Adventureland

To all who come to this happy place, welcome. […] Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, […] and the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.

On a cool California morning on July 17, 1955, the most ambitious amusement park ever imagined was revealed to the world. Televised on ABC television to an estimated 90 million viewers across America, Walt Disney gave a short and iconic speech before the gates were opened to the public for the first time.

Over succeeding decades the park would change, parts added and removed as trends came and went, but Disneyland’s goals would remain steadfast. It would remain place where visitors could dream and where they could see dreams become reality.

I first visited Disneyland in 1997 with my family and remember only vague slices of the experience. Memories are far clearer from my next visit with a friend in 2009, when we roadtripped down the east coast from Vancouver to stay overnight at Disneyland Anaheim itself.

I’d been having a bit of a rough time back then and was emerging from a bout of depression which had plagued me since the year before — the first serious case I can remember. But the morning I awoke in Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and stepped outside onto Main Street, into the warm air and with fingers of dawn sunlight stretching across the charismatic buildings, I was transported away in a way I hadn’t been on my first visit. And not just physically. Exploring ‘Adventureland’ with its thatched roofs, tiki-totems and river cruise, I was captivated by the ambiance and the excitement it stirred in me. In Tomorrowland, I clearly recall stepping from the dark tunnel of Space Mountain and telling my friend that, “I didn’t think I could still be thrilled like that,” then surreptitiously wiping my eyes.

Perhaps that sounds dramatic but, fittingly for that place, it were as if some spell had been broken. I felt human again and it was this experience that made me realise the power of escapism. Of adventure and magic.

Over the course of the day as we explored this imaginary world made real, I was overwhelmed by the effort and attention to detail. Once you step into the park, you never see a seam, with everything from the rides to the ambient music to the plants and trash-cans meticulously designed.

Many don’t seem to notice or appreciate the surroundings there. Some are only there for the rides, others wander about eating their ice-creams, while other still consider themselves above it all and write the place off as ‘tacky’. But to anyone paying attention it’s difficult not to find Walt’s creation astounding.

To me, the seed was planted. This was what I wanted to do. To thrill and delight and stir emotion in people, just like this place had in me. Disneyland pulls together many disparate ideas and concepts and melds them into a coherent whole on a massive scale, and I realised the whole approach contains lessons galore for writers. It brought home that previously nebulous phrase that “thoughts become things,” and more importantly, it showed the power of immersion and polish when an creating an impactful experience for an audience.

Writers might not have access to hundreds of empty acres to build on or billions in funding, and we might not have the glitz and glamour factor of a video-game or movie, but we don’t need any of that. All we need to transport someone away is words.

The ‘cinema of the mind’ is a powerful thing and — not to channel my inner Bob Procter too heavily — if you can see it all your head, then it’s just one more step to make it real.

In a way, I find it thrilling to imagine that through writing, I’m creating my very own Adventureland for readers to explore.

Jim :)