Why Disney?
- Happy Keller
- Sep 10, 2022
- 12 min read
Updated: Jul 7, 2023
"How Did You Become Such A 'Disney Nut'?"
(aka "How Were You Seduced By Such An 'Evil' Corporation?")
The above question, or some other form of it, where someone asked me "How?" or "Why?" I became such a "Disney Nut" has been asked of me more times than I can count. My deep love for (most) all things Disney is one of the things I will probably (or is it hopefully (?)) be most remembered for. As with other things I have typed about within this blog, it didn't happen all at once. I am going to attempt to recount how I acquired this particular affliction.
Earliest Memory
Back when I was very young, I remember my mom waking me up from my daily afternoon nap just in time to watch reruns of the original Mickey Mouse Club TV show. As with most stupid / impressionable kids such as myself, I was enthralled with what I saw. I wanted to get one of those mouse ear hats, and my parents (with the help of my great-grandparents) would make sure that I would have a chance to do so.
The First Trip To Disneyland
I remember that my first ever trip to Disneyland was a surprise - my great-grandparents arranged it, and my parents took me. It was my first ever time on an airplane (I got a "PSA wings" pin from an attendant on the flight down). In addition to giving me the pin, they also told me that this was to be the last flight this particular plane would ever officially fly (it was a propeller plane that was being retired in favor of jet aircraft).
I honestly didn't know very much about Disneyland at that time, other than I had been told that it was where Mickey Mouse lived (and I could get a pair of ears there). As things would turn out, a lot of experiences from that trip imprinted themselves in my young skull full of mush, and would be the start of my life-long "Disney infection".
As it was then, and as it still is now, the very first thing I remember seeing at Disneyland was the giant Mickey Mouse head made out of flowers on the slope just in front of the Main Street USA train station past the turnstiles. After passing through the walk-thru underneath the train tracks, and seeing Sleeping Beauty Castle in the distance at the end of Main Street USA, I was even more excited. Then I got to go on the attractions!
Although I didn't know it at the time, many of my favorite attractions I experienced during my first trip to Disneyland had been at the 1964 World's Fair in New York - "it's a small world", Carousel Of Progress, Great Moments With Mister Lincoln had all been transported to Anaheim after having been originally debuted at the Fair. I loved all of them (especially "it's a small world"). I also got a kick out of The Enchanted Tiki Room and Matterhorn too (although I was a roller coaster wimp as a youngster). All-in-all, Disneyland had made a huge impression on me during that first trip (and I did come home with a pair of ears).
Disney Films Play Their Role
The first Disney feature I ever saw was Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, although I didn't get to see this for the first time at a walk-in theater. My parents thought, correctly, that my brother and I would be too much of a handful to take to a "real" theater, so instead they took us to the local drive-in to see Snow White.
Fantasia was the first Disney film that I got to see at a walk-in theater. This was the Disney movie that got me permanently hooked - the beautiful music & imagery...the scary as hell "Night On Bald Mountain" segment (as a young kid I was so frightened that I tried to hide under my theater seat for part of it)...plus I 'met' Sorcerer Mickey for the first time during "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment.
Family Trips & Other Summer Fun
Both of my parents, together and apart, took me (and my brother Edward) to Disneyland on many occasions. The most memorable of these trips had very little to do with Disneyland, and everything to do with the trip down - My dad took my mom, Edward, and I to Disneyland in the Porsche I wrote about in a previous blog entry. The clutch cable snapped as we were pulling into a gas station in Three Rocks, CA. Just by chance, my dad had packed a spare clutch cable for our trip. He spent the next three hours bitching and swearing as he did his best to make sense of the Porsche repair manual (in German). He replaced the cable, and our family continued this particular journey to "The Happiest Place On Earth". This was Edward's first trip to Disneyland, and I hope he remembers his actual visit more than this trip down.
On top of the family trips, once I started umpiring and traveling to the Bobby Sox National Tournament each summer, I hung out at Disneyland when I wasn't working at a game. One of my fellow umpires even got a job there at the carousel in Fantasyland, so I'd hang out with her too during those trips down. I was becoming more affected with every trip to California's Magic Kingdom...
The Magic (Almost) Comes To An End
After the bicycle vs. car accident that I was a part of (my bike & I lost) I became very depressed. My great-grandmother, sensing this, arranged a trip for me to Disneyland. I could hobble only very slowly at that time, and even needed a cane to support myself, but I still made my way onto Main Street USA where I found Mickey Mouse greeting guests. When it became my turn to interact with Mickey, I threw my arms around him, started sobbing, and could not stop. After a minute of my doing this, Mickey's handler stepped in and separated me from my favorite rodent.
