Fantasyland, June 1967
Everybody loves some vintage Fantasyland! It's a scientific fact, just like Bigfoot and pyrokinesis.
Here's sort of a general view, looking past the Mad Tea Party (now with added decorative arches), toward the Skyway and the Pirate Ship, with the Carrousel to our right. The woman to the left wore purple just so that she could stand near the Welch's Grape Juice stand and coordinate. Her husband is used to it by now, in fact he thinks it's adorable.
This is sort of an unusual view; part of me wishes that the photographer had taken a few steps to be closer to the Alice in Wonderland attraction, but then it wouldn't be an unusual view, would it? WOULD IT? Even though these slides are date-stamped "June 1967", I'm seeing a surprising number of long sleeves, sweaters, and even some coats, perhaps these were actually snapped months earlier.
28 comments:
Major-
It appears as if the Lady Purple has a gigantic pink bow as part of her hairdo. Evidently there's more to fashion than just purple.
Thanks, Major.
The Purple Lady is either wearing some sort of scarf, or she's wearing her vest backwards. I'll go with scarf. Her husband's get-up has a rather unattractive color; messy diaper brown.
That red, white, and blue trashcan looks like an extra-large fireworks finale. Filled with things that pop, whistle, snap, crackle, and fizz.
The guy walking in front of Purple Lady is phasing into another dimension.
Skully, didn't your mother teach you that it's not polite to stare?
In the second pic, I think the photographer's center of attention is that light tower. The Skyway bucket, the Castle, and the purple Alice leaves all conspired to ruin his shot of the tower.
Is it just lens distortion, or are those two trashcans leaning inward? They look like they're leaning. Have they always done that? I never noticed before.
Thanks for more Fantasyland photos, Major. Good 'people' photos.
It so different to see a 1967 pan view of the Alice attraction and not see the relocated Mad Tea Party in front of it …
In the first photo, there are two gentlemen wearing what appear to be suits, one thatJB pointed out in “messy diaper brown” and the other, directly below the red Skyway bucket, wearing a more traditional brown next to his equally-well-attired wife. Wondering if they are foreign visitors who didn’t get the memo about Disneyland’s dress code being “smart casual.”
The second picture is a familiar scene, but the unusual view makes unfamiliar details pop out. Never noticed the design of the streetlights before, translucent cylinders atop slender black poles. And those giant, white flower blooms in the Alice weed plot are new to me, too.
Mike, all that open space where the teacups are now does look odd - it fairly screams for something to be put there. You can hear the screaming, can’t you? CAN’T YOU???
JB, the trash cans are leaning because there is a slight slope away from the curb. It never rains in Southern California, but when it does, it pours…man, it pours…and that slope helps direct it to puddle in the appropriate areas.
Looks like Alice and the caterpillars aren't up yet. I swear this ride was down more than it was up. The slightest bit of "moist" would shut it down. NO CATEPILLARS ON WET LEAVES EVER! It makes sense they would move the Teacups there...we were told it was to aggregate all of the Alice things to one area. (?) I think Alice in Wonderland became a bigger deal in Disneyland than it ever was in theaters. It's slightly painful to watch if you are not under the influence. There is a lot of kinetic energy in photo #1. Lots of blurry people in a hurry for grape juice or something. There is another brown suit in the distance with lady with heels. Might they be suits? She's a trooper for wearing those heels. Let's take the fancy waste paper (PAPER ONLY! NOTHING ELSE!) container and when we build the New Fantasyland let's paint it like brown wood, like really drab style, and say "thank you" instead of "push". How do the guests know what to do with "thank you?" So I put my paper Welches grape juice bar wrapper in here, but where does the wooden stick go? I am confused. I really like the addition of the Tivoli Gardens type lighting on tea cups. Very fanciful. Pretty at night. They probably were practical as well for people stumbling out of their tea cups. I see candy stripe curtains there on the carrousel. These were closed at night in my time to keep the horses "fresh". You can see Skull Rock peeking out there on the right...just his eyes. The temperature in Fantasyland always seemed to be "hotter" than the rest of the Park. Maybe that was just me in the middle of an anxiety attack. There is some nice trees here, but it never seemed to have the slight breezes going on in the rest of the Park. I think Purple Lady is product placement for Welch's. Notice that we say "Whelchez" but the spelling is Welch's. We don't say "Whelchss". I wonder what is correct. I do like a sticky grape juice bar however. These were never ever ever allowed in the confines of my childhood home. EVER. Nor was anything grape related. Banana popsicles only. The ones you made into two. Four kids, two popsicles. Having your own popsicle was considered gluttony. That's all I got. If you missed the Tupperware Party yesterday I very much recommend watching the YouTube video. It was amazing. Anita Bryants rendition of "My Momma Done Told Me" with words changed to Tupperware...is worth the wait at the end. So is "kissing man". So wouldn't fly today...and I'm not sure it flew back then And they do sell a set of stacking multi color bowls now! I just may get them. My buddy Don, inventor of the now defunct Fast Pass was a Tupperware rep and had "parties" at Disneyland while working at Coke. I still have some of the "Modular Mates". Orlando! Home to Walt Disney World...and Tupperware. Many interesting stories on both sides.
