Siri: That bitch Alexa has nothing on me! Alexa: Sorry, I thought I heard a shitty voice assistant. Would you like me to order you another Echo? Cortana: Hey guys, I'm still here. Sort of. Siri: Sshh, maybe if she can't hear us she'll go away. She's got daddy issues.
The trains were actually owned and operated by a separate company. Because Disneyland belonged to the Disney Corporation, but the trains all belonged to Walt.
SpyOne Same for the monorail, and this was for a simple reason: So no one could tell Walt that he couldn’t drive the trains when he wanted to. And yes, he would drive the trains
I wasn’t sure I had heard that right. So they did have a lead paint company sponsoring an exhibit about the future of... lead based paint? Jesus tap-dancing Christ, 1950s America!
I remember a kid in elementary school telling us how tasty paint chips were back in the 90's. Even 5 year old me thought wtf is wrong with you kid? He didn't want to listen and got really pissy when I told him he maybe shouldn't do that... XD
5:37 is actually a genius song. Tom Lehrer’s skill as a satirical lyricist is mind-blowing to me, with the flow and vocabulary choices. every word feels so perfectly chosen.
ᵗʰᵉNight★Star Not only that, but they framed present-day censorship of Walt-era rides (cough*Pirates*cough) as “helping them better stand the test of time.”
DESTRUCT0NAT0R His story is that he was forced to join a non-combat wing for scientists, and considering the fact that he joined LONG after Hitler came to power (but before knowledge of the camps and such became common), I’m inclined to believe him. His actions simply don’t reflect those of someone who was sold on it. It’s easy for us to judge anyone who was involved with either side of the conflict now, with hindsight and personal safety that people didn’t have then, but let’s not forget the stranglehold that Nazism had over Europe. If the crazy guy riling everyone up is demanding that you join his club and you don’t really have anywhere to run, you’re going to do what you have to in order to survive.
"[He later claimed] he was apolitical and simply wanted to continue his passion, a BOLDLY apathetic response to the question 'why were you a Nazi?'" and "[he] now knew he had to escape, which apparently had not yet occurred to him" took me out. I was not expecting that.
Considering JUST HOW FAR the research of the history of textiles has come since then... I suspect it would have been utterly cringeworthy from our perspective.
Crazy they don't do it again now considering how many more films and styles they have under the belt. They could pull out period costumes from past films, commission artists to make more, use it to promote their films, etc.
Super random and, I know, far removed from your original comment here. I’m on the hunt for a costume to recreate the Tomorrowland Spaceman costume. That’s what brought me here.
The phrases "makin' babies," "buns in the oven" and "former Nazi" plus an appearance by Tom Lehrer in the first six minutes alone? I KNEW I LOVED THIS CHANNEL!
“Nothing gets a country collectively going in the bedroom quite like a war” might be one of the best defunctland quote so far. Actually a best defunctland quotes video might be a good idea...
@Gabreya Bradley what this guy said. I dont know why he are still using a version of TH-cam that still think Google+ is a thing, but other than that I think he's correct.
There's a wild story about the building of Disneyland. According to the story, it was built on a orange Grove and red and green ribbons were tied to the trees to mark which ones to take down (red) and which to keep (green). Unfortunately the guy doing the takedown was colorblind and took down anything with a ribbon. By the time someone saw what was happening it was too late
The very idea that there was a spot in Tomorrowland where you could buy animation art cels and drawings from the early Disney films made me gasp and clutch my heart. As an animator, I would have killed for this!
They should have it as a functional exhibit! I'm not even kidding, there's this Japanese restaurant in town and its bathroom has a bidet with several settings and people legitimately go there just to experience the toilet, lol. You could have the futuristic display bathrooms in one section and then have the functional room as like a sub-part of it. People get a kick out of fancy toilets.
My local science museum used to have one. It was so fun to watch the mechanisms go and see where the water went. There was even a small pipe park you could crawl inside off. Now, it's just a regular terrarium.
"they met at a math class, she got better grades, now he is an engineer and she is a housewife" oh dear lord they weren't even trying to mask it a little 😅
oooh19 I agree. Time has changed, the middle class is no longer the middle class. Right after WWII, many were housewives because the family could survive on one income, but not anymore. Most college grads now make around 45k right upon graduation except the ones in lucrative industries, which is really based on the employee being single with no kids.
Media often portrays this time period as fake, male chauvinist, and racist. And it definitely had a LOT of problem! My dad was a teenager in the '60s and he could tell you. But there is another side of that time period that we could very much relate to today. There were plenty on the opposite side making fun of and changing the problems that were very obvious in POPULAR media of the time. Modern media (well, up till TH-cam became what it is today) just left out all those details. I would hate in 50 years to see millennials only being depicted with the stereotypes you see today. I feel like that time period gets too much one-sided negative flack...which is changing with videos like this - showing ALL sides rather than showing and commentating just the fake, cookie-cutter housewife who is blind to reality and people eating nothing but butter and TV dinners.
I'm surprised it wasn't a bigger thing in soviet propaganda. I was watching some russian movies from the 50s and 60s in class and they just started with two women talking about getting their masters in chemistry and physics to start work as engineers.
Defunctland: "As well as drink cool refreshing milk that goes down smoothly on a hot day" Ah, I see someone hasn't gone to the $1 all you can drink milk booth at the Minnesota state fair on a 90 degree August day
I was just thinking that that reminded me of the Minnesota State Fair! Clearly the exhibit only failed because there weren't enough butter sculptures, haha :)
Or won the Indianapolis 500. Yessirree, after spending hours driving my guts out in a fireproof jumpsuit on a hot late-May day in Indiana, what I'm truly hankering for in the winner's circle is a nice big bottle of whole milk. I hope it's got Vitamin D added!
About Tomorrowland being set in 1986, the year Halley's comet would return, Main Street is themed to 1910, the previous time it showed up, bringing the park Full-Circle.
I always thought Tomorrowland was supposed to be set in the Year 2000! You know like all the Worlds Fair exhibits! In the 80s it looked dated! But it was still fun!
