Paper Ephemera
It's time for more PAPER! Aren't you excited?
First up is another bag from the Hallmark Greeting Cards store. See more of them HERE. Hallmark was on Main Street from July of 1960 (replacing Gibson Greeting Cards) all the way through to January of 1985. This bag might have held some scarce Disneyland/Hallmark postcards, or some humorous greeting cards.
Next we have a fairly rare item, a small fold-out brochure from the "Jams and Jellies" shop on Main Street. Sunny View Farms Incorporated Jams and Jellies was a Main Street lessee from opening day until October 12, 1957.
Here's a photo showing the "Jellies and Jams" sign, though Sunny View Farms had ended their lease by then, But I guess the sign was too good to get rid of. The space was used for "Imported Candies", and in 1960 it became the Sunkist Citrus House.
Unfolding the item once shows us this simple illustration; those jams and jellies are available at surprisingly low cost!
Unfolding once more, and flipping it over (I also cropped off the part that we've already seen) shows this nice drawing of Main Street, and more salesmanship regarding the Wild Mountain Jams and Jellies.
On the other side of that page, we see some of the handy packaged selections of jellies, jams, and syrups. The perfect gift! "Seedless boysenberry preserves"... boysenberries rescued from obscurity by Walter Knott??
And finally, the entire back panel of the unfolded brochure shows even more gift packs. I want the assortment of candied and dried fruits that were displayed on an attractive California redwood serving tray.
I hope you have enjoyed today's PAPER EPHEMERA.
31 comments:
Major-
Sunny-View Farms Jams and Jellies finally receives its place of honor here on GDB-! I for one, am impressed. (If only they offered Marionberry jam, life would be complete). That's quite the spread of offerings - which appear available only for Mail Order purchase. Seems odd guests can't buy their offerings in the Park.
Thanks, Major for sharing this unusual brochure.
I like the classic Hallmark crown. The cyan, gold, and white color combo looks elegant. But what is the "Communication Center" at Disneyland?
Hmmm, if Wild Mountain doesn't use "added pectin", how do they thicken their jams? Some fruits, like apples, have considerable natural pectin. But berries do not. Maybe they use a different thickener, like tapioca. Or, since this Disneyland, maybe they use magic.
"Spiced Venetian Plum Butter". I guess that's like apple butter... only plums. Sounds good though. They ALL do. Did they give free taste samples in their Disneyland shop? They probably did pretty good business; people stopping at the shop on their way out of the Park.
Old Fashioned Tomato Preserves. I'm a little leery on that one. Maybe it tastes like extra-sweet ketchup? That wouldn't be bad. It would probably go good with french fries... but probably not ice cream.
Nanook, I was wondering the same thing. Did they really not have these things available in the Park? What the... So much for my "probably did good business" line, above.
Cool paper goods today, Major.
Speaking of Knott's Berry Farm, I wonder how the Sunny-View Farms prices compared? I wonder if Knott's was too much competition for DL's concessionaire. After all, there was no entrance fee to go to Knott's to buy jams and jellies.
JB, I remember at one time, Knott's sold Tomato preserves, but I never tried them. They also sold jalapeño jelly, watermelon pickles, and cashew butter. I did try the cashew butter, and as much as I love cashews, I still prefer peanut butter.
@ JB-
The following copy is excerpted from [what appears to be] a Hallmark corporate brochure. You can see all of it HERE
"The Communication Center was created as a "retail laboratory" and showcase for social expression products, much like the Hallmark Gallery on the opposite coast (in New York on fashionable Fifth Avenue)...
"It provides invaluable retailing insights for product planners, fixture engineers, and display planners - helping them solve retail problems before they become retailers' problems...
"From its gold-and-white facade to its red-carpeted interior, the Communication Center at Disneyland is designed to typify high standards of quality and taste..."
Cool items Major! Man; people in the 1950’s must have given gifts of jams and jellies all the time! Disneyland ….. Knott’s Berry Farm….Santa’s Village …… all featured Jams and jellies!!
