The Horn That Matters, May 1960
I admit that today's scans are not that exciting (to put it mildly). When I placed them in front of my "Snoozometer" (built at Cal Tech), the numbers were high. Do you know what I say? Dang the numbers! DANG THEM TO HECK! This particular photographer took no less than six photos of the Swiss cheese mountain, so you know that he was impressed, and maybe even gobsmacked.
Even in this somewhat murky and too-blue image, we can see that the stone of the mountain is much darker than we are used to; as I've posited in the past, I'll bet that somebody decided that a lighter tone would impart more of an "aerial perspective" effect, and I have to agree with that person. BOBSLED ALERT! Bet all your money on the lottery today! (Editor's note: don't actually do that).
This next one might be 1.3% more interesting, and only because of the umbrellas (and that one orange tree full of fruit). Oh alright, the portion of the House of the Future is OK too. There's no bobsled in this one however (or can we see the tippety-tip of a bobsled in the same place as in the previous picture?).
12 comments:
Major-
I vote for the 'tippety-tip' of the bobsled. Also on display are the Submarine and Matterhorn attraction posters.
Thanks, Major.
Wow. These are the strangest Matterhorn pics I've seen, color-wise. It looks more like Chernabog's Bald Mountain than the Matterhorn, which one associates with happy yodelers and serene alphorn players. The top half looks fine, but the bottom half? Hoo boy. So dark! I suppose the darkness is due to fading and discoloration of the slide, but...
Hmm, that might be the tippety-tip of a bobsled. But it seems like we've seen that light colored sliver of a thing in other photos as well. At least we have a Skyway bucket! And yes, the umbrellas do look nice. And that orange tree looks fantastic! I'm still getting Chernabog vibes from this picture though.
I tried putting the two photos side-by-side and crossing my eyes to see if they looked 3-D... results were inconclusive, so... not really.
With Halloween not that far away (I've been buying and eating Halloween candy since August), I guess these slightly creepy views of the Matterhorn fit right in. Thanks, Major.
Oh, the Matterhorn, back when it still had that “New Mountain” smell. I think you can buy a Yankee Candle with that scent. Little-known fact, The Matterhorn moonlighted for Chernabog before it caught the steady gig in Fantasyland. The commute to Europe was tough.
I also vote for seeing a sled sliver. That’s one of the original orange trees too. There’s a fun picture of Roy Disney standing by it during the original construction, with the Matterhorn spliced in behind.
I am settling in with my can of creamed corn to enjoy these pics.
Major, your Snoozometer needs recalibrating. I hear than a xenon arc works wonders.
Thank you!
JG
Interesting fact-- 'Sled Sliver' is the HGTV Color of the Year (HGTVCotY)! Close second was 'Tippity-Tip'. 'Orange Tree' got no votes.
These are swell, Major.
Zach
All the holes behind the Plaza-facing waterfall are still there almost a year after the Matterhorn opened. That means the out-of-view Fudgie is also there, and also that riders are getting doused whenever the wind gusts. With rising temperatures this could be a popular feature today. Adding the Jungle Cruise and Mine Train that made three backsides of water, and you know what Freudians said about Walt and backsides.
Reading a biography of the Beach Boys, I learned that several hundred gallons of white acrylic paint were used to flock the Matterhorn. An odd mention in such a bio, but the Boys were fans of Disneyland and P.O.P., and they greeted the yearly new marvels with much enthusiasm.
Danke Haupt Pepperidge fur die Matterhorn fotos.
Nanook, good eye on the posters!
JB, these are from a whole batch of slides that were weirdly dark and muted in tone. I forget if we’ve seen others from this group already (since I often work on various posts out of order). Your comment made me think about how cool it would be if they put a big Chernabog on top of the Matterhorn for Halloween! Mostly inflatable? It’ll never happen because there are people who would find it offensive, but just imagine how amazing it could be. Maybe instead of seeing the tippety-tip of a bobsled in photo #2, we’re seeing part of some mechanism inside the tunnel? I will not even attempt to do the cross-eyed 3D thing, but hey, you gave it a shot!
JG, somebody out there does make candles that supposedly have various scents from around Disneyland, such as the distinctive Pirates of the Caribbean aroma - but something tells me they won’t be even close to the real thing. That photo of Roy Disney with the orange tree was made by the Mysterious Benefactor! Confession: I don’t know if I’ve ever actually had creamed corn.
zach, “Sled Silver” sounds kind of like a comic book character. I would vote for “Orange tree”, since orange is (probably) my favorite color.
