Saturday, April 30, 2011

Special Guest Saturday!

Today's photos were generously provided by GDB reader Kurt Raymond! If his name sounds familiar, you've probably seen his amazing recreations/restorations of the original Fantasyland dark ride murals on Daveland's blog. See his work here, here, and here!


We'll start with this classic view of a classic attraction... the Timber Mountain Log Ride at Knott's Berry Farm. It was brand new in 1970, having opened the previous year. I can't look at a photo of the Log Ride without wishing I was at Knott's right now.


The rest of the photos are from Sea World in San Diego, circa 1971. There's Kurt's mom, looking fashionable in her groovy 1970's outfit! Orange, yellow and white was a popular color combination for a few years.


I have vague memories of a show like this at Sea World - maybe this exact show! Look at that elephant seal, those things are scary. But apparently they'll do anything for a few fish. I'll bet he was the bad guy in this drama. Notice the slide coming down from the upper story of that "barn", I'm assuming that some otters made a quick appearance.


The show was sponsored by RC Cola. Everybody's favorite! Notice the bed that a sleepy sea lion emerged from (hopefully that explains why it's wet), as well as the frontier-style shower. You can almost guess the simple western story just by looking at the set.


Many thanks to Kurt Raymond for the fun photos!

6 comments:

SpaceAge said...

Whoa. Kurt's Mom. That's not SeaWorld, that's FutureWorld!

TokyoMagic! said...

These are great! Thanks to Kurt Raymond for sharing his family photos with us.

Kurt's Mom is looking pretty groovy. The Kids of the Kingdom at Disneyland wore white with yellow and orange in the late sixties/early seventies. Major, you can see them in your post from March 9, 2009: Kids of the Kingdom - July 1968

Connie Moreno said...

Groovy, dude!

walterworld said...

My Grandfather loved RC Cola, so my brothers and I drank a bunch of that when visiting his ranch when we were kids. Good times.

Wish I could have seen this show...

Nancy said...

very cool indeed. 70s fashions...oh yeah! thanks Kurt :D

JG said...

I remember going on the log ride with my Dad, when it was brand new. Long wait in line, unusual at Knotts.

JG