On this day in 1959, the 90-minute live television special Kodak Presents Disneyland ’59 debuted. Hosted by Disney Legend Art Linkletter, the show introduced audiences to the latest attractions at Disneyland, including the Submarine Voyage, the Matterhorn, the Motorboat Cruise, a larger and improved Autopia, and the first daily operating Monorail in the western hemisphere. A highlight of the program was the big parade down Main Street. Disney Legend Harriet Burns from the model shop worked on all of the new attractions as well as the televised parade. “They were having all these guests,” she recalled. “They had an aquacade with swimming mermaids and they had the Sierra Club climbing the Matterhorn. They had all these different hikers and Swiss yodelers. It was a big deal and we had to be on time. They had floats (for the parade) and our Matterhorn model (the actual model created for the development of the attraction) was on the float with an H2 gauge train running through it for the bobsled. I brought in my daughter’s leotards at the last moment to cut them up to put between the cars on the railroad for the float because it had to bend. We were always bringing our kids’ toys in. We didn’t have time to shop. We’d just bring in our kids things and use it for whatever and put it together.”
