I remember the Disneyland aspect, same era in person, we lived very nearby, one city away.
Seems there were magazine photo articles on it as well, 'LIFE' maybe, 'National Geographic'...not sure. Don't recall the hydraulic fluid issues, but that tripped another recollection of a slightly earlier photographic technique employed by 'National Geographic', the derisively named 'Red Shirt School', where the photographer placed a brightly colored object to make the resulting image 'pop'. After-all mass printing of color photos had just been perfected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_shirt_(photography)