Monday July 17 DISNEYLAND BIRTHDAY
Happy Birthday to Disneyland! 68 years young. I admit that I would have forgotten (I always forget), but Sue B. reminded me. Unlike some bloggers, I don't have any opening-day photos (I had some taken by Walt himself but I traded them so that I could invest in Beanie Babies). So I'll just have to go with a couple of early photos - this is from a batch that might be from 1955, though it's hard to say for certain.
I generally think of Main Street (and Town Square) when I think of the opening-day festivities; Town Square is where Walt gave his famous dedication speech ("To all who come to this happy place, welcome...."), and Main Street had a fantastic parade that included the Mouseketeers, Davy Crockett and Georgie Russell, the Tomorrowland Spaceman, and even the Autopia cars scooted their way up toward the Castle.
So... here's a very nice shot of the Motorized (and sanitized) Fire Truck putt-putting past the Main Street Cinema and the Yale Lock Shop, with the Tobacco Store Indian in the foreground. I wonder where Disney got their prints of films like "A Dash Through The Clouds" starring Mabel Normand? I love the familiar sponsors such as Swift, Carnation, Upjohn, and Kodak (you have to look carefully for that one).
In case you were curious, A Dash Through the Clouds is a 1912 short American silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett, written by Dell Henderson and starring Mabel Normand. It has the distinction of being somewhat of an aviation film as Sennett employed the services of real life aviation pioneer, Philip Parmelee, a pilot for the Wright Brothers.
Let's take three steps forward and take another picture! Unsurprisingly, the view isn't that different, but now a Horse Drawn Streetcar is oozing toward us. Hey, there's a box next to that trash can! And incidentally, that's what I consider to be the familiar Main Street style of can, even though this photo is likely from within the first year of the park's operation.
AND NOW... to sweeten the deal, Sue B., generous as always, sent me some fun vintage photos of kids, apparently fresh from a trip to Disneyland. Mouse ears for days. Dig those 1970s fashions! I appreciate the fact that the boy to the right is wearing a coat with one plaid pattern and color, and pants with another plaid pattern and color. BE NOT AFRAID. The littlest boy to the right has an owie on his nose, probably werewolf-related.
If you aren't going to wear your mouse ears, put them on the windowsill to cool, like a pie. The boy to the left is having an attack of the whim-whams! It happens at that age. The girl in the overalls looks like she might weep. She's missing "Welcome Back Kotter!". I wish we knew what these kids did on their trip to the park!
THANK YOU, SUE!
20 comments:
Major-
Gee, theme parks can have birthdays, too. (And I forgot to pick up a present).
"I wonder where Disney got their prints of films like "A Dash Through The Clouds"..." I'm gonna take a stab here and say Gilboy's. (Who are [were] they, I hear you asking-?) At one time, they were a local 'film depot' (warehouse located in Pico Rivera) to distribute prints - and conceivably still had old prints.
Them's some pants on those lads-! Wowie-!!
Thank you Sue. My eyes may never be the same...
Oh, gawd... You just made me realize that I'm older than Disneyland... THANKS A LOT, MAJOR!!
The little boy on the right (blue shirt) is either throwing a tantrum, or he got caught stealing cigarettes from the Tobacco Shop.
The guy standing in the Fire Truck has a camera on a tripod. Do you suppose he lugged that thing around the Park all day? Awkward.
Nowadays, if a box was spotted, unaccompanied, next to a trashcan, they would clear the Park and have a bomb squad come in. The times we live in. Looks like Blue Shirt Kid got over his tantrum, or had his pack of Lucky Strikes taken away from him. He seems to be doing just fine now.
Haha, in the first of the two Mouseketeer pics, Nose Owie Kid looks like a cool dude. But in the second pic, he looks like a clueless little kid chewing on his hand. You're right, Major; chewing on one's hand, or that of another, is a sure-fire indicator of werewolf exposure. This room that the kids are in is rather stark; nothing on the walls, no furniture.
Thanks for the mouse/kid hybrid photos, Sue. And thanks, Major, for the early DL pics.
JB, it does look like that kid in the first pic is having to be subdued. I bet your "cigarettes" theory is correct.
