Best kept secrets - Misc.

Anyone know exactly what happened to spark Walt Disney's idea of building Walt Disney World?

Well...when Walt was alive, he used to stand at the exit of Disneyland wishing the guests a farewell at the end of the night. NO ONE ever left the park before closing time. One night, a family walked by and was leaving the park before closing time, and Walt stopped them. He asked them why they were leaving early, worried that maybe a CM was rude or something bad happened. They said everything was wonderful, but when they were on the skyride, they saw the highway and could see there was a lot of traffic. They wanted to get a head start home to beat the traffic. Walt would have none of it, so he decided that day that he would build a bigger park and make it a "world" instead of just a "land.” He wanted it to be that once you enter Disney World you have no ties with the outside world. Since Disneyland is in the middle of the city and is so small, one couldn't do that. With a new world, you are engulfed in all that is Disney. Thus, the idea for Disney World was born (which was later renamed "Walt Disney World" by Roy Disney).
This isn't about a theme park, but it's very interesting. It's a story that the CM who gave us a "keys to the Kingdom" tour told us: Before Walt Disney started his own company, he was a young cartoonist looking for work. He signed on with a very small and little known company and started drawing and creating. He created a rabbit that he named "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit". Apparently, this company loved the rabbit, but wanted to make some changes. Walt refused, saying that this was his creation and he didn't want it changed. He then sold the rights of his creation to this company and quit to set out on his own. The company? Warner Bros., who then renamed Walt's creation "Bugs Bunny!"

KEEPSAKES

Pressed Pennies--(1) Avoid the bight shiny pennies. Depending on what penny you use, you may get a smear of zinc (silver looking metal). In 1982, pennies were made with both copper and zinc. Use pre-1982 pennies. (2) You might want to get the design pressed onto the "face" of the penny because the "tail" side sometimes leaves parts of the monument and you end up with an incomplete image. (3) Generally, if you insert the penny so that the "face" side is to the right, that is the side that will be pressed with the design. Also the quarter to the far left tends to be the quarter that gets pressed in Quarter Presses.

DOWNTOWN DISNEY

Christmas Shoppe—(1) In the very last room where they do the embroidery, look up. The ceiling the rafters look like lattice work. If you look carefully, you will see hidden Mickeys in it. (2) At least once a day in the Christmas shop they have a Magical Moment. One of the CMs chooses a child and has that child color in a paper ornament and then sign it and they hang it on the Christmas tree there with the ones that has already been done.

Haha, I know you didn't write that so I don't feel bad in correcting the story, but the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit turning into Bugs Bunny thing is an urban legend. There are actually some cartoons out that you can buy of Oswald http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Treasures-Adventures-Oswald/dp/B000VE4UCO/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1236812632&sr=8-1 (I wish I had that =/), actually well over one hundred short cartoons. So basically though, Walt created Oswald with this other guy, they had a fight and the guy took Oswald away from Walt since their company owned the rights to the character. Eventually, the rights were bought by Universal Studios, not Warner Bros. where they did some stuff with the character but retired him in the 40s I think. As a result of this, we got Mickey Mouse.

To add a little bit more to this story though, Bob Iger, the current chairman of Disney, in exchange for Al Michaels with NBC I think, was able to get Disney the rights back to Oswald here in recent history after he took over as chairman.

your knowledge of disney turns me on..