I Was There At Disneyland's Opening (And It Was A Nightmare)

Today, those numbers would make Game Of Thrones shit Breaking Bad's pants. Opening day was a television sensation, but for the kids who showed up, it was more like Satan's oven than Walt Disney's wonderland.

"I remember it being hot (It was over 100 degrees that day), and only hearing next to a big brick wall. There was a huge line with no shade. I wrote in my diary that I could hear the bands play."

Disney executives later admitted that they put too many people on the TV special and not enough on, you know, entertaining guests. John and his family waited for several hours outside (they'd been told to arrive early) before they could even enter the park. And once inside, the issues were even worse than the horrifying costumes.

"I don't know how we were allowed in. My father changed the story how he got each time we asked. My mother has said he knew a Disney employee who couldn't make it and got them from him. I know they were genuine, but that's as much as I know." He specified "genuine" because there were only 15,000 invited guests. Thanks to counterfeiters and fare-dodgers, the numbers in the park wound up being twice that. "Three times in my journal, I wrote down something like 'A Disney employee said they were not expecting this many people.'"

As a result, Jonathan's whole day worked out to two rides. "Both rides I went on, the Jungle Cruise and these boats in a canal, were stuffed with people. The canal boats I remember being crowded. I forgot to write notes there. But on the jungle boat, it was stuffed. We were at double the capacity, and so many people were on they began falling off ..."

And then there was the heat. Triple-digit temperatures are bad enough today, but in 1955, air conditioning technology was primitive. Your best bet was standing downwind of a comparatively cool fart. "There was an area where you were supposed to stand and get cooled off by air coming from a few rides. A Disneyland employee told this to us. But they were telling everyone. A nice breeze should have been coming, but so many people were there that there wasn't a temperature change."

Jonathan's experience was like flashing forward to a future made dystopian by overpopulation. "You couldn't do anything. Anywhere you could sit was taken, rides had long lines, stores were filled. I've been many times since, but what I always remember is the image of all of these families standing, not moving, because there was nowhere else to go. More recent families were moving around, but they didn't know that everywhere was like this. To me, it was like a mall parking lot during Christmas. Every space is filled, and there are endless cars either idling and waiting or circling around and hoping. That was Disneyland on the first day, but with nobody pulling out."

And that's why you always pull out.

"During my ride , I wrote that a man fell overboard, and I remember that now as I read this. I didn't see how he fell over, but everybody on the boat looked back, and there he was paddling to land where an employee ran up to him. The ride didn't even stop ..."

Today when that happens, the ride absolutely stops. But this was the '50s, when human life was worth less than a pair of felt mouse ears. "It seems shocking, but the ride was in a rush. They made sure he was OK, but they also left them behind. His family had to have been worried. I remember smaller children crying, and they could have been his children."

Perhaps the cruelest part of opening day was that many of the park's iconic rides wouldn't open until the next month. Many attendees did not get this information. "All day, people stood in lines for rides that were closed. My father wrote down that some families believed the staff was saying they were closed to get rid of long lines, but these were for rides that were not being mentioned as being opened. I don't know how long they stood in line before giving up, but my father left a note saying '4:15 p.m. Disneyland. Frontierland. There's a Wild West show that the staff informs everyone is not ready today. The line for it stretches for over 100 feet. The people near the front are saying they should be let in since they've been in line since the morning.'"

If you live in the South (or soon, anywhere on Earth), you know that extreme heat can make people extremely unreasonable. That might explain why so many attendees stayed in line even when they were told the ride wouldn't open. "They were being so desperate and stubborn, but it fit the mood that day. Everybody got meaner as the day went on. I'd be mean too if I stood in line for half the day for a ride that was never going to open."

Sounds worse than being a Half-Life fan. Hey-o!

Speaking of desperate: "I wrote down 'I saw 2 boys drink sugar syrup. My mother said I couldn't do that.' What I remember is that a store sold flavored syrup, like an old candy store. They ran out of candy, and parents could only buy that for their children. You didn't drink syrup or ingredients like that at that time unless something was wrong. It would be like drinking maple syrup from the bottle. But I saw it happen."

"The more I think about it, a lot of things guests could do sounded like ways to get out of hair. Like that area they had people stand in to get 'cooler.' They said it was an attraction, but it was probably a place to stick guests because of how crowded it was. It wasn't listed on any map. There were also employees asking guests if they wanted to take pictures of the giant parking lot from different places. I wrote that down. They actually tried to make the parking lot as something of a thing to see. And there were families snapping photos in front of it at their direction."

Because even before Instagram, we were still equal parts gullible and camera-happy.

Locals didn't think much of it, either. "We lived right by Anaheim, and it wasn't a huge draw ... Our school offered Disneyland tickets for the student who sold the most chocolate bars door to door. There were so few children signing up, they had to make the prize better. I think they added cash. The girl who won refused the tickets. Her parents didn't want to go to a park like that."

Throughout 1955, Disneyland was plagued with problems. A stagecoach ride had to be pulled after it flipped over and hurt some guests. Autotopia kept crashing its cars. A herd of llamas escaped and stampeded through the park, in what must have been one of the cuddliest waves of doom ever. An escaped tiger and panther fought each other right in front of the guests on Main Street, drawing blood. In all honesty, that does sound pretty bitchin'.

But Disneyland did the work. They listened to the guests' complaints and made changes. Within months, they had over a million people visit. John has since had some good trips there, but even on his disastrous first visit, he recalled something special about the place. "It wasn't fun. But I also remember that I wanted to go again. So much had gone wrong, yet there was still something to it. I reread all my journal before the interview, and it's bringing back memories of still being memorable and likable, and I remember not liking it. There was still something right there when everything seemed to go wrong. It's Disney. Maybe you can't explain it. Even with so much going wrong, you wanted to love it."

Some days are harder than others.

Evan V. Symon is an interviewer, journalist, and interview coordinator for the Personal Experiences section at Cracked. Do YOU have an awesome job/experience you'd like to share? If so, hit us up at tips@cracked.com today!

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