Walt's Era - Part 4: Post-War Recovery (1947-1950)

The Second World War ended in 1945, freeing Disney up from the pressures that bogged the company down. Animators returned home from the war, the US military vacated the studios, and global markets opened back up. Nevertheless, these were still trying financial times for Walt and his crew.

Through the remainder of the Forties, Disney opted against trying anything too ambitious. Animators geared back up to doing full feature films by a couple of "package films" consisting of two half-hour shorts, directors continued pushing further into the realm of live-action, and the first True-Life Adventure slipped in, culminating in the company's grand return to fairy tale feature films with Cinderella. Beyond feature films, Donald Duck's star was eclipsing Mickey Mouse: in 1947 alone, only one Mickey short was produced against the eight starring Donald and four starring Pluto. In 1949 and 1950, no Mickey shorts were made at all. Things were pretty even between the two before the war, until it came time for Donald to be enlisted in the army. People could relate to the exaggerated caricature of Donald in a way that they could not relate to the affable Mickey anymore.

Overall, the stage was being set for a new "Golden Age" to emerge in the Fifties. In this batch of films, we see Disney once more trying to find its footing, preparing for great things to come.

Disney Runs Away With the Circus

On the dustjacket of their impressive tome Walt Disney's Imagineering Legends and the Genesis of the Theme Park, Jeff Kurtti and Bruce Gordon reiterate one of the "primal myths" of Disneyland’s origins: “Fifty years ago, Walt Disney utterly transformed the concept of outdoor entertainment venues from tawdry carnivals and seedy amusement piers called ‘amusement parks,’ to an entirely new destination that would come into common vernacular as the ‘theme park.’” When the Imagineers of today added a new area to Walt Disney World's Fantasyland based on the circus – ostensibly the most “tawdry” of American amusements that are legal in most States – it certainly raised some eyebrows and some ire. How could they so betray the spirit of Walt Disney himself by including an area themed to the very thing he tried to get away from?

For as brilliant and creative as they are, I think one always has to take what Imagineers say with a grain of salt. For example, when they are criticized for poor artistic choices, they frequently dust off the thought-terminating cliche that “Disneyland is not a museum.” Nevertheless, when Walt explained what Disneyland was, he had this to say (emphasis mine):

The idea of Disneyland is a simple one. It will be a place for people to find happiness and knowledge. It will be a place for parents and children to share pleasant times in one another’s company; a place for teachers and pupils to discover greater ways of understanding and education. Here the older generation can recapture the nostalgia of days gone by, and the younger generation can savor the challenge of the future. Here will be the wonders of Nature and Man for all to see and understand. Disneyland will be based upon and dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and hard facts that have created America. And it will be uniquely equipped to dramatize these dreams and facts and send them forth as a source of courage and inspiration to all the world. Disneyland will be sometimes a fair, an exhibition, a playground, a community center, a museum of living facts, and a showplace of beauty and magic. It will be filled with accomplishments, the joys and hopes of the world we live in. And it will remind us and show us how to make these wonders part of our own lives.

Oh, sometimes Disneyland is a museum. Walt did a brisk business in nostalgia, and the very first incarnation of Disneyland was very much the sort of thing we would recognize today as a “living history museum” or “historical village.” In 1951, Walt intended to build a quaint historical village in a parcel of land adjacent to his studios in Burbank, where today one finds the headquarters of ABC and Walt Disney Animation. The following rough blueprint was sketched by Harper Goff, showing the intended attractions in this “Mickey Mouse Park.”

You may have noticed the paddlewheeler plying a man-made river, a hub-like town square, a boating canal, a steam train, and other features that would work their way into the park that would come to be built in Anaheim. But what is that in the left-hand corner? Could it be? Yes... A circus!