From 1955 through 1962, the TWA Moonliner was part of the first futuristic exhibit located in Disneyland's Tomorrowland. It was also an early example of modern product placement advertising by TWA's Howard Hughes teaming up with Walt Disney as the Moonliner's sponsor. [1]
At 76 feet (23 m) tall, it was the tallest structure in the theme park, 8 feet (2.4 m) taller than the Sleeping Beauty Castle. Adjoining the rocket was the "Flight to the Moon" attraction, which later became "Mission To Mars" in 1975.
The Moonliner was designed by John Hench, one of the original Disney Imagineers, with the help of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. It resembled von Braun's V-2 rocket design but depicted what a commercial spaceliner might look like for traveling to the Moon in the faraway year of 1986.
The Moonliner's retracting landing leg covers were said to resemble the fuselage shape on TWA's elegant Lockheed Constellation airliner; the rocket also featured portholes, a raised cockpit area, and a boarding ramp. A real Moonliner was envisioned to be powered by a nuclear reactor and actually be more than 200 feet (61 m) tall; the theme park's Moonliner was roughly a one-third scale model.
After Hughes sold his interest in TWA, the airline dropped their corporate sponsorship; the rocket then became the Douglas Moonliner when the Douglas Aircraft Company became its sponsor. This new Moonliner looked the same as the original, but the famous all-red TWA logo and stripes on the nose and landing legs were gone, replaced by a brand new paint scheme of overall white with blue stripes and a red, vertically stacked Douglas logo running down the rocket's fuselage.
The Douglas Moonliner stayed at the theme park for five more years, until 1967, when it was removed for a redesigned, New Tomorrowland, making way for the Carousel of Progress and other attractions. Its fuselage was moved to a storage "boneyard" area at the northwest corner of the property and was seen there as late as 1981.
In 1956 Hughes added a 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) version of the Disneyland Moonliner, known as the TWA Moonliner II, atop the southwest corner of the TWA Corporate Headquarters' Building, located at 18th Street and Baltimore, near downtown Kansas City, MO. When Hughes and Disney ended their business partnership in 1961 after Hughes sold TWA, the airline's management removed the Moonliner II from its roof and sold it in 1962 to a local RV company called SpaceCraft.
SpaceCraft moved the now all-white Moonliner in 1970 to Concordia, MO, where it landed near the south side of Interstate 70, between Kansas City and St. Louis, MO, where SpaceCraft operated its assembly plant; it slowly rusted on that spot for more than 25 years. In 1997 a Columbia, MO lawyer, who collected Disney memorabilia, bought the deteriorating Moonliner II and then began a long, careful restoration process, eventually bringing it back to its 1956 condition and sporting its original red and white TWA paint scheme. The rocket is currently on loan to the National Airline History Museum at the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, in Kansas City, MO, where it stands very near an original, fully restored to flight status, TWA Super "G" Constellation airliner; the Moonliner II is located about five miles from its original TWA rooftop location.
In 1998 a new but scaled-down version of the park's original Moonliner was added as part of the New Tomorrowland, complete with the familiar red stripes of the now defunct TWA. Today, this one-third smaller Moonliner is used to promote Coca-Cola "Delivering Refreshment to a Thirsty Galaxy"; it sits next to the building that once housed the "Flight to the Moon" attraction, which is now Redd Rockett's Pizza Port.
In early 2005, the Nicholson Group, a Kansas City, Missouri urban development firm, hired local architectural firm, el dorado inc, to design and oversee the historic restoration of the TWA corporate headquarters building, complete with a replica Moonliner II. The Bratton Corporation was contracted in early 2006 to fabricate a brand new TWA Moonliner II replica for the building's roof. This new, fully illuminated rocket was completed and then installed on September 29 of that year at the very same southwest corner roof location as the original Moonliner II. The TWA building was then leased to Kansas City-based advertising agency Barkley, Inc., and the agency moved in on November 14, 2006. The area surrounding the TWA building is known as Kansas City's Crossroads Arts District.
