Magic Kingdom Shop Windows, December 1983
GDB friend Sue B. sent along a folder full of photographs taken by her dad, Lou Perry, way back in 1983 (42 years ago!), featuring images of various shop windows in the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. There will be three installments, and I admit that I am saving the best for the third part!
Mickey and Minnie are dressed in their traditional holiday outfits. I'm not sure if the style qualifies as "Dickensian". Anyway, they are talking about what they are going to buy for me, which is awfully nice.
I wish there was lots of information about how these windows were created - maybe old issues of "Disney News" had articles about the sculpting of the figures, the sewing of the outfits, choosing the props, etc?
Lou liked this scene!
I have no idea which shop had this window - if I had to guess I'd say that we were in one of the Center Streets, but I really don't know.
Minnie is in her nightgown and nightcap (where she keeps a single donut for later); she's knitting a scarf in very 80s colors.
Meanwhile, Mickey decorates the tree, he likes to do it by himself because he's a little bit OCD. There's nothing wrong with wanting perfection!
Yet another window, this time Minnie is standing on a ladder, I guess she's arranging the merchandise in the shop?
These scenes remind me a lot of the Disney Stores, but I was surprised to learn that those didn't come along until 1987. Remember when Disney Stores were fun? I'm not sure what happened, if they over-extended themselves or what. Eventually they seemed to carry only clothing and toys for little girls and boys, before they went away. I have no idea if there are any left!
OK, that's it for PART ONE; stay tuned for PART TWO in about a week, and the third and final installment shortly after that. THANK YOU, Lou and Sue!
9 comments:
Major-
More lovely images from Lou-! So Christmas-y.
Thanks to Lou and Sue.
It must've taken forever for the people at Disney to find gloves with only four fingers.
In the 5th picture (Minnie in her nightgown), those two dolls on the right looked like they were nekkid. But upon closer inspection, they're wearing tan-colored clothing of some sort. Crisis averted.
Pleasant Christmas scenes. Thanks to Lou, Sue, and Major. (You really oughta change your name to something that rhymes with Lou and Sue.) :-p
These are so cool! Tasteful use of Mickey and Minnie in holiday decorations that don’t punch you in the face.
The second set of windows are on the second facade of the Emporium as you head north on Main Street. Not sure about the first set; they may be a facade lost forever during the expansion of the Emporium into West Center Street in 2001.
Thanks again, Lou and Sue and that guy whose name doesn’t rhyme with either!
(Come to think of it, I can’t recall a single name that rhymes with “either.”)
We can rely on Sue to find seasonal pics from Lou’s no-doubt tremendous collection. Thank you Sue and Lou for seeing and preserving these tiny details otherwise lost to time.
As always, the architecture is detailed and perfect and the little figures are just right, even if their noses resemble black olives.
I think my favorite is the last photo, Mickey is angling for an OSHA citation, completely ignoring every admonishment of Ladder Safety Protocol and risking breaking all those coffee cups.
Thanks Major, Lou and Sue, for the Christmas Cheer!
JG
Ah, quite festive and seasonal. Thanks Lou and Sue!
Nanook, today’s post is bittersweet for sure.
JB, now that you mention it, there must have been an army of seamstresses making those small four-fingered gloves! It never occurred to me. I’m glad there are not naked dolls, there’s only so much I can take. Should I change my name to Shabadoo?
Chuck, these remind me of the old Disney Stores, which is not surprising. Remember when those were full of fun stuff? For some reason they changed their merchandise to stuff for children, which seems like a dumb idea. Thanks for the ID on the location of that set of windows; weird to think they might be gone. There are no names that rhyme with “either”, even if you pronounce it “eye-ther”.
JG, there are lots of Lou and Sue blog posts to come, so Lou’s legacy lives on. I’ll bet very few people took good photos of these windows, which would make these a valuable record for park history for those of us who care about such things. I remember one time when I sculpted a small Mickey head, and I thought that the nose looked like a black olive too! I want Mickey to be safe, but I’m also glad that he is willing to take a risk.
