Some four and a half months after the version that Nate Winecoff wrote. You have to remember that — since Disneyland first opened back in July of 1955 — the general public have been clamoring for some sort of ride, show & attraction built around Mickey Mouse. Overall, guests waited 57 minutes for Animal Kingdom attractions.
Ruth then directed the planting of those thousands of colorful annuals into the framework that formed the floral Mickey on July 15th. And two days later, at the very start of “Dateline Disneyland,” Art Linkletter stood in front of that Floral Mickey and welcomed television viewers around the globe to Walt’s family fun park. Because Lillian insisted that, to avoid annoying their new neighbors in Holmby Hills, Walt had to hide as much of his backyard steam train set-up away from prying eyes as possible. He then hired the Evans & Reeves nursery in West Los Angeles to come landscape his property.
Upon graduating in 1979, Lasseter immediately obtained a job as an animator at Walt Disney Productions mostly due to his success with his student project, Lady and the Lamp. The studio had reviewed approximately 10,000 portfolios in the late 1970s in search of talent, then selected only about 150 candidates as apprentices, of which only about 45 were kept on permanently. Musicana frozen ride on toy was never released but eventually led to the development of Fantasia 2000. OK, so that little bit of knowledge about a Nokk makes the release of the Frozen 2 Water Nokk Ride-On Toy that much more exciting, right? Designed by Kid Trax, the toy even relies on LED lights to glow — yes, glow — as your little one takes it for a spin in the backyard or up and down the sidewalk.
Which includes that Floral Mickey right below the Main Street Train Station. Which, again, only got planted just days before Walt’s family fun park first opened to the public and then went on to become one of the most photographed things in the world. Mind you, when the Evans missed deadlines (They spent so much time concentrating on making Adventureland look like the best jungle north of Costa Rica that Bill & Jack neglected Frontierland), Shellhorn picked up the slack.
The daily wear & tear on this family fun park’s ornamental trees & flower beds was going to be extraordinary. When Disneylandia was supposed to be built on the other side of Riverside Drive, just across from the Disney Lot in Burbank, the front entrance of Walt’s family fun park was supposed to have had a Floral Mickey. Mind you, for a while razor ride ons there, Walt’s plans for the property were fairly amorphis. For a while there, there was no Seven Seas Lagoon out in front of the Magic Kingdom. Walt planned on enlarging Bay Lake and building several sets of vacation cottages along that waterfront. There are a few pieces of concept art for this proposed attraction that have popped up online.
Yes, because things were done so close to deadline, things got stressful. Just two weeks after Disneyland Park opened, Jack Evans suffered a massive heart attack. He stayed back at the Evans & Reaves Nursery and mostly handled paperwork from there on in. Shellhorn’s very hands-on attitude even extended to Disneyland’s Floral Mickey. Ruth had put a lot of advance thought into this project. She’d put together a palette of bright seasonal annuals that would then really make this massive mouse’s face pop with color, such as dwarf pink phlox for Mickey’s tongue.
Which is why the Mr. Potato Head that you hear in “Toy Story 4” is the real deal. After nearly 50 years of planning, the Disneyland Resort was finally going to get an attraction that was themed around Mickey Mouse. The Happiest Show on Earth has new nighttime adventures, too. John, in turn, roped in Disney Studio Costume Department.