Hallmark and Jelly Phem...really enjoying this morning! I recently discovered Boysenberry plants, which originated in Napa, not the OC, and due to health issues of Mr. Boysen, Mr. Knott catapulted the Boysenberry to stardom after the OC Boysenberries became sickly. Interesting to see it in Disneyland, but not completely unsurprising as there were 600 acres of Boysenberries at one time...now...New Zealand and Oregon hold the "most Boysenberry bushes in the world" award. Boysenberries are very sweet, but very fragile so unless you see them in a farmers market, you will very very rarely see them fresh in a market. I thought that Sunkist was on Main Street from the beginning, but may be wrong...it looks like their orange awning out there. There are stories about Walt going to get juice in the AM in his jammies. Pajamas, not Jam. Jams and Jellies were perhaps the "candle" of the day. I give them as neighbor gifts as well. I do not use pectin in anything and everything sets up just nicely...not like a gummy bear, but enough so that it looks like jam. I am curious to know about the currant and gooseberry jam as these plants were verboten until fairly recently. I think. Need to look that up. They cast a spurge on pine trees, and now the issue is rectified. I have currants and pines living together and they are buddies. The photos of the red carpeting and elegant interiors in Hallmark bring back memories! It was such a pretty store, and usually loaded with employees. Thanks for the photos this morning Major!
I have a friend who was hiking with his wife in the Tetons when they were attacked by a wild mountain syrup. The way he tells it, it was a pretty sticky situation. He was so scared, his legs turned to jelly. They were in a real jam, and it was only by sheer luck that they managed to preserve their lives.
Note that while the brochure makes a big deal about the Sunny-View Farms shop being on Disneyland’s 1890s Main Street, the illustration doesn’t actually show Disneyland’s 1890s Main Street (although the shop is on the correct side of the street…assuming we are looking north).
It wasn’t just an “attractive California redwood serving tray” - it was “attractive and useful.” So many things are attractive but not very useful, like that stupid Mona Lisa, for instance.
Funny how they don’t list a corporate address - just send “a simple postcard” to “Sunny-View Farms, Inc., Disneyland.” Which makes me wonder…what would a complex postcard look like?
Several years ago, we took a group of boys from our Scout troop on a backpacking trip in the Smoky Mountains. On the fourth day, our third of near-constant rain, we ran into a huge batch of wild blueberries in the Nantahala National Forest and gorged ourselves. That was a real morale booster. Best blueberries I ever et. I’m sure they would have made amazing preserves.
Thanks for this unusual journey into a nearly-forgotten Main Street concession!
PS - the Hallmark bag is cool, too. I just didn’t want to make a big deal out if it and embarrass it in front of its friends.
Chuck, was your friend and his wife listening to "Lady Marmalade" on their Sony Walkman, when they were attacked?
TM!, no, it was some Smithsonian compilation of Jelly Roll Morton recordings.
That's why I come here. For the "Chuck Berry" stories.
Nanook, My sister in Portland swears by the Marionberry. Someday I'll have to try it.
Nice Hallmark bag. I loved the Hallmark Corner on Main Street. Much better than Disney Clothiers which replaced it. I always got a kick out of the Hallmark Crown atop the entrance too. Thanks, Major.
Well, Chuck and Tokyo are on a tear this morning. LOL.
Good question about Knotts competition, it seems like these would be popular gifts, but maybe with no store sales, the rent was too high?
My Mom was an industrious canner of jams etc. from the orchards of fruit we had on the farm, peaches, plums, pears, apples etc. but no berries. She never used pectin either. Dad loved the Knotts boysenberry and for a while we could buy it in the market.
I’ve had tomato preserves, and watermelon pickles, both are quite good. Mrs G is also a fan of preserves although our fruit mix is different, tomato, fig, peach and apples. No pectin here either.
Well, somehow that posted before I was done, but anyway. Tomato preserves are a big thing for us, great with a cheese tray and crusty bread and a glass of wine.
Mrs G did use pectin on the red pepper jam, not much natural pectin in that fruit.
Canning fruit and jam seems more and more like an old fogy thing, our kids are interested, but they don’t do it on their own, they help Mom. Last year she took the show on the road, we visited our son in SLO, bought local fruit and he canned a batch with Mom and his girlfriend. There’s hope for the next generation.
The Hallmark bag is very nice design, I like how the colors imply a 3D shape on the crown without being 3D. It’s also reminiscent of a Mary Blair design, or maybe it’s just the colors.
Thanks Major!
JG
@ Bu-
Sunkist didn't arrive until 7/31/60, occupying #205 (where Sunny-View Farms was), and #207, next door.
