Further Tales from David M.

Former cast member David M. gave me MORE great stories to share from his days at Disneyland. Enjoy!

Tales from the Park

One time, my supervisor called me from my duties on Tom Sawyer Island to help supervise the Main Street Parade. He told me that my one duty was to keep people from climbing onto the raised flower beds near the entrance to Tomorrowland in order to get a better view of the parade. So, in my Cavalry Trooper uniform, I stood at my assigned station and soon, sure enough, a woman had climbed onto the flower bed and was trampling the petunias. I politely asked that she step down whereupon she replied that she couldn’t see the parade from street-level. I told her that nonetheless, she was killing our flowers and she had to step down. She replied, “You son of a bitch.” I said, “Yes, ma’am, that may well be, but you still have to get down from that flower bed.” She complied, and another guest who had watched the whole thing, said, “Buddy, well done – but I wouldn’t want your job.”

 A few weeks later, my supervisor again called me off the Island with an unusual duty. It seems that someone in Entertainment thought it would be fun to have The Big Bad Wolf (who wore loud and intimidating cleats on his shoes) march the Three Little Pigs though the park. The Pigs would be in front with the Wolf following – and with a big club slung over his shoulder. The problem was that little kids hated the wolf and they would come up behind him and kick him in his tail and legs, which of course could be painful. My job was, in my Cavalry Trooper uniform, to follow closely behind the Wolf and protect him from the mean kids.

 And speaking of the Three Little Pigs: girls in the know always stayed away from them. Why? Well, because the