Dream It! Do It! (Disney Editions Deluxe) (9 page)

There’s little doubt that Eddie Meck was the most trusted publicity manager around. One day I accompanied him on his rounds to plant a story at the
Los Angeles Times
. We stopped by the office of the newspaper’s publisher, Norman Chandler, only to find that he was in a board of directors meeting. His secretary insisted the publisher would want to know that Eddie was there, and she took a note into the meeting. Almost immediately, Mr. Chandler emerged to apologize to Eddie, and send his regards to Gertrude, Eddie’s wife. Another day I stopped by Eddie’s office to find him joined in song, via telephone, in a terrible rendition of “Wabash Cannonball.” When the ordeal ended, I asked Eddie who was at the other end of the line. His reply: “That was Aggie [Agnes Underwood, city editor of the Los Angeles
Herald-Express
].”

Maybe because of slow weekday attendance, our little public relations team had plenty of time in those early days to poke fun at Eddie Meck’s sincere and straightforward ways. I think it started the day Eddie welcomed and threw his arms around Jayne Mansfield, only to discover that Miss Mansfield was still inside the car, and he had greeted her secretary. (
We
were not fooled!)

Our group used every means we could think of to push the new park. The bane of Eddie’s newspaper world were the newsboy promotions. Basically, Jack Lindquist’s team worked with local newspapers to reward their delivery boys for building circulation, all the while publicizing the trips to Disneyland that the carriers could win. The problem was twofold: first, newspaper staffs often neglected to follow the rules, especially the one about
advance
reservations; and, second, because it involved newspapers and publicity, there was a handoff from Jack to Eddie when it came time for the actual visit to the Magic Kingdom.

One day we just had to have our little fun and games, so we arranged for the security team at the Main Gate to call Eddie and inform him that “Shorty Rogers,” the editor, and the carrier boys from the “Martian Evening Star” had arrived. Now Shorty Rogers was actually one of my favorite jazz musicians of the era, and the venerable “Martian Evening Star” had yet to publish its first edition (as far as we knew). Neither their publisher’s name nor the title of the “newspaper” rang a bell with Eddie—but not because of the fictional names. For him, it was all about the lack of prearrangements—for this very professional man, they had
sinned
by failing to make advance reservations with his office. As Eddie raced out of our offices in Disneyland’s City Hall to confront “Shorty Rogers” and his carrier boys at the Main Gate, we realized that we had gone over the line. Eddie didn’t speak to us for days afterward. We never again played our cheap tricks on this wonderful pro, revered by the press as if he, himself, were a Disney character. (The great San Francisco columnist Herb Caen once wrote that Eddie Meck was “no relation to Mecky Mouse.”)

Jack Lindquist was to become the quintessential marketing guru for creating promotions in the modern amusement industry (I wasn’t around when Barnum was doing his thing). Jack and I were often the instigators of these pranks, and it began early on, when our team was assigned to supervise one of the divisions in the annual Halloween parade in the city of Anaheim. This was no small, or small-town, task. The Halloween Festival Parade had begun as a local tradition in 1924. It had become one of the biggest events in Orange County; in the early years of Disneyland, it would draw as many as 150,000 viewers to see the parade move through Anaheim’s downtown streets.

Jack gave his version of our PR staff’s participation in the 1956 parade in his book
In Service to the Mouse
. He called it “Halloween Mischief”:

When Disneyland opened, the biggest annual event in town was Anaheim’s Halloween Festival, so Disneyland became involved right from the start. This included pumpkin-judging contests, kids’ costume contests in school, the traditional night of trick-or-treating, and the Halloween Festival Parade up Anaheim Boulevard, from Lincoln to La Palma Park. The event also included the Anaheim High School Band, plus bands from other Orange County high schools, color guards, horses, and floats representing local groups, such as Rotary, Kiwanis, Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, the mayor and the city council, as well as a few floats representing local businesses, and finally, the Jaycees to clean up after the horses. [On a personal note, ours was the 20/30 Club of Fullerton. Their consumption of alcohol easily exceeded the amount of horse droppings they retrieved.] There were four divisions in the parade and my boss, Ed Ettinger, was asked to be a division captain.