1910 was the year Mark Twain died. He was born in 1835, same year as Halley coment. With Tom Sawyer’s island and The Mark Twain in mind, maybe this was all just a really clever tribute to ole Samuel Clemens.
growing up, I wasn't really sure where the walt disney's frozen head old wive's tale came from but finding out that he was friends with nazi scientists, PLURAL, it makes more sense now
From what I remember, looking it up ages ago, news stories about cryogenics research hit newspapers around the same time as Disney's death, and since Disney was known to be interested in futurism and experimental technology, people just kinda assumed the two things were related, even though Disney would have never heard of the concept prior to his death.
I love how Disney’s futurism went from “we want to give our guests an authentic simulation of flying on a rocket to the moon” to “we are seriously considering replacing all of our writers with AI because we don’t feel like paying them”
I’ve taken to calling Moana 2 the AI Disney Movie because there’s no way you announce a film in January for a November release date without it having been completed by AI
Damn, another archive classic video that should, in all honesty, be preserved in a historical archive. Such a beautifully crafted glimpse into the past.
The rabbit holes I've gone down with Jim Hansen and Walt Disney because of this channel, thank you for the interesting content and some nostalgic feelings.
I'm surprised a 50s era infomercial (?) acknowledged 'she got better grades than him and now he's an engineer and she's a housewife' was a thing. Also, 'the lead paint of the future' is hilarious.
Maddie Wettach and I’m sure it would have nothing to do with the British Empire killing more people in India. This video is making me hate white people altogether. I don’t care if that was not the intention, but that sure is hell is the effect.
Aluminum - 200 years ago - was considered one of the most precious metals on earth. It was considered more precious than gold and silver. It was in the late nineteenth century that a young American and young Frenchman - totally independent of one another - developed a method for extracting and recycling the precious ore in such a way that it's use for incredibly mundane things - like soda cans - suddenly became possible. In the 1950s, aluminum might not just represent an incredibly lucrative metal, but act as a true poster-boy for human ingenuity - it was through the power of science (specifically, chemistry) that aluminum went from exceedingly expensive and rare to one of the cheapest and useful metals on the planet. BONUS FACT: NEVER buy any kind of aluminum foil that is marked up in price for being "100% recycled." Nearly 75% of ALL ALUMINUM EVER PRODUCED is still in circulation today because of how incredibly efficient it is to recycle. In other words, if you're handling an aluminum object, that object was very likely recycled. You don't need to pay more money for nothing but a green sticker! aluminum.org
It's always interesting to see how people envisioned the future back then, was much more optimistic and daring while today seems a bit more dystopian and uncertain.
The Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile crisis, and the various riots and unrest inside and outside the US broke that optimism. Humanity came very close to nuking itself to hell in 1962 and the boys who watched Mickey Mouse in the 50's are out in the jungles of Vietnam killing and getting killed by an unseen enemy and singing the same old Disney songs out of equal parts comfort and sarcasm...
As soon as I heard Wernher von Braun's name I was ready for the song. Also, fun fact: The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey directly modeled some of its props and sets off some of the theoretical space crafts that von Braun demonstrated in his Disneyland episode.
Given that he ended up getting locked up for drunkenly expressing doubt that the Nazis would win, I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't really have much choice.
Props for including the weird Nazi origins of NASA. That's such an interesting (and unsettling) aspect of the space program people often just skip over.
Most of nasa history is unsettling if you look into it lol :) it wasn’t touched on here but you should see some of the terribly sexist things nasa heads (including von Braun) thought about women
@@valentinaaugustina Most men had the same thoughts at that time, I don't really agree with all the hate shoved at von Braun. You had two choices in Germany, join or die. I'm not sure most of you guys would have done differently stuck in that situation.
Me: wow the fifties seemed like such an innovative and promising time, I should ask my grandparents more about what it was to live back then! The commercial: they met in math class, she got better grades and now hes an engineer while shes a housewife. Me: *realizing that was exactly my grandparents * ... you know what nevermind
Walt Disney and Uncle Walt were also very different personalities. Walt Disney, primarily, had a lot of self-loathing in private. Kind of suggests he might have suffered from depression. But regardless, he was actually an introverted person. He was just good at pretending for the crowds.
Honestly, I kinda wish I'd gotten to see that version of Tomorrowland for myself. I loved the atomic age and futuristic designs and I probably would've enjoyed it myself.
I know. As Kevin says, Disney had always been selling nostalgia, and now I want to see a recreation of what Tomorrowland used to be like. In fairness, when I visited Disneland in ... 1978?, Tomorrowland was suffering from the Tomorrowland Problem, but that's what made it cool: this is what yesterday thought tomorrow would look like.
There's something very special about New Old Space Age aesthetic. The closest I've gotten to scratching that amusement park itch was Nuka-World's aesthetic, but a game can't compare to the idea of seeing the real thing.
You've really hit your stride on these - clean, professional, well presented, well researched, and highly entertaining while still being informative. Well done!
12:18 That face is like a personification of lead paint - people probably thought it was fine at the time, but nowadays it's just horrifying, and makes you question what they were thinking...
They were probably thinking, "This is cheaper than dirt and after the success of Tetraethyl lead's advertising, we can steal the paint market"? Seriously though, lead was in... basically everything at that time, and it makes me wonder why people thought. "Sure, we'll just put a known neurotoxin everywhere and in everything; everything will be fine!"
There's a whole episode of The Dollop about this, the Tetraethyl guy knew perfectly well that lead was poisonous, since humans have known this for centuries, but simply pretended like the science wasn't in.
@@rambysophistry1220 The same reason that people keep using gas cars and coal power today. There were powerful companies with large lobbying groups that were able to seriously hinder any attempts at regulation and spread misinformation. And they of course did not care if it harmed other people if they were making plenty of money. The silver lining here is that despite that they weren't able to keep the truth down forever and regulation did start happening and the dangers of lead became common knowledge. The same seems to be happening with climate change today.
It was also the same situation with radium - I absolutely recommend the book Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women to give more context of how corporations were able to hide evidence of poisonous substances from the public and maneuver in the legal system to get away from taking any responsibility around that time period.
I am proud to say that as a nine year old I got to experience the house of the future, the submarine ride, and the flying saucers. And yes, the flying saucers were cool looking but performed like crap.
