Chuck Schmidt

Chuck Schmidt, bitten by the Disney bug at an early age, remembers watching The Mickey Mouse Club after school in the mid-1950s. During his 48-year career in the newspaper business, he channeled that love of Disney as the Sunday News and Travel editor for The Staten Island Advance. Chuck has written or co-authored seven books for Theme Park Press, including Disney's Dream Weavers, On the Disney Beat, An American in Disneyland Paris, Disney's Animal Kingdom: An Unofficial History and The Beat Goes On. Chuck has shared his passion for all things Disney in his Still Goofy About Disney blog on AllEars.Net since 2015. He resides in Beachwood, N.J., with his wife Janet. They have three adult children and seven grandchildren.


DISNEYLAND AT 70: Van France Saw First-Hand What ‘Car-Mageddon’ Looked Like

Posted on by Chuck Schmidt
The chaos that enveloped Disneyland on July 17, 1955, has become legendary. Broiling hot weather, ride malfunctions, no working water fountains, too many people. But the bedlam wasn’t just confined to the themed lands inside the berm. There was a madhouse outside the park as well. Van France was given the task of overseeing automobile traffic heading in and out of the park on that fateful day.
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DISNEYLAND AT 70: Jack Lindquist Went From Sweaty Bystander To Disneyland’s First President

Posted on by Chuck Schmidt
Jack Lindquist had the opportunity to walk around Disneyland a few weeks before opening day as a representative of Kelvinator, which was one of Disneyland’s many corporate sponsors. He began his self-guided tour by walking out to Town Square, where he saw the railroad station, the opera house, a fire station, and City Hall, all nearing completion. His eyes then glanced at a large department store, called The Emporium, then the Upjohn drug store, the Kodak photo shop and the Carnation ice cream parlor. Then he looked straight up Main Street USA in awe “of a real fairytale castle under construction,” he said. “At that moment, I realized that this Disney guy wasn’t building some nickel-and-dime amusement park. This was an entirely new concept in entertainment. It was damn exciting.”
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DISNEYLAND AT 70: Charlie Ridgway Found His Niche Covering Disneyland’s Opening

Posted on by Chuck Schmidt
Charlie Ridgway, who capped his wide-ranging professional career by being named a Disney Legend in 1999, was among the thousands of overheated people in attendance for Disneyland’s opening day. He was on assignment, covering the event for the Los Angeles Times-Mirror newspaper. “It was hot,” Charlie remembered during an interview I had with him in 2014, “and there were way too many people in the park. And not only that, but many of the attractions kept breaking down.” The day became known as Black Sunday for a reason.
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DISNEYLAND AT 70: Marty Sklar Went From Media Go-Fer To Emergency Horse-Whisperer

Posted on by Chuck Schmidt
When July 17, 1955, dawned, Marty Sklar was very much behind the scenes, assisting the throngs of media members on hand for the big event. “My assignment for the morning was actually in our PR offices in the original administration building – part of which had come from Ron Dominguez’s home on the site,” Marty told me. “Our offices had been turned into a press facility, and of course, as the ‘kid’ – I had been working ‘professionally’ all of one month by then! – I was basically a go-fer for the media.”
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DISNEYLAND AT 70: ‘Native Disneylander’ Ron Dominguez Witnessed The Opening Day Chaos

Posted on by Chuck Schmidt
In the months leading up to Disneyland's opening day on July 17, 1955, cast members and construction workers were putting in 14-to-16-hour days, seven days a week. Many were spending so much time on The Site, as it was known, that they often said they felt as if they were living there. Ron Dominguez could empathize. In an odd twist, Dominguez and his family did live on a section of the Disneyland property for the first 18 years of Ron’s life.
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Disney Dollars Were The Brainchild Of Disney Marketing Guru Jack Lindquist

Posted on by Chuck Schmidt
The Disney Dollars initiative was the brainchild of Disney Legend Jack Lindquist, who was among other things, a marketing genius. He joined the Disney fold in 1955, working in Disneyland’s marketing department, where he dreamed up some of the park’s most famous promotions, including Grad Nites, Vacationland Magazine, The Magic Kingdom Club and the Disneyland Ambassador Program. “I got the idea for Disney Dollars by reading the financial pages,” Lindquist said. "It dawned on me that Disneyland was big enough to have its own currency."
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