About a week before the event, Ed called me into his office and told me he was going to be out of town on business and asked if I would take his place. It wasn’t actually a question, so of course, I said yes. He said that there wasn’t much to do except to make sure the division was lined up correctly and ready to move in position. I could ask our staff to help. And there was one other thing: division captains rode on the back of new Thunderbird convertibles and dressed in top hats and tails.

First, I assembled my team from my Public Relations division compatriots. Dressed as Indian braves (courtesy of Disneyland wardrobe), my mighty war party consisted of Marty, Lee [Cake], Walter Scott, and Milt Albright, our group sales manager and one of the first employees on the Disneyland payroll. I also prevailed upon wardrobe to provide me with the top hat and tails.

On the night of the parade, we were on the job ready and willing after a quick stop at a local bar to fortify ourselves against the brisk fall night. As I met the other division captains, I noticed that I was the only one dressed in top hat and tails.

Score: one for Ed Ettinger!

Later, he insisted he only did it to make me look good, not to stand out. He thought I should represent Disneyland with class. I never bought his line of bull. I felt like Fred Astaire looking for Ginger.

Anyway, back to the parade where everything went well: my Indian escorts, whooping and hollering all the way, thrilled the kids. I rode in the back of a convertible, waving and saying hi to everybody, though nobody had the slightest idea who I was.

When we finally reached the end, the parade disbanded, and that’s when my Indian friends turned on me because they were cold and thirsty. They complained that I got to wear a top hat and tails and ride on a convertible while they had to wear loincloths and headdresses and dance barefoot along the whole parade route. I suggested we all go over to the Disneyland Hotel and discuss the matter civilly.

I drove the motley crew to the hotel in my car, but when we settled in the bar, we made a devastating discovery: the Indians’ money, keys, and identification remained in their cars at the park. I only had $20 with me; obviously, our charming little victory party wasn’t going to get far. Then, Fred Werther, owner of the Little Gourmet Restaurant at the Disneyland Hotel, came over to our table, and after a few rather snide remarks about the inappropriateness of our dress in a fine dining establishment such as his, he lamented that a small convention group dining in a private room upstairs had booked some entertainment, but the entertainment failed to show up.

“Oh, what to do?” Fred sighed.

“This is your lucky day,” I told him.

“Maybe we can help,” Marty chimed in, before he looked at me and nodded.

“Fred,” I said, “tell your group that in just five minutes Jack Lindquist and his authentic Traveling Troop of Indian Dancers will be ready to perform. Rain dances, chants, magic—the works!”

Fred agreed and thanked us.

“We’ll appear,” I told him, “but we want five steak dinners before we go on.”

While Fred went upstairs to tell the client the “good” news, our little group of parade-performers-turned-nightclub entertainers enjoyed a delicious T-bone steak dinner. By 11
P.M.
, the convention people had become unruly, so Fred finally announced us: “Direct from Oklahoma, the Fantastic Lindquist Indian Show!”

After our introduction, we started out with some soothing chants and dances to mild applause. I then introduced our “famous authentic rain dance.” Marty, Lee, Scott, [and] Milt performed magnificently. I half expected it to rain! We performed completely fake Native American dances and chants, all recalled from old Gene Autry and John Wayne films. We jumped around with lots of whooping and hollering. Hearty applause followed the closing number.

Marty then unexpectedly announced that now I, as their Great White Chief, would pull that tablecloth off the head table without upsetting any of the dishes, glasses, or silverware on the table. The audience was silent in anticipation.

Lee, Scott, and Milt grabbed one end of the tablecloth while I held the other end. Marty stood in the middle and started the countdown. A drum started beating faster and faster for the crescendo.

One…two…three.

I pulled as hard as a I could. Dishes, glasses, wine bottles, entrees, rolls, butter flew in every direction. Guests jumped from their chairs to avoid the mess. We ran out the door, down the stairs, through the kitchen, out the backdoor, to my car, and back to Disneyland.

