You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend

our disbelief.

I'm Eric Blinsky.

Well, I feel like Santa Claus with a $17 million bundle of gift packages all wrapped in

whimsy and sent your way over television with the help of 29 cameras.

This is a live broadcast of the opening of Disneyland from July 1955.

There is so much pomp and circumstance to this 90-minute program, it feels more like

an inauguration.

Even the governor of California, Goodwood Knight, addressed the crowd.

But there's a lot of celebrating too.

There's a singing and dancing Davey Crockett.

There are giant float parades with mini and Mickey Mouse.

But the star of the show was Walt Disney.

He would put everything he had, including selling his own house to pay for this nostalgic

slice of Americana for the ice cream parlors and trolley cars.

So all who come to this happy place, welcome.

Disneyland is your land.

Here age relives fond memories of the past and here youth may save the challenge and promise

of the future.

I never get tired of hearing Disney's voice.

I mean, I know all the bad stories about him.

Strike at his studio, which he handled very badly in ruin people's careers, his cooperation

...