Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Tomorrowland, September 1967

Yessiree, I sure do love this first photo. The original "New Tomorrowland" really was brand spankin' new here. And it looks fantastic! While many of the buildings and other features were primarily white (Mary Blair influence perhaps?), there were plenty of splashes of bright color, like the Skyway buckets and the Peoplemover vehicles (no railings on them yet). The Carousel of Progress building looks swell, and I love the tiny patch of brilliant color from the magenta and orange sign (part of the Tomorrowland Terrace?).


This second photo was certainly taken mere moments after the first one, and yet the warm sunlight is nearly completely gone. Soon Tomorrowland will take on a whole new look as the lights come on and add their own magic.

17 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THESE! Yep, the magenta and orange you see are Tomorrowland Terrace's light-up menu boards. I was just at the park last night and even after being recently redone, the Tomorrowland Terrace's interior is still hideously brown! Are they trying to tell us that the future is going to be absent of all "happy" colors?

Thufer said...

It was indeed a vibrant tomorrow at this time. Even the shade of 'Gray' on the Nautilus and the George Washington somehow are brilliantly colorful.

Katella Gate said...

Does anybody know if they simply enclosed the Skyway's open lattice towers, or did they replace them entirely?

Today's password is "phali", which strikes me as a word too naughty to actually exist.

TokyoMagic! said...

Katella, your password is missing another "l" and also a "c", but now that you mention it, those subs do look a little "phali".....

Anonymous said...

Tomorrowland when it was "T"errific!

CoxPilot said...

ALL the working hardware was replaced in the big upgrade. Towers, cables, wheels and pulleys, and even the power machinery that drove them.

There had been a few mishaps with the same swiss equipment in Europe, so they didn't want to take any chances with outdated stuff.

Major Pepperidge said...

TokyoMagic!, I knew you would like these!

Thufer, I think that the gray color of the subs managed to take on the color of the light around it, whether it was a golden afternoon or a cool blue dusk.

Katella, I was going to say that I am sure that the towers were completely new, but CoxPilot gave a much better answer.

Jim said...

Yep, Tomorrowland sure is F'd up these days.

They wanted a retro 30's look with it now I guess. But if they left it alone it would have a retro 60's look which is way cooler!

Katella Gate said...

@CoxPilot: Many thanks. I love definitive answers.

Jim: Tomorrowland fell on hard times for two reasons. The first is Disney tried to do their last facelift on the double-cheap and it shows.

The other problem is societal. We no longer look forward to, or plan for, or hope for the future. The concept of a "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" is therefore hard to sell, leaving a thematic vacuum, which is now being filled by Pixar characters.

JG said...

Alas, the thematic vacuum is in our heads now. Without Pixar, there would be nothing at all.

I want to go back.

JG

Katella Gate said...

... Ah Tomorrowland... it may not be good anymore, but at least it's still there.

Major Pepperidge said...

Jim, I totally agree; at this point, "retro 60's" is very cool! I think that the Jules Verne idea might work, but just repainting the old structures and adding a few ugly new things (Astro Orbiter) doesn't cut it.

JG, I know what you mean!

Katella, there is still hope for a new Peoplemover some day at least...

Anonymous said...

The New Tomorrowland was opened in Spring of 68'...so this has to be Sept of that year as well...not 67'.

Major Pepperidge said...

Anon, these slides are date stamped "Sept 67". And from what I know, many of the attractions "Carousel of Progress", the Peoplemover, Rocket Jets, Adventure Thru Inner Space, Flight to the Moon, and the Tomorrowland Terrace all opened in the summer of '67.

Connie Moreno said...

UBER cool photos, dude!

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know why the Skyway was removed? I loved that ride over the park and can't understand why it was closed.

T-Bird said...

Very nice! I am posting (among other things) scanned slides from a #MysteryPhotographer from the 1950's into the 1970's. They were in the trunk of an abandoned car that someone bought in 1985 in South Carolina at an auction.

The #MysteryPhotographer went to Disneyland in 1967.

I linked to this nice blog post on this tweet:

https://twitter.com/BarronBeauxArts/status/1588243125364936704?s=20&t=mVtHW2ZzxsSBbnacra77OA

The #MysteryPhotographer tag will bring up other of his Disneyland pix that I have so far scanned and posted. I wish some family member would recognize these and contact me.