Today I have three more nice images from Huck Caton, circa April 1995!
Let's start with this shot of a very large crowd waiting to get into the Indiana Jones Adventure, which had only opened one month earlier (March 4, '95). AT&T was the sponsor (and would be until 2002), so guests in the queue received those little cards to help decipher the mysterious "Mara font" hieroglyphs on the walls deep inside the temple. I wish I knew how long the wait was from this point!
Here's the Golden Horseshoe Saloon (of course) - I think that Billy Hill and the Hillbillies performed on the stage at this time.
This is a nice shot of the Tomorrowland Autopia, before they "Chevronized" the attraction and changed those sleek "Corvettes" into cartoon cars.
Stay tuned for more from Huck!
Well, there you go! Sorry folks, but here in 1995, when we build a new attraction another one has to go away. Indiana Jones has arrived, so the Skyway must go. They really do ruin everything!
ReplyDeleteSince I'm so used to seeing the Skyway with pics of the Matterhorn here on GDB, it's like losing the Skyway all over again seeing the Matterhorn here without the Skyway buckets.
Thanks, Huck and Major
First thing I noticed as well....Skyway is gone. Those lovely pylons are a mean reminder of what used to be. It makes me think of those pictures you used to see in a magazine which I cant recall the name of, where there were two identical pictures side by side with things missing in one and you had to spot the differences.
ReplyDeleteAs bad as seeing empty Peoplemover tracks...
ReplyDeleteMajor, the wait time from here is anyone's guess, depending on how many lanes they have open on the queue. Around that time, I can remember almost walking on, while a month or two later the line could run out the entrance of Adventureland, around the west side of the hub and back into Frontierland as far as the front doors of the Golden Horseshoe. We found the best times to ride were during the MSEP and Fantasmic! - crowds were elsewhere and the mood-setting queue seemed to work better when our eyes were adjusted to the dark (although that shaft of "daylight" in the dome room didn't make any objective sense at night).
ReplyDeleteKen, now that you point it out, the Skyway's absence is just screaming at me, which is kind of disconcerting. But at least it's drowning out the other voices in my head.
Nancy, the magazine you're probably thinking of is Highlights for Children.
Thanks for sharing these with us, Huck. This was a Disneyland I was intimately familiar with, and I'm looking forward to seeing more (and secretly hoping to see myself in the background).
K. Martinez, the removal of the Skyway was clearly done for financial reasons, though the Disney company would never really admit it, saying that it was no longer popular with guests. I love the book “Disneyland: The Nickel Tour”, but the authors’ spin on the removal of the Skyway was laughable - “For all the sadness of its demise and the undeniable loss of kinetics the attraction brought the Park, it’s important to note that the true beauty of Fantasyland can be appreciated as never before without the intrusion of those big fiberglass buckets”. Nice try, guys!
ReplyDeleteNancy, I’m not sure if those columns in the third photo are remainders of the Skyway, or if they are related to something else (though I’m not sure WHAT). Maybe somebody reading this has a suggestion!
Scott Lane, wow, who knew that this post would make so many people so sad! ;-)
Chuck, I remember riding “Indy” twice around the time it opened, and the lines were VERY long. At least an hour each time, though the queue is so amazing (really one of the most impressive things about the attraction!) that it didn’t bother me much. I don’t think we were smart enough to strategize about when to ride it! We just went when we felt like it. “Highlights for Children”, never heard of it, though I’ve certainly seen pictures like the ones Nancy described.
Yes, Billy Hill and the Hillbillies were playing in the Golden Horseshoe at this time. They began in there December of 1994. I am a huge fan of this group and know way too much about them :) They are now playing at Knott's Berry Farm as Krazy Kirk and the Hillbillies. Usually only on Saturdays in the Bird Cage Theater but right now for the Boysenberry Festival they are playing on the Wagon Camp stage in the evenings every day until April 23. That is because they have brought back a melodrama to the Bird Cage that is terrific. During the Summer season they play four days a week while a group called Ghost Town Miners (formerly Miner 49ers that played in DCA) play three days a week. Told you I know way too much!