Steve DeGaetano, you’ll be seeing a lot more blog posts to put you in the holiday mood!
This are charming tableaux. I don't get to use that word too often, so I am very excited about that today! The product placement is possibly a bit haphazard....kind of like an Emporium re-stocker kind of threw them in there...delicately of course. That blue book in the one window is the Walt Disney World 10th Anniversary book...which despite giving away most everything...I still have it. Disney Stores...yes...that is a long story worthy of a book. The Glendale Galleria store was store #1, and the Disney Store offices were in Glendale. That store continued to be the "set up" store from what I can remember, I worked in that mall for a short time, and always liked the convenience of it...except for Christmastime where the employees parked at the LA Zoo...and had to be bussed over...it was a BUSY mall....back then anyway....that was a decade after these photos. The Disney store was a "thing" when it first started, since for the first time, you could buy Disneyland and WDW tickets and didn't have to go down to the Park to buy them. They also sold Disneyland and WDW items...that you could not buy anywhere else but in the Parks. That part did make it "fun", and unique. You could also buy Disney Dollars and use them there....and like all retail, you have to "change it up" constantly....but what happened is that they changed the wrong things....it's a bit of a long story...but ultimately, the Disney Stores got sold to someone else...but then the company still kept the Glendale store...the memories are fuzzy...I worked with someone from Corporate decades after this and she had sad stories about the demise...which was a group of really excited and driven people....who became obsolete...anyway....that is for another rabbit hole at another time....and it's all from my memory, so you may want to fact check me. Thank you's come from Bu: to Su and Lu.....and the other guy.....hee hee.....
The Disney Stores originally pandered to adults who grew up with Disney and wanted collectibles. Then they realized that was a shrinking demographic and pandered to children who were growing up with newer Disney fare and wanted pajamas and action figures. When they closed, the clearance sales had signs reading "Now it's time to say goodbye" ... few but OG boomers would get the reference.
Somewhere I have a book, from the 70s or 80s, on Hopalong Cassidy collectibles. The author predicted that the then-hot market (there was even modern counterfeiting of vintage merchandise) was destined to cool and keep cooling. The generation that grew up on Hoppy was diminishing and younger fans weren't replenishing the ranks. Hoppy, and everything that went with him, was largely irrelevant to the modern world ... But think of all the stuff that will suddenly be cheap!
Bu, I’m glad you enjoyed Lou’s Emporium window photos! Somehow a haphazard appearance works for the windows, I think in ye olden days, shop windows were often a bit chaotic. Good eye on the WDW 10th Anniversary book; while I have an appreciation for WDW, I don’t really collect things from there (with a very few exceptions). It’s not “my” park, ya know? I remember driving out to the Disney Store at the Glendale Galleria when it was pretty new, it was kind of exciting. A whole store of Disney stuff! And they had some high-quality merchandise too, not the cheap junk from later incarnations. I know there were things I wanted that were just too high-end for me, maybe that was the case with most others too. I think for a while I was buying pin sets, which I thought were fun, but I’ve sold them all over the years, when it was time to get rid of the chaff. I also remember really liking the Warner Bros. stores! I still wish I’d bought a 12” tall “Gossamer” figure (the red monster who bedevils Bugs Bunny).
DBenson, yes, the Disney Stores really were aimed at adults. I remember watches were a huge part of their offerings, in fact I believe that they even had a club that you could belong to, in order to get a watch every month or something ridiculous like that. I think the stores held on for years, but I stopped going inside once it switched to kid junk. Princess dresses and lots of Buzz Lightyear toys. Counterfeit collectibles from the 1930s is a real thing, and while I am pretty aware, I think I’ve been “had” once or twice. I see these “bronze” rings with a round celluloid covering, those can have pictures of James Bond, or Roy Rogers, or Frankenberry, or you name it - and I am sure those are new items from the 1990s, if not later.
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