Mickey Flower Portrait, April 1974
For the second Sunday in a row, Main Street Station is featured in the SNOOZLES™. It's nothing personal! They just aren't very good photos. As you can see, in spite of the bright sunshine, this first picture is way too dark. The slides are dated "April, 1974", but they might have been taken earlier, since everyone is bundled up quite a bit. There's always one or two people who are determined to wear a light t-shirt no matter how chilly it is!
It's not even noon yet! Plenty of time to hit all of our favorite rides. This photo gets bonus points for the cut young lady in the classic Mickey t-shirt.
EXTRA! EXTRA! GDB pal Chuck Hansen shared this 1972-ish photo of his lovely family; notice the t-shirt that Chuck was wearing! Thank you, Chuck.
14 comments:
Major-
I'm going to guess the "population" in April, 1974 was about 122 million folks. OH - and nice plaids, fellas-!
Thanks, Major.
Mickey looks a bit fat-faced in this photo. Maybe it's just the low angle... or maybe he's been binging on churros. The gal in the white babushka is wearing an elegant coat; suede, I think. There's a lot of red being worn by the group on the right. Hey, people! It's not 1957!
I had a Mickey t-shirt just like that, that I bought in Disneyland. I think I still have it, but it's probably not in very good shape anymore; being from 1975. Beautiful blue sky!
Thanks for the..... I don't know what to call them! Not really Snoozles; just not very exciting, I guess. Sorta bland.... Thanks for the Blandos, Major. ;-p
Check out the “Santa Fe & Disneyland” drumheads on the side of the Holiday Red cars. I don’t recall seeing those before (although I probably saw them in person). Question for Steve Degaetano - was this design also used on the back of the observation car Grand Canyon before the passenger cars were retired that same year?
I had a Mickey t-shirt like that, too. I think we probably all did. It was one of my favorites, although I think I may have outgrown it by 1974.
Thanks again, Major!
1974 is the end of Santa Fe’s sponsorship. Chuck there are actually 2 slight variations of the Santa Fe & Disneyland RR freight car insignia signs - ( different from the Santa Fe “cris-cross” herald. None of these insignias or heralds appeared on any of the Drumheads. The Drumheads had their very own Insignia designs - each coach set represented with a differ color ( russet red, pale gold , and warbonet blue) On fabrication and graphic drawings the insignia drumheads are called “RR BANJO DRUMS” and sometimes “RR BANJOS” . I’m not sure if this was just a WED / RETLAW term
Or a real - world alternate term for the drumheads.
About a 1/2 dozen of the 1955-1974 freight car insignia shield signs are known to have survived as (most) were re-used and screened over with the new 1974 Disneyland R.R. Logos. The older ones were steel but hadecsince been replaced with aluminum.
The 1974 DL RR insignia was created by imagineer and model railroader Tom Yorke … Tom also designed Big Thunder Mt. RR insignia among many other things.
There are 3 Disneyland Railroad Drumheads : DL RR EXCURSION , DL RR LIMITED , DL RR BICENTENNIAL SPECIAL… there was also a DL RR HOLIDAY EXPRESS designed but never created ( and a specialized 4th style from a early 2000’s rehab of The Lilly Belle coach used today .
A few years ago several DL RR CIRCUS SPECIAL drumhead sign panels were discovered…. It’s not known of these were used during the Disneyland Circus Fantasy promotions or created for a planned Fantasyland DL RR siding with sone Dumbo Circus cars - one of them being the specialized baggage car Dumbo’s mother “Mrs Jumbo “ was placed in labeled “beware- MAD ELEPHANT!”
Aah, more Go-Away Green. A surprising choice for this important wall, guests might get vertigo if they saw Mickey with no visible means of support.
The young lady’s coat looks familiar, I think girls at my school might have worn a similar one. I don’t think it’s leather, JB, there was a kind of suede fabric in vogue then. The belt or trim was a textured embroidery IIRC.
Young lady in photo 2 with the t-shirt has a very strong Sally Field look. Cute kid. I also had a similar Mickey shirt, but in gray fabric.
The floral Mickey is a great idea, I know it’s copied from somewhere in Europe, but it’s unusual enough to be memorable.