Magic Kingdom Park, previously known as Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom (1971–1994) and The Magic Kingdom (1994–2017), is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando, Florida. Owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division, the park opened on October 1, 1971, as "Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom", the first of four theme parks at the resort. The park was initialized by Walt Disney and designed by WED Enterprises. Its layout and attractions are based on Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, and are dedicated to fairy tales and Disney characters.
The PeopleMover, sometimes referred to as the Goodyear PeopleMover and WEDWay PeopleMover, was a transport attraction that opened on July 2, 1967, in Tomorrowland at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Guests boarded small trains that ran on elevated tracks for a "grand circle tour" above Tomorrowland. The term "people mover", now in wider use to describe many forms of automated public transport, was first coined as the name for this attraction. PeopleMover was originally only a working title, but became attached to the project over time. The attraction was initially seen as a serious prototype for intercity public transport. The ride closed on August 21, 1995, but its station and track infrastructure—which it shared with its short-lived successor, Rocket Rods—remain standing as of 2023. A second PeopleMover opened on July 1, 1975 in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida near Orlando, Florida, and is still operating today.
The "E" Ticket was a fanzine devoted to the history of Disneyland and its attractions, especially the park as it existed during the lifetime of Walt Disney, publishing forty six issues between 1986 and 2009. It was edited and published by Disneyland fans Leon Janzen and Jack Janzen until Leon's sudden death on September 9, 2003. The last issue published by the brothers was the Fall 2003 Issue, #40, on Adventure Thru Inner Space. Jack continued the magazine without his brother, beginning with #41 in October 2004. In the final issue, #46, Jack noted that making the magazine "Hasn't been much fun without Leon", and he decided to end the magazine's run.
The National Airline History Museum is an aviation museum located at the Kansas City Downtown Airport in Kansas City, Missouri focused on the history of airlines in the United States.
Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress is a rotating theater audio-animatronic stage show attraction in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida just outside of Orlando, Florida. Created by Walt Disney and WED Enterprises as the prime feature of the General Electric (GE) Pavilion for the 1964 New York World's Fair, the attraction was moved to Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, California as Carousel of Progress, and remained there from 1967 until 1973. It was replaced in Disneyland by America Sings in 1974, and reopened in its present home in the Magic Kingdom in 1975.
The PeopleMover is an attraction in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida just outside of Orlando, Florida. Designed as an urban mass-transit system of the future, vehicles take passengers on a grand circle tour of the realm of Tomorrowland that provides elevated views of several other attractions.
Rocket Rods was a high-speed thrill attraction located in Tomorrowland at Disneyland, Anaheim, California. The ride was themed around a hypothetical “drag race” of the future, as well as a futuristic rapid transit system. The ride opened in May 1998, utilizing the existing PeopleMover track and infrastructure as part of the New Tomorrowland refurbishment project. Plagued from its inception with technical problems and mechanical repairs, Rocket Rods was shut down indefinitely for renovations in September 2000; ultimately, the ride would be fully shut down, as confirmed via an official press release in April 2001–after two years of sporadic operations. While Rocket Rods' queue was replaced with the Toy Story-themed dark ride Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters in 2005, the majority of the track infrastructure utilized by both the attraction and its predecessor still sit, visibly derelict, throughout Tomorrowland as of 2023.
Tomorrowland is one of the many "themed lands" featured at all of the Magic Kingdom styled Disney theme parks around the world owned or licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Each version of the land is different and features numerous attractions that depict views of the future. Disneyland Park in Paris includes a similar area called Discoveryland, which shares some elements with other Tomorrowlands but emphasizes visions of the future inspired by Jules Verne.
The Disneyland Monorail is an attraction and transportation line at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, United States. It was the first daily operating monorail over all.
Autopia is a race car track Disneyland attraction, in which patrons steer specially designed cars through an enclosed track. Versions of Autopia exist at Anaheim, California and Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallée, France. There was also an Autopia at Hong Kong Disneyland on Lantau Island, Hong Kong before it closed on June 11, 2016. Other versions of the attraction can be found at the Magic Kingdom as the Tomorrowland Speedway and formerly at Tokyo Disneyland as the Grand Circuit Raceway. A previous generation of Disneyland's Autopia operated for over a decade at the Walt Disney Hometown Museum in Marceline, Missouri; one of the retired cars is now on display.
