More Magic Kingdom Posters
Back on March 18th, I was happy to share some amazing and rare photos of attraction posters from the Magic Kingdom, taken by Lou Perry and scanned & shared with us by his daughter, Sue B. Well here is PART DEUX!
I have blathered on and on about my love for the original silkscreened posters from Disneyland, so it was such an amazing day when Sue sent these great photos featuring the Florida versions - in many cases they are very similar to their Disneyland counterparts, only the text has been altered (and they were also slightly smaller). Here's the Haunted Mansion. In Liberty Square! Of course the actual Mansion has been changed as well, for obvious reasons.
I love this Monorail poster, in part because it is just plain cool, with the A-frame Contemporary Hotel (was it ever intended to be open on the end like that?); I'm sure many of you have noticed that the Monorail is the old Disneyland style, rather than the "Learjet" Mark IV style that was actually used back in those days.
The "Tropical Serenade" poster looks much like the 1967 version of Disneyland's "Enchanted Tiki Room" design.
The "Flight to the Moon" poster is nearly identical to Disneyland's version, only it lacks the "Presented by McDonnell Douglas" text.
The Gran Prix Raceway (I guess I always got the name wrong, calling it the "Grand Prix Raceway") poster is just like the Anaheim classic, although those cool "Hot Wheels" flames have been added to that car, making it look extra boss! The dad and son still look like they are right out of the 1950s. "Easy there, Sport!". "Aw, gee whiz, Pop!".
This last one is so surprising to me; the design is so "1950s Disneyland", even reflecting the Eyvind Earle-type stylization that appears in Disney's short films of the mid-50s. And yet... I would sure love to have one of these in my collection!
As always, MANY thanks to Lou Perry and Sue B. for sharing these amazing photos!
21 comments:
Major-
I guess as they say: If it ain't broke - don't fix it-!
Thanks to Lou and Sue.
These are all great! I don't think I've ever seen the Flight To The Moon poster for DL, because this one seems to be new to me. Is it one of the rarer DL posters, as far as usage goes?
I guess we are seeing a hint of the Mary Blair "Grand Canyon Concourse" mural, inside the Contemporary Resort.
I like how the artist of the Tropical Serenade poster (Rolly Crump?), gave that Tiki pole the uncanny likeness of Anita Bryant.
It's hard to pick a favorite among these posters. But if I could only pick (i.e. buy) one, it would be the Tropical Serenade. The colors, the fonts, the Tiki carving- it all comes together in a pleasing and exciting way. I've always loved that Adventureland font.
And if I had a few dimes and nickels left over, the next couple on my wish list would be the Haunted Mansion and the Monorail posters. Is that Mary Blair's giant mural inside the Contemporary? Edit- Tokyo! wants to know, too.
Thank you, Lou Perry for having the forethought to capture all these positively provocative posters for posterity. Thanks Sue. And thank you too, Major.
Oh, man! I forgot to thank Lou, Sue, and the Major, too! THANK YOU!
FANTASTIC!! Great color images. These were really the last of the 36” x 54” attraction posters programs. There’s a few rag-tag end variations …. A revision of Country Bear Jamboree ( the art used later for Disneyland in 1972 and later in the smaller poster size in 1978 and in Tokyo in 1983) there’s a 1974 CANADA THE BEAUTIFUL Circle Vision ( for CANADA DAYS) and then a MISSION TO MARS in 1975 ( two flight to the moon posters weee re-screened over and also some hand painting done) during this time attraction posters were being designed …. But not produced as WED management wanted to discontinue the use of attraction posters. Some imagineer in graphics and architectural illustration fought to keep the attraction poster program and showed what was possible with new screen printing techniques and graphic tends. This resulted in the Disneyland RailRoad Bicentennial Special attraction poster. The poster was state of the art at the time and actually impressed not only WED management but the real graphic art world - even the Smithsonian Institution requested a copy of the poster after it won the 1976 Golden Squeegee Silkscreen Guild Award. The only way this poster was able to be created was that it’s funding was included in the graphic changeover for the removal of all Santa Fe & Disneyland RR to The Disneyland Railroad. If you love attraction posters , thank the Santa Fe RR for ending their sponsorship …. As attraction posters would have ended forever by 1974.
The 1971 Florida posters were done for the same reasons the first Disneyland posters were created : but by 1971 these poster styles were very outdated ( despite how much we live them today ) the only completely NEW WDW 1971 posters were Bear , Presidents and Mickey Mouse Revue …. But they were not silkscreen … they were lithographed.
