Word: walts
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...shuttering of Fantasyland. The day's corrosive heat sent women's spiked heels sinking into the asphalt on Main Street. Nor was this a debacle to be covered over with Tinker Bell dust; the whole sorry spectacle was broadcast on a live TV special co-hosted by Ronald Reagan. WALT'S DREAM A NIGHTMARE, proclaimed the Los Angeles Tidings...
...Walt, who had sunk his fortune into this $17 million mousehole, was not done wheeling and dreaming. Disney's name, the most trusted in the movie business, reassured visitors. By Labor Day the park had already greeted its millionth paying guest, and after a year the attendance was 3.8 million. Last August, Disneyland recorded its 250 millionth admission. "We were the first theme park," says Frank Wells, Disney's president and chief operating officer. "With the vision of Walt Disney, we brought the standards of the park, our courtesy and cleanliness, to new levels, and we built...
...closed four years later at a loss of $20 million. Houston's Hanna-Barbera Land, a pizazzy play park for children, closed last September after two years. Half a dozen theme attractions, from Stars Hall of Fame to Circus World, have failed within the shadow of Walt Disney World...
...once, a politician was guilty of understatement. Today Greater Orlando, with Walt Disney World as its golden profit center, is one of the nation's fastest-growing areas in population, revenue and new-tech industry. The people who live and work in Orlando are there for the same reasons as those who visit: because of its proximity to an all-ages fun-time wonderworld. Here is a metropolis whose success has been erected on the American family's itch for entertainment. Not since Southern California sprang up around the burgeoning Hollywood film colony has a region owed its riches...
...Walt Disney World, the snappy patter is left to the guides on the trams that whisk visitors from the car lot to one of the two main parks: the Magic Kingdom--which is basically Disneyland East--and the sprawling Epcot Center. (One-day admission: $23 for adults, $19 for kids.) "No smoking--foreign, domestic or homegrown," one guide sasses near Epcot's 18-story Spaceship Earth geosphere. "You know what Epcot means?" another asks near closing time. "Every Person Comes Out Tired." In fact, the acronym stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. It was Disney's conceit to create...