@ Ken-
I'm not a big fan of Boysenberry, as their 'tang' provides an unpleasantness to their flavor. Marionberry, although similar, his much 'bigger flavor', and lacks that 'tang'. It's a much better berry in my opinion.
Nanook, I was going to do a daily blog on Sunny-View Farms Jams and Jellies, and thanks to your comment, I think I’ll start it! ;-) And yes, couldn’t people buy a jar of jam in their store at Disneyland?
JB, the Communication Center was a tiny, hot room full of old radio equipment and sweaty men (who were smoking, of course). “Come in, Lichtenstein, come in…”. No one quite knows what they were doing, but it must have been important. I assumed that they used apples or pears for additional pectin… not sure why adding pectin was a bad thing. Plum butter does sound good, I’d put some on my toast today. Tomato preserves, I’ve never had them, though my grandmother had some in her cellar. Was it whole tomatoes? Or paste?
TokyoMagic!, I’ve had vintage lists of the prices for Knott’s gift items, but I don’t think I’ve kept any of them. I have the feeling that Disneyland charged a lot more money to be a lessee than Knott’s did. And as you said, folks to wander into Knott’s for free. Jalapeño jelly, yum. We’d use it on pork chops. I agree, peanut butter is better than cashew butter! I just tried sunflower seed butter too, not bad, but peanut butter wins.
Nanook, well, you did real research, but I like my version better!
Mike Cozart, you’re right! That must have just been a thing that was a welcome gift for housewarmings or whatever. It does feel very old-fashioned now.
Bu, wait, the OC boysenberry plants got sickly? I thought that they thrived in Buena Park. I’m sure I have the story wrong. I didn’t know that boysenberries were fragile, we had a family friend who owned an avocado ranch in Santa Paula, and they had ditches full of boysenberries just growing wild. Nobody took care of them at all. I remember the fellow’s daughters called them “girlsenberries” because boys are yucky. Imagine Walt walking down Main Street in his jammies. Did they have the feet on them? I’d be too embarrassed and would at least put on a sweater and some pants. Meanwhile my brother lives in sweatpants and a t-shirt, which is what he wears to bed. He’ll go anywhere in that outfit. Currants and gooseberries were verboten? Were they of the Devil? I’ve never heard anything about currants affecting pine trees, I see golden currents growing wild up on the local hillsides. Glad you liked today’s paper stuff.
Chuck, wow, that story gave me a case of the Smuckers. (Sorry, I know that was lame). I have a friend who has one of those Sunny-View Farms trays of dried fruits, still wrapped in cellophane, and still on its attractive and useful redwood tray. How many of those can still be around?? I’d share a photo, but have to ask him if it’s OK first. A complex postcard has vacuum tubes, though they later used transistors. I’m picturing you and a bunch of scouts with purple hands and faces. Wild blueberries are difficult to control.
TokyoMagic!, I’d sing the words to “Lady Marmalade”, but I’ve never had any idea what they are saying.
Chuck, something something Smuckers. I just like saying “Smuckers”.
K. Martinez, what about Chuck Berry’s cousin Marvin? He has that new sound we’ve been looking for. About a year ago I had Marionberry and lemon ice cream, it was amazing. I agree, that Hallmark crown was great, I hope it was saved somewhere.
JG, some products just didn’t seem to be a fit for Disneyland, and Jams and Jellies apparently did not bring in the customers. Meanwhile the Wurlitzer store was there for many years! I used to be fascinated by the process of canning, I’d watch my grandmother boiling the jars, and using those special tongs to remove them from the hot water. She had a root cellar (or that’s what she called it) in Encino, which is pretty unusual, the shelves were full of preserves. When she passed away there were jars that had been there for well over a decade… we were too scared to eat any of the stuff. I just got another Hallmark bag from Disneyland, you’ll see that someday!
Nanook, I understand why Disneyland doesn’t celebrate the old lessees, but it would be fun for folks like us if they offered special pins for the 65th anniversary of the Jams and Jellies shop (for instance). Again, I know it will never happen.
Major-
I like your version of the 'Communication Center' much better, too, as it balances-out the actual version - consisting of smartly-dressed, 'pert' gals, with period 1960's "Disney Look" hair-do's, conducting business in a shop with a Victorian motif, under a crystal chandelier-!
