Thank You to The Walt Disney Company for 100 Years of Magic and Wonder and a Lifetime of Memories. Today marks the 100th anniversary of Disney and we reflect on how much it has meant to us over the years. The Walt Disney Company has been in our whole lives and we grew up during an age where we have seen nothing but transformation.
In 1975 Walt Disney released The Apple Dumpling Gang and Escape to Witch Mountain, not a stellar year for Disney movies. Walt Disney World had been open for 4 years at this point, and Disneyland, which opened in 1955, was celebrating 20 years.
We were both born in 1975 and grew up in a time where fluctuation in all media, at the parks, and in society as a whole would change every few years. We went from watching Disney’s Wonderful World on NBC to nothing in the early 80s to CBS taking over in 1981. Then we got to see the birth of the Disney Channel.
Related: The Walt Disney Company: Celebrating 100 Years of Magical Milestones
We also went from not being able to watch any Disney movie at home to the VCR taking over and owning clam-shelled video tapes. I want to say the first VHS tapes we owned were Tron and Silly Symphonies with Lambert the Sheepish Lion plus Toot, Whistle Plunk, and Boom.
Michael Eisner was our patron saint of Disney. We were young and did not understand business dealings, and Mr. Eisner was the man we saw standing next to Mickey Mouse. How could a man who was best friends with Mickey be bad?
We got to witness the revitalization of Walt Disney Animation, in what is now called the Renaissance of Animation. The Little Mermaid, and Jodi Benson singing ‘Part of Your World’ was amazing to see and hear at a formative age. It made us want to be part of musicals and join clubs in Jr. High School.
Then Beauty and the Beast arrived and we knew Disney was king for us personally. We could act like Gaston, or dance like Belle. We wanted to talk to our furniture and giggle thinking about a talking toilet. Still funny to this day 30 some odd years later. The Lion King blew our minds and we knew from that point on Disney would be our go-to for entertainment. All this was at home and doesn’t account for our Disney World Trips.
I only got to Walt Disney World 1 time as a kid, this was in December of 1983. Epcot had just opened and I remember the computer age started that day for me. Seeing Apple 2C’s and small floppy disks, dancing backward fountains, and lights on the pavement, all made me want to do something in the future that dealt with technology.
Over at the Magic Kingdom, I got to meet Tigger and witness him getting smacked in the groin by a small child, this would have such a profound effect on me almost 40 years later. We rode the Haunted Mansion maybe 5 times that day and enjoyed ‘It’s a Small World’, and Peter Pan’s Flight, and I would guess we saw more, but those are the only things I remember.
My parents would visit every December, and leave the kids at home, so I only got that one visit. I think I forgot about Disney World for many years. I would watch the commercials, but that was years and miles away and cost a lot of money to a poor kid from Morrisville, PA.
What Epcot did for me that day though stuck with me, after high school, I worked in technology as an Audio Engineer. I went to work for bands and toured the world. Which brings us back to Epcot! From 1995 until 2010 and maybe a few gigs after, I toured with some of the biggest artists in the world.
That lifestyle got me into a lot of places, the Super Bowl, Madison Square Garden, and Grand Ol Opry are just a few places, but it was in 2002 when we started playing Epcot’s Flower Power Festival every year and that got me hooked again on the “Disney Adult” world of Disney.
We would play 3 shows a night, and Disney was nice enough to give us park hopping tickets and treat us like rock stars. (Which we were). We got to be escorted after our final show each night to a private area and watch Illuminations, which became one of our favorite nighttime shows ever. This ruined fireworks for us for many years.
CDs came and went, and Digital media and streaming took over the world. We adapted and rebaught every movie Disney would put out. Except for some of the bad movies they released around that time, I am looking at you The Sorcerers Apprentice!
We had kids of our own, they watched Hanah Montana, The Sweat Life of Zach and Cody, and were hooked on the Disney Channel. Phineas and Ferb was a daily treat. We tried to show them our childhood of Gummy Bears, and Duck Tales. They couldn’t care less! Only had eyes for the next High School Musical.
The older kids grew up and paved the way for our younger children. The younger kids got to grow up with Frozen, Tangled, and Descendants, and if I ever hear “Calling all the Monsters” again, it will be too soon!
All of our children enjoyed the Kingdom Hearts video game series, they would wait for news of new versions of the game while replaying the originals over and over again. Which leads our family back to Walt Disney World.
In January 2019, the words pandemic were not used very often, and at Disney Springs they were doing a special preview of Kingdom Hearts 3. On a spur-of-the-moment decision, and not knowing all the planning that ‘should’ happen for a Disney Vacation, we drove 7.5 hours from Atlanta and came to Springs to play a preview of the game.
We found out about Disney After-Hours parties, and since they were cheaper than a day ticket, we would enjoy an empty park to ourselves and feel like royalty. We did Disney Villians and regular after-hours. We would stay at All-Star, and we learned the ins and outs of Walt Disney World.
The world changed again, and social media picked up. Fan Sites, Bloggers, and Vloggers all showed the wonderful side of Disney and made us want to be a part of it. We watched The Main Street Mouse, and other sites for breaking news. Tim Tracker was a staple on YouTube. Little did we know within a year and a half we would be in the same room with them doing Disney media events.
The pandemic hit and the world shut down, so we decided we knew enough about the Disney culture and moved down to Central Florida, I like to say we had a wing and a prayer of succeeding since we didn’t even have a house yet. Disney Annual passes weren’t being sold, but somehow we knew we could do this.
We now consider Walt Disney World home. Disneyland is our West Coast home. Bringing the news on a daily basis is our passion and our happy place. We get to go to the parks 5 days a week since we only live 6.8 miles from Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
We get to Disney Springs on a weekly basis, and I think if I look at Google Maps Timeline, we have been on Disney property 314 days in the last year alone.
The Walt Disney Company continues to draw us in, like a moth to the flame. They have had major wins and losses, yet, we still get enjoyment out of all the movies and entertainment they provide us on a daily basis.
To cap this all off was the premiere last night of ‘Once Upon a Studio’ which had us laughing and crying and nostalgic for our youth, but I think that is just it, the past is in the past. The future is what I am excited about. And Disney keeps bringing new technology, and advancements to all our media wants and needs.
