Snow White's Enchanted Forest
I hope everybody is enjoying their Labor Day weekend! I would prefer it to be about 30 degrees cooler, but nobody asked me.
Today I have a series of mystery photos from the Dream Team; you know them, you love them - it's Irene, Bruce, and James!
These are undated, as most of the photo prints are, so there isn't much information to use for clues. Take a look at this first image, with a lovely recreation of Snow White's wishing well, looking much like the one in the animated feature. The sign says, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ENCHANTED FOREST". Say what now?
I can find no mention of this feature online. There are plenty of references to Snow White and some version of an enchanted forest, but nothing relating to these photos, with the scenes featuring characters from the movie. Here's a few of the Dwarfs performing the "Silly Song" - pose with your family!
Another sign; it looks like this whole series of scenes was located around the hub/plaza area.
Heigh ho! I figure that this event was related to either the 1994 release of "Snow White" on VHS and laser disk, or the 1997 60th anniversary of the film's original release. My guess is the video release, for reasons that I will explain in a minute.
Looky looky! Doc found a diamond, just sitting there near the Matterhorn. Think of all the people who just walked past it. But those Dwarfs have noses for treasure. Speaking of treasure, did you know that the sales of home video units grossed over $430 million dollars in 1994? As of now it has grossed over one billion dollars in home media.
Dopey has just bathed (it was October, after all), and he gets the water out of his ears the same way we all do. These "flats" remind me of the early dark rides in Fantasyland.
Sleepy is fishin' in what appears to be the "Alpine Gardens" - former home of the Monsanto Home of the Future. Since it was transformed into "Triton's Garden" in early 1996, I think it's safe to say that these photos are earlier than that date; so.... home video release in 1994 seems most likely.
I know that this hag is evil and stuff, but that apple does look pretty good. As long as it's not one of those Red Delicious, which ironically is one of the worst apples out there. Beautiful, but mealy and insipid. I have strong feelings about apples!
Lookin' good, Bashful. I'm sure I've seen George Clooney wearing those same pants, but you wear it better. And have you lost weight? Don't tell anyone, but you've always been my favorite Dwarf (I love to make him blush).
Who has two thumbs and eats gruel wearing just his underwear? THIS GUY!
Sneezy would be tough to be around for any length of time. Let's give the poor guy some Claritin, then he can change his name to something nicer. Scooter? Belchy? Stinky? Pepsi? Suggestions welcome.
If anybody has any further information about the Enchanted Forest displays, I'd love to hear it! MANY THANKS to Irene, Bruce, and James for sharing these interesting pictures.
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Extra! Extra! GDB friend TokyoMagic! has generously shared his own personal photos of these Snow White scenes, along with some good info (in orange). Very cool!
I took these photos on October 29, 1994. According to Wikipedia, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released on VHS and Laserdisc on October 28th, the day before these were taken.
You can see that this particular set of the wishing well, is in a different location from where it was when Bruce/James shot it. In their photo, it looks like it was sitting in the Tomorrowland entrance planter. Here, it is sitting on grass, and the fence in the foreground is higher.
It looks like the 7 Dwarfs are marching through that scary forest that frightened Snow White so much.
This scene, not seen in the Dream Team's photos, is pretty impressive - inside the Dwarf's mine. They could have added a few sparkling gems, but still, I appreciate the effort.
The Magic Mirror had a hole cut in it, so you could place your face through it, just like the old plywood photo-ops at both Disneyland and Knott's.
That green wall in the background is the one that a lot of people confuse, for being the former "foundation" of the House of the Future. In reality, it is a concrete planter which was next to the foundation, and sat underneath one of the "wings" of the house. It's still there today, but it is now hidden by shrubs.
THANK YOU, TokyoMagic!
26 comments:
Major-
I have a vague memory of these Snow White 'scenes', but I certainly couldn't tell you when it occurred.
As for the very-inappropriately named 'Red Delicious' apple - the folks in the produce department of my supermarket always refer to them as the Red Disgusting-! Seems quite appropriate to me.
