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    Three Years in Wonderland: The Disney Brothers, C. V. Wood, and the Making of the Great American Theme Park
    Three Years in Wonderland: The Disney Brothers, C. V. Wood, and the Making of the Great American Theme Park
    Three Years in Wonderland: The Disney Brothers, C. V. Wood, and the Making of the Great American Theme Park
    Audiobook9 hours

    Three Years in Wonderland: The Disney Brothers, C. V. Wood, and the Making of the Great American Theme Park

    Written by Todd James Pierce

    Narrated by Al Kessel

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    While the success of Disneyland is largely credited to Walt and Roy Disney, there was a third, mostly forgotten dynamo instrumental to the development of the park-fast-talking Texan C. V. Wood. Three Years in Wonderland presents the never-before-told, full story of "the happiest place on earth." Using information from over one hundred unpublished interviews, Todd James Pierce lays down the arc of Disneyland's development from an idea to a paragon of entertainment.

    In compelling detail, Three Years in Wonderland lays out the struggles and rewards of building the world's first cinematic theme park and convincing the American public that a seventeen million dollar amusement park was the ideal place for a family vacation. The early experience of Walt Disney, Roy Disney, and C. V. Wood is one of the most captivating untold stories in the history of Hollywood. Pierce interviewed dozens of individuals who enjoyed long careers at the Walt Disney Company as well as dozens of individuals who-like C. V. Wood-helped develop the park but then left the company for good once the park was finished. Through much research and many interviews, Three Years in Wonderland offers readers a rare opportunity to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the men and women who built the best-known theme park in the world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 9, 2019
    ISBN9781977349484
    Author

    Todd James Pierce

    Todd James Pierce is professor of literature at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. He is author of Newsworld, which won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize; The Life and Times of Ward Kimball: Maverick of Disney Animation; and Three Years in Wonderland: The Disney Brothers, C. V. Wood, and the Making of the Great American Theme Park, the latter two published by University Press of Mississippi. His work has appeared in over seventy magazines and journals, including the Harvard Review, the Georgia Review, and the North American Review.

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    • 5/5
      An outstanding narrative about the creation of Disneyland, primarily focusing on the business/financial side of its creation and the leadership of its first General Manager, CV Wood. Since removed from all official accounts of the building of Disneyland, Wood was largely responsible for getting the park open in an almost miraculous one-year time frame and for creatively bringing many sponsors on board, but his somewhat underhanded and almost certainly illegal approaches to problem solving irritated Walt Disney to the breaking point, and Wood was let go a few short months after the park opened. I've read several accounts of the creative challenges that building Disneyland entailed, but no other book details the real estate deals and business partnerships that went into the building of the "Happiest Place on Earth". If you are a Disneyland enthusiast like me, this is a must read.