“Most people look at Disney as merely a kind of entertainer, as the creator of children’s entertainment,” Watts notes. “What I found really interesting about Disney is that his creations were connected to some very serious historical issues and the American experience.” Likewise, he discovered that the theme park “connects to broader issues and developments as well. In this very creative way,” says Watts, “Disney spun this picture of happiness that was connected to the American way of life and material plenty.”

Watts’ most recent research resulted in a biography of Hugh Hefner—Mr Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream (2008). “Hefner has been a very significant historical figure in American popular culture.” At the front edge of the sexual revolution in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, Hefner signified liberation—sexual and otherwise. “In that sense,” explains Watts, “in the 1980s and ‘90s, Hefner became a kind of foil for the Reagan administration; the Meese Commission on pornography went after him very strongly. He became the bogeyman in the age of Reagan.”