Snoozles™
Oh Snoozles, why must you be so bad? This first scan is from June, 1972. An interior of the Tiki Room? Sounds OK to me! And yet... it isn't. 1/3 of the lower part of the photo is a dark void, which is no bueno. Two parrots are to our left, I'm not sure if any of them are José, Pierre, Michael, or Fritz, our hosts. To the right is what I believe is the "bird mobile", deployed for the song, "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing".
Next is a somewhat dark and blurry photo (from August, 1970) of a desert oasis as seen from the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. Pronghorn antelope stop for a drink before heading home to watch the big game. Big Game, get it? Aaaa, what's the use! Authentic plants such as yuccas and ocotillo. cacti and... er... other plants demonstrate that there is plenty of life in the desert.
8 comments:
There's not much to see in that dark void; mostly the backs of the audience members' heads. It's kind of a busy picture; hard to tell what we're looking at. The Bird Mobile looks like it's made up of sun-bleached antlers and spinal columns of critters unknown. But it IS mostly in focus, so it gets an extra point or two for that.
"Big game"......................... Ohhhhh, I get it! See, Major? Your clever joke wasn't wasted on me! No siree!
How fortunate for the photographer to catch the herd of antelope at the watering hole. A minute or two later, and they would have moved on to another location.
We can see one of the DLRR trains going by in the background.
Not bad for a Snoozle Sunday. Thanks, Major.
Any reasonably clear photo of the Tiki birds with the camera equipment of the age is worth a look. I’m sure the dark foreground looked fine through the viewfinder. I consider this photo to be no more than 30% soporific.
The Watering Hole looks pretty good too, considering. If we didn’t look too closely at the train in the background, this might pass for a real desert scene. The framing is similar to the Primeval World dinosaurs though.
Thanks Major, I enjoyed both pics. Have a good weekend everyone!
JG
Big game: thought it was Twister, but maybe I'm wrong. Any photo of the Tiki room is marvelous...I'd hardly call it a snoozle (tm). Pineapples are from South America originally, but because of Dole, they became quite the symbol of Hawaii. There are a couple of Pineapple plantations left, but nothing like it was in it's heyday. I remember seeing pineapples being picked in "America the Beautiful"...it seemed so very exotic. Hawaiian pineapples taste very different than ones from elsewhere...and if you see them in your local store, they are worth the extra expense. Pink pineapples are also a thing, and have their own flavor complexities. It seems that all the fruit or other foods from Hawaii tastes especially "floral"...to me anyway- even the lettuce. What a magical place. Pineapples WILL grow in my part of the world, and during the season, you can actually buy teeny tiny pineapples on big stickily plants in the flower district in NYC. They need to be babied, and won't last through the winter- indoors or out. Thanks Mr. Dole for the pineapple spears at the tiki bar. I'm not a "Dole Whip" guy...it's too newfangled for me. I'd rather have a pickle at the Market House, and a pineapple spear in Adventureland. I also don't need rainbow popcorn or a churro of any sort at all. The scene of the desert is also very lovely and realistic looking. I do enjoy a desert scene as much as a lush green garden...and have some sweet little cactus's from the guy who sold Walt his cactus for Frontierland and helped him landscape the Smoke Tree Ranch property...and others in Palm Springs. Yes, he is still around. It's a lovely private garden to visit if you are in the Palm Springs area, with a wonderful little farm stand shop with amazing cactuses and succulents to buy....and not for a million dollars like on the East coast! Happy post 4th Sunday! Thanks Major.
As for the bird hosts, Pierre is the blue parrot (front-left), and Michael is the green parrot (back left). Fritz and Jose would be to the right but are out of view. Great photo.
What a great view entering the Living Desert. I truly loved Nature's Wonderland. It was one attraction that I greatly anticipated on my trips to Disneyland as a youngster.
Another great example of the use of space in Disneyland with its compact multi-level layout and attraction interaction between the Mine Trains and Pack Mules and the watercraft along the Rivers of America at Cascade Peak. That kind of theme park design seems a lost art at the parks now.
Thanks, Major.
@ Bu-
"I'm not a "Dole Whip" guy..."
Dole Whip is to pineapple as a Frappuccino is to coffee... strange concoctions for those who crave sugar and chemicals over real flavor (which, regrettably, seems to sum-up most Americans).
Major-
I enjoy 'the dark and blurry' - it gives my eyes a chance for a restful moment. Thanks.
JB, I guess that first photo is lit by a spotlight? That dark area is so odd, it really looks strange. “The Bird Mobile looks like it's made up of sun-bleached antlers and spinal columns of critters unknown”. Whoa. I’m glad somebody got my clever joke, most of my humor is so intellectual and obscure!
JG, I’m always happy to see the Tiki birds, but sometimes I just have to admit that a photo doesn’t cut the mustard. Whatever that means. I remember driving up to visit my brother when he went to Chico State, and I could see pronghorn antelope not too far off Interstate 5, I was astonished. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen any in the wild!
Bu, Twister is an evil game designed by the Devil, and I shall never say its name again. People should have both feet on the floor and their hands to themselves! My buddy who is into growing fruit has planted several pineapples by putting the crown in soil, in his case he puts them in a half-barrel. The pineapples that resulted were small, but tasted just fine. I’ve never had a pineapple in Hawaii, are they a different variety? Why would they taste different? I am aware of the pink variety, but can’t remember if I’ve seen them at my local store or not. I think I have, and maybe I didn’t buy one because it was too small, or maybe too expensive, or both. I promise if I see them for sale again I will try one! I like Dole Whips, and I especially like it when the pineapple flavor is swirled with orange flavor, but they didn’t have that the last time I wanted it at Disneyland, much to my amazement. Gosh, I could go for a nice Dole Whip right now, it’s pretty warm already. Bill Evans didn’t help Walt landscape the Smoke Tree Ranch? Who is this cactus guy anyway??
K. Martinez, I always wondered why the parrots in the Tiki Room had accents that were not very parrot-y. Jose, sure. I guess there are (or were) French and German colonies in areas with parrots. But Irish?? Hey, what if that Cars ride in Florida was themed almost exactly like the classic Nature’s Wonderland?? Maybe we wouldn’t be so upset. That’s not going to happen, but we can dream. It really is amazing how much was squeezed into Disneyland’s relatively small space, and done so in the cleverest of ways.
Nanook, don't underestimate sugar and chemicals!
That first photo being half in light and half in shadow was probably caused by the photographer using a shutter speed faster than the flash sync speed of the camera. If the flash fires when the shutter has already begun to close, a portion of the exposure will only be lit by ambient light and not the flash.
Back in the manual camera days, the flash sync speed was often 1/60 or 1/125 of a second. On my Nikon FG, the sync speed was 1/90 of a second so you could still use a flash with the fully mechanical M90 setting if the camera battery died.
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