page_title: History of the American Broadcasting Company
section_title: First bonds with Disney
hierarchical_section_title: History of the American Broadcasting Company / American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres / First bonds with Disney
caption_attribution_description: Dr. Von Braun, right, is shown in this photograph taken in the 1950s with Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger. The two are shown discussing concepts for a Walt Disney television special on the exploration of space, Mars and Beyond (1957).
context_page_description: The American Broadcasting Company is an American multinational commercial broadcast television network that is a flagship property of Walt Disney Television, a subsidiary of the Disney Media Networks division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California, on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network's secondary offices, and headquarters of its news division, is in New York City, at its broadcast center at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
  The network's history dates back to 1927, when the network was created as an NBC-operated radio network called the NBC Blue Network. It would later become an independent television network known as the American Broadcasting Company in 1943, and be purchased by The Walt Disney Company on February 6, 1996.
context_section_description: Walt Disney and his brother Roy contacted Goldenson at the end of 1953 for ABC to agree to finance part of the Disneyland project in exchange for producing a television program for the network. Walt wanted ABC to invest $500,000 and accrued a guarantee of $4.5 million in additional loans, a third of the budget intended for the park. Around 1954, ABC agreed to finance Disneyland in exchange for the right to broadcast a new Wednesday night program, Disneyland, which debuted on the network on October 27, 1954 as the first of many anthology television programs that Disney would broadcast on all three networks over the course of the next 50 years.
  When Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, ABC aired a special live broadcast commemorating the park's first day of operation, Dateline: Disneyland. Shortly thereafter, on October 3, 1955, a second regularly scheduled program produced by Disney made its debut, The Mickey Mouse Club, a children's program that aired Monday through Friday afternoons, which starred a group of 24 children known as the "Mouseketeers". The two Disney programs made 1955 the year that ABC was first profitable as a network and station owner.
caption: Wernher von Braun and Ernst Stuhlinger in the episode "Mars and Beyond" (1957) from Disneyland, the first of many Walt Disney anthology television series.
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