Disney

Kurt Andersen and New Yorker writer Hilton Als look at the work of unknown and the famous artists whose work drives others to create. We also hear from Branford Marsalis, poet Sharon Olds, choreographer Bill T. Jones, and country music legend Willie Nelson about the people they consider their “artist’s artist.” Plus, Disney goes all-computer, […]

Generations of Americans have grown up with Walt Disney shaping our imaginations. We’ll tour Disneyland with its art director, a second-generation Imagineer, who explains why even the…

Walt Disney didn’t just want a theme park — he wanted to create a scale model of a uniquely American utopia. 

Generations of Americans have grown up with Walt Disney shaping our imaginations. In 1955, Disney mixed up some fairy tales, a few historical facts, and a dream of the future to create an alternate universe. Not just a place for fun, but a scale model of a perfect world. “Everything that you could imagine is there,” says one young visitor. “It’s like living in a fantasy book.” And not just for kids: one-third of Walt Disney World’s visitors are adults who go without children. Visiting the parks, according to actor Tom Hanks, is like a pilgrimage — the pursuit of happiness turned into a religion.

Futurist Cory Doctorow explains the genius of Disney World, while novelist Carl Hiaasen even hates the water there. Kurt tours Disneyland with a second-generation “imagineer” whose dead mother haunts the Haunted Mansion. We’ll meet a former Snow White and the man who married Prince Charming — Disney, he says, is “the gayest place on Earth. It’s where happy lives.”

(Originally aired October 18, 2013)