A Pair From the 50s
Here are two random 1950s photos for ya (I saved .02 seconds typing "ya" instead of "you").
Somebody stuck some Skyway gondolas up above the Pirate Ship, but you know what? It works. If we all had Skyway gondolas, there would be no war. Think about it. This was from a very faded slide, and I meant to capture a "before" image so that you could see what a genius I am, but then I forgot. Some genius!
Next is a photo of the old Frontier Trading post, with a bit of the corral for miniature horses to the left. I'm unclear as to when the corral was removed - did the Shooting Gallery eventually go in that same spot?
Looking in the window for any fun tidbits, I can see at least one feathered headdress, what might be a buckskin dress (?), a little tepee, a photo of a cowboy at the top (is it William S. Hart?), and, strangely, a pair of Buddy Lee dolls. Buddy Lee was the mascot of the H.D. Lee Company starting in the 1920s, so I can only assume that you could buy Lee dungarees and overalls, and maybe even a denim tuxedo, inside the Trading Post.
Old Buddy Lee dolls are now popular (and expensive) collectibles, I can see why, they are pretty appealing.
2 comments:
I guess the Skyway gondolas could be lanterns hanging from the yardarms of the Pirate Ship. I don't know what's holding up the third bucket on the right. Cinderella's Castle looks awfully close here, for some reason. The Pirate Ship looks like it's going down, bow first, into the briny deep.
The photographer shoulda told those people walking in front of the Trading Post to STOP! So that there wouldn't be any motion blur. Nice lighting in both of these pics.
I don't trust Buddy Lee. He refuses to look anybody directly in the eye. If you dressed a Kewpie doll up in an engineer's outfit, you would get Buddy Lee.
"(I saved .02 seconds typing "ya" instead of "you")". Yeah, but then you LOST 7 seconds typing your explanation! You'll never get those 6.098 seconds back! :-p Thanks for the pics, Major.
Major-
"I'm unclear as to when the corral was removed - did the Shooting Gallery eventually go in that same spot?"
My sources say the Miniature Horse Corral closed [sometime] in July, 1957 - and the Frontierland Shooting Gallery opened on July 12, 1957. (I would wager the Corral closed a little bit before July, 1957, in spite of the lightning construction speed often on display at Disneyland). And as the Frontierland Shooting Gallery was located right next door to the Frontier Trading Post, it clearly occupied the space of the former Miniature Horse Corral.
Buddy Lee looks an awful lot like Engineer Bill (Bill Stulla), host of Cartoon Express, a weekday afternoon children's TV program broadcast in So. Cal. from 1955 thru 1966 on KHJ, Channel Nine. The show ran an assortment of cartoons in addition to a game called "Red Light - Green Light" where children were given glasses of milk which they would drink when the announcer said "green light" and stop drinking when he said "red light". If they finished their glass of milk before the game was over, they lost and were referred to as "gulpers". Yikes - the ultimate shame-!
Thanks, Major.
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