Hello I'm Daven Hiskey and you're watching the Today I Found Out youtube channel.
In the video today we're looking at how the practice of saying I'm Going to Disneyland
after winning a major sporting event got started, and whether any of these athletes actually
go to Disneyland after.
In January of 1987, CEO of Disney, Michael Eisner, and his wife were having dinner with
Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager.
Rutan and Yeager had just recently become the first to fly an aircraft around the world
without re-fueling or stopping.
At a certain point in the dinner, Eisner's wife, Jane, asked Rutan and Yeager what they
were going to do now that they'd achieved this momentous milestone.
The response she got was, "Well, we're going to Disneyland."
Jane Eisner thought this would make a great slogan in an advertising campaign and suggested
it to her husband, Michael.
Michael Eisner liked it and decided that Disney would use this slogan in a commercial following
Super Bowl XXI, in 1987 in which the New York Giants defeated the Denver Broncos 39-20.
The athlete they got to star in this commercial was the quarterback for the Giants, Phil Simms.
During the game, Simms completed one of the better performances by a quarterback in Super
Bowl history, going 22 for 25 in pass completions for a total of 268 yards.
Even more remarkable was the fact that two of the three incomplete passes were good throws,
simply dropped by the receivers.
He also set the record for most consecutive pass completions in a Super Bowl game.
For this outstanding performance, Simms was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXI and offered
$75,000 (about $160,000 today) by Disney to appear in their commercial, with his part
filmed directly after the game.
During this, he was to say "I'm gonna go to Disney World!"
with alternate takes having him say "Disneyland" instead of "Disney World".
Disney then followed this up with making three more such commercials in 1987, following other
major sporting championships.
These included hiring: yachtsman Dennis Conner, after winning the America's Cup; NBA star
Magic Johnson, after the Lakers won the NBA Finals, and Major League Baseball player Frank
Viola, after the Twins won the World Series that year.
So at this point you may be wondering if the people paid to utter these words actually
end up going to Disneyland or Disney World after filming the ad spot.
It turns out, that yes, many do.
You see, Disney gives them an "MVP" all-expense paid trip, flying them on a private jet to
Disneyland or Disney World and then further puts their family up in a luxory suite for
the duration of their vacation.
They also are made the Grand Marshall of a parade and take part in various events for
Disney during their stay.
Bonus Facts:
If you’re wondering why American Football is called that and so-called “European”
Football is called “Soccer” in America, Soccer was a popular name for Football in
Britain in the sport’s earliest days.
When the rules for the sport were first being defined, it was named “Association Football”
to distinguish it from the many other forms of football commonly played.
Within a year of its inception, this got slurred down to “Assoccer,” after the common practice
of adding “-er” to nicknames at the time in Britain.
Very shortly after this, “Assoccer” became “Soccer,” which remained a semi-popular
nickname for the sport in Britain until about a half century ago, along with just calling
it “Football.”
The game initially spread throughout the world primarily known as “Football.”
However, in countries where other forms of football already were dominate, the nickname
“Soccer” was, and in some cases still is, the preferred name to avoid confusion.
The average NFL game is about 3 hours and 11 minutes long.
However, only about 11 minutes of that span features actual game play.
Championship Football games are called “bowls” thanks to a stadium designed by Myron Hunt,
Rose Bowl.
Rose Bowl was modeled after the design of Yale’s stadium, Yale Bowl, which got its
name from the fact that it resembled a bowl.
Gradually other cities and universities with Football teams saw the money making opportunities
and promotional value of these tournament games, like the Rose Bowl, and began creating
their own “bowl” games, even though many of these games were not played in bowl shaped
stadiums.
The NFL eventually borrowed this terminology when they created the Pro Bowl
in 1951, and later, of course, the Super Bowl.