American Broadcasting Company - History With Disney

History With Disney

In 1954, the Walt Disney anthology television series, under the title Disneyland, began showing not only programs made exclusively for television by the Disney studio, but also edited versions of some of the studio's theatrical films, such as Alice in Wonderland. Occasionally, a full-length film would be shown, such as Treasure Island, but these would be divided into two one-hour episodes. Disneyland, which premiered in conjunction with the impending opening of Disney's theme park of the same name, changed its name to Walt Disney Presents in 1958.

Walt Disney had long wanted ABC to broadcast his show in color, but the network still cash strapped balked at the idea because of the cost of color broadcasting. In 1961, Walt Disney struck a deal with NBC to move the show to their network. At the time, NBC was owned by RCA, who was promoting color at the time in order to sell their color TV sets. The show moved in the fall of 1961 and was renamed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color allowing Disney to broadcast in color, including shows that had previously been run in black and white on ABC. It became one of the longest-running TV series of all time. The show was revived twice: once in 1986 and again in 1997, both times on ABC (though the first revival moved to NBC in 1988 where it lasted two more years).

ABC was the first radio and television network to use the wireless microphone, a 1957 invention of Raymond A. Litke of Silicon Valley, California. ABC first tested Litke's wireless microphone at the Olympic trials held at Stanford University in 1959. ABC's broadcast of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in July, 1960, used the wireless microphone where it proved a great success with reporters on the convention floors, where reporters were able to roam about interviewing candidates and politicians without trailing wires or snarled cables.