Monday, December 28, 2020

Black and White Snapshots

Here's a nice selection of vintage photo prints from various years.

First up is this example from February, 1960, featuring a shy little girl who isn't so sure she likes being this close to Mickey Mouse. Those eyes - those freakish, unblinking eyes! I think she is holding her ticket book. Grandma (souvenir guidebook in hand) is laughing, but notice that she is keeping her distance too. G-ma's dress has an Op-art design worthy of Victor Vasarely.


I used to especially love seeing the gorilla (was there more than one?) bobbing up and down angrily from the banks of the Rivers of the World. He is right near some tall bamboo - gorillas love bamboo shoots!  I have heard that the mechanical innards of this gorilla were used for "Harold", the Matterhorn's Abominable Snowman. That might just be a rumor, though.


No wonder that hippo is so crabby, he is in desperate need of orthodontia. A year or two with braces (including headgear) should do the trick. Then another year or two with a retainer, and old Horace Hippo will be smiling again.


I love this photo of a very glum boy posing with the dazzling Space Couple. Maybe it's just the black and white, but the Spaceman's costume does not appear to be silvery as it often does. I've seen both of these space folk in other photos, including THIS nice one (though the Space Woman is a blonde in today's example).


I hope you have enjoyed these black and white snapshots!

17 comments:

Nanook said...

Major-
Poor Mickey - those eyes-! With a little twirling action, he could easily start hypnotizing the crowds-!

'Glum Gus', in the last image, seems to be related to our 'root canal friend' from a few years back-! Such agony. (They do have matching cuffs).

Thanks, Major.

TokyoMagic! said...

Oooh, I do like the pattern on that lady's dress. And Mickey's eyebrows on that version of the costume, make him seem like he is always frowning. At least this costume wasn't the scary one with the big slits/screens on the nose. I suppose this revised version had the person inside, looking out through Mickey's eyes?

That Jungle Cruise gorilla always looked very stiff....sort of like the King Kong robot, used for that one scene in the 1976 remake of the movie.

Anonymous said...

In the first pic it looks like grandma is saving granddaughter when she wandered too close to Psycho Mouse.

Pic 2 could be our mascot!

Pic 3 Fun Fact! Too much intergalactic travel will darken your hair.
The kid has just been informed that he has been chosen to work in the dilithium crystal mines on Zantor IV. Yay.

zach said...

That could be me in the last photo circa the late 50s. Same haircut, same ears, same too large belt and same rolled up cuffs. At the end of a hard day of play I would roll down my cuffs to see what treasures I might have brought home. Same photo reluctance, too.

These are especially fun because they look like the photos we brought back from DL back in the day.

Thanks, Major

zach

Melissa said...

Love Mrs. Spacewoman’s pageant wave.

Major Pepperidge said...

Nanook, that was back when Mickey was experimenting with ayahuasca. He was going through a rough patch! You’re right, Gus definitely looks sympatico with Viewliner Kid.

TokyoMagic!, I wish they’d just gone for it and made Mickey look truly angry. Maybe have a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. That’s what I will do when I build “Majorland”. So funny that you mentioned the 1976 “King Kong”, I can picture that short scene, with Kong dropping a few pieces of his cage as if he is on ayahuasca (I love a callback!).

Stu29573, Mickey reminds me a little of the version in the excellent 1995 short cartoon, “Runaway Brain”! I do consider the Jungle Cruise gorillas to be mascots of a sort. Maybe the Space Gal had spent time on a planet with three suns for her blonde look? And believe it or not, this is the second day in a row I’ve read a reference to the dilithium crystal mines (I think the other instance was on some other website), though this is the first I’ve seen the name “Zantor IV”. Was that the name that they mentioned on the show?

zach, if only we had an actual photo of you at the park at that time! It would be fun to do a side-by-side comparison. I was never happy to pose for photos too, but usually managed a horrible fake smile that looked like I was grimacing in pain.

