At some point, the horses that pulled the Horse Drawn Streetcars were fitted with hats. I'd like to think that the hats might have provided a teensy bit of relief on hot days, but... I doubt it was very much. In the 1946 film "Make Mine Music", there was a segment titled, "Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet", in which two hats fall in love. After being separated, they are reunited on the heads of two horses. I assume that hat-wearing horses was an actual thing, but perhaps their use was also a callback to that film.
Dang, it looks good! I told Walt that the horses should wear Chuck Taylor high-tops too, but he coughed and pretended that he had to call Fred MacMurray.
Major-
ReplyDelete"Dang, it looks good!"
I couldn't agree more-! Tomorrow I'm cutting-out ear holes in ALL of my hats. Man, I'll be stylin' then-!
Thanks, Major.
What the world needs right now is more horses wearing hats. Think how much more pleasant things would be! Do the Main Street horses still wear hats today? This horse's dark coat would make him extra hot on summer days. Maybe they use the light colored horses on hot days?
ReplyDeleteThe horse in the second photo looks especially nice with his hat. "Fred MacMurray"? The inventer of Flubber? Heck yeah! They could iron the Flubber to the soles of the horses' Chuck Taylors and they'd be bouncing all over Main Street!... And on top of the Matterhorn! Walt really missed a bet by not following your advice, Major.
Quite a theme, Major. Not just "horses" and "hats", but "horses wearing hats"! Thanks.
I suspect that Horsecar conductors must have placed hats on the horses at some point in time - but likely in the Horsecars twilight years and on smaller town lines. But it seems horses pulling ice wagons , farm carts , and streetcars was a common sight in American musicals and period based films. Animators must have seen or remembered this at some point.
ReplyDeleteCity street railways were serious business at one time and I doubt this would have been allowed in the Horsecar heyday. I have dozens of books with historical information on horse drawn fleet wagons and streetcars and can see no hats on these horses …but I do see plumes on the horses heads pulling hearses , sleighs , Brougham’s, Victoria’s, and other fancy carriages. Large city freight wagons were often required to have collar bells on horse teams. But a hat in a streetcar horse feels appropriate at Disneyland - very old timey - charming …. Despite it would impede the horse’s ability to shoo flies away with their ears.
The last time I tried to wear a hat and Chuck Taylors at Disneyland I was arrested. I suppose I probably should have worn a few more articles of clothing…
ReplyDeleteChuck, just get higher high-tops.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know, but horses wearing straw hats seems like a trope. I do remember than cartoon from somewhere.
My Dad worked for an ice company when Mom and he were first married. those wagons were horse-drawn in 1940, but he never mentioned hats. He started farming with horse-drawn implements too, but had a tractor by 1942. I have letters telling how he loaned the tractor to his dad and older brother while he was in the Navy.
Thanks Major!
JG
Nanook, I still haven’t figured out if I need to cut ear holes in my berets.
ReplyDeleteJB, I wonder how long a “shift” is for a streetcar horse? An hour? 30 minutes? I’ve read that those horse are pampered, so I assume it would not be for long. It’s funny, I always thought of Fred MacMurray as a bumbling nice guy, and then saw his earlier noir films, in which he is steely and shady. A total 180!
Mike Cozart, you might be right about the conductors, though it also kind of feels like a decision from “on high”, as if somebody thought it would be cute. I’ve wondered just how much sun protection a horse (with a long head!) gets from a hat. And as you said, it can’t really flick its ears like you always see. Which is why I’m going to design a laser-powered fly eradicator for horses! “Flyz-B-gon”. Nobody steal this idea!!
Chuck, surprisingly, your outfit would have been OK at Knott’s Berry Farm.
JG, my mom said that when she was a girl in LA, she remembers plenty of horse-drawn wagons around the city. And this was in the 1930s, long after automobiles were around. Granted, it was also the Great Depression. And my relatives in Minnesota (many of them farmers) used horse-drawn implements up until I was a tiny child, though I don’t remember them. My brother does though.
Horses in my time were part of the Tour Speil" which was "The horses only work four hours and day and have all the hay they can eat!".....and they also had little breaks and shift changes back behind City Hall which is where we would catch up with them...I don't think those guys wanted us interacting with them though, as the Jungle Cruise hippo pool was just behind and the guns would set them off sometimes. In any case, the hats are charming, and I love them. It makes them look very Disney-fied. And thanks for reminding me of that segment in Make Mine Music....that was another favorite of mine as well: and that entire movie I really liked the styling of....kind of going away from the artistry of the Snow Whites of the world, and halfway into a cartoon: in this mid century deco-y kind of stylized way. I won't mention the unbuttoned vest on Mr. Streetcar, but I will mention Walt Disney style mustache. Clearly before they were "verboten"...and now guys kind of look like Lord of the Rings characters if they so choose. Not social commentary, just a sign of the times. Please do not take away the street cars people of New Disney. They are the last few snippets of charm that we get. Thanks Major!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCwypmpWmSk
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in New Orleans back in the late 1980s/early 1990s the mules that pulled the tourist carriages around the French Quarter always wore hats. Perhaps they still do? It always made them look a bit comical and rather sad to be honest.
ReplyDeleteBu, it sounds like the horses were treated better than the people! I’m OK with that. Be nice to animals, folks. Hey, those Jungle Cruise guns set me off too. Maybe the streetcars were sponsored by “Big Hat”, one of the five corporations that secretly controls the world. I truly feel as if the unbuttoned vest must have been OK in certain circumstances, we see it SO often. Maybe not by the 1980s, when Bu was there? But it seems like we seen them unbuttoned more than buttoned. I’ve seen a few mustachioed CMs in the past, but usually in Frontierland. I like that they were willing to make exceptions to the rules.
ReplyDeleteDBenson, awesome!
Pegleg Pete, wow you lived in New Orleans? Very cool. You’d think a hat on a mule would make them look happy! Guess not.