The Skyway was a gondola lift attraction at Disneyland, at the Magic Kingdom, and at Tokyo Disneyland. Since all versions of this attraction took riders back and forth between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, the route from Tomorrowland was called Skyway to Fantasyland, and the route from Fantasyland was called Skyway to Tomorrowland.
Rocket Jets was an attraction in Disneyland at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. This attraction opened in 1967 with the new Tomorrowland and closed in 1997 for the New Tomorrowland update in 1998. It was the third spinning rocket attraction in Tomorrowland and stood three stories above the ground. When Tomorrowland was redone for 1998, the Rocket Jets were replaced by a new attraction based on Orbitron at the entrance to Discoveryland in Disneyland Park Paris.
The Astro Orbiter is a "rocket-spinner", aerial carousel-type attraction featured at five Disneyland-style parks and Walt Disney Resorts around the world, except for Tokyo Disneyland. Although each ride may have a slightly different name, all share the same experience of vehicles traveling through space, spinning around a central monument. In most forms of the ride, the use of a joystick enables guests to adjust the height of their individual cars at will, usually within a range of no more than 10-15 feet. When the ride cycle comes to its completion, any ascended vehicles are automatically lowered for passenger exit and re-boarding. Over the years, with each new iteration of the ride debuting, new designs, thematic schemes, and locations have been implemented to fit with the changing themes of several Tomorrowlands.
Mission to Mars was an attraction located in Tomorrowland at Disneyland and at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. It originally opened as Rocket to the Moon at Disneyland in 1955, and as Flight to the Moon in Walt Disney World on Christmas Eve 1971, before it was retooled to the Mars version in 1975. It then closed down in 1992 and 1993, respectively. The attraction simulated taking guests on a space trip to the Moon or Mars.
The TWA Corporate Headquarters Building, located at 1735 Baltimore Avenue in the Crossroads neighborhood of downtown Kansas City, was Trans World Airlines headquarters until 1964, when the airline moved to New York City.
Space Mountain is an outer space-themed, indoor roller coaster in Tomorrowland located at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom theme park in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. The dark ride, which opened on January 15, 1975, is the original version of the iconic attraction that has since been replicated at other Disney theme park locations worldwide, with the exception of Shanghai Disneyland Resort. Space Mountain is also the oldest operating roller coaster in the state of Florida. RCA helped fund construction and sponsored the ride from 1975 to 1993. FedEx assumed sponsorship from 1994 to 2004.
Space Mountain at Tokyo Disneyland opened with the park on April 15, 1983. It was the first version of Space Mountain to open concurrently with the park. As with the other Space Mountains, this version is also popular with young adults and roller coaster fans. Along with its Walt Disney World counterpart prior to 2010, it is currently one of the only Space Mountains without an on-board soundtrack.
Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney initially envisioned building a tourist attraction adjacent to his studios in Burbank to entertain fans who wished to visit; however, he soon realized that the proposed site was too small for the ideas that he had. After hiring the Stanford Research Institute to perform a feasibility study determining an appropriate site for his project, Disney bought a 160-acre (65 ha) site near Anaheim in 1953. The park was designed by a creative team hand-picked by Walt from internal and outside talent. They founded WED Enterprises, the precursor to today's Walt Disney Imagineering. Construction began in 1954 and the park was unveiled during a special televised press event on the ABC Television Network on July 17, 1955. Since its opening, Disneyland has undergone expansions and major renovations, including the addition of New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country in 1972, Mickey's Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in 2019. Additionally, Disney California Adventure Park opened in 2001 on the site of Disneyland's original parking lot.
Tron Lightcycle Power Run and Tron Lightcycle / Run are semi-enclosed, launched roller coasters at Shanghai Disneyland and Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. The first incarnation, Tron Lightcycle Power Run, opened at Shanghai Disneyland on June 16, 2016. A nearly-identical installation, Tron Lightcycle / Run, opened at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World on April 4, 2023. Both are in the Tomorrowland themed areas at each park.