Chuck Schmidt (r) had a chance to meet former Disney Imagineering leader Marty Sklar in 2011. Schmidt is the author of “Disney’s Dream Weavers.” Sometimes the dreams of childhood go by the wayside as time and life progress. That is not the case with Freehold Township resident Chuck Schmidt.
Schmidt’s childhood passion for the genius and magic of Walt Disney grew with him, and over the years he parlayed it into feature stories, a blog, and now a book.
Schmidt, who is a journalist, has authored “Disney’s Dream Weavers,” which examines the visionaries who helped shape Disneyland, Freedomland, the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair and Walt Disney World.
The book focuses on key players in the Disney story and offers first-person accounts of what went on behind the scenes during the planning and construction of the four amusement parks.
Schmidt has visited all four locations.
Freedomland was a short-lived U.S. history-themed amusement park in the Bronx, N.Y., which opened in 1960 and closed in 1964. Its creator was Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood, who once worked as Disneyland’s general manager before a falling out occurred between him and Walt Disney.
Through his love of Disney and contacts with the company, Schmidt was able to interview people he calls “legendary Disney cast members,” including Disney Imagineering head Marty Sklar, attraction designer Bob Gurr, former Disney publicist Charlie Ridgway, current Disney Imagineer Tony Baxter, and Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo.
Sklar is a native of East Brunswick, Middlesex County, and Rasulo grew up in Staten Island, N.Y.
As a child, Schmidt watched Disney’s “The Mickey Mouse Club” and later Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color” on television.
“I was always fascinated by Disney,” Schmidt said, noting that in 1972 he and his wife, Janet, visited the new Walt Disney World in Florida.
“It was just the Magic Kingdom back then,” he said.
Schmidt has worked for the Staten Island, N.Y., Advance newspaper since 1967 in various capacities, starting as a copy boy. He moved up the ranks to part-time sports reporter, assistant sports copy editor and night sports editor. Since 1984, Schmidt has been the newspaper’s Sunday news and travel editor.
As a Disney fan and a travel editor, Schmidt covered several major Disney events, including Walt Disney World’s 15th and 25th anniversaries, and the grand opening of Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom Park. He covered the Disney Dream ocean liner christening in January 2011 at Port Canaveral and the Disney Fantasy ocean liner christening in New York City in February 2012.
“We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary on the Disney Dream in August 2012. We took our three children, their significant others and our three grandchildren,” Schmidt said.
He visited Disneyland in California in 1998, 2001 and 2006. He and his wife, along with their family members, have visited Walt Disney World in Florida dozens of times since 1972.
In 2009, Schmidt brought his passion for all things Disney to the Staten Island Advance with a blog, “Goofy about Disney,” which can be seen at www.silive.com.
He said “Disney’s Dream Weavers” is not the first book dealing with the expansive world of Disney, nor will it be the last. “But it is the first book to explore the common thread that winds its way through four very different, yet distinctly connected amusement enterprises — Disneyland in California, the world’s first theme park; Freedomland, a shortlived park in the Bronx that was created by Disney outcast C.V. Wood; the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair in Queens, N.Y., which saw the introduction of Disney’s cutting-edge Audio-Animatronics technology; and Walt Disney World in Florida, Disney’s noble attempt to right the wrongs of America’s crumbling urban landscape,” he said.
Schmidt said critics had a field day with the opening of Disneyland on July 17, 1955, in Anaheim, Calif. People said, “This will never last,” according to Schmidt.
“Indeed, within the company’s inner circle, opening day at Disneyland will forever be known as Black Sunday,” Schmidt writes in his first chapter.
Glitches at the park were plentiful, according to Schmidt, including thousands of counterfeit tickets sold by scalpers, leading to huge overcrowding on opening day. The temperature soared, leaving ladies’ high heels sinking in the softened asphalt in the parking lot.
Plumbing issues led to the closure of drinking fountains in order to keep the toilets working. Rides malfunctioned, a gas leak occurred in Fantasyland and that area had to be closed. Autopia cars in Tomorrowland were breaking down on the track, and boats were sinking, among numerous other problems that day.
Disney officials’ comments ranged from an “absolute disaster” and “chaos” to “pandemonium,” among other statements, according to Schmidt’s book.
Schmidt speaks of Marty Sklar, who was 21 years old on opening day. Sklar, a UCLA journalism student, was hired by Disney to create the Disneyland News, a period newspaper that sold for 10 cents and depicted Disney’s idea of small-town America circa 1900, according to the book.
Sklar eventually spent decades with the company.
Schmidt also references Bob Gurr, a young employee who spent opening day trying to keep the Autopia cars he had designed for Disney’s “highway of the future” from breaking down on the “perilous and congested” miniature freeway. Most of the cars did not make it through the day without breaking down, according to the author. Schmidt quotes Gurr as saying, “I have never seen so much madness in my life.”
But missteps, aside, according to Schmidt, the opening day of Disneyland “marked the unquestioned birth of what would soon become known as the ‘theme park’ and solidified Disney as a full-scale entertainment juggernaut.”
Schmidt has been writing about Disney since the early 1980s. He said he has had the privilege of meeting many of the company’s “most revered cast members.”
“Through my conversations with them, I became fascinated with the history of the company. When I found the common thread that weaves its way through Disneyland, Freedomland, the World’s Fair and Walt Disney World, I thought it would make an interesting and never-before covered topic,” he said.
Schmidt said his favorite Disney attraction is the “American Adventure” at the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT).
“It features some of Disney’s most advanced Audio-Animatronics with a great, inspiring story,” he said.
Schmidt said Audio-Animatronics is a Disney attraction that was introduced at the World’s Fair in New York in 1964. It is a form of robotics animation that allows figures to sing and move.
Disney’s Dream Weavers is available from the website www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.