Shocking documentary reveals wild stories of Walt Disney's 'utter turmoil' building Disneyland in...

Director Leslie Iwerks' fascinating film &34;Disneyland Handcrafted&34; features neverbeforeseen footage from the construction of Disneyland. Shocking documentary reveals wild stories of Walt Disney's 'utter turmoil' building Disneyland in 1 year: 'Out of his mind' Director Leslie Iwerks' fascinating film &34;Disneyland Handcrafted&34; features neverbeforeseen footage from the construction of Disneyland. :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/JoeyNolfiauthorphotoba4923fec03a4027868306485696ef41.jpg) Joey Nolfi is a senior writer at .

Director Leslie Iwerks' fascinating film "Disneyland Handcrafted" features never-before-seen footage from the construction of Disneyland.

Shocking documentary reveals wild stories of Walt Disney's 'utter turmoil' building Disneyland in 1 year: 'Out of his mind'

Director Leslie Iwerks' fascinating film "Disneyland Handcrafted" features never-before-seen footage from the construction of Disneyland.

Joey Nolfi is a senior writer at *. *Since 2016, his work at EW includes *RuPaul's Drag Race* video interviews, Oscars predictions, and more.

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January 24, 2026 10:00 a.m. ET

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Walt Disney at Disneyland; Disneyland under construction in 'Disneyland Handcrafted'. Credit:

ullstein bild via Getty; Disney

- *Disneyland Handcrafted *reveals shocking stories behind how Walt Disney built Disneyland in one year.

- The film chronicles everything from importing full-grown trees for Jungle Cruise to deciding between water fountains and working bathrooms for opening day.

- "Every day was a stressful day for him," said director Leslie Iwerks, granddaughter of Mickey Mouse animator Ub Iwerks.

For every mystical turret on Sleeping Beauty Castle, for every one of Mickey Mouse's finely stitched character costumes, and for each fragrant puff of sweet caramelized air wafting down Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A., there are countless stories behind how Walt Disney turned his dream for a revolutionary theme park into reality in just under one year.

Now, through a mix of rare and never-before-seen footage, photos, and audio clips, director Leslie Iwerks' new *Disneyland Handcrafted* documentary raises a magic wand to unveil such wild, untold tales from those who helped Disney build his landmark theme park across a 12-month stretch leading up to its July 17, 1955 opening over an old orange grove in Anaheim, Calif.

"At the same time that he's on TV promoting this with a smile on his face, [saying], 'We're going to do it,' you cut to what's going on behind the scenes at the park. It's like night and day," Iwerks recently told *Good Morning America* of what she uncovered about Disney's emotional state at the time, as he and hordes of artists, engineers, landscapers, and manual laborers exhausted most of their mental and physical strength to bring Disneyland to life.

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Iwerks — the granddaughter of one of Mickey Mouse's original animators, Ub Iwerks — said the process revealed how "every day was a stressful day" in the run-up to Disneyland's opening. "Walt leveraged his house, his income, his own livelihood. He pretty much put the company on the line to make Disneyland," she said.

"Just watching Walt go through this process, I have a huge amount of respect for what he did and what it took to bring so much happiness to the world," Iwerks continued. "He looked out at that dirt lot, thought, *I'm going to create the happiest place on earth*. It's unbelievable what he pulled off, and I wanted to give fans a glimpse of what it was really like."

Ahead, ** has compiled several shocking stories that Iwerks and her team uncovered in *Disneyland Handcrafted*, which* *is now streaming on Disney+ and Disney YouTube. Read on for some of the film's wildest stories behind how Disney built Disneyland in one year.

Construction (and chaos) begins in 1954

Before Disneyland was Disneyland, before Indiana Jones raided the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, guests scaled the peaks of the Matterhorn, and yellow cups were a tipsy staple at California Adventure, the future world-renowned resort was but row after row of orange trees.

Disney had, indeed, acquired a decent plot of land in southern California, where he'd begin construction on his dream park atop roughly 160 acres of orange groves with little else around it.