Thanks to the Dream Team for sharing these fun images.
Major, you are correct. These were set up to celebrate/promote the release of Snow White, on VHS for the very first time. I believe I shared some of my photos of this area some years ago, with the Filmic Light/Snow White Archive blog, but after searching his site, I can't find them anywhere.
There was also a tableau featuring a giant mine cart in front of a mine and the Queen's magic mirror.
Thank you Major, and the Dream Team!
These "flat" characters are cute! I've never seen these before. Thank you, Dream Team and Major!
My vote is for the Honeycrisp apple - the tastiest, in my opinion.
Major, what would you prefer the temperature to be?
I hope everyone is relaxing, today!
Sue
The comments form wouldn't work for me, so I refreshed the page, only to find that the post magically grew! ;-)
In the picture with Doc holding a diamond, you can see a banner in the background that was probably for the Festival of the Lion King parade, given that started in 1994.
Thanks, Lou and Sue and TokyoMagic, for documenting this anecdote of Disneyland history!
Well, I was thinking, and it turns out that the parade in Disneyland was actually called the Lion King Celebration, not Festival... that's the show at Animal Kingdom that reuses some of the floats from "Celebration."
These work so much better than the Gummy Bear flats on the motorboat ride! Gummy Bears? What were they thinking? Of course prior to Disney's version of Snow White, the dwarves didn't have individual quirks and names. I read somewhere that quite a few didn't make the cut, which is ok because why would you want more than seven? (I kid, I know a lot of people would). Slimy is still miffed about being left out...
Thanks Dream Team!
I was wondering why I didn't remember these since we were APHs in '94 &'95, but now that we've narrowed the dates down, I understand. We got our passes on October 2nd and I deployed for an extended, all-expense-paid trip to Haiti on October 8th. They were either gone by the time I got back or I was so busy focusing on the familiar and just generally happy to be home that I missed them.
TM!, you never look like you're having fun in photos. You always have that blank look on your face.
That mine tableau looks like it was pretty substantial. Did it go on the pad where the souvenir stand had stood in Alpine Gardens?
Thanks again to the ultimate superblogger teamup - Dream Team, TokyoMagic!, and Major Pepperidge!
Wow, I will be dining out on these all morning. Thanks to the Dream Team and TM for sharing these with us. And as always Major P. has made my day.
I knew someone would know the answer to what these were for. Thanks TM and for adding your own pictures. I'm pretty sure Bruce and James were going once a week there for awhile so they would have caught these pop ups. James also went quite a bit w/o Bruce and as I've said before, give him the second set of prints (remember when photo places would do this? Get one set developed and get the second set free!).
Sue - regarding the heat. I think we will take anything below 100 at this point! Bad heat this weekend and fires popping up in the mountains near us. Always gets hot this time of year but this time it's really here. 106 at our house yesterday but much hotter, like 116, further inland.
I messed up my last paragraph. Should read "but this time it really bad here."
These flat cutouts are amazing! Disney in the 90's. It doesn't get any gooder.
Not my favorite era at Disney, but the photographer did a nice job photographing the cutouts. Especially the individual dwarf cutouts.
Thanks, Dream Team!
You ever heard of the Phantom Blot? He's got nothing on the White Oval Man. Now he's truly scary! Thanks TM!
Ken
@ TM!-
Yes - thanks for adding these images to the grouping.
@ stu29573-
I think the biggest disappointment for me was the exclusion of 'Scooter' from the dwarf lineup. It's never been the same.
Nanook, I sort of had a vague memory of reading about these scenes before. Vague enough that I might be making it up. “Red Disgusting” is very apt! Even as a kid I thought I didn’t like apples and remember feeling very guilty when my mom put one in my lunch bag and I would throw it away.
TokyoMagic!, thank you for the info, and thank you for sharing your personal photos! I’m glad I was able to add them nice and early (since I was awake at 4:00 due to the heat).
