Frontierland Views, October 1962

Well, hey! For a Sunday, today's photos ain't half bad. 3 skootches better than usual, if you want to get scientific about it. 

It's October, 1962 (or thereabouts), and somebody on the Mark Twain (or Columbia) snapped this picture looking across Tom Sawyer Island toward lovely Cascade Peak - doesn't it look great? My guess is that the four people standing next to Teeter-Totter Rock just happened to be there, and were not supposed to be the subjects of the photo. Notice Merry-Go-Round Rock in the lower left. 

Aaaaaaand... you know it, you love it, you can't live without it... it's the Friendly Indian Village! Somehow it looks especially busy in this photo, with all of the Native Americans preparing food, fixing canoes, scraping hides, and doing other useful activities. Maybe we are invited to dinner! Tonight they are serving fricassee of prairie dog. Mmmm-mmm! (Hey, I'd try it). 

I always get a chuckle over the two babies propped up against the teepee in the lower left.

Let's Go to the Airport!

Let's go to random airports! George Bailey ("It's a Wonderful Life") thought that the three most exciting sounds were "...anchor chains, plane motors, and train whistles". You wouldn't argue with George Bailey, would you? Of course, nowadays airports are just oases of fun, where everyone goes to buy a tasty Cinnabon and read a quality novel (such as "The DaVinci Code"), while enjoying some good-natured ribbing with the TSA employees.

I love this first photo (undated) at the gate onto a nearby runway. The wooden cart stacked high with luggage (including one tartan bag) is novel, but the people are what make this the most fun. A nice gentleman wipes the tears from the face of a woman (hopefully a woman he knows) - is she happy to have just arrived, or sad at the thought of leaving? It will remain a mystery, though I suspect the woman was about to fly to either Flint, Michigan or New York. I'll be curious to see if any clever GDB reader will be able to name this airport. There aren't many clues except for the sign for "Capital Airlines" - which at one time was the fifth largest airline in the country. 

Here's another undated, unlabeled image at some unknown airport; I suddenly feel the need to drive a bright orange vehicle. This airport appears to be a bit more modern than the one in the previous photo, with fancy mobile stairs! No leaping 10 feet to the ground here. In spite of the dearth of information about this photo, I love it anyway.

Beautiful Fantasyland, February 1961

Like most places, Disneyland looks best on a bright, sunny day - as evidenced by today's first photo. We're looking at Fantasyland in the early part of 1961. Everything is so colorful, and the clarity is great. The Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship gleams like a gemstone against that dramatic blue sky streaked with cirrus clouds (why so cirrus?).  

One might suggest that the photo has just a bit too much sky, and I am inclined to agree. I hate the sky! If it was up to me I would have the sky banned. Let's crop it down to a nice square. Bingo! This is a good photo for a bit of vintage people-watching. Like the Plaid Family! Paul and Patricia Plaid, with their daughters Pamela and Paige (too bad we can't meet their little dog Petey).

I can't tell for certain if this is the same pale yellow Skyway bucket as the one in the previous photo, but I am pretty sure that it is.

Disneyland's "Summer '67" Guidebook, Part Four

Today's continuation of Ken Martinez's scans of a "Disneyland '67" guidebook feature images of restaurants and shops - many of them are unique and fascinating looks at places that were rarely photographed.

Summer ’67 Disneyland U.S.A. – Part 4 Dining and Shopping at Disneyland

Today is the fourth post in a six part series featuring the “Summer ’67 Disneyland, U.S.A” booklet.  Featured today are the dining and shopping options at Disneyland.  How many of these concessions have survived through the history of the park?  I’ll let the booklet pages tell the story.

I love the Donald Duck caps the burger munching trio is wearing.  Anyone ever get one of those duck bill caps?

(Editor's note: I have one of those duck bill caps! I know right where it is, and might even have a photo or  two of me wearing it when I was about three years old).

Ah!  It’s a rare image of Sunkist “I Presume”.  The red lei the mother is wearing adds a nice Adventureland touch to the photo.

Shopping at Disneyland, when there was actually a lot of cool non-Disney branded stuff you could purchase.

Next will be Part 5 featuring the live entertainment, free shows and exhibits that were at Disneyland.  Hope you enjoyed today’s post.

Pretty cool, eh? Man oh man, those were the days! Thanks very much to Ken for sharing these scans.

Tomorrowland, October 1970

Man oh man, I recently scanned a group of slides from October, 1970. There are some nice images in the bunch - or there would be, if the photographer hadn't used GAF film. You've never seen such dark, murky, grainy, horrible results in your life! Most photos look like they were taken right after a volcano released millions of tons of ash into the atmosphere. The two examples today look sort of OK, and that was after considerable slaving over a red-hot computer. GAF must stand for "G**-Awful Film". (ZING! Eat that, GAF).

