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How Did Disneyland Change American Culture

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Disneyland has been creating magic for children and adults since it opened in the summer of 1955. Known for its Mickey Ears and Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, Disneyland emulates the power of imagination for which Walt Disney believed. While the Disney parks are located around the world, the original “Happiest Place on Earth” rests in America and is the only one that was designed by Disney himself. This year, Disneyland celebrated its 60th year of magic. Disneyland’s presence in America has transformed American pop culture and entertainment. The opening of Disneyland has affected American culture by revolutionizing American amusement parks, increasing American leisure activities, and altering the American family vacation. Disneyland opened its …show more content…

Before Disneyland, there was Coney Island. Coney Island was a run-down amusement park with Carnival rides and kid attractions. However, the amusement park was not the style Disney had in mind for his dream. “The Disney organization made every effort to disassociate itself from all other amusement parks of the day” (Weinstein 132). He wanted a park that was appealing to both children and adults. This view allowed Disney to focus on the thematic entertainment of his park. Coney Island and other amusement parks put the vision of a Disney park in Walt Disney’s head, but Disney twisted the ideas behind amusement parks to create his own park that became labeled as a “theme park”. Instead of centralizing around rides like the typical amusement park, Disney’s park revolved around a theme of magic and imagination. This focus lead Disneyland to be the first theme park. Disney changed the American perspective on entertainment parks. Parks were no longer just amusement parks. Now, they had the possibility of being theme parks. The difference between an amusement park and a theme park was how entertainment is created. Amusement parks use adrenaline rides to attract visitors while theme park use a centralized foundation of correlating subjects. While Disney included elements of carnival rides, he did so by matching them with the theme of the park. These subjects for Disney were the ideas of magic,

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The park started as a place to hunt and fish, then was slowly built into the park it is today. The theme park started when they opened the first public bathing beach. Activities were then slowly added to the beach area. The first roller coaster was opened in 1892! George Boeckling was the owner of Cedar Point for 34 years and added many attractions

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At Coney Island visitors would be able to see the latest exhibits and innovations. The first roller coaster was invented at Coney Island, as was the hot dog. The tallest structure in the world at that time was brought to the island from the World Fair in Philadelphia for all to see (Class notes 9/14-9/18). This was a place for the public to experience things they never had before. Coney Island wasn’t just innovative in technology, but also in business practices.

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Amusement parks reached their climax in the 1920s. The 1920’s were a time of strong economic growth and made Coney Island very successfull. Engineers of roller coasters created faster and higher roller coasters, bumper cars, and vertigo spinning rides. Coney Island is most well known for their Wonder Wheel. A 24 car ferris wheel that sits 150ft in the air.

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The Disney World Resort has a massive size and is composed of four theme parks and two water parks. Due to Disney World’s massive size, the resort takes many more days to achieve the Disney experience and families must choose some attractions to not visit. While some people think that Disney World is impossible to navigate, it provides a complimentary transportation system to get from park to park and getting between theme parks and resorts. Disney World is also able to offer a wider variety and more attractions to experience than Disneyland. Also, Disney World has greater potential for expansion.

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These efforts have been an efficient approach to sell an American product to global audiences for many reasons. First of all Disney created many other parks and resorts in America and started to expand its name globally among different states and different countries. Disney analyzed the market, analyzed the culture in order to give each of their parks a unique differentiation and also respect the sensitivity of their market. For example in Hong Kong, to honor the ancient Chinese practice of a cheating harmony, Disney created an environment just to honor it and got help from a fon sue consultant to help them with the key points and orientation. Disney took everything into matter and hired only the best people to construct their park, create

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Does hearing the tagline “The Happiest place on earth” takes you on a memory lane of the very first day at Disneyland? The Walt Disney Company, was a dream of the most famous name in the animation industry and the creator of Mickey Mouse, Walt Elias Disney and now the company has estimated net worth of an about 36 billion dollars. (Funamentals n.d.) The company has been running from 1923 till current and I have decided to take the first 43 years (1923 to 1966) in consideration because I wish to tell the reader how the company went from Good to Great under the supervision of Walt Elias Disney.

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" Disney theme parks were built for the whole family to enjoy and they do a fine job stressing that. If you pay close attention to their advertisements you will see that they are not always aimed for children, in fact they are aimed at the parents most of the time with little phrases such as "Let the Memories Begin" and "This is Where the Magic Happens." Even the animation films are made to please the parents, with their good morals and some jokes that are meant for the child not to understand. In addition, the Disney Store has its own Home Decor department which is intended to satisfy the parents' wants as well as their children's, while the child is browsing through the toys, the parent is browsing through the Home Decor section.

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