Sunday, December 29, 2013

"It's a Small World" Instamatics

I always seem to have a lot of photos from "It's a Small World", be they exteriors or (less common) interiors. It's time to unload some of them!

While this is an undated picture, I would imagine that IASW was still a pretty new addition to Disneyland. The gleaming white "city of the world" really shines against the deep blue sky.


I'll try to list the interiors in more-or-less the correct order (there will be a second post with more images!). We'll start in Paris, with a chorus line of scandalous can-can girls, showing an outrageous amount of bare leg. Ooh-lala!


In the Netherlands, little Dutch children sit in a field of giant tulips and clonk their wooden shoes together. They do this in movie theaters too, which is pretty annoying. 


In Egypt, sultry Cleopatra winks fetchingly at us from her chaise lounge. I always loved this tableau, though it looks a bit empty here (I guess that's the advantage of moving past at 3 miles an hour…) 


I'll have four more pictures from this group coming up soon!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice set of pictures Major! I've always enjoyed the Small World ride, even though it gets teased mercilessly. It's probably because its only 3 miles an hour, but its also air conditioned and that feels good on a hot summer day!

I think you should trademark "clonk".

Bill in Denver

Melissa said...

And the goose girl gives me my weekend dose of babushka! It takes a great artist like Mary Blair to make evil bastard geese look cute and mostly harmless.

I hereby name that picture "Honkin' and Clonkin'." The other interiors can be "The Ooh La La Brouhaha" and "A Wink and a Smile on the Banks of the Nile."

K. Martinez said...

I never heard of the IASW façade being referred to as "city of the world". I like it!

Melissa said...

In my Ideal Disney Park, I'd put the WDW ride interior in the DL ride exterior.

Nanook said...

@Anonymous said

"I think you should trademark "clonk" ". The Major may wish to go slowly with that one, as 'clonk' or 'klonk' has already been used to brilliant effect by Sidney Sheldon in his (Academy Award-winning) screenplay forThe Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, 1947. That's the same screenplay responsible for spawning this impossible round:

Hey, you remind me of a man.
What man-?
The man with the power.
What power-?
The power of hoodoo.
Hoodoo-?
You do.
Do what-?
Remind me of a man...


And this brilliant bit of sarcasm:

Now there's a guy who never goes out of a girl's mind. He just sits there... like a heavy meal.
And what am I-?
Orange juice-!


etc., etc.

Major Pepperidge said...

Bill in Denver, now I can reveal that I am president and CEO of powerful and possibly evil "Clonk Industries"!

Melissa, most people don't know the truth about geese… it is my mission in life to expose them as frauds and humbugs.

K. Martinez, I made it up, but it sounded good! I'm glad you agree.

Melissa, I do love the look (I've only seen photos) of the flooded interiors of the Florida version; all that water makes for a much more beautiful ride.

Nanook, It's funny, I've watched that scene many times (not sure how… salutes to Cary Grant or something), but have still never seen the entire movie. Didn't Sidney Sheldon created "I Dream of Jeannie"?

Nanook said...

@Major-

Yes, indeed, the same Sidney Sheldon DID create I Dream of Jeannie and a bevy of "romance novels".

For a great time, I can't recommend The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer highly enough. It'a among the final examples of understated, screwball comedies, and just dripping with impeccable sarcasm.

Melissa said...

Having grown up in the 1980's, I alwyas think of Sidney Sheldon as the author of novels that got turned into sweeping TV miniseries with his name in the title, like Sidney Sheldon's Rage of Angels, Sidney Sheldon's Master of the Game, and Sidney Sheldon's Windmills of the Gods. I think Jaclyn Smith was in most of them.