All Aboard the Columbia, 1978
It's time for yet more Frontierland slide scans from the Mysterious Benefactor! As is the case in many of these, they are from 1978, and we are right in the thick of the flurry of photos featuring the Mark Twain and (today) the Columbia.
All of these pictures show guests walking up the gangplank to board the genuine square-rigged Sailing Ship that had plied the Rivers of America for 20 years at that point. Nice muttonchops on that young father in the green shirt!
A cheerful cast member says, "Watch yer step, me hearties! Yo ho ho! Avast, ye swabs!" (etcetera). The weird thing is that he graduated from Yale. The clock on the green building says it's 5:15, that looks about right if it's summertime.
I wonder if any guest managed to fall off of the gangplank? And could wheelchairs go up that rather steep incline?
Hey kid! Stop staring, it's rude! I'd give him a piece of my mind, but he might know karate.
I'm sure a lot of you guys out there are like me - you are just waiting for the first good opportunity to take off your shirt at Disneyland. I hate feeling all confined and uncomfortable. I need to be FREE! I don't envy that father carrying his diaper-clad child - presumably he had to leave the stroller ashore, which means that wheelchairs couldn't access the Columbia. But if the Mark Twain was operating, they could board that vessel, at least.
Thank you, Mysterious Benefactor!
22 comments:
Major-
The 'gangplank' is merely the final step of boarding. Passengers must first climb that opposing set of giant stairs often seen sitting on the dock. (Look carefully, and part of it can be seen in the images).
Thanks to the M B.
This series makes me think of the beginning of a Fantasy Island episode, where we'd see each party get off ze plane and hear what their fantasies are. Just give that swabbie a handful of leis and we're all set. Check out his single-finger point in #2; what a rebel! Yale may have a good Masters in Piracy program, but you can't beat Harvard's School of Yosemite Sam Impersonation.
Love how the Golden Horseshoe is peeking over to say hi.
It wasn't until I tried to navigate WDW in a manual wheelchair that I noticed just how many super-steep ramps there are in the parks. I think a wheelchair could probably just make that gangplank, but only with a really strong pusher. And maybe a second person for steadying. I hear all kind of griping about how many more wheelchairs there are in the parks compared to days gone by, but what some people seem to forget is that people with disabilities didn't go out as much as they do now, because there was no expectation of accessibility back then.
That staring kid in #3 and #4. No one told him his face was going to freeze like that for 43 years! …. Or did they?
I bet that really is a young MAJOR PEPPERIDGE in #5. It’s no joke that he just has to take his shirt off!
Look at him. Rockin those sandals and socks….getting ready to “flex” for the babes on the bow.
I wonder if the "staring kid" (third and fourth pics), is actually Meeno Peluce?
That baby has what TV commercials used to refer to as, a "saggy diaper"!
Immediately upon leaving the park, Staring Kid was surrounded by black vans and men witb black suits and shades. They whisked him away and he remembers nothing after that.
Mysterious Benefactor doesn't mess around when it comes to staying mysterious.
I love the Columbia, but access is a good point. I rode last in 2015 and cannot recall what access there was, which is weird because I usually notice things like that.
Thanks Major & MB.
I had a long post yesterday about drain pipes, water-damaged walls, and garderobes, and blogger ate it. :(
JG
JG, I did read your "long" (and interesting!) post yesterday - and then noticed, a little while later, that it disappeared. I just assumed you deleted it and were making changes to it - so I kept watching for it to reappear. I've had some of mine disappear while trying to post them, but never after they posted. Crazy.
Since it's dinnertime, as soon as we get off the Columbia, is anyone game for Blue Bayou?
Thanks, MB & MP!
Sounds good to me! I could use a monte cristo sandwhich!
Nanook, I know about the stairs - but was sort of wondering how a wheelchair could get aboard the Columbia, since that man with the young child couldn’t bring his stroller up.
Melissa, maybe the finger-point can be one-fingered if it is not directed at people? Fantasy Island - greatest show ever? It’s always fun to go to the L.A. Arboretum, that’s where Mr. Roarke’s house is. I always want to go up and ring the bell. Oh my gosh, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to get around ANY of the Disney parks in a manual wheelchair. As you said, they didn’t even consider accessibility until not that long ago.
Budblade, maybe that kid’s face DID freeze like that, and he still has that dopey expression to this day. “Why didn’t I listen to my mother?”. I admit that walking around without a shirt on is my style, but I had way more tattoos at that age (flaming skulls, mermaids, a portrait of Bea Arthur… the whole works.
