It's GDB pal KS's birthday! And you already know that Sue B. provided a fun vintage photo to help celebrate. It's four boys versus one girl at this party! Big sis is cute. I love the paper-and-crayon artwork that adorns the window shutters behind them. Christmas bells on the chandelier tell us that this was around the holidays. Check out those classic 50s anodized cups! I used to have a bunch in every color, but finally sold them off. I hope KS has a party as swell as the one in this picture.
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The Fun Photos were put inside a mailable paper envelope that doubled as an inexpensive frame (stay tuned), there were several different variations of the envelopes.
As you can see on this 1964 souvenir "fun map", one of the locations for Fun Photos was in Tomorrowland, right next to the "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" walk-thru. I am pretty sure that the Opera House (pre-Mr. Lincoln) was also used on occasion, though this is not indicated on any old maps that I am aware of.
You'll see these souvenirs fetch occasional high prices, and I was always too cheap to pay very much. BUT I also found it hard to resist buying an example that I already had, if the price was low enough. So today I am sharing multiples of the same scene - an old-fashioned flivver, careening out of control. Just like the Mr. Toad ride! This one was perfect for couples (other scenes lent themselves to groups of three to five people).
Here's another one; this boy was solo, and it's interesting to see examples like this... painted faces fit into the open holes for just such an occurence.
When removed from the envelope, you can see that the photo was a Polaroid, stapled to a piece of cardboard. Sometimes these old black and white Polaroids show weird streaks and blotches, I don't know if they always looked like that, or if the passage of 60 years did the trick.
I remember buying this one on eBay, with a young fellow and his sweetheart...
But when I took it out of the envelope, there was another different photo stapled inside! I have no idea how this happened, and speculate that some other collector put them together and eventually forgot that there were two.
Here's this one, presumably it was removed from its original envelope long ago.
OK! That does it for this first batch of Fun Photos. I hope you found it somewhat interesting! I have 15 more (with a few duplicates), so stay tuned!
KS-
ReplyDeleteWOW - almost a perfect birthday celebration, as there was only one, creepy girl at your party. I hope it was a good one.
Major-
These 'Fun Photos' are just that - and cute-! I think that 'streaking' can probably be attributed to improper application of the [smelly] fixer, that required even coating to prevent such occurrences over time.
Thanks, Major.
Happy Birthday Ken! Hope you are staying out of trouble!!!
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday, KS!
ReplyDeleteIn the birthday pic, I like those square saucers with the round corners. I wonder if mom was going to be serving the cake on saucers?
Major, those photos are fun! It looks like the left side cut-out worked best with someone with a "full" face (like in the first example). The right cut-out also seemed to work better for the older female, than the smaller child.
I had a friend give me a framed letter, signed by a celebrity. She had purchased it at a flea market. I just had a feeling that the envelope was probably inside, so I took the backing off. The envelope WAS there, but there was also a second signed letter AND a second envelope. If only the seller had known!
My aunt also gave me a vintage movie ad from a vintage magazine, which had been framed. I don't remember why I opened up that frame, but when I did, I found an original painting........of a nude! The lesson from all of this, open up your frames that you purchase at thrift stores, flea markets, antique shops, etc.
Thank you, Sue and Major. And once again, a very happy birthday to KS!
Happy birthday KS! Or, as I recently called you, "KC". Because, that's the way (uh-huh, uh-huh) I like it (uh-huh, uh-huh). :-D
ReplyDeleteHmm, I know the photo is in black-and-white (I figured that out all by myself!), but the cake looks like meatloaf with boiled potatoes on top. The kids all look normal, and that's no fun! How am I supposed to make fun of 'normal' kids?! So I'll switch to the crayon artwork that Major mentioned. The 'thing' on the left looks like it's either a camel or a dinosaur. The 'person' on the right looks like it might be a king (with a crown on top). Sooo, that must be a camel on the left, and the king is one of the three wise men? I'm guessing that little brother made those.
Thank you, Sue. Your curated photos are a highlight of GDB!
