On this day, in 1954, the first Disney television production, Walt Disney's Disneyland, debuted on ABC. As the plans for his theme park proceeded, Walt had his brother, Roy, explore any and every avenue for funding. One way Roy came up with was to provide programming for a television network. The idea almost didn't take hold, CBS and NBC both passed, but finally Roy convinced ABC that it would work. The result was an anthology series that would give Disney some much needed money and advertising and the fledgling network something for people to watch for decades to come.
The original premise of the show was that Walt would come into people's homes each week and give them a taste of what was being built in Anaheim, then present some sort of story for their enjoyment. The opening of the show not only mentioned Disneyland as a whole but named four of the lands that guests would be able to experience once they got there: Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Frontierland. One of the lands would be highlighted each week. For instance, when the Davy Crockett episodes aired, Frontierland was the theme. If a behind the scenes look at
Lady and the Tramp was on, the theme was Fantasyland. Tomorrowland night might be a look at the future of cars and a showing of
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea would mean it was an Adventureland show. This format would define the show until the early Eighties, even though the name would change on a semi-regular basis.
In 1958, the name of the show changed to
Walt Disney Presents and went from Wednesday nights to Friday nights (for two years) before settling on Sunday nights, a time slot it would occupy for the next 21 years. During this period, Walt promoted anything that needed it, from Sleeping Beauty to any additions to Disneyland. Westerns were popular at this time and Disney obliged with series like "Texas John Slaughter." Some episodes even featured a mix of animation and live action, with Walt having conversations with everyone from Mickey Mouse to Jiminy Cricket.
Big changes came to both television and the show in 1961. While the format stayed the same, the show began airing on NBC, who was the first network to broadcast in color. As a result the show's name was changed to
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. The first show featured the first Disney character ever created specifically for television, Ludwig Von Drake, singing a song about all the colors that could now be seen on the screen. It's said that song alone sold more color television sets than anything else that year. Because Walt had the foresight to film everything from the earlier versions of the show in color, saving money and showing reruns wasn't a problem. When Walt died in 1965, he had already filmed the openings for the remainder of the season so the studio went ahead and used them. Following that season, however, everyone realized that to try to replace Walt with a different host would be a mistake and the openings were cut.
By 1969, all three networks broadcast in color, which naturally meant it was time to change the shows name once again. Now called
The Wonderful World of Disney, the show would continue to gain in popularity and was ranked in the top 20 shows well into the mid Seventies. A big change to the show during this era was the airing of popular Disney films, edited into special two hour blocks. Unfortunately, as NBC began losing viewership as a whole, the show itself slipped in the ratings. As America's tastes changed throughout the second half of the Seventies, the CBS news show
Sixty Minutes began to regularly clobber
The Wonderful World.
In 1979, in an effort to save the show, the name was shortened to
Disney's Wonderful World. A new disco themed opening was added over a computer created logo. None of that helped. Sixty Minutes remained the new king of Sunday night and by 1981, NBC called it quits. CBS picked the show up, changed the name to
Walt Disney and moved it to Saturday nights. By this time there was little new content to air and the show couldn't compete with
Diff'rent Strokes and
Silver Spoons on NBC. On September 24, 1983, the 29 year run of Disney's anthology show came to an end on network television.
Which didn't mean the show was never seen again. At the time of its ending, The Disney Channel was launched and reruns would appear there for the next two decades. Disney would sort of revive the show in 1986, with the company's new CEO Michael Eisner as host, as
The Disney Sunday Movie. My personal favorites from this era were the two Mr. Boogedy halloween films. In 1988, the format would change from a two hour block to just one hour and be called
The Magical World of Disney. Both of these versions suffered from lackluster ratings however and the plug was pulled in 1990.
Since 1991, a show called
The Wonderful World of Disney (not to be confused with the earlier version of the same name)
has aired with less and less frequency on various networks, until Disney purchased ABC where it now resides exclusively. Now mostly used as a format to showcase special events, it is still technically on the air. This gives it the distinction of being the second longest-running prime time television series. The first is another anthology series,
Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, in American history:
The Federalist Papers
