Disneyland celebrated its 55th birthday on July 17, 2010. Like opening day on July 17, 1955 it was quite hot in Anaheim – though at least the water fountains were working and the asphalt wasn’t sticking to our shoes!
We (Laura and Jeanine) have some pictures and video to share with you – we’ll have more in coming days, but this will give you an overview for now.
Cast Members who worked the park that day were wearing a special birthday button:
The Main Street Cinema has a new feature, in honor of the 55th birthday: Opening Day at Disneyland.
There are six different screens inside. The main screen features black and white footage from the opening day broadcast in 1955, including Walt Disney, Art Linkletter, and Ronald Reagan. The other five are all showing a different feature, which includes footage of the rehearsal for the opening day broadcast, some construction video, closer looks at some of the attractions, and flyovers of the park. It’s interesting that this portion is in color, and much of it has never been seen before.
Disneyland President George Kalogridis was checking out the Main Street Cinema on Saturday morning, and told Laura that this was a surprise for guests that they had put together rather quickly (only a week or so!) – they actually weren’t sure they would finish in time. It was just installed on Friday night!
This will be a limited engagement – it will run through the summer at least. It was certainly quite popular on July 17!
The Disneyland Rededication Ceremony was held at noon at the Main Street Train Station. Here’s a video of the finale.
In addition to celebrating Disneyland’s 55th birthday, the park was also celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Disneyland College Band with a College Band Reunion, where former band members were invited back to perform with the current College Band. They performed a short concert in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle, then marched down Main Street.
Later they all marched back up Main Street and out to “it’s a small world”, stopping to perform a couple of numbers.
There was some special 55th birthday merchandise available, most of it with an edition size of 1955. By 5:00, there was almost nothing left – and there were still people in line to buy the remaining items.
The final birthday event of the day was a “Happy Birthday” sing-a-long in Town Square.
After we all sang Happy Birthday to Disneyland, a bunch of Disneyland Cast Members and a lot of Disney characters came out and surrounded Town Square and performed to an upbeat dance version of “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”. It was a terrific moment, and cast and characters all seemed to be really enjoying themselves. (We’ll have video soon.)
Happy Birthday Disneyland!
Awesome! Thanks for the report 🙂
WOW! What a trip down memory lane. I remember growing up with Anette and the rest of the Club. Then Walt every Sunday. The whole family was glued to the TV every week. Walt was the one whole knew the importance of family. This Video made me cry remembering all those happy times. Both my parents are gone now, but they were at Walt Disney World the first month it was open. My dad believed in the Peter Pan theory “Never Grow Up” Thanks for bringing back such great memories
I’m choked up…. wish I was there with you, Laura. It’s been so long since I was there the last time, but I’d appreciate it so much more now.
LOL! I’m looking at a cast member selling their 55th anniversary items, from a laptop bag to a shirt to pen, and I’m screaming, “Are you nuts?! I’d never sell my stuff if I was a CM!” 🙂
I loved this video! It really got me emotional, especially when the characters came out at the end. I have a stupid question. I just wanted to know if the 5 children at the beginning singing in different languages were representing the Disney Parks around the world. If so, I identified America, China, Japan, and France. But I don’t know which park the boy on the left was representing. Can you let me know? Thanks again for posting!
Laura replies: The boy on the left was singing in Spanish. I believe he was representing all of the Spanish-speaking visitors to the two U.S parks as well as Disneyland Paris.