The telecast, aka “better than 10 Super Bowls!”

Image: Disney

The population of the United States in 1955 was 165.9 million. Today, that total is 322.8 million. The most recent Super Bowl drew 111.9 million viewers, which means that 34.7 percent of the population watched the game. It was the third most watched program in the history of American television. I say all of this as a precursor to an amazing stat about the opening day broadcast of Disneyland.

Ninety million viewers watched the live telecast.

In other words, over half the American population tuned to ABC on July 17, 1955. Whereas the most recent Super Bowl attracted slightly more than a third of the population, Disneyland’s debut attracted 54.2 percent of the country. To put that in perspective, the most popular television program of all-time is the finale of M*A*S*H. 105.9 million tuned to see the resolution of Hawkeye Pierce’s journey. That was 45.3 percent of the country. A larger percentage of Americans watched the opening day of Disneyland than the conclusion to M*A*S*H or any Super Bowl ever.

That sounds great in theory. As long as everything ran smoothly, Disneyland would captivate the unprecedented television audience watching at home. Well, have you ever heard the maxim that any publicity is good publicity?

A future President, a famous addict, and Art Linkletter

Image: Disney

While even the most optimistic people involved with the Disneyland broadcast couldn’t have predicted its level of popularity, ABC still rolled out the red carpet for the entire event. They lured legendary entertainer Art Linkletter away from NBC to host the festivities. Linkletter stood apart as one of the most famous entertainers of the early days of television, so his appearance was quite a coup.

Disney and ABC readily agreed to all of his demands about hosting the broadcast. The most obvious one is that his wife and children would get to attend. Disney not only agreed but also worked them into the broadcast. You can watch video of it here. At the end of the clip, Linkletter’s oldest son performs an awkward bridge to one of the co-hosts, and that’s where the situation grows uncomfortable.

One of Linkletter’s seemingly reasonable requests was that his friend, Robert Cummings, participate.  Disney had no reason to deny this petition. After all, Cummings was only four months removed from an Emmy victory for his performance as Juror #8 in the Studio One presentation of Twelve Angry Men. Two years later, Henry Fonda would play the same role in the most famous film version of the same story. Cummings was also a star of multiple Alfred Hitchcock films. He was a bona fide celebrity, one whose career was on a par with the other movie star co-hosting that day, future President of the United States Ronald Reagan.

In hindsight, the agreement to allow Cummings to co-host proved regrettable. After peaking as Juror #8, the actor quickly headed into a downward spiral. The rest of his life devolved into a tragic tale of drug abuse. He was one of the most famous recipients of treatment from Max Jacobson aka Dr. Feelgood.  

One of the first signs of the impending meltdown occurred during the live broadcast of Disneyland’s opening. A notorious playboy, Cummings was already on his third bride by the time 1955 rolled around. He was 45-years-old at the time, and his current wife, actress Mary Elliott, had scandalously seduced him away from his second bride, Broadway performer Vivian Janis. Elliott received the short end of the stick there, as Cummings and fidelity went together like peanut butter and gravel.

During one of the cutaways from a Disney scene to a co-host, the camera went to the wrong person. Cummings had signed off for a dance number, and he thought he had a few minutes of free time. The actor did what any famous celebrity did in a region full of thousands of adoring fans. He picked up a dancer.  This sounds ridiculous, but it’s absolutely true. You can watch the video for yourself here.  

Is it cruel to point out that Elliott, who famously gave up her film career to marry Cummings, was in attendance at Disneyland that day? How about that their two children were also there? The only real shock out of this entire scandal is that Elliott remained married to him for another 15 years. What’s clear is that she never once referred to Disneyland as the Happiest Place on Earth.

Jokes aside, only 35 minutes after introducing his family to 90 million people, Robert Cummings groped a dancer. He did this on a live broadcast of the opening of a family theme park. To his credit, he recovered like a pro, quickly reciting his dialogue. His only snafu was when he directed the viewers to another co-host, “Ronnie REEgan.” He was too stoned at the time to realize what he had done, too. He actually laughed about it as the camera cut away, failing to realize that his career as he knew it had just ended in disrepute. The coda to this is that Cummings wound up performing dinner theater by the 1970s.

Live from Anaheim, California…

Image: Disney

The entire production proved chaotic and mercurial. Linkletter acknowledged the possibility of this in his introductory comments. The trial run was by all accounts a fiasco, and ABC execs realized in the days leading up to the broadcast that tens of millions of people were planning to watch. So, they had little margin for error during live programming and no test results indicating that a seamless show was in the offing.

Linkletter, basically the Johnny Carson of the 1950s, assured his unprecedented live viewing audience that any mistakes they noticed were perfectly normal for such a program. He said this knowing full well that a decent chance existed that he’d wind up forever linked to one of the most disastrous live broadcasts in the history of television. The fact that we’re still discussing it 60 years later indicates that his instincts were correct.

Still, a lot of the worst events that transpired were barely even noticed during the live airing of Disneyland. Sure, Walt Disney flubbed his lines and had to start over again during a Tomorrowland dedication. Yes, some of the dance routines didn’t end at the right time, and the cameras occasionally missed the start of the program. And yes, a co-host did get to second base on live television in an era when the FCC didn’t let performers say the word “breast” on air. All of this was a drop in the bucket compared to what was transpiring behind the scenes.