Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jul 17, 2025 | 5 comments

An ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE…

By PETER BOSCH

It all started with a carousel ride in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Among the riders were two little girls. Watching them was their father, a man named Walt Disney. As he observed their joy riding that merry-go-round, he thought to himself how wonderful it would be for a place like this for all the kids and parents in the world to come to — only maybe slightly bigger.

Needless to say, it turned out to be bigger. Much bigger.

When you see Disney in front of a map of the completed Disneyland in 1955, you realize how huge he could dream. There had been amusement parks before this… but never a theme park of such magnitude.

No one should have been surprised. When Walt Disney imagined something better than things were, change happened. When cartoons in the 1920s were silent, he added sound. While they were in black and white in the 1930s, he added Technicolor. When he talked about creating a full-length animated feature, everyone said he was insane, that audiences would never sit through a cartoon movie. He produced Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), it made a fortune, and those same people then said he was a genius.

But, of course, when he said he wanted to build a theme park in Anaheim, California, covering 160 acres, they said he would lose his shirt. Yet, Disneyland did open July 17, 1955,

Let’s go back 70 years and experience the opening of Disneyland. Got your “C” ticket handy?

Now, it is time to return to our present day. Over the past seven decades, the success of Disneyland has expanded (with slightly different names) to five other locations around the world: Orlando, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Also, Disney’s brand now includes the Marvel Comics enterprise and the Star Wars franchise, so visitors to the resorts will be greeted by characters from both.

While that carousel in Griffith Park that started him dreaming has, regrettably, been closed since 2022 due to mechanical repairs, Disneyland, on the other hand, still remains one of the world’s greatest tourist attractions. I know this sounds like a commercial for Disneyland, but it is not meant to be. I am just amazed how such a place of happiness can come from the mind of one person — as Jiminy Cricket once sang:

The opening day plaque resonates today:

“To all those who come to this happy place – Welcome – Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past… and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America… with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world. July 17, 1955.”

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MORE

— 13 WONDERFUL POSTERS: A MICKEY MOUSE Anniversary Celebration. Click here.

— Have a HAWAIIAN HOLIDAY With Mickey Mouse and the Gang. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is due soon. (You can pre-order here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.