Tokyo!, you need to go back to work at Knott's so you can sample the Tomato Preserves and report back to us. Is that too much to ask?
Nanook, so basically, "Communication Center" is just the Hallmark company puffing itself up; trying to make itself something more than just a place to buy greeting cards. Thanks for the quotes and link.
Chuck, my grin got bigger and bigger as I read through your first paragraph. Perfection!
And yeah, using the Mona Lisa as a serving tray always makes my crudités taste funny. I tried using Magritte paintings for a while but they tend to make everything taste like apple.
Major, your description of the Communication Center is pretty much what I was envisioning. But surprise, surprise! It's just a gussied up Hallmark shop, according to the article quoted by Nanook.
I would imagine that tomato preserves were made with bite-sized chunks of tomatoes; for easy spreading.
Nanook, I definitely like Major's hot little smoky room filled with electronics, as well.
"Ephemera" would be a good name for a great-aunt. "You remember Great-Aunt Ephemera; she was engaged to Marshall Strawberry before the war. How she wept the day he got his papers."
All these jelly puns are jarring!
The Jams & Jellies brochure is the gift that keeps on giving. But wait; there's more! The copywriter never met an ellipsis he didn't like, but darned if I'm not sitting here salivating for a Cluster Pack, so he must have been good at his job. I started a technical writing degree program before real life got in the way, but then the publishing industry started circling the drain and I didn't feel so bad for not being able to stick with it.
My Grandma made tomato preserves, and green tomato mincemeat. Both spicy and delicious. Mom used to make preserves all summer; the kitchen would be sweltering but it would smell like heaven. The biggest treat was the foam off the top of the strawberry and plum jam - it was our payment for picking all those tiny stems out of the currants. I haven't heard anybody mention Gravenstein apples in a moth of Sundays! Great cider apples.
I'd love to know all the detail for the production process on these kinds of items back in the day. Did Disney just send over art files and then approve or disapprove the final product, or was the work more of a collaboration? Minds with nothing better to do, er, I mean enquiring minds, want to know!
All these jelly puns are jarring!
Melissa, I agree. Everyone needs to just can it!
JB, Knott's no longer makes the tomato preserves, or the watermelon pickles. I'm not sure about the jalapeño jelly or cashew butter.
If the boysenberries are so fragile, which I had heard that before, and the Marionberry is a better tasting berry, I'm surprised that Walter Knott didn't "run" with that berry, since his daughter's name was Marion. She could have been the "face" of the product.....or something like that. She didn't even get a fancy gift shop like her sister, Virginia. She was just relegated to "share" a lousy sportswear shop with her sister, Toni.
Growing up, we had an apricot tree in our backyard. My great grandmother used to make the best apricot jam every summer.....enough to last us until the next summer. I have her fruit "grinder" or whatever the technical term for it is, but I have never used it or attempted to make jam.
“smuckers” was always thought to be a vulgar sounding name … even Saturday Night Live did a joke about the name being selected by a corporate entity …. But the skit starts off with a commercial “so with a name like FLUCKERS it’s had to be good…” then other companies keep trying to come up with worse names to show they have a better jelly/jam …. The best jam : “10,000 Nuns and Orphans..” ….. “that were all eaten by rats!!”
Tokyo!, the marionberry didn't exist when Walter Knott created his berry farm. It was developed at Oregon State University sometime in the '50s (in Marion county, hence the name). Now you know! :-)
"Everyone needs to just can it!" Indeed. It's a sticky situation.
Nanook, maybe there were smartly-dressed gals, and one sweaty man?
JB, I think I have read that the Communication Center had a place where guests could sit and write a card to their loved ones if they felt the need to do it right away. Presumably it was a quiet, attractive place that encouraged creative thoughts. They piped in the scent of boiling hotdogs, for that extra touch. The Mona Lisa… I always love it when movies show the Mona Lisa being stolen… rolled up like a scroll. It was painted on a wood panel, of course. But that doesn’t make for a good visual I guess.
