Oh boy... here are more of those awful GAF slides that I keep whining about. The darkest, murkiest, most horrible slides ever. The scans you are seeing have been lightened up dramatically, and I I had to apply a de-graining filter three times. They still look like crap, I know. But... being late October, it seemed appropriate to share a few images of the Haunted Mansion when it was only a year old (not that you can tell).
Gosh, when did they paint the Haunted Mansion's columns a sickly shade of yellowish gray? Did a young Paul Pressler sneak in and do it when nobody was looking? Nope! It's that quality GAF film. I am somewhat surprised that only a year after the Mansion's spectacular debut, there seems to barely be a line at all. Everyone was home watching "The Flip Wilson Show". The Devil made me do it!
Just when you thought the photos couldn't get any worse, I give you this next example. Yeesh.
How about this gem? It isn't related to the Haunted Mansion, but OOF. The haze and smog almost perfectly hide the distant Anaheim Convention Center.
Major-
ReplyDeleteThat's not haze & smog, but rather all that great "cerulean blue" Henry Fonda kept touting-about as a "feature" of GAF-!
Thanks, Major.
Ha, ha...."yellowish" and a young Paul Pressler!
ReplyDeleteI think I can see Adrienne Barbeau running through the fog in the parking lot of the Anaheim Convention Center.
Where was that last picture taken from? A bobsled?
ReplyDeleteNanook, I watched some of those old GAF commercials on YouTube (including one with a very young Jodie Foster). Henry Fonda looks so dependable and honest. But now I know better.
ReplyDeleteTokyoMagic!, I know how much you love Paul Pressler. Almost as much as you love Lucy. I WISH I could see Adrienne Barbeau running.
Scott Lane, I am pretty sure you are correct, it was taken from a bobsled - it seems way too high to be from a Skyway bucket. Too bad it’s such a horrible photo!
The Mansion photos demonstrate (or maybe hide) one of the truly brilliant Imagineering techniques--the ceilings of the porches and verandas of the Mansion are painted a decidedly darker gray than the walls of the structure--seriously enhancing its "foreboding" qualities.
ReplyDeleteLast shot looks like it was taken very early in the morning. Back then, as OC was still somewhat agricultural, we experienced periods of dense fog. Only a memory now that everything is developed. And before the days of passes and Halloween spectaculars, this period was a tranquil time for the Park that even a CM like myself, who at the time was undergoing training on the JC, would enjoy. Miss those days. KS
ReplyDeleteAs always, Major, your demurkification technique is exceptional.
ReplyDeleteOne of the songs in my acapella group's standard repertoire is a setting of the witches' song from The Scottish Play. (When shall we three meet again, etc.) It ends with the line, "Fair is foul and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air." I hear that line in my head whenever there's a "smog and haze" picture on GDB.
I've always wondered what the back of the Tomorrowland entrance "towers" looked like. I need wonder no longer.
ReplyDeleteGAF - the gift that keeps on giving. How on Earth have my View Master slides managed to keep their color with that crappy film stock?
@Chuck, I was wondering the same thing about those shapes. I would not have made such an acute angle on a roof, but maybe the lack of rain in OC made it less risky than in other climates.
ReplyDeleteMajor, any views of this era are welcome, no matter how murky, there are always details to be sought out.
@Melissa, ha! very appropriate.
JG