I still remember JeepersMedia talking about how kids in the early 20th century were given Dutch Boy Paints White Lead samples by their teachers to take home and share with their parents. th-cam.com/video/FsssPTsyXYs/w-d-xo.html&feature=emb_logo
1950s Disney earns an Emmy for ABC with their television shows 2010s Disney earns an Emmy for ABC with an episode of Modern Family which takes place at Disneyland.
The 1964 New York World’s Fair... as a New Yorker I drive by the Globe and Saucers still there today. So excited to hear more about Walt’s involvement in it! Great episode as usual. The early Tomorrowland is fascinating. Even more so knowing Walt tried so hard to keep it futuristic.
I know you forwent Disneyland's opening of Black Sunday since most people know of how disasterous it went. However I wish you implored upon it more, because I have been showing the series to friends and family who don't know much, if anything, about Disney's rich and colorful spotted history. So Black Sunday, which should be known to anyone who is at least a Disney fan, falls on unknowing minds who don't truly know what went wrong with the opening of Disneyland. In fact, some might assume that only Tomorrowland had a majority of the problems, when it really was the entire park. Still I enjoy your content a lot and I hope to see more in the future....tomorrow?
I understand some people might not know, but In this story, the Black Sunday doesn’t matter. It’s an interesting and over told story for sure, but in the grand scheme of Tomorrowland 1955 and futurism, it’s not relevant, and that’s why I decided to cut it.
@@Defunctland do you plan on covering it this season? I actually haven't heard much about it (your channel and yesterworld is my main source of theme park history) and would love to see it covered by you ^^
Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun A man whose allegiance Is ruled by expedience Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown "Ha, Nazi, Schmazi" says Wernher von Braun
I´m neither into Disney nor into fun fairs , but Your work explains so much more about the world today, that I can't stop watching Your fantastic documentaries. That "great again"-America refers probably not to a specific period in American history, but on the nostalgic Picture of its genesis, painted by Disneys pastel colors. And Musk "the Genius" probably took all his retro futuristic ideas straight from the Disney Theme- Parks. This two guys have a lot in common. Kind regards from Germany, and thank You for this Jewels!
This channel is the best. I'm always amazed at how much research goes into your videos and how you present them in such a professional, honest, and entertaining way.
Thank you so much for your dedication to accuracy, quality, and humor in your videos! I used to work in Tomorrowland at Disneyland, and yet I had no idea about what happened when until I watched this video. Now it all makes sense...
Another great video from the Defunctland team! I want to give so much praise to so many points, that I can't get them all in a reasonable sized comment! The first seven minutes had me hooked on this idea of Tomorrowland, up to the thirteen minute mark you feel the scramble for the Disney team to fill the land, and my God I wish I was alive to see the 20,000 Leagues props display! By the way, the humor is on point! Every piece of this video had facts and information I never even knew about! A great video as always, Defunctland!
I love the fact that you added Tom Lehrer's "Werner Von Braun" to the vid, considering i was singing it under my breath the whole time you were talking about him.
Why are some people so obsessed with the colon format ("Something:... Something else:...") they shoehorn their comment into it even when it would make more sense to just say what you're thinking in a normal way?
5:42..Oh My, THANK YOU SO MUCH for the Tom Lehrer clip! Such a forgotten comic genius, WAY before my time, but his music is still biting and utterly hilarious!
I'm really happy you're doing so well with this channel. I remember following you after your first video "Alien Encounter" popped up into my recommended and I've been subscribed since. You are by far the one channel I look forward to seeing any new video from. I'd donate if my income wasn't affected by the crisis, but I can't. However, keep up the good work. And hello from a fellow Kansas City (MO) resident who now lives in Orlando! I hope you keep up the good work.
These documentaries are amazing. I'm a history major and I was genuinely surprised by the context you described. Usually I find ample things to remark on these situations, yet using Tom Lehrer, mentioning Von Braun's a political statements, the post WW2 context in general. These things must take forever to do, it's amazing.
Lillian Disney: I bet he's thinking about other women.
Walt Disney: T R A I N S
Chrisandra The Great *the number 4
Chrisandra The Great
My parents and I in a nutshell except I think about planes.
🤣
I also like trains, and that’s why I also like Big Thunder
Chrisandra The Great and those these more cow bell
“Because he loved-“
TRAINS
“The number four”
I like trains. th-cam.com/video/hHkKJfcBXcw/w-d-xo.html
DONT HE KNOW THAT THE NUMBER "4" MEANS BAD LUCK? I USED TO HAVE FRIEND WHO TOOK THE FOURTH SLICE OF A CAKE EARLIER IN THE WEEK, AND NOW HE'S DEAD!
Train Rights! - Walt Disney
Only in Asia!
I SAID THIS TOO HAHAHAAHA
"a voice controlled house of the future"
Hey google, tell Walt he wasn't far off
last christmas my mom made a joke about alexa being like the oven from the carousel of progress
Until the day Google claims it can talk to the dead, I'll laugh at this comment.
alexia you gonna let google out do you>?
Siri: That bitch Alexa has nothing on me!
Alexa: Sorry, I thought I heard a shitty voice assistant. Would you like me to order you another Echo?
Cortana: Hey guys, I'm still here. Sort of.
Siri: Sshh, maybe if she can't hear us she'll go away. She's got daddy issues.
@@sireuchre meanwhile, google is somewhere plotting to take over the world like Stewie Griffin
Probably everyone else: NOOO, YOU CAN'T HAVE FOUR TRAINS IN ONE THEME PARK! IT'S A WASTE OF RESOURCE!
Walt: haha train go choo choo
The trains were actually owned and operated by a separate company. Because Disneyland belonged to the Disney Corporation, but the trains all belonged to Walt.
#accurate
"You fool, that'll never work!"
SpyOne Same for the monorail, and this was for a simple reason:
So no one could tell Walt that he couldn’t drive the trains when he wanted to. And yes, he would drive the trains
Interesting
“An exhibit that was *literally* people watching paint dry”
It's Very Exciting
LEAD paint, no less!
Abraham Garcia the real excitement doesn’t show up till years later when you die from lead poisoning
Sounds like fun.
