Filmed on location all around Walt Disney World Florida, Welcome to the World originally aired on March 23, 1975, as an episode of “The Wonderful World of Disney” Hosted by Lucie Arnaz, Lyle Waggoner, and Tommy Tune. What started as the grand opening of Walt Disney Worlds Space Mountain turned into a much bigger television special. The television special was titled Welcome to the World because it was the FIRST network TV special to take place at Walt Disney World Resort.
The action starts with our hosts checking into one of Walt Disney World’s resorts, The Polynesian, Contemporary, and Fort Wilderness, all singing that they have come to see “The New Space Mountain”. The first part of the musical extravaganza has Lucie Arnaz singing in and around The Polynesian and finding a boat to the Magic Kingdom. Lyle is making his way from the Contemporary via monorail, and Tommy somehow arrives via the Magic Kingdom Railroad from Fort Wilderness.
America’s newest musical family is up next, The Rhodes Kids, from the Tomorrowland Terrace, but not the Tomorrowland terrace you know today – The stage, which we watch rise from the floor where was that?
Lucie Arnaz runs into Scotty Plummer and explains that Walt Disney World has so many things to see, you can‘t rush through it: Queue the music; They got a Mickey Mouse, a Haunted House, a Firetruck and Donald Duck, a backwoods trail a monorail, some long canoes a jungle cruise, several pairs of singing bears, snow white and the seven dwarfs, grumpy, sneezy, bashful, sleepy, happy, doc and.. anyway, they got toys, balloons a large lagoon on which they sail a riverboat and other things like swans and geese and the Polynesian has some stuff, that’s not enough? It’s not; that’s the first verse of the song.
The special may have been recorded in March, but the Wooden soldiers are in full force and ready for a dance number with Lucie Arnaz.
The “Space Mountain Eve” party is being hosted at the Caribbean Plaza in Adventure Land the perfect party location, and we have an invitation with some special guests.
The special ends with the festivals from the opening day of Walt Disney World Space mountain; the dedication includes 50,000 Balloons, 1,000 doves, and a 2,000-piece marching band lining the track from the people mover. The ceremony was attended by astronauts Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, and Jim Erwin.
And as expected, our hosts get one of the first rides on the new attraction. The special ends with Lucie Arnaz “we hope one day you can get down here and experience this joy for yourself.”
[…] Walt Disney World opened to guests on October 1st, 1971, with some news outlets predicting over 300,000 visitors on day one. […]