Two Trains, October 1977
Let's all wish our friend Dean Finder a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I hope he wins when he plays "pin the tail on the donkey" with his friends. Check out this vintage scan from our friend Sue B.! (This kid is kind of sad because Dean won PTTOTD).
Oh yeeeeaaaaahh! The Monorail, it's the only way to travel. Well, I wish, anyway. Every day I drive my car like a chump. But in another universe, we could be moving from place to place in the comfort of a smooth, quiet, streamlined Monorail. In this case it's the yellow Mark III train (bubble dome!), perhaps the apotheosis in Monorail design. (Please use "apotheosis" in casual conversation five times today - preferably not in one sentence).
I can't decide, would I rather be looking through the bubble dome? Or through the front canopy? Notice the two guests staring right at us, they probably have "Scanner" powers. Love the hat on the girl.
Meanwhile, over at Main Street Station, the ol' #2, the E.P. Ripley rests momentarily. Too bad this one went so dark, but it's still a pretty nice view of one of the original and beautiful 5/8-scale locomotives built at the studio. It looked old, but was only 27 at this point! Love the glimpse at the exit and parking lot too.
17 comments:
I love that Monorail shot. It must have been taken by an employee, since it is showing the spur track used for taking the Monorail backstage to the "roundhouse." Or maybe the photo was taken by someone riding on the train, just as it was passing that piece of spur track. That's probably it.
As far as the first pic, I love how they used Salem cigarettes on the cake, instead of candles! ;-)
Happy Birthday, Dean Finder!
And thank you, Sue and Major!
Major-
Gotta love that pack of Salem cigarettes (with the cellophane wrapper still intact) right next to the birthday cake. I wonder if any of the matches from that matchbook were used to set the candles a-blaze-?
I'm giving up on using 'apotheosis' in casual conversation and instead am opting for 'bubble dome'. I can already think of several folks worthy of that description...
Happy Birthday to Dean-! Thanks to Sue and The Major.
Major, I don't think that kid was sad because Dean won PTTOTD. He/She was sad, because someone had just dropped the cake on the floor, but then quickly scooped it up and put it back on the cake stand.
Happy Birthday, Dean Finder. February 28th, you were almost a leap day kid! Feb. 29th. Then you would only have birthdays every 4 years... or something.
Sad? He looks like one of the extras on The Walking Dead! Or maybe he's been smoking those Salems, lying on the table. That would make me green around the gills. And I can't, for the life of me, figure out what those cake decorations are supposed to be. Look at that scribbled border around the top! And yet, it actually looks tasty. Zombie Boy is eleven years old this day, according to the candles. (I originally had a line here about the candles being cigarettes... but somebody beat me to it). And what the heck is that thing on the left? An antenna that broke off of a TV? A center punch tool? A corkscrew? All of Sue's 'special' photos seem to have cigarettes, ashtrays, and booze. Make of that what you will. ;-p
"Today I went to the apotheosis and picked up my prescription." There. That's one down and four to go.
Really nice picture of the Monorail. As Melissa would (will) say, "This photo has 'vrooom' written all over it!" It looks like a real-world monorail whisking commuters from the suburbs to the center of a city-of-the-future.
Besides the "ol' #2", the power lines are a focal point in this photo. They look like War Of The Worlds "tripods"... playing cat's cradle.
Tokyo!, you could be right about the cake being dropped and scooped up.
Thanks, Sue, for another amusing photo for us to make fun of. And thanks, Major, for the train pics. The Monorail is my favorite today.
I used to wear my hair like the birthday boy in the first photo when I was his age. It was how my mom had my hair cut when I was little and I just kept getting it cut that way long after I’d grown out of the style. It looked great with braces.
Note the nurse in the bubble dome. Most people forget that the Mark IIIs had a fully-equipped nurse’s station on board for emergencies. Julie London used to moonlight there.
JB, it may look like a real-world monorail whisking commuters from the suburbs to the center of a city-of-the-future, but I’ll bet it doesn’t smell like one.
That cake is definitely uneven on the cake pedestal, but it's the dirty ashtray full of ashes near it that gets me. I was a smoker back in the day, but ashtrays on the dinner table were not happening. Gross!
The kid is not sad, but on a triple dose or Ritalin.
Thank you, Lou, Sue and Major too.
Chuck, a big fan of Julie London here. Especially her music as I have several of her albums. I liked her on Emergency too.
Happy Birthday, Dean Finder! Hope you have a good one.
Happy Birthday Dean, Wishing You Many Happy Returns of the Day!
Cake Boy’s picture is a reminder to take care setting the scene so 60 years later, strangers don’t diss you for having crumbs on the table. Maybe Insta is making us more aware of these party fouls.
I so wanted to ride in the Monorail nose cone, never did. Is that girl wearing one of those goofy “Hollie Hobbie” hats, big squashy things? Mom loved that character, was it Hallmark Cards? Somebody knows.
Main Street Station is the best spot for locomotive pics and the power lines just finish it perfectly.
Thanks Major and Everyone.
JG
TokyoMagic!, interesting, I did not realize that the Monorail photo shows “Big Yeller” on the spur track. You’re probably right about the photo being taken from the train (it just seems more likely), but so often photos like that turn out blurry! Salems are a good “starter” cigarette for kids because of their smooth menthol flavor.
