Today I have an interesting pair of photos - both from April, 1964, featuring the same family as they posed near the same decorative planters in Tomorrowland. WHY? I have some theories; maybe you do too.
Here's the first view, possibly taken with an Instamatic camera (or at least using film with the "126" format). Those planters are nice, but it was inevitable that they would have to go as the park continued to develop and get more crowded. I wonder what the boy was pointing at? He and his mother seem awfully interested in something.
Now here's the standard 35mm view, which is sharper and clearer and generally better in quality in all particulars. Tomorrowland has clusters of shaded benches and souvenir booths, along with the Flight Circle, and of course the Douglas Moonliner.
You can see stacks of souvenir hats to the left of the family (at the Hat Bar, naturally). Above the stacks, other blacker hats hang, looking like giant fruit bats.
Major-
ReplyDeleteThe complete lack of any sort of crowds [and strollers-!] is so very refreshing.
Thanks, Major.
The kid was psychic. He was pointing and saying, "This is where one of the PeopleMover support pylons will go. The attraction will be sponsored by Goodyear, and the planters around each of the pylons will be the exact same shape as the Goodyear logo. Then, sometime after the turn of the next century, the planters will be removed to make room for the hordes of people who will never show up, for something called "Wookie World.""
ReplyDeleteYay! A mystery!
ReplyDeleteKnown facts and observations:
a) Both photos were taken within a minute (or so) of each other.
b) Each photo was taken by a different camera.
c) I'll go out on a limb and say that both photos were taken by the same photographer.
d) I'll go further out on that limb and say that the photographer was a member of our featured family. Maybe husband of one of the two ladies. Or possibly brother of the dad. (Or both.)
Speculations and conclusions:
- Why did the photographer take basically the same photo with two different cameras? Maybe one of the cameras belonged to one of the family members and one (probably the 35mm) belonged to the photographer. He was taking photos for both because he's a nice guy, or he just got stuck with the task.
- And of course, Tokyo! is correct about why the kid is pointing. (So obvious!)
Thanks for the mystery, Major.
Hey yall. Wow, nothing says Howard has left the building like an ugly paint job on an otherwise perfect Moonliner. Of course Douglas would give us the DC-10, thanks for that by the way, and the DC-9 which has been stretched so many times it has it's own taffy flavor in Atlantic City. I think TM is on to something. After he tells the rest of the fam his predictions, his father replies "No, it's to horrible to think about." Mom just said "Wish it in to the cornfield." Come to think of it, the kid does look a lot like Billy Mumy.
ReplyDeleteThanks Major.
JC!!! Good to see you! Glad you made it back from the cornfield.
ReplyDeleteI love the closer-up of the Douglas (later McDonnell Douglas and now Boeing) swoosh logo on the side of the Moonliner. Note the natural weathering between the portholes and the gear retraction slots, making it look more like a used spacecraft than a theme park prop. Too bad there isn’t some charring around the legs and a few other heat streaks here and there. Blue Origin’s spacecraft don’t look this pristine after a return flight from space.
I think there are two photos with different cameras because there was a rare convergence of parallel dimensions where in one dimension, said family was a common tourist group marveling at the wonders of Disneyland, whereas the other, identical family was a group of adventurers from Planet Zorn that landed in the new Walt Disney Productions fully functional Spaceport U.S.A. They are deciding if Earth should be allowed in the Intergalactic Free Trade Compendium. Unfortunately, that cruddy paint job on the Moonliner scared them off. That's why, even to this day, you can't get a decent bottle of Guaurandian Swamp Sweat for a fair price. Outrageous, but art matters.
ReplyDeleteThe Hat/bats are, by the way, Xanathian Bloodsuckers (tamed, of course), and the kid is psychic in both realities.
One of my earliest trips to the Park that I can remember was in 1964, but these folks aren’t my family.
ReplyDeleteMajor, how did you come by the two photos together? That seems like a story in itself.
JG
Nanook, sometimes I look at photos like this and try to imagine how amazing it must have been to be at the park on a day like that!