TokyoMagic!, I’m sure somebody out there knows who Meeno Peluce is, but I sure don’t. Is he related to the Beverly Hills Peluces? “Saggy Diaper” is my rapper name.
Stu29573, I for one am glad to hear that Staring Kid will no longer bother us. There are consequences to your actions, little boy! I don’t care if you are seven years old! It’s bread and water for you!
JG, I’m glad you like the Columbia, because there are literally HUNDREDS of photos of it in the scans from the MB! To the point where I’m going to have to skip a bunch because they were all taken from the same angles, of the same details. I’ve only been on the Columbia one time (because I love riding on the Mark Twain so much), and don’t remember the boarding process at ALL. I don’t understand how comments vanish, I truly don’t, and am sorry that yours got lost.
Lou and Sue, wow, so you actually saw the long comment from JG? I can delete comments, but generally only delete them if there are duplicates. Or spam, which does happen sometimes. And on probably a handful of instances, I’ve deleted obnoxious comments from weirdos, because it’s MY blog and I don’t need that stuff! I’ve never eaten at the Blue Bayou, and have always wanted a seat by the water. Even if the food isn’t that great.
Stu29573, my buddy Mr. X says that he used to love the Monte Cristo sandwiches, until they didn't love him back!
JG, I just read your comment about garderobes and water damage at 11:30 CDT today, so if it disappeared, it has returned from wherever it went. Probably 1958 Disneyland, the lucky stiff.
Thanks, Major & MB!
Chuck and Major, that post is a new and different one, reconstructed from memory from a much longer and more involved post that vanished, and put up this AM. I did put it on the original thread since it would be off-topic here.
I think what happened, I went through the "I'm not a robot" thing, and then closed the window without clicking publish. Yesterday was a busy busy day and work interfered with my research. I wish I could make a living from discussing Disney trivia, there has to be a way.
JG
If we’re going to place an order, we’d better count the Monte Cristos.
(I’ll show myself out.)
Sue, I just saw your comment above that you saw my long comment yesterday.
That is very weird that it would post and then vanish. I did not delete it. I posted a shorter version this AM, mostly the same points, but just less colorful.
I wanted to be sure that Major knew about Pyrex glass plumbing since it is (a little) cheaper than platinum.
JG
Yes, JG, I did see and read it...that comment (your comment) even mentioned the stain on the Tower of London, from what I recall...
Sue, that was the first one. How odd that it vanished.
JG
JG, sometimes when I comment and post from my phone, my comment appears twice. I guess that makes up for one disappearing??
Blogs have a mind of their own, I think.
That makes me feel better, JG. I was starting to get really jealous of your original comment’s visit to 1958 without taking the rest of us along,
Maybe one has to incorporate Blogger into any design of a Time Machine to get it to work properly. I bet that's it! A working Time Machine is just around the corner!
I think Meeno Peluche was that kid who co-starred in that time travel series from back-in-the-day... "Adventurers"? Today's kid looks a lot like him, IIRC, otherwise I wouldn't have made the connection.
Thanks to Major and the MB for todays crisp and colorful images.
Voyagers! He was also in the Western comedy Best of the West.
Melissa, I’m trying to think of a Three Musketeers joke, but nothing’s coming to me.
JG, as far as I know, only I can delete a comment, but I promise you that I did not delete yours, and never have! I went back and read about the Pyrex glass plumbing, interesting… something I never thought about. I still like platinum plumbing though. Sometimes you just have to live a little.
Lou and Sue, only on GDB will a stain on the Tower of London come up!
JG, Queen Elizabeth probably demanded that the comment had to go.
Lou and Sue, I’ve always wondered why some comments show up twice, often publishing 10 or 15 minutes apart. The wonderful world of the internet I guess.
Chuck, I want to go back to 1958 to witness the opening of the first Pizza Hut. Talk about great moments in history!
JB, Google will charge a small monthly fee to incorporate Blogger into your home time machine. I don’t remember a time-travel series on TV (not counting “Time Tunnel”), so I’m out of the loop on this one.
Melissa, well, that title rings a bell, but I doubt I ever saw “Voyagers”.
Melissa is correct. The series was called Voyagers! It was kind of geared toward a younger audience, and came on earlier than prime time, at 7 p.m. It co-starred Jon-Erik Hexum, who one year later, would shoot himself in the head (on the set of another TV series) with a "blank." The pressure from the discharged "blank" at such a close range, ended up killing him.
Meeno Peluce is also the brother of Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster).
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