Frontierland, 1970s
Let's take a look at a pair of wonderful Frontierland views from the early 1970s. Starting with this look at the Burning Settler's Cabin. There's the settler himself, in his Arrow shirt. He's taking a short siesta. Or maybe a long one. This seems to be pre-Energy Crisis, which began in 1973, because those flames are blazing fiercely. The woods on Tom Sawyer Island had matured to an impressive degree, it looks like a real wilderness.
Next is this very nice photo of three fishin' bears as seen from the rickety trestle bridge on the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. I've noticed that most of my pictures of these bears don't necessarily show them in full sunlight, so it's nice to know that the bears are warm and happy, with bellies full of trout. Seeing this tableau really makes me wish that we still had the MTTNW!
3 comments:
Major-
Ahhhh... the original Bear Country.
Thanks, Major.
Seems like we usually see the Burning Cabin scene from more of a ground level position. Here, we appear to be on the upper deck of the Mark Twain, looking down on Mr. Arrowshirt and his festively blazing cabin. During the energy crisis, didn't they use fake fire, a la PotC, with colored lights reflecting off plastic sheeting?
Nice, clear photo of da bears. Is that the 'back scratching' bear on the right edge? That would put the tree-climbing bear cubs out of frame to the right, right? I like the split pea soup-colored water, somehow it looks more like a real river.
Kinda weird to see Frontierland photos that weren't supplied by the Mysterious Benefactor. Thanks for the photos, Major.
Boomers will remember when True Live Adventures were a fairly big deal, migrating from theater screens to World of Color episodes, 16mm classroom films, comic book stories, and school library books with color photos. The critters viewed from the train were all drawn from various of features and featurettes. They were, in a way, Disney characters.
The infamous lemming footage, for which Disney's crew bought the little critters from locals and herded them over the edge, was actually rather mild in scope and scariness. Also, the narration debunked the suicide myth by reporting the lemmings would swim across narrow bodies of water, and most likely didn't grasp they'd hit something unswimmable. Still, a waterfall full of lemmings in Nature's Wonderland would have been Cool.
Post a Comment