More From Keith Schad!
It's time for more great 1958 Disneyland photos, graciously shared with us by Keith Schad, and taken by his wife's great-grandpa Harold. See the first batch of scans on April 14th.
I love the colors on these Kodachromes (you can just tell that they are Kodachromes, I don't need to see the slide mounts). The colors are vivid, and yet somehow muted. Which makes no sense, but you are used to me not making sense by now. I guess the colors feel unified, maybe that is more apt. Anyway, here's the familiar Story Book Land sign (the 3 word version), along with Monstro.
This one is almost guidebook-worthy, the park looks so clean and appealing. There's Dumbo's Flying Elephants, and the Fantasyland Skyway Chalet up on its forested hilltop to the right. The Pirate Ship is just out of frame to our right.
28 comments:
Major-
Monstro - when he sported ragged-looking, more realistic teeth.
Using the powers of my super-zooming eyeballs, I can see the Mickey Mouse Club Theater was featuring a fine double bill... "See these Rootin' Tootin' Cartoons" of Pecos Bill, featuring the voice talents of: Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan and Luana Patten; and El Gaucho Goofy, with Pinto Colvig providing Goofy's vocalizations.
And is that a 'rag' hanging off the Skyway cable, adjacent to the empty bucket. Creepy.
Thanks, Major.
I don't think we've seen this angle of Fantasyland before. That is, with the Casey Jr. tunnel and Monstro together in the same shot. And we get a nice look at the floral "sharks" (I think it was Sue who first pointed them out?). Cindy's castle surrre looks far away behind that row of 'mountains'.
Major, I'm getting a duplicate of the first photo when I try to bring up the full-size 2nd image. But even in the thumbnail, I can spot a green trashcan. A red letter day! No need to feel blue anymore, so I'm tickled pink!
Look at all the colorful pointy things sticking up in the 3rd photo! Roofs, spires, tents, umbrellas. That Skyway gondola looks lonely up there all by itself with nobody in it to keep it company.
Nanook, maybe someone tossed their old pair of sneakers up there. ;-)
You're right about the color, Major. Saturated, but muted. It gives photos from this era a unique appearance. Thank you, and thanks once again to Keith S.
Ok, so the second image is showing up now. I'm trying to tell if all the ears on the Dumbi are at the same angle; i.e. non-flapping. And they do indeed look to be the same. I think we determined when the ears became rigid in an earlier post, but I can't recall what we decided.
@ JB-
"Look at all the colorful pointy things sticking up in the 3rd photo! Roofs, spires, tents, umbrellas".
Don't forget that whip-!
The last shot featuring Mad Tea Party and Fantasyland Theater is great. I love that there are no trees in the pic. It allows the architecture and structures to stand out.
Thanks, Keith! You pics have a unique look and feel.
I think Aurora is the Story Book Land captain in front of the NASA guy captain...when she was not in princess garb- right upto all the flowing blonde hair. I did not remember knowing that the backside of Pinocchio village mountains were covered with vines. I like that look and will replicate that somewhere. It's moss...but not. Nicely painted and sweet white fencing. Also need to replicate. Empty buckets and guy in white working on Dumbo. These look like the "flying" type that rarely flew. Maybe he's working on that... The chalet is lovely, and that is TRE that could have been avoided in some way if they had tried. The Park looks delightfully quiet. I think I'd head over to Welch's since there's no line, and get a gooey sticky grape juice bar that will soil my precious clothes for life. I think that is what I was told about anything grape juice which was absolutely VERBOTEN in my household. The "other" grape juice however, flowed like...well....wine. Thanks for the photos Major Saturated. And thanks to Keith for sharing them!! I'm going to go listed to Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" now...I remember that was played in the Kodak preshow at EPCOT. I thought it was a great show of vintage people....now playing at GDB.
I can relate to the color on these slides. I’m pretty muted when I’m saturated, too.
Note how the berm separating the tracks of Casey, Jr., has a mountainous profile, presumably to hide the back of the Pinocchinine Alps from the main thoroughfares of Fantasyland. It doesn’t appear to have been like that long; I can only find one photo on Daveland from June of 1958 that shows it this way. Photos from both earlier and later show a less-pronounced, “rolling hills” contouring on the berm between the tracks that must have been much easier to mow.
Thanks again, Keith!