ReplyDeleteMajor, I remember reading that spin in "The Nickel Tour" too and when I read it, I just shook my head in disbelief. WTH! Those fiberglass buckets provided kinetic energy and color to the skies above Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. On top of that, the Skyway afforded wonderful views above Disneyland which seem to be non existent now.
ReplyDeleteBTW, those pylons belong to the PeopleMover which by this time was approaching its final year. Strangely the PeopleMover tracks are still there to this day.
I had very high hopes for Indy, but I think the artwork for Indy was much better than the actual attraction. They made tweaks to some of the effects recently, but I wish they would have fixed the "rocks falling from the ceiling" effect and gotten rid of that lame/fake rat projection. It would have been nice if they had upgraded the lighting and effects to the level of Tokyo DisneySea's Indiana Jones attraction.
ReplyDeleteDisney must be even cheaper now than they were in the nineties....and that was pretty cheap. I say that, because back then, the Skyway support pylons were taken down that very night after the Skyway closed. Today, the PeopleMover supports (and track) are still standing, after the attraction that replaced them closed almost 16 years ago. They sure do like to leave abandoned things just hanging around the park for years. The Skyway Chalet sat there empty for 22 years, the Carousel Theater was shuttered to the public for 10 years, the Submarine Voyage was closed for 9 years, and half of the Motorboat Cruise still sits there abandoned, 24 years after closing. Did I leave anything out? Maybe I should include Fort Wilderness, even though it is used by cast members.
Major, I hope you continue to post the nineties DL pics that you have been given. The nineties were still a better period of time for the park than today is....in my opinion! Thanks to Huck, for sharing his pics!
I think this is about the time of our first visit with our children, almost a 20 year hiatus for me. I remember IJTFOE was just new and the lines were much as Chuck described.
ReplyDeleteI think it went out into the hub and took almost 5 hours. It was horrible and the ride felt like an afterthought. I still pass this up whenever possible, but the kids have a real soft spot for the ride. I think everyone loves the Disneyland of their youth.
This was the first time I went into the park over more than one day. All our subsequent visits have been multi-day, but the FastPass has helped a lot with this.
JG
Irene, I have a friend who is going to the Boysenberry Festival this weekend, I’ll tell her to be sure to see Krazy Kirk. I’m pretty sure she’ll like that show!
ReplyDeleteK. Martinez, I guess it’s unrealistic to expect any official statement along the lines of, “Frankly, we don’t want to pay to keep this ride running”. It seems hard to believe that the Skyway cost a lot to run, but from what I’ve heard, it might have been due for some expensive work. Meanwhile I was thinking that those were Peoplemover pylons, but they looked so thin from this angle, I wasn’t 100% sure.
TokyoMagic!, there are a lot of good things about Indy, but I agree about the projection effect of the rats/bugs. But I do like the “ghost” projection on the vapor! A projection can be a good effect, but then it seems as if they want to rely on an attraction that is *primarily* projections, at which point they lose their charm. It’s like going through a ride and watching a bunch of TVs. You made an excellent point about all of the closed attractions that hung around for so long. I’m sure the removal of the Peoplemover tracks would be very expensive, but it is just dumb to have that prominent structure there for no reason.
JG, luckily nowadays the lines for Indy tend to be much shorter. I think I’ve gotten on in less than 30 minutes (no fastpass). Unless it breaks down of course, which it tends to do.
Thanks, TM. The Peoplemover occurred to me, but they seem too tall (like the Peoplemover should be in view) to be part of that ride.
ReplyDeleteMajor, on my last visit a few weeks ago, the Temple of Doom was broken on-and-off all day. I had a FastPass and it was down during the whole period. I just skipped it and went on the Haunted Mansion 3x in an hour.
ReplyDeleteThe Jungle Cruise skipper called it "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Broken Ride Mechanism", so I gather it happens quite a lot. Same with Space Mountain, broken both times I got near it. I guess these old machines take more and more repair effort.
We were inside Space Mountain once when it went down. They turned on all the lights so we got a good view of the inside. Very interesting indeed, no effort at theming anything in the dark.
Also, @Nancy, the PM track rode over the old Skyway at that point, it was the tallest part of the track right there.
JG