Knott attended Disneyland’s opening-day ceremony on July 17, 1955, and were delighted. This attraction was the inspiration for what became the Enchanted Tiki Room in 1963, launching the form of robotics Disney coined “Audio-Animatronics,” now a theme-park-industry standard. The most notable inspiration for Disney, however, was Knott’s Bottle House and Music Hall, which featured an exotic collection of birdcages filled with automated whistling birds. Ghost Town (a themed area dedicated to the Old West) became the inspiration for Frontierland, and Disney even obtained Knott’s same 100-year-old Dentzel Carousel, re-theming it to become King Arthur Carrousel in Fantasyland, complete with the same antique band organ. Knott’s Butterfield Stagecoach Ride inspired Disneyland’s opening-day attraction the Rainbow Mountain Stagecoach Ride. However, three years before Disneyland opened, Disney took inspiration from much more than just Knott’s steam locomotive. In 1952, Walter Knott invited Walt Disney and his wife, Lillian, to be honored guests at the inaugural run of the Calico Railroad attraction. However, rather than compete, the two men helped each other and put their combined efforts into what would ultimately be in the best interest of the customer. By 1948, Walt Disney had already begun brainstorming ideas for a theme park of his own. The two Walters quickly became friends, taking their wives swing dancing and antiquing, and both served on a planning council for the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Walt Disney was simply fascinated by just how long folks were willing to wait in line to eat a fried chicken dinner and visit with a sad-eyed mannequin in a ghost-town jail cell. In 1940, Walter Knott turned his berry farm from a roadside attraction into America’s first theme park, and one of his biggest supporters was another man by the name of Walter. Walter Knott tends to his berries in 1948.
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