Bu, I thought it was ivy at first, too, and thought “I’ve never noticed that before,” which sent me down a rabbit hole of research that now has me almost late for work. Totally worth it, though. TOTALLY!!!
These are wonderful shots. In that second one, we can see all the way over to the counter of the Character Food Stand (Fan I). There are two large clear globes (bubblers?) full of liquid. I wonder what were they dispensing? Fantasia Punch and lemonade? Orange Juice and Welch's Grape Juice? Or was the Welch's location the only spot where you could get grape juice?
Thank you so much for sharing these, Keith! And Major, too!
Oh thank you Keith and Great-GrandDad (and Major)!
Wonderful color today, and an original-green trash can!
Taken on a good day for photos, these do look like guidebook excerpts.
Chuck and Bu, we should get saturated one of these days. My Mom had the same prohibition of Welch’s grape juice after I ruined a good shirt. Somehow, Sonoma grape juice doesn’t stain. I’ll check those links later.
Tokyo, in my memory, grape was only available at the Welch’s stand in the Castle.
Thanks Major!
JG
@ TM!-
I was wondering the same thing about those 'bubblers'. Orange juice [of some sort] is definite, and the other 'bubbler' does have an awfully-dark liquid inside; but to my knowledge, Welch's Grape Juice was only sold at the Welch's stand, adjacent to the Mickey Mouse Club Theater - but, perhaps not. (Those dispensers couldn't provide any carbonation, so maybe it dispensed the ultimate sweet drink: pure maple syrup-!) I do know that both Fan 1, Fan 2, the Space & Yacht Bar's sold both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola back in the day - as God intended - prior to when 'contractual obligations' prevented such things...
I think the brown liquid in the bubbler is probably oregano juice. No way it could be something as mundane as iced tea.
I think I have told the story here before about how I caused the rearrangement of furniture in our family room when I was two by vomiting grape juice on the nice, new beige carpet. For years I would sometimes do my own "urban archaeology," pulling back the skirting of my dad's chair to peer at my first experiment in decorative color.
Major-
A late addition... With all this talk about libations, I failed to notice a 'fashion statement' - in the form of matching Father-Son outfits, on-view in the 2nd image. 'Dad' has the shirt, and his 'son' has both a shirt and shorts - all matchy-matchy-! Fashion heroes, for certain.
Nanook, I’m all for orthodontia, but Monstro was better before he went all Hollywood! Whoa, super-zooming eyeballs, do they extend out of your head when they zoom? So cool! I love that a complete show at the Mickey Mouse Club Theater was two short cartoons - about 15 minutes. I confess that the “rag” on the Skyway cable might just be schmutz that was on the scan - I neglected to clone it away.
JB, yes I think Sue was the first person to notice the fearsome sharks, though I think they were red when she spotted them. Colorful pointy things are the best, and make life worthwhile if you ask me. I like to throw new sneakers up onto telephone wires. I have a reputation to uphold.
JB, yes, both Nanook and Sue contacted me about the weird issue about the second image. The way Blogger works, it doesn’t seem like that would be possible, and yet it happened. I’m pretty sure that the Dumbo ears were still hinged in 1958, though they did not move anymore.
Nanook, I guess we can be grateful that Timothy is not holding a gun.
K. Martinez, I’ve said this before, but I generally love big beautiful trees, but one of the things I like about old photos of Disneyland is the scrawny trees that really let you see everything else!
Bu, oh yeah, look at the Storybook Land hostess’s long blonde tresses! Hubba hubba. Maybe she married NASA guy. I can’t tell if the backs of the Pinocchio mountains are covered with vines or what exactly… but it looks nice. Could you buy that fencing (with the cut out “half rounds”) at your local hardware store? I’m like you, I feel as if they could have figured out a way to use the old Chalet if they’d really tried. Easier to just tear it down though. Getting sticky grape juice on your hands is part of the experience, just go with it. I hope Keith sees how many people are enjoying his photos!
Chuck, thanks for doing all of the searching for those photos of Storybook Land; I’m sure you’re right about making the landscape easier to mow. How did they deal with it before that? Hand trimming with clippers?? No thank you.
Chuck, if I’ve managed to make you waste hours of your day, my work here is done!
TokyoMagic!, as I kid I was always fascinated by those “bubblers” (or whatever they are called), though I rarely order the drinks that are in them. Now I wish I could go back in time, I like the way the round bubblers look.