Bu, on purple popsicles...some time in my third year, I ate a grape-flavored popsicle. This was not an abnormal occurrence, but I was apparently sick and the popsicle made an unscheduled encore appearance on the brand new, light beige family room carpet. This led to a rearrangelement of furniture that was in effect until we moved out five years later. My mother also stopped buying grape-flavored popsicles.
Maybe three or four years after that incident, my mother made a Coleman drink cooler full of grape Kool-Aid (I'm sure it wasn't actually Kool-Aid brand, but, like Kleenex and Xerox, the brand name is now the name) as we went off on a family day trip to Napa Valley. I remember it was hot, and after a tour of the Charles Krug Winery, she opened up the back of the station wagon and poured me a wax Dixie cup full of cold grape Kool-Aid. Minutes later, I did my part to help keep down the dust in the parking lot. To this day, I get queasy when I smell artificial grape flavoring.
Ironically, I love real grapes, and fortunately, they do not cause me any trouble...unless I drink too much of the fermented kind.
Thanks Major. That was a year before my graduation from high school, and we went to the park several times in the latter part of the sixties. The fact that I don't remember much about our trips is being 17 and distracted by so many things at that age.
Almost perfect stretch of two tone surfacing in that second pic. A little rough just to the right of the couple walking arm in arm in blue, black and white.
I must say that is one long shadow cast by the guy with the camera and pumpkin colored sweater.
Grape juice never appealed to me back then. My tummy didn't like it either. Still, I'd gladly drink a glass if I could do it standing on that pavement at that time right now.
Major, these pics help with a long-standing question for me; narrowing the date of the Tivoli arches on the Teacups. I always assumed them to be a much later addition than 1967. I wonder if these were a small update to help polish Fantasyland when New Tomorrowland opened? I see the scalloped fence is replaced by an attractive wrought iron one, forerunner of the ones seen everywhere now. Any pic of Alice’s is fine with me, especially the toad stool booth.
Speaking of Welch’s, anyone else vaguely scandalized by the topless lady centaurs in the mural? Mom never mentioned them, but I’m sure she noticed disapprovingly.
Not to make this a “barf thread”, Chuck, but I had a similar experience as a kid. Coming back home from a Disneyland visit and seeing Dads LA cousins, and I had the beginning of the flu. Also in the back of the station wagon, climbing the Grapevine (appropriately enough), full-on Welches grape juice, not a popsicle. I won’t drink grape juice to this day, and I never liked popsicles or any food on a stick, but that wasn’t from being sick.
Thank you Major!
JG
Have we discussed the cute li’l broom and dustpan on the trashcans before? So fun with the peek-a-skull. In the second photo, the girl near the right with the snappy serape is holding some red heels that seem a bit big for her. Is she carrying her Patchy Pants Mom’s shoes? Is the lady barefoot? Thanks for some colorful pics today, Major.
Always loved Welch's Juice Bar and it's Fantasia mural. Red purple or white. Take your pick of grape juice. Or a frozen juice bar.
