In 1954 Disneyland anthology series began and ran on three different networks. It went through six title changes but continued to air for 29 years making it the longest running primetime television series ever.
Walt was never satisfied with his work and was always looking to make his company bigger and better. He was always interested in amusement parks so he made his own. Disneyland opened July 17, 1955 and coined the term theme park. Disneyland is now used for a pattern for every amusement park opened since.
Walt Disney died in 1966 and left his company to his brother Roy Disney. Roy was on the ball and continued production as normal with The Jungle Book, Aristocats and Love Bug which won Highest Grossing Film of the Year.
Prior to Walt’s death, he purchased 28,000 acres of land in Orlando, Florida for Disney World which then opened in his honor on October 1, 1971. Roy died later that year and the company was turned over to a team personally trained by the Disney brothers. One of Walt's final plans before death was EPCOT, Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. The park started construction on 1979 and the multi-billion dollar park opened on October 1, 1982.
In 1983 Disneyland Tokyo opened. The first foreign Disney park. Just under 10 years later Disneyland Paris opened bringing in more than 11 million visitors in the first year. In 1993 Disney purchased Discover magazine and the National Hockey League team the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
Disney continued to amaze when they came out with The Lion King which became the Highest Grossing Film of All Time and Toy Story pioneering computer animated films. 1994 came around and Disney hit Broadway with Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Aida. They then purchased the California Angels Baseball team. By 1996 Disney had the top television network, 10 television stations, 21 radio stations, 7 newspapers, and 4 cable networks. They then reached their 25 billion dollar revenue threshold. By 1998 they started two cruise ships which stopped at Disney’s island Castaway Cay in the Caribbean.
For the first time Disney opened multiple things in one year coming out with California Adventure, Downtown Disney, and DisneySea Tokyo. They then made more than 300 million dollars from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl and Finding Nemo. Being the first company to surpass 3 billion dollars in global box office revenue.
In the early 2000s Disney purchased The Muppets and Pixar Animation Studios. They released the next two Pirates of the Caribbean movies making them Disney’s highest grossing feature and the top grossing feature of 2007. They then released Toy Story 3 highest grossing animated film of all time. Disney continues to grow and amaze every year with new movies, cruises, hotels, and more featuring their characters and they are not going away any time soon.
Source: https://d23.com/disney-history/
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