He had left Disney in 1946 to go to Twentieth Century Fox. “I had deserted Walt, which was a very criminal act (or at least he thought it was).” So when he got the call, Disney hadn’t been his boss for years, and possibly held a grudge against him. Still, a summons from Walt Disney was not easily flouted. He went at once.
Disney met him and shook his hand. “Hi, Herbie, we’re in the Zorro Building.” Once there, Ryman asked what was going on. Disney told him, “We’re going to build an amusement park.”
“That’s interesting.” Ryman said. “Where are you going to build it?”
“Well, we were going to do it across the street, but now it’s gotten too big. We’re going to look for a place.”
“What are you going to call it?”
“I’m going to call it Disneyland.”
Disney explained that the project had been germinating in his mind for a long time. Disneyland would be different from any other amusement park ever built. And it would cost plenty, far more than Disney could afford. But he’d had an idea of how to raise the money. The obstreperous new medium of television had alarmed most moviemakers, but Disney saw in it valuable possibilities for advertising, and for raising capital.
That Monday, his brother Roy was going to New York to pitch a Walt Disney television series. He expected a warm reception—there had been a good deal of interest in a Disney TV show—but there was a hook. Any station that signed on for the show would also have to pay for the park.
Disney fully realized that TV executives might not be eager to enter the faded and ramshackle outdoor-amusement industry. Still, the show was bound to be good, and Roy would have with him a powerfully persuasive rendering of an aerial view of the proposed park.
Intrigued, Ryman asked to see the drawing.
“You’re going to do it.”
The artist was appalled. “No. I’m not. You’re not going to call me on Saturday morning at 10 A.M. and expect me to do a masterpiece that Roy could take and get the money. It will embarrass me and it will embarrass you.”
Disney started to plead, his visitor said, “like a little boy who wants something.” With tears in his eyes, “Walt paced back and forth. Then he went over into the corner and he turned his head around with his back to me and said coaxingly, ‘Will you do it if I stay here with you?’”
Ryman gave in. “I knew I couldn’t do a good job, but if he wanted to stay up all Saturday night and all Sunday night, I figured I could do it, too.”