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07/06/05
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
What would Southern California have been like without the theme park we all grew up with?
David Koenig>> Without Disneyland, undoubtedly Orange County would be a different place. It would have certainly grown with the valuable beachfront property. Eventually people were going to come, but Disneyland speeded up that process.
Val>> And then, he's got an ear for talent that can lift an aspiring musician from obscurity to celebrity. We go to KCRW to meet Nic Harcourt.
It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.
Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val>> It was the mid-fifties and the California Dream was in full swing when Disneyland burst on the scene, putting Orange County on the map. Now Disneyland is celebrating its fiftieth birthday and Roger Cooper looks back at the impact Disneyland has had on Southern California's economy and culture.
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Roger Cooper>> Disneyland was born in a different time, a time when even Californians didn't stop smoking for anything.
Announcer>> "For the past year, this signature has announced the opening of Disneyland, the show. Now it announces the opening of Disneyland, the place. The people and eyes around the world are focused on these one hundred sixty acres here in Anaheim, California."
Roger Cooper>> An animated filmmaker named Walt Disney had wanted a nicer place to take his daughters, so he built it himself on what had been orange groves in Anaheim, California.
Art Linkletter>> "I'm standing here on the railroad tracks with helicopters roaring overhead and cars parking by the thousands and I'm in front of the big Disneyland and Santa Fe Railroad station."
Roger Cooper>> Opening day went out live to the nation in black and white July 17, 1955.
Art Linkletter>> "Isn't this a riot today?"
Ronald Reagan>> "Oh, it certainly is."
Art Linkletter>> "And, Ron, your first job is down here in the town square."
Ronald Reagan>> "Well, right out here in front of the depot, yes, for the Main Street and the parade and so forth."
Art Linkletter>> "We have lots to do. Get busy."
Ronald Reagan>> "Okay."
Art Linkletter>> "So long, Ron. Thanks for coming out."
Walt Disney>> "To all who comes to this happy place, welcome."
Roger Cooper>> People cued up that day to see something that hadn't existed, the Theme Park.
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Roger Cooper>> Journalist Jim Cooper was there that day to cover the opening.
Jim Cooper>> None of us expected to find what we did find, that you could walk down a street which was Main Street and be at the turn of the century and you could go to Adventureland or Fantasyland or Frontierland or the world of tomorrow, Tomorrowland. So nobody was prepared for the dynamism of this place.
Announcer>> "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. All of us at the Magic Kingdom are glad to have you as our guests today."
Roger Cooper>> And now, fifty years later, at ten o'clock every morning, people are still lining up to experience it.
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Roger Cooper>> For half a century now, Disneyland has worked its magic on millions of visitors, but all that time it's had a major impact on the area outside its gates.
Curt Pringle>> The resort area generates about sixty percent of the revenue to the city's general fund.
Bob Tucker>> Well, in March, we commissioned a study to look at the impact of the Disneyland Resort not only in Orange County, but throughout Southern California, and it was determined that we have a $3.6 billion dollar annual economic impact and that we help support about sixty thousand jobs in the greater Los Angeles area.
Roger Cooper>> Do you choose cold Cleveland for your convention or sunny Southern California with Disneyland next door? Anaheim tourist officials have been winning that one for fifty years.
Charles Ahlers>> In fact, we had forty-three million visitors to the county last year and the preponderance of those came through Anaheim to enjoy Disneyland or the new Disney California Adventure.
Curt Pringle>> The benefit of Disneyland goes far beyond the city of Anaheim. Forty-five percent of the tax dollars spent, forty-five percent of the income spent by people who visit here, is spent within Orange County. Forty percent is spent within Los Angeles County. So there is a benefit to the entire region.
Roger Cooper>> Can you buy exposure for Orange County like that place gives here?
Charles Ahlers>> No, no. I mean, Disney is spending millions of dollars annually to make us all look good and our ability to hitchhike on their success has been a real attribute not only for this organization, but for every other marketing organization that exists in Orange County.
Roger Cooper>> Along the way, Disneyland has provided thousands of young people with their first jobs. Among them, comedian Steve Martin, who worked in the Main Street Magic Shop.
Steve Martin>> "So young Steve Martin starts performing magic here and, lo and behold, they start calling the place the Magic Kingdom. Coincidence? I don't think so."
Bob Tucker>> There are twenty thousand people who work directly for the Disneyland Resort and then there are an additional forty-five thousand who have jobs that are supported by the Disneyland Resort that work in the Anaheim community area.
David Koenig>> Without Disneyland, undoubtedly Orange County would be a different place. It would have certainly grown with the valuable beachfront property. Eventually people were going to come, but Disneyland speeded up that process and as well created a more quickly urban environment than may have happened.
Roger Cooper>> David Koenig wrote the book on Disneyland behind the scenes. It's called "Mouse Tales".