I really like the 'fun map'; so much detail! Too bad somebody took a yellow highlighter pen and scribbled that circle on it. ;-p
About the "streaks and blotches" on the Polaroid photos: I remember back in the olden times, one had to wipe a fixative onto the photos to keep them from fading and maybe to protect the surface. These smears look like those streaks. [Edit: I see that Nanook also has the same idea.]
This fun photo scene has all the hallmarks of Disney artwork. The artist(s) went above and beyond what a usual scene like this would look like.
Amazing that you have so many examples of the same fun photo scene! Thanks, Major.
These are so charming...and so much better than some of the earlier...(or later) cut out plywood forms I've seen before....the "Disneyland" font is my favorite font: it's more delicate that what it morphed into later on...but it wasn't TRE'd. The only TRE was putting "park" or "resort" on it....It's not Disneyresort, or Disneypark.....it's DisneyLAND. And...there's only one...there has to be some legalese that goes along with these dumb things...well: they are dumb to me. Anyway: photos: love them...and the smudges remind me of the ones my parents would get at the Playboy Club....my dads best friend had a "key"....and they were all bronze smudgey....but everyone seemed to have a rollicking time with the bunnies who posed along side of them. Those bunnies, if I remember correctly, were very very polished and upright...perfect and conservative hair and makeup: very 1960's -70"s Disneyland Ambassador: but in a bunny suit....my English relatives seemed to talk for decades about it and were quite charmed...my Norse relatives: were like my dad: a bunny in every lap. Seems like it would be the opposite....in any case: Happy Birthday KS! Hope your day is full of bunnies and rabbits and a streamer or two. Which in these days means a completely different thing that should be on "GDB AFTER DARK".....thanks Major and Sue too!
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday KS! Many happy returns of the day! Hope your family and horses are settled back in after the evacuations and nothing lost or damaged.
ReplyDeleteTokyo, I see you notice the melamine (?) dishes and sugar bowl (?). The tablecloth resembles an oilcloth that we had for camping, pink and gray pattern. I hope the youngster had a great birthday and a happy life.
Those are fun portraits, Major. Lucky you getting two for one. I vaguely remember wooden panels like these from some other location (not Disneyland), and the painted faces were hinged panels like doors in the old Laugh-In tv intro. You could open and shut whichever one you wanted. The idea is still popular, there are at least two restaurants in town here with portrait scenes, but no hinged panels or photographers.
Thanks for pics of happy people!
JG
Nanook, I remember when I was very young, a neighbor friend’s mom had a Polaroid, and she used a little pink sponge (for some reason the pink color of the sponge made an impression) to apply that fixer, I was fascinated!
ReplyDeleteMike Cozart, hmmm, it sounds like you know something about KS that the rest of us don’t!
TokyoMagic!, perhaps those saucers are just dessert plates? My mom had several different kinds of dessert plates, her favorites were green Fiestaware. I wish I could share some of my friend’s very rare examples of these Fun Photos, he has some truly incredible examples that I’ve only seen in his collection. Mine are generally the standard things. Your story about taking your items out of their frames and finding more items reminds me of an old episode of “Antiques Roadshow”, somebody took something out of a frame and found a dinner menu from the Titanic behind the main item. Did you ever find a dinner menu from the Titanic?
JB, yum, a cake made out of meat, what a brilliant idea! I’ve actually seen somebody make sort of a meatloaf “cake” frosted with mashed potatoes. Strange, and the meatloaf wouldn’t get that nice browning on the outside. I’m voting “dinosaur” for that one crayoned masterpiece. I’m glad you enjoyed that map detail, and am sorry that the Symbionese Liberation Army defaced it. Most amusement park Polaroids that I’ve seen are streaky and blotchy, it seems like the bugs had not been worked out yet. Not sure if those streaks and blotches took many years to appear?
Bu, I like the original “Disneyland” font as well, and remember Howard Lowery’s animation gallery auctioning off the original cel used for the opening credits of the Disneyland TV program. I don’t like “Disneyland Park” either, though I think some people have traced that back earlier than we might imagine. A buddy of mine worked for an artist who belonged to the LA Playboy Club, and after the artist passed, his wife gave the key to my friend. I was very jealous! Those things go for big money. I think I would have felt awkward at a Playboy Club - I’d appreciate the beautiful women of course, but would have “impostor syndrome” or something. “Why am I here?”. I even felt weird the one time I went to a Hooters (guys at work decided we needed to go there for lunch, it was mostly kind of sad).