Melissa, many years ago I was contacted by a woman who I believe was the daughter of this particular Spacewoman, but at the time I had no good photos to share with her. I wish I could contact her again.

K. Martinez said...

I've always loved that particular gorilla on the Jungle Cruise. It may have been technologically primitive but it was "mechanized magic" to me as a child growing up in the 1960's. There's something charming about old-school Disney. Thanks, Major.

Major, "Runaway Brain" is great.

Anonymous said...

Ok, I admit it: I made up Zantor IV.

"Lou and Sue" said...

That poor hippo. Since when do teeth malfunction at Disneyland?! I've heard of drop foot but not drop teeth.

JC Shannon said...

The Mickster looks like he had one too many diet pills. Mr. Spaceman looks happy and so does Spacelady. The kid in the photo looks like he would be happier anywhere else but here. Thanks Major.

Melissa said...

Mickey gets his diet pills from Speedy Gonzales.

Major Pepperidge said...

K. Martinez, I vividly remember the “bobbing up and down” motion of the gorilla (why do I think there was more than one?). Based on the name of this blog, you might not be surprised to know that the gorilla was one of my favorite parts of the Jungle Cruise.

Stu29573, it sounded authentic!

Lou and Sue, I have never heard of “drop foot”, what in the world is that? Does a foot actually fall off?!?

Jonathan, the photo might be in black and white, but Mickey is seeing colors. So many colors! Those spacefolk had picture-posing down pat, they always looked good. Maybe they are amused by Gloomy Gus’s ears.

Melissa, that explains Mickey’s trim figure.

"Lou and Sue" said...

Major, “drop foot” is when a foot drags due to a stroke (or other injury). I hope that’s not what happened to that hippo.

Chuck said...

Mickey may look like a nightmare vision, but Grandma's expression is priceless.

This is a picture of the good spacewoman. The dark-haired one is her mischievous sister (or maybe cousin - depends on whether this is NBC or ABC) who has designs on keeping the spaceman all to herself.

Stu had this Trekkie fooled, too. It sounded authentic enough to look it up...or at least try to. Well done, Stu...well done.

Anonymous said...

There were, indeed, two gorillas… one on either side of the waterway. I seem to recall those rascals being part of the fun into at least the late ‘60s.

It often appeared to me that the gorillas were shrugging at the question periodically posed by some of the early skippers: “Name the smaller rivers that run into the Nile.”

The answer? The Juveniles, of course.

Somewhere, I have home Super 8mm movies my Dad took featuring the gorillas, rhinos and lions. Honest!


~Huck

JG said...

Grandmas smile and dress takes the prize today, Major!
Plus 1 for Victor Vasarely, one of my op art favorites.

Mickey isn’t just seeing colors, he is hearing and tasting them too!

I do remember the two gorillas, Huck, please share your movies!

The Space Folks look great today. We have seen that Space Man often, but his shiny suit was at the cleaners today.

There’s money to be made day-trading dilithium futures.

Cheers all.

JG

Major Pepperidge said...

Lou and Sue, yikes!

Chuck, it is nice to see Grandma so happy! I was told that the blonde (and sometimes brunette) woman was the very first Tomorrowland Spacegirl. I wonder if she was a 55er? I love the “lookalike” idea, like Samantha Stevens and her cousin Serena, or Jeannie and her evil twin, Jeannie II.

Huck, thanks for the confirmation on the two gorillas! It’s nice to know that my brain has retained *something*. “Juveniles”, ay-yi-yi. The pain! Cool that you have those Super 8mm movies! Anything else cool on them?

JG, there’s something fascinating about the Op Art illusions of some of Vasarely’s artwork; and I think it really did influence fashion to a degree, I’ve seen vintage dresses, mostly from the 1960s, with “mod” designs clearly taken from his work. We’ve seen the Spaceman with a number of different silver suits, and a sort of khaki suit, and the one in this photo appears to be white or light gray - they sure kept those seamstresses busy!