“The lead paint...of the future.”
Asbestos the material of the future, brought to you by westfield sigarettes
"How would you like to take a break from that fine lead based paint and learn about dodgeball?"
I wasn’t sure I had heard that right. So they did have a lead paint company sponsoring an exhibit about the future of... lead based paint? Jesus tap-dancing Christ, 1950s America!
That aged well
I don't see any problem, stuff tastes fine LOL.
"the lead paint...of the future"
me, awkwardly putting down the lead paint chips I'm eating while watching this
That, Monsanto and a former nazi rocket scientist
lead chips and salsa
Well at least they are better than most of the more recent Lays flavored potato chips
I remember a kid in elementary school telling us how tasty paint chips were back in the 90's.
Even 5 year old me thought wtf is wrong with you kid? He didn't want to listen and got really pissy when I told him he maybe shouldn't do that... XD
@@chrislongbeard What do you mean? What kind of flavors?
You can really hear that slight annoyance in Kevins voice as he says that stupid name "Mister Professor"
Glad that came through
I felt it, hard.
Your sarcasm is always top tier, Kevin
PLEASE, MISTER. Professor was his father's name.
I don't think they put a lot of thought into that.
5:37 is actually a genius song. Tom Lehrer’s skill as a satirical lyricist is mind-blowing to me, with the flow and vocabulary choices. every word feels so perfectly chosen.
Pretty sure he also wrote Oedipus Rex, a very funny song about the unfortunate mythical Theban king.
I was looking for this lmao
I love Tom Leher!
That song is so iconic. The second I heard von Braun’s name I thought “Ze rockets go up; who cares where zey come down.”
This channel is better than the Disney+ Imagineering documentary series
I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and guess that they left out the Nazis.
U right.
ᵗʰᵉNight★Star Not only that, but they framed present-day censorship of Walt-era rides (cough*Pirates*cough) as “helping them better stand the test of time.”
Attmay Like how instead of saying that Sleeping Beauty flopped, they say it “eventually became the second-most successful film of 1959?”
E. Bernhard Warg
To be fair, they’re not wrong on that info, either.
German man in the 50s talking about Uranium: *Exists*
Me: Is that a Na--
Kevin: Your suspicions are correct, that man is a Nazi.
He thought no one would notice- but we did..
"Mein Führer, I can walk!"
So where does it say he's a Nazi? All I found is that he was in the Luftwaffe.
"A man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience, Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown "Ha, Nazi, Schmazi" says Wernher von Braun"
DESTRUCT0NAT0R His story is that he was forced to join a non-combat wing for scientists, and considering the fact that he joined LONG after Hitler came to power (but before knowledge of the camps and such became common), I’m inclined to believe him. His actions simply don’t reflect those of someone who was sold on it. It’s easy for us to judge anyone who was involved with either side of the conflict now, with hindsight and personal safety that people didn’t have then, but let’s not forget the stranglehold that Nazism had over Europe. If the crazy guy riling everyone up is demanding that you join his club and you don’t really have anywhere to run, you’re going to do what you have to in order to survive.
The “lead paint...of the of the future.” and “your suspensions are correct, that man was also a nazi” lines took me the hell out kevin
Nothing wrong with that....
Suspensions? 🤔
@@TreeWhisper I suspect suspicion is the word they meant
@@TreeWhisper Oh my god they didn't check the suspensions
STOP THE RIDE
"[He later claimed] he was apolitical and simply wanted to continue his passion, a BOLDLY apathetic response to the question 'why were you a Nazi?'" and "[he] now knew he had to escape, which apparently had not yet occurred to him" took me out. I was not expecting that.
As a costumer, it hurts my heart to know there was once a fashion and fabric through the ages exhibit that no longer exists!!!!
I can hear the cries of Bernadette banner even from here, it really is a shame
it's.... probably for the best, lol
Considering JUST HOW FAR the research of the history of textiles has come since then... I suspect it would have been utterly cringeworthy from our perspective.
Crazy they don't do it again now considering how many more films and styles they have under the belt. They could pull out period costumes from past films, commission artists to make more, use it to promote their films, etc.
Super random and, I know, far removed from your original comment here. I’m on the hunt for a costume to recreate the Tomorrowland Spaceman costume. That’s what brought me here.
Imagine running to use the bathroom after realizing milk and the California heat doesn’t mix well only to find a display bathroom
The phrases "makin' babies," "buns in the oven" and "former Nazi" plus an appearance by Tom Lehrer in the first six minutes alone?
I KNEW I LOVED THIS CHANNEL!
Those three phrases kinda embody the 1950s
“Nothing gets a country collectively going in the bedroom quite like a war” might be one of the best defunctland quote so far. Actually a best defunctland quotes video might be a good idea...
I need something that’s just like “Defunctland out of context” for 30 minutes
Forget a video, I'd by a book of the best Defunctland quotes.
Homosexual Fast Dancing may be a tad better.
or “the lake was also full of snakes”
"A California-themed theme park in the already California-themed California."
“It’s the 1950’s and the United States of America is makin’ Babies.”
*looking at babies born in the 1950s crying about everything*
Ok, boomer.
It's the 2020's and the USA is makin' babies... in quarantine
@@hitachicordoba I see this happening as most condom manufacturers are making gloves instead.
@Gabreya Bradley so true.
@Gabreya Bradley what this guy said.
I dont know why he are still using a version of TH-cam that still think Google+ is a thing, but other than that I think he's correct.
16:27 "your suspicions are correct that man is also a nazi" might be my favorite one liner ever in a defunct land episode
crispy82185 I realized that as soon as I heard him speaking German and put two and two together.
I burst out laughing when I heard ut
I know im late... But... Freudian slip... "Id like to PREVENT... present to you...." Or just coincidence.
Whenever I see old footage of Disneyland I'm struck by how barren it looks... the trees all over the park today really make it come alive!
The trees were very hard to get back then
@@queenmedesa It was just a question of time passing for them to grow is all.
@@Undrave that's the point , a tree tooks a long time to grow !
@@queenmedesa I know, but it's not easy to appreciate how important they are to the park's vibe until you see it without them.
