Thursday, August 04, 2022

Storybook Land 1950s

I'm delving into a lot of slides from the '50s; in spite of them being Kodachrome transparencies, they've turned an odd murky yellowish shade. So strange, since I have other Kodachrome slides from that same era that are vivid and beautiful. Still, these aren't a total loss.

Somehow the lighting makes this shot of Cinderella Castle resemble a Mayfield Parrish illustration. All good castles have a tunnel underneath them, though they don't all have colorful circus trains that pass through those tunnels. Sadly, the framing of this image does not show the tiny pumpkin coach, my favorite detail.


I almost skipped this one, but then figured, "What the heck!". That's what I said to my pet parrot, Perry, and he said it right back to me. The Seven Dwarfs live in that cottage, and the surrounding forest is the kind of dark place where it's easy to believe that witches and scary, grasping trees could be found.


This is actually a pretty nice look at Geppetto's Village, one of the more intricate scenes in Storybook Land. So many charmingly-crooked little buildings. I love the details, such as the bridge leading to the village gate. "Who goes there?". Even the cobblestones on the street and tiny marionettes in Geppetto's window are there. Not to mention the show-covered mountains that watch over the village.


21 comments:

MIKE COZART said...

Growing up My grandfather was a model
Maker and used to build some 1” scale miniatures of sone structures of colonial Williamsburg for my grandmother . My grandparents were very into the colonial America fad of the late 60’s early 70’s. One of the several miniature magazines did a feature about the structures of Storybook Canal…. And explained how they were constructed and they were slowly replacing all the structures with fiberglass replacements as all the originals were build almost the way a real building would be constructed - just in miniature. It’s as none of the buildings are from Walt time anymore - but most guests will never know …. Nor could they really tell either. The later additions are nice … but they do have a different feel of construction …. Almost “manufactured” .

Early plans the canal boats were going to have a motor powered boat that would also tow a second motor less boat. I guess the motors of the engine boats were too weak to pull anything.

JB said...

That first pic is pretty striking. The lighting and color shifting of the slide adds to the majestic appearance. I saved that one.

I didn't save the second one; too blurry, I'm afraid, and not enough detail in the shadows. But it's still a nice view of the Dwarfs house.

I also saved the third image. The subdued colors makes it look like a Renaissance painting. The light tower peeking over the mountains might be a Martian Tripod about to wreak havoc on Geppetto's village.

Thanks for the Storybook Land photos, Major. Or is it Story Book Land? Or Sto Ry Bo Ok La Nd?

TokyoMagic! said...

JB, and here I was thinking the photographer caught Skylab, just as it was crashing to earth.

Chuck said...

Yes, I do see a resemblance to Mayfield Parrish’s work in that first picture. The guy never really developed his own style, essentially copying his cousin Maxfield’s. It’s a shame, really - he showed a lot of promise in art school.

I know the second image is a bit blurry (as if we were being chased by witches and scary, grasping trees), but I think that’s a figure of a deer or maybe a deer and a fawn in front of the left side of the house. I don’t remember ever seeing miniature figures of any kind in Disneyland’s Storybook (or Story Book) Land before. DL Paris, yes, but not in Anaheim. Daveland also has 1950s photos that show blurry animal figures there. Maybe they were removed because they were never in focus.

I have always liked the little detail of the painted pictures on the outside of some of the buildings in Pinocchio’s Village, just like you would find on some actual European buildings. Interesting that they were built like full-scale buildings in miniature but were later replaced with fiberglass. Also never noticed that from a ways back you could see the little mini-berm that separates the two sets of Casey Jr. tracks as they pass each other behind the mountain backdrop (for a reference photo, CLICK HERE). A low green hill behind the snow-capped mountains looks a bit odd, but no odder than palm trees in front of the Matterhorn. It’s Disneyland!

Stu29573 said...

I can understand why they would switch the buildings out for fiberglass ones, but I still like the idea of the original "really built" buildings instead. Still, it would be a nightmare to maintain them.

Speaking of nightmares, I'm pretty sure a tree could reach out and grab you in that second pic. They didn't get rid of the blurry animals. The trees ate them!

The first picture should be named "The morning after the ball." You know what I mean. We've all been there. Now where is that stupid shoe?

That third picture is probably the best I've seen of the village. Too bad the people weren't there. They were probably at the YMCA. [insert rim shot]

I'll see myself out...

Chuck said...

Stu, actually, they decided to go west. You can find them today in the Navy, serving alongside other macho men.

Hold the door - I’m right behind you.

Nanook said...

Major-
For sheer dramatic effect, Cindy's Castle is hard to beat - although that must be some monster trees growing behind the castle atop the mountain-!

Thanks, Major.

"Lou and Sue" said...

