Disneyland Souvenirs
It's been too long since we last looked at some Disneyland souvenirs. So let's go!
I'll start with this unusual item, a box of "Vanity Fair Toilet Soap" from Swift's Market House on Main Street. There were not many souvenirs that were specific to the Market House; I can think of a spun-metal tray with a lithographed photo of the interior (you'll see one of those someday), and some gross candy "wieners" (at least they look gross after 60 years in their cellophane), and maybe one or two other items. Historically, animal fat was used to make soap, so it makes sense that you would find this in a shop sponsored by Swift's Premium Meats.
The soap has a pleasant aroma! Years ago somebody had a bunch of these boxes of soaps on eBay, and I was happy to be able to get a couple. I haven't seen any before or since then.
Back in 2016, Davelandblog shared a photo of the interior of the Market House (photo used with permission)...
...and behind this buckaroo we can see a stack of boxes of "Old Time Toilet Soap" on the counter. Cool!
This next item isn't exactly a souvenir per se, but more of an artifact - a 1974 employee sales receipt from the Rock Shop that was a part of both Adventureland and Frontierland. A ring was purchased for $58.40 (quite a deal after the 20% employee discount!). With tax, a total of $61.91. Shockingly, when adjusted for inflation that ring would cost around $374.00 today!
And finally, here's a fun little folded "table tent" card from the Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner. The menu was limited, but chances are good that there was something for most people. Gotta picky kid? A cheese sandwich should do. Ham and cheese is for those with more of an appetite. And a classic tuna sandwich is always a good option on a hot SoCal day. Thanks to a collector friend, I now know that there are three different variations; I only have this one.
I hope you have enjoyed today's souvenirs.
25 comments:
Major-
One has to wonder just what "Old Time" toilet soap was meant to invoke-? I would assume things in the world of soap would improve over time, and we should steer clear of the 'antique variety'. The only claim to fame I have in the old soap department are bars of Reddy Kilowatt soap-!
Thanks, Major.
Boy, yer toilet would have to be pret-ty dirty that it would need six bars of toilet soap to clean it! ;-) It would take hours! Apparently, it's only for toilets located within castles, as per the illustration.
I actually like the package design; a lace doily, like you would see hanging on the back of grandma's sofa. The soap bars are the same color as the soap that the Seven Dwarfs had in their cottage; sort of a Naples yellow.
The Coca-Cola card: It's interesting how, even in silhouette, the characters have that recognizable Disney style that was so prevalent in the '50s- early '60s.
Souvenir day is always a good day. Thanks, Major.
Toilet Soap with hexachlorophene! Yummy! Except for the fact that hexachlorophene ended up killing people, and was eventually banned from use in consumer products for that reason.....despite it's yummy taste. It's still a very cool souvenir, Major. Just don't eat it, rub it in your eyes, or touch it with your fingers!
I have some of those large yellow Disneyland receipts. I think they were only given to regular park guests, when purchasing some of the larger ticket items. They were also included in the packaging, when mail-ordering souvenirs from the park.
I love the graphics on that "table-tent" card. But if I was going to eat a tuna sandwich in DL, I think I would prefer to eat it in a grotto, underneath a large drooling head named of Skully.
Thanks for sharing these cool items with us, Major!
I actually like bar soap. It has a nice crisp "pick-me-up" taste to get you going in the morning! You do have to make sure no one thinks you're rabid, but it's worth it!
I would SO like to see what that ring looked like! I wonder if it still exists somewhere? That was very expensive, so hopefully someone saved it. Someone needs to track it down! (I would, but I'm too busy typing this..and foaming at the mouth)
I agree that all tuna sandwiches should be eaten under skulls. Now, that's a sentence that doesn't get typed every day. Ham and cheese sounds ok... but I think I'll just have another bar of soap.
Thanks, Major!
