Vintage Disneyland Ephemera
I picked two pieces of vintage Disneyland ephemera - perhaps an odd pairing, but you can handle it! I believe in you.
Way back in January of 1987 (37 years ago, folks), a little attraction called Star Tours debuted (Wikipedia says that the official opening was January 9th). Excitement from guests was off the charts! And the long lines stretched into the Pacific Ocean (needs verification). Amazingly, cast members got their own "premiere", lasting five nights in a row, from 7:00 PM until midnight, and they were given this folder that contained special tickets for the occasion.
My example has one ticket for each night, but I have no idea if that was standard; I'm happy to have one of each though, and they look swell together. I bought these many years ago (long before GDB was a twinkle in my eye) - I generally collect older Disneyland stuff, but it's hard to resist anything tied to a ride's opening.
Next is an odd item, a menu. It's not even that old. Well, I guess it is kind of old - it has a tiny "3/80" printed on the outside. 44 years ago, yikes. I bought this mostly because I'd never seen one like it before, and I have never seen another. It measures 15.5" X 7.25", and is laminated. It has that familiar, comfortable coffee-shop feel. It might even be bullet-proof.
I'm charmed by the "quilted" graphic style, which reminds me of the 1970s - and let's face it, the totally tubular neon 80s wouldn't come along for a few years. The menu offers a little bit of everything; hamburgers, salads, hot and cold sandwiches, omelettes, pot roast, jumbo shrimp... I'm getting hungry just reading it.
Don't forget waffles, hot cakes, and french toast. With a side of bacon or sausage (or both). And you need a beverage to wash it all down, with a selection of juices, coffee, tea, or even hot chocolate. What more could you need?
EXTRA! EXTRA!
Mike Cozart sent a jpeg of a rare pre-opening Star Tours poster, I'd never seen it before! I did some Photoshopping on it, which might not be 100% accurate, but you get the idea.
13 comments:
Major-
What an 'artsy-fartsy' menu. This is the sort of design that creates havoc for indecisive diners. (I think I'll just stick with the 'little flower' reminding me to "Ask your Cocktail Waitress for your Favorite Cocktail, Beer or Wine"). You can't go wrong there.
Thanks, Major.
Both of these items look distinctly non-Disney to me. I never would have guessed that they were connected with Disneyland, well, except for the occasional Disney references in the text. The colors and artistic style, in particular, are not like any other Disney stuff I've seen. Having said that, I do like the colors and styling.
The Star Tours logo (at the top) looks a lot like the Atari (Fuji) logo. Did Atari have anything to do with Star Tours? Or is the similarity just coincidental.
Wow, like you said, that menu has everything! And nearly all of it sounds good. (Although, I think I'll pass on the chilled prune juice.) (There's a joke in there somewhere.)
Strange and wonderful items today, Major.
I remember thinking to myself back in January of 1987, "Wow! Now the adventure is FINALLY real!"
I like the graphics on that hotel menu. And forget the Knott Family! Just give me some of the Dickinson Family's jams and jellies!
By the way, who were the Dickinsons? I hope they had a theme park.
Thanks for the vintage ephemera, Major.
I love the Disneyland Hotel menu and it's depiction of orange trees...a nice nod to this history of the area. The menu items still seem a bit old fashioned...however: I sometimes lose track of how old these things are....50 years ago would be Disneyland looking back from their opening at the real turn of the century Main Street..."eek" The Star Tours ephemera I have absolutely no recollection of: and I was most definitely there, and probably since I was already "over it" I opted not to avail myself of riding that ride again. The opening day...press day...I have little memory of as well...as per usual it was a lot of a lot. Captain EO I think was a much bigger "splash" in my memory...but seeing the droids and whatnots in person: when that sort of thing wasn't too normal...and Lucas still belonged to Lucas...it was exceptional. The ILM people were...let's just say...they were there..the humble Disney's and the new "show folk" learned to integrate in time. I think I've talked about how the test simulator, or "stimulator" as we called it some of the TG's went on it...and said it was really really jarring and rough...on purpose...so it was toned down for the masses. Code V's and whatnots. I was a bit confused about the new mural...and how it was Mary Blair on one side, and Lucas on the other. Didn't get to vote....thanks Major for the trip back in time: perhaps in time, I'll recall the events of the day...
Star Tours (and Indiana Jones) were the big deals for my kids, like
Pirates and the Haunted Mansion were for me. My little son asked as we boarded for the first time “are we going to Real Space Dad?” Of course yes.
And the Hollie Hobby menu, good grief.1980, could be, since the features of a decades style take a few years to establish. I love this item unconditionally, in spite of so many sandwiches being served on English muffins, but I am simultaneously glad that this orange, brown and yellow palette is no longer ascendant.