JB, I don't think that's a Martian Tripod. It looks more like a miniature Matterhorn with a Christmas Star on top. I'm glad that star design didn't end up on the real Matterhorn (Disneyland's Matterhorn - the only Horn that Matters).

Mike C., speaking of Christmas stars - by any chance did you see my comment, the other day, about my dad having a picture of a different star on the Matterhorn - probably the first one?? Do you know anything about it. I can't find any info about it...just curious.

Thanks, Major.

DrGoat said...

Nice mellow pics for a rainy morning. Geppetto's Village is especially pleasing. One of my favorite miniatures is Toad Hall. They moved it from the spot I remember from back then to a spot closer to the river, nearer to Ratty and Mole's humble abodes.
Good old Storybook Land never disappoints, especially these old photos of the original structures.
Thanks Major.

JG said...

I credit early exposure to Storybook Land with my choice of profession. There is something engaging about these miniature worlds that makes you want to make your own.

All the castle is missing is a few gauzy-clad nymphs and it would fit right into the Parrish oeuvre. Perfect lighting.

Pinocchio’s village has one of the few churches in Disneyland. AFAIK, there were three; this one, the one in Alice’s village, and there was one in Rainbow Ridge. We have speculated that the building with the bell tower there might have been a school, but the Long-Fogotten blog found very early pictures of a Boot Hill cemetery in front of it, later removed.

Nice pictures today Major, thank you.

JG

Major Pepperidge said...

Mike Cozart, wow, that’s so cool that your grandfather was a model maker! I assume that you mean that he did it as a hobby, and no professionally? Have any of his models survived? I think the only detailed article I’ve ever read about how the Storybook Land miniatures were built was in one of the later issues of “The E-Ticket” magazine, and it is excellent as always. I knew that the buildings had been replaced over the years, which is kind of a bummer (no more Harriet Burns craftsmanship), but the elements are tough on those things. It seems kind of odd that they wanted one boat to tow another, I’m glad that it didn’t work out!

JB, I guess I have become jaded (and gassy). I don’t tend to love photos of Cinderella Castle, though I have plenty of them! Yeah, it’s possible that I should have left photo #2 on the cutting room floor. Don’t you remember the part in Pinocchio when his whole village is vaporized by a Martian death ray? Turns out it was really the Blue Fairy, she’d had just about enough of Pinocchio’s BS.

TokyoMagic!, don’t you know that Skylab is still orbiting, and that Elvis lives there?

Chuck, I am pleased to meet another fan of Mayfield Parrish. His series of wrestlers getting kicked in the groin used to adorn the walls of almost every home in America. You make a good point about the little deer figures, they seem like such a break with the usual “rules” that I wonder why they were included. Blurry Miniature Deer became endangered, due to people stepping on them, which is why they were finally removed. I wonder what reference they used for those pictures that are on the walls of some of the buildings? Maybe it was a common practice hundreds of years ago. “Heironymus is painting Ninja Turtles on his building again. The HOA will have something to say about that”. (CALLBACK!).

Stu29573, I just wish that they hadn’t replaced the original buildings with pink Play-Doh versions, somehow it’s just not the same. But I admit that I am sometimes tempted to eat them. “The Morning After the Ball”, Cindy is wearing an ice pack on her head and is leaning over a bucket. A bucket full of cute kittens! Come on, I would never be gross here.

Chuck, I thought macho men liked to stay at the Y.M.C.A.?

Nanook, those trees are antediluvian! (I just wanted to write that word).

Lou and Sue, I’ve been trying to find that picture you once sent me showing the original (?) Matterhorn star, maybe you texted it to me, in which case it might as well be on Neptune. That one was a revelation!

DrGoat, are you getting some of those summer monsoons in your part of the world? There have been articles claiming that we might get some rain this month, but I’ll believe it when I see it. I agree, Toad Hall was especially impressive, especially with the tiny hedges and topiaries. No wonder Walt was so enamored of miniatures.

Major Pepperidge said...

JG, that is interesting, but you wouldn’t be the first person to be inspired to pursue a creative career because of Disney park (or music or movies). I used to collect vintage illustrated books, and have a few very nice Parrish books, though I never did manage to get a copy of “Knave of Hearts”, the biggest and fanciest of them. Those tend to go for well over $1000! I think that the photo that Long Forgotten used was one of mine!

Anonymous said...

Major, re the painting on the village walls.

I've never been to any of those remote alpine villages, so I can't speak from experience, but years back, I did some work at the Hearst Castle on the McCloud River (Wyntoon), designed by Julia Morgan. This palace was retained by the family and now belongs to the Hearst publishing company, or whatever it eventually became. It is closed to the public. The remains of the family (Patty Hearst) stays there occasionally, and the company uses it for corporate retreats, or did at that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyntoon

It is an elaborate "castle" complex on the order of the more famous San Simeon La Cuesta Encantada, with a huge Main House on the Bend in the river (river views on 3 sides), and several smaller guest cottages (more like palaces, really) scattered through the woods. The guest cottages have wall murals of fairy tale scenes and look like life-size versions of Pinocchio's Village, made in imitation of the Black Forest original practices.