Hee hee, Major said “toilet”! I can imagine the crumbly texture of the bars. I also am trying and failing to picture how they packed the frankfurter candies. Wrapped in plastic side by side like hot dogs? Were they like Hot Tamales? I’m very curious about the ring too. I like to think it was a giant slab of rock rather than a cut gemstone. The table tent card reminds me of some of the cut-out stop motion animation from Disney like Merlin Jones and Freaky Friday. Thanks for the souvenirs, Major.
Wow, these are some offbeat items, Major.
My Mom had a box of soaps like this, not Disneyland mind you, just fancy little soap cakes. And for over 30 years, no one ever came to visit our home who was worthy of her opening a cake and setting out in the guest bath…
I finally had to throw them out, after.
I’ll have ham and cheese please, with a side of soap. Tokyo is right, tuna can only be eaten under the skull.
JG
I recall that pot bellied stove as a working model. One cold December day my folks and I were standing around it. We had the common sense not to touch it too! KS
As always, you manage to dig up something never shown before! The Coke table tent is pretty nice, but that box of Swift soap is certainly unique. Hard to believe someone would buy them, never use them, and still have them in the box after all this time. Definitely a great find!
The location and date is in my wheelhouse Major. Have difficulty making out the names though. Darn... The are known as "Westside" was "Adventure/Frontierland" back in my day. Talk about inflation. But at my last rate of pay at Disney of $6.47 in 1977, the inflation calculator says I'd be making $32.17 per hour today. KS
@ KS-
The names are: Frank Matosich and D. Pedersen - hope that helps.
Nanook, the Old Time toilet soap had the occasional actual hog bristle in it. It really brought you back to the good old days! Reddy Kilowatt soap, I love it! Never use those (I know you won’t).
JB, for discussions of my toilet, please go to “Toilets Don’t Blog”, which has been going daily for 11 years. The box of soaps is just oddball enough for me to love, plus the fact that once the examples on eBay were gone, I have never seen another (somebody did have a box on eBay, but not all the soaps inside were original). I always wonder if they got a (now famous) Disney artist to design something like that Coca Cola table tent, it’s pretty great.
TokyoMagic!, it’s hard to believe that something with the name hexachlorophene was harmful. I looked it up, and you aren’t kidding, it sounds like bad stuff! I’ll just stick to my radium soap, thank you very much. I’d sure love to know what that ring looked like - for some reason I picture a silver ring with a big chunk of turquoise. But it could have been anything! I’m still stunned at the price (with inflation), that was a serious purchase at the time. All food tastes better when eaten beneath a drooling skull, but tuna sandwiches especially.
Stu29573, yes, I wish the description had given us a few more details at least! “Ruby ring” or something. “Cursed ring” is even better! I’m afraid I already wrote that exact sentence (“I agree that all tuna sandwiches should be eaten under skulls”) in my latest resume, believe it or not.
Kathy!, I admit that I giggle whenever I hear the word “toilet”. It’s just the best! I’m not sure those bars are crumbly, they seem pretty normal. Not that I will ever use them. But my closet has smelled nice and soapy and hexachlorophene-y for years, even though I put the boxes in ziplock bags. Yes the “candy weiners” were packaged side by side like hot dogs. I wish I had a photo to show you, but at the moment I’m getting ready to run out the door. Maybe the ring had a big chunk of tigereye, I used to be fond of tigereye ever since I had a rock polisher when I was a kid.
JG, ha ha, my mom had some Avon soaps that were shaped like little seashells, in pastel colors (pink, yellow, blue, green). They were always “too good” to use, and yes, we eventually tossed them in the trash. Ham and cheese for me too, with an ice cold Coke. Please put the soap on the side!
KS, I actually did not know that the stove ever got hot, and just assumed that it would be too dangerous. As you said, maybe people just had more common sense back then.
Brad Abbot, you do see those Coke table tents now and then (though they are not common), but the soaps really are rare. Whoever sold them on eBay obviously found a stash of unopened boxes, I think I wound up buying 3 complete boxes! They are such an odd souvenir that I’m not convinced that they would fetch much if I ever tried to sell one of them.
