If you like theme parks, thank Disneyland

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If you enjoy theme parks or any immersive themed experience, you have Disneyland to thank. 

“Half of the stories that I tell that are not about Disneyland start with somebody went to Disneyland and then they came back home and they tried to build their own Disney,” said filmmaker and theme park historian Kevin Perjurer, whose pop culture channel Defunctland has more than 2 million followers on YouTube. “Something as small as a regional laser tag place probably even has someone designing that has Disneyland or at least the quality of what an Imagineer would do on the mind.” 

That’s because Disneyland defined what we know of as theme parks today. Here’s how. 

Park history 

By no means was Disneyland the first amusement park or themed guest experience. Widely cited Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen opened in 1843, more than a century before Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. Domestic parks like Luna Park on Coney Island and Beverly Park kiddieland in Los Angeles – which Perjurer notes had a western-themed section –  also predated Disneyland. World’s fairs had themed experiences, too. 

What set Disneyland apart was "really this concept of full immersion and a full themed experience connected with a storyline,” said Jakob Wahl, president and CEO of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. “Creating those lands, which were kind of immersive in their own space, I think that is what Walt Disney then ultimately changed and drove to perfection.” 

At Disneyland, guests could step into stories they already knew and discover new ones dreamed up by Imagineers, like Disney Legend Bob Gurr, who designed ride vehicles for iconic attractions like Autopia, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Haunted Mansion and the Monorail. 

“I was one of the first 18 people that was assigned by Walt to work specifically on the design of Disneyland,” he said. “He always saw this as storytelling. Storytelling, you know you can draw a picture, it’s a story. You can make a movie, it's a story ... or you can do it in 3D, call it an amusement park.” 

Disneyland's 70th anniversary: How the resort is celebrating happy

Inspiration from films 

Bruce Vaughn, president and chief creative officer of Walt Disney Imagineering, said Walt Disney and the original Imagineers used filmmaking techniques to tell stories in the park’s physical environment. 

“There's cross dissolve, so it’s a slow fade from the hub into Adventureland, where it isn't just a hard cut,” he explained. “Or a long shot, like as you’re going down Main Street, suddenly in the distance, there's this fantasy castle ... It draws you through.” 

The park’s hub-and-spoke design has been copied by parks around the world, but the caliber of Disneyland’s craftsmanship wasn’t easily imitated. 

“I mean, you're pulling upon some of the greatest illustrators, some of the greatest sculptors, all these people that were employed by Disney,” Perjurer said, highlighting how Disney was producing groundbreaking films like ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ as the park was being built. “That film, the scenic design just blew people away, and so the ability to walk through something with that level of scenic design or even trying to accomplish the level of scenic design ... was definitely mind-blowing to people.” 

New technology 

Over the years, Disney Imagineers have pioneered many new ways to tell stories. 

Gurr remembers Walt Disney calling him into a workshop when the first audio animatronic of President Abraham Lincoln was being developed in secret.  

“He said, ‘Bobby, I want half as much weight and twice as many motions, and I want you to get started now,’” he said, adding that he never could cure Disney of calling him Bobby.  

That Lincoln audio animatronic went on to mesmerize audiences at the 1964 New York World’s Fair before moving to Disneyland, where a new audio animatronic of Walt Disney just debuted during the resort’s 70^th anniversary celebration. Audio animatronics are now commonplace at theme parks around the world. 

Another innovation Disneyland guests can still experience today is the ride technology on Indiana Jones Adventure.  

“Since it's an Indiana Jones story, it's got to feel like you're off road,” Vaughn said. “So you had to put a simulator on top of a vehicle to give you the sense that you were going over all this terrain and that you were on a suspension bridge and then you dove down deeper than you actually did.” 

He described Imagineers as magicians more than technologists, helping guests suspend their disbelief, to embrace the magic like kids again. 

Guests who want to keep the magic going can stay on property at Disneyland’s resort hotels. Wahl notes other destinations around the world have copied Disney’s model of offering themed accommodations onsite.  

“The destination or attraction evolves from a one-day visit to a multi-day experience,” he said. “You can forget about the daily concerns, and people want to have that for a day, but they also want to have that for the night.” 

Listening to guests 

One thing Disneyland guests could not get past in the park’s early days was the first-person format of some Fantasyland dark rides. 

“Originally it was like a simulation where you were the main character of that story, and you were seeing a point of view, while the films were from a third-party perspective,” Perjurer said. “You are Snow White. You are Peter Pan. You are Mr. Toad ... and so the characters weren't in the rides.” 

Those rides were reimagined to include the main characters of their respective stories.  

“We had to kind of redesign a lot of details in the park to suit how people actually behave,” Gurr recalled, but that was OK. “(Disney) wasn't afraid to try to do things even though he didn't know how to do it, but he became pretty good at a lot of things.” 

Many other theme parks also offer what Vaughn calls book reports, rides recapping stories with condensed highlights. However, in a full circle moment, Disney’s newer attractions again invite guests to become characters in stories, like at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.  

“You get to pilot the Millennium Falcon,” Vaughn said. “You’re taken as a spy. And we know that that's where Walt was going. One thing I love about Walt Disney is that he was always about immersing into stories.” 

'A special place'

It’s those experiential stories that have kept guests like David and Shelly Tsai coming back for years. 

They've visited Disneyland more than 100 times as Magic Key (annual pass) holders, first with their kids and now their grandkids. 

“To us, we feel almost the same, just like the first time we went there,” David told Paste BN. “We see the grandkids, we think about our old days with our kids over there. They love almost the same attractions." 

Their family is among several featured in a new promotional video for Disneyland's 70^th anniversary, spotlighting actual guests. 

“Every time I went there, I feel so happy, and I think I have a very good life,” Shelly said. “Disneyland is a special place for me.” 

In his Disneyland opening day remarks, Walt Disney said, “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.” 

Seventy years later, it’s still doing that. 

(This story has been updated with additional details.)