Blame it on the weather
Image: Disney
In the 38 years that followed the assassination of JFK, Disneyland only closed on three occasions. If you consider yourself a Disneyland history and trivia buff, you’re likely to guess wrong about one of them. Oddly, you’re armed with too much information here. One of the most frequently cited facts about the Happiest Place on Earth’s history of closures is that it shut down in 1994 in the wake of the Northridge Earthquake that transpired on Monday, January 17th. That’s untrue.
A careful investigation of local news articles from the time reveals that Disneyland opened that day on schedule and remained open throughout the day. The only concession to the disaster was that guests couldn’t ride any attraction until park inspectors carefully examined each structure to authenticate its safety.
Instead, the other two days when Disneyland closed in the 20th century were fairly innocuous. In each instance, the decision to close was weather-related. Each time, the choice proved unnecessary. In March of 1983, a local storm caused $100 million in damage, the equivalent of roughly a quarter-billion today. You can read some details about this storm here. The most interesting is that tennis icon Billie Jean King’s home absorbed so much structural damage that it was immediately condemned and torn down. You can understand why Disney erred on the side of caution that day, even if the park survived virtually unscathed.
For similar reasons, the park never opened on December 16, 1987. Weather forecasters feared a devastating onslaught of snow, sleet, and rain. Yes, it snows at times in southern California, albeit rarely. In this particular instance, Disney closed because it "blew".
Described as a “howling storm” in the headlines, this article explains the situation from the park planner’s perspective: “At lower elevations, where it did not snow, it rained and blew - weather so inclement that Disneyland closed its gates unexpectedly for only the third time in 24 years.”
Get a haircut!
Since you now know that the second and third times the park closed were weather related, you’re likely wondering about the first time. That day was August 6, 1970. Disney called the Anaheim police department in hopes that law enforcement agents could stop an insurrection. Who were the disruptive park attendants? Hippies.
Technically, they were Yippies. What’s the difference? Abby Hoffman’s branch of hippies carried a political agenda, and that was enough to give them an ever-so-slightly different name. In 1970, said political agenda included an impromptu appearance at the Happiest Place on Earth. According to the 200 or so protesters who attended that day (some reports go as high as 300), the Yippies wanted to demonstrate their distaste for the American presence in Vietnam. They held what they called “The First International Pow-Wow” in Anaheim. Their tongue-in-cheek assertion was that they must first liberate Disneyland before they could free 19-year-old soldiers from serving in Vietnam.
If you’re like me, you think this sounds like a thin excuse to hang out at the Haunted Mansion all day. Hey, we’ve all been there, right?
Image: Disney
Disney officials were decidedly not amused. When they heard that a group called the Youth International Party was invading their home turf, they sprang into action. Disney not only notified the police but also requested that the officers take the matter seriously. Anaheim cops showed up in – I kid you not – riot gear. The entire situation must have seemed surreal to ordinary tourists that day. One moment, they’re eating cotton candy and thinking about heading over to Tom Sawyer Island. Then, they see police officers in military gear charging into the park. Some of them probably thought they were watching a new show.
Alas, the situation was quite real. The Yippies planned out the invasion to the point that they had leaflets they handed out to curious onlookers. Here was their official itinerary:
- Black Panther Hot Breakfast: 9am—10am at Aunt Jemima’s Pancake House
- Young Pirates League: 11am on Captain Hook’s boat
- Women’s Liberation: 12 noon rally to liberate Minnie Mouse in front of Fantasyland
- Self Defense Collective: 1pm—2pm at shooting gallery in Frontierland
- Mid-Day Feast: 3pm barbecue of Porky Pig
- Late in the afternoon Yippies plan to infiltrate and liberate Tom Sawyer’s Island. Declaring a free state, brothers and sisters will then have a smoke-in and festival.
- Get it on over to Disneyland, August 6. YIPPIE!
The whole affair sounds satirical to me, but park officials have to take all perceived threats as serious matters. They overreacted a lot, though, and that’s not really up for debate. Disney informed the police that Bank of America sponsored It’s a Small World and had a presence on Main Street. Since the bank also had a connection to the Vietnam War, with many Yippies claiming the corporation bankrolled part of it, there was cause for concern. To wit, less than six months prior to the silly Disneyland incident, students in Isla Vista, California, burned down a Bank of America location. Since that happened only 130 miles away, everyone in the Anaheim police department and at Disneyland was sensitive to the potential for disaster.