I used to have pictures, but they were lost in a move. The internet has some good shots.

JG

Chuck said...

Major, only when they are port.

Callbacks...a week at GDB is better than a couple of hours at the Comedy Store. Cheaper, too.

JB said...

Chuck, Disneyland has always had a problem with blurry animals, judging by how many we see here on GDB. They start out in-focus while being constructed inside the Imagineers' studios, but somewhere along the line they go out of focus when being installed. It's a mystery.

Now that I look at that Martian Tripod, Skylab, Christmas Star thing again; I'm convinced it's the Rocket Jets zooming up above the Italian Alps.

Major, I don't blame the Blue Fairy for taking out the village. That's what I would've done too, after Pinocchio got himself donkeyfied.

MIKE COZART said...

Well the staff shop at Disneyland took the original wood and plaster miniature buildings and made molds of sections and pieces to make the fiberglass replacements. Over time weather and constant spray watering was warping and rotting the originals …. This miniature magazine would have been in the late 70’s or very early 80’s. The first building to be replaced with fiberglass was the Cinderella Lady Tremain Chateau. Also apparently most of all the original buildings were kept and survive in storage. That may not be the case now after so much of the Disneyland storage warehouses were cleared out and demolished in the mid to late 90’s ( that’s were lots of that Disneyland Auctioneers stuff on EBay was coming from in the early 2000’s)

Major: no my grandfather was a aeronautical engineer. Model making was a hobby. His work office and home den was filled with aerospace models of production aircraft and space craft as well as never produced vehicles as well. Of the Colonial Williamsburg miniatures some furniture and the Governor’s Palace survives. The others were sold or donated between my grandmother’s and grandfather’s death. When I was pretty young we went to Calico Ghost Town in Yermo Ca. We had seen a model or diorama of either Calico or a nearby town and so I did all these drawings of the buildings I had seen and over time my grandpa would make little models from each of my drawings. Everytime we went over there for dinner or a holiday there would be a newly completed building on the little model base. The model was close to N scale. What’s interesting is several years ago I did sone models of Calico for the State Parks of California. I also built some models of Knott’s Calico for a visitors center but I understand from Knott’s-Cedar Fair the display didn’t go in because of electric assistant carts would have had difficulty maneuvering around the display case.

Sue : I know that the Matterhorn star had been seen in aerial pictures of Disneyland in various backstage locations. I don’t have any information on it but I don’t doubt that overtime the Star design probably had changed in design. It of course became a casualty of the early 70’s energy crises. A Long time ago at a paper and postcard collectors show I had purchased a Disneyland binder with about 4 dozen 8x10 black and white photographs of art concepts and models ….all Christmas related … there was several images of a Matterhorn model with a model Star on it! The binder was probably from the late 50’s or very early 60’s . I suspect it was from someone who worked with Disneyland decorating …. Sadly over time I sold off the photos individually …. I wish now 25 years later I kept it . I didn’t even make scans or xeroxes of the photos. I did keep one photo showing a concept for the Frontierland entry all covered in “snow” with a giant pine bow wreath. There were many similar Christmas concepts for other theme lands - none of which I don’t think were ever done .

"Lou and Sue" said...

Boy am I slow. I just now read JB's comment and realized that the Martian Tripod/Star is what TM! was referring to as the Skylab. hahahahaha! I think he's right!

Mike, OF COURSE you had that Christmas info. I never doubted, that's why I asked you. ;o) I just now glanced at my quick-cell-phone shot of the slide my dad took. It looks like a giant plywood star. My dad actually snapped the picture in September 1961 (and developed the film in October). I wonder if the Disney folks were testing stars?? Do you (or does anyone) know when the first star was added to the Matterhorn?

DrGoat said...

Major, yes, for the past 2 weeks we are finally getting some good rain here in Tucson. The southern part of AZ has been getting lots of rain for about 30 days or so, but it kept skirting Tucson with a few exceptions. We are still behind on our average, but we're all thankful when it rains. We had a nice little rain this morning. About 4 tenths of an inch.

Chuck said...

JG, I meant to comment earlier that it’s way cool that you had a chance to do some work at Wyntoon.

Anonymous said...

Chuck, it is a beautiful property.

I've been fortunate to work on some nice projects.

JG

Melissa said...

The first picture is stunning, but the third makes me want to crawl through the screen and explore.

All this talk of monster nightmare trees makes me think of Robert Frost's "The Oft-Repeated Dream." I thought of it a lot when I lived in the woods.