JG, these are such beauties, Keith’s wife’s Grandfather really had an eye for photography. I used to drink lots of Welch’s grape juice when I was a kid, it was a favorite on a hot day. Now it’s been decades since I’ve had the stuff. Maybe I need to buy some the next time I’m at Ralph’s! Hopefully it will be a blast to the past, and not a case of, “Hmmm, I think this used to taste better”.
Nanook, yes, one of the bubblers looks very orange. Maybe the other had a sort of fruit punch (maybe the “Fantasia Punch” that TM mentioned?). What if a customer ordered a mix of Pepsi and Coke? Would it cause a sensation??
Chuck, was iced tea popular in 1958? It’s not a bad guess, I just don’t know. Your mom and dad should have just put grape juice on the entire carpet to make it uniform, rather than rearranging the furniture. Modern solutions!
Nanook, oh fun, I didn’t notice the matching shirts. I wonder if that means that Mom made both shirts?
Ah, the Mickey Mouse Club / Fantasyland Theater. There was a time when twenty minutes of uncut Disney theatricals in full color was an ATTRACTION -- with air conditioning, too!
I think Tokyo is correct . Fantasia Punch was most likely in the bubblers … I need to check if the Welch’s grape juice was served eleswhere in Fantasyand. I don’t think it was IceTea … that seemed to be served back then only at selected sit down restaurants back then. Was icetea not as popular in the 50’s??
One thing that seems to be on most Disneyland buffeteria and table service restaurants in the 50’s and into the early 60’s is BUTTERMILK. It’s hard to even get buttermilk in a supermarket in the 2020’s!!
As much as Disneyland really introduced the world to THEMING …. Attractions , shows and merchandise…. This doesn’t seem to be the case for early Disneyland restaurants… most offer standard American food whether you were in Tomorrowland or Adventureland … the menus of table service restaurants are almost exclusively 1950’s buffeteria fare. Even the original Tiki Room “Juice” bar sold only coffee , hot chocolate , Tahitian terrace punch and soda ….. no tropical juices or drinks …the foods sometimes have Themed names … but nothing about the actual food is themed. Eventually the Tahitian Terrace offers sone foods with pineapple slices … but the main dishes are fried shrimp and steak or ham steak. By the mid to late 60’s you start to see actual themed food start to appear.
Major : I remember in the 70’s and 80’s … like a rollers rinks people ordering a “SUICIDE” which was half coke & half Pepsi. But I’ve also heard a “SUICIDE” was 1/2 orange crush and 1/2 coke or Pepsi ( yuck)
How about a GDB SUICIDE : 1/2 Tahitian Terrace Punch and 1/2 Buttermilk !!
Nanook and Mike, now I'm rethinking my guess for the "bubbler" on the left. I think it's either Orange Julius, or Horchata!
Thanks for the GDB Suicide Cozart...I just flash-backed to my FAVORITE kid drink...Hawaiian Punch concentrate and whole milk! I loved the stuff but would often get chastised for even thinking of mixing the two together. You would think my mother would just be happy I was drinking milk. I think it was the inordinate amount of concentrate I would add (1-1 ratio of course), and since concentrate was "expensive" it was MONTHS before another bottle would show up in the cupboard, on the top shelf to avoid little hands getting on it. I also enjoyed cottage cheese with the same Hawaiian Punch (try it) and as an adult my ex introduced me to maple syrup on cottage cheese...which was a more palatable way to get the protein content of cottage cheese in me. I'm not a fan of cottage cheese. I thought it was weird too when I heard about it...then I tasted it...you tell me...it is delicious. Drowning a can of tuna in a ocean of soy sauce is also a delight (I can't stand cooked tuna), and another good way to get efficient protein right before the salt puffs you up to a Violet Beauregarde look-a-like. More health tips to come!!! (Do not try this at home. Do not eat. This bag is not a toy. Peligro: high voltage. Mantengase sentado por favor. I'm not a robot.)
Bu, I recently discovered that I like balsamic vinaigrette dressing drizzled on top of cottage cheese. I should try the maple syrup!
Mike, I remember in the seventies, my grandparents would sometimes have a milk carton of buttermilk in their refrigerator. It didn't taste bad, but the consistency is kind of a gross. Chunky milk! You are right though, you just don't see that at the grocery store today. I remember my grandparents would also often have a bottle of prune juice in their fridge.