David Koenig>> I've just been fascinated with Disneyland since, you know, I was a little boy. It was sort of like the villagers growing up in Orange County and Disneyland was the castle on the hill. It was a place we'd pilgrimage to once a year and it was a chance for the family to have the time of their lives and wait to go another year.
Tim O'Day>> Everybody can explain to you, and they have their version of what Disneyland is. You know, everybody kind of takes Disneyland as their own, you know. A former Disney executive once said to me in describing Disneyland. He describes Disneyland as huggable. And I said, huggable? He said, yeah, you can get your arms around it. It makes you feel good.
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David Koenig>> California Adventure is a slow starter, we'll say. We had grand dreams that it would double the attendance of the Resort overnight because now people had two parks to see instead of one and people would spend the night.
Bob Tucker>> We believe that we've turned the corner on Disney's California Adventure and that with some of the new attractions that we've put in, most recently Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and some of the other things that have come along in the last couple of years, that we are appealing to all ages.
David Koenig>> The corporate turmoil has made people at Disney realize they're being watched. They're being watched closely by their customers and we have to keep things up to traditional Disney standards.
Roger Cooper>> Can they expand in this area?
Charles Ahlers>> Absolutely, Roger. If you look down the street, down Convention Way, you'll see the fabled strawberry patch. You know, Disney owns that and there's an option there to do something exciting in the near future.
Roger Cooper>> With this year, Disneyland faces a golden anniversary and a golden opportunity to connect with new generations. Do you think this is an idea worth keeping another fifty years?
Jim Cooper>> Absolutely, absolutely. I hope that they can keep it in the pristine condition in which people find it now. It's an exciting, charming, dynamic and romantic place.
David Koenig>> What Disneyland sells is magic which is a very fragile thing. It's not a commodity. You can't stamp out magic, you know, on an assembly line. It has to be hand-crafted and tenderly put together with love. Fortunately, they pay the attention to do that and that's why it's still here and better than it's ever been before.
Bob Tucker>> Well, Walt Disney himself said Disneyland will never be completed as long as there's imagination left in the world. We've been around for fifty years and I'm sure we'll be around for another fifty more years with that kind of spirit alive and well here.
Tim O'Day>> We all have a place in our mind that we can escape to. You know, that happy place that we keep back here someplace. I think, for me, Disneyland is the physical embodiment of that. You know, I don't have to sit in a chair and think happy thoughts. I can walk out into Disneyland and it's a comfort to know that it's always here.
David Koenig>> Disneyland can be the same, better than it is now, in fifty more years if it remembers what it was all about when it started and remembers what it's done in the last eighteen months to restore it to that pinnacle of greatness. As long as it holds fast to that and doesn't get distracted, it will continue to make lots of money, make lots of people happy and be here, the big star of Southern California, you know, in 2055.
Roger Cooper>> I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.
Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".
Val>> Parents depend on them to help choose movies that are appropriate for their children, the movie rating system, the G, PG, PG-13 and R. But can you trust that rating system? According to a study by the Journal of Pediatrics, not all PGs are created equal. Sam Louie takes a closer look at the MPAA rating system.
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Sam Louie>> Whether it's a PG --
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Sam Louie>> PG-13 --
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Sam Louie>> Or R-rated movies --
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Sam Louie>> Critics feel the current movie rating system doesn't offer a consistent standard to measure violence.
Luci Jenkins>> And what we found is that several PG and PG-13 films were actually just as violent as R-rated films.
Sam Louie>> Luci Jenkins is with the UCLA's School of Public Health. She is one of the co-authors of this journal article published in the American Academy of Pediatrics. The article examines and evaluates the Motion Picture Association of America otherwise known as the MPAA and its treatment of violence in its rating system.
Luci Jenkins>> For the study, we looked at one hundred films from 1994 that included PG, PG-13 and R-rated films. From those films, we looked at the violence content within to see if the ratings were distinctly different in terms of the violence content.
Sam Louie>> Because of the large sampling of films in the study, the authors say it gave them a unique opportunity to dissect the violence scene by scene and find common trends among the various rated movies.
Luci Jenkins>> First we looked at the frequency of the violence, so any time there was a violent act, we stopped the film and we decided how serious was that violent act and we ranked it on a scale of one to three. A level one seriousness would be something like a slap in the face where a level three seriousness would be a weapon discharged.
Sam Louie>> The researchers say they also looked at how explicit and graphic the violence was, whether there was blood or flesh torn, and rated it accordingly. Not surprisingly, what they found was that, on average, the frequency of violence increased from a PG film to PG-13 to an R-rated movie, but they were stunned by the fluctuation of violence they found even among movies that shared the same rating.
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Sam Louie>> Case in point? The study concluded the movie "True Lies" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and the remake of "The Jungle Book" were among the most violent movies in their sample.