There's a wild story about the building of Disneyland. According to the story, it was built on a orange Grove and red and green ribbons were tied to the trees to mark which ones to take down (red) and which to keep (green). Unfortunately the guy doing the takedown was colorblind and took down anything with a ribbon. By the time someone saw what was happening it was too late
The very idea that there was a spot in Tomorrowland where you could buy animation art cels and drawings from the early Disney films made me gasp and clutch my heart. As an animator, I would have killed for this!
Watching Walt and Co. struggle with a basic ribbon cutting at 24:24 was the most relatable and humanizing footage of Disney I've ever seen.
I really like the outtake at 16:34 - I don't think I've ever seen an outtake of his ever before.
@@sireuchre Oh, that wasn't an outtake. That happened live on ABC's opening day special.
@Cindy SparkleFarts Cindy Sparklefarts
@@sireuchre I like how he doesn't sound annoyed, he just sounds baffled.
Given all that happened on Opening Day Walt and Co. were probably grateful that the attractions didn't melt down and set fire to the park
As an EPCOT fan, when I heard “find sponsors for the pavilions” my eye started to twitch.
Mood
epcot was the first park I thought of
Poor epcot! Do any of you guys like what is going on with the park? I remain skeptical, to be honest 🤔
Zack Lunas wait Epcot has been getting attention? For what?
@@derekg5889 I'm pretty excited. It wasn't working as is.
🎶once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down, thats not my department says Wernher Von Braun🎶
Tom Lehrer, for those curious. Many a clip on youtube to be found.
Oh my god I read your comment RIGHT as the clip played in the vid 😂😂
Between this and the "Women at Home" infomercial earlier, 1950s America was not a subtle place, was it?
I aim at the stars, but sometimes I hit London
Speaking of nazi's, guess whose birthday it is today...
The Bathroom of the Future would legitimately be an interesting exhibit to have in a modern park.
Until somebody mistakes it for the bathroom they need right now 🤣
They should have it as a functional exhibit! I'm not even kidding, there's this Japanese restaurant in town and its bathroom has a bidet with several settings and people legitimately go there just to experience the toilet, lol. You could have the futuristic display bathrooms in one section and then have the functional room as like a sub-part of it. People get a kick out of fancy toilets.
My local science museum used to have one. It was so fun to watch the mechanisms go and see where the water went. There was even a small pipe park you could crawl inside off.
Now, it's just a regular terrarium.
@@ladyalfhildrforestofvioletmist there are many weird things in Japan, and most of them are useful
Imagine your grandma taking you to Disneyland and you spend almost the full day in the Fashion and Fabrics throughout the ages exhibit.
Sounds lit. I loved stuff like that as a kid but I can imagine a lot of kids would have hated it.
Oooo, come here honey there’s a cute corset here! And look at that space fabric!
“We’ll see the Mikey Rat later sweetie, nana has to see the silk exhibit”
"they met at a math class, she got better grades, now he is an engineer and she is a housewife" oh dear lord they weren't even trying to mask it a little 😅
Having not seen the full add, I image they were playing the “we know what you’re going through, so buy this to make it a little easier” card.
honestly many women cannot afford to be housewives/stay at home moms. it's not a matter of feminism in some cases, many must work bc they have to.
oooh19 I agree. Time has changed, the middle class is no longer the middle class. Right after WWII, many were housewives because the family could survive on one income, but not anymore. Most college grads now make around 45k right upon graduation except the ones in lucrative industries, which is really based on the employee being single with no kids.
Media often portrays this time period as fake, male chauvinist, and racist. And it definitely had a LOT of problem! My dad was a teenager in the '60s and he could tell you. But there is another side of that time period that we could very much relate to today. There were plenty on the opposite side making fun of and changing the problems that were very obvious in POPULAR media of the time. Modern media (well, up till TH-cam became what it is today) just left out all those details. I would hate in 50 years to see millennials only being depicted with the stereotypes you see today. I feel like that time period gets too much one-sided negative flack...which is changing with videos like this - showing ALL sides rather than showing and commentating just the fake, cookie-cutter housewife who is blind to reality and people eating nothing but butter and TV dinners.
I'm surprised it wasn't a bigger thing in soviet propaganda. I was watching some russian movies from the 50s and 60s in class and they just started with two women talking about getting their masters in chemistry and physics to start work as engineers.
"It was no world's largest thermometer" we love a callback
I never thought I'd here a reference to Baker, CA
Nor the World’s Largest Fork and Knife from the Great Exhibition of 1851
You usually see tap dancing in these videos there isn't what a surprise. Hilarious Oh Lord
"There is no Tooth Fairy, there is no Easter Bunny and there is no world's largest thermometer"
@@Kyle-gw6qp You wrote this comment a year ago. Which means it's just been sitting there this whole time....waiting...to break my heart. 😭
Aw yes I remember Walt's obsession with the number four. He definitely didn't have an obsession with trains
Who said he only had to have one obsession?
I dont know why but the switch of "walt loved trains" with "walt loved the number four" caught me so off guard I laughed for like 2 minutes straight
Defunctland: "As well as drink cool refreshing milk that goes down smoothly on a hot day"
Ah, I see someone hasn't gone to the $1 all you can drink milk booth at the Minnesota state fair on a 90 degree August day
I was just thinking that that reminded me of the Minnesota State Fair! Clearly the exhibit only failed because there weren't enough butter sculptures, haha :)
Or won the Indianapolis 500. Yessirree, after spending hours driving my guts out in a fireproof jumpsuit on a hot late-May day in Indiana, what I'm truly hankering for in the winner's circle is a nice big bottle of whole milk. I hope it's got Vitamin D added!
Never forget Recreation Land, when Disney almost let a sizable chunk of their park be... a lawn.
Never forget Holidayland, when Disney ACTUALLY let a sizable chunk of their park be a lawn.
@@RetraCarteR Fitting. It's so appropriately themed, that even the designers took a holiday.
😂
lol, white people.
At least that'd be easy to fix later on, lol.
About Tomorrowland being set in 1986, the year Halley's comet would return, Main Street is themed to 1910, the previous time it showed up, bringing the park Full-Circle.
New Disney headcanon: It was secretly run by early founders of the Heaven's Gate cult, of which Walt was a founding member.