Then we started to breathe again.

After a few minutes, the Indians got in their cars and drove home. I did the same. A few days later, we ran into Fred. He seemed angry and said that the group had told him they would never come back to the hotel again. Fred complained about the china and glasses that had been broken; the linen napkins, carpeting that had been stained with wine and food; and the broken chair. Then, he got a little grin on his face, his eyes lit up, and he said, “That was sure a better show than if that damned accordionist had shown up.”

Jack and I love to recall one of our favorite memories of the late 1950s in Anaheim. From a Santa Ana dealer of questionable ethics, he had purchased a 1947 Cadillac with a special habit: it blew head gaskets on a regular basis. But Jack loved that Cadillac, so he (and we) dealt with it. One day on the way to lunch, Jack drove us up West Street and turned onto Ball Road, when the Cadillac’s motor suddenly burst into flames. We jumped out of the car, and someone raced to the corner gas station to alert the fire department. But before they could place the call, less than a minute after we stopped, we saw Fire Chief Ed Stringer’s car across the road; thirty seconds later, Chief of Police Mark Stephenson arrived. One more, and we’d have a quorum for a city staff meeting.

I became so excited that I ran into the orange grove at the closest street intersection to the park. My emergency, unlike Jack’s, was that I had to relieve myself. That orange grove was destined for extinction, because the location was so strategic. But when the trees suddenly began to die a few weeks later, Jack credited me.

* * * * * * * * * *

I had two great offices in the late 1950s; one on the second floor of the City Hall, and the other in what is now part of the Guided Tour service. If you veer left when you enter Disneyland (as most people do) and walk under the railroad trestle, the first building you encounter is that small office. When the park opened, two light fixtures at each side of the stairs identified the building as the “Police Station.” It was not; it was my office.

Two experiences, both of which were to happen on many occasions, influenced much of my future Disney career—and, I believe, had a key role in communicating to the public about Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom. The first resulted from my mistake: one day I neglected to lock my door that led onto Town Square, allowing several guests to enter the “Police Station.” Suddenly, I was confronted by questions about the park that were the province of trained hosts in Disneyland’s City Hall. As I pondered the half-dozen questions those early guests asked, it occurred to me that this was a prime source of useful information for those of us charged with making the public aware of what Disneyland was all about. Remember, this was the late 1950s; it wasn’t until the big expansion of 1959 that the park’s yearly attendance exceeded five million. From that open-door day forward, whenever I was in that Police Station office, my front door was never locked.

Just as important were my ventures to the nearby Main Gate to watch and listen to what guests were asking at the ticket windows. That was the biggest surprise of all. Often the questions went like this: “I want to go on the Jungle Cruise, the Rocket to the Moon, and the Mark Twain Riverboat—
but I don’t want to go on any rides!
” What did
that
mean?

As we analyzed these comments, we realized that Walt had done such a great job of telling his television audience about Disneyland that the public had separated its offerings from the old amusement parks of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. In their minds, the whips, shoot-the-chutes, whirl-agigs, and lose-your-lunch thrills of those amusement parks were
the rides—
which Disneyland did not have.

Years later, columnist Norma Lee Browning, writing about Epcot in the
Chicago Tribune
, recalled asking Walt about his drive to create new concepts. Walt’s response was typical and duly noted by Browning:

“Oh, you sound like my wife,” he said, with an impatient gesture and a sip of his early morning coffee. When I started on Disneyland, she used to say, ‘But why do you want to build an amusement park? They’re so dirty.’ I told her that was just the point—mine wouldn’t be.”

Disneyland grew out of his disenchantment with amusement parks he visited on weekend excursions with his daughters. Most of them, he found, were neither amusing nor clean, and offered nothing for daddy.

He decided to fix all that by building his own amusement park, one where daddy could be entertained along with the kids. That’s why Disneyland appeals as much to adults as to children, as do all Disney cartoons and films, from Mickey Mouse on. (“You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.”)