In Frontierland, April 1963

Here's a nice pair of 1963 photos of a family (and friend?) in Frontierland! Starting with this fun portrait of a happy family in front of Rainbow Ridge and right next to the sign for the El Zocalo marketplace. The queue for the Mine Train looks about as busy as we ever see it!  

A second photo seems to have been taken by Mom, and now family friend (I presume) is there. Maybe the two men were school chums? In the background, to the right, is a bandstand that moved around the park, I seem to recall that I had at least one photo of it in Adventureland. Or was it Fantasyland? You can see a 1962 photo with it HERE.
 

Riding "Big Thunder"

Let's continue with even more Big Thunder Mountain Railroad pix, courtesy of the Mysterious Benefactor. These pick up right where the last batch (from July 28th) left off. 

When your job is to capture images that might be used for Disneyland's publicity, you'll probably go bananas and take multiple pictures of basically the same thing. One might have that "special sauce" that the others lack! That explains the next three pictures, probably taken within the space of a minute or three. 

Most people enjoyed their ride on the runaway mine train, but that lady to the left lost her mind. I mean her brain literally popped out of her ears! I've seen it happen. Luckily she will still live a full and happy life, and she'll even write some romance novels.

That guy with the red shirt can't fool me - he's playing it cool now, but 20 seconds ago he was shrieking like a child. His friend isn't going to let him live it down.

Big Thunder has just the right amount of thrills for families; it's not too crazy. One mother covers the mouth of her child, he has a tendency to blurt of bad words. Just like me! Perhaps he will grow up to be a powerful, influential blogger too. Dad has chosen this odd time to have "the talk" with his young son, he won't remember a word of it.

A conscientious Cast Member is making sure that a lap bar is securely lowered. The guy with the glasses is one of those people who puts his arms up for the entire ride, you know what I mean. I'm not sure what the girl to the right is up to, but she'd better sit down pronto.

This next one truly looks like could be right out of a print ad for Disneyland. Wholesome people having wholesome fun. The color and clarity is pretty nice!

Nearly everybody is looking directly at the photographer, he must have been very conspicuous. "If I take off my clothes, they'll face this direction". And it worked! You have to admire his ingenuity; Ansel Adams wouldn't have thought of it. Notice the steps, where guests could walk if (for some reason) the ride stopped partway through.

THANK YOU, Mysterious Benefactor!

OK-zles™

Let's start today off by wishing GDB friend Melissa a very Happy Birthday! She was gone for a long time, but now she's back, and it's great. Sue B. (another GDB friend) kindly supplied some vintage birthday photos for the occasion. 

It must have been a nice warm day, maybe June (hey, just a guess), and kids are enjoying cake and ice cream. I hope that's milk in those cups, and not fruit punch, which should never be eaten with cake.  The Birthday Boy has to share a chair with his baby brother, how humiliating. Party favors are strewn all over the table, including paper hats, noisemakers, crayons, a roll of tape (my favorite!), and a few books, including"Fairy Tales to Color", with Snow White and the Practical Pig on the cover.

I found a jpeg of it! 1977 is the date on this item.

This one's a bit fuzzy, but we get a wider view of the shenanigans. Mom appears to be scoopiing ice cream, I think. Check out the Wonder Woman tablecloth! Kind of an odd choice for a boy's birthday, but hey, Wonder Woman is cool. I remember when I was a kid, my mom would invite all of the neighborhood children, and somehow they all showed up! I guess it was just the thing to do back then. Maybe the liked free cake, or hoped to get the gold in Olympic "pin the tail on the donkey" competition. Happy Birthday, Melissa, and thank you, Sue!

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Today's Snoozles™ cannot be easily categorized, so I will place them in the blurry "OK-zles" slot for now. This first picture (from May, 1960) would be nice if it wasn't for that little tree, which was obviously a relative of Charlie Brown's tree. The family resemblance is clear. I sure wish we'd been treated to an unobstructed view of the three-car red Monorail ("Li'l Stubby"), but that tree came out of nowhere and frightened me. Meanwhile, the park is nearly deserted... we can just see a few guests in the distance, but it's like a ghost town, otherwise.

