Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Castle & Dumbo, September 1959

Today I'm sharing part of a small group of slides from 1959; the photos aren't as sharp and clear as I normally like - maybe the camera lens was smudged, or just cheap - but they are still nice.


We'll start with this bright sunny view of Sleeping Beauty Castle, framed by olive trees.


Jumbo Jr., a.k.a. "Dumbo", soars around and around cheerfully for hours...


... while his buddy Casey Jr. chugs through Storybook Land in the background!

5 comments:

David said...

There was era -once upon a time- where I could have rode rides like Dumbo. Now I get sick on them, Tea Cups included. This shows getting old sucks.

The bottom picture, however, features something that I'm glad went away, the guy smoking while walking around.

Orange County Native said...

Talking about the olive trees at the hub. I was watching a program and Tony Baxter (Imagineer) mentioned that when Disneyland was taking out the olive trees, (Not sure when this happened~sometime in the early 2000's) he took a couple of them and put them in his yard complete with lights.

Does anyone know why Disneyland took out the olive trees in and around the hub area?

D ticket said...

The 8 125 year old olive trees around the hub were becoming too mature, and interfered with views to the fireworks viewing. They were changed for smaller trees in 2004 in time for the new "Remember... Dreams Come True" show which had effects in all directions, and needed better sightlines.
Tony Baxter lives in Anaheim Hills, and had 3 of them moved to his garden, I assume with lighting still intact. 2 others were relocated to other areas in the resort, the rest weren't saved. The replacement trees are pink tabebuia impetignosa

Major Pepperidge said...

David, I feel lucky that I can still ride those spinning rides with no ill effects! And I totally agree, smoking sucks.

OC Native, your are right, Tony did salvage several of the olive trees. Luckily for both of us, D Ticket chimed in with some useful info. I can tell you that Tony's trees do still have the twinkling lights intact.

Chiana_Chat said...

Yeah smoking is a drag.

I tink the lens was ok; the heads in the foreground are clear. The photog. just couldn't/didn't focus worth a darn. Or it had been a long trip. :)