When Mickey's "visit time" with all of the guests was up for this session, he waved goodbye to everyone, but then came over to me, took my hand, and led me to the "Cast Members Only" area on Main Street USA. While just being backstage was surprising enough, this feeling turned into utter shock when Mickey removed his head to reveal a very cute young woman inside the costume. Katrina introduced herself to me and, after some general chit-chat and telling her about my accident (she asked why I was so emotional), she told me to get one good last look at the park because the rumor flying around with all of the Cast Members was that Disney was about to be taken over and split up. After her shift was over, she wheeled me all around the park in a wheelchair for the remainder of the day (and evening) so that I could say "good bye".
Of course, the takeover didn't happen - shortly after this trip, Roy E. Disney arranged to hire Michael Eisner & Frank Wells to run Disney.
The "Disney Renaissance" Deepens My Love For (Most) Things Disney
Mr. Eisner & Mr. Wells showed pretty quickly that they didn't intend to just be "caretakers" of Disney, but that they were going to try to "enhance & expand" the company in numerous ways.
As the two of them got things started, I was lucky enough to be hired at Electronic Arts. Since EA at that time was both a small company, as well as an entertainment company, I started viewing what I already knew about Disney & Disneyland's origins in an entirely new light. From this day forward, every time I wandered down Main Street USA for the initial time during my (frequent) visits to the park, I would think to myself, "All of the (so-called) 'smart money' said this was a bad idea and that it would never work!"...I saw EA at that time as an early version of Disney - trying something already known in a different & exciting way(s) with many naysayers claiming it wouldn't work.
Now I had two loves in my life - Disney & Electronic Arts (including all of the people who made up EA at that time). These two obsessions would feed off of one another for years.
My "Disney Highlights" From This Era:
Rewarding myself after another hard work-week at EA by visiting The Disney Store every Friday to go hunting for a(nother) cool Disney watch - I had over 100 at the peak of my collecting...(why so many when I had only two wrists???...I don't know!...I just liked the artwork and the thought of carrying it around on my wrist made me smile)
Seeing "The Little Mermaid" on opening night with a few of the DFWMIFV crowd at EA and crying in front of all of them by the time Jodi Benson finished singing "Part Of Your World"
Being allowed to run EA's chapter of the Magic Kingdom Club ("allowed" is a bit of a misnomer - "demand" was more accurate. The tiny HR Department at EA at that time didn't have the bandwidth to run the program, so I "volunteered" [ie I took the MKC Company Application Form away from them, after getting it for them in the first place, and filled it out myself...I ran the program until Disney discontinued MKC] )
Organizing an EA group trip to Disneyland after seeing a preview of Fantasmic! at the Magic Kingdom Club Chapter Director's Meeting prior to its opening (I seem to recall about 40 of us drove down and stayed at the nearby Hilton Suites)
Taking a large number of EA employees (plus their significant others & kids) to see "The Lion King" on opening day
"A Whole New (Walt Disney) World"
Being a "California Kid", visiting Walt Disney World wasn't really a priority since Disneyland was so (relatively) close. This ranking of Disneyland over Walt Disney World would start to change for me when I visited Walt Disney World in 1992 (not my first trip there, but significant as far as my history with Disney goes).
This trip had been originally scheduled as a honeymoon for me and my then fiancee. Since this was well before the Walt Disney World Wedding Chapel opened, I had to use every sneaky, underhanded trick (and contact) to try to mold this to be everything we wanted it to be.
Then, six weeks before the wedding / honeymoon, I confirmed that my fiancee had been cheating on me.
After calling off the wedding, and kicking my fiancee out of the apartment we shared, I made a very teary phone call to Walt Disney World's reservation phone line to alter all of the plans I had made - the reservation in one of the Tower Suites at The Grand Floridian Resort wasn't going to be necessary, dining at Victoria & Albert's was no longer a priority, getting to ride in Cinderella's Carriage wasn't going to be much fun alone, etc. The Cast Member on the other end of the phone line did their very best to take care of all of my changes. This intended honeymoon was now going to have to change into one of healing (or numbness).
As if all of this weren't difficult enough, the actual flight down to Walt Disney World was a chore due to inclement weather and mechanical failure - I arrived one full day late for my intended reservation (and at 2 am to boot). This would be the last thing that would go wrong for the entire trip.
As I entered my room for the first time at the Caribbean Beach Resort, I noticed there was a gift basket & card on the bed. While I was touched, after the horrible trip I had endured just getting there, and because I craved sleep much more than I desired fruit at that particular moment, I moved the basket without even reading the card to see who had sent it and fell fast asleep.