Thanks Major, it’s an odd combination, but served in the correct order, ride the simulator BEFORE eating.
JG
And I think I would try the London Bake, because it’s so weird.
JG
I have a very clear memory of the 60 hour party and our Cast Premier of Star Tours. Winter was upon us and the 60 hour party found me working the night/morning shift on the Jungle Cruise January 9, 10 & 11. Driving your boat towards the much larger, original Disneyland, Schweitzer Falls at 3:00am, with the mist blowing in your face made a cold night... even colder. We would try and keep warm by sitting on our boat’s engine between load and unload. What kind of people were up at 4:00am visiting Disneyland in 1987… you don’t want to know.
Regarding the dates of the actual Cast Premier, January 12 – 16, the Park hours were probably 10:00am - 6:00pm. Gave them 1 hour to clear the park before re-opening to Cast Members. I remember that only Tomorrowland was open to us, not the whole Park. So we could experience all the attractions in Tomorrowland only and with the opening of Captain EO just three months earlier… we felt like there was plenty to see & do. Another Tomorrowland “improvement” we got to see during the Cast Premier was the newly repainted PeopleMover & the new Mark V. Monorail. The PeopleMover lost their original colors and were painted white with a colored stripe (blue, purple, red and I think silver). The new Mark V Monorail was introduced but I remember the big disappointment… at least for me (and probably many of you)… was losing the observation bubble above the pilot’s chair. I remember my father asking if we could wait… just so we could sit up there on our round trip tour to Disneyland Hotel and back. It was Magical! Thanks dad!! I hope they can bring back that bubble some day.
Always your pal,
Amazon Belle
Major there is also a backstage cast poster with identical artwork as the ticket folder. The STAR TOURS ticket folder is a slightly updated version of an earlier construction wall sign that read “SIMULATOR JOURNEY” before the name “Star Tours” had been finalized. It’s hard to imagine now , At the time very few people knew who Mary Blair was, and while it was sad to see the 1967 mural disappear, guests were more excited to see what was coming … and in 1987 the new Star Tours building was beautiful and striking in its look. This new Tomorrowland look was also to be the guide of the “EPCOT Tomorrowland “ project ( an unofficial name) that quickly developed into the famous unrealized TOMORROWLAND 2055. BTW : regarding the Mary Blair mural: at the beginning Disneyland employees were told the mural tiles were carefully being removed and would be safely stored, and this was the WDI intention… but when the time came it was discovered the tile adhesives and protection coatings used in 1967 were so incredibly strong , the tiles were chipping and cracking as they attempted to pry them off . The archives ( and some imagineers ) were able to save a small amount of full tiles ….but the removal attempt was canceled and the new mural was built over the old one - it’s still under there waiting and waiting to be rescued and saved ( the same way The MOONLINER , MONORAIL BIG RED were “saved”) and all those broken Mary Blair tiles? Disneyland and WDI employees kept many as souvenirs , but the majority were saved and were reused in created the mosaic tile mural to the Adventureland entry logo at Disneyland Paris.
I have two almost identical Disneyland Hotel Coffee Shop BREAKFAST mr us from December 1985 ( amazing they were still using similar cover art) while I was collecting Disneyland stuff already by 1985 the menus were saved because myself and some friends were thinking of suing the hotel for “bait and switch” !! Lol. A few of us stayed at the DL HOTEL on December 26 , 1985 . Our parents made the arrangements because we not 18 yet. Anyway the next morning before hoping on the monorail we had breakfast …. PART ONE )
(PART TWO) the restaurant was mega crowded so while we waited to be seated we asked for a menu to decide what to order to save previous Disneyland park time. Being high schools kids we were very cost conscious and noted how expensive everything was … the cost of a glass of orange juice was very pricey and that really stood out !! Anyway, when the check came and we began to pay up we noticed the prices on the receipt were even MORE money!! Why were the prices so different - were we being swindled??we grabbed a menu to check and the menu had the same identical mega expensive prices as our bill … but we knew these were not the prices from the Menu we ordered from! A family next to us overheard our discussion and they said “yeah the same thing happened to us - they started using new priced menus the day after Christmas but some of the old menus were still mixed in….” Our waitress returned and after getting a copy of the identical covered menus with very different prices .. she admitted the new prices were now in effect and that yes … some of the old menus were still around the restaurant!! And she was not friendly and rather curt about it and we were gonna be paying the new DECEMBER 26( 27th) 1985 prices ! So I angrily kept samples of BOTH price menu versions - you know in case we 17 year olds wanted to take legal action later! Lol.
Nanook, I don’t know if they were going for “artsy fartsy” or if they were going for folksy craftsmanship - maybe a bit of both? I’m sure there more than a few guests who were relieved to be able to get a cocktail “on property”.
