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Showing 1 - 3 of 3 matches in All Departments
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 Using information from over one hundred unpublished interviews, Todd James Pierce lays down the arc of Disneyland's development from an idea to a paragon of entertainment.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 the early 1950s, the Disney brothers hired Wood and his team to develop a feasibility study for an amusement park Walt wanted to build in southern California. ""Woody"" quickly became a central figure. In 1954, Roy Disney hired him as Disneyland's first official employee, its first general manager, and appointed him vice president of Disneyland, Inc., where his authority was exceeded only by Walt. A brilliant project manager, Wood was also a con man of sorts. Previously, he had forged his university diploma. A smooth-talker drawn to Hollywood, the first general manager of Disneyland valued money over art. As relations soured between Wood and the Disney brothers, Wood found creative ways to increase his income, leveraging his position for personal fame. Eventually, tensions at the Disney park reached a boiling point, with Walt demanding he be fired. 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 $17 million 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.
Las Vegas is considered a modern icon of excess. It offers every imaginable extreme of greed, pleasure, and despair, all supported by technology that enhances fantasy and allows residents and visitors alike to forget reality and responsibility. The authors of the fourteen stories in Dead Neon imagine Sin City in the near future, when excess has led to social, environmental, or economic collapse. Their stories range from futuristic casinos to the seared post-apocalyptic desert, from the struggle to survive in a repressive theocracy to the madness of living in a world where most life forms and all moral codes have vanished. Dead Neon explores the possible future of America by examining the near future of Las Vegas. The authors, all either Vegas-based or intimately familiar with the city, capture its unique rhythms and flavor and probe its potential for evoking the fullest range of the human spirit in settings of magic, horror, and despair.
News is "one of the few things that connects us as a nation"
observes the protagonist in the title story of "Newsworld", a new
collection by Todd James Pierce that explores America's obsession
with news and entertainment culture. The characters in "Newsworld"
seek to design realistic theme park attractions, such "OJ's Bronco:
The Ride" and "Seige at Waco, " that allow park guests to
experience the complexities of contemporary news events for
themselves. In the story "Columbine: The Musical, " high school
students stage a musical written as a means of discussing school
violence, while their vice principal wrangles a 10 percent discount
on a school security system in exchange for corporate sponsorship
of the play. In "Wrestling Al Gore, " a national wrestling
federation uses costumed wrestlers to cast the Gore/Bush election
recount into the ring In an ironic twist, fans become sympathetic
to the underdog Gore, champion his cause, and ultimately reflect on
the fate of the real politician. In "The Yoshi Compound: A Story of
Post-Waco Texas, " the followers of the Dalai Yoshi amass weapons
and riot gear in hopes of attracting media attention in order to
spread their message of love and world peace.
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