Two From Fantasyland 1956
Walt Disney really thought of everything when he was dreaming up his theme park! He even provided the umbrella stands with their own benches. Those benches have been carefully sculpted to look as if they were crafted from tree trunks and rounded slabs of wood - and then painted in fashionable colors of the day. I can only assume that some sort of cleanup was going on in this area. To our left is the fabulous storybook sign showing the layout of Storybook Land (what else?). To the right, a crane looms overhead, and if you look closely at the fence around the Storybook Land canal, you can see scraps of lumber, a wooden ladder, and other evidence of construction. Is that a board on top of Monstro? Perhaps for painters?
The Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship is sitting high and dry in this photo - - there's no water in that big bathtub. A happy 50's family is considering whether they are in the mood for tuna salad sandwiches. What's that mysterious "box" covered in funereal black cloth? It amazes me to see nothing more than a field full of weeds in the distance, stretching back to a stand of eucalyptus trees.
6 comments:
...these look pre-opening to me!
Dat's a harpoon in Monstro, and the "benches" are made from surf boards dude. hehe.
Amazing seeing the tuna boat beached like that! Black sands too eh? ;) Anaheim back there looks like countryside...
neato!
Major, isn't that the backside of the Storybook Land sign in that second photo?
Two incredible pics today. Your recent Fantasyland posts are making me realize that I miss the old Fantasyland almost as much as I miss the 1967 Tomorrowland!
Long have I wondered about the "hot tuna pie" that was (astonishingly) sold at the pirate ship. Was it an individual pot pie, stuffed with fishy goodness, or was it more akin to a McDonald's style "fruit pie" (i.e., a hand-held concoction stuffed with fishy goodness). Since fast food was in its infancy in the 1950s and Walt obviously experimented, it would be interesting to read the menus of the original eating venues in the 1955 park and to know what influence the park may have had on the evolution of fast food (can one actually use the word "evolution" in the same sentence as fast food? Anyway, I did). Did anyone ever actually hanker for a hot tuna pie during a hectic visit to the park? ("Golly gee whiz, Phyllis, that Snow White ride sure was scary! Let's calm down with a hot tuna pie over at the pirate ship!) Does anyone know if the hot tuna pie was ever photographed?
Definitely not pre-opening ... Storybook Land didn't exist at the opening. It was Canal Boats Through Dirt and Weed Land at the opening.
That family'd better buy a passel of them tasty Chicken of the Sea quarter-cut Tuna Sandwiches with authentic pirate sword skewers, or I will have to testify against them at the House Unamerican Committee as Fellow Travelers or at least Useful Idiots.
Me thinks youse is correct. That plank affords access to Monstro's barnacle-free back. I always loved the elaborate Toad Hall with the little boat moored in the willows. The level of detail was phenomenol or phenomenal, take yer pick.
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