JB, I think a lot of the menus look “non-Disney”, for instance the Red Wagon Inn menus could be from anyplace, even with the little, tasteful red wagon graphic. I guess they wanted their menus to look like examples from “real” restaurants without Mickey Mouse or Tinker Bell on them. Of course that would change later. I doubt that Atari had anything to do with Star Tours, but I can’t say for certain.
TokyoMagic!, the Dickinsons’ daughter Angie went on to be a famous actress, but otherwise they are forgotten!
Bu, I honestly wonder how many people had a clue about the fact that Disneyland was built on the site of former orange (and walnut) groves? Of course the whole place was in Orange County as well, so I guess it could be taken either way. I generally don’t seek out Star Tours items, and yet I still have half a dozen (or so) pieces in my collection. There’s the famous barf bag from opening day (or at least I’ve been told it is from opening day), I bought it for fun and am not sure I’ve seen another one for sale. Captain Eo, I never had ANY desire to see it. MJ was talented, but also very weird. I just didn’t care. I’ve since seen the movie on YouTube, and it is pretty terrible. No surprise that the folks from ILM and Disney had different ways of approaching things. Maybe it’s just my faulty memory, but I do seem to recall that Star Tours was a much rougher ride back when I first experienced it.
JG, I have always liked those first Star Wars movies, and the Indy trilogy (not crazy about the later two), but I had very mixed feelings about bringing outside IP into Disneyland. However, I do get that they needed the park to feel up-to-date and to appeal to younger people who had no real connection to classic Disney movies. And ultimately I do like both Star Tours and the Indiana Jones Adventure. I find the dated graphics on that menu to be very charming, the colors remind me of my parent’s house when they first moved into it in 1976 - avocado green cabinets, indoor/outdoor carpeting that was an earthy yellow ochre, and orange washer & drier!
JB, you aren’t wrong, that London Bake is odd. Possibly delicious - but odd.
My comment was too long, so I had to break it up into two parts!
Matthew, the park has had several very long parties, and I used to like to read accounts from people who tried to survive for so long. I would think that the cold mist from Schweitzer Falls would be a welcome bracer; how crazy it would seem to be able to stay at the park into those wee hours! I’ve heard stories about how exhausted guests would fall asleep in planters and on benches, I wonder how the staff dealt with that?? I think I even heard that people would go into the Main Street Cinema to sleep. You are lucky to have experienced the Cast Premiere, something that mere mortals would never do. I’m like you, I’ve never loved the Mark V Monorail, I suppose that design was not so dated, but it also was kind of ugly. To me.
Mike Cozart, oh, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that poster, it must be very rare. “Simulator Journey”, I suppose that was such a new technology that it wasn’t a bad idea to let guests know what they were in for. I’m sure that at the time, most people did not care that much about the Mary Blair murals - they liked them, but her fame hadn’t kicked into high gear yet, and wouldn’t for at least another decade. I remember going to auctions with her original artwork fetching $3,000 or so, and was shocked. If only I’d bought at least one! There was one Peter Pan piece showing the Indian Village perched on a high cliff that I wanted a LOT. I’m sure it would have tripled or quadrupled in value by now. I wonder how hard it would be for a skilled manufacturer to make new tiles, in the off-chance that they would ever try to fully restore those murals? There are plenty of photos, and I’m sure WDI has a full record of the complete designs. Interesting about your 1985 Coffee Shop menus, it’s strange that menus from the 80s seem to be much harder to come by than some older examples.
Mike Cozart, wow, that was a huge screwup on the Disneyland Hotel’s part to hand out old menus with old prices, and then charge the new, higher prices! I’m sure I would have been watching my money closely too. It seems like the right thing for them to do is to charge you the prices that you saw on YOUR menus, and then remove all of those old menus from circulation! Instead of being curt and nasty about it, which does not sound very “Disney”.
There's something about that quilted pattern on the menu that is conjuring vague memories of something from my childhood in the 70s that I can't quite remember. I hope that it comes back to me- probably in the middle of the night, when I won't be able to explain to my wife why I'm so excited about something so trivial.
I remember meeting another guest in 1994-95 who had been there for either the opening of Star Tours (or maybe it was Captain EO) and had stayed in the Park for more than 24 hours. When they got sleepy around 2 a.m., they climbed into one of the side-facing DL RR cars, found an upper back corner, laid down on the bench, and took a nap. Apparently sympathetic cast members let them sleep.
That DL Hotel waitress doesn’t sound very “Disney,” but we have to remember that in 1985, the DL Hotel wasn’t yet owned by the Walt Disney Company. I only barely remember the one meal I had there as a kid (with a former co-worker of my dad and his family that we had randomly run into outside America the Beautiful) and have zero memory of the wait staff, but I expect they didn’t go through Disney University.
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