ReplyDeleteTokyoMagic!, maybe if that kid hadn’t “seen” those things, they would never have happened. You know, a self-fulfilling prophecy? DUMB KID! It’s all his fault. Not the Peoplemover part, the Wookie World part.
JB, there have been two other instances of almost-the-same photos taken by two different cameras (that I can recall, anyway). Take a look HERE to see one of the examples. I think you are probably right about the theory that one person was taking photos using his camera and the camera of somebody else in the party.
Jonathan, there you are! Nice to have you back. Aw, “ugly” seems awfully harsh for the Douglas Moonliner, it’s not as slick as the TWA version, but I do still like it. Maybe it’s like having a scruffy dog, you love it even if it isn’t the cutest. Maybe Tomorrowland was uncrowded because Anthony has already wished many of those people into that cornfield!
Chuck, I love that logo too, it’s abstract, but some evokes flight. Good eye on the weathering; I wonder if the idea of charring was ever suggested to Walt? Maybe he wanted his park to appear pristine, like when he added a haunted house later.
Stu29573, hmmm, you have certainly come up with an interesting theory. That darn convergence of parallel dimensions was a real hassle. “Are you Mom 1, or Mom 2?”. It’s hard to tell, except that Mom 2 used the phrase “Great googly moogly!” a lot. Otherwise they were identical. The “Intergalactic Free Trade Compendium”? Sounds like something George Lucas would have cooked up. You can’t get Guaurandian Swamp Sweat, but a bottle of Hai Karate is almost as good.
JG, the story isn’t that interesting! I bought a small lot of slides on eBay, and these two slides were part of that lot. Maybe I should have just made up a better story?!
Boy: And that’s where I want you to bury me when I die.
ReplyDeleteMom: Oh, Sonny, you’re not going to die for a long, long time.
Dad: Besides, we’ve already got a nice spot picked out behind Ken-L Land.
I was going to guess that there were two photographers taking pictures of the same family (maybe Grandpa and Grandma?) but JB’s 1 photog, 2 cameras scenario probably makes more sense. Hey, let’s all get matching hats! Then we’ll be all cool and intimidating, like a street gang!
Melissa, they’ll flee in terror when we start snapping in unison and whispering ”rumble.” Well, all of us but Navin. He has trouble with syncopated snapping. Clapping, too. I don’t know why we let hm hang out with us. Honestly, the guy’s a jerk.
ReplyDeleteAre there still plots available behind Ken-L Land?
Wasn't it kind of being "cool" or "techno" or "futuristic" when you wore multiple cameras around your neck? I see a lot of dads that it seems would be their "thing"...."gonna take pictures! gonna take a lot of them!" and different cameras do different things, so it makes sense to a camera geek, right? I can see why there needed to be a new Tomorrowland in '67. The 'ol '55 Tomorrowland looks a wee ho-hum. Birds of paradise and petunias. Well...there was definately an upgrade there. I'm wondering if GDB circa 1968 was grumbling about TRE? They put in a PeopleMover and RUINED IT ALLLLLLL! Tomorrowland looks very Marineland actually...the plantings and buildings kind of looked similar. I see that there are stacks of the giant feather hats at the Hat Bar...not to be confused with the Dairy Bar, or the Yacht Bar, or the Mile Long Bar, or Bar Country. I would actually rock one of those big feather hats...much better than the Goofy hat with ears..those just make people look like pratts. Are those on eBay now too? For some reason, the moonliner looks smaller with the DOUGLAS on it...I suppose fonts have scale like trees...no scale at all. Douglas had a cool logo, and it looks a bit wee on there. You might as call the paint job a dent or a fudgie...can't see it, but I believe everyone. FUN FOTOS. I just looked it up. "Fotos" is never correct. I am assuming the fun in the foto is putting your head into a plywood thingy...like "look at me, I am a martian". We were never ever fancy enough to have such extravagance. I think my very English mother was rather horrified with the indignity of things like those. I think after too much American influence we were all shuttled back to England or Norway to understand what "proper children" were to behave like. How ironic life is when I would later devote 10+ years of my life to mouse ears and fun fotos.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Bu, I think you're onto something with the font/scale idea. The TWA logo was just three letters, all the way at the top. The Douglas logo stretched the whole length of the rocket...with no size change for forced perspective. Once you think about it, it's really noticable!
