Two From October, 1967
Here are two so-so snoozers for your Sunday morning. I apologize in advance.
Disneyland has Horseless Carriages, but they also had HorseFULL Carriages. Just look at all that horse! He's got pep in his step because he just won a pile of money betting on the St. Louis Cardinals, who beat the Boston Red Sox in seven games. But what does a horse do with money?? I hope he buys real estate.
It's the Mark Twain. Yep, there it is. It looks great, as usual, but you have to admit that this isn't a very interesting photo.
22 comments:
But what does a horse do with money?
He goes out and buys himself a whole new wardrobe. Why? Because he's a clothes horse. Whaaaa whaa.
LOL!
I wonder what would happen if the horse got stung by a bee or something, and bolted. Would the streetcar get pulled off the tracks and go careening down Main Street behind the spooked horse? I think that would be an "E" ticket attraction for sure!
Were the horses' blinders really necessary, or just for show?
Hmmm. I thought we established that this large white craft was a UFO. Those sneaky aliens painted "Mark Twain" on it to fool us Earthlings. But there is no way to camouflage those hyperdrive propulsion engines in the rear. Those blades are capable of spinning at light speed, supplying the adjacent nacelles with infinite energy to achieve warpdrive.
Runaway streetcars and warpdrive-capable UFOs. Not exactly "so-so snoozers"!
Tokyo!, now my head hurts.
Sue, don't encourage him.
Thanks, Major. They may not be terribly exciting, but they are in crisp focus with excellent color, and that makes them better than average Sunday photos.
Hey, TM! Isn't that the spot where you got your Christmas tree hoop caught?
JB,hahaha! I say that to people who laugh at my husband's jokes. I love him dearly, but he can't get a punchline straight. Drives me crazy.
Sue, that is correct! It was right there where the rails merge! And I almost got run over by the Santa Claus float. Seems like it was only yesterday.
I read somewhere (maybe here) that the metal domes on top of the streetcar held sand on the prototypes in case extra traction was needed. True? Heck, I don't know.
Great picture of the horse! He'planning that trip to Europe he always wanted to take. Roughest part is finding an airline.
The Mark Twain shot doesn't look interesting until you realize that the guy in the dark suit on the back is WALT DISNEY!!!
Ok, he's probably not. But he looks kind of like him, and that's close enough for a Sunday!
Stu, I really hope he finds an airline that can accommodate him. I've always wanted to see a horse fly.
I still marvel at the intricacy of the design and lettering on the front of the streetcars. And to think it was all done by hand back then. Talk about skill! Seriously. Start talking. NOW.
I refuse to admit that last one isn’t a very interesting photo. It’s mundanity is what embiggens it in my eyes.
Stu, steam locomotives have sand domes for that very reason (even the Chance Rides C.P. Huntington zoo and kiddie park locomotives - which are actually steam profile internal combustion locomotives - have operating sand domes), but I don’t see how that would work with a horse-drawn streetcar since the motive power is actually provided by the horse’s hooves pushing against the street rather than a machine driving wheels on the rails. Which now has me wondering…why don’t horses have sand domes? And…is that what camel’s humps are really for?
JB, if you haven’t seen it yet, I added a link to yesterdays comments that explains Melissa’s onion reference.
Nothing dull about these, just what I need on a Sunday getting a slow start.
I always thought the brass domes were bells? That is a fine looking horse. The most successful horses I knew invested in grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers and laundromats.
The Mark Twain pic is very interesting, almost a postcard. I’m enjoying the New Zealand flax behind the the lamp post and the pink blossom of the canna lilies that resemble the ones Mom had in our garden, back when the River was allowed vegetation. And the old Mill as it should have stayed, before Fantasmic (dreck) gave it acromegaly.
Not just good, Major, these are good enough. Thank you.
JG
TokyoMagic!, IT WAS SO OBVIOUS!
Lou and Sue, you said it.
