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The Opening Of Disneyland Was A Total Nightmare
Walt Disney
In 1955, the world was a single red button away from turning your grandparents into dust and shadows. It was in that context that Disneyland opened for the first time and provided America with some much needed ... disappointment, torture, and stress?
Walt Disney
At least Mickey Mouse was there to- OH JESUS FUCK.
The opening of the park was a monumental shitstorm that almost killed the company. Walt Disney had arranged for the entire day to be broadcast live on television -- the roster included an endless stream of musical acts, a tour of the park, and (naturally) a go-kart race between Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra. It was like he was daring the universe to wreck his shit. The universe immediately obliged.
When the turnstiles opened, the park was besieged by a swarm of 28,000 ticket-holders ... which was weird, because they'd only sold 15,000 tickets. As it turns out, some scamp (as all criminals were referred to back in those days) had printed and sold an extra 13,000 counterfeit tickets. It didn't get any better. The overwhelming number of people meant that every food stall in the park soon sold out, leaving starved visitors on the verge of eating Donald Duck.
Walt Disney
"It's not cannibalism if they're in an animal costume!"
The park's hasty construction didn't help matters. The plumbing soon ground to a halt on account of a local strike that left the water fountains dry, while the freshly laid tarmac paths turned into a sticky, people-trapping mess. It's even rumored that a visitor's poodle was completely enveloped in that Swamp of Sadness.
As for the rides, they didn't work for myriad reasons, ranging from mechanical failure to not being finished. To compensate, workers started piling people onto Mark Twain's Riverboat Ride, leaving it teetering and swaying in that way all boats do before they list and wipe out your potential word of mouth. Again, this was all broadcast on live television. If we didn't know better, we'd suspect that this was all a huge propaganda setup by the USSR to show their people how Western-style decadence is the path to idiocy.
The Los Angles Times
This is just the toilet line, presumably.