Fashion & Fabrics Through the Ages

Here are some scans from an uncommon flyer, in conjunction with the short-lived Tomorrowland display (sponsored by Monsanto), "Fashion and Fabrics Through the Ages" (1965 - 1966). Here's the front:

Hopefully you waited until you got home to unfold it, since it was a bit unwieldy! Here's one entire side of the flyer.

For those of you who wanted to read the text, this oughta be sufficient. The company clearly wanted you to be excited about the many possibilities offered by the latest space-age synthetic fibers and fabrics.

Examples of dresses of the past - presumably reproductions! - go all the way back to Cleopatra, the Napoleonic Era, Mary Todd Lincoln, the flappers of the 1920's, and even Hollywood glamour girl Jean Harlow.

The other side unfolded to a sort of mini-poster. What am I doing wearing this crummy cotton when I could wear comfortable, easy-to-care-for Acrilan, Nylon, and Rayon? All of the other moon people are going to laugh at me. 

The lady in the middle is about to head to Carousel, because the red crystal on her palm is flashing red. It was nice knowing you...

I hope you have enjoyed this neat piece of Disneyland ephemera!

Entering the Park, July 1972

Here are three more scans from several large lots of slides, all from the same family. They liked to go to Disneyland! 

First off... you have to take a picture of the kids in front of Mickey! The two on the right are making an effort to be cute, but the others... not so much. You can almost hear the squirming. What do you think is in that large black case hanging from the boy's shoulder? Mom's purse? A tape recorder? The glowing thing from "Pulp Fiction"? He is also holding a flyer in his left hand, see another like it at this post.

Town Square, goooolllleeey! Those kite-eating trees are flourishing despite the lack of kites. Maybe they've learned to adapt to dropped popcorn? Being '72, I would hope to see one or two hippies in the crowd, but no such luck.

I find it so interesting that these photos feel so different from earlier examples. The Horse Drawn Streetcar is the same. Town Square hasn't changed. But the clothing is certainly different, the mature foliage changes things, and I think the quality of the film also affects things.

Hey, wait a minute. What was I saying earlier... something about hippies?

THERE THEY ARE!

More Frontierland in Black and White

It's time for more photos from Frontierland (scanned from 35mm negatives), in spectacular shades of gray. It was good enough for Orson Welles, so it's good enough for me.

Everybody gets to be "King of the Mountain" for at least a few seconds if they have the gumption to climb Castle Rock. No supplemental oxygen is necessary. This interesting geological formation was probably pushed up by tectonic forces hundreds of millions of years ago. Or maybe in 1956.

Here's the peak as seen from a different angle. The kid with the souvenir trilby looks like he's auditioning to be in the Rat Pack. Hey, he already has more appeal than Peter Lawford. 

Castle Rock was such a simple feature - a winding "natural" staircase up, and another one returning to the ground. But it obviously held a lot of appeal for kids and adults.

Now we're inside Fort Wilderness; the only oasis of safety for hundreds of miles! The fort was one of the features on Tom Sawyer Island that added an air of authenticity to the Land. With Westerns being a staple on television, I'm sure that more than a few kids and adults felt as if they were stepping into one of those classic dramas.

Here's a zoom; on the upper level, you could walk into the corner stockade and point a rifle at any guest who looked like they might cause trouble. Down below you could visit the headquarters, where a waxwork Andy Jackson conferred with Davy Crockett and Georgie Russell. 

We miss you, Fort Wilderness!

I assume that The Magic Kingdom still has their fort?

So-So Sunday

The holidays have passed and we're back to the usual snoozers on Sundays. Shouldn't you be watching TV or going to church, or something like that? ;-)

So here's an odd view. Not a good view, but an odd one. I guess the photographer was mighty enraptured by those elliptical (and almost certainly ATOMIC) shade thingies, which protected guests from the harsh rays of nearby exploding stars. I've seen distant shots of the walls in Tomorrowland, and I always thought that the round decorations applied to them were half spheres, basically stuck right on the wall. Now I see that they were mounted on poles, and were more like slightly squashed spheres. The angled shadows provided some interest to what would otherwise be a big flat nothing.

Poster alert... an "Alice in Wonderland"  - the rare version with "Fantasyland" at the bottom. 

I would feel bad about posting this particular image, except that I am a sociopath and lack the ability to feel empathy for anyone about anything. It really simplifies life! Someone needs to call Huck Finn and ask him to please stop parking his raft next to the mill. That guy has no respect for the rules!

Chicago, 1954

Like the title says, today's photos are from Chicago. The Loop, to be specific. State Street, to be even more specific. 

Chicago is an amazing town, but sometimes you just need a Five and Dime like Woolworth's. If they don't have it, you don't need it! Dungarees. A tennis racquet. Perfume for mom. A skillet. Gum. Why would you ever leave? 

I love that the movie theater in the background is showing the sci-fi, giant ant classic "THEM!" ("The most startling picture ever filmed).

This next one (slightly marred by a light leak on the right) shows the famous Chicago Theater reflected in the window to our left, while the famous Woods Theater (see it again HERE!) is in the background, showing "The Student Prince", starring the lovely Ann Blyth (rawr!) and scintillating Edmund Perdom (who?).

Just for fun, here's a vintage postcard showing the same general area, perhaps a decade or so after the slides were snapped.