I love the distant shot of Alice in Wonderland with the lone Skyway cabin. Such a great wide-open view with plenty of space.
The first pic has a lone Skyway cabin too and the same color to boot. Thanks, Major
Nanook, purple and pink are the best Disneyland colors, it turns out. Who knew?
JB, that lady was ahead of her time, wearing clothing backwards in a pre-MTV era. When she wore her shirts upside-down, it caused a sensation in Milan! “Messy diaper brown”, ha ha. “They told me it was khaki!”. Somehow that trash can design makes me think of a popcorn bag or ice cream wrapper, which is appropriate. I don’t think that there was enough lens distortion to make those trash cans look so “lean-y”, I guess the ground isn’t as flat as it appears.
Mike Cozart, it really does look oddly wide-open!
Chuck, I’m guessing that in ’67 there were probably a number of brown suits coming into style, though they wouldn’t truly catch on until a few years later. Some men must be so comfortable in suits that they can’t imagine wearing anything else to Disneyland - which seems bananas to me. I wear a suit only when I have to! Well, same with clothing, to be honest. Those lights near “Alice” are so unobtrusive that I didn’t even notice them. I do love those “dandelion puffs” among the flowers in the Alice ride. And I agree, you know that somebody saw all that open space and decided that it could be put to “better” use.
Bu, you’re right, it looks like the Alice ride might not be operating. I would have been disappointed. Looking past all the people with white sweaters to the right, there might be some sort of construction wall, beige in color, I wonder what that was for? I kind of love the Alice movie, but acknowledge that it has its issues. Mostly it looks so great! The Mary Blair colors and designs really are amazing. I think that there were (are?) still metal trash cans in Fantasyland with the traditional painted designs, but maybe they used these faux wood examples closer to the dark rides. Just a guess. I put my horses in Tupperware to keep them fresh. A callback! The sign of great comedy. I guess I was lucky, my mom was good about letting us have treats. The harvest gold carpet was pretty forgiving, unless you got Super Elastic Bubble Plastic in it, that stuff never came out. Banana popsicles, yuck! I’ve mentioned, I don’t like banana things. I do like bananas, just not things flavored like banana. Your buddy invented the Fast Pass? I hope he got a big payday. And by that I mean the candy bar, delicious.
Chuck, it sounds like grape things were your Kryptonite. It was all fun and games until you ate a grape popsicle or drank some grape Kool-Aid. It just didn’t agree with your alien biology. I’d explain the science, but we’d be here all day, but let’s just say that the little man in your stomach was NOT HAPPY. I wish I had some real grapes right now - I love to put them in the freezer for about 10 minutes to get them really cold. Yum.
DrGoat, I forget, did you live near Disneyland in your high school days? That would have been a dream come true for me, but we were always just a little too far away to make regular visits a thing. Except for when I lived in Huntington Beach as a child, but then we only went when Mom was willing to go, which wasn’t that often. I used to love ice-cold Welch’s on a hot summer day, though I had to add a bit of water because it was a little too sweet for my taste.
JG, I can only assume that those “Tivoli arches” were added mostly so that lights could be applied to them, so that they’d look good at night. In the daytime it sort of seems like “Why add those things?”. I don’t dislike them, but I kind of liked the more open, arch-less look. Were the centaurettes topless? I know they were in “Fantasia”, but they could have easily added a flower bra at the park. Is today’s post going to turn into a barf theme instead of a Tupperware theme??
Kathy!, I honestly did not even notice the broom and dustpan design, good eye! “Peek-a-Skull”, the new game from Milton Bradley. It does look like that girl is carrying shoes, but if the shoes belong to her mom, that is no bueno.
K. Martinez, I don’t remember the Welch’s Juice Bar, we probably never went inside. My family was weird, we did the things we did, and everything else might as well not have existed, even if we walked right past it multiple times. The day these pix were taken looks decently busy, and yet they really don’t seem to be running many Skyway gondolas.
JG, don’t worry about this becoming a “barf” thread. I think most of us enjoy coming here every day to yak.