Nanook, while my dad occasionally smoked at home when I was growing up, for the most part he did not. So I am grateful that I (mostly) grew up in a home without cigarettes. “Bubble dome” is always a worthy subject of conversation. The cashier at your local grocery store will be fascinated!
TokyoMagic!, ha ha, it does kind of look like the cake has “stuff” stuck in the frosting. Cat hair, dirt, maybe a Lego or two. Just adds complexity.
JB, as for leap day kids… HOLD THAT THOUGHT. Hey, maybe you’re right, that kid is undead. And the cake is brain-flavored, but with vanilla icing. Zombie kids are still kids. The decorations on the cake represent organs in the human body. I’m sure you recognize a few. There’s a spleen! I was wondering what that thing is to the left as well, and have not come up with any ideas so far. Congrats on your journey to a richer vocabulary, BTW.
Chuck, I have to admit that the boy’s haircut looks like a “mom special”, though I did get plenty of bad haircuts from actual barber shops back in the day. I remember my mom taking me to a barber shop in in the early 70’s, and I was just sitting there bored. So I picked up a handy magazine. Hey, it’s full of pictures of naked ladies! My mom instantly took the magazine away. “But mother, I wanted to read the essay by Norman Mailer!”. I wish Julie London (as Dixie McCall, best character name ever?) was on MY Monorail.
K. Martinez, yeah, look at that little trail of ashes next to the ashtray! My grandparents were both heavy smokers, but I don’t remember them ever smoking at the dining room table. That being said, there were burns on the edge of the table from when people left their butts there and forgot about them. Maybe from grandma’s bridge games? It’s so funny, my brother now watcheds “Adam 12” and “Emergency”, I can hear the distinctive music coming down the stairs. Lots of horns. And the same “telephone ringing” sound effect used six times each episode.
JG, I’m expecting Dean to check in later tonight, that’s his usual time. I just scanned a bunch of old family photos for my mom’s Christmas present, an electronic picture frame, it’s pretty fun actually. And there are more than a few photos of kid’s birthday parties, though I don’t recall the table being that messy, beyond the usual cake and a small pile of presents. We all need hats with squashy things on them, just like the founding fathers wore as they wrote the Constitution. Power lines seen from Frontierland are popular, but perhaps not as popular as the ones seen from Main Street Station.
If Dean’s checking in later, then it’s not too late to wish him a happy birthday!
Happy birthday, Dean!
Happy Birthday, Dean! I hope you’re doing something fun today.
And a Happy 39th to you Dean! Now how close did I get?? May your Birthday cake hold only as many candles as you can blow out in one try. For me, it takes an air horn. KS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAN!!! And stay away from those SALEMS!!
Major, I should have been clearer about that. The Monorail isn't on the spur track. The spur track is the section of track that we see in front of the Monorail. At least I'm pretty sure that is the spur track in the foreground. I can't think of another spot in the Monorail route where two pieces of track come that close together. I wish Mike had chimed in to confirm!
Happy birthday, Dean! And many happy returns of the day!
Kid in picture: “Well, I’d blow out these candles, if it weren’t for this darn tuberculosis.” *sad trombone*
I tried to come up with a “Two trains, both alike in dignity” speech, but the muse just ain’t willing.
”February 28th, you were almost a leap day kid! Feb. 29th. Then you would only have birthdays every 4 years... or something”
Like Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance! (https://www.gsarchive.net/pirates/web_op/pirates18.html)
Chuck, there was a boy in our high school band who had that same haircut. Every time he banged the cymbals together, a gust of air would send his bangs flying upward.
Mad Max: Beyond Bubble Dome. In Xanadu did Bublai Khan a stately bubble dome decree.
KS, Dean and Jack Benny are twins!
Thanks, everyone for the birthday wishes. That picture supplied by Sue looks eerily like pictures of my birthday parties in family albums, down to the odd facial expression, haircut, and random pack of cigarettes on the table.
JB, my older brother had me convinced that my birthday was actually on the 29th but recorded as the 28th because the computers wouldn't take Feb 29 as a date. It was years before my mother overheard us and let me know he had been messing with me. I must have dropped that story back in 2020 so the Major knew my birthday.
KS - You're exactly right. Jack Benny and I share the same age.
Sue - I've seen a few G&S musicals, but didn't realize there was a leap day song in Pirates of Penzance. I'll have to check that out.
Thanks again to the Major and fellow Jr. Gorillas for the wishes.
Chuck, well, I guess I was wrong, Dean is off partying with the cool kids tonight.
Anonymous, Dean might be at Dave and Busters, kicking everybody’s butts in Ski Ball.
KS, I recently made a cake for my older brother’s birthday, because my mom just can’t do it anymore. He was very insulted that I used one candle to represent 10 years to reduce the conflagration!
Mike Cozart, but Salems are recommended by doctors!
TokyoMagic! well, OK, I’ll forgive you. THIS TIME. Mike didn’t chime in about it.
Melissa, have you ever gone to a birthday party where the kid blew out the candles, and you saw spit fly all over the cake? I did! I still remember the mom asking, “Aren’t you going to eat your cake?”. Bleah.
Melissa, now I wish I had a disco (a ROLLER disco) and I’d call it the Bubble Dome, and I’d have all the old-time Hollywood celebrities there. Does Dean play the violin?
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