STORY TIME!
This reminds me of a fun story.
Van Arsdale France has a window on Main Street (“Founder and Professor Emeritus - Disney Universities,” just north of the Magic Shop). He was hired by Walt Disney to train new cast members when Disneyland opened, and he created Disney University (as well as writing the script for the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train).
He has a book out, Window on Main Street: 35 Years of Creating Happiness at Disneyland Park, which I originally picked up on Main Street in Disneyland.
In the book, he tells a funny story about the Disneyland parking lot. Since my copy of this book has vanished, I can’t quote it word for word, but I can summarize it (Van tells the story much better than I do).
Around 1967, the Volkswagon Beetle was the car of choice. Anywhere you looked, people were driving them, and the most popular color was yellow.
One day, the Parking Lot cast members decided to have a little fun. The opening crew set aside one section of the lot for yellow VW Beetles. As regular cars came through the toll booths, they would be guided to a parking spot just as always…but when a yellow VW Beetle came in, they were diverted to another section of the lot. I believe it was the Kanga section, but I could be remembering that wrong.
In the morning, when people saw that they were in a sea of identical cars, they chuckled. But at the end of the day it was the opening Parking Lot CM’s, who had come back at the end of the day to watch the fun, who had the last laugh watching people try to figure out which one of these cars was theirs.
Van Arsdale France has a lot of fun stories like this in Window on Main Street. The book is sadly out of print, but as of when I’m posting this there are six used copies available at Amazon. Click the book’s title above if you’re interested.