Ken, the Welch’s Juice Bar was the first place I discovered that grape juice came in more varieties than purple, just like my mom’s glass grapes on the living room coffee table and end tables. One significant difference was that the different juice colors had different flavors; all of the glass grapes tasted alike.
Your comment prompted me to go back and look at the Skyway buckets. The alignment and positioning on the first one makes the bucket seem like it is flying a Jolly Roger on its mast. I think I would have like that pirate-themed makeover.
I had a plastic pirate flag that I got at Oakland’s Children’s Fairyland. Thought you might appreciate that additional connection. Loved that thing. No idea what happened to it. Hope it’s with Buzz and Woody over at Bonnie’s house.
It looks like the "Alice" mushroom still had it's windows at this point. I wonder when those were sealed up?
I have a "bunch" of blue acrylic grapes on my coffee table. I've never tasted them, though. Two of my three cats like to chew on the "stem" from time to time. I've tried to get them to stop, but it has been an exercise in futility.
Major,
Lived in Tucson back then (and now) but Dad loved to drive so that 6 or 7 hour trip was not a problem. I drove myself after I graduated and would usually stay with my sister who lived in Long Beach. Disneyland was never too far away for me. WDW was, which is why I never made it there.
We should write a series of children’s books: Oh, The Places You’ll Puke! It’ll be a sort of upbeat, upchucking travelogue.
The taste of grape juice always makes me feel like I’m a kid taking Communion. Add the smell of candles and some creaky floorboards and the illusion is complete.
It’s amazing how in just over a decade, clothing at Disneyland has gotten so casual that the people in suits stick out like sore thumbs. Sore, diaper-brown thumbs.
I will never object to a poncho. In style, out of style, I love ‘em. I agree that this doesn’t look like June, but I wore long sleeves to Disneyland in June and was comfortable. I’d never do that in the East Coast humidity.
as a little kid I loved the grape juice, and was fascinated by the illustrations on the walls, but every year I would ask myself "what's an Arbor?"
Chuck, anybody who drinks “white” grape juice is clearly a sociopath, and that person should be apprehended immediately. There are some things that I just can’t abide! Hey, if we still had the Skyway, but only if it had a “Pirates” theme, I’d take it gladly. The pirates of the 18th century used plastic flags too, they were affordable, and quick wipe with a wet rag would remove any blood or salt spray!
TokyoMagic!, as far as I know, they stopped using the mushroom for ticket purposes pretty early on, but I don’t really know what its purpose was after that. Storage? Tiny break room? Sauna? Blue acrylic grapes, I preferred the soft vinyl ones that my grandma had, in several colors. We’d drive her crazy by pulling the grapes off of the stems to throw. Poor grandma.
DrGoat, wow, a 6 to 7 hour drive sounds pretty serious to me! I drive three hours up to San Luis Obispo and that’s about as much as I can stand. But I doff my hat to you and your dad!
Melissa, should your book be a “scratch ’n sniff” book? I think that at some churches, they actually do use grape juice for communion because alcoholic wine is a no-no. My grandma and grandpa went to a Lutheran church, and I thought it was cool that all the grownups got a tiny individual glass of sacramental wine. “Diaper brown thumbs”, well, so much for lunch! I’ve never owned a poncho, but was tempted to buy one when I was visiting Olvera Street a few years ago. But I really wanted a blanket, and those were not to be found.
LTL, I don’t even know (having never visited the Welch’s Juice Bar, did it say something about an arbor?
Chuck, yeah, now that you mention it, I can see the slope of the pathway. The people are walking in a shallow gully, where it never rains, except when it does.
Dang dapper foreigners. They make the rest of us look bad. ;-)
Bu, without detailed instructions on how to use the trashcan, in my confusion I would probably set my trash on top of the can, or maybe on the ground next to the can.
I hope the carousel horses get an ample portion of oats, hay, and lots of water every night. And a good brush-down. I'm sure they do; Disney horses are well cared for.
Kathy!, interesting. I didn't notice the broom & dustpan on the trashcan. I think my brain dismissed it.