And now I'm remembering that there was a day when my second grade class "churned" butter, and a byproduct of making the butter was buttermilk, so we all got to sample it. There was also a day when we baked bread, in the second grade. I suppose these are things that aren't done in schools anymore? Or maybe it was even unusual at that time. My mom was a first grade teacher at the time, and I don't remember any of the teachers at her school doing those kind of projects with their classes.
Tokyo : I cub scouts we churned butter and made bread. I think the only time I ever drank buttermilk was when we made the butter…. I thought it was going to be like sweet milk or something like a melted milk shake. IT WAS NOT. I recall it tasting like water that brushes of wall plaster and white paint had been cleaned in. Not that I ever actually tasted that … I just imagined. In school and Boy Scouts we baked bread with dough and yeast …. In fact now that I think about it … in Boy Scouts we made bread several times … butter too. A big thing with schools and scouts were all day experiences at San Diego’s OLD TOWN STATE PARK. We . While pretending to be living like San Diego pioneer families of the 1830’s - 1870’s made bread .. butter .. candles …Adobe bricks ..tortillas…hot pomegranate seeds … yellow squash …baked apples & fig pudding … early San Diegans sure ate well.
I sometimes make UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD FRENCH TOAST …for decades the dinning cars biggest request was for Union Pacific French Toast …. It’s made with buttermilk rather than milk and nutmeg rather than cinnamon ) I use both … but recently I haven’t been able to find Buttermilk …. So then I have to make Santa Fe Railroad French Toast …. That has sand in it. Great Northern Railroad French toast has sawdust in it.
Mike Cozart, that drink recipe is going in your permanent record! Like the Spanish drink mixing red wine and Coke.
I doubt that the big drink dispenser has iced tea in it. I seem to remember coffee shop food service tea dispensers mixed dried powdered tea with tap water. These were little gadgets with an upside down jar of Liptons mix and were plumbed like the big silex coffee makers. I think this was part of “instant everything” craze of the 60’s. It was always too strong and needed the ice to melt before you could drink it, I can’t find a picture of what I’m thinking of. Does anyone else remember these? They were small too, since everyone drank coffee.
I found a bunch of really old tea decanters on line, but these look to hold brewed tea and are much older than late 50s-60s, before the newfangled instant stuff. So brewed tea was a thing a long time ago, and is again.
Brewed tea didn’t become readily available again in restaurants until much much later, as I recall, but it was all a long time ago.
I used to love buttermilk too.
JG
TM!, my grandparents usually had a big bottle of prune juice in their fridge as well, complete with a few whole prunes in it. One of my dorms in college was just down the street from their house, and I remember soon after transferring to that school and moving in stopping at their house and having a big, tall glass of prune juice. That was a rough first 24 hours of class.
Mike, the regional variety in our various dishes is part of what makes America great. Sand and Sawdust sounds like the title of an award-winning PBS documentary series. I’m just not sure what it would be about.
JB, yes I first mentioned the sharks, but I can’t take credit for taking pictures of them. I’m glad that others did so. We’ve now witnessed them in red, yellow and green(??), I think. Chameleon sharks.
In that last image, are those some of the large postcards under the Restroom Telephone sign?
Thanks, Keith and Major - great vintage pictures!
Sue
DBenson, you make a good point, not only did folks not have easy access to classic Disney shorts, but that AC on a hot Summer day must have felt wonderful!
Mike Cozart, I feel like I have seen Welch’s listed as being sold elsewhere in the park, but you would know better than I. Maybe it was Yoohoo brand chocolate drink. If you like watery chocolate, Yoohoo is what you are looking for! My dad used to drink buttermilk, I felt like it was leftover from when he grew up working on farms. I always thought it looked good, but then he’d let me taste it, and I was not prepared for the sour “cultured” taste. As a kid, I thought it was gross! I’m sure that most Americans expected to find certain basic items at amusement parks, such as ham and cheese sandwiches, or hotdogs. Nothing too exotic. That’s why I think it’s amazing that children’s menus for the Red Wagon Inn include lamb chops! Whoa, I’ve never heard of half Pepsi, half Coke being called a “suicide”. What a dramatic name! As if it was strychnine.
Mike Cozart, ha ha, as my dad would have said, “Don’t knock it until you try it”, but… it doesn’t inspire confidence!
