It's time for some RADIANT RANDOS! Starting with this amusing photo from June, 1971. A young girl waits for her Autopia vehicle (looks like it will be one of those green babies), while wearing a floppy souvenir hat. The girl to our left also has a flopster, maybe they are sisters?
Obviously that sailor was visiting the park while on furlough from the Long Beach Naval Base. Thank you for your service! I love the girl's "hippie purse", very evocative of the era.
I'm always cheered up by a photo of the Main Street Surreys. Is it the fringe? Is it the bright yellow wheels? This pic is from August, 1962, and it's quite a thing to see the old-timey conveyance with the all-plastic House of the Future right behind it!
Major-
ReplyDeleteThat purse is a doozy-! I believe I spy a bobsled-! 'Tis a lucky day.
Thanks, Major.
Two "flopsters" and a sailor's cap; must be Hat Day at the Park. The two floppy hats seem to be identical, so I bet you're right about the girls being sisters... or maybe BFFs.
ReplyDeleteThe blue & white umbrellas sure look neat and clean. I kinda think they would get sooty from all the exhaust... Maybe they get replaced often because of that.
The sailor probably retired from the Navy when he was twelve.
The two women in the surrey are also wearing identical hats, except for the ribbons: one red, one blue.
The little girl-in-red, on the left, is wearing an interesting outfit. She looks sort of like Glinda the Good Witch... only red, instead of pink.
Nice randos, Major. Thanks.
The MARK 7 AUTOPIA cars , looked very similar to the 1968 Corvette Stingray…. But they feature the trending designs of the period and were not actual corvette copies … just parallel designs. They also have influences of the Lamborghini Miura and the Ford G.T.
ReplyDeleteThe colors of the Disneyland Autopia Mark 7 fleet were painted in brighter colors than real sports cars of the period … which were rather dark …. But WED included a brighter “corvette” yellow … And “Ford Racing orange” equivalent . The real auto-world “British Green” ( also a corvette color ) was replaced with a brighter racing green by Ditzler called “brooklands green” after the famous British racetrack …. And those are “Brooklands Green” MARK 7 AUTOPIA cars coming our way ….
“ATTENTION AUTOPIA DRIVERS YOU ARE APPROACHING THE UNLOADING ZONE — PREPARE TO STOP”…… “DO NOT BUMP THE CAR AHEAD OF YOU…” ….. “THE CAR AHEAD HAS BETTER INSURANCE THAN YOU….. PLEASE APPROACH CAUTIOUSLY “
Kidney Stone Kid's tree is blocking out most of the Matterhorn, in that last pic. But as Nanook pointed out, there appears to be a bobsled trying to get our attention through all the foliage.
ReplyDeleteJB, that girl's outfit looks a little more "Red Riding Hood-ish" to me! Maybe she's taking a little bunny rabbit to her grandma. TA HAAAVE!!!
A very compliant Autopia passenger. Was told to stand on the number...and SHE IS! Right on the number! So, she's not a hippie after all, she is a conformist playing the part of a hippie. Hats are also compliance: you MUST wear a hat...that sun in the Disneyland Place is strong and you will not be burnt. Wasn't there a episode of Gidget where LaRue wore a gigantic sombrero at the beach because she was allergic to the sun? A oversized kaftan was also part of the get up...which later Gidget wore to trap her "man friend" with another girl...who perhaps was Mouseketeer Cheryl Holdridge? Possibly...will have to do a rewind of that episode...Love the little horsies and the Surrey. Don't think that would work today with the masses on Main St. Not sure if you could even see such a thing. Can someone please tell me when Disneyland turned into the Vatican Museum on a Summer Day? Pretty things need to be admired with some space around them...in the surrey photo there is an actual Red Riding Hood there in the distance...walking with Don Defore I think...in front of them is the guy that won the "tallest person at Disneyland today" contest...Kidney Boy's tree is big and bad...reminds me that my olive trees need to come in for the season ! Thanks Major!
ReplyDeleteI was warned that someday I would reach the age where new recruits would look like kids to me. I think that first photo proves I’m there. Time to make an appointment at the VA Clinic…
ReplyDelete@ TM!-
ReplyDeleteAhhh - a reference to Little Red Riding Rabbit. I suggest you 'take a powder' immediately-!
