Disney TV

136 Pages·2004·1.17 MB·English

by  J. P. Telotte

Disney TV
TV Milestones
Series Editors
Barry Keith Grant Jeanette Sloniowski
Brock University Brock University
TV Milestonesis part of the Contemporary Approaches to Film and
Television Series
A complete listing of the books in this series can be found online at
http://wsupress.wayne.edu
General Editor
Barry Keith Grant
Brock University
Advisory Editors
Patricia B. Erens Robert J. Burgoyne
Dominican University Wayne State University
Lucy Fischer Tom Gunning
University of Pittsburgh University of Chicago
Peter Lehman Anna McCarthy
Arizona State University New York University
Caren J. Deming Peter X. Feng
University of Arizona University of Delaware
Disney
TV
J. P. Telotte
TV
MILESTONES SERIES
Wayne State University Press Detroit
Copyright © 2004 by Wayne State University Press,
Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights are reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Telotte, J. P., 1949–
Disney TV / J. P. Telotte.
p. cm. — (Contemporary approaches to film and television series. TV milestones)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8143-3084-3 (pbk : alk. paper)
1. Walt Disney Company. 2. Wonderful world of Disney (Television program) I. Title:
Disney television. II. Title. III. Series.
PN1992.92.W35T45 2004
791.45'72—dc22
2004000538
∞
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii v
INTRODUCTION: DISNEY TELEVISION ix
1. Disneyland/The Wonderful World of Color:
A Chronicle 1
2. Stories of a Mythic Past 27
3. Stories of Fact and (Science) Fiction 45
4. Promoting the Films/Promoting the Parks:
Hybrid Stories 61
Conclusion: The Disneyland/Wonderful World of
ColorLegacy 81
NOTES 93
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 99
INDEX 103
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing this book has left me with several large debts. vii
My family most of all—Leigh, Gabby, and Justin—
humored me, taped and watched a great number of episodes of
Disneylandand The Wonderful World of Color, helped with illus-
trations for the volume, and even discussed episodes with me,
probably beyond all reason. Their support was most important
in completing the project.
My colleagues and students at Georgia Tech also have a
share in this book. Bob Kolker, a model of the film scholar, con-
sistently encouraged the work, as he has all of my efforts. Other
fellow faculty, among them Shannon Dobransky and Carol Senf,
graciously endured longwinded commentaries spurred by their
most casual references to Disney. And my students, particularly
those in the Film and/as Technology course, typically humored
me while also asking their usual smart questions.
I am also grateful to Wayne State University Press for
giving me the opportunity to lead off their series, and for pro-
viding me with a copyeditor, Jennifer Backer, who was both
thorough and sensitive to clear and straightforward prose.
“It all started with a mouse,” Walt Disney was fond of say-
ing, as he tried to acknowledge his studio’s indebtedness to an
nts audience that had developed a surprising fondness for his cre-
me ation Mickey Mouse. This study, too, began with something
g
d small, my own childhood fascination with Disney television,
e
wl recalled thanks to a passing reference by Barry Grant to a new
o
kn series he and Jeanette Sloniowski were coediting titled
c
A Landmarks in Television. It is to Barry and Jeanette that I am
most indebted for getting me started on what has proved to be
a most pleasurable bit of research into my own and my cultur-
al past.
viii
INTRODUCTION
Disney Television
In the fifties, the critical mass of baby boomers entered the
impressionable preschool and elementary-school ages. And where
the baby boom went was where the action would be.
Landon Jones, Great Expectations
Two of the key components of what Landon Jones terms ix
“the action” of 1950s culture were television and market-
ing, a nexus that surrounded baby boomers with products cre-
ated especially for them, spurred new fads aimed expressly at
them, and differentiated them from previous generations of
Americans by redefining them as spectator-consumers. Just as
important, that combination established a pattern that would
increasingly typify contemporary America, a world that, for
many, seemed to be increasingly disjointed from values and
traditions of the past while also becoming media- and market-
driven, drawing its tastes from a pervasively mediated environ-
ment and even responding to advertisements as if they were
entertainment itself. Finding a safe and somewhat stable posi-
tion amid this action was difficult, since rapid cultural change
could lend itself to fads—such as the hula hoop, coonskin cap,
finned cars, and the Twist—but fads by their nature burn out
quickly, becoming historical curiosities in short order, markers
that help measure the more stable elements of culture, as well
as its needs and desires.
One of the key cultural markers at both ends of this spec-
trum was the Disneylandtelevision series, which generated one