TokyoMagic!, yum, Orange Julius, man I used to love that drink! I would make my own version at my grandma’s house because she had tons of oranges for the taking.
Bu, I think I’ve heard of other people mixing Hawaiian Punch with milk, but not the concentrate. That sounds intense! I’ll bet the color was pretty! We never had the concentrate, just the big tin cans if my mom was feeling generous. And the stuff always tasted a bit “tinny”. Cottage cheese and Hawaiian Punch! Sounds right out of a vintage cookbook. I don’t like cottage cheese, but my mom gave it to me when I was a kid. I can’t eat it now.
TokyoMagic!, the problem with balsamic vinaigrette on cottage cheese is that there is still cottage cheese. My mom used to use buttermilk when she made mashed potatoes, and I got used to it, but I remember my cousins were in town, took one bite of the potatoes, and looked like they were about to barf. I can understand, if you weren’t expecting it. We made butter in class too, but we didn’t salt it, so it tasted so bland to me. But it was an interesting experiment! I think we put the cream in some sort of container and shook it a lot.
Mike Cozart, yes, when I’d see my dad pour out a glass of cold buttermilk, it looked thick and delicious, and it had flecks of yellow butter. Bread with butter was one of my favorite things in the world! I admit that now I’m sort of curious to taste buttermilk with adult tastebuds, but I’m not sure I’ll actually do it. Your Boy Scout adventures reminds me that a girl came into class with cheese that she (or her mom?) had made at home, I was fascinated. You can make cheese?? I was dumb. We all got to try a little piece, some people liked it, some did not. I think I liked it. Is it really that hard to find buttermilk? My brother uses it when he makes waffles of pancakes, I don’t recall him saying that he has had any problem finding it. Meanwhile, I’ll have mine without sand, please (but give me extra sawdust).
JG, red wine and Coke? YUCK. Yes, as I said in my comment, I don’t think iced tea was much of a “thing” with the general public in 1958. I like it now, though I prefer it mixed with lemonade. Did Arnold Palmer invent that? Or does he just get credit for the work of a lesser golfer? I don’t remember those Lipton gadgets you mentioned. I have no doubt that people brewed tea at home, and even at some restaurants, but it seems like it would have been fairly exotic for Disneyland at the time.
Chuck, my grandpa liked prunes, and I thought they tasted good. Chewy and sweet. I don’t think I knew about their “other” function, but I liked ‘em. But I’ve never had a glass of prune juice. How bad can it be? “Sand and Sawdust: The Story of School Lunches”.
I like cottage cheese sprinkled with a generous amount of black pepper. It gives it a more savory taste. Also, I sometimes put ketchup on my mashed potatoes... a LOT of ketchup! Almost a 1:1 ratio like Bu's Hawaiian Punch concentrate and milk. It's really no different than dipping french fries in ketchup; at least that's what I tell myself.
I have buttermilk in my fridge right now. I don't drink it, I use it when I make ranch dressing; Hidden Valley Ranch mix. I start with the buttermilk and mayo, as per the instructions. But then I also add a healthy splash of heavy cream and a big dollop of sour cream to make it even healthier. ;-)
Tokyo!, you (or your grandparents) can keep the prune juice; that stuff is nasty! In one of my grade school classes (1st, 2nd, or 3rd... I don't recall which) we churned butter, in a big jar, not an old-time churn. Best butter I ever tasted! Of course, at that time (late '50s, early '60s) we were a margarine (oleo) household and rarely got the 'real' stuff.
Hmmm, I don't have any trouble finding buttermilk in the grocery stores I frequent. You guys are shopping in the wrong stores! :-b
Mike, I'll just leave you to the sand and sawdust French toast. ;-) I'll stick to my version, which has a bit of brown sugar and vanilla added to the mix.
Major, buttermilk tastes pretty much like cottage cheese, or sour cream.
Major & JB, when I said "churn," I guess I should have stated that it wasn't with an old-fashioned wooden butter churn. The teacher had a giant glass jar, with a giant hand mixer built into the lid. We all took turns standing there in front of the class, cranking the handle on the mixer. Hey, would that be considered child labor?
You can still get buttermilk at Hot Dog Johnny's in Butzville NJ, near the Delaware Water Gap.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g46336-d833526-Reviews-Hot_Dog_Johnny_s-Buttzville_New_Jersey.html
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