KS, reading ahead, I see that Nanook has already related the names on the receipt. It would be cool if you recognized the sales clerk!
Nanook, how much do you want to bet that D. Pedersen was a woman??
I particularly love that table tent, great graphics!
You can still get hexachlorophene in a prescription cleanser called phisohex. It's mostly used for cleaning before surgeries or for fungal outbreaks on the skin. I didn't realize it was once in ipana toothpaste - sounds insane, but I figure future people will look at that Colgate toothpaste with disinfectant they sold a few years ago in the same way.
My family never had "fancy" soaps like shells, but I remember going to a friend's house as a kid and getting lambasted for using the fancy soaps. Apparently I was not enough of a "special guest" to rate the guest soaps and towels.
The tradition continues, though. I have a box full of the now-discontinued Disney hotel toiletries. They were fairly high quality and neutral scented so I use them regularly.
Does the Market House still have the stove? The line was so long at the Starbucks last fall that I didn't bother to got in and check it out. I'd have to guess that even if it does still exist, they never light it since you can't trust people not to touch a hot stove, no matter how many signs you put up. Maybe in Tokyo Disneyland, but not in the US.
Thanks Nanook and Major. I knew a Frank on the JC at that time but I just wish I could remember his last name. I could be a match! KS
The Main Street Train Depot and the Upjohn Pharmacy both at one time had stoves inside of them - both were listed as static props on blueprints ( to be provided by Emile Kurie) Disney’s - studio & park official interior decorator. Both stoves were actual antiques however. I can see them being altered to include a WED flicker light in them , but I doubt they were ever functional as a heat source while in use at Disneyland. If the Market House stove ever was functional as an actual heat source it would have been a very long time ago. I can’t imagine even in the 50’s that Disney would worry about the mess and attention with cleaning the ash ( or oil drip) pan …. And the odds of kids constantly getting burned. Ive seen drawings from the Market House showing its several interior changes starting with the big one in 1968 … but don’t remember specifics of the stove prop. Incidentally the Market House Annex room ( the cake room) featured a prop pot bellied stove as well … that defiantly did not operate as the stove curved towards a wall that was a storage room with no exhaust pipe on the other side!
The artwork on that table top card has been used on Main Street recently for a few of the Disneyland retro “throwback” party nites . For these ticketed events old graphics are used on various signs and often older Disneyland food offerings are brought back … like Fantasia Ice Cream …. Space Mist Punch … and Tahitian Terrace Punch are some examples ( no tuna burgers - YET) for the Tahitian Terrace Punch a recipe postcard was given out to party guests . Each side featured. Great vintage graphics and two slightly different versions of the famous punch … however one - with the granulated sugar - featured the restaurant size mixture sizes … like if you were going to be serving hundreds of people . I always wondered if that was a mistake.
Glad the table tent specified tuna fish. Otherwise, I would have been thinking tuna beef.
I eat tuna sandwiches with a skull. Does that count?
KS & Mike, could WED possibly have put an electric heater along with a flicker light inside the stove so it was warm enough for the effect without being as messy to manage and as dangerous to idiots as a real, coal-or-whatever or-burning stove would have been?
Matt (nice to hear from you), I like that one too, and of course now that I know there are two other variations, I need them!
Dean Finder, it sounds like hexachlorophene can be safe as long as it is used in small amounts, and not for extended lengths of time. Heck, pure Hydrogen peroxide can be used as a rocket propellant if pure enough. It whitens teeth in six seconds! Then dissolves them. I love the thought of a host putting out fancy soaps, and then getting mad at the guests for using them. I’ve seen people selling Disneyland Hotel toiletries online (it’s a cottage industry), but I’m not willing to pay much when plain old Dial foaming hand soap is good enough for me. Yes, despite all rumors, I do wash sometimes! I think I’ve seen photos of the inside of Starbucks (maybe on Daveland) and there is a cast iron stove, I believe.
