SPECTACLES: Disneyland & Son

Once upon a time (i.e., four years ago) professionally sentimental, consistently profitmaking Hollywoodsman Walt Disney built the zingiest, zowiest toy his fertile mind could imagine—and then invited others to come play with it. So far, some 16 million have taken up the offer. Last week 24,000, including Vice President Nixon and his family, were on hand to help Walt celebrate the fourth anniversary of the toy. Crooned M.C. Art (People Are Funny) Linkletter: “Disneyland —its only purpose . . . the pursuit of happiness for all.”

Maybe for the customers; but canny Producer Disney has been reaping more tangible rewards. Since the opening, his dazzling, 61.2-acre carnival has taken in $48 million. Says one associate proudly: “We keep plussing things.” This year’s plusses: a $1,500,000 miniature Matterhorn, 146½ ft. tall, complete with bobsleds and “glacier grottoes”; eight “authentic, air-conditioned submarines” (cost: $65,000 each) to carry passengers past the lost continent of Atlantis; a graveyard of sunken ships; a miniature polar icecap; the first operable monorail system in the U.S., built at a cost of $1,300,000. The investment seems well worthwhile: in fiscal 1959, Disneyland expects some 4,600,000 customers, a net of $600.000.

Such coin counting has spawned sincere flattery: imitation Disneylands are shooting up across the country. The best are the brainchildren of drawling, blunt-talking Texan C. V. Wood, 38, a onetime industrial engineer whose survey on Disneyland’s prospects so impressed the master that he was invited in to build the park. At present, Wood is supervising construction of five others (including Denver’s Magic Mountain, Great Southwest Park near Dallas, Montana Magica in Caracas), has half a dozen more in the planning stage. This week, his latest is open: $4,000,000 Pleasure Island, 14 miles north of Boston in Wakefield, Mass. Most spectacular feature: a 19th century New England fishing village, from which the kiddies can slosh off in whale boats to stalk a 7O-ft. replica of Moby-Dick.