MORE Bupix!

Hooray, it's time for another installment of Bupix™! Photos from the personal collection of GDB pal Bu (you know him from the comments), from his days as a Disneyland cast member. Not only has he provided the pictures, but he has included amazing commentary that I know you will enjoy. Enough of my blathering! Here's Bu:

This is Yumiko.  I’m pretty sure Yumiko was at the park for at least 15 years. She started in ’72.  This was her last day of employment.  Later Yumiko had some involvement in the official Disneyland Alumni Club that Van France founded.  Not sure if it’s even around anymore, I haven’t got an email for quite some time.  The area Yumi is in is the “new” Tour Guide lounge, after the old lounge behind Tour Guide Gardens was turned into offices.  

This lounge is the room commonly seen in Early Disneyland photos as the “Police Station” next to City Hall.  They decorated it for us, before us, it was where Guest Communications offices were.  You can see in the distance how un-glamourous and kind of messy backstage was: fan, dust pan and broom, boxes with who knows what…you can see a door there that was a very small employee bathroom where I brought Michael Jackson to when he was unable to escape the mobs on Main St.  From there, we exited through TG Gardens around the back, and he left the Main Gate with nary a fan in sight. 

They were still standing outside City Hall waiting for him to emerge.  He couldn’t use the bathroom next to City Hall as he was being mobbed.  I was in City Hall and heard a bunch of screaming outside, and he was there sitting on the bench.  The other TG there is Linda, who you probably have seen in an old photo with Ringo Starr strolling through New Orleans Square in the early 70’s.  The costume is the “new” Hostess costume.  The only one was a bit out of date, but in retrospect, now, I liked it better.  I don’t think plaid should be on a Hostess costume.  Some previous Hostess costumes were off the rack things- one by Evan Picone, etc.  Boys did not have a “Host” costume until much later.  Until then, we wore our plaids.  Want pizza?  No problem.  Order it, and they would drop it off at the Main Gate.  Really.   We had many pot luck events and parties, etc. in this very small space with the old furniture from the old TG lounge, which was much more spacious.  The walls were covered with photos and official proclamations and Walt-type-era things from years past.  

There was also a glass tube with a miniature Tour Guide statue/doll (I called it “test tube Tour Guide”)in it mounted on the wall, and a plaque that had moved around with “Though these doors pass the most lovely ladies….et. al.”  There is a photo somewhere with this plaque in the background: I think when it moved to City Hall.  I wonder if any of these things are still around: like the “Tour Guide of the Year” award, which you probably have seen photos of Walt and (whoever TG it was...) in front of the Animation Bldg. at the studio.  There was a TG of the Year award until I left, awarded at the annual Tour Guide Banquet which was at the end of Summer.  It was a fun time, and I was on the committee for more than a few years to plan it.  It was kind of a big deal, but NOT Company sponsored.  We were allowed to do fund raisers like fashion shows, selling T-Shirts/ sweat shirts…really anything we wanted, and for those we got a lot of help from the creative team for logos, marketing and such.   

The Tour Guide Breakfast kicked off the Summer Season, after the official yearly ‘group photo” which was taken in various places: usually in front of City Hall, the Train Station Steps, or the Castle.  These were taken by Renie the photographer (who famously photographed Walt in “Footsteps”), and although company sanctioned, we had to pay for the print, which was $1.  It was not compulsory to show up to the photo, and the breakfast was a pot luck held in the TG Gardens, all prior to Park Opening of course.   As a side note: Yumiko provided the Japanese “please keep your hands and arms inside the boat” at the end of Small World.  Yumiko also was a major piece of being a liaison/trainer/interpreter for all things Tokyo Disneyland working with Jim Cora.  After these “side jobs” ended, like the Ambassadors, you returned to your “real job”.  Tour Guides worked many side jobs, and we wore many hats as we were not under Union jurisdiction.

I'd asked Bu about some other office images, and he suggested that I might skip the first one (below) because the woman is still with us, and maybe she wouldn't appreciate seeing an unflattering picture of herself on the Internet. But then Bu thought that I might be able to obscure her to the point where she would not be identifiable to most folks. So I pixelated the face! This commentary covers the next two photos: I just bought the camera I am using at the Camera shop on Main Street, so I was asking normal office workers to do extraordinarily out of character poses.  Like screaming.  I think the photo is worthy of a post, if you want to "Tokyo Magic" the face...  The computers are probably “comment inducing”…with the Sperry Word Processor, and the dot matrix printer that was so loud it had its own sound proof booth.  There’s also the Charles Boyer TDL Lithograph.  And the software packet for “Word Perfect”.  This was the latest and greatest of letter writing- this way they could personalize form letters- which wasn’t possible just a year before  EVERY letter received was answered.  Fan mail to characters was huge, and because of the demand the job was delegated to Tour Guides who learned character signatures.  Both of these ladies worked in “Guest Communications”.   A lot of mail was received every day.  Both of these ladies I was great friends with.  The older of the two has passed on, and her daughter also worked at the park in the 70’s.

That stupid dream finder thing!!  Ugh!  This was mounted on the wall behind the desk in City Hall.  It was a “gift from the employees of Epcot to the employees of Disneyland”…blah blah blah.  It was stupid.  I’m sure it would be worth a fortune today.  The reason that the girls are all putting their heads on the bottom of it, was because we ALL smacked our heads on that damn thing reaching down to grab stuff under the counter and then standing up.  People had to go to first aid over this, including myself as I saw stars right before I passed out cold.  They refused to remove this dumb thing even after the multiple cranial injuries.  The nice thing about the counter is that we were always provided with fresh flowers.  A nice touch.  The only thing missing in the photo is me on the floor :) 

Just for fun, Bu mentioned that Linda, seen in the background in the first photo, could be seen in an "old photo with Ringo Starr strolling through New Orleans Square in the early 70s". I was not familiar with that picture, so I did a Google search. Here it is!

I hope you all enjoyed the pictures and the commentary, there are more to come. THANK YOU, BU!