I have somewhat scary memories of the Tomorrowland Skyway station, where the buckets continually moved. That’s right...even when you were entering exiting the buckets, they kept moving. Somehow...it worked. Today, with morons who jump up and down on the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse bridge’s wooden slats to see if they will break or not...well, I’m sure some idiot would get hurt. But not back in the 1960’s. People were smarter back then! First image is a newbie, from May 1963. Image #2 (previously posted) is from July 1960:
1962:
And an oldie but goodie, also showing the original round Skyway Bucket design, circa October 1963:
See more vintage Disneyland Skyway photos at my main website.
Rides worked because people worked. Once people were broken, so were the rides.
ReplyDeleteThank God they took out everything dangerous in ToonTown so that no one would get injured in the bounce house or ball pit. Since then nothing truly violent and tragic ( and posted on YouTube ) has ever happened there.
Love that last shot. That was the kinetic frenzy of motion I suspect Walt always had in his head when he thought of Tomorrowland.
And people were more respectful of things that were built at Disneyland and more respectful of each other. Should I say they were also more concerned about letting other folks have great experiences as well? Now it seems, it is all about what is best for us before considering anyone else. I hate times when I'm on an attraction- and this is especially bad at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion- when folks feel they have to do a collective narrative and ruin it for everyone, particularly first timers. This happened at Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom recently. My extended family who had never been on the ride, could hear the reshow because too many people were loudly talking. So inconsiderate! Of course, there are exceptions to every generalization.
ReplyDeleteI think it's easy to point the finger at generational change, but there were bad eggs in every generation.
ReplyDeleteAnthony - I will agree with you that the golden nature of the past often causes us to forget that there were problems and issues that happened then, too...but...thanks to Reality TV and social media, more people tend to think only of themselves and put very little thought into how their actions might affect others. And while there are bad eggs in every generation, unfortunately it was someone from 2019 that jumped up and down on the bridge like an idiot and broke the slat.
ReplyDeleteBad eggs in every generation... So true. Remember all the 1950's and 1960's shots that show triple-wide strollers and meetups of YouTubers all running their own TV show from Disneyland? They were as annoying back then as they are now.
ReplyDeleteDave, that first picture has the "you-are-there" feeling. Really fine, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI definitely prefer yesterday's Tomorrow to the one we got today, and the people have a lot to do with it. You can see the changes in the Park required to respond.
JG
As I vividly recall, the Skyway buckets were not continuously moving as you boarded. After they entered the station, they detached from the moving cable and were pulled into position and held steady by the ride attendants for unloading. They then had to be pushed around to the load position and were steadied by another ride op while you boarded. Once you were in and seated, the door was closed and the ride op pushed your bucket into the mechanism that closed the vehicles grip around the moving cable.
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