Stop whatever it is you are doing! Unless you are flying an airplane. It's Stu's Birthday today! And Sue B. has provided a vintage scan, just for Stu. It was a bit on the magenta side, and my color-correction turned out not-so-great, but it's still a fun picture. Two boys wait in front of the whitest cake ever made, it might even be producing its own light. It looks as if one boy's head is springing directly from the cake. "Er, no, I don't want any cake, thanks anyway". The other boy has his arms crossed as a tribute to his favorite professional wrestler.
OK, you may resume whatever you were doing. Though you should look at these two pictures. I'm not the boss of you, but there is such a thing as courtesy. Both of today's photos are from sometime in the 1950's - this first one shows a Skyway tower in the distance, and Rainbow Ridge is looking pretty good, so... 1956 or later, at any rate. Check out the wide open spaces and lack of crowds! It's like heaven. Was the Mine Train operating that day? We'll never know.
Next, a nice view from out front, with the Disneyland Railroad's yellow passenger cars at rest; an employee in white coveralls makes sure no hobos are on board (it's for their own safety!). The E.P. Ripley looks great as always. I read that the Ripley was Walt's favorite locomotive, I wonder why? In the distance, a souvenir stand, where you could buy the latest issue of The Disneyland News. And it would not be GDB if I didn't comment on the wonderful posters stapled to the fence near the Mickey floral portrait! Gimme that "Rocket to the Moon".
Happy Birthday Stu-! I certainly hope you enjoy lots of white icing-! There appears to be another "cut crystal" bowl or glass goblet peeking-out from behind the cake/stand. Based on all the fine glassware, it looks as though you're going to have a very elegant birthday celebration.
ReplyDeleteI'm most-interested in what's going on behind that [mostly-empty] cabinet-? behind Mr. Harumph, as there appears to be a door hinge just above the lower 'shelf'. I wonder what mysteries lie behind that back panel/door...
Major-
Love the shot of Frontierland. I'd love to go and re-visit Mineral Hall, my last visit there now lost in the recesses of my mind.
Thanks, Major.
Mineral Hall ... Better than Vitamin Parlor, but less exciting than Carbohydrate Rumpus Room.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday, Stu(numbers)! Climb down out of your attic and eat some glow-in-the-dark cake. (Before it eats YOU!
ReplyDeleteThe expression on the crossed-arms kid is mesmerizing. I can't look away! Sort of 'happy' and 'creepy' at the same time... 'heepy'? (The alternative is 'crappy'.) The expression on the other kid (growing out of the cake) is just plain creepy. Must've been a transporter malfunction.
Thanks once again, Sue. This one is kinda weird, kinda fun (and kinda pink).
As you noted, there are those Skyway towers that I mistook for construction cranes around the Castle the other day. (An honest mistake!) What are the white gingerbread pieces at the bottom of the photo? Surely it's not the Mark Twain... unless the photographer climbed up one of the tall smokestacks.
Major, I think I'll have me one o' them "Rocket To The Moon" posters as well. Also one of those Adventureland/Jungle Cruise posters next to it. The Mickey portrait looks about right today; not too sparse, not too shaggy. Although, the Mouse is looking a bit green around the gills in places. Miss Sensible Shoes, nearest us, looks like a 1950s school teacher to me. Looks like she's about to open a yogurt cup... which I think were not invented yet.
Thanks, Major.
Happy birthday, Stu-Man! I hope you have a wonderful day!
ReplyDeleteDBenson......HA, HA! How about "Protein Den"? ;-)
The kid's head on top of the cake is reminiscent of the disembodied clown heads that we saw on a cake, several days ago. The parents should have asked this kid to put on a clown costume, before they snapped the picture!
In addition to that single Skyway tower, we can see the "double" tower support on Holiday Hill.
Looks like she's about to open a yogurt cup... which I think were not invented yet.
JB, I think it's actually a JELL-O Pudding cup, which Bill Cosby had just handed to her, out in the parking lot. DON'T EAT IT, LADY!!!
Thanks you, Major!
Wishing you a very happy birthday Stu!
ReplyDeleteWow, photo #1 makes our castle look not so tiny as it towers over town.
MS
Happy Birthday Stu! Many happy returns of the day! There’s a Moonliner poster today, just for you. Enjoy your radium cake!
ReplyDeleteThis is a very strange birthday picture today, was Salvador Dali involved somehow?
Photo 1 shows how the Castle dominates the landscape until the trees without scale took over. There’s a solitary log trash can like the one at Abe Lincoln’s house. And since the Animal and Vegetable Halls were already taken, Disney settled for Mineral Hall, home of Rock and Roll.
Floral Mickey looks like he’s shedding his winter coat. Does the Ripley have a “quiet car” like the Acela? Because that’s where I want to sit. The young lady in red has a stylish outfit too, she is traveling away at such a pace, we can seen only the “red shift”. Astronomy Humor.
Thanks Major!
JG
Have a “Stu-pendous” birthday Stu!
ReplyDeleteI always wondered why it seemed like the Ripley was Walt’s favorite, when the Holliday was based on a locomotive he thought was ideally proportioned. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of Walt in the Holliday. But there are many of him in the Ripley. Maybe because the Ripley was completed first, so that was the first one he got to operate? Or that it more closely reflected the Victorian era?
Happy Birthday Stu. Which birthday is the 'white' birthday?
ReplyDeleteNanook, points for spelling harumph.
Nice train and posters today. Thanks, Major!
Zach
@ JB-
ReplyDelete"What are the white gingerbread pieces at the bottom of the photo?"