DeleteBoo, Douglas!!!
Stu, "Guaurandian Swamp Sweat". Is that something one would drink, rub on one's body, or toss at an enemy?
ReplyDeleteMajor, I remember the two Jemima photos, but I'd forgotten about the Trinidad images. I tried making the Trinidad photos into a side-by-side 3D image. It sorta worked; Trinidad stood out from the background but the rest was pretty flat, didn't quite line up. Oh well.
To all, behind Ken-L Land is where the Cornfield is. And I would imagine it's getting pretty crowded there by now.
Bu, "I'm wondering if GDB circa 1968 was grumbling about TRE?" I've wondered about that as well. Seems to me that '67 Tomorrowland is objectively better than what was there before (or after '98). Yeah, the Moonliner is gone. And Lou Perry really misses the Viewliner (but I think overall he was thrilled with the new Tomorrowland... Sue?).
Early Tomorrowland was kind of a sleepy-looking place. (Except for the Moonliner!)
Stu and Bu, I've always thought that the Douglas rocket looked smaller as well. (I think I mentioned it here a while back.) I've never been able to figure out why. Stu's explanation rings true.
"Look mommy, snails just like in our yard."
ReplyDelete"Yes son, but these are special Disneyland snails. See, they are wearing tiny mouse ear hats."
I just learned from a very obscure blog that the "weathering" on the Douglas version of the Moonliner was caused by the smoke effects added after Douglas took over sponsorship of the attraction.
ReplyDeleteRest in peace, CoxPilot & Thufer. Your legacy lives on.
Melissa, I’ll bet there are a LOT of people who wish they could make Disneyland their final resting place. Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? I am not among those people.
ReplyDeleteChuck, I always wondered why the finger snapping was a thing in “West Side Story”. “They have to do SOMETHING!”. I guess waggling their eyebrows wasn’t that scary?
Bu, I’ve never heard that it was cool to carry multiple cameras, but then again, I probably did not get the memo. I’m non the “NERD ALERT” mailing list. I’ve seen many folks commenting on vintage photos of Disneyland, saying that it looked boring. Well, it was a different time, with different expectations. It sure doesn’t look boring to ME. According to our friend Sue, her dad (Lou) was not happy about the removal of the Viewliner, and that was way back in 1958, so that was a version of “TRE”. I never thought about the lettering affecting the scale of the Moonliner, but you might be on to something. My mom bought a Goofy hat the last time I took her to the park, I couldn’t have been more surprised. VERY unlike her. No idea where that hat went, probably the thrift shop. “FUN FOTOS” did involve putting your head through a hole in painted plywood, and they also had painted “flats” that you could stand in front of. I have a collector friend who has examples that I have never seen anywhere else.
Stu29573, the rocket expert has spoken! It is kind of too bad that Douglas didn’t use something a little more subtle and tasteful, but… they wanted a big bang for their bucks.
JB, I think I tried making a 3D “wiggle vision” gif back in the day, and found that it came out too jittery. The wiggle-vision gimmick was fun for about two days, and then I realized that it gave me a headache. Ha ha, I see that you also remembered that Lou Perry missed the Viewliner. I’d like to believe that, in general, people were excited by Walt’s latest additions to the park. As you said about the ’67 Tomorrowland, many of the improvements were objectively better than what had been there before.
Grant, aw, now I want snails with little mouse ear hats!
in the second photo, nice to glimpse a sign for Art of Animation... I can remember "talking" to Mickey Mouse on the special telephone there
ReplyDeleteMelissa, ha, ha! I love a good sick joke...and that was a good one! By the way, a friend who still follows what's currently going on with Disney, told me that the kennels at DL recently closed for good. I guess that just means more available space for bodies!
ReplyDeleteGrant...ha, ha! Actually, the family is from France, and the boy is pointing and saying, "I want that fat one, for dinner!" And the mom is looking at the same snail and saying, "I think a French cousin of yours ate my geranium plant."