Lou and Sue, some of these scenes didn’t require much effort, but others (such as the wishing well, and the inside of the mine) obviously took a lot more work and creativity, which I always appreciate. Honeycrisps are right up there! And thank you for asking… I would prefer it to be 72 degrees today!
Andrew, ha ha, as I was updating the page, I thought, “I wonder if anybody is trying to look at the blog right now?”. I knew it would only be down for about five minutes. Good eye on that Lion King graphic in the background, I am ashamed that I didn’t notice it. SO MUCH SHAME.
Andrew, are you sure it wasn’t The Lion King Hoop-De-Doo? :-)
stu29573, I’ve only seen photos of the Gummy Bear flats, but I objected to those because they were not only cheaply done, but because… Gummy Bears?!?. It’s a candy! What’s next, Tootsie Pop Mountain? Also, what’s the deal with airplane food? Yes, I’ve seen that list of rejected names, some of them are pretty “out there”. Slimy would be interesting…
Chuck, are you telling me you were gallivanting around Haiti instead of going to Disneyland? You should have told your “superiors” that they could got to heck! HECK I say! “I need to see the latest attractions at the Happiest Place on Earth, SIR!”. I’ve met TokyoMagic! in person, and he is not quite as blank in real life. Well, maybe sometimes (*rimshot*)! Those very glossy rocks in the “mine” are kind of gross, they look like they’d be sticky. The souvenir stand pad in Alpine Gardens is a good guess for that tableau.
Jonathan, aw gee!
Irene, I’m so glad that Bruce and James went so often, and too so many photos! And of course I am grateful to you for sharing them with me, so that I can share them with everybody else. Looking in my “Irene” folder on my computer, I see that I have shared 243 photos from you so far, with more to come! It looks like we’ve lucked out, and that it isn’t going to be as brutally hot today as the forecast had predicted. Thank goodness!
K. Martinez, the sheer number of setups and scenes make me feel a little less grumpy (pun intended) about these being flat plywood cutouts for the most part. Anything more elaborate would have not been cost-effective for a temporary display. And I’m glad they gave a salute to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, an amazing film, and a huge part of Disney history. I have heard of the Phantom Blot, I had a little reprint Golden Book with that story as a kid.
Nanook, I’m sorry that you are disappointed about the absence of Scooter, but the sign of a good attraction is that you walked away wanting more!
Lots of typos today, I'm very proud.
WOW! I check back in on today's post and, magically, there are more wonderful pictures added. Thank you, Major and TokyoMagic! It's neat to not only see additional "scenes," but to also see the contrast of day and night for the 7 dwarf scene. There's a whole different feeling between the two.
Major, it's 72 here, now. You got your wish, but you forgot to specify "where"!
Sue
I missed this event, I had just started a new job in '93 and we didn't get to visit the park until '95, year of the Indiana Jones ride opening. Sorry I missed it, looks like a fun display.
Melissa, a belated Happy Birthday! Sorry I missed it, not up to par Saturday or Sunday....and a very merry unbirthday today to you.
Thanks Irene, Bruce and James. Always great photos.
Thanks Major. I tried to work in another typo for you but just couldn't.
I really like these cut-outs. So simple but very fun. The only thing I would change is that I would have actual water squirting out of Dopey's ears once and a while. By the way my favorite rejected dwarf name was "Biggo-Ego".
These displays slide right between our trips with the kids, although I do recall the video release, I don’t recall when it was.
Makes sense to stage this near the Snow White Grotto, I wonder if there was a connection, did the scenes flow together to lead to it?
Thanks everyone for sharing comments and especially Major P, Dream Team & Tokyo!
JG
Major, I'm glad that I was able to share the few pics that I took of this S.W. overlay, and I'm happy that everyone is enjoying the additions. As for the Mine set-up, if you look closely at the rocks near the top of the photo, you can see about four jewels. But I agree that there should have been more. They could have even glued some on top of that mine cart!
