The Happiest Place on Earth: The Incredible Story of Walt Disney’s Disneyland is an illustrated history of the park that turned 70 yesterday, and today IGN can exclusively reveal five pages from the book that showcases an unprecedented look at the creation of the beloved park and a Disneyland that could have had Oz characters like Dorothy, a Thomas Edison square, and more.
This book is now available for purchase and features more than 750 images, previously unpublished documents, and concept drawings of Disneyland that are all organized by the park’s original five lands – Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland.
“Almost immediately after Walt Disney opened Disneyland, he got to work with his team of Imagineers to ideate new ideas meant to plus his nascent ‘theme park’ – as it would be called in later years. Partially inspired by Thornton Wilder’s Our Town , Edison Square would have served as an adjunct to Main Street, U.S.A. and featured a cul-de-sac with architecture from St. Louis, Chicago, San Francisco and New York. Inside the facades, guests would encounter a four-act show with multiple tableaux and dioramas showcasing Thomas Edison and the advent of electricity in the American home from the turn of the century to the present day. Envisioned as being sponsored by General Electric, by the late 1950s it had been re-imagined as the Carousel of Progress – one of Disney’s four hit shows at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In 1967, the show would come home to Disneyland and eventually be relocated at Orlando’s Magic Kingdom in 1975, where it is still in operation today.” – Christopher Merritt
“A few years after his audacious grand opening, Walt Disney was playing with the idea of adding a more dedicated New Orleans Square to Disneyland (facades with New Orleans adjacent architecture had been part of Frontierland dating back to the opening in 1955) – including winding city streets with shops like the “Thieves Market,” a pirate-themed Wax Museum and a walk-through Haunted House. After experiments in using vehicles to move large amounts of guests at the 1964 New York World’s Fair proved successful, both the Wax Museum and the Haunted House would be re-concepted as attractions utilizing ride vehicles. This would allow Walt and his team of Imagineers to better manage large amounts of people moving throughout the attractions at any given time, while also giving greater control over the views guests would be given into the meticulously planed scenes.” – Christopher Merritt
“As early as 1957, the thought of an attraction celebrating the stories and mythology of pirates was something Disney had directed his team to start ideating on. Ultimately realized by legendary Imagineers like Marc Davis and Claude Coats, years earlier other WED designers like Bruce Bushman and Herb Ryman developed plans and tableaux for a pirates themed “wax museum” walk through. The team went so far as to build an underground show building to house the museum, but after the lessons of the 1964 New York World’s Fair, Walt realized he could do a much bigger show by putting guests in a boat, taking them outside the berm and into a second show building where he could really wow them. To this day, most riders don’t realize that the first section of Pirates of the Caribbean (with caves and skeletons) was slated as the original home for the aborted museum concepts.” – Christopher Merritt
“After the aborted Ken Anderson-designed walk-through “Haunted House” attraction developed in 1956-57 was temporarily shelved, work on what would eventually become the classic dark ride The Haunted Mansion would continue in fits and starts throughout the early 1960s, until 1964 when legendary animator and Imagineer Marc Davis took a stab at it. Known as the master of staging and the “clear read,” as well as bringing humor to Disneyland in a way that was sorely lacking in earlier years, Davis would create iconic vignettes and gags in this classic dark ride, known the world over to this day. Working on the project until well after Walt’s passing in 1966, the stretching portraits, the infamous Hatbox Ghost and the Hitchhiking Ghosts all flowed from his Montblanc pen.” – Christopher Merritt
“From the time Walt Disney opened his Fantasyland attraction Canal Boats of the World – quickly re-named Storybook Land – he was seemingly never satisfied with it, and would spend the next ten years coming up with ideas on how to add, improve or otherwise “plus” the charming little boat ride. Concepts over the years included a Fantasia -themed dark ride that would wind in and around the boat ride, a “Rock Candy Mountain” addition to theCasey Jr. train area (located in the same footprint), a “Topiary Gardens and Fountains” (with animated topiary) and scenes from Babes In Toyland and Peter and the Wolf . None of these came to fruition, but in May of 1959, Walt issued a memo with the following edict:
STORYBOOKLAND: Revamp this area with an exciting climax to the canal boat ride where it enters the a cavern. Inside, do a Magic Land of Oz treatment, using animated figures.
From 1959 to 1961, Walt would have designers like Joe Rinaldi, Bob Gurr and Blaine Gibson all work on different aspects of an interior scene featuring a birthday party for Dorothy, being thrown by the denizens of Oz – with about 100 doll-sized figures that would sing and perform limited animation. The project would languish during the planning for the ’64 New York Fair, and be permanently shelved after the development of the classic attraction it’s a small world .” – Christopher Merritt
For more, check out our look at the story of how a century of Disney magic began , our chat with Disney Imagineering head Bruce Vaughn about Disneyland’s Avengers attraction and more, and 12 reasons to visit Disneyland for its 70th anniversary.
Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst, Instagram, and TikTok, and listen to his show, Talking Disney Magic.
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