Walt’s Kingdom

After half a century, Disneyland still pulls in the children. Gen X, Gen Y, gen-whatever -- Mickey, the pirates and the dancing dolls always cast a spell.

But no one falls under that spell in quite the same way as the baby boomers Walt Disney had in mind when he created a park that would be clean and appealing for families, unlike the ragtag carnivals he deplored. Disneyland was the one place where those children could see the very castle shown on NBC’s “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” (which in those days was just as likely to be seen on a black-and-white set). Who else remembers the old E-tickets that admitted you to the coolest rides?

Disney’s creation grew from his quintessentially American philosophy that we are always capable of making things better -- a theme repeated in his animated movies and in the park’s rides and attractions. In the true story of Disneyland, Walt the visionary hero disregards evil naysayers, overcomes seemingly insurmountable obstacles and, with unremitting work and single-minded effort, brings forth astounding results.

Fast-forward past the frustrations that could make any grown-up cry -- like the “Rivers of America” ride that kept going dry because of porous soil (until the canal was lined with clay) and the disastrous opening day in which rides broke down, celebrities were miscued and crowds crashed the gates. Disneyland emerged as more than a cleaner and more detailed amusement park. It was a place where fairy tales and nostalgia for a fictionally perfect and unhurried America came alive in three dimensions.

More than anything, the Walt Disney Co. created the ultimate entertainment experience not by hurtling people along roller-coaster tracks or spinning them in Ferris wheels, but by propelling them through stories -- whether fairy tales or movie scripts. Every dark ride in Fantasyland brings customers through a progressive retelling of a Disney movie. What video games do for children now -- make them equal players in complex fantasies -- Disney thought to do for children 50 years ago.

The subliminal cues of storytelling are everywhere.

According to an academic paper by J.G. O’Boyle, “A Cultural Analysis of Disney’s Main Street USA,” visitors sense the entryway’s implied coziness -- upper stories are built at three-fourths scale or less -- and the relaxed pace set by the clip-clop of big-hoofed horses as they move toward Sleeping Beauty Castle, another land, literally and figuratively, in the distance straight ahead. People’s steps actually slow as they become part of the scene.

But by the 1970s, growing numbers of teens and young adults wanted to fly, not plod. Threatened by the thrill rides at such parks as Magic Mountain, Disneyland responded, but never dropped the stories.

Even when Disneyland made a bid to be hip, it turned Michael Jackson’s singing and dancing talents to story in Captain EO, back in the days before Jackson’s family appeal became questionable.

Disneyland grayed and wrinkled along with its first children. The hemmed-in Anaheim park suffered from neglect, as Disney favored its younger Florida sibling and built replicas in Europe and Asia. Some corporate attention belatedly focused on the original park after the adjacent California Adventure and Downtown Disney opened in 2001. But on Christmas Eve 1998, the park experienced the first visitor death that its officials could not explain away as the customer’s fault. A Seattle area man was hit by a hurtling metal cleat as he waited for the Columbia sailing ship to dock. The accident stripped some of the fantasy from the land.

Of course, the theme park is still a relatively safe place, a pioneer of manufactured private-public space. Disneyland remains a notable place in Southern California for people from every ethnic group and various economic stripes to share space with harmony and courtesy.

No wonder Disneyland has inspired a shelf full of books devoted to exploring its every detail, a host of websites (exactly where are all those hidden mouse ears?) and reams of academic papers with titles such as “Aspects of Experience in a Four-Dimensional Landscape.”

In preparation for its 50th anniversary celebration next week (a couple of months before the actual anniversary), Disneyland has been getting the kind of major face-lift that any 50-year-old might covet. The paint is fresh, the lightbulbs replaced, the rides refurbished. The park is looking to bring in a younger, hipper crowd, foreseeing a day when the only baby boomers who visit will be bringing their grandchildren.

But what does Disneyland’s sustained storytelling mean to the digital generation, accustomed to quick-flash video games that easily out-energize the Matterhorn?

Oh, they still like Disneyland, if on a slightly jaded plane. The youngest ones ride “It’s a Small World” as many times as their parents will allow (and the chorus goes: “We went on it nine whole times, we went on it...”), but they will inform you that real Scottish children do not play bagpipes on tartan hills. They grin while driving their Autopia cars, but tiny environmentalists wonder why the tailpipes give off so much smelly exhaust. Oh look, they say in Pirates of the Caribbean, that’s the part where Johnny Depp was in jail.

On a recent day, a mother pointed out Sleeping Beauty Castle. “It’s the castle you see on the Disney videotapes,” she enthused to her daughter, who squinted at it, unimpressed. “It’s not big enough to be a castle,” the child noted.

Of course she’d see that. Your basic McMansion is bigger.