Beautiful Fantasyland, February 1961
Like most places, Disneyland looks best on a bright, sunny day - as evidenced by today's first photo. We're looking at Fantasyland in the early part of 1961. Everything is so colorful, and the clarity is great. The Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship gleams like a gemstone against that dramatic blue sky streaked with cirrus clouds (why so cirrus?).
One might suggest that the photo has just a bit too much sky, and I am inclined to agree. I hate the sky! If it was up to me I would have the sky banned. Let's crop it down to a nice square. Bingo! This is a good photo for a bit of vintage people-watching. Like the Plaid Family! Paul and Patricia Plaid, with their daughters Pamela and Paige (too bad we can't meet their little dog Petey).
I can't tell for certain if this is the same pale yellow Skyway bucket as the one in the previous photo, but I am pretty sure that it is.
14 comments:
This is why I loved Old Fantasyland so much. What a restaurant! The "steeple?" to the Matterhorn Bobsleds Chalet is visible in the background.
I love the lone Skyway bucket pic too. Thanks, Major.
Major-
Look... it's a cerulean blue sky-!! (Eat your heart out, Henry Fonda-!)
Thanks, Major.
The lady in the center of that first pic looks like Norman Bates' mother. We can't see what color her dress is underneath that overcoat, but I just bet it's periwinkle blue (picked out by Norman, with the help of the sheriff's wife). Just beyond Mrs. Bates, it appears that someone is waiting with a little red wagon? And that plaid family might have visited the Pendleton store in Frontierland earlier in the day.
TM: Can't be Mrs Bates. This is 1961 and by now her desiccated corpse was residing in a morgue. You're right though, that IS a little red wagon. Good eye!
And that does appear to be the same family in both pictures of that yellow sky bucket.
The Plaid Family are Tartan a trend. I recall the early 60's as the checkered past.
Nice photos today. I like the older skyway as the buckets are so buckety and the towers so erector setish.
I heard "The Plaid" family are arch enemies to their next door neighbors The Calico Clan" ever since their dog Petey knocked up the Calico's dog Chloe. Talk about some ugly cross breeds, yuk. No worries as I heard The Tartan Bunch is moving in down the street.
Thanks for posting. Happy Friday Everyone.
I should have checkerd all the comments. Gnometrek beat me to the bad Tartan pun. Next time I'll polka dot around a little more before I tweed.
K. Martinez, it seems hard to believe that there would be a mere restaurant that evoked so much interest, and yet the Pirate Ship continued to be one of the most-photographed features from 1955 until its demise.
Nanook, Henry Fonda shot that kid in that one movie, so you know he had something to hide!
TokyoMagic!, I thought it was Larry Tate’s wife, but what do I know! I guess that family had a wagon, but no stroller. Imagine the park if everybody brought a wagon!
Scott Lane, maybe it’s NORMAN dressed as “mother”!! He escaped.
Gnometrek, if only the big U.S. car manufacturers had created a tartan plaid station wagon.
Alonzo, “The Calico Clan”, sounds like a movie starring Don Knotts and Tim Conway. Your comment reminds me of Melissa’s comments! That is a compliment!
Alonzo II, “polka dot”, yuck yuck.
@ Major-
Louise Tate-? (actress Kasey Rogers) Maybe. This lady merely needs a 'sensible, "mini-beehive" hairdo to do the trick.
Plaid Dad is thinking, “I could really go for a Scotch!”
I’m intrigued by the quartet of thin-faced, bespectacled women with the remarkable family resemblance in the left foreground. I shall call them the Blandrews Sisters.
The shiny blue Skyway bucket against that bright cerulean sky is just too cheerful for words.
Sorry, it keeps saying I am Unknown. Just wanted to say that I going to just jump right into this picture on such a beautiful sunny day!
Unknown?!? WE'LL vouch for you!!
I'll join you in that picture-jumpin', too, as long as old Bert is using two-way chalk.
These pics made me homesick for the Disneyland of my childhood. Man, I just had to TWEET this post. It's too good not to share!
I do remember. The buckets, the pirate ship,Pendleton and all the incredible shopping on Main Street USA. It must have been a cool fall day. Love the plaid comments. I was from the Smocked Family, always wanted to be Plaid.
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