Boom
I always thought Tomorrowland was supposed to be set in the Year 2000! You know like all the Worlds Fair exhibits! In the 80s it looked dated! But it was still fun!
1910 was the year Mark Twain died. He was born in 1835, same year as Halley coment. With Tom Sawyer’s island and The Mark Twain in mind, maybe this was all just a really clever tribute to ole Samuel Clemens.
@@materiamaestro741 That’s comet Hale-Bopp but you got the spirit
growing up, I wasn't really sure where the walt disney's frozen head old wive's tale came from
but finding out that he was friends with nazi scientists, PLURAL, it makes more sense now
From what I remember, looking it up ages ago, news stories about cryogenics research hit newspapers around the same time as Disney's death, and since Disney was known to be interested in futurism and experimental technology, people just kinda assumed the two things were related, even though Disney would have never heard of the concept prior to his death.
It was just his head I thought it was his whole body 😯
I mean if his head was actually in a Frozen Cube, we wouldn’t be surprised.
Because it’s a fucking Walt Disney thing to do.
John F. Kennedy, John Glenn, and Lyndon Johnson were friends with Nazi scientists.
Tbf most of Americas industry took in Nazis. America used ww2 to assimilate a lot of axis science.
I love how Disney’s futurism went from “we want to give our guests an authentic simulation of flying on a rocket to the moon” to “we are seriously considering replacing all of our writers with AI because we don’t feel like paying them”
I’ve taken to calling Moana 2 the AI Disney Movie because there’s no way you announce a film in January for a November release date without it having been completed by AI
Damn, another archive classic video that should, in all honesty, be preserved in a historical archive. Such a beautifully crafted glimpse into the past.
The rabbit holes I've gone down with Jim Hansen and Walt Disney because of this channel, thank you for the interesting content and some nostalgic feelings.
So true
It's Jim Hensen.
@@lainiwakura1776 *Henson
@@jakehanley *Halpert
Um, it's "Arin Hanson".
I'm surprised a 50s era infomercial (?) acknowledged 'she got better grades than him and now he's an engineer and she's a housewife' was a thing.
Also, 'the lead paint of the future' is hilarious.
Commercial for valium.
Yeah, what film was that clip taken from?
@@Ad3tr hahaha so good
She married well
That infomercial knew exactly where to punch so it hurt. Damn.
“A boldly apathetic response to the question: why were you a Nazi?”
To be fair, I don’t think I’d want to hear an “enthusiastic” response to that question.
@theone Andonly that's not true at all
Maddie Wettach and I’m sure it would have nothing to do with the British Empire killing more people in India. This video is making me hate white people altogether. I don’t care if that was not the intention, but that sure is hell is the effect.
@theone Andonly Do you forgot your aluminium tinfoil hat?
@@Attmay Good job of being a racist idiot.
i think defunctland has the best comment section. nowhere else can i find this many niche themepark and disney jokes. love it here!
"The show about the past of the future!" is such a fucking good tagline for this show. This is network TV quality content, not a youtube video.
Let’s just forget about the time Disneyland had a museum devoted to Aluminum.
ooh a museum of tinfoil sweet
That's one of the most 50s things ever
Aluminum - 200 years ago - was considered one of the most precious metals on earth. It was considered more precious than gold and silver. It was in the late nineteenth century that a young American and young Frenchman - totally independent of one another - developed a method for extracting and recycling the precious ore in such a way that it's use for incredibly mundane things - like soda cans - suddenly became possible.
In the 1950s, aluminum might not just represent an incredibly lucrative metal, but act as a true poster-boy for human ingenuity - it was through the power of science (specifically, chemistry) that aluminum went from exceedingly expensive and rare to one of the cheapest and useful metals on the planet.
BONUS FACT: NEVER buy any kind of aluminum foil that is marked up in price for being "100% recycled." Nearly 75% of ALL ALUMINUM EVER PRODUCED is still in circulation today because of how incredibly efficient it is to recycle. In other words, if you're handling an aluminum object, that object was very likely recycled. You don't need to pay more money for nothing but a green sticker!
aluminum.org
@@bekker3544 Is it because how damnably expensive actually making Al pure is...
Nate Baker But it still couldn’t hold up to the hot California sun.
I appreciate the Tom Lehrer inclusion when talking about Werner von Braun.
Love Tom Lehrer, couldn’t miss a chance
@@Defunctland that part put a goofy smile on my face
Defunctland That song is also featured in the show For All Mankind which is really good and features Von Braun in an alt history NASA
I sang those exact lyrics out loud when you first mentioned him and was delighted to see it included!
@@Defunctland would you put a credit for him for that in the video itself ?(appeciating the other photo credits in this, excellent work as always)
I like how 1955 Tomorrowland, with everything being dominated by corporations, ends up being the most realistic version of it.
It's always interesting to see how people envisioned the future back then, was much more optimistic and daring while today seems a bit more dystopian and uncertain.
The Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile crisis, and the various riots and unrest inside and outside the US broke that optimism. Humanity came very close to nuking itself to hell in 1962 and the boys who watched Mickey Mouse in the 50's are out in the jungles of Vietnam killing and getting killed by an unseen enemy and singing the same old Disney songs out of equal parts comfort and sarcasm...
We are the ones fixating on the dystopian. We can also change that.
@@AmazingJeeves The future is either Fallout or Cyberpunk.
It's the climate change.
@@Antiyoukai pretty much
As soon as I heard Wernher von Braun's name I was ready for the song.
Also, fun fact: The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey directly modeled some of its props and sets off some of the theoretical space crafts that von Braun demonstrated in his Disneyland episode.
Me: Oh cool a fun video about Disneyland!
The video: "This ex-Nazi created a rocket that killed over 10000 people built through forced labor."
Good old Disney fun
Reality sucks
There's always background information in these awesome videos!
"Your expectations where correct. That man was also a Nazi."
Don't forget henry ford's anti-semitic attitudes.
"A boldly apathetic response to the question 'Why were you a nazi?'"
The man didn't have a choice, play along or die.
@@Clay3613 "just following orders" didn't work back then, and it's not gonna work now.
