| Sumario: | One of the pleasures of animation, it has been argued, is that it affords viewers a sense of power over the everyday, thanks to its ability to bring into being a world unrestrained by the conventions of realism or of probability. This principle is one that Walt Disney not only well understood, but also brought to bear in his studio's early foray into the realms of science and science fiction, the "Man in Space" programs created for the Disneyland television series during the 1950s. In these shows, produced against a backdrop of popular media science fiction that was clearly colored by the anxieties and uncertainties of the Cold War and its threat of atomic holocaust, Disney employed his studio's strength in animation to create a new context for these science-related issues, one that allowed for safe speculation about the future, while reframing some of the more disturbing or intractable problems as science fiction, thereby reassuring viewers and offering them a sense of power over the contingencies of their world.
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