Those mouse-eared kids look like an interesting group. I wonder if this could have been taken in Disneyland, but somewhere like the First Aid dept. Maybe they were getting the little one's nose looked at? Oh, probably not. It does look like an odd room though. Why isn't there any furniture for the kids to sit on? Hey, maybe it was Bu's backstage balloon room, and they are all high on helium? I know, not likely! I've got it, they were all thrown in the kiddie section of the Disneyland "jail," because they were caught stealing those mouse ears.....or cigarettes. Maybe things hadn't changed from the 1950s to the 1970s, and cigarettes were the most common thing stolen by children ages 3 through 9.
Thanks for the special pics today, Major and Sue!
Happy Birthday Disneyland! I have said before that I often forget my own birthday...not the actual date itself...but something like "oh, wait a tic! Today is my birthday!" I always remember Disneyland's Birthday, and even in the weeks leading up, it's "hey...the 17th is approaching...Disneyland's birthday...the days leading...it's coming..." It's not like something is "there" waiting for me, and I don't bake a cake, but maybe I should. Two fellow TG's celebrated birthdays on this same day: Bill and Janet. We were all such good buddies back then: how lucky we were, Janet came from parades, and her sister and brother in law also worked at the park in Entertainment. (TM: you probably worked with her sister Julie.) Bill I think was from that Balboa Island set..Pepsodent smile, and impossibly good looking: went on to run a giant marketing firm in NY, as the tall good looking ones do. Happy birthday to them both as well. I was reading another fellow TG's dad's book on my commute last night, and as I was turning the pages it gave me great insight to how much Disneyland shaped my leadership values, ethics....and generally all the things that (to others) make me seem a bit "crazy". Some actions I specifically take in my work life came DIRECTLY from Walt himself...indirectly through the people who worked for him, and then to me. One degree of separation between myself and this somewhat now, mythical figure: Walt Disney. As I was reading it, I was saying to myself "OH! THAT's why I say that!" "OH! THAT's why I do that!" How fitting, that I was reflecting back on those early days in my adult career on the 68th anniversary of a place that molded so many other people too. There was something that Jim said in the book about how people move on, not everyone is for Disneyland as a "lifer", and those people that do move on...like many reading this blog....and those people, in life experiences, go on to say HOW MUCH they learned by working at the Park, and how it shaped them so specifically in the many careers they went into after "their time", like I do here. What I will say in closing, is that in my everyday life, Disneyland instilled some of the best life and leadership lessons that are now so deeply ingrained in me. So much so, I had to read a book to realize even some of the smallest actions I take, were because of my 10+ years there. Honestly, I had a kind of (let's say "interesting childhood...), but where I "grew up" was at Disneyland. How fortunate. Thanks Major and to the others that take me back 40 years every morning to realize how fortunate I was. (The book "Not just a Walk in the Park." Lots of first hand stories, that help explain more than a few "mysteries" we discuss on here. A book more about leadership than "magic".)
In celebration of Disneyland's birthday, I think I'll detonate a couple of AEDs! Yay!!!
Now to the pics! In the first picture the wooden Indian has turned to watch the fire truck.
In the second picture you can see the love of Charlie Brown's life walking up the sidewalk to the right. Unfortunately she was at the wrong park in the wrong decade to meet him.
I get a "late 60s" vibe off of our merry band of Mousekateers. Maybe because that's when I lived in a house with that paneling. I also wore an ascot, but that's neither here nor there.
Great pics, Major and Sue!
Happy Birthday, Disneyland! If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be here.
Sue
Happy Birthday, Disneyland! If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be here.
Sue, that's deep!
Happy Birthday Disneyland. Some of my happiest memories over the years are from visits to Disneyland. Thanks, Walt, for putting so much care, detail and imagination into the design. That's something I appreciated even as a little kid.
Nanook, I honestly would never remember Disneyland’s birthday if it wasn’t for Sue. Historically, I always forget! “Gilboy’s”, guess I need to look ‘em up.
JB, hey, we’re all older than something. For instance, Justin Bieber and I are both older than Facebook. Sometimes a good tantrum is appreciated by guests at Disneyland, you’ll see them smile and nod. “Oh my, he’s a screamer!”. Yes, I’ll bet that guy hauled that tripod around all day, I sure wish I could see the pictures he took. I suspect that the box might be from one of the stores, although now that I think about it more, they probably had their own trash areas backstage. Hmmmm!
