flâneur

Founders: #158 Walt Disney (Disneyland)

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What I learned from reading Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow. ---- [1:29] In Disney's Land, popular historian Richard Snow brilliantly presents the entire spectacular story, a wild ride from vision to realization that reflects the uniqueness of the man determined to build “the happiest place on earth” with a watchmaker's precision, an artist's conviction, and the desperate, high-hearted recklessness of a riverboat gambler. [4:13] When he reached middle age it seemed that we were going to witness an all too familiar process—the conversion of the tired artist into the tired businessman. When in 1955 we heard that Disney had opened an amusement park under his own name, it appeared certain that we could not look forward to anything new from Mr. Disney. We were quite wrong. He had, instead, created his masterpiece. [4:58] Walt Disney was an obsessive with soul in the game. [5:26] Disney’s father didn’t believe children should have toys. [14:50] One small enterprise did please him, though, and it had little to do with the art he had done so much to invent and of which he was the undisputed master. [15:09] He was dis

[00:00:00] Hey there, real quick before we get into this episode on Walt Disney, a few people reached out to me this week asking how to buy gift subscriptions, so I'm just going to leave a link in the show notes if you're interested in doing that, and thanks as always for helping spread the word about Founders. One day in the early 1950s, Walt Disney stood looking out over 240 acres of farmland in Anaheim, California, and imagined building a park where people could live among Mickey Mouse and Snow White in a world still powered by steam and fire for a day or a week, or if the visitor is…

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