From one end of Disneyland’s history to the other. I have two new items for you today which span the earliest days of the park with some additional detail on the upcoming Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. And please read all the way through for more information on how you can become part of this story.
Galaxy Edges Closer
Disneyland has informed cast members that those selected to staff Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge will start training for their positions in February.
Employees who have toured the new land’s two attractions confirm they are both “pretty much completed and just need those finishing touches.”
One noted the full-scale Millennium Falcon “will make a lot of visitors geek out. It’s impressive when you see it in real life.”
Trepidation remains, however, among cast members who fear the worst when Star Wars Land opens and its Cantina begins serving alcohol. One offered up, “From what I have learned, Galaxy’s Edge will be treated like a pseudo-separate park, thus justifying the alcohol sales. Galaxy’s Edge is in Disneyland, but it is not part of Disneyland. Got that?”
My personal prediction is that the charade of pretending Star Wars Land is separate from Disneyland will last very briefly—only as long as employees, guests and online curmudgeons make a stink about it. The park wants to normalize booze sales as quickly as possible, so it can sell wine and beer at the Blue Bayou and beyond.
There’s also been talk of once again having “ABC” security officers to control the alcohol leaving the restaurants. A similar plan was implemented in 2001 when Disney California Adventure opened. Since at that time each alcohol-serving restaurant had its own liquor license, no one was allowed to exit the restaurant with a drink. Drinks were served in color-coded cups to identify where they came from. Of course, plenty of guests would walk out with their drinks anyways—or try sneaking them out in a different cup. It was the job of the poor ABC officers to confront guests drinking in the wrong place from a wrong-colored cup.
The Original Tour Guide
I’ve been studying Disney history for a living for over 30 years, yet I continue to discover so many things I never knew or things that make me realize that something I’d thought for years was dead wrong. In some cases, those are things that fly in the face of what even the Company believes.
Take, for instance, Disneyland’s first tour guides. According to Official Disney Company History, the park launched its Tour Guide program in the fall of 1958, when the park was 26 months old. Seven cast members from various divisions were reassigned to staff the new operation.
Starting on September 17, 1958, guests could purchase a three-hour guided tour of the park for $3.25 per person, which included a strip of five tickets. Following their guide, guests would begin with a trip down Main Street on the double-decker Omnibus, head left to the Jungle Cruise, then circle the park clockwise, sampling one attraction in each land. Tours would end in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle, where the host or hostess would give each attendee a ticket to ride another attraction on their own and a Disneyland Souvenir Guide (a 25-cent value!).
For years, I believed that was the day Disneyland gave its first tours and that those seven staffers were the park’s first tour guides. I believed that until earlier this year, when I met Bob D’Arcy. As the park’s 1955 employee directory confirms, Bob truly was Disneyland’s first tour guide—although at the time he was referred to as a “host” or “Guest Relations assistant.” He started giving tours in the spring of 1955, escorting VIP’s through the construction site, often in Walt’s Jeep. Once the park opened, Bob became the park’s first—and for several months only—guide. Working out of the Police Station in Town Square, he accompanied dignitaries, celebrities and Disney Studio representatives who required special access or privacy, as well as large groups that needed a little help keeping their parties organized. Unlike those “first tours” introduced 26 months later, Bob’s services weren’t advertised, nor were they designed for regular park visitors.
Back in 1955, Bob was a young 20-something right out of the Army, so he had his share of un-Disneylike adventures during his tenure, most notably a barn-burning after-hours party in Walt’s apartment over the Fire Station that started when a colleague broke into the Boss’s liquor cabinet.
D’Arcy left the park in the fall of 1956 to pursue a musical career and eventually detoured into television and film. His gigs included standing in for George Burns in The Sunshine Boys and regularly doubling for Bob Denver in Gilligan’s Island. (In one memorable episode, he also received featured billing as a robot who joins the castaways on the island.)
Coincidentally, D’Arcy wrapped up his 30-year show business career with the company he started with, on a Disney picture—appearing as both a short order cook and Adolph Hitler in The Rocketeer (1991).
Bob has so many wonderful tales, he’s done us all a favor by putting them together in a just-released book, A Walk in the Park: Reflections from Disneyland’s First Host. The book is all about his Disneyland days; it’s part wild memoirs and part love story, detailing his romance with The Golden Horseshoe Revue’s original Slue Foot Sue, Judy Marsh. Judy’s daughter even wrote a lovely foreword for the book.
In addition, the book includes 70 photos, many of them taken personally by Bob of Disney under construction, during his early-morning rounds of the park in Walt’s Jeep.
And if you’d like to hear some of his tales first-hand, Bob will make his first-ever appearance at the MiceChat anniversary breakfast Feb. 10. Come meet a true Disneyland icon, have him sign your book, and hear more stories and see more photos even beyond those shared in his book. I’ll be first in line!
MiceChat Anniversary details and tickets are just about to be released. Get your name on the list here:
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