Thanks Major!
JG
Nanook, that plaid is so loud, it should be illegal!
JB, like many of us, Mickey’s weight could go up or down depending on circumstances. But he always managed to lose extra pounds when he needed to, using Jazzercise. I had a Mickey shirt like that too; in fact I’ve only ever owned two Mickey Mouse t-shirts, one like that, and one with Mickey, Donald and Goofy in the famous “Spirt of ’76” pose for the Bicentennial. Both are long gone.
Chuck, interesting, I didn’t really notice the drumheads. There was a time when I should have bought one, before the prices went nuclear. I hope Steve DeGaetano checks in! Like you, I outgrew both of my Mickey shirts, and kept them in my shirt drawer for many years, until finally parting with them.
Mike Cozart, thank you for all the information about the drumheads, I’ve never seen anybody really write about those before! I certainly did not know that they had different color versions for the different coach sets, that’s an interesting detail. I forget, was the Circus Fantasy in the 1980s? If so I’m surprised they would have gone to the trouble of making special drumheads for the event at that point. A collector friend of mine has one of the original Santa Fe drumheads, and every time I see it, I wish it belonged to me!
JG, some people went MAD when they saw Mickey’s floating floral head. “Where’s the wall? WHERE’S THE WALL??”. Then they’d be dragged off in straightjackets. It’s sad. I assume that the suede-like fabric was what my mom called “ultrasuede”, it really did feel and look like actual suede. Let’s all say “suede” again! The girl with the Mickey shirt is definitely a cutie. The only thing I can think of that might have inspired the Mickey floral portrait is the floral clock at Tivoli in Denmark.
Well, the VFA goes to young Chuck, of course. You don't often see such good taste in a gentleman of such tender years. Second place for the lady in the babushka and embroidered-trim coat.
Mike, thanks for all of that info. The logos on today’s photos say “Santa Fe and Disneyland,” which would have only been accurate through the end of 1974. Was this design adapted to just say “Disneyland Railroad“ beginning in 1975?
JG & Major, with all of this discussion about the go-away green wall and the floating Mickey head, I will now and forevermore think of this as the “Cheshire Mickey” phase of the entrance plaza. Which just goes to show you…we’re all mad here.
Melissa, thank you! I never dreamed I would win a VFA (pronounced “viffa,” also known as the “Vintie”)! And I just realized the photo shows me wearing a t-shirt under my Mickey t-shirt. Stylin!
The floral Mickey: part of an original design: but who’s? I remember watching a 3 stooges movie with them flying around in some war plane: shooting (not on purpose) as the plane ran amok through the US. It showed them careening towards the floral Mickey with the stooges saying “NO NO NO!” as to not blow up Disneyland. What movie was that? I was a tiny kid at the time. I don’t normally like the stooges…I think there are those who can tolerate, and those who cannot. I cannot. Ironically, I did a TV show “Salute to the 3 Stooges” later in life. I worked with a bunch of friends and we had an on camera pie fight. I never saw it: but someone had told me I was a big hit in that scene. No pun intended. On my Disneyland botanical rabbit hole tour I went down this morning, I was dismayed to find out that one of the Evans brothers had a massive heart attack a few weeks after the Park opened, then died a few years later. I also discovered that Ruth Shelhorn was the one responsible for picking out the varieties of flowers for Mickey. In this photo you can see heaps of Allysum, marigolds, turf: and a concrete Mickey. I’ve told the story of the annual photo with the variety of employees standing around Mickey. We all stood in the outskirts so Mickey’s face was clean and clear. That guest is giving off major Sally Field vibes, and the ringer T is awesome. Mickey T’s will always be in fashion. Who doesn’t like Mickey Mouse? I am a huge ringer T fan, however: my Mickey shirt: which I wore from 1978 to 1999, became nothing more than a rag. it was yellow, and my favorite shirt ever. With a Mickey on the front: 30’s style with “Mickey Mouse” in block 30’s style lettering, and the back was Mickey and the lettering: but a view from BEHIND mickey, with the lettering also viewed from behind. It was black and red screened, so it had to go through 4 printings. Maybe I saved this shirt somewhere (?). Thanks Major for the snoozles (tm).
