Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Fun in Adventureland, January 1974

These groovy kids are posing in the courtyard pre-show area for The Enchanted Tiki Room. That's Pele (complete with flames coming out of the top of her head), and Ngendi is over to the left.

PELE: I am Pele, goddess of fire and volcanoes. Some say I torment poor Ngendi, the earth balancer, for when my violent temper rises, the earth trembles at its foundation!
NGENDI: Legends say I'm balancing the earth, but sad to say, I'm just hanging on.
PELE: I'm the one who's really sad. When I smile, it comes out mad!


I think we're looking towards the building that houses "Pirates of the Caribbean" (please correct me if I'm mistaken), with some of the ingenious waterworks from the Swiss Family Treehouse in the foreground. I want to go to Florida so that I can visit a proper Swiss treehouse again!


Way up in the branches of that giant tree is this suspension bridge, built from bits and pieces of their wrecked ship. The Swiss family built this bridge to withstand the wear and tear of many thousands of visitors, in spite of the fact that the family consisted of six people.

11 comments:

Jim said...

"The Swiss family built this bridge to withstand the wear and tear of many thousands of visitors, in spite of the fact that the family consisted of six people."

Yep, That's where the popular phrase Built like a Swiss tree house comes from.

TokyoMagic! said...

I see a street lamp and street sign at the corner of the POTC building. The sign looks like it's pointing down towards the POTC queue overflow area. Did that area actually have a street name and is that lamppost and sign still there today?

Jason Schultz said...

It was very polite of you, to avoid distressing your readers, to omit mentioning that the Swiss Family Treehouse closed twelve years ago today. :)

Major Pepperidge said...

Jim, I think that women might not mind that one so much!

TM!, I wish I knew the answer to your questions, but (big surprise), I don't! I've seen a street sign for Royal Street in one of my photos; I tried zooming in on the original scan, but it's just too blurry to read.

Progressland - Seriously?!?

Katella Gate said...

12 years? Really? Seems like forever. Really.

Jason Schultz said...

I am standing under the tree now. That specific lamppost appears to have been moved when the stairs to the Disney Gallery were added in 1987. There were signs on a lamppost where the Tarzan addition (the "up" stairs) now sits. I photographed these signs in 1997, but they just directed to the lands. This photo looks like it has a street name on the sign.

Connie Moreno said...

Sometimes you don't miss something until you realize it's gone....

TokyoMagic! said...

Jason, thank you for the lamppost info!!!

Major Pepperidge said...

Jason's positronic brain has saved us all again.

Regions Beyond said...

Excellent post and love the photo of the groovy kids visiting Pele and Negendi. Keep the good work, Major.

John Guill said...

Nobody builds a treehouse like the Swiss. Their country's full of them.

Pele was always my favorite, sort of the polynesian Kali.

JG