Major, "I put my horses in Tupperware to keep them fresh." Thanks for that laugh, I enjoyed that!
Chuck again, I like to think that every Plastigoop Creepy Crawler bug I ever made is also at Bonnie's house. I haven't seen any of them in decades.
Tokyo!, cats is cats.
Here's my entry for Melissa's "Oh, The Places You’ll Puke!":
I'll puke on a train, I'll puke on a plane.
I'll puke so hard, it will hurt my brain.
I'll puke in a pew, I'll puke in your shoe.
I'll puke my guts, and intestines too.
Major... I've always thought of it as the Welch's Grape Juice Arbor because the maps I studied while waiting to go again all said Arbor(!) Here's an example...
http://www.scottedelman.com/2012/04/07/1964-disneyland-brochure-see-what-you-missed-by-being-born-too-late/
oops, that was me just now with a link to a map 8-)
I was speed reading and saw "scratch and sniff, brown diapers, and puke." This is a deadly combo. Re: JB: trash on top of trashcans...you would be ABSOLUTELY amazed how many people will do it! Perhaps you would not be amazed. It was a normal and regular thing. All it takes is ONE person, to put their little cardboard tray filled with almost eaten/almost drinken/almost finished garbage on top of the trashcan- as they REALLY did not know how it went in there. After the first one...the rest of the guests think "Guess this is where the garbage goes! Trash must be full!" So....in a NANOSECOND...the trash can...which was dumped soooo very regularly and is probably pretty empty...is a JENGA of trash balancing precariously, with goo and oooze all over the top of the pretty oh so delicately and precisely painted trash can. Not to mention the ground around it. It is of utmost importance to get that trash off of the trash can IMMEDIATELY...or else...it become a giant scratch and sniff brown diaper puke mess. And yes...the diapers have been on the top of trash cans as well..."Guest" may be a bit of a misnomer in these cases.
I guess they thought the trashcan was broken, out of order. 8-\
Oh man, I am laughing out loud at where this discussion has gone and come back.
Thanks everyone!
Kathy, thank you for pointing out the totem symbols on the trash cans, I have never noticed the broom and dustpan in the coat of arms. Very appropriate indeed. I have been too busy counting them to see more that the stripes.
That can on the slope looks precarious. There was one in a Tomorrowland photo a couple of days back that was sitting partly on the curb, really tilted.
JG
@ TM-
"...Two of my three cats like to chew on the "stem" from time to time. I've tried to get them to stop, but it has been an exercise in futility". Shouldn't that be "an exercise in frutility-??!!
Major-
LOOK HERE for an image of the Welch's centaurettes.
JB, it’s rare, but sometimes Disneyland gets hit with torrential rains, and the pathways do get flooded. I guess if you don’t mind wet feet, bit could be kind of fun. And I have literally seen people put their box of lunch trash next to a can at Disneyland instead of putting it in. WHY?
LTL, funny, I’ve had those “Welcome” brochures for so long that I look at them without even seeing the details anymore. Cool to see the “arbor” listing! Thanks for the link.
Bu, we had a scratch ’n sniff book when I was a kid, and I remember that most of the smells were pretty bad. “Here’s pumpkin pie!”. Smells like burning rubber. “Here’s a piece of cheese!”. Smells like industrial cleanser. John Waters perfected the scratch ’n sniff cards for “Polyester”.
JB, ha ha, see my comment to…er…JB! There’s even a famous photo of Walt bending down to pick up a piece of trash right next to a trash can.
JG, most Disneyland trash cans are so fanciful that it is almost charming to see the broom and dust pan. I like that some humble person in the sign shop came up with that design. You’d think that an area supervisor would notice things like precariously-placed trash cans, that sounds like a real no-no.
Nanook, I have seen that image before, but (being away from home for the day) was unable to look it up. So the centaurettes actually have bunches of grapes in front of their… well, you know.
Nanook,
Shouldn't that be "an exercise in frutility-??!!
Ha, ha! Yes, it should! :-)
I love the un-claustrophobic feeling of Image #2. And I never noticed the dandelion seed 'puffs' before, either.
Fun day. Thanks, Major and all!
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