Chuck : I have some blueprints ( stored at my mom’s house) that are for each of the DL RR stations … for the removal of the Santa Fe logos and signage and replacements with the “new” Disneyland Railroad signs and graphics …. They are all stamped with “installed on” and the date. I’ll have to look at them as I cannot recall … but that would give us an official date. I know the trains and locomotives were changed over a period of time … so it’s very possible a photo might show a Santa Fe lettered train after the official Santa Fe departure date.
I’ve noticed over the years that sometimes Disneyland is very quick to remove any possible sponsorship identification RIGHT AWAY …and everything and anything with the sponsor GONE!!! like with the departure of Kodak … but sometimes there doesn’t seem to be a rush … and you’ll find examples of the old sponsor for a short time still lingering around .
I think it all depends on how pissed off The Disney Company is about the sponsorship’s departure lol.
Speaking of KODAK …. For years the Kodak company boasted photograph statistics and for many decades claimed that the most photographed things on EARTH was the floral mickeys at Disneyland and Walt Disney World!!!
And then Mark Twain once said : “every bit of that story is EXACTLY the way it happened: give it take a few lies”
And Al Jolson always said : “ he never met a man he didn’t like : EXCEPT Will Rogers!”
Melissa, now Chuck is one of those people who always wears a 3-piece suit, even at the beach.
Chuck, it makes me sad to think that these photos show the very last days of Santa Fe’s sponsorship of the Disneyland RR. “Cheshire Mickey”, that’s a great idea! At night his teeth should glow. Irradiated flowers, I don’t know, leave me alone! Everyone loves radiation and wants more of it in their lives.
Bu, in the 1930s, Mickey Mouse cartoons opened with a title card showing Mickey’s smiling face, clearly the inspiration for this particular portrait. Weird about the Stooges trying to not crash into Disneyland, I see that they had three movies in 1958 that were space-related, perhaps it was one of those. Or maybe it was the later “Three Stooges in Orbit”. I kind of liked them when I was a kid, though I think I preferred the Our Gang comedies. And cartoons! Pie fights, somehow those became a beloved thing for decades. Not sure why. Even the Brady Bunch did one. I have at least two photos of you (that you gave to me) of you as a young man, wearing your yellow Mickey t-shirt! We will see those on this blog - unless you insist that I never show them.
Mike Cozart, It sure seems like Disney was mad when TWA pulled its sponsorship of the Rocket To the Moon attraction, they even painted out the TWA logo on the attraction posters. “TWA is dead to us!”. You hinted at the fact that Kodak’s story might have been just that - a story - I have no idea how Kodak could know that the “most photographed things on Earth” were the floral Mickeys. More than the castles? More than the Mark Twain? People often too multiple photos of those things. I feel like my collection has way more photos of the Twain and the Castle than the floral portrait. I need a full investigation! ;-)
BU: The movie you're recalling is "THE THREE STOOGES IN ORBIT", released in 1962. The boys work for an inventor developing a cross between a helicopter, submarine, and tank, equipped with a ray gun. Aliens who look like cartoon Frankensteins hijack this revolutionary vehicle, but our heroes cling to the outside and prevent the would-be invaders from targeting vital Earth landmarks, including Disneyland. It looks like they simply superimposed the Stooges and the aircraft over stock footage, so they didn't need Walt's cooperation and perhaps not even his permission.
Not to be confused with "Have Rocket, Will Travel", in which the Stooges are accidentally launched to another planet.
All the Stooge movies are low-level kiddie matinee or rainy Sunday fodder, but there's mild boomer amusement to be found in the later ones: "... Meet Hercules", "... Go Around the World in a Daze", and "The Outlaws is Coming" (featuring hosts of local Stooge TV shows, along with pre-Batman Adam West and pre-Laugh-In Henry Gibson).
"Snow White and the Three Stooges" is a decided oddity, a would-be A produced in color:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6mZAJo84jE
I took a pie in the face once, in a comedy sketch. It was great fun.
Chuck, thanks for sharing your family photo!
Post a Comment