Anyway... here's Tomorrowland! Rectangular Skyway buckets, Mark VII Autopia cars, the Matterhorn, Green Mark III Monorail at the station; there's lots to like. Plus a ghost of that yellowish-gray murk.

You can't tell here, but that Monorail is deep mossy green - not graphite gray. The Mark IIIs retained much of the pizzaz (not pizzas) that the Mark II versions had. Bubble dome alert! 

Special Guest Post - Busch Gardens, Tampa - 1972

Today I am happy to share some family photos, generously shared by GDB reader Mark H. Besotted! You've probably seen his name if you read the comments. He doesn't  personally appear in any of the pictures because he hadn't been born yet. Yep, that old excuse. Mark's young parents visited Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, and... well, Mark included an entertaining writeup to accompany the pictures, so I'll let him do the honors. Here's Mark:

Many moons ago, 45 years' worth, in fact, my parents took advantage of their childfree, young-adult lifestyle to visit Florida. In one week during September of 1972, they visited Busch Gardens Tampa and a younger park in the wilds of Orlando. Here are some pictures from the first day. Busch Gardens Tampa was already 13 years old in 1972, and only had three rides (counting the escalator to the brewery tour). It was mostly focused on wild animals and free beer. My mother focused her camera mostly on the animals, though we can see some incidental monorail track near the end.

Here's a good-looking kid, and also my father, only 26. The petting zoo area was in an area called "Boma." (That's Swahili for "small animal enclosure," if the park maps of the time can be believed, which makes me wonder about the naming of that restaurant in The Animal Kingdom Lodge.)

More from Boma. Everybody loves petting ruminants!

I can only assume Mom took this photo from the Serengeti Express Railroad (which had just opened the previous year). The rock wall behind that tall cheetah hides the baboon enclosure, where large apes were entertained by a constant stream of humans being ferried past. 

We're off the train now, and on the far side of the park. This is Flamingo Point, with the brewery peeking up over the trees in the background. Fun fact: like all flamingos, these birds got their vivid pink color by eating their own weight in maraschino cherries every day.

These parrots provided a wisecracking introduction to a show where the flowers sing, and tikis play drums. And just like the ones up the road, they did so in a collection of hilarious dialects. Behind them, you can see the home of beer samples, the Hospitality House. 

Gazelles are so fast, they can outrun a snail on a turtle's back. 

Our elevation above the crocogators suggests that we're finally on the monorail. The architecture of the park didn't show a lot of imagination then, but I enjoy the scaly walls of the enclosure. (That's not fair, really. The park did include a kiddie area with storybook cottages and giant mushrooms. The nocturnal animal house was dressed up as a mountain, complete with waterfall. Sadly, Mom didn't take pictures of those.)

This time, the tall cheetah is ducking down, to make herself look smaller, and therefore further away. It's an old theme-park trick called "forced perspective."

Rhinos don't have very good vision, and they've mistaken us for the family who loaned them ten dollars, They're pretending not to see us. It's embarrassing all around.

In Eagle Canyon, there's an eagle. It's a salute to all geographic formations, but mostly canyons.

In the back left, we can see the park's only restaurant at the time, The Old Swiss House. It's a replica of a famous restaurant in Lucerne. To the right, we can see most of the monorail station. Unfortunately, there's some kinda hippo in the way. 

Ah, that's better! Here's a nice close view of the monorail station and supports. (Since the Busch Gardens Monorail is a hanging type, it needs those side supports.)

My mom knew Thufer would want to see powerlines, so here they are. Funny how actual wide-open spaces can feel less expansive than a properly-engineered berm on the Jungle Cruise. 

Here's a herd of... something. Wildebeest? Ibix? Moose? I can only give a positive ID on those palm trees.

A thing rests in the shade. I *think* it has horns. Maybe a mutant wolf?

This is another picture of a thing. No reason to even post it. 

I couldn't find a decent contemporary map to link to. (I relied on one from '70, and one from '76, neither correct to what the pictures show in '72. But both together helped me get a feeling of where in the park the pictures were, and coincidentally led me to suspect Mom filed them out of order. No matter.)

Here's my bibliography:

https://www.tampapix.com/buschgardens10.htm (General history.)

http://bgthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Map-1970-001.jpg

http://bgthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Map-1976-001.jpg

I hope this is interesting and fun for everyone, and look forward to writing up the WDW pictures. I'm swapping out photo albums this week, and moving on. I know there are pictures in 1982 from the Knoxville World's Fair, and early early EPCOT Center (with the creepy giant-head characters around World Showcase). If you're interested in any other random things (there's a quick trip to DC in '75  or so, with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum heavily featured, plus Savannah and other places), let me know. As I said, I'm scanning everything, so I'm happy to share it all. 