After waking up later that day, I opened the card. There was a phone number, and a request that I call it as soon as I woke up. It was signed "Your Cast Member Friends at Walt Disney World". At that point, I really didn't have any "Cast Member Friends at Walt Disney World", but I was intrigued and called the number.
Susan, who had taken the phone call where I changed all of my reservations while I sobbed, answered when I dialed the provided number. She asked me what I wanted to do that day, and told me not to move until someone arrived to pick me up. A little later, Darryl (another Cast Member) arrived at my door to be my guide as we did all of the things I had told Susan I wanted to do that day.
To attempt to shorten what is already a far too long segment of this blog entry, I will summarize by saying that for the vast majority of my stay I had the company of one Cast Member or another (including Susan). While I still had to pay for everything I did, these fine folks made sure that I received their Cast Member discount every place that it could be applied. I had companionship for almost all of this entire journey where one of the things I had been dreading during the build-up to actually going was the fear of being alone. I have heard so many stories about Disney Cast Members going "above and beyond" over the years...this one was mine...These wonderful people took their free time to make sure I wasn't alone during what could have been a most disastrous time for me. They didn't cure all of my hurt, but they sure as heck took a lot of it away!
One of the places I attempted to go on my own was the Disney Vacation Club "Welcome Center". Upon my arrival, I found the Cast Members there to be very "un-welcoming" - they immediately asked me where I lived and, when I told them I was from California, they shooed me out of the building as quickly as they possibly could. After I was outside of the Welcome Center I was informed they were not yet licensed to sell in California and, as such, they couldn't talk to me at all about what the Disney Vacation Club was (other than to tell me that it was a kind of timeshare). I gave them my business card, and asked them to give me a call as soon as they were licensed in California.
My First Real Estate Purchase
It would take until 1994 for the Disney Vacation Club to become licensed to sell in California but, when they did, I received a phone call from the same Cast Member who took my business card in 1992. We talked for several hours about what the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) was, how it worked in practice, and how much it cost.
Since my Disney Fandom could only be diagnosed as "terminal" at this stage, I concluded our conversation by asking what the next step was. After a few e-mails back-and-forth, plus a couple more calls to discuss exactly how many "vacation points" I felt I 'needed', I bought my interest in DVC.
Over the years that I owned my interest in DVC, there were many memorable vacations - I went on several Walt Disney World vacations myself, while there were other instances where I used my Vacation Points to arrange accommodations for / with friends & family, plus the program was flexible enough to where I could even book rooms at the Disneyland Hotel or Disney's Grand Californian. I certainly feel as if I got my "money's worth" out of this real estate purchase (although I never really did own any real real estate). I do know for sure that it was a much better value at the per point purchase cost that I paid in 1994 than DVC is today.
When Just Visiting The Parks Was Not Enough
After running my first marathon for TEAM In Training at the San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon, and remembering that there was such a thing as the Walt Disney World Marathon, it didn't take long for me to want to combine these two things by participating in the Walt Disney World Marathon!
While sitting in the corral waiting for it to be time to start running in my first Walt Disney World Marathon, an announcement came over the loud speaker wishing good luck to all of the runners who were participating in the first Goofy Challenge - a combination of running the half-marathon on Saturday, followed by the full marathon on Sunday (39.3 miles total). My Bride & I looked at one another after hearing this, and we both shook our heads...this was a crazy thing to even think about, let alone try and do it. Needless to say, by the time we had finished our 26.2 miles that day and were headed back to Old Key West Resort, we had both decided to do the Goofy Challenge the next year...we both successfully completed it too...
A couple years later, the folks at runDisney added a 5K on Thursday, and a 10K on Friday which, when combined with the half and full marathons, created the Dopey Challenge (48.6 miles over four days) ...we did several of these too...(my 2018 medals from the Dopey Challenge are in the photo above)...
The courses for all of these events go through the actual theme parks - Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Disney's Hollywood Studios (plus the roads connecting them) - a true rush for any Disney Theme Park fan! If you are enticed by my story to go after any of this "Disney bling", I urge you to find a cause you believe in and run for a charity. I know I have probably annoyed some of you by talking about this so much...sorry!
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Even with all of the nonsense I've typed above, I know I am leaving a lot of stuff out...this is just the 'best' I can do right now / anymore...thank you so much for reading!
One more thing - whoever sent me (or made contact with someone they knew to send me) the early access code for Disney Dreamlight Valley - I cannot thank you enough! While I can't get to Disneyland one more time, it is wonderful to wander around this fictional valley and play with all of the Disney characters!
This blog does have a "chat" function so, if you'd like to reach out to me to comment, give me a possible idea for another entry, or just bitch at me - please feel free to do so!
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