Friday, November 19, 2010

Mickey & More, February 1969

Here's a fun shot of Mickey Mouse greeting a few fans in front of the Bank of America. Even the little girl with the Donald Duck hat likes Mickey! Apparently, popcorn sales were up on this sunny February day. Drinking fountain alert: could that be the same one that used to support bags of C&H sugar nearby?


I was at an event fairly recently in which Mickey Mouse made an appearance, and it was kind of amazing to watch the room full of adults suddenly smiling, applauding, and clearly genuinely happy to see him. And I was impressed with the way Mickey could interact so fully with guests in spite of his reliance on pantomime.


Boy oh boy, look how deserted Town Square appears here!


10 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

Whoa, the matching pantsuit on that little girl in the first pic is pretty groovy. I bet E.J. Peaker had one just like it.

There's a spinning wheel in the window between the Opera House and the Bank (first pic). Maybe Aurora is somewhere in the display as well.

Connie Moreno said...

Groovy photos...someday I'm gonna find myself in one of them, LOL.

Oh, and I'd marry Mickey if I could.

Capt. Tomorrow said...

It looks like The Mick is taking his own sweet time with the guests (unlike today where if you're with a character more than several seconds you get the bums rush).

I want about 4 dozen of the popcorn boxes!

Thufer said...

And, in the background:
Hills Brothers Coffee Garden. Yumm!

Major Pepperidge said...

TokyoMagic!, I didn't notice the spinning wheel, maybe you're right about Aurora being nearby. I thought they only did the fancy windows at the Emporium?

Connie, Minnie wouldn't be too happy about that.

Captain, you're right, it is strange today to see long lines of people waiting for a few moments with Mickey.

Thufer, I believe the phrase the kids like today is "Yummo"!

TokyoMagic! said...

Personally, I don't remember any of the windows other than the Emporium having character displays, but I have a 1971 photo of my brother and myself in front of the bank window (the boxy one that kind of juts out onto the sidewalk....which is just out of view in your first pic) and it contains a scene from Winnie the Pooh.

Steve Tanner at Magical Trash said...

Kids line up to visit with the festive Main Street USA trash can, but this stupid rodent/character person keeps preventing them from what they want to see! What a ripoff!

Katella Gate said...

I'm wondering if they didn't move older Emporium displays to these secondary windows around Main Street when there was nothing specific to merchandise?

We ALWAYS entered/exited the park thru the west portal (do not ask why, we had a lot of family rituals like that), so I have no recollection of what was going on in the Opera House windows.

JG said...

Ha! What Thufer said!

Meesa wants the Hills Bros! Remember the old HB logo? it was an old man in a robe and a turban drinking coffee out of a bowl. I never remember the image ever being explained, but assumed that it reflected coffee being a product of arabic origin.

I have an old can on my workbench today full of nuts and bolts.

After all, Moka (Mocha) is a port in Saudi Arabia or thereabouts.

Imagine trying to market a product with that theme today.

JG

Chuck said...

That deserted Town Square photo was probably taken on February 7th, 1969. On that date, a miscommunication between two conrollers in the FEMA Operations Center in Washington inadvertently set off the Emergency Broadcast System, warning citizens to seek shelter immediately as the Nation's defensive systems rolled into ZOMBIECON 1.

These people evidently didn't get the message. Either that or they were already zombies and felt they had nothing to fear.