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Sam Louie>> Statistics from the research claim that "The Jungle Book" had more acts of violence than "True Lies", yet "The Jungle Book" was rated PG while "True Lies" got an R rating.
Luci Jenkins>> That was what we were concerned with, is that there are PG films that have, you know, so many acts of violence just like the R films.
Sam Louie>> And in your eyes, you feel there needs to be a more consistent rating system?
Luci Jenkins>> The main conclusion from the study is that -- or the big take-home message -- is that parents need to look beyond just the age-based rating. They need to look beyond the PG, the PG-13 and the R.
Sam Louie>> The study shows nearly seventy percent of all parents check a film's rating before allowing their children to see it. Researchers say this underscores the need for a more thorough rating system.
Luci Jenkins>> This is highly serious violence and we feel like the MPAA could do a better job at rating the films in terms of the violence content.
Sam Louie>> The MPAA did not comment on camera, but released this statement saying "The MPAA rating system has never classified films merely based on counting the number of violent acts in the film. The MPAA system considers graphics, intensity, context, etc. - factors most parents consider, not just a numerical count. Under the MPAA system, films are rated by parents. The MPAA rating descriptors are formulated by parents immediately after seeing the film." On its website, we learned eight to thirteen parents make up a ratings board based in Los Angeles. The board views each film and, after a group discussion, the board votes on the rating. Each rating is decided by majority vote.
Dr. Teri Webb>> We think that they would be able to come forward with much more concise, much more precise and straightforward content-based ratings, which is what we are much more in favor of.
Sam Louie>> However, Dr. Teri Webb, the other co-author of the study, believes the MPAA should take the lead and formulate a more exhaustive review system.
Dr. Teri Webb>> That would mean designing a method that could capture both frequency as well as seriousness of violence and, then again, maybe frequency and seriousness of language transgressions, maybe frequency and graphicness of sexual representations. So they could add a more objective element, a sort of systematic methodology, to their analysis or to their ratings schema. It is an alternative to the MPAA rating system.
Sam Louie>> Dr. Webb points to a review system known as PSV ratings, which she hopes the MPAA will one day model. The website says the ratings are conducted by child development specialists in which each film is rated in three categories: profanity, sexuality and violence. A simple stoplight color-code is assigned to the different categories for each movie.
Dr. Teri Webb>> You have a kind of streetlight system so that you get the red, yellow and green. And how they lay it out is that, for each film, they give you a rating on those three parameters: profanity, sexuality and violence. They give you a green light, a yellow light or a red light.
Elaine Ahmad>> Violence is probably the biggest thing that concerns me and probably sexual content for the younger ones.
Sam Louie>> Some moviegoers we talked with believe the MPAA offers a good first step for evaluating movies.
Jessica Keith>> They seem to do a pretty good job. They pick the movies and rate the movies according to how they think they will sell. They target the ones to kids to kids, the ones to adults to adults and teens to teens.
Sam Louie>> But they also feel strongly that its ratings should not be the final factor in your decision-making.
Elaine Ahmad>> Well, I do think it could use improvement, but at the same time, I do feel like it is the parents' responsibility to screen the movies themselves and decide which ones are appropriate for their children.
Sam Louie>> Despite the difference of opinion over the current rating system, the MPAA suggests that parents do more than just check the rating. They should read movie reviews, parents' magazines and consult other rating systems before making a movie choice for your child. This way, there will be fewer surprises for both you as a parent and your child as a viewer.
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Sam Louie>> I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.
To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:
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Los Angeles, California 90027
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Val>> He's host of the popular public radio program, "Morning Becomes Eclectic", and his ear for talent can lift a young musician out of obscurity. So how does he decide what you listen to? Vicki Curry has this profile of Nic Harcourt.
Nic Harcourt>> "Morning Becomes Eclectic. It's 89.9 KCRW. I'm Nic Harcourt, your host for the show. It's Friday and we . . ."
Vicki Curry>> Nic Harcourt may be, as one critic says, the most influential DJ in America, but it's an unlikely description for the music director of a public radio station.
Nic Harcourt>> You know, we try to feature as much different music and different artists as we can and give the audience an opportunity to hear stuff they won't hear anywhere else. Most of the music tends to be new and upcoming artists and bands and pretty much in any musical genre. It comes from all over the place, you know, whether it's from record labels or whether it's from, you know, someone making it in their basement and pressing out their own CD.
Vicki Curry>> Harcourt's daily program, "Morning Becomes Eclectic", has become a proving ground for unknown artists.
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Nic Harcourt>> We've been really successful in, you know, picking some artists before the rest of the world caught up to them, who've gone on to be really big.
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Nic Harcourt>> We're the first station in the states to play Coldplay. We're the first station to play Norah Jones.