JB, you have a vivid imagination! I suppose it’s not impossible that a bee could sting a horse. No idea if one of those Belgian draft horses is strong enough to pull a streetcar off the tracks, but if it did happen, I would hope that somebody would be filming the whole thing! I’m sure the blinders were necessary, since there were so many distractions at the park; minimize the chances of them being startled or stressed out. And hey, there’s no reason a UFO can’t be named “Mark Twain”! As you said, it is all to fool us. “Supreme Leader Gorx, the hu-mans will be much more receptive to our icy probes if we look like an olde-timey steamboat”.
Lou and Sue, don’t remind TM! of that awful Christmas tree hoop incident, he still wakes up in a cold sweat every night. And maybe people laugh at your husband getting the punch line wrong, that sounds pretty funny to me!
stu29573, it looks like your phone did a number on your typing! Maybe those brass things were sand domes, just like on trains. I don’t think sand would be necessary on the flat Disneyland tracks, but supposedly it was needed on the Disneyland RR tracks, where there actually are some slight grades. Hey, you’re right, that IS Walt! I can tell that he is smoking and saying a curse word.
TokyoMagic!, I’ve seen a peanut stand, heard a rubber band, I’ve seen a needle that winked its eye!
Chuck, I agree with you, those old sign painters truly had some amazing skills. I wish I knew more about how they learned their craft. Supposedly Ed “Big Daddy” Roth wound up working at Knott’s in the sign shop so that he could get a pension and some health care, which is pretty remarkable. I wish we could see photos of some of the things that he painted, maybe they had an extra flourish. You make a good point about sand domes on horse-drawn streetcars. I could see the domes being added as a traditional detail, if you know what I mean. However, they left off the “candy domes” that trains also had.
JG, I appreciate the kind words, but you have to admit that these aren’t so exciting on the scale of “boring Disneyland photos” up to “amazing Disneyland photos”! That doesn’t mean that I don’t like them, however. I feel like I’m missing something in regards to your “grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers and laundromats” comment! I was just looking at photos of the steamboats at Freedomland, and they are nice, but lack the elegance of the Mark Twain. Those Disney guys just got it right. And you win a cigar for the first mention of acromegaly (although we may have mentioned Rondo Hatton before).
I’m sure the blinders were necessary, since there were so many distractions at the park; minimize the chances of them being startled or stressed out.
Major, Disney could make a fortune selling those to the park guests to wear.
Horses need lots of money because they always have to pony up. (I got nothin’.)
I think I spy two young ladies in matching yellow turtlenecks on the upper deck of the ol’ Mark Twain.
Chuck, now that you mention it, I remember something about how they didn't make sense but they were copied from San Francisco? Or maybe I dreamed it all. And you were there, and you were there, and you were there...
Indeed, all that foliage makes it feel like a real river, back in those days of detailed Disney design. Maybe they’ll bring some of that back in the current remodel project?…but we know, it will be stacked stroller parking instead.
Stu, nah, 'tain't Walt. That guy's face looks too apple-cheeked and jowly. Woulda been great if it was, though!
Chuck, yep. I saw your comment from yesterday's post, and added one of my own.
JG, sounds like the horses you knew had good horse sense.
Major, if the runaway horse thing happened today, we could be sure that at least 2 or 3 dozen videos of it would be posted on YouTube within minutes. There would be enough videos from so many angles that you could edit them all together make a 360 degree movie of it!
Or even an elephant!