The other 1971 WDW posters use mostly existing Disneyland screens - some ARE Disneyland posters with overlays. The TROPICAL SERENADE poster uses the 1967 Disneyland Tiki Room poster art complete with the fictional United Airline Tiki God of Pleasure ( see his jet plane wings in his head dress carving???!!) I always wondered if any United Airlines people wanted to know why THEIR Tiki God of Pleasure was doing on a Florida Citrus Growers sponsored attraction !? The Grand Prix Raceway uses some artwork created for a revised Disneyland Autopia 1969 attraction poster - for whatever reason was never created ( …… or was it and surviv ing examples haven’t shown up yet????) The WDW Monorail poster features a accurate white with red stripe Mark IV Monorail in the distance ….but the foreground monorail is oddly a bubbles Disneyland style mark III looking monorail ( the REAL Mark IV WDW monorails we’re going to look like this had Bob Gurr not had seen a Lear Jet at a airport) The Crystal Palace poster features a very detailed-technical rendition of the restaurant’s architecture …. But it’s screened on a early 50’s looking Plaza Inn poster layout. And posters like Skyway make almost no attempt of creating a Florida distinct poster.
From 1976 to 1978 completely revised WDW posters are added slowly. Then the any of the old large size poster still displayed are removed and all new smaller frames are added to the entry tunnels and a large new collection of Walt Disney World attraction posters are debuted in 1978. As temporarily fill ins some old designs are lithographed with some graphic updates … like Haunted Mansion, 20,000 Leagues and Tropical Serenade are used … while many are all new designs like Grand Prix Raceway, Cinderella’s Golden Carousel , WDW Monorail System , and It’s A Small World .
The early Florida attraction posters are very very rare as only one production run was done.
Mike, so there was actually a "Canada The Beautiful" CircleVision film made, just for Canada Days at WDW? Did it ever get shown in Anaheim, for DL's Canada Days?
Tokyo : it was just a re title of CANADA ‘67 produced for EXPO 67 in Montreal. The film was exactly the same with added title screens. I’m not aware of it having ever showed at Disneyland. Do you know if Disneyland ever held Canada Days ?
Parts of CANADA 67 / CANADA THE BEAUTIFUL were re-used in both versions of MAGIC CARPET ROUND THE WORLD 360 , O’ CANADA 1982 at Epcot .
Mike, thanks for that info about the renaming of the Canada '67 film! Disneyland held "Viva Mexico Days" multiple years in a row, and also "Festival Japan Days" for multiple years. I only know for sure of one "Canada Days" event, and that was in 1980. I just did a search online, and nothing comes up. But I know I have an L.A. Times supplement for the DL's 25th anniversary, that lists it on the calendar of events for 1980. I would just have to dig extra deep to retrieve it right now.
It's either the Monorail System and Tropical Paradise as my favorites, but they are all beautiful.
Thanks Major and Sue and to Lou, a special thanks for taking those photos, as JB stated.
Thanks for the info Mike.
Great designs, beautiful posters, splendid photographs, and the detailed backstory too.
GDB never disappoints.
My favorite is the tiki poster, but they are all wonderful.
Thanks L & S & M!
JG
All of them are great but if I have to limit my purchase to one I'll take the Monorail poster thank you.
Great info Mike!
Thanks Sue, Lou and Major for a perfect Monday morning post.
Nanook, you said nothing about adding glitter to it though…!
TokyoMagic!, I remember seeing those Flight to the Moon posters for a few hundred dollars, and I never got one. Big regret! I think they were considered inferior to other Tomorrowland posters, but they are scarce. Now they regularly fetch many MANY thousands. Yes, that appears to be the Grand Canyon Concourse mural, I love that detail. Ha ha, sick burn on Anita Bryant.
JB, I would have a tough time choosing just one, but I might be tempted by the WDW RR poster; the actual Disneyland version of this poster is incredibly rare, and it’s so kooky to see it used for Florida. But honestly these Walt Disney World posters are all so rare that I would be thrilled to have any of them.
TokyoMagic!, you are welcome!
