1959:
Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone makes its debut on CBS-TV with
an episode called "Where Is Everybody." In this episode, actor Earl Holliman
plays a man who finds himself alone in a strange and seemingly deserted town. He is
dressed in an Air Force jumpsuit, but does not remember who he is or how he got there. Sensing he is beeing
watched, he wanders the town in hopes of finding another living creature. He finally collapses next to a street
crossing, and presses a button labeled "walk." It is revealed that the walk button is in fact a panic button and that
he is really an astronaut named Mike Ferris who has been confined in an isolation room as part of his training!
The successful series will later be the inspiration for Disney's Tower of Terror park attractions.
(Ironically an inspection certificate outside the tower's elevators at WDW in Florida has the number 10259
written on it. 10259 ... October 2 '59!?)
Over on ABC-TV, Walt Disney Presents kicks off season six with part 1 of (its 126th episode) titled "Moochie of the Little League."
1971:
The Liberty Square Riverboat opens at Walt Disney World (the day after
the park's grand debut) with the Admiral Joe Fowler taking its first trip around the Magic Kingdom's River of America. (The boat is named after Fowler, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who was responsible for overseeing the construction of both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.)
2005:
Themed collectible Mouseketeer merchandise (to coincide with next day's 50th anniversary of TV's Mickey Mouse Club) is released at the Carriage Place in the Emporium located on Disneyland's Main Street.
Also at Disneyland, the annual CHOC walk is held to benefit the Children's Hospital of Orange County.
1951:
Musician-actor Sting is born Gordon Matthew Sumner in England. He will go on to
write some of the music for Disney's 2000 animated feature The Emperor's New Groove. Music fans will
know him as a member of the 1980s band The Police ... who actually performed at the Magic Kingdom once!
1953:
Disney's Football Now and Then is released. A grandfather imaginatively details a game to his grandson between the Moderns and the Oldtimers.
1957:
The Disneyland television series airs the first of a 6-part miniseries titled "Saga of Andy Burnett: Andy's Initiation," starring Jerome Courtland.
1960:
Walt Disney Presents airs the episode
"Davy Crockett and the River Pirates" on ABC-TV.
Singer-songwriter & guitarist Robbie Nevil is born in Los Angeles, California. Best known for the song "C'est La Vie" (a #1 dance hit that spent two weeks at #2 on the Hot 100 in early 1987) he co-wrote three songs on the chart-topping High School Musical soundtrack and co-wrote the theme song to Hannah Montana.
1966:
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color airs part 1 of "Savage Sam" on NBC-TV.
1977:
The Wonderful World of Disney airs the 2-hour episode "The Treasure of Matecumbe" on NBC-TV. The special features Mouseketeer Billy 'Pop' Atmore, Vic Morrow, Peter Ustinov, Dick Van Patten, and Jane Wyatt.
1982:
The CBS television series Walt Disney airs part 2 of the 1979 movie "The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again," starring Tim Conway and Don Knotts.
1992:
Disney's live-action feature film The Mighty Ducks is released in theaters.
Although it's been running since July 17, the Splash Mountain attraction at Disney World has an official grand opening.
1996:
The John Tesh Group performs at Epcot.
A special press event celebrating all of Walt Disney World's 25th Anniversary culminates with Epcot's new IllumiNations 25.
1998:
Gene Autry, "The Singing Cowboy," and co-owner of baseball's Anaheim
Angels, passes at the age of 91. Walt Disney (who sat on the original Angels board of
directors when the franchise first began) was close with Autry. They shared a vision of Southern California
as a major entertainment center. (Autry is the only celebrity to have five stars on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame, one in each of the five categories maintained by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.)
1999:
FastPass is first offered at Disneyland Paris
on Indiana Jones et le Tempil de Peril.
1987:
Disney Dollars debuts in EPCOT Center. They are the same $1 and $5 bills that are being used in Disneyland.
2006:
Walt Disney Imagineering breaks ground on a new interactive attraction coming to the Paradise Pier area of Disney's California Adventure Park.
The yet-to-be-named attraction is scheduled to open in June 2008.
 | ||||
In the beginning Disney's
Florida theme park was to
be called simply Disney
World. But when
Walt past away in December 1966, his brother Roy renamed the project
Walt Disney World.
1981:
At Disney World, the live stage show "Disney World is Your World"
begins performances on the Tomorrowland Stage in the Magic Kingdom.
"You can't run away from trouble ... ain't no place that far!" - Splash Mountain
2007:
High School Musical on Tour, a new stage version of the hit Disney Channel movie, begins a series of performances at Wharton Center
in East Lansing, Michigan.
Disney’s 1967 The Jungle Book is released as the 10th animated feature to be given the deluxe Platinum Edition treatment by Disney DVD.
1890:
Comedian & film star Groucho Marx (best known for the 15 feature
films he made with his siblings, the Marx Brothers) is born Julius
Henry Marx in New York City. He will be caricatured in the Disney shorts Mickey's Gala Premier (1933), Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938), and The Autograph Hound (1939) along with his "silent" brother Harpo. Disney animator Ward Kimball will even appear on a 1954 episode of Groucho's television show You Bet Your Life.
1950:
Peanuts, created by Charles M. Schultz, first debuts in seven U.S. newspapers.
As a boy, Schulz was interested in comics, especially Popeye and the characters created by Walt Disney.
Back in the '30s, he wrote to Walt Disney asking for a job ... but didn't get one. In 1996 Schulz will be
honored with a sidewalk star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ... right next to Walt Disney's!
OCTOBER 2
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THIS DAY MADE IN THE USA
OCTOBER 02
WDW's Liberty Square Riverboat debuts
Twilight Zone first airs on TV
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'Up there', up there in the vastness of space, in the void that is sky, up there is an enemy known as isolation. It sits there in the stars, waiting- waiting with the patience of eons, forever waiting ... in the Twilight Zone.
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2009:
Walt Disney World and NASA celebrate Buzz Lightyear’s cosmic achievement as the longest tenured crew member in space with a ticker-tape parade down Main Street, U.S.A. in the Magic Kingdom. Buzz spent more than 15 months of dedicated service onboard the International Space Station as part of an education initiative between Disney Parks and NASA. In attendance at this day's event is Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin and International Space Station astronaut Michael Fincke.
1984:
Actor John Morris, best known for his role of Andy Davis in the films Toy Story,
Toy Story 2, and Toy Story 3, is born in New York.
2008:
Carolwood Records, a sister country music imprint to the Lyric Street Records label
(part of the Disney Music group) is established in Nashville, Tennessee.
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