A Horse With a Hat, 1950s
At some point, the horses that from the Horse Drawn Streetcars were fitted with hats. I'd like to think that the hats might have provided a teensy bit of relief on hot days, but... I doubt it was very much. In the 1946 film "Make Mine Music", there was a segment titled, "Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet", in which two hats fall in love. After being separated, they are reunited on the heads of two horses. I assume that hat-wearing horses was an actual thing, but perhaps their use was also a callback to that film.
Dang, it looks good! I told Walt that the horses should wear Chuck Taylor high-tops too, but he coughed and pretended that he had to call Fred MacMurray.
4 comments:
Major-
"Dang, it looks good!"
I couldn't agree more-! Tomorrow I'm cutting-out ear holes in ALL of my hats. Man, I'll be stylin' then-!
Thanks, Major.
What the world needs right now is more horses wearing hats. Think how much more pleasant things would be! Do the Main Street horses still wear hats today? This horse's dark coat would make him extra hot on summer days. Maybe they use the light colored horses on hot days?
The horse in the second photo looks especially nice with his hat. "Fred MacMurray"? The inventer of Flubber? Heck yeah! They could iron the Flubber to the soles of the horses' Chuck Taylors and they'd be bouncing all over Main Street!... And on top of the Matterhorn! Walt really missed a bet by not following your advice, Major.
Quite a theme, Major. Not just "horses" and "hats", but "horses wearing hats"! Thanks.
I suspect that Horsecar conductors must have placed hats on the horses at some point in time - but likely in the Horsecars twilight years and on smaller town lines. But it seems horses pulling ice wagons , farm carts , and streetcars was a common sight in American musicals and period based films. Animators must have seen or remembered this at some point.
City street railways were serious business at one time and I doubt this would have been allowed in the Horsecar heyday. I have dozens of books with historical information on horse drawn fleet wagons and streetcars and can see no hats on these horses …but I do see plumes on the horses heads pulling hearses , sleighs , Brougham’s, Victoria’s, and other fancy carriages. Large city freight wagons were often required to have collar bells on horse teams. But a hat in a streetcar horse feels appropriate at Disneyland - very old timey - charming …. Despite it would impede the horse’s ability to shoo flies away with their ears.
The last time I tried to wear a hat and Chuck Taylors at Disneyland I was arrested. I suppose I probably should have worn a few more articles of clothing…
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