leading tourist destinations with some 15 million annual visitors. Disney had created another Fantasyland.

Speaking of Disney (a Clever Segue to a Blatant Commercial Message)

Paul wasn’t sure, but the five-foot duck waddling through the throngs of laughing, crying, shouting, whining children appeared to be waddling toward him – a duck with a destination and, perhaps, a mission.  Chances are it had spotted him scowling in a land where grinning is the norm, and it, by God, meant to do something about it.
“Enjoying the Magic Kingdom?” asked the duck upon reaching him. Despite its carefully sculpted plastic smile, this duck wasn’t going to cheer anyone up; its voice dripped sarcasm.
“Of course, I am,” Paul answered, adopting his very own duck attitude.  “Isn’t that why you’re here?  By the way, didn’t I somewhere get the idea that you’re all supposed to be pleasant and cheerful?”
“I’m not even supposed to talk.  Just wave.”  The duck waved and, in silence, could have passed for pleasant and cheerful, albeit of a fabricated sort.
“Then why did you talk to me?” Paul asked.
“Because you look bored – like you positively hate the place.”
“Ah, you’re not just an ordinary duck, you’re a member of the happiness squad, here to lift my spirits.”
“No,” answered the duck.  “I thought you might have a cigarette.”
“That’s an interesting deduction.”
“Well, do you?”
“Yes.”
“May I have one?” the duck asked, sitting next to him on the bench.
“Certainly.  I’ve never seen a duck smoke before.  Rabbits maybe, hedgehogs maybe, but never a duck.  Some people might find that a bit weird.”
“I think most people would agree that what’s really weird is someone talking to a duck.”

Quack here.

 

March 27, 1958: They Say Goofy Is a Fellow Traveler

Posted on by rdaybell

     Nikita Khrushchev was elevated to top commie in the Soviet Union on March 27, 1958. His Cold War relationship with President Eisenhower and the United States was a complex one, certainly more so than the Ego War between the current Russian leader and his previous U.S. bro-hug counterpart.

     The following year Khrushchev was in the U.S. for a summit meeting with Eisenhower.   At the Soviet leader’s request, a visit to Hollywood was arranged.  Khrushchev and his wife arrived in Los Angeles, where the day started with a tour of the Twentieth Century Fox Studios in Hollywood and a visit to the sound stage of  Can-Can. Meeting stars Shirley MacLaine and Juliet Prowse pleased the roly-poly dictator even though he had to nyet a chance to dance with MacLaine (probably something to do with the Siberian stare coming from Mrs. K)   A lunch hosted by Frank Sinatra was also a big success even though Sinatra didn’t sing “That Old Bolshevik Magic,” as Nikita requested.

     The day headed downhill when Twentieth Century Fox President Spyros P. Skouras, who wore his anticommunism on his sleeve, got into a bit of a who-will-bury-whom brouhaha with the Russian leader who was known for his temper tantrums.  Shortly afterward, it began to look as though a nuclear exchange were imminent. Meeting Frank Sinatra was nice, but who Nikita really wanted to meet was Mickey Mouse.  His American hosts told him it couldn’t happen.  Security concerns.   Perhaps he’d like to see Cape Canaveral, the White House War Room, the Strategic Air Command. But no Disneyland.  Nicky exploded. “And I say, I would very much like to go and see Disneyland. But then, we cannot guarantee your security, they say. Then what must I do? Commit suicide? What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me?”

Khrushchev left Los Angeles the next morning, and the Cold War returned to deep freeze.

Put a Cork in It

Back through the centuries wine lovers never aged their wines; they consumed it quickly before it went bad.  Then in the 18th century, British glassblowers began to make bottles with narrow necks for wine that made airtight storage possible. Corks were used to seal the bottles. This quickly led to the invention of one of the dandiest little gizmos ever devised — the corkscrew. The design was based on a similar device used to clean muskets. The first corkscrews were T-shaped devices that twisted into the cork and after a certain amount of pulling extracted the cork. Corkscrews were first patented in England and France, then on March 27, 1860, M. L. Byrn of New York City received an American patent.

Since then, hundreds of corkscrews have been designed of every shape, size and mechanics you can imagine — single-lever, double-winged, air pump, electric, mounted. Naturally there are corkscrew books, corkscrew clubs, and corkscrew collectors, helixophiles.