All posts in Disney

E-Tickets Enjoyed a Great Ride

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As Disneyland Resort gears up to celebrate the June 15th Grand Reopening of Disney California Adventure Park (featuring the highly anticipated Cars Land), let’s pause to honor an important part of the Resort’s history with ties to the same date. This item owed its existence to an earlier Park remodel, enjoyed a twenty-three year lifespan and spawned a phrase still in some use today. It was once so vital that you truly couldn’t enjoy Disneyland Park without it. I’m talking about the “E” ticket, which ended its amazing ride as the official ticket media of Disneyland nearly 30 years ago, on June 15th, 1982. Ticket books (or “coupon” books, as they were officially known) were first issued a few months after Disneyland opened in July 1955 in denominations “A,” “B” and “C,” with the “D” ticket joining the booklet a year later. Walt promised that Disneyland would never be completed…

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Remembering Walt: A Labor of Love

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It was your typical California summer day in the late ’50s. Dick May was taking tickets in front of the Casey Junior Circus Train in Fantasyland when a woman at the front of the line asked, “Does Mr. Disney ever come around here? Before May could respond, a smiling man with a mustache and a wide-brimmed hat spoke up from behind her. “Yes,” said Walt Disney to the speechless woman, “I do.” Walt may have surprised the woman in line, but to May and his Disneyland co-workers during the Park’s early years, Walt’s presence was a regular—and often unpredictable—occurrence. In fact, he would often appear and be gone as soon as he learned what he wanted. “I was testing the Skyway one morning soon after the installation of the new cabins” May recalls. “I was watching them come in when Walt appeared and asked how they compared to the old…

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100 Years of Louis Prima: An Appreciation

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To one generation of fans, he was the “Wildest” show in Vegas and Tahoe. To another, he was the voice of “King Louis the Most.” To Sam Butera and the Witnesses, he was known simply as “The Chief.” Louis Prima was born one hundred years ago today—December 7, 1910—in the Little Palermo section of New Orleans’ French Quarter. It’s fitting that he came into the world surrounded by a tossed salad of nationalities (his neighborhood was home to Italians, Jews, Middle Easterners and African-Americans), because the music he made throughout his remarkable career was embraced by fans the world over. For more than five decades, Louis Prima played it pretty for the people, and the people loved him for it. Originally a violinist, Prima switched instruments following the early success of his older brother Leon, who played trumpet with Jack Teagarden’s orchestra and several others. The switch to brass made…

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