Frontierland, October 4 1957
I have a very small lot of slides (5 or 6) that only feature Frontierland. The rest of Disneyland just wasn't photo-worthy, I guess.
These are dated "October 4 1957", and as I've mentioned before, I always like knowing the exact date when photos were taken. It just adds that little extra "something", like a dash of Sriracha sauce. Here are some fun facts, gleaned from Jason's Disneyland Almanac: October 4 was a Friday (and a "Date Nite"); the park was open from 10 a.m. to midnight; the high temperature was a pleasant 75˚, but bring a jacket, because the low was 53˚. And (here's the part the kills me).... attendance was 6,378! Wow. What a dream visit that would be! There is absolutely nobody to be found on Tom Sawyer Island.
Even the always-popular Castle Rock only has 4 or 5 guests at the top. Normally one has to maneuver past the unmoving bodies of other climbers who have collapsed due to hypoxia and hypothermia and venomous yeti bites. Don't worry, friendly Sherpas will take care of them!
12 comments:
Only 6,378 folks in attendance-! Reminds me of a night back in the 80's when I attended a private party, the attendance of which was projected to be 10,000 - but only 7,500 brave souls showed up-! I'm not exaggerating when I say at one point in the evening I stood near Town Square and when looking toward the Sleeping Beauty Castle, I couldn't see a single soul on Main Street - honest. It was a great time.
Not to worry Sriracha sauce is standard issue to all mountain sherpas and according to Bobby Flay is a natural remedy for Yeti bites.
The rumor I heard is that in the early days to keep the crowd levels down to reasonable amounts they used to pump Sriracha sauce into the drinking fountains.
Alas, that trick won't work today as OSHA won't allow it due to the possibility of a guest having an allergy.
Cool deserted shots. Thanks
Of course there's nobody to be seen on Tom Sawyer Island on Date Nite™! They're a-down behind the sagebrush, a-smoochin'! They're a-down behind the fences, a-smoochin'! In the shallow water, a-breathin' through straws from Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner and a-smoochin'! They're up the trees, a-smoochin'; buried in the sand. a-smoochin'; on the rooftops, a-smoochin'; behind the other couples behind the sagebrush, a-smoochin'; and behind the Oxford semicolon, just a-smoochin' away!
You think those unmoving bodies of other climbers have collapsed due to hypoxia, hypothermia, and venomous yeti bites? Collapsed due to excessive smoochin', more like. And the medical community is pushing irony as hard as iron, because the only cure seems to be more smoochin'. And when lips lock at Castle Rock, they smooch so fine it even rhymes! They're a-smoochin' on the cheek behind the peak; they're smoochin' so hard behind the summit, they're about to plummet. Even Gramps and Granny were a-smoochin' in that cranny. (Those two guys you see in the crag are the only ones going stag.) They're a-smoochin' in the pines, and the Skyway has no line!
One of the things I love about early photos of Disneyland is that you can see the layout of the park from a horizontal perspective. The Old Mill shot is a good example. Thanks.
Nanook, I've never attended a private party at Disneyland, but I was there on a rainy day, and by the time we left at 10 o'clock, I think there might have only been one or two cast members visible.
Allnzo, mmmm Sriracha! I just opened a new bottle yesterday. Even though it is a remedy for yeti bites, it is a catch-22, because it also makes you more delicious to yetis.
Melissa, I am sending agents over to your place right now to seize your apostrophe key! I am sorry, but I can't help imagining the sound effects of all that smoochin' (damn spell check doesn't like the word "smoochin'") - very squishy. Just think what it must have been like over on Holiday Hill! (I am also imagining most of your second paragraph with a hip-hop beat).
K. Martinez, if you are horizontal, you need to sit up! (Sorry, I couldn't resist). I know what you mean, in later photos things tended to get cluttered or obscured by plants (which is not necessarily a bad thing).
Everybody's horizontal - it's Date Nite™! (But we tell the chaperones all those smoochin' noises was just our galoshes.)
Several years ago while watching the fireworks from Town Square I glanced downward and saw a sizable horizontal show performance on the Town Square ground. With most guests eyes fixed on the sky spectacle they were unaware of this horizontal ground show around them.
Melissa, you've been on a roll lately. That's not a bad thing.
Tarzman
This seems pretty obvious to me but perhaps it bears repeating. The date stamped on a slide is the date of processing, not the date the photo was taken. Sometimes a roll of film would wait around for a while before being processed, especially when there are a few photos.
For this reason, using stamped dates on slides certainly tells you that the image is from before that date but not that it was on that date.
Conclusions of changes and openings and closings of attractions and shops should recall this, of course.
Perhaps there are other clues in the photos to reveal the date?
James
Melissa, I feel like a loser thinking about how many dates I've been on without getting horizontal at all.
K. Martinez, Disneyland truly IS the happiest place on earth.
keeline, in this particular case, the slide was not date-stamped, but hand dated. In that case I would assume that the person wrote the specific date they were there, not the day they dated the slide! Normally date stamping only provided the month and the year, not the exact day.
How bare it all was before the plants grew up.
Great pics, Major.
JG
Major, I swear that in your first slide for the post of Tom Sawyer's Island -- the shaggy and full looking evergreen tree on the left of the picture, is still there today. I saw it in several other slides you've posted over the years, and then I looked at Disneyland's website within the past couple of months and one of the pics shows the island today, albeit changed, and that evergreen is still there.
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