And from August, 1962 comes this dark-ish, kind of boring photo of Sleeping Beauty Castle. If you stand on your head you can see the dent, though it is subtle. I dunno, I can't think of much to say about this one!

Three Knott's Berry Farm Beauties

SAY! Did you know that today is GDB friend Grant's birthday? Well it is! Sue definitely knew it, because she sent along this fun scan of a kid enjoying a fabulous party. Wow, what are the odds that the cake has the name "GRANT" on it? Well, pretty good odds, in this case. I like those orange-shaped drink containers, I think I've seen those before, though I'm not positive. The cake has Donald Duck on it, and a pretty good rendering too. The boy to the left has finished eating a human heart, apparently. The birthday boy wears a Chicago Cubs hat, so we can assume that this was taken in the Land of Lincoln. Happy Birthday, Grant!

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Here's a trio of very nice scans of Knott's Berry Farm, from oversized transparencies. They are all train-related, which is OK by me. The slides are undated, but I'm guessing that they are from sometime in the mid-1960s.

First is this great shot of locomotive #40, the "Gold Nugget" as it chugs along a part of the track that I can't ID - perhaps it's near where the Calico Mountain Log Ride would eventually be built? I miss the eucalyptus trees that used to populate the grounds of KBF, they somehow evoked "old California".

Next: another shot of the Gold Nugget, this time as it passed Jeffries Barn, which was in the southwest area of Knott's (near the Bird Cage Theatre. Some info about Jeffries Barn: It was built in 19948, and located on the corner of Victory Boulevard and Buena Vista Avenue in Burbank. It was the home of former heavyweight champion, James J. Jeffries, known as the "Boilermaker.”

In 1931 Jeffries converted this dairy barn into a gym where he trained boxers and worked as a fight promoter. He promoted many fights out of "Jeffries Barn,” also known as Jeffries Center, as well as holding Thursday night boxing matches until his death in 1953. After his death, the barn was dismantled and moved to Knott's Berry Farm amusement park. World heavyweight boxing champion from 1899-1905, James Jackson Jeffries is considered to be one of the great heavyweight boxers of his era, perhaps the best of all time; he retired undefeated in May of 1905. He was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

 

And finally, here's a good shot of the little locomotives from the Calico Mine Ride, which debuted in 1960, designed by genius Bud Hurlbut. I loved this attraction as a child, and it is still a highlight of KBF today!

Two Nice Randos

As you know, I generally try to save some nicer photos for you for Fridays. And that holds true today with two RANDOS! Sorry, I got so excited that I shouted. Let's start with this August, 1965 photo, with a "souvenir guidebook-worthy" look at Fantasyland as seen from the Skyway Chalet steps. Ya gots yer rectangular gondolas (which were brand-new in '65), in pleasing hues (including many turquoise gondolas!), ya gots yer Pirate Ship with that awesome bas-relief above the stern gallery windows - that relief sculpture is one of my favorite Fantasyland details . We even gots the non-Fantasyland Douglas Moonliner in the distance. 

Next, from August, 1970 comes this nice look at a busy Main Street. A couple poses in front of the Main Street Cinema, I don't know why the man is holding a folded up coat in August, but his (pregnant?) wife might need it later. The man sort of looks like a grown up Billy Mumy, I hope he doesn't wish me into the cornfield. (I apologize to Billy Mumy - definitely reading GDB - who has probably had it up to HERE with "wishing you into the cornfield" remarks). He has a 15-adventure ticket book in his pocket, which shows good sense. To the left of that patriotic banner, a young girl holds a movie camera. And the Market House sign mentions Burry's Cookies and C&H Sugar! 

More Stuff From the Box!

It's time for another selection of STUFF FROM THE BOX! 

We'll start with these three employee pins from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. I don't have any information about these, but they look "vintage" - whatever that means. The pins were given for somebody's fifth, tenth, and fifteenth anniversaries with the company. 

Another employee pin is this badge from the REO Motor Car Company. Ransom E. Olds was an entrepreneur who founded multiple companies in the automobile industry. In 1897 Olds founded Oldsmobile. In 1905 Olds left Oldsmobile and established a new company, REO Motor Car Company, in Lansing, Michigan. I was surprised to learn that the REO company survived through to 1975! I would imagine that this badge is probably from the 1950s, but it's just a guess.