Mark

MANY THANKS to Mark for sharing these photos of Busch Gardens, and for all the work in scanning them and providing the accompanying text. I'm interested in the photos from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum circa 1975, and the Knoxville World's Fair sounds good too, so I'll probably be bugging him for those. (Sorry Mark, no good deed goes unpunished)

Guess what? His parents also visited Walt Disney World, and Mark has shared the photos from there as well. Stay tuned!

Hello Walt!

Long-time GDB friend Huck Caton sent a bunch of jpegs featuring photos of Walt Disney. Now, I've seen a LOT of photos of Walt, but Huck managed to find some that I had never seen before; since it is likely that most of you are fans of Retlaw Yensid, I thought I would share some of the pictures with you.

I might have guessed that the first two photos were from the debut of the much-missed Skyway - that attraction opened on June 23, 1956. But Walt is looking pretty casual, so I think these must be candid, "behind the scenes" photos. He is obviously ordering a pizza (large, with pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms) for he and his friend.

Could the other gentleman be the CEO of the Von Roll company? I did massive research (30 seconds on Google), and gave up, angry tears of frustration streaming down my reddened face. Walt just told him a great knock-knock joke. 

"Knock-knock"

"Who's there?"

"Little old lady"

"Little old lady who?"

"I didn't know you could yodel!"

I'm not 100% sure, but I may have seen this third photo before. Maybe not! It's unusual because there aren't that many pictures of Lillian Disney in the park. That quizzical expression on Walt's face is due to the fact that he just told Lilly that same knock-knock joke, and she barely laughed. Inconceivable!

Thanks to Huck for sharing these fun photos!

Entering Disneyland, October 1963

Disneyland has been surrounded (in large part) by unlovely chain link fence for decades. If it had been up to me, I would have had it electrified, but... nobody listens. A big metal fence is not the most welcoming thing in the world, so I like that Walt and his crew decided to soften its appearance by planting a whole bunch of roses along part of it. Plus, the thorns are yet another line of defense (all natural!) to keep sneaky teens from getting in for free.

There's the familiar old train station (well, only eight years old at this point), looking wonderful in the bright October sunshine. The sky could hardly be bluer. 

Amusement Parks, Tampa

All three of today's photos were taken in Tampa, Florida - more than a decade apart. 

The first two images show the "Trans-Veldt Railway" from Busch Gardens. I knew nothing about this li'l train, so I asked Mr. Google for some help, and he directed me to this helpful site... "Theme Park Trains". 

Here's a quote from that excellent website: The Busch Gardens Tampa Trans Veldt Railway was introduced in 1971, with custom built trains designed to reflect the African theme of the Wild Animal Kingdom. The two trains were designed to serve as transportation for park guests to get around the sprawling park as well as to offer unique views of the animal areas along the park's "Serengeti Plain".

It continues: The Trans Veldt Railway cost $1 million to build and featured two locomotives that were built by Crown Metal Products, using the standard chassis and boilers that most of the 36" Crown locomotives used. The African styling of the locomotives was created with details like European style buffers and cowcatchers, brass marker lamps, arch roofed cabs and round windows. The two locomotives were built nearly identically, with the #4 locomotive featuring 3 domes, and the #9 only featuring two initially, though a third was added in later years.

This next slide is from 1956 and was labeled "Bobby and Lisa - Tampa Fair". Notice the train in the background; the word "midway" can be seen; presumably this was some sort of traveling carnival, moving from town to town along via railway.

Wonderful Tomorrowland, 1957

Oh boy, it's time to visit vintage Tomorrowland. My favorite! Of all the entrances to the various lands, this one beckons me the most; Walt Disney's famous opening day speech refers to the "challenge and promise of the future", and the early Tomorrowland made that promise tangible, in a very mid-century manner that I find extremely appealing today. 

The Clock of the World, the Moonliner, the Hall of Chemistry, CIRCARAMA, and yes, those posters... what I wouldn't give to stroll along that flag-lined avenue.

Judging from those long shadows from the southeast, it must be relatively early, which might explain the low crowds. A rare "Art Corner" poster can be seen to the right, as well as a "Satellite View of America" poster (it's really an overprinted "Space Station X-1" poster) - I'd love to know if any of those still survive. If so, I will pay $50 cash for it!

Here's a nice shot of the Monsanto House of the Future, as neat as a pin. In a few years, the people who lived here got themselves a nice lawn ornament that looked like the Matterhorn! Makes my lawn gnomes look kind of sad.