October 27, 1954: Walt Disney's Disneyland premieres on NBC. It would be known by several names over the years: Walt Disney Presents from 1958 to 1961, then Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color until 1969, and then The Wonderful World of Disney until 1979.
It was an anthology series that featured child-friendly programming, with lots of kids in it, and, within a year, inspired another kids' show, The Mickey Mouse Club. There was a conscious effort to avoid controversy, and pretty much the only controversial thing about it at the time was the fact that the only non-white people on it were "Indians" in its Western installments. And they weren't exactly depicted as equal to white people.
Because of how saccharine it was, not everyone bought into Walt Disney's ideas, and thought the "World of Disney" was "wonderful." In the 1976 film Network, William Holden played a network producer, and said he wanted a show titled The Death Hour, full of "suicides, executions, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automobile smashups," bragging, "I could wipe that fuckin' Disney right off the air!"
It cannot be a coincidence that, when Network aired on TV for the 1st time, with the language and the sex scenes censored, it was on CBS rather than on NBC, Disney's network then. In 1996, Disney bought what was then the other major network, ABC.
What really knocked The Wonderful World of Disney off its Sunday night at 7:00 perch, and even that took over a decade to achieve, in the late 1970s, was CBS airing its "news magazine" show 60 Minutes opposite it. It might have been revenge for Disney knocking CBS' The Jack Benny Program off that same perch.
It became Disney's Wonderful World in 1979, simply Walt Disney in 1981, The Wonderful World of Disney again in 1983, The Disney Sunday Movie in 1986, and The Magical World of Disney in 1988, and returned to the name The Wonderful World of Disney when it switched to CBS in 1991. It switched to ABC in 1997, and has kept that name, although it has aired very irregularly. Its classic programming airs on Disney Channel and Disney Junior.
100th Anniversary logo for Walt Disney Studios, for 2023
Technically, it is the 3rd-longest-running show in the history of U.S. prime-time television, behind CBS' programs CBS Reports, the successor show to Edward R. Murrow's See It Now; and Hallmark Hall of Fame. Of course, like Disney, those shows are also irregularly aired. In terms of continuous broadcasting, the current longest-running U.S. prime-time TV show is The Simpsons, which has run since 1989.
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October 27, 1954 was a Wednesday. The show would move to Sunday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA season started 3 days later.
There were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.
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