photo #4424592

On this date in 1959, Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds, Submarine Voyage, and Monorail all opened to the public for the first time. The day before, on June 14, 1959, my friend, Disney Legend Bob Gurr, kidnapped Vice President Richard Nixon. Bob told me all about it on one episode of my podcast, Turkey Leg Talk... ❤️🏰 "We were building the monorail and two weeks before we were gonna dedicate it, we had the train set on the beam way. And in that two weeks we finished settling it and testing it and it broke down every day, except for the day before the dedication. We were also gonna have a live, 30 minute, black and white TV program and the monorail had to perform for the ribbon cutting." 🚝 "So I parked the monorail right at the platform, rather than taking it back to the the service area, 'cause I knew that if we were gonna have live television, to get their shot, all I had to do was drive it away far enough that it's out of the shot and then it can go break down again and it'd be okay. That was the plan but at about 11 o'clock in the morning on a really hot day, here comes Walt and he's got security with him and, oh God, he's got the Vice President of the United States, his wife, their two girls, some Secret Service guys. And Walt wanted to show off something he had that no one else had." "So he came up and took a look at the train and said, 'Well, Bobby, let's go inside it.' I said, 'Just give me a few minutes. I've gotta turn the air-conditioning on, because it's pretty hot!' So, as soon as it got cooled down I opened the door and we all piled into the cab and Walt introduces everybody all the way around. See, Nixon's a good friend of his, he calls him Dick...so, anyway, he says, 'You know, Dick, I'm the steam guy. I drive the steam locomotives here, but this is new, advanced, modern electric transportation so I have Bobby drive it!' (on the podcast, I inserted a "Lightbulb" noise because Bob's face lit up and he smiled with this memory) Pause. I just took off!" 😂🤣 (Both of us crack up here!) "Yeah I drove off and in those days, the train would go out and make a right turn and then make a left turn and then come back around over the sub ride, which meant that Nixon could see that on the load platform, all the Secret Service guys were there, I think there were four or five of them, they're there which means no Secret Service are on the train. Presidents always want to escape their Secret Service deal but they never can escape. It's just one of those things they all want to do and none of them ever do it. And, apparently Nixon caught on very quickly that he was successful, that he escaped the Secret Service. Of course, he let out some four letter words which I can't repeat!" "And then we got back to the platform and I thought, 'Oh, God, I gotta stop back where that ribbon is gonna go.' And then the girls said, 'Let's go again! Let's go again!' So Walt said, "Give 'em another ride!' ❤️🏰 At this point the Secret Service guys are running toward the train as it pulls back into the station. Bob has said they then ran alongside it as it sped up and left the station again! 😂 "I can't even remember that second lap around. I was so heartsick that we were gonna miss that shot and the ribbon cutting. And, besides, if it catches on fire again and we're over the sub ride, we don't have the evacuation ladders or anything and we'd burn that President up...of course, that would've saved him all of that Watergate stuff later!" 😲 Everyone made it back to the platform safely with no fires and no incidents. The Secret Service finally caught back up with Vice President Nixon and his family and, as Bob was walking the platform of his brand new monorail, he was approached by a furious German Alweg Monorail Engineer, named Conrad... "'Mr. Bob! (this is now Bob speaking with a German accent like Hogan's Heroes 😆) In Germany at Alweg, we spent seven years and seven million marks to develop the monorail and we never let the public on it and you stupid Disney people, you get it running one day and you put your Vice President on it?!' And he was furious and I said, 'Conrad, this is the Disney Way!'" ❤️🏰❤️ This one comes straight from my show, Turkey Leg Talk, and from the What About Bob? segments from the show. You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts! 🍗