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Disney Parks is looking back on the one that started it all.
Fans got a big surprise during the “Creating The Happiest Place on Earth” panel at Destination D23 2025 in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday, Aug. 30, when Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Leslie Iwerks took the stage to announce the upcoming documentary Disneyland Handcrafted.
“Capturing the excitement of the creation of Disneyland as it was being built more than 70 years ago, you’ll get a chance to peek behind the orange groves and experience the making of the park like never before,” reads a Disney Parks Blog post about the documentary.
“This unique film, complete with ASMR moments and constructed using only rarely seen footage that Leslie handpicked through the Walt Disney Archives, depicts the thoughtfulness and care that was put into the development of Disneyland,” the post adds.
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The first trailer for Disneyland Handcrafted also premiered at Destination D23 alongside the big announcement from Iwerks, who previously helmed the Disney+ docuseries The Imagineering Story.
The trailer begins with a ’50s-era voiceover stating, “The people of this country are about to see and hear a new adventure in entertainment,” as some of the first construction is shown.
“It will come upon the American scene shortly under the title of Disneyland,” the voiceover adds.
Subsequent footage states that Walt Disney took “the greatest gamble of his life” in creating Disneyland, “a place the world had never dared to imagined” up until that point.
“Walt had, in his own mind, set a deadline that was impossible to make an opening of July of 1955,” another voice is heard saying of the “top secret” project, as more construction scenes are shown while a helicopter flies over orange groves.
According to the trailer, Disney, who died in 1966 at age 65, “tasked several cameramen to capture [the] construction” of Disneyland, showcased in “rarely seen footage” throughout the documentary.
Disney
At the end of the trailer, a man is heard recalling “a great big panic” to get the park completed ahead of its planned opening date in the summer of 1955.
“It was a miracle that it ever went on, just as it was a miracle that Disneyland ever got opened,” he adds, as footage of the finished park — which opened on July 17, 1955 — plays out.
Per the Disney Parks Blog post, Disneyland Handcrafted gives “an up-close, firsthand look at many of the artists, craftsmen and Walt Disney Imagineers who were actually there during the construction of Disneyland amid tough conditions.”
“So much of this footage has not seen the light of day … until now,” it adds.
Disneyland Handcrafted premieres this winter on Disney+ and Disney YouTube.