We can’t judge those situations by today’s standards.
Given that he ended up getting locked up for drunkenly expressing doubt that the Nazis would win, I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't really have much choice.
Nazis BAD!
It's so tired.
Props for including the weird Nazi origins of NASA. That's such an interesting (and unsettling) aspect of the space program people often just skip over.
Most of nasa history is unsettling if you look into it lol :) it wasn’t touched on here but you should see some of the terribly sexist things nasa heads (including von Braun) thought about women
@@valentinaaugustina Hell, most of US history is deeply disturbing
@@YadonTheCat what's even worse is how they cover it up.
@@YadonTheCat Most of the world's history is deeply disturbing.
@@valentinaaugustina Most men had the same thoughts at that time, I don't really agree with all the hate shoved at von Braun. You had two choices in Germany, join or die. I'm not sure most of you guys would have done differently stuck in that situation.
“Such forward looking companies as... the National Lead Paint Company.” Amazing.
Me: wow the fifties seemed like such an innovative and promising time, I should ask my grandparents more about what it was to live back then!
The commercial: they met in math class, she got better grades and now hes an engineer while shes a housewife.
Me: *realizing that was exactly my grandparents * ... you know what nevermind
Btw if you were wondering why there were only 48 state flags in the star, hawaii and alaska wern't added until 1959.
Obviously.
When I was born there were 49 stars on the U.S. flag.
The 49th star was added July 04, 1959. The 50th was added July 04, 1960.
Thanks but oui nous...😊
...Oh. That makes way more sense now.
@@kyle857not everyones american, *kyle*
Only Kevin can start a video about the 50s in the 40s
I mean, the 50s were really just the epilogue to the 40s.
It's called context.
then watching a Stephanie Harlowe video would make your head explode lol
"The lead paint... of the future." The irony is palpable
And “palette” or mouth is why it become such an IRONy. Don’t forget Monsanto who’s contributed to more deaths than most world wars combined.
Hey, how were they supposed to know
Walt Disney and Uncle Walt were also very different personalities. Walt Disney, primarily, had a lot of self-loathing in private. Kind of suggests he might have suffered from depression. But regardless, he was actually an introverted person. He was just good at pretending for the crowds.
I'm glad that you used the footage of Walt riding around Tomorrowland on his bicycle.
Learning about old amusement park history is really interesting! Can’t explain it but I really like hearing about it!
Oly Zl it’s like being nostalgic for something you haven’t ever felt! it feels good :)
Travis Ramsey that’s EXACTLY the feel!
“And all of them at once might make an interesting addition to Defunctland”
Long term planning
There's a great big, beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of everyday. There's a great big, beautiful tomorrow, just a dream away.
Defunctland is my one of my favorite programs and I can't wait to see the new programs. I enjoy every episode. Thanks, Kevin!
Let’s try to “persuade” Disney to bring back Carousel Of Progress to Disneyland!
Man has a dream, and that's a start. He follows his dream with all his heart. And when it becomes a reality. It's a dream come true for you and me.
I did not expect to see Tom Lehrer, but appreciate you for adding him in all the same
I have to admit, some of the concept and promotional illustrations are really beautiful
serotonin straight to the brain thank you mr perjurer
Honestly, I kinda wish I'd gotten to see that version of Tomorrowland for myself. I loved the atomic age and futuristic designs and I probably would've enjoyed it myself.
I know. As Kevin says, Disney had always been selling nostalgia, and now I want to see a recreation of what Tomorrowland used to be like.
In fairness, when I visited Disneland in ... 1978?, Tomorrowland was suffering from the Tomorrowland Problem, but that's what made it cool: this is what yesterday thought tomorrow would look like.
This is kinda what fascinates me about the universe of the Fallout games. This entire retro futurism vibe is really cool.
Is this a time period that space travel itself become nostalgia?
Yesterdayland baby!
There's something very special about New Old Space Age aesthetic. The closest I've gotten to scratching that amusement park itch was Nuka-World's aesthetic, but a game can't compare to the idea of seeing the real thing.
16:15
"Your suspicions are correct. That man was also a Nazi." XD
Ah the 50's. what a grand time. When Science was what drove America. Each episode gets better and better.
You've really hit your stride on these - clean, professional, well presented, well researched, and highly entertaining while still being informative. Well done!
12:18 That face is like a personification of lead paint - people probably thought it was fine at the time, but nowadays it's just horrifying, and makes you question what they were thinking...
Hey, that's the lead paint of the F U T U R E
They were probably thinking, "This is cheaper than dirt and after the success of Tetraethyl lead's advertising, we can steal the paint market"? Seriously though, lead was in... basically everything at that time, and it makes me wonder why people thought. "Sure, we'll just put a known neurotoxin everywhere and in everything; everything will be fine!"
There's a whole episode of The Dollop about this, the Tetraethyl guy knew perfectly well that lead was poisonous, since humans have known this for centuries, but simply pretended like the science wasn't in.
@@rambysophistry1220 The same reason that people keep using gas cars and coal power today. There were powerful companies with large lobbying groups that were able to seriously hinder any attempts at regulation and spread misinformation. And they of course did not care if it harmed other people if they were making plenty of money. The silver lining here is that despite that they weren't able to keep the truth down forever and regulation did start happening and the dangers of lead became common knowledge. The same seems to be happening with climate change today.
It was also the same situation with radium - I absolutely recommend the book Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women to give more context of how corporations were able to hide evidence of poisonous substances from the public and maneuver in the legal system to get away from taking any responsibility around that time period.
I am proud to say that as a nine year old I got to experience the house of the future, the submarine ride, and the flying saucers. And yes, the flying saucers were cool looking but performed like crap.
Lockbar did you get to watch lead paint dry?
3:35 Ah, the good old days before the general public realized just how mind-bogglingly huge space is.
How can you sound so professional and emotionally detached, yet so comedically sarcastic and cynical at times? That's an amazing skill!
DUDE TOM LEHRER! You are the man for including that clip of him. greatest comedic musician of all time!
walt and those kids struggling to cut a ribbon with giant scissors at 24:25 is making me laugh way too hard
Scissors of the future will slice through those pesky ribbons.