Already a successful, multi-Oscar-winning creator of animated features and the iconic Mickey Mouse character, Disney poured much of his creative energy (and personal funds) into the project. But, not everyone was as convinced as Disney that his idea would work.

Famed TV host Art Linkletter recalls in *Disneyland Handcrafted* that Disney once drove him to Anaheim to show him "some kind of a Disney affair here in Southern California," which he said Disney described as "top-secret stuff" under construction. "I didn't bother to tell him I thought he was out of his mind," Linkletter says. He would eventually, however, help Disney organize a massive televised broadcast highlighting Disneyland's opening just under one year later.

In fact, Disney's foresight in inviting camera crews to document the building process for television broadcasts leading up to the opening is, perhaps, what helped save the park from total failure, as his regular updates generated extreme national interest.

It also provided Iwerks with nuggets of fascinating footage to use in *Disneyland Handcrafted*, decades later. Early scenes show laborers munching on sandwiches and drinking from thermoses atop mounds of dirt inside the plot, and others hammering railroad ties, climbing multi-story flagpoles to make last-minute fixes, and etching intricate details into rock work and Sleeping Beauty Castle walls throughout the process.

'Jungle Cruise' trees arrive at Disneyland under construction in 1954.

Full-grown trees rise like magic — and so do tensions

The film shows remarkable scenes from the park just seven months before opening, with mounds of dirt forming into a recognizable shape known as the Disneyland "berm" separating the park from the outside world, keeping guests immersed in the fantasy of Disney's highly themed experience.

Landscaper Bill Evans, who worked particularly hard on placing greenery within the fan-favorite Jungle Cruise boat ride, described it as being fully transported to "Walt's world," and that numerous full-grown trees were transported into the space to further enhance the feeling of being deep inside a tropical paradise within the confines of Disneyland's border.

"He didn't want just small trees; he wanted big trees. He said trees have no scale. He wanted a real show in there. He used to ride hard on Bill Evans to get bigger and better trees," said Dick Irvine, Chief Art Director of the project. Added Evans, "Walt didn't want to have to wait five years to get the landscape to harmonize with the architecture. We could do that up to a point, but we ran out of dollars. We were striving for instant maturity within the constraints of a budget, and our budget was very, very meager."

Iwerks shows footage of the team hauling full-sized trees into the property, with Evans exclaiming that he "did a quick sketch of where we were going to put perms, boulders, and trees, but no dimensions or anything," and that he "planted it all by the seat of my pants." Iwerks then shows him driving a car along what would become the boat path for the ride, surveying the property and placing trees along the shores wherever he saw fit.

*Disneyland Handcrafted* doesn't touch on it, but there's one very important tree in this area that's older than anything else on Disneyland property. It's called the Dominguez Tree, a tree that Disney had to agree to preserve as part of the terms he agreed to with the Dominguez family, who sold their land to him in order to build the park on it. Disney transported the tree — reportedly a wedding gift that remained in the Dominguez family — to the Jungle Cruise site, where it still stands to this day.

Disneyland construction photos show the 'Mad Tea Party' ride at the park in 'Disneyland Handcrafted'.

Iwerks shows disaster nearly striking a Disneyland construction worker

Around 14 minutes into the film, Iwerks shows a shocking piece of footage that shows one construction worker nearly being crushed by a machine he's riding.

In the clip, the man is attempting to haul a huge mound of dirt up a short hill while maneuvering a large vehicle, before it tips over an embankment, leading him to jump off and land on the ground. He looks up, just as the vehicle teeters closer to falling on top of him, but it tilts back to a safe position inches away from crushing him.

"With so much activity and so much heavy equipment, there's bound to be an upset now and then," Disney says in a bit of audio that plays shortly after the comical moment. "But, the operators take these things in stride, and fortunately, we've had no serious accidents."

Disneyland under construction in 'Disneyland Handcrafted'.