Mike Cozart, as before, I knew you’d like these. Thank you as always for all of the wonderful info, it sounds like a book about posters written by YOU would have been a lot more informative than the one we got. I’m happy to have a Disneyland RR Bicentennial poster, I bought it at a show for $300 (the guy had six or seven of them for sale); it has the little certificate that indicates how many different colors were used. Cool that one is in the collection of the Smithsonian! “Golden Squeegee”, I love it. I’m not crazy about the litho designs that came out around this time, the graphics tend to be a bit busy and muddled, instead of the strong, simple designs that we all know and love. I’m not sure I’ve ever really warmed to the Lear Jet look of the WDW Monorails, so I wish Bob Gurr hadn’t been so inspired by the plane he saw! Of all the WDW posters, I think I have only seen a single “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” example at auction.
TokyoMagic!, I wish it had been “Oxnard the Beautiful”.
Mike Cozart, I thought that the Canada film had been shown in Disneyland, but I am probably confusing my “facts” (not facts really, just fragments of memories). I’m sure you are right about it NOT being shown there.
TokyoMagic!, yes, I have a few paper items with “Viva Mexico” and “Festival Japan”, but I did not know that they ever did “Canada Days”. I’d love to hear what you glean from your research.
DrGoat, it is a miracle that Lou took these, as if he had some Spidey Sense about what would be interesting to people 50 years later. Nobody else even thought about it!
JG, as, I’m sure GDB has disappointed sometimes! Maybe the comments saved some of the lamest photos. Still I appreciate the kind words.
Grant, I will be sure to have it wrapped and sent to you ASAP! ;-)
@ TM!-
'Nice' description of Miss. Anita. (Paul Hartley gets credit for the poster). I prefer to think of her from 'happier times', from 1960... [also a part of the Nanook record collection]: LOOK HERE.
Smile, Anita-! A shout-out to her open-toed shoes.
I've never seen that Walt Disney World Railroad Main Street Station poster! Very cool. Of course, it features the E.P. Ripley. Which I guess isn't too much of a problem, as the poster they eventually got featured the C.K. Holliday!
All trains look alike, right?
Steve, thanks for the I.D. on the artist for the poster. I should have known that Rolly wasn't the artist for the poster. It isn't really his style. That's why I put the question mark in there.
Miss Anita does not look very happy on that album cover. I wonder if she was just not a very happy individual. Or was there a defining moment in her life, when she totally went off the rails? As a kid, I only knew of her from the Florida Orange Juice commercials, and from co-hosting Mike Douglas' show with him, on occasion. I did not learn about what a horrible and hateful person she was, until later, when I was an adult.
MAGIC CARPET ROUND THE WORLD is what was playing in the Circle-Vision theater when I first went to WDW; neat to know that some of the footage was from Expo 67! If I had to choose just one poster it’d have to be the Monorail. There really is no feeling quite like riding the train right into the Contemporary.
Before Rocket Rod Project went out of control and it’s queue took over the Circle Vision theater, Disneyland had already scraped the plans for the Time Keeper. However, a updated - revised “American Journeys” 360 Film was being developed for Tomorrowland 1998 called AMERICAN SPIRIT 360. But Tony Baxter said “we’d rather have an impressive rocket rods pre-show than 10 minutes of new “America the Beautiful” ……( his words - but he meant American Journeys) …… and the rest is history…..
It’s interesting that the unproduced 1998 circle vision film was going to be called AMERICAN SPIRIT …. As the first title of a new America the Beautiful ….. was first called AMERICAN SPIRIT …. Which was changed to AMERICAN JOURNEYS.
Had the new circle vision film AMERICAN SPIRIT opened with Tomorrowland 1998 , guest would have seen a new 2 screen 360 degree theater . Today’s technology allows circle vision films on a single “seemless” screen!! “The Future is all around you as our circle vision theater takes you on a spectacular journey!!”
Now imagine a Tomorrowland theater all around, ABOVE and BELOW you!!!??
Or MAJOR PEPPERIDGE’S INCREDIBLE RETRO-MAGIC LANTERN SLIDE-A-SCOPE DIMENSIONAL THEATER ………
……. Presented by Dr. Scholls
………………………………………………….a WED/Quinn Martin Production.
Oooh! Can't wait for that Magic Lantern show! Do they still use candles?
I love the info about the tiki plane-headdress.
Glad you-all liked these.
Thanks, Major.
Sounds kind of like the Omnimax screens that used to be in the final scene of Horizons at EPCOT.
Also, I really, really wish some artist would you do a cover version of the “Little Orange Bird” song so that Anita Bryant’s version wasn’t the only one out there.
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