Years ago I shared a photo of another employee pin from the Holiday Inn chain of hotels, but that one was for somebody's eight years with the company, while this one is for lucky 13. With a "genuine" Ethiopian emerald!

I don't collect things from the 1939-40 New York World's Fair like I used to, but I still love a quality item. Like this brass key blank! Yale and Towne had a pavilion at the Fair, as close to the Trylon and Perisphere as possible. 

I have a small number of employee pins from Sears (see some of them HERE); today's example has a modern geometric design that doesn't scream "Sears" to me, but I'll allow it. 15 years of selling reasonably-priced items to all Americans!

I hope you have enjoyed today's selection of STUFF FROM THE BOX!

 

Main Street, May 1972

May, 1972 would have been a swell time to visit Disneyland! You still had the Carousel of Progress, the Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland, and Donald Duck's Pantsless Coaster. I could be in these! But I'm not. It wouldn't be long before my family rode their bicycles from SoCal to Pennsylvania, where we would live for the next few years.

Our first scan of the day features two kids proudly showing off their new souvenir hats, possibly bought at the newsstand/souvenir stand near the entrance to the tunnel beneath the train tracks. I have a Donald Duck hat (with the squeaky bill) much like the one the boy is wearing, though mine is a few years older. The girl has a hat with newfangled white mouse ears, which look a bit odd to my eye. It's nice to get the Balloon Vendor as a bonus, as well as the Horseless Carriage.

Next is a view looking south from about where the Kodak shop was on Main Street (which was next door to the Hallmark store). An Omnibus putt-putts toward us as the afternoon shadows grow longer across Main Street. The Cinema is showing a Fatty Arbuckle movie - I miss the days when it showed more than just Mickey Mouse short films.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, July 17, 1980

Here are three more photos of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, as taken by Lou Perry, and scanned and shared with us by his daughter Sue B. 

It can be difficult to capture a speeding runaway mine train as it careened along the tracks, a millisecond could make the difference between a clear shot and a blur. 

The main queue structure looks appropriately weathered and grungy. The miners loved to spit a lot, which actually helped preserve the old wood. Try it the next time you are fixing your deck! The hoodoos in the background look great during the day, but when lit at night, they are especially impressive.

That darn train passes too fast! I'm going to suggest that they slow the roller coaster way down. Make it more like an old-west Peoplemover. I'm sure all the guests will appreciate my regard for their safety.

There are three more Big Thunder phtotos from Lou and Sue, coming up soon. THANK YOU, Lou and Sue!

 

Substravaganza

I love the old Submarine Voyage, and have shared plenty of photos of gray subs gliding through the blue lagoon in Tomorrowland; but I admit that such photos can sometimes be a little dull. So I'm posting more of them to make up for it. 

This first one is from July 1972, and we're looking down on the Seawolf from a Skyway gondola. You know, my nickname in college was "Seawolf". Or was it "Dorkweed"? I forget.

This next one is from a decade earlier (January, 1962), not that you can tell by looking. It's kind of a pretty picture, allowing us a bit of a view down into the coral reef.

The next two are from June 1967, with American patriot Ethan Allen's sub passing by. He added subwoofers and fuzzy dice, and the whole interior was lined with pink "fun fur"; Ethan had a very specific aesthetic. 

I wish he wouldn't blast his rap music so much, but part of me admires his joie de vivre!

I hope you have enjoyed this SUBSTRAVAGANZA!

 

OK-zles™

OK-zles™ are Snoozles™ - but they aren't as bad. But you figured that out already! Today's examples aren't too dark, or blurry, they're mostly just kind of boring.

See what I mean? The Submarine Lagoon should be exciting. "Liquid Space", they used to call it! But the lone sub is far away, and it's named after a roller-skate. (Yes, yes, I know). We see no cars on the Autopia freeway, no Monorail on the beam, and no Peoplemover on its track. I want my money back.

From the same batch comes this photo of the Mighty Matterhorn, but it looks so gray. Can a mountain be "brutalist"? It is disappointing that no Skyway gondolas can be seen (where the heck were all the vehicles that day?), but at least we can glimpse a single bobsled up to the left.