Stefano, I know that they’ve filled in some of the original holes of the Matterhorn, but I’ve never been entirely clear WHY they did it. So it had to do with riders getting wet from waterfall spray? Walt did love a good “fanny” joke, I might have found them funny when I was five years old. I admit that I was wondering why a Beach Boys biography would have factoids about the Matterhorn, but it makes sense that the Boys would love going to the park.
When I was a kid, my brothers and I had an HO model railroad. I always thought the orange trees didn't look like anything found in nature, but they looked surprisingly like the tree in the first picture.
My wife bought me a cologne called "Dark Ride" that's supposed to smell like an amalgam of the Haunted Mansion and PotC. If you're familiar with the rides, you can make out the musty, machine oil, and chlorine notes, but not so much that you'd recognize it if you weren't told what it was.
The original paint job was a snow-capped rock, looking rather like whipped cream on some odd flavor of ice cream. Did it ever occur to anyone to market a Matterhorn sundae? The intent seemed to be it was warm and sunny at ground level but frozen solid above a certain altitude. Now there are snowy parts almost all the way down, looking wintery but not arctic.
Dean Finder, ha, I love the idea of the “Dark Ride” cologne! It sounds like the combination of disparate odors would definitely be hard to identify, but I am very curious to smell it for myself.
DBenson, the Carnation Ice Cream Parlor had a “Mammoth Matterhorn Mountain” sundae, according to the menu it was “one of the world’s largest sundaes”! 5 scoops of ice cream, sliced pineapple, 5 different toppings, sliced banana, chopped almonds, whipped cream, and cherry. I have no doubt that there are sundaes that are WAY bigger than that these days.
I’m late to the party but really happy to see the orange tree. If you haven’t seen the Roy Disney photo, look it up. Interesting that the shot is of “Kidney Boy Alley”…Olives and Oranges…they could have a farm stand. With all of those oranges, they probably did. There has got to be someone in Anaheim (or environs) that has a Disneyland orange tree…and I will find it. The big waterfall is impressive…but I don’t remember it in today’s world. Where I grew up in the Fjord we had waterfalls everywhere…and you could hear them all day and night. The Matterhorn waterfall sound is similar but doesn’t carry. Our waterfalls were hundreds of feet tall…with melted glacier water, which was incredibly pure after its journey through the earth and sand into a well. I remember that the Matterhorn water smelled faintly of chlorine and concrete…a Matterhorn smell. I don’t know if I need a cologne made of it, but certainly one scented of glacier water, earth, and wildflowers I could do with. At first I thought this was going to be a GDB After Dark post…but was pleasantly surprised. Thanks Major.
"Little-known fact, The Matterhorn moonlighted for Chernabog before it caught the steady gig in Fantasyland. The commute to Europe was tough."
JG, I'm picturing a large MH cut-out now sitting in the MH's old Alps spot.
I love creamed corn, and use it in a few different dishes/recipes. I had a cousin (now deceased) who would not eat corn of any sort. He said it was for pigs only. He was serious. He didn't know what he was missing. (It wasn't my cousin, Stu, BTW.)
I love seeing pictures of the orange trees in DL. As I've mentioned here, a few times, my dad said you could smell the oranges throughout DL, in the early years. He loved that smell.
Stefano, that's interesting about the MH paint. I wonder how you paint it....pour it on? brush it on?
"Olives and Oranges…they could have a farm stand. With all of those oranges, they probably did."
Bu, I know that DL [park, restaurants and Hotel] served fresh-squeezed orange juice, back in the day, so I bet that's where most of those oranges ended up?? I do hope you can get your hands on one of the oranges from one of those original trees -- to start growing your own. Maybe someone who reads this blog has info....
Bu, where you grew up sounds WONDERFUL!
Thanks, Major.
I seriously considered doing a photo merge of the two photos in Photoshoppe but then got distracted with some navel lint.
Bu, those memories are wonderful. I’d love to visit Norway but just can’t afjiord it.
Sue, they paint the Matterhorn by dipping a four-story-tall brush in a cement mixer full of white paint from a crane and then swinging it at the mountain Jackson Pollack style. They had some accuracy problems in the early years, which is why so much of Tomorrowland is painted white.
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