The gingerbread most-likely belongs to the trim on the roof of the stand-alone ticket booth, placed in front of the covered queue area for the Mark Twain. And as we can see the backside of the 'tableau' board plugging the [new] Mine Train, Stage Coach & Mule Pack rides, this photo is most-likely from 1956.
Thanks, Major, Sue, and everybody! I completely endorse this birthday picture! In fact, I was born out of a cake just like this one! (Long story)
ReplyDeleteZach, apparently 63 is your "creepily glowing white birthday!" Who knew? Sue, that's who, says Stu!
Now my head hurts.
My wife got me my favorite cake, a tres leches, so it is indeed white, although it doesn't seem to glow.
Thanks, guys!
Nanook, we all know that chocolate milk tastes better when served in fine crystal. My guess is that more dishes (china, porcelain, etc) are behind that panel, based on my grandmother’s home, which had more “good dishes” than she could ever use. I wish I could have seen Mineral Hall, with all of its fluorescent minerals!
ReplyDeleteDBenson, I dunno, a Carbohydrate Rumpus Room sounds pretty great!
JB, Let us all bring the word “heepy” into the lexicon. When you hear Tom Cruise say it in an interview, you’ll know we were successful. Those gingerbread pieces are part of the Mark Twain load structure, which you’ve seen many times before. I had a chance to buy one of the Rocket to the Moon posters years ago, and while expensive, it would have been a bargain by today’s standards. Still, I didn’t have the money at the time. Even the seller (who I am friends with) was sorry that I didn’t get it!!
TokyoMagic!, ugh, stay away from the Protein Den. Have you ever met somebody who pronounces “protein” pro-tee-in? It’s weird. Maybe disembodied clown heads were a brief cake decorating trend that has been forgotten about? Bill Cosby - I worked on an animated show that Cosby produced, I never saw him in person, but he’d come into the studio sometimes. At the time he was beloved!
MS, the rest of Disneyland was so modest (in the best way) that it helped the Castle look more stately than it does today.
JG, “radium cake”, reminds me of a vintage ad for a toothpaste with radium. ARG. Good point about the trees without scale, once they got big, they really changed a lot of the proportions of things like the Castle and Cascade Peak. I like the idea of a quiet car, since my one main memory of a long train trip involved a kid who would or could not sit still.
Steve DeGaetano, gosh, I thought for sure I’d seen photos of Walt on the Holliday, but I know that YOU would know better than I do, so I am surely mistaken. Being the first of the locomotives to be finished would be pretty special, but maybe his liking for the Ripley was unspoken, he just really liked it!
zach, I didn’t know birthdays had colors, but I like the idea!
Nanook, See my comment to JB, I thought that the gingerbread details were part of the main queue structure, but as always, I could be wrong!
Stu29573, someday we’ll have to hear your cake story, it sounds weird. “Tres leches” cake? A cake with three leeches? NO THANK YOU!
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday, Stu!
ReplyDeleteAfter enjoying these fine images, I'm off to the Vitamin Parlor myself - I just have to find my frequent shopper card.
Major-
ReplyDelete"I thought that the gingerbread details were part of the main queue structure..."
Naturally, that was my first thought, too. Only problem is - that gingerbread was a light green, and not white; which is how I landed on that stand-alone ticket booth. I first thought [that booth] may have appeared at the same time as the Columbia, but that proved wrong, as it pre-dates 1958. I don't think it was there for very long though, possibly disappearing even before 1958; but the actual dates will have to be provided by a real expert.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, STU, from Lou & Sue! I like the new 'old' turntable that you got for your birthday (as seen on your current blog site post). Please save me a piece of cake with lots of frosting.
ReplyDeleteThat first DL image looks 'nekked' without the Matterhorn. But it's still a fun snapshot from the 50s.
Thanks, Major.
Happy birthday, Stu! I hope it was a wonderful day.
ReplyDeleteGadzooks - the Rainbow Caverns show building is visible from this vantage point! I don’t remember ever noticing it in a photo taken from this area.
I hate to disagree with Nanook, but I’m positive that the gingerbread trim is from the loading dock structure. The ticket booth was quite a ways to the left of this image. Compare with this photo. The flag in today’s image is the one on the top of the central roof peak, and note that when this photo was taken, while the roof and most of the building were green, the gingerbread trim on the roof was painted white.
The white-suited gentleman is performing the final “Clean Room” checks before the Ripley blasts off on another orbit around Disneyland. Walt refused to be photographed on the Holliday because he was afraid the Lilly Belle would be jealous that he had taken up with another gorgeous locomotive that looked similar to her but was younger and had a proportionally slimmer boiler.
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ReplyDelete@ Chuck-
ReplyDeleteI'm always happy to be corrected - only occasionally is it fun to be 'the smartest person in the room'. On the other hand, there are times I'm correct, and I do believe this is one of them - lookie here...
You are correct the ticket booth in the image you referenced is too far to the left to be 'the one in question', and as such is not what I was referring. Check out THIS IMAGE from 1955, and THIS IMAGE from early 1958, you can clearly see the ticket booth sitting dead center in front of the queue structure for [the then] Mark Twain. The top of the front-facing oval-shaped "frieze" seen in the GDB image can clearly be seen in the 1958 image, along with the rear-facing one. Also in the 1958 image, the gingerbread still appears as green.
Check out THIS LATE 1958 image - you can see the Mark Twain/Columbia queue structure behind it.
Nanook, oh, wow - I see it now. I totally agree with you. Thanks for the additional photos. I don’t mind being corrected, either - especially when I’m wrong. :-)
ReplyDelete