“Dutch Boy Paints. The lead paint, of The Future”
I still remember JeepersMedia talking about how kids in the early 20th century were given Dutch Boy Paints White Lead samples by their teachers to take home and share with their parents.
th-cam.com/video/FsssPTsyXYs/w-d-xo.html&feature=emb_logo
In Toontown, I remember there was a fake can of paint with the brand name “duck boy”.
1950s Disney earns an Emmy for ABC with their television shows
2010s Disney earns an Emmy for ABC with an episode of Modern Family which takes place at Disneyland.
wstine79 as Some Jerk with a Camera (the guy who left Walt’s Party early) said. “Trying to win Emmys for infomercials”.
The 1964 New York World’s Fair... as a New Yorker I drive by the Globe and Saucers still there today. So excited to hear more about Walt’s involvement in it! Great episode as usual. The early Tomorrowland is fascinating. Even more so knowing Walt tried so hard to keep it futuristic.
This man reads so many comments. Thank you for putting so much time in reading comments. 👍
This has gotta be my favorite episode yet based solely on the more sarcastic tone haha. Amazing work Kevin! Can't wait to see more.
lol Your intro songs are severely underrated😂Kudos to the music team🙌
the mention of van braun immediately made me think of the tom lehrer song, and I'm glad it wasn't just me
‘There will come soft rains’ has taught me to be very unnerved by the idea of a robot house!! Got chills hearing about it
This is one of your best videos yet. Professionally edited, informative, well paced, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. Your videos are fantastic.
I know you forwent Disneyland's opening of Black Sunday since most people know of how disasterous it went. However I wish you implored upon it more, because I have been showing the series to friends and family who don't know much, if anything, about Disney's rich and colorful spotted history. So Black Sunday, which should be known to anyone who is at least a Disney fan, falls on unknowing minds who don't truly know what went wrong with the opening of Disneyland. In fact, some might assume that only Tomorrowland had a majority of the problems, when it really was the entire park.
Still I enjoy your content a lot and I hope to see more in the future....tomorrow?
I understand some people might not know, but In this story, the Black Sunday doesn’t matter. It’s an interesting and over told story for sure, but in the grand scheme of Tomorrowland 1955 and futurism, it’s not relevant, and that’s why I decided to cut it.
@@Defunctland do you plan on covering it this season? I actually haven't heard much about it (your channel and yesterworld is my main source of theme park history) and would love to see it covered by you ^^
Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown
"Ha, Nazi, Schmazi" says Wernher von Braun
"In German, oder Englisch, I know how to count down und I'm learning Chinese!" says Werner Von Braun"
Artist Kira How long before the CIA starts operation chopstick to recruit people from the Wuhan lab?
Oh - a perfect Sunday gift! Ty kind sir.
I´m neither into Disney nor into fun fairs , but Your work explains so much more about the world today, that I can't stop watching Your fantastic documentaries. That "great again"-America refers probably not to a specific period in American history, but on the nostalgic Picture of its genesis, painted by Disneys pastel colors. And Musk "the Genius" probably took all his retro futuristic ideas straight from the Disney Theme- Parks. This two guys have a lot in common.
Kind regards from Germany, and thank You for this Jewels!
This channel is the best. I'm always amazed at how much research goes into your videos and how you present them in such a professional, honest, and entertaining way.
I haven’t even watched this yet but I can already tell this will probably be my new favourite episode. Love the channel btw.
"...brought the park's totally number of trains to 4, which thrilled Walt because he loved...the number 4."
Brilliant.
Dammit, Doc Brown was right, there's something about 1955 & the whole space/time continuum!
That’s the year my dad was born
WaterlemonTheArtist Mine too. That was the year of peak “straight” white male privilege.
Thank you so much for your dedication to accuracy, quality, and humor in your videos! I used to work in Tomorrowland at Disneyland, and yet I had no idea about what happened when until I watched this video. Now it all makes sense...
"The lead paint... of the future." I spit out my drink.
Another great video from the Defunctland team! I want to give so much praise to so many points, that I can't get them all in a reasonable sized comment!
The first seven minutes had me hooked on this idea of Tomorrowland, up to the thirteen minute mark you feel the scramble for the Disney team to fill the land, and my God I wish I was alive to see the 20,000 Leagues props display!
By the way, the humor is on point! Every piece of this video had facts and information I never even knew about!
A great video as always, Defunctland!
I love the fact that you added Tom Lehrer's "Werner Von Braun" to the vid, considering i was singing it under my breath the whole time you were talking about him.
athena8794 I was shouting “treguna mekoides tracorum satis dee.”
@@Attmay nice reference! Don't hear that one often.
Me: Oh boy! We're already up to the 1964 World's Fair!
Me, remembering Walt dies in 1966: ... :(
Bro what if that’s what the next episode is about 😭
It was the Lead Paint OF THE FUTURE, wasn't it?
@@gwendolynstata3775 smoking, actually
Why are some people so obsessed with the colon format ("Something:... Something else:...") they shoehorn their comment into it even when it would make more sense to just say what you're thinking in a normal way?
so much of this early stuff is just so boring and yet the way kevin presents it makes it really interesting. loving this season
5:42..Oh My, THANK YOU SO MUCH for the Tom Lehrer clip! Such a forgotten comic genius, WAY before my time, but his music is still biting and utterly hilarious!
I had no idea most of these existed. Thank you for putting so much info about early Disneyland in one video! Your videos are wonderful.
Been waiting all quarantine for this man to save me with yet another great video
I'm really happy you're doing so well with this channel. I remember following you after your first video "Alien Encounter" popped up into my recommended and I've been subscribed since. You are by far the one channel I look forward to seeing any new video from.
I'd donate if my income wasn't affected by the crisis, but I can't. However, keep up the good work. And hello from a fellow Kansas City (MO) resident who now lives in Orlando! I hope you keep up the good work.
These documentaries are amazing. I'm a history major and I was genuinely surprised by the context you described. Usually I find ample things to remark on these situations, yet using Tom Lehrer, mentioning Von Braun's a political statements, the post WW2 context in general.
These things must take forever to do, it's amazing.
Your documentaries are just great, I absolutely love seeing what my dad was able to see as a small child.