Melissa, Marshall Strawberry came back from the war, he was a little jumpy, but otherwise none the worse for wear. I have to admit to liking ellipses myself, and sometimes overusing them. I once got a comment remarking on my love of exclamation marks too. Whoever that was can go lump it. I’ve never heard of anybody getting the foam off of jam as a treat, that’s a new one! Currants are a pain, and so are elderberries, which grow wild around here… they are tiny, and you have to get the stems and seeds out if you want to make a pie or jam. My friend made an elderberry pie for Thanksgiving once, we went into the hills and collected large bags full of berries. By the time they were processed, there was not as much stuff as we expected! (Hey another exclamation mark). I have no idea how lessees created their artwork, or if they had to run it by Disney for approval. I’ve seen some art that seemed remarkably amateurish.
TokyoMagic!, I’ve never had a watermelon pickle, but want to try one. Please whip up a batch and send some to me. I mentioned the boysenberries at the avocado ranch, we ate them happily, I don’t recall finding them unpleasant in any way. Maybe we just didn’t know any better. I’ve only had Marionberry stuff, not the fresh fruit, so it’s hard for me to compare them. Oh man, I love apricots, my grandmother had a tree, but the squirrels often got every one of them, usually when they were still little and green. Drove my grandma crazy.
Mike Cozart, I feel like I have a vague memory of that Smucker’s sketch, was Chevy Chase involved? That would have made it from one of the early shows.
JB, I learned something today. They said it wasn’t possible!
Mike, I can't even sing "Old Dan Tucker" with a straight face.
Major, they used to say the same thing about me and my semicolons; I still use a lot of them!
There’s a old 1920’s vaudeville comedy song : try and sing it allowed :
“Susie, Susie , sittin’ in a Chevrolet - sittin’ in a Chevrolet - sittin’ in a Chevrolet
“Susie, Susie , sittin’ in a Chevrolet - she sits and shifts , shifts and sits , sits and shifts , she shifts and sits …. Sitting in a Chevrolet!!”
Aloud
Major, I dated a girl in college who grew up within a couple of miles of the Smucker’s headquarters, and I drove by the original factory on several occasions. Nice little town. True story, no punchline.
Your description of the Communications Room sounds eerily similar to the Baghdad Police Operations Center, which was in the basement of one of the palaces I worked at in Iraq (no, Jasmine wasn’t home). Dim lighting, old carpet, big racks of radios on the walls, a few TV screens, and a bunch of hard-bitten beat cops balancing piles of burned-out cigarettes in well used ashtrays. It looked like something out of a movie. That place was awesome.
Reminds me of another story…my last year of junior college, my roommate got married and moved out and left me with a two-bedroom apartment to myself ($240 a month - furnished; I still marvel at how inexpensive SW Oklahoma was in 1989). I just closed up his old bedroom and used it for some minor storage.
Long story, but there was a group of guys I had known in high school who were friends with my former roommate who started theorizing (behind my back) that I was working clandestinely for the CIA - they found unexplained long distance calls on the phone bill to Portugal (they were to my parents in the Azores, which belong to Portugal, but they didn’t know that), there was a break-in attempt at the apartment, and they added in some other random things to fit my imagined secret life.
To feed their theory (which they didn’t know I knew about), another high school friend and I started calling the spare bedroom the “Radio Room” and wouldn’t let anyone in there “for their own protection.” The stories just multiplied from there. I think everyone wanted it to be true.
Ken, I had no particular place to go.
JB, I laughed out loud at your Magritte comment. I didn’t realize that the marionberry was developed at Oregon State. For some reason, every time I hear “marionberry” I think of Washington, D.C.
Mike, your struggles with AutoCorrect reminded me of another story my grandmother told me…
The first time my great-grandfather took my great-grandmother out for a buggy ride in 1890-something, they went out into the country on a Sunday afternoon. They didn’t know each other very well, and they didn’t say much to each other for the first half of the ride.
They rode past farm fields for quite some time until they came to a “T” intersection, just opposite a wood lot. Nailed to a telephone pole in front of the woods was a hand-painted sign: “NO HUNTING ALOUD.”
They paused for a long moment, and then my great-grandmother broke the silence. “Well,” she said, “I suppose you could use a bow and arrow.”
That was the moment my great-grandfather knew he had found a keeper.
@ MIKE-
There’s also this…
I slit the sheet
The sheet I slit
Upon the slitted sheet I sit
Mike, Yeehaa Bob Jackson performs that song in his show at Port Orleans Riverside at Walt Disney World.
The Hallmark bag is great, but I’ve been waiting for this amazing Sunny-View brochure to make an appearance. Definitely not something you see everyday! Great post to end the holiday weekend Major!
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