Three Years in Wonderland

"Three Years in Wonderland is the fascinating history of the "happiest place on earth." Using information from over one hundred unpublished interviews, Todd James Pierce lays down the story of Disneyland's development. The success of Disneyland is largely credited to Walt and Roy Disney, but there was a third man instrumental in the development of the park: a fast-talking Texan, C.V. Wood. In the early 1950s, the Disney brothers hired Wood and his team of economists to develop a land-use and feasibility study for an amusement park in Southern California. But Wood quickly became a central figure in the new Disney project. In 1954, Roy hired him as Disneyland's first official employee, its first general manager, and appointed him vice president of Disneyland, Inc. Wood was a brilliant project manager, but he was also a bit of a con man. He was a smooth talker, a man drawn to dirty jokes, an executive in the entertainment business who saw money as more important than art. His personality was in many ways opposite of Walt's. As relations soured between the Disney brothers and Wood, some of his con man instincts returned: Wood began to siphon money from the Disneys into his own bank account, extort funds from Disney lessees, and use his VP position for personal benefit. In compelling detail, Pierce lays out the struggles and rewards of building the world's first cinematic theme park. This early experience between the Disney brothers and Wood is an untold story of Hollywood history. Pierce has interviewed people who enjoyed long careers at the Walt Disney Company and those who helped open Disneyland but did not remain. For the first time, their stories are woven together to detail the development of Disneyland"--