This slide was a fun find, since it was in a box with no other Disneyland slides, AND it shows the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship sometime within the first few weeks of the park's opening. Go ahead, compare it to Daveland's magnificent
photo ! I admit it, his is better! There's still scaffolding, and we can see workmen probably still painting and applying gold leaf. The ship wouldn't open to customers until the end of August, although I could almost swear that it was shown on that famous opening-day television program with guests aboard. I'll have to dig out my DVD and check.
Note that there is no Skyway, it wouldn't be there until the following year. There is also a large generator to our right, and a giant drum that looks like it belongs in a parade (perhaps from opening day??).
On a side note, I noticed that the counter at the bottom of this page finally passed the 100,000 mark. Does that mean that I have 50 readers who have visited the site 2000 times? I have no idea. My spidey senses tell me that the number is inaccurate, somehow. But it's a cool milestone, anyway!
Inquiring minds need to know about the drum and generator! Was the drum hiding something? Was it the site of the gas leak? I believe this is a governmental cover up!
ReplyDelete(lol to matterhorn1959) :)
ReplyDeletewhat a good picture, it is so cool to see the boat at this point. not having the skyway in is very interesting.
Great early Pirate Ship photo! That Drum and Generator are really odd….
ReplyDeleteHey you are right, the opening day TV shows a couple scenes from the Pirate ship! Bobby Driscol is on board as I recall and it does look like other people are aboard also? Since its B/W you can’t tell about the paint, must have been unfinished, but done enough to use on the show! Great stuff! Congrats on the 100K counter mark!
Congratulations on 100,000! If you are using a download from statcounter.com you should be able to see unique users vs first time visitors on you count. Hope that helps!
ReplyDeleteHi outsidetheberm, I know that you can check the "unique visitors" and all that, but I am still not sure how accurate it is. I think that cookies and dynamic IP adresses can make the numbers lie!
ReplyDeleteAbout a year and a half ago, I talked to Bill Martin about opening days concerns. He told me that, though the ship wasn't finished, they were able to paint one side of it--the side facing the cameras. And yes, it's featured on Dateline: Disneyland. But I can't remember if there's people aboard or not. With they way Walt was using studio employees as TV "extras" that day, I suspect that he found some way to place a few girls from ink and paint somewhere on the ship. But that's only a guess.
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