KS, not Frank! That guy owes me money! ;-)
Mike Cozart, oh I like the idea of a flicker light inside the stoves. It’s the little things like that! I didn’t even think about the attendant mess associated with a pot-bellied stove, but you are right, Disney would not want to deal with it. I sure have no data on the stoves, but the public is just too unpredictable, especially when you have kids around. There is no way kids won’t touch something that’s “right there”! I’m not surprised that they have reused the artwork on the table tent, on one hand it’s nice to see a throwback to the good old days, but I also feel like it’s a cost-saving, lazy way to go. For a company that theoretically has many talented artists - why not use them? Tahitian Terrace Punch recipe: pour Hawaiian Punch into a glass. Serve chilled. ;-)
Chuck, tuna beef was popular back in post-war America, but now it is hard to find, unless you are in certain parts of the country. States that end with “r”. I like the idea of making the pot-bellied stove pleasantly warm without any fear of injury. “Warm bath” temperature”. The best temperature of all!
KS, one of my earliest memories is of falling and burning my hand on the potbellied stove we used to heat the house. I had a scar for years, but I guess I grew out of it.
As a kid, I thought tunafish was one word.
Major, I was in a hurry this morning, meant to add that the Market House wood stove is how I envision GDB. Folks coming in to check their mail or grab a pickle or some crackers from a barrel and have a chin wag about the latest photos.
Best thing, I’ve never burnt my hand on GDB, and I can’t say that about my old wood stove. I don’t miss heating with wood, wet bark, bugs, splitting kindling, trekking through the snow to wood pile, etc.
Also I sincerely apologize for trolling the thread yesterday about the Columbia and Mark Twain being monorails. I love both of those watercraft and was just out of sorts.
JG
Major- That's great you have that employee sales receipt, just in case Frank haas to return that ring at some point in time. I also like your punch recipe...
Chuck- All this discussion about tuna brings to mind the title of a 1978 album by the band REO Speedwagon- "You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish"...
-DW
The first time I heard someone memtion a tuning fork, I thought it was sime special utensil for eating tuna.
Frank Matosich Jr. w/Bio and ID: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1974-disneyland-cast-id-card-seasonal-149042193 Could possibly be tracked down, and possibly would still know where this ring was/is. Not sure if it would be thrown away...but possible. Those employee receipts had to be written out for any employee sale. Your bag would be stapled, and this yellow one would be stapled onto the bag to hand to the Harbor House Security Guard. What happened after that?...you find them somewhere and post them to blogs. It was a lot of hassle to write these things out, but it was SOP. The form did not change one tiny bit to my time in the 80's. That bag better still be stapled when you past the exit gate for who knows what else you might slip into it. At first I was horrified that Disneyland was so distrusting of it's employees, and later in life learned that it is "eliminating doubt" not distrusting. My thoughts also at the time was "staple the guests bags too!" I had a lot of opinions back then, and still do. All the other bits and bobs are awesome. TOILET SOAP. OK...we always would giggle about the English guests asking us where is the TOILET?! Not restroom..or the Canadian "Wash room"...but the TOILET. Always pronounced very properly and loudly and proudly. WHERE ARE THE TOILETS PLEASE?!! Exsqueeze me?! I grew up with it, but got more accustomed to the more modest Americanized "Bathroom". Where is the bathroom? I was always corrected as the bathroom is where you take a bath, and the toilet is where you take something else...I'm stopping now, don't worry Major. Thanks for the TOILET soap. Used for the TOILET. It still makes me squirm.
Well, BU...isn't that something. Perhaps there is a match after all. Ride Operations and a darn good chance he was working with me. The "951" was code for attractions. Just wish that ID included a picture. I do remember him in my mind and can picture Frank...just don't recall his last name so it will forever be a mystery. And yes, back in the early days that stove WAS hot however it worked. KS
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