JG, you might be right about the dishes being Melamine. My sister still has a stack of Melamine dishes left over from when her kids were little and broke everything. I still use them for my sandwiches, they are lightweight and unfussy. From what I’ve observed, most places that had “fun photo” setups did not bother with the painted faces for the unused spots.
Happy birthday, KS! Hope you're having a great day!
ReplyDeleteUh-oh! The birthday boy is sitting right under the mistletoe! Rookie mistake for a ten-year-old! At least he got let out of the stripey shirt dress code for a day. I agree with JB; that cake does have a certain meatloafy aspect. Maybe the frosting is just absorbing a lot of light. My Dad's birthday was a week before Christmas, and we always put up the tree that night. (Other decorations went up earlier.)
I'm a big fan of fun photos, a fervent fun photo fan! And I'm fascinated by seeing an assortment of diverse sitters in the same setting. It's fun to compare how they choose to angle their heads, different expressions, etc. Nothing beats the solo kid's wide grin. (I think I may have already shared the one of me at Animal Kingdom, but I can't remember.)
You can even see all the kinetic energy of Tomorrowland in the Fun Map! (Well, they cheat it with the motion lines, but still.)
I'm loving all the stories of double pictures/letters! Just recently I got around to re-framing an autographed picture of David Selby he signed for me at a Dark Shadows fan event in 2014. It was a great memory, and he was so nice (and smelled wonderful), but I broke the frame last time I moved. I wasn't completely happy with the picture, because it was a 6x9 printed as an 8x10, with big white bands down the sides. So I scanned and cropped it and had it reprinted, but I didn't want to lose the original, so it's behind the reprint in the frame. When I die, whoever cleans out my apartment is going to have a little mystery. (Or just throw out the whole thing without looking, who knows.)
All this talk of cakes that aren't cakes but look like cakes brought back a memory of the owner of the small-town restaurant where I worked in high school and college. She had this specialty piece she did for catering bridal showers, that was a three-tiered macaroni salad mold "frosted" with mayonnaise, to look like a wedding cake. It took a day in the walk-in cooler for the tiers of macaroni to set up firm. When it was all put together she'd trim it with little wedges of boiled egg around the edges and radish roses. I don't think mothers considered their daughters properly engaged without one.
ReplyDeleteWell, to all, a hearty "Thank You" is in order. I admit I have been AWOL as we have put all of our Humpty Dumpty life back together after evacuation. Nothing lost. And I got off an extended conference call this morning preventing me from checking in earlier. Now that I reached adulthood, or I will admit it at this late stage, I'm inclined to try out the 'GDB After Dark' option that BU mentioned! Now where's my key? LOL
ReplyDeleteThat birthday scene sure looks familiar. The cake likely made by his Mom just like mine were, slathered with real sugary frosting. What could be better? One year one of the pans was accidentally tilted in the oven so the layer came out more like the leaning tower of Pisa. Oh the good memories. And that sought after, indestructible Melmac. Back then it was all 'buy it once and never need replace it' mentality. The folks kept it forever.
JB...Uh Huh! That's today's motto. And Nanook...no creepy girls were allowed at my party! Mike...it seems I'm always in trouble. Just ask my wife! Melissa...any day is a good day these days! JG...you "hope" Birthday Boy HAD a good life? Putting that statement in the past tense got my attention. I remember my parties looked just like that! I better stop counting the years. And forget about putting the right amount of candles on the cake! TokyoMagic!...you still have that nude hanging somewhere?
Major and Sue...you are the glue that keeps GDB together. That's a nice birthday present!
And I recall those Polaroid pictures and how they could come out of the camera streaked. Without the fix gel, that's just the way they were. It was a marvel of technology. One family member had a camera. He was a druggist as we called them then with his own shop and was doing quite well. Those cameras and supplies were expensive and out the reach of my family. KS