When the Yippies arrived, the cops weren’t abrasive. To the contrary, they simply requested that the protesters be cool. Question: when you’re tried this approach with other folks, how well has it gone? Exactly. The Yippies quickly started permeating the park with marijuana smoke and at one point formed a conga line. As they conga’d, they sang the chorus of 1967 Johnny Colón classic, Boogaloo Blues. If you’re unfamiliar with the tune, the hook is, “LSD’s got a hold on me.” Imagine hearing a bunch of people singing that at Disneyland today, much less in 1970.
Disneyland officials decided at 3 p.m. that they’d worried over nothing. There were as many law enforcement officials acting as plain clothes cops at Disneyland that day as Yippies. What could possi-blye go wrong? Roughly 90 minutes after the Vice President of Operations at Disneyland sang the praises of non-violent protesters, Yippies swarmed Tom Sawyer’s Island, just as indicated on the leaflet. Give those stoners credit for crafting a schedule and keeping it. The only disappointment is that they didn’t attack at 4:20, but maybe that reference wasn’t a thing in 1970.
Image: Disney
Anyway, the Yippies escalated the situation when they tore down the American flag, replacing it with their own version, fittingly one with a marijuana leaf in the middle. This quirky protest shouldn’t have caused problems, but some patriots visiting the park that day mistook the Yippie flag for the Viet Cong’s banner. Disneyland’s mood took a sharp turn at this point, and park officials quickly realized their control over the situation was slipping.
An announcement came over the loud speakers that for only the second time ever, the park would close early. All of this took place around 5 p.m. Disney was still clearing out guests at after 7 p.m., but several of the stoned Yippies didn’t accept the polite request to leave. They took their protest over to Disneyland Hotel. That’s why roughly 20 Yippies wound up arrested during a nonviolent protest that park officials felt went much better than expected. How pleased were they with the behavior of the protestors? Here was a quote one of them made at the park that afternoon:
“They (the Yippies) may look a little different, but they are just here to have fun.”
Then again, he followed that statement with this one only a couple of hours later:
"That's it! No more mass marching. No more demonstrating. No more singing. You’re no longer welcome here. You need to leave the park."
It was that kind of day at Disneyland.
Comments
I was there during 9/11. My partner and I had flown down on the 8th for a short vacation for his birthday. We had gone to Epcot that morning, rode Test Track, and was headed towards the Living Seas when we were stopped by cast members telling us to head towards the exit, the park was closed. Someone asked why, and they said the twin towers in NY had been attacked and were no more. We didn't believe it, and walked to our car in the parking lot. We sat there and flipped on the radio, and sure enough it was true. Driving out, the traffic was jammed up getting around, and we finally made it back to Port Orleans French Quarter where we were staying . We turned on the tv and of course it was all over the news, it was so emotional. I called my mom at that point, as I had not told her I was going out of town, and we both started crying, it could have been my plane, you never know. We went to the pool, and it was absolutely packed, not a space not taken. Disney was on 'extreme lockdown', so you weren't allowed into any other resorts or anywhere else on Disney property, so we camped out by the pool for awhile with everyone else in stunned unity. We were supposed to fly home on the 12th, and we quickly learned that no flights would be going out anytime soon, so we went to the front desk and they offered us a free night on Wednesday, that was so great. The next morning, it was so surreal... what do you do? Do we go to the park and try to enjoy it amidst such a huge tragedy? We decided to go, and Disney already had the security check points in place. We didn't know when we wold get home, so we ended up staying until the weekend, hoping to be able to fly home at anytime. We went to the Magic Kingdom on Friday, which was during a tropical storm, but they had a moment of silence for the victims of 9/11 at the flagpole, it was so silent and sad, I will never forget that moment. We decided to drive our rental car home, which was a Chrysler convertible, not the best vehicle for such a long trip, as we were driving back to Connecticut, but had to go to the airport in Rhode Island first, as that's where we had flown out of and left our car. We had no choice, since air travel was still grounded and we had to get home. Driving past NY, we actually could still see smoke rising from where the towers had been. That is one trip I will never ever forget.