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Vicki Curry>> When an artist is played by Nic Harcourt, their music is heard by some influential listeners.
Nic Harcourt>> Well, it's intriguing, you know, obviously doing this type of show in Los Angeles because there's a portion of our audience that are movers and shakers. You know, people who can make decisions about songs being put into advertisements or into, you know, television programs or into movies.
It's kind of ironic, when you really think about it, that this little public radio station in the basement is providing the soundtrack for, you know, a lot of these big commercial ventures. I mean, it's so weird. You know, I get soundtracks from movies that come into the station and people come to me and say, "Did you guys put this together?" You know, it happens all the time. I mean, it's flattering, you know? I just hope they're all subscribers (laughter).
Nic Harcourt>> "The track that just ended is from "Quincy". It's from a self-released album called "Also Known as Mary" and it's on her own record label. . ."
Vicki Curry>> Harcourt is known as one of a handful of DJs who can make an artist's career. It's a far cry from his last job. His only prior radio experience was in Woodstock, New York, so it was a big coup when he got the job at KCRW in 1998.
Nic Harcourt>> I walked into a job basically that everyone on the air had applied for and didn't get. So when I came to Los Angeles, I kind of kept a low profile for the first month or two, you know. I didn't come in with any great plan of, you know, changing anything.
Vicki Curry>> That didn't last for long. He's helped KCRW expand its visibility through several different ventures beyond the radio station.
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Nic Harcourt>> You know, one of the biggest things that we've done is get involved with shows in town by partnering with promoters and fans and managers. The artists whose music we play, we get involved in presenting their shows.
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Nic Harcourt>> We do like, you know, three hundred shows a year now, plus we do some now in New York and in San Francisco as well for our dot.com subscribers. So that just happened. I mean, it was basically me looking at the opportunity and knowing that this is something that happens in radio and commercial radio that KCRW had never done before and just using the opportunity to help spread the word.
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Vicki Curry>> Harcourt was the guiding force behind two special concerts that have become annual events. The "Sounds Eclectic Evening" happens every November as a fundraiser for the station and "Next Up" is a free show featuring independent local artists.
Nic Harcourt>> We've picked four artists who are not famous or well-known, but they're either unsigned or, you know, on independent Los Angeles-based labels.
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Nic Harcourt>> We realize that, you know, we've plugged into something with the audience which was people wanting to see something different, you know?
Vicki Curry>> Harcourt also hosts a weekly program. Also called "Sounds Eclectic", it's syndicated to some thirty public stations nationwide. CDs featuring live performances from the program help out in their pledge drives. And for those who can't hear Harcourt on a local radio station, there's the World Wide Web.
Nic Harcourt>> I mean, we have so many people listening online throughout the country and throughout the world now. I mean, people who send us money from different cities to subscribe to the station. So, you know, it's helped create -- I don't really like the word -- but a brand, I guess, that, you know, people kind of recognize now outside of the station.
Vicki Curry>> That's what drives Nic Harcourt, his desire to keep exposing audiences to new music, but what fans really want to know is how does he decide what to play?
Nic Harcourt>> I can't tell you how. I mean, if I like it, it gets added to our library, you know, and gets played on the radio. If I don't like it, it doesn't. It's an instinctive thing, you know. It's hard to quantify that. I mean, I guess if I have to synthesize it down to anything, it's like if it has lyrics that make me think or if it has a beat that makes me want to tap my toes, then there's a good chance that we'll play it. You know, every now and then, one of those artists will break through in a big way and that's great and it's really validating. But it's just as important to play the other stuff, even if it doesn't, you know, go on to be huge.
Vicki Curry>> Harcourt and his fellow DJs look out for new music, asking around and buying import records from other countries, but much of it comes right to him. He receives about four hundred CDs a week.
Nic Harcourt>> Maybe twenty of them might get added to our library and, out of those twenty that get added to the library, maybe eight of them will actually get air play. So it's a big filtering process.
Nic Harcourt>> "And when we come back in the next hour, much more coming your way, so please stay close for more "Morning Becomes Eclectic".
Vicki Curry>> Despite the success of KCRW, few other stations are willing to try out similar programming and so a public radio station stands alone in the world of new music.
Nic Harcourt>> There's a lot of music out there that doesn't get exposed, you know. There's a lot of music that we play on KCRW not just on my show, but on our nighttime shows and on our weekend shows, that doesn't get heard anywhere else. You know, that's part of what we're here for. We're here to expose the music, you know, that commercial stations don't pick up on.
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Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val>> Next time on Life and Times --
It's called agritourism and it's just one example of what small farms are doing these days to survive.
>> We soon discovered that people weren't going to be attracted out here just to buy fruits and vegetables because this is a market for doing an increasingly better job of marketing and quality, so we needed other reasons to get people out here.
Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.
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