Nanook, hey, good eye on the bobsled!
ReplyDeleteJB, someday floppy hats will make a comeback, and I will be ready, with my large collection. Good point about the umbrellas, you really would think they would get dirty pretty quickly. I hope that sailor doesn’t wake up at night in a cold sweat thinking about battles from his past. I can just hear those two ladies discussing those hats; “I’ll get the one with the red ribbon, and you can get one with a blue ribbon!”. Giggling the whole time.
Mike Cozart, those Mark VII Autopia cars have become classics in their own right, years ago I saw photos from the Pixar studio where artists showed up with their cool cars, and there were at least a couple of Autopia cars that had been converted to battery power (maybe mounted on golf cart chassis?). The colors on the vehicles made sense, red, yellow, blue, and green (and maybe orange?), photos of large groups of them together look pretty great.
TokyoMagic!, I never imagined that Kdney Stone Kid’s legacy would live on. If only he knew. “I HAVE made a difference!”. “Hey Grandma! That’s an awfully big set of teeth for you. TO HAVE!”.
Bu, as a rebel I would have stood just slightly off the number. They don’t own me! I would have had a toothpick dangling from my mouth to emphasize how tough I was. While I sometimes watched “Gidget” after school, I sure don’t remember the plot of a single episode. Was William Schallert in that? Now I’m thinking a different actor played her dad. Maybe Rip Taylor. I’ve seen a vintage picture of Cheryl Holdridge in a bikini, she could have certainly played Gidget’s rival. I feel like the modern crazy Disneyland crowds started to manifest in the 1990s, sadly. Now they are raising their prices again, I have to ask myself how much more I will be willing to pay.
Chuck, it’s like when Hawkeye Pierce kept saying that all the soldiers he was repairing were “just kids”. As a young kid at the time, I wondered what he was talking about. They sure looked like grownups to me.
Nanook, you just can’t beat those old Looney Tunes.
I should-a also mentioned this cartoon is a typical example of the music from Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes Cartoons dipping into the vast library of [the then] Chappell Music publishing company - owned by Warner Bros. - as their source for "free" songs.
ReplyDeleteI easily picked out I'm Ridin' for a Fall and They're Either Too Young or Too Old both written by Frank Loesser & Arthur Schwartz, and featured in Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) - [a Warner Bros. film, of course]; and Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet (probably Public Domain [1909]).
Major-
Bill Schallert played Patty's Dad in The Patty Duke Show; you're thinking of Don Porter.
William Shallert played Giget’s dad in the 1980’s Giget Reunion movie. In the 80’s Don Porter played Jack Tripper’s uncle on Three’s Company…. All adult actors from The Patty Duke Show played teachers at some point on Dobie Gilles …
ReplyDeleteMy MOST FAVORITE Giget episode of all the episodes in Walnut Grove is the one with Paul Lynde …. Who plays the father of one of Giget’s friends and decides to go car shopping for his daughter the night Giget is spending the night … and she ends up going reluctantly going night time car shopping …. “IN HER PAJAMAS!!!”
Fine Autopia pics, thanks Major!
ReplyDeleteI’m reading the book about Disney landscaping and How the Matterhorn Got Its Trees, so photo 2 is especially interesting.
Too bad that screaming kid will never know his nickname.
JG
Gidget in Walnut Grove?(!) I think I am missing something here…
ReplyDeleteNanook, yes, Carl Stalling was able to use the Warner Bros. music library to great advantage. I didn’t know that the Chappell Music publishing company went back that many years, but then again, I never thought about it that much. Thanks for the info on William Schallert.
ReplyDeleteMike Cozart, Schallert was one of those character actors that seemed to be in EVERYTHING back then. I’m sure his IMDB must be endless. And he worked for a LONG time too. The Paul Lynde episode of Gidget sounds like a typical wacky sitcom plot!
JG, what’s the book you are reading?
Chuck, Gidget liked to surf when she wasn’t doing prairie stuff.
My uncle had a late 70's Corvette in a metallic forest green that seems to be one of the darker Detroit colors that Mike C mentioned above. Probably the coolest car that I got to ride in s a kid (long before booster seats were required into adolescence)
ReplyDeleteMajor, “Disneyland, World of Flowers” by Morgan Evans. I found it posted on Parkendium.
ReplyDeleteJG