Chuck, I don't remember specifically where the mine scene was. It wasn't in the spot where the former Alpine Gardens souvenir stand used to sit. There was actually an even larger set of the Dwarfs' cottage in that spot. I forgot to point it out, but you can see some of the cottage's "wooden beams" in the distance, just to the left of the Magic Mirror, in that last pic.
Ken, ha, ha! You know, the "white oval" is my thing. But I did something different with these pics. The two Magic Mirror pics actually feature "black ovals." I thought they blended in better with that particular set. Incidentally, white oval man is a friend, but I'm the black oval man in the first Magic Mirror pic. My "leg and shoe" can be seen in that pic. Maybe I should have covered them up with a couple more ovals? ;-)
Irene, I remember when many photo developing places would give you a second set of prints for free. One of the companies (Photomat, maybe?) advertised the free second set quite a bit on TV and referred to them as "Twin Pix."
There're typos from me, too, as I've gotten so used to thanking Lou and Sue that I misattributed these pics to Lou. Thanks, Dream Team!
Also, here's something for Major and Chuck about Cedar Point history to relate to yesterday's post. If you can't find the book Chuck suggested, Major, Cedar Point also just put out a cool app called "Discover Cedar Point History" for their 150th anniversary that takes you on a tour of the park through narrated slideshows and is surprisingly detailed, even including interviews with former park management. And Chuck, I think that you might like it too!
Lou and Sue, while I was updating it early in the morning I expected to get a message from you about the blog being down! But Andrew was the lucky (?) one. And you’re right, I should have wished it was 72 degrees in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.
DrGoat, are you telling me that your new job was more important to you than trips to Disneyland? Whatever! I just don’t understand some people. I once quit my job when I saw an ad telling me that the McRib was back! And I haven’t regretted it for a second. No need to work in typos, I am especially skilled at that.
Sunday Night, it would have been neat to have real water squirting out of Dopey’s ears! And maybe not even that hard, but it would have to squirt out, and not dribble out - that would look disturbing. “Biggo-Ego” is a weird one!
Jonathan, I certainly remember the video release, and definitely bought my copy of Snow White on VHS. I think they gave out a “limited edition” cheapo watch with the video, as well as a “frameable print”. Good question about the flow of the scenes - I have no idea, unfortunately.
TokyoMagic!, ah yes, I guess I do see a few gems up there. They should have put lights behind them! They were probably afraid (for good reason) that certain guests would try to pry the gems from the walls of the mine. I’m kind of surprised that there weren’t any photos of some of those more elaborate setups in the Dream Team collection. Maybe the camera ran out of film. I’d love to see the Dwarf’s cottage scene. I saw your leg and shoe in that one photo, but it didn’t occur to me that you’d put a black oval over your face - I just assumed that you hadn’t put your head up to the hole just yet.
Andrew, I didn’t even notice! Thank you for the heads up about “Discover Cedar Point History”, I would love to check it out. Will it work on my old-fashioned crank phone? I would get a newer phone, but would miss the party line. How else am I supposed to know what’s going on in town?
Fantastic photos, as always! These cut out vignettes from the '90s were so great. I have quite a few photos of the ones they placed around the Disneyland Hotel for the holidays in 1996. There was everything from the Fab Five to Bambi to the Dwarves again. Quite an eclectic mix, but boy if my parents didn't take pictures of my little brother and I in front of ALL of them.
My vote for what to call Sneezy after he takes his allergy medicine is Drowsy - I know, I know, I'll see myself out.
SunnieDaze21 - Hello! Please share your pictures and memories with us!
Sue
Thanks, Andrew. I'll have to check it out. Do you happen to know if Cedar Fair put out a similar app for Knott's 100th?
I don't think they did, Chuck, but I would love to see that!
The plywood cutouts remind me of how, when Mickey's Birthdayland was a thing at Walt Disney World, they put plywood cutouts of Disney characters along the train tracks as a way of promoting it - the idea being that the characters were all going to Mickey's birthday party. I wonder whatever happened to these cutouts.
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