65 Years Ago: Disneyland, August 1960, Pt. 3

The final installment of the August 1960 series begins with a shot of the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship restaurant. The Skull Rock tableau had not been added yet. The below shot was most likely taken from a speeding Casey Jr. car.



A cast member does a little watering at left to keep the landscaping green. Below, you can see that the canal boat is named after Walt himself!



A back view of the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship, taken from the Storybook Land attraction:



That beautiful mermaid! I wonder how many cans of tuna she sold?



Toad Hall in its original location:



How it looked in 2012 in its “new” location:



A nice closeup of Gepetto’s Village; no, that’s not the Matterhorn behind the Village. Those are miniature mountains that seamlessly blended into the 1959 attraction when it was built.



Final shot shows two little girls looking into the jaws of Monstro, wondering if anyone ever comes out alive!



See more Disneyland photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: Shirley goes to Acapulco!

In November 1966, Shirley Temple Black and her husband Charles jetted off to Mexico to attend the Acapulco Film Festival. A month earlier, Shirley had caused a furor at the San Francisco Film Festival by protesting the gratuitous nudity in the film, “Night Games.” As a result, she disassociated herself from the Festival. While some applauded her stance, it also gave the press an opportunity to present Shirley as a relic of the past. Interesting that she would choose to attend the Acapulco event just one month later. The caption for the above November 16 photo reads:

Pert Mrs. Charles Black, who is also sometimes known as Shirley Temple, dons her white gloves and prepares to take off with her husband for Mexico City and Acapulco, via Western Airlines. The Woodside couple attend the Acapulco Film Festival while south of the border.



Shirley descends the plane as she arrives in Acapulco.



Even in her adulthood, Shirley was not immune to the paparazzi!



I wonder if Shirley went Skin Diving?



A shot of Shirley and Charles at the festival itself:



She wore the exact same dress for the San Francisco one in January 1965; what would Joan Rivers and the Fashion Police have said about that?



The press headlines read “Acapulco Film Festival Has Apathetic Opening” on November 16th:

The ninth annual Acapulco review of film festivals opened last night with an apathetic viewing of the Berlin festival winner “No Time for Foxes.”…Shirley Temple was in the audience but was not introduced. Delegations from 10 nations including the United States are attending the Acapulco event, which reviews the best of other festivals but does not select a winner.

Shirley herself was one of the U.S. Delegates. In December, a color Bob Hope special that was filmed at the Festival was aired on television, featuring an all-star cast. It doesn’t appear that Shirley was part of the fun.



Shirley didn’t get a lot of press for her trip, other than the reports that she was “shocked by “immoral’ presentation” and that she was robbed:

Mrs. Shirley Temple Black today said she would not prosecute a purse-snatcher who made off with her bag containing $300 if he would return the papers in the purse. As the former child star entered Fort San Diego Thursday night to attend a function of the Acapulco Film Festival, a thief snatched her purse and disappeared into the crowd.

Anticipating that you’d want to see a shot of Fort San Diego, here is one from the which museum site:



No reports as to whether the purse was returned or not; I would guess the latter.

See more Shirley Temple Black photos at my main website.

65 Years Ago: Disneyland, August 1960, Pt. 2

Our August 1960 photographer captured the Disneyland Main Street Station along with the Kalamazoo Handcar sitting on the tracks in front. Also note the Kodak Picture Spot sign in the right foreground. Since the population reads as 18 million, these date stamped slides were most likely shot in July, since my records show that in August the population jumped to 22 million.



Regardless, I let out a yell when I saw this passenger car interior shot in the collection!



Interior shots of the passenger cars are fairly rare; here’s one from the 1950s:



And a super cool one from the early years when there used to be TWO tracks that operated at the same time!



After taking the Grand Circle Tour, our 1960 photographer ventured down Main Street, U.S.A.



Zooming in you can see the signs on the lightposts that are promoting the barely one-year old Matterhorn attraction. Behind the Omnibus is a banner proclaiming the “new” (actually upgraded!) Nature’s Wonderland attraction.



A better shot of the banner which also promotes the America the Beautiful and Art of Animation attractions in Tomorrowland:



A color shot of the banner:



The same banner hung over the entrance tunnels, too:



Back to 1960, our photographer entered Tomorrowland:



I have always loved these mod light posts which look like martini olives on toothpicks! Where can I get one?



A closeup of the Hat Bar which is visible in the previous shot:



…and the attraction poster for the Columbia ship which sailed on the Rivers of America:



Still more to come!

See more Disneyland photos at my main website.

65 Years Ago: Disneyland, August 1960, Pt. 1

The House of the Future at Disneyland has always fascinated me, because it is so UN-Disneyland! Sponsored by Monsanto, it greeted guests at the entrance to Tomorrowland, but also bordering on Fantasyland. These two images are from August 1960. I’m not sure if designers Marvin Goody and Richard Clancy intended a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, but it would certainly appear that way when you see this mini-waterfall feature underneath the home made of plastic.



The House of the Future was removed to make way for…the future, so it barely lasted ten years. Even after its removal, once could see traces of it. Below, you can see that when the area was changed to Alpine Gardens (tying it into the nearby Matterhorn), the fountains from Monsanto remained.



The signage for Alpine Gardens:



These two images are from late 1964 and show guests lounging (?) on the mod sculptures that resided outside the House of the Future.



I wonder what happened to them? The sculptures…not the guests!



To give you an idea of where the House was located, here’s a fantastic aerial view taken from the Skyway,  circa March 1965:



More gems from August 1960 to come!

See more Disneyland House of the Future photos at my main website.