Money talks. Sometimes, it screams (to the tune of $17 million over budget)

"The budget in starting was $4.5 million. In August, it was $7 million. In December, it was $11 million. By the springtime, it was anybody's guess," says Joe Fowler, a construction supervisor, of the astronomically ballooning costs incurred during the building phase. Adds accountant Milt Albright, "We ran out of money and almost had to stop construction at $17 million. That's what happens when you try to make a thing as special as Disneyland in a short time."

Fowler recalls Disney becoming "sincerely worried about the situation" at hand, as he invested personal time and money into the project, and could've tanked the entire Disney brand if Disneyland failed.

"I haven't invested money in ranches, I haven't got anything. I have a home, that's all. But, this thing, I put my own money in, and I borrowed on the insurance that I've been paying on for 30 years," Disney says in the movie, with Albright later saying, "They would have gone down. The studio would've gone down with it, because everything was tied up in the park."

Art director Harper Goff also shares a troubling memory in archival audio in the film, recalling that everything "wasn't sweetness and light and beautiful during the construction," and says he remembers Disney telling him that they'd "spent a little over half the money that we have to spend on this park" and "there isn't one thing there or there or there or there, but holes in the ground and piles of dirt. There isn't one thing any human being would spend 15 cents to come and see. I'm scared.'"

Crews lower a hippopotamus into a river basin at Disneyland's 'Jungle Cruise' ride.

Rivers of America sank (metaphorically) before opening

Today, Disneyland guests know the sprawling Rivers of America as the picturesque waterway atop which the historic Mark Twain riverboat ride sails — and where the *Fantastmic!* nightly spectacular unfolds.

But, the area didn't always hold water — quite literally. Charlie Ridgeway, a former publicist for Disneyland, is quoted in the film recounting a disastrous occurrence with Rivers of America: "They had a lot of problems getting the place open by that opening day. They dug out the Rivers of America, they filled it up with water one night, came back the next morning, it was totally dry. It was the sandy soil. The water just plain disappeared!"

Main Street, U.S.A. under construction at Disneyland in 'Disneyland Handcrafted'.

Disney boldly valued his guests' bladders

Dick Nunis, a park operator, reminisces about a comical Disney quote he recalls from just prior to opening, as things moved along and crews rushed to get the park ready down to the last minute.

"There was a plumbing strike. So, the decision was, should we have drinking fountains or restrooms? Because there literally wasn't enough time to get both done," Nunis remembers. "Walt said, 'Well, you know, we've got to have restrooms. People can drink Coke and Pepsi, but they can't pee in the street.'"

Speaking of leaks, Bill Martin, another art director, says that a pre-opening gas leak under Sleeping Beauty Castle resulted in blue flames surrounding the perimeter of the fantastical structure. Thankfully, it was fixed (and no one peed in the street... at least, not that we know of).

Sleeping Beauty Castle under construction at Disneyland in 'Disneyland Handcrafted'.

Despite the futuristic Tomorrowland still existing in the realm of... uh... *tomorrow* ("We had these big buildings on both sides, but with nothing in them," remembers park model maker Fred Joerger), Disney pulled off the impossible when Disneyland officially opened to the public on July 17, 1955.

Capitalizing on his idea to document the construction on primetime television in months leading up to the opening, he devised a grand-scale, 90-minute opening ceremony that was pushed out to TV screens across the country, live as the event unfolded.

The film shows rehearsals taking place while the park ironed out last-minute construction kinks, from melting asphalt trapping equipment to dancers practicing choreography while trucks and even ride vehicles (employees are seen carting Autopia race cars along the paths) zoom by. With three days to spare, Disney describes the environment as a "frantic last-minute" scramble, but it worked.

Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle decorated for its 70th anniversary.

Richard Harbaugh/Disneyland Resort

Disney also speaks his now iconic dedication to the park near the end of the movie: "To all who come to this happy place, welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here, age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America. With the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world."

A closing bit of text that flashes on screen shortly thereafter proves that Disney's vision, tenacity, and "out of his mind" dedication to Disneyland were worth it in the end, as, to date, the park has welcomed 900 million people (and counting) through its gates.

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Source: "EW Disney"

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Source: Disney

Published: January 25, 2026 at 04:38AM on Source: RED MAG

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