Chuck, yes. We commented in that thread 12 years ago. Time flies when you're having rum.
ReplyDeleteOn a tangentially related theme of being buried in Disneyland, I've heard that multiple people have tried to spread ashes of a departed friend in the Haunted Mansion. Which is about as sad a thing as I can imagine.
I mean, that's literally why ash urns (or buttstands) were invented. Just dump them there.
JG
And I had to read that 2010 post twice to understand my own comment. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteAlso, today's pics have apparently only one trashcan, and it is the same one in both pics.
Scatter my ashes on Tom Sawyer's Island...
JG
Chuck, I must have just overlapped your comment. I temporarily forgot about the smoke/steam effects, which were added when Douglas took over. I always thought that was a cool addition. “Obscure blog”, I only wish that was insulting. But it’s truthful!
ReplyDeleteLTL, I’m not sure I ever knew that there was a special telephone in the Art of Animation exhibit! Thanks for that info.
TokyoMagic!, wow, the kennels really did close at Disneyland? I literally just wrote a blog post a few days ago (which you won’t see for months) with something about the “Kennel Club”, sponsored by Friskies. I hope I remember to edit it when I get home tonight. I tried snails when I was in France, and there wasn’t much to be excited about, except for garlic butter.
JG, yes, I’ve heard that rumor too. I can’t imagine actually flinging a loved one’s ashes around the Haunted Mansion, that seems borderline insane to me. Maybe you could just sneak a little envelope of ashes in, and quietly put them in the area just outside the Mansion? At least that’s not quite so weird. Only a little weird.
JG, never forget Green Acres! Tom Sawyer Island might be doable, though it might need to be done in increments.
kid's phone exhibit was in Tomorrowland next to Art of Anim., see:
Delete--- begin quote ---
In the Bell Telephone Systems Phone Exhibits in Tomorrowland there was a Dial a Character wall in which you would pick up a phone and hear recordings of Disney characters on the other end of the line. You could also hear what your own voice sounded like via phone.
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https://www.disboards.com/threads/old-dl-attraction.2854006/
JC Shannon, am VERY GLAD you're back!
ReplyDeleteLTL, when did you first visit Disneyland?
JB, Major, to sum up my recent conversations with my dad, about Disneyland:
Getting rid of the Viewliner was the worst thing Disneyland ever did.
Getting rid of the stage coaches was probably the second worst. When he first visited DL in 1956, he was in AWE, and those two things especially impressed him. When I ask him what he loves/loved about Disneyland, he says, "EVERYTHING!" When we talk about DL, he sounds like a kid, again. His favorite subject/place for taking photos (at DL): Main Street.
I definitely love the TWA Moonliner. The Douglas version sort-of reminds me of THIS. Just my opinion.
based on family photos, my first visit was likely 1956 in a stroller, but *might* have been 1955. We went exactly once every year, with about two weeks notice to look forward to it (one hour driving distance). I have many snapshots I may dig up one day
DeleteSue, the best way to pick a good Moonliner is to tap on it. If it makes a hollow sound, it's ripe.
ReplyDeleteMajor, I will make sure my ashes are transmitted in small quantities.
ReplyDeleteSue, I love Lou’s memories, thank you!
JG
I met a lady whose husband had worked at Disneyland for many years. She said if they catch you dumping ashes anywhere in the park, they immediately shut down the attraction or the area, and bring hazmat in to "vacuum" the person up and dispose of them. Then she told me about her adult daughter who had died and was cremated. Her grandchildren wanted to know if they could bring "some of mom" with them to the parks, and "spread her around." Apparently they got away with it. I was surprised she would let them do it, since her husband worked there and I imagine they could have gotten him fired. She said they released small amounts "all over" both parks, but when they did it while riding on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the ashes flew back up in their faces. I was kind of appalled by the whole story.
ReplyDeleteI have always imagined a system like in The Great Escape with ashes pouring out of the bottoms of pant legs all over Disneyland...
ReplyDelete