The back of the Mark Twain reminds me of a 1960's TV show- It was about Tom Sawyer, and the end credits have the principals waving from the back of a paddlewheel. I was interested in Tom Sawyer/Mark Twain/et al because of Disneyland...not because we read it in school. These are the things we may be missing in a "New Disneyland". I looked up the average life of a modern cruise ship- which is about 30 years if all goes well. The Mark Twain has some time on her. Even the Queen Mary only lasted 34 years sailing. I'm sure the Mark Twain has much more mileage- and it would be interesting to find out that fact if anyone knows. I'm learning to get over my odd obsession about how the Circle D guys don't button their vests, but I think it might have been OK and designed that way. I saw an old ad sketch recently, and the costume was drawn with vest unbuttoned. So...I've laid that one to rest. The photo doesn't pick up the metallic gold sparkly effect of the front of the street car- but it was always impressive to see the work of the sign shop. For some reason I remember seeing something attached to the car for dimes to go in...a little black box thing with glass. I think the guy looking at his cell phone on the right (counting dimes) probably had those waist coin things that gave change. I do remember that in my day. I used my A ticket on the Sleeping Beauty walkthrough, but a friend would always let me have a dime to make that trip down to Town Square. I think I got .50 or 1.00 to eat, so there was not much left after that. There was always a LITTLE saved for the Candy Palace however. I do remember a couple of times that the horses kind of went crazy...bucking and things. And they did get super duper antsy at the end of their shifts. They were great time keepers, and then when they saw their replacement shift horse coming round the bend they would get so excited knowing they would be going back to the ranch for food. They made very cute "baby noises" like puppies. It was sweet to watch. Very smart animals. I'm always good for a snoozy Sunday.
The two brass domes on the Main Street Horsecars are the bell housings. There are two for the reason that in most cities it would have been very noisy with other vehicle traffic. But in manufacture catalogs like Brill , St. Louis Car Company and Stevens show that single bells were also an option as well as no bells at all. It’s amazing how many options were available including summer cars ( like Disneyland's) Enclosed cars ( like DL Paris) and combinations of the two. There are even options that allow the operators to remove window panels and convert a single car into a open summer car. Most open streetcars would have featured striped shades that passengers could pull down in bright sun or a sudden rain shower …. Or in most cases to keep the extreme amounts of dirt and dust from the general street traffic.
The Disneyland streetcars ( the WDW versions are a bit fancier) As ornately decorated as they are , are fairly plain to what real horse drawn street cars would have looked like …. The cars of Disneyland Paris are a bit more accurate in decoration but are actually painted based on the some of the streetcars in the 1969 film Hello Dolly. But the Hello Dolly film street cars ( all originals …. 4 of the 5 having come from a 1800’s line in Coronado San Diego) were decorated using actual color and decoration specifications from two of the 18 real streetcar lines that operated in New York City in 1890.
Disneyland Paris and Disneyland CA’s streetcars feature a very accurate detail of the period : ad cards! Real streetcar and omnibus vehicles were covered with advertisements as early as the 1850’s. Floridas streetcars feature clerestory windows for some reason.
In Incidentally , the designs of the street car bells were signatures of the car’s manufacturer….. like the shape of automobile radiator designs were for car companies. Disneyland’s seems to be their own design , but very similar to several historic styles …. Just a tad simplified.
Bu, you’re thinking of The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a Hanna-Barbera combined live action/animated program that ran one season, 1968-69. It had the time slot on NBC immediately prior to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, so that may be when you saw it. Those of us a few years younger first encountered the show as an added segment of The Banana Splits when that went into syndication. I think my interest in Tom Sawyer and the gang was a byproduct of both Disneyland and this series.
Here’s that memorable set of credits you mentioned
JB, I left you a response to/your response..
Mike C, thanks for confirming about the bells.
Bu and Chuck, thanks for those credit memories.
One of my first real books was a kid versions of Tom Sawyer, the River, the steamboat and the Island were vividly real to me as real places from my first awareness of them.
Major, any business with huge volumes of quarters, (like a laundromat) is almost as good a money-laundering mechanism as an NFL franchise, and grocery stores are visited weekly by almost everyone. “If a man has ears let him hear”.
Melissa, that joke is inspired.
JG
The most successful horses I knew invested in grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers and laundromats.
JG, I figured you included laundromats because a clothes horse needs to clean his clothes somewhere!
I love all the interesting info from everyone today - especially Bu's stories about the horses.
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