TokyoMagic!, re Cigarette Kid: “If you can’t share your Marlboros, we’ll go home right now!”. I somehow doubt that the Mouseketeers were backstage, it looks like somebody’s home. I imagine a lot more concrete and shackles backstage. But that’s just me! Furniture is so last year. Cave men didn’t need any stinkin’ furniture!
Bu, often a July17th will pass, and I’ll only realize that it was Disneyland’s birthday when I look at Facebook later. Or else somebody will leave a comment, that’s usually the way I learn. So fun that you are still in touch with fellow TGs! One of your friend’s dads had a book? “Dear diary, Marcia is so mean! But we’re going to see Bon Jovi tonight, so I’m over the moon!”. Something like that. Whenever you have a cold and cough a lot, you’ll sound just like Walt Disney. Kind of makes you appreciate hacking! For all of the shenanigans that we hear about (re: CMs) it sounds like many of them wound up being responsible, well-behaved members of society. There must be a correlation! It’s like the Boy Scouts - even my best friend, who resembles Satan, lives by many of the things he learned when he was a Scout.
Stu29573, I can’t encourage anyone to play around with AEDs, it’s just not worth the risk. However, you can always make some bratty kid do the dirty work! You can just see the Little Red Haired Girl in photo #1, and I am really trying to see what she is carrying. It could be a gate handout.
Sue, yes, this blog would be all about Beanie Babies instead of Disneyland. You can’t have to many Beanie Babies!
TokyoMagic!, did you know that atoms look like galaxies, and those atoms have even tinier particles in them, and those have even tinier particles in THEM? Mind blown.
Sunday Night, I feel like even Walt might be surprised at just how much love there is for his first park, 68 years after it opened!
Aw, poor little Susie can't fit her mouse ears over her pigtails! (I sometimes had the same trouble with my winter hat.) I love her Hair Doodles, though. I wonder if they actually went to Disneyland or if some flush parent just splashed out on really cool party hats?
The kid in the red/orange shirt is falling behind in the Blue Check race. He'll never grow up to be verified on Twitter.
I think the Vintage Style Award has to go to the patchwork overalls. I'd wear those today! Then again, I'm a huge weirdo.
Mabel Normand always reminds me of a picture in one of Grandma's albums; a 1940s portrait of a stunningly beautiful woman. All Grandma would say about her was, "Oh, that's Mabel. *sigh* Poor Mabel." And since Mabel N. had some hard knocks in her short life, I always conflate her in my mind with Poor Mabel.
Happy birthday to the happiest place on Earth!
Sue always comes up with some gems. Disneyland is now some 68 years young. And come to think about it, I have the 15th anniversary button somewhere in my mementos upstairs when I was young and working that day! That's about the time those Mouseketeers were roaming wild on Main Street. OK, they were not there but lined up for Pirates or JC...something that could accommodate them all with tired parents in tow. KS
For some reason my PC went into a fit. Major...you can delete that repetitive comment. No...I'm not losing my marbles just yet! KS
Melissa, “Hair Doodles”, I had to look to see what those are. Obviously I don’t spend much time around kids! I think a lot of those silent-era actors and actresses went on to have tough lives once the industry was through with them. Showbiz is a cruel game, that’s for sure.
KS, there was a time when I thought that 1970 was “not that long ago”. And yet it also seemed so far removed from 1955! “Mouseketeers were roaming wild…” I picturing them snapping their fingers in unison like the Sharks and the Jets.
KS, no worries, I deleted your duplicate comment!
Wow, bad day to arrive late.
Major, thanks for the info on those fancy cans. You're right, these are very early in history, and maybe the Main Street design was the first of the fancy cans. I think they are the most plentiful also as the pattern is used both outside the Park in the Ticket booth area, all the way up Main Street and a huge profusion in the Central Plaza.
Sue, cute kids photos for sure!
JG
Had my annual eye check today, and am stuck in a shaded room with dilated pupils. So I'm going to let myself ramble.
I was a kid in the 60s, when Disney felt as big as it actually is now. Sunday meant Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales in the newspaper funnies and Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on TV. Weekdays, in the early 60s at least, meant the syndicated reruns of Mickey Mouse Club. Everybody had a box of comics somewhere, and Disney ducks were always well represented. And Disney merchandise was everywhere, from the Sears Wish Book to the local Goodwill (with luck you could find stuff from the original wave of Mickey Mouse Club marketing). And of course there were movies, from big deal holiday events to light comedies with Dean Jones.
Disney was what we now call a lifestyle brand. Uncle Walt and his creations were present in every corner of our little boomer lives in a way modern franchises could only dream of.
Disneyland was the heartland of Disney, and therefore of America. Hollywood was, for tourists and hopefuls, a mirage. The studios, including Disney, were factories with locked gates. Their magic ironically didn't exist until it was projected on a local theater screen or displayed on a home television. Disneyland was real. Not just in the sense of being a piece of real estate, but real in the sense of being a place. Main Street was an actual street. The Mark Twain and the Jungle Cruise boats navigated real water through real landscapes. The application of Disney magic -- what we now call IP -- made familiar movie and TV fantasies real. You COULD go to places you saw on screen, and find more than movie sets or artists at drawing boards.
Yes, we all knew it was stagecraft and machinery -- Uncle Walt proudly showed us so on Sunday nights. Disneyland made it acceptable to pretend. It's cool to play along with characters, to laugh at jungle skipper groaners, to stand in line for the Dumbo ride (even without kids). Everybody is playing the game -- or is in on the joke, if you prefer. You inhabited Disney fictions, as a bystander or a participant.
With one stroke, all the Disney stuff all over your life acquired a philosophical heft, a unifying reality. It all came, spiritually, from this very real place. Disney was a world, an you could visit its capitol city in which everything was, for better or worse, Disney.
68 years later, the effect has been diluted by imitation. There are parks and attractions that arguably surpass Disneyland. There was a vogue for retailers and restaurants to affect Disney-style theming (any Californians remember Fry's Electronics?). Halloween and Christmas now bring animatronics to your showoff neighbor's front yard. Movie/TV franchises are everywhere, several Disney owned, out-Croketting Davy with every possible monetization. And there's the price of success. The park -- pardon me, the resort -- has become ever more ruthlessly efficient, designed to process huge mobs instead of letting middling crowds wander around and discover things. It's like the mellow local hangout that now has lines out the door. Here's your pizza, yes it's expensive, are you done yet?
Yet Disneyland endures and, for non-obsessives, enchants. It endures the way Ray Harryhausen's hand-animated dinos still convince, the way Far Side cartoons are still funny, the way a fast-food cheeseburger is still a treat. Maybe it's just a boomer thing.
DBenson, those were thoughtful and well written ramblings. Thank you.
I used to love those old Mickey Mouse Club reruns. I especially loved the serials: Spin & Marty, Annette, The Hardy Boys, Corky and White Shadow... and such a crush I had on Dean Jones.
DBenson, well said. Thank you.
JG
Woulda been longer, but the site has a character limit.
DB: I liked you comment so much I saved it. I agree, well said. I was on the other side of the show, us mortals, suspending the "belief" that all was real, in the realest sense of produced "make believe". We KNOW that Mickey has a human on the inside, but we "producers" still get close enough to suspend the belief, if not momentarily, that it is real. Even today, go to Disneyland with someone who's never seen it: even the most low-brow, and non-tech things still do enchant: things like Main Street Windows, or a gigantic Christmas tree in the middle of Town Square, no matter how overly brightly decorated it is (these days.) This is when those people slow down, stop looking at their phones and experience/"take it in" it all in real time, and in the moment. When a person stops photographing because they are simply in awe, I feel the producers of this "magic", albeit manufactured, have done their job, at least in visual presentation. Of course, there are the operational, and practical aspects, and that is where Disneyland now can fumble, and, momentarily...take you out of the disbelief...and thrust you back outside the berm. When phones were invented, the berm disappeared and became obsolete. And now, it is impossible to experience, without "outside the berm" tech, what we mortals experienced not so very long ago. In my optimistic side of my brain, which doesn't surface too often, I am compelled to think that eventually humans will discard this current tech, for a "new" tech, that has nothing to do with tech...and return to the altered state of 1955-1983, when the Disneyland show had it's few "acts", and not a succession of 30 second videos played on a continuous loop. Tech is great, of course, when it works...but it seems at Disneyland, Success has Spoiled Rock Hunter.
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