Adventure Thru Inner Space

I have far too few photos from "Adventure Thru Inner Space", one of my all-time favorite attractions.  My theory is that people were so apprehensive about being shrinkified that they weren't even thinking about their cameras. The thing that fascinates me most is how abstract (and sometimes very minimal) the scenes were; this required the use of your 'magination! It hurt to use my brain that much, but it was worth it. The soundtrack was also amazing, with ominous orchestrations, the tinny sounds of technicians frantically trying to keep you "on visual", and Paul Frees' dramatic narration.

As you can see, guests wait in a switchback queue (as usual), approaching the area where they would hop onto the blue Atomobile. The Mighty Miscroscope looks like it was designed by Jonny Ive (of Apple fame). Picture boxes in the queue gave you something to look at while waiting, in case the Peoplemover vehicles and shrunken Atomobiles (in the clear tube to our right) were too boring for you.

After surviving your journey thru INNER SPACE, you walked through a display of the many ways in which Monsanto products improved your daily lives. Sadly, this slide is too dark to really see what the displays looked like (curse you, GAF film!) but sometimes we must take what we are given.

Tile Mural, Tomorrowland

Here are more snapshots, taken by the brother of GDB reader Irene! They are undated, though I would wager that they are from sometime in the mid-1990's. They feature one of the famous Mary Blair tile murals.

It is the north mural, which was affixed to the CircleVision 360 building. The south mural, on the Adventure Thru Inner Space building, had been covered over with a Star Tours painted mural in 1986.

The north mural survived another 10 years, until the 1998 New Tomorrowland project, which was everybody's favorite thing ever.

The mural was covered over with a painting that included tributes to past Tomorrowland attractions. That lasted until 2005, when Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters moved into the building, and a new space-themed mural was added.

Just for fun, I wondered if all of those snapshots could be stitched together in Photoshop. It turns out they could!

Thank you to Irene and her brother!

Special Guest Post - Disneyland, July 1982

Today I have six photos from Disneyland, circa 1982, shared by GDB reader Warren Nielsen. These pictures feature his wife (Kyle, or "Kai") and children. Here's Warren:

These pics are from July 1982. We were visiting her (Kai's) folks who lived in Glendale at the time. Yes, a trip to DL in July can be a welcome stress reliever.

A Favorite Place 2 (Warren's title for this photo) is the Grotto with Kai and our 2 boys. Erik, the oldest, is about 2 1/2 and Bjorn is 9 months or so.

Here's a better look at the Grotto itself, with waterfalls splashing and statues... er... statue-ing.

Disneyland Erik and Steve 4 (again, Warren's title for this next picture) is actually the first pic in the series. We got on the horse drawn streetcar and Steve, the driver, immediately had    Erik stand (yes stand!) next to him as we made our way down Main Street, and he then proceeded to introduce Erik to his steed.

Steve was absolutely the nicest guy. It really floored us a little on how smooth he was dealing with kids and crowds. Very neat.

There are two more with Steve, who sounds like an exceptional CM. I wonder where he is today? Write in, Steve!

And here's one final shot of Steve patiently showing Erik the gentle horse that pulled the Streetcar. His head is bigger than Erik!

Many thanks to Warren Nielsen for sharing these family photos! He's sent a lot more (including more from Walt Disney World), so stay tuned for those.

Around the River, The Magic Kingdom, November 1971

Gosh, I have been going through some boxes, and I have more WDW slides than I originally thought. They're not all great, but perhaps I should start going a little heavier on the Disney World stuff. In the mean time, here are three beauties from Mr. X, from the earliest days of The Magic Kingdom, and all relating to the "Rivers of America". It's nice to have a theme.

This first image shows a view looking across the river, with the buildings of Frontierland in the distance. I don't really recognize any of the structures, but I'm sure many of you do. For instance, what's that thing with the tower, slightly right of center? Anyhoo, Tom Sawyer Island is close to us, but you can't go there yet... it won't open until May of 1973. 

I think this is a pretty neat picture of the "Admiral Joe Fowler" (the boat, not the actual Admiral). From the looks of things, guests would board from that upper level, and de-plane from the lower level. Watch your heads... buh-bye. In the distance, to the right, we can see Adventureland's "Tropical Serenade" building. In the extreme foreground to our right is the prow of the Gullywhumper Keelboat, while the Bertha Mae is docked to our left.

Next is this familiar little tableau, on Tom Sawyer Island - the hideout of the notorious river pirates! I seem to recall being told that the sounds of talking and singing could be heard coming from the cave, and that there was some sort of projection effect at night - firelight? The dappled effect from a disco ball? I don't remember. But I do love that so much could be evoked from some static set pieces, a few sound effects, and some lighting.

Happy 2018

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat, it's 2018!

Happy New Year, everybody. Let's hope this one's a pip! I wanted to post some nice photos specific to January 1st, but they are lost in the depths of my vast subterranean archives. So... it's basically business as usual. Hopefully that's OK. I'm using up the last two scans from a batch of slides from February, 1961.

There's that crazy Moonliner. People forget that in the 1950's, nearly everyone had a moon rocket, so that they could evacuate the planet when the nuclear wars started. After a few weeks of travel, they could land on a habitable asteroid and start anew. Happened all the time. 

One small detail I'd like to point out is the patterned yellow and white construction wall to the right of the rocket - that's where the Flying Saucers attraction would be built soon.

Next is this backlit (i.e. too dark) photo of the Indian Village. I know that as a teen I probably would have found this area to be boring. I admit it, I was an idiot! Now I'd love to walk around and explore. Notice the green area in the middle, with a totem pole laying down - Native craftsmen actually carved these at the park for a while. Another fun detail - the large map of Tom Sawyer Island, AND the man carrying his dry cleaning (white dress shirt & trousers) just to the right of that!