When Disney+ launched on November 12th, 2019, one of the first shows created exclusively for the streaming service was the 6-part miniseries The Imagineering Story, the story of how Walt Disney founded his team of engineers who imagine, or “Imagineers.” The miniseries was directed and executive produced by Leslie Iwerks. Leslie Iwerks is an documentary filmmaker, whose grandfather, Ub Iwerks was the first person to animate Mickey Mouse. Leslie’s father, Don Iwerks, is also known at Disney for inventing the 360 Degree camera which produced the former Disneyland park attraction America the Beautiful.
Leslie Iwerks, has worked on numerous Disney-themed projects, including The Man Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story (1999), which is a tribute to her late grandfather and The Pixar Story (2007). She received a Best Documentary, Short Subjects, Oscar Nomination for the Short Film Recycled Life, also released in 2007, and on January 22nd, 2026, released her latest documentary to both Disney+ and YouTube, Disneyland: Handcrafted. My thoughts are as follows:
“Disneyland: Handcrafted,” delves deeper into the excruciating details of construction that went on as Walt Disney and his team Imagineers built Disneyland. It features no first-person narration, but several audio “excerpts” from Walt Disney, his family (daughter Diane and nephew Roy), and imagineers Harper Goff, Marty Sklar, Bob Gurr, and Blaine Gibson. Each discusses their own memories of working their fingers to the bone as they built the park, how it’s budget escalated as they moved closer and closer to opening day, July 17th, 1955, and how both the work and financial constraints were so overwhelming, that very few people believed that the park would be successful (except for Walt himself!)
The documentary acknowledges each of Disneyland’s beloved lands, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Frontierland, etc., and the audio interviewees explain that every part of the park faced some sort of problem. The imagineers simply always did the best they could to solve them. Two of those interviewees include Harriet Burns and Bob Gurr. Burns was Disney’s very first female imagineer, and she oversaw the designing of the Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion, while Gurr designed the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the Submarine Voyage, and the Double Decker Buses on Main Street. At 94 years old, Gurr remains one of the only two imagineers alive today who worked at Walt Disney Imagineering during Walt Disney’s lifetime. (The other is Orlando Ferrante, who is 93. Ferrante worked on designing Disneyland Paris and helped launch the Disney Cruise Line in Venice. Sadly, he is not featured in the documentary.)
“Disneyland: Handcrafted” is guaranteed to deepen your appreciation for the history of Disneyland and those who worked to make it come to life. While many of those people are sadly deceased, it’s easy to imagine them being proud that their park is still beloved—nearly 71 years later. No one could have ever predicted the kind of success they had. This documentary will also deepen your appreciation for Leslie Iwerks’s skills as a documentary filmmaker, and how she continues the talent that runs in her family.
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