Nixon at Disneyland Anaheim
… well a bit more than 50 years ago that was, when he was still the Vice President of the United States and had been invited by Walt Disney for the ocassion of the grand re-opening of Tomorrowland in 1959. Just yesterday I posted about the triple 50th anniversary to be celebrated at Disneyland this past Sunday and now the LA Times posted a fitting excerpt of its reporting from 1959 in its blog “The Daily Mirror – Larry Harnisch reflects on Los Angeles history“. While the photo of Vice President Nixon and Walt Disney on the Monorail is a classic photo reprinted in countless reports and books about the history of Disneyland as well as stories about Walt Disney, the newspaper report about the event reports about additional parts of the visit, that are not so common knowledge – even among fans!
Or would you have known, that Vice President Nixon with his family presided over a 150-unit strong parade in Disneyland that also featured Art Linkletter and Meredith Willson who conducted 76 trombone players performing the song “76 Trombones” from Willson’s movie musical “The Music Man” (a smash hit Broadway musical from 1957 which became a 1962 smash hit movie musical fpr Warner Bros. before ‘returning’ to Disney as a 2003 production of Touchstone Television for ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’ on ABC starring Matthew Broderick)? Or a trivia question: how many sleds were running on the Matterhon Bobsleds in 1959? According to the old newspaper report: 60. Or how about Nixon foretelling the arrival of a monorail to Las Vegas (even so a few decades to early) after his ride on Disneyland’s Monorail when he said “From what I have seen here this afteroon, monorail could well be used in Las Vegas“?! Or what about Walt Disney and his wife hosting Vice President Nixon and his wife for a luncheon in their apartment above the Firestation on Town Square in Disneyland?! And note in that connection: while the two daughters of Nixon(Tricia and Julie) are mentioned of having enjoyed rides in the park during the morning with their mother and also being mentioned later again regarding having cut the ribbon for the opening of the Monorail they are not mentioned as having attended the luncheon… There are countless small details in the article the regular two line report about Nixon’s visit to Disneyland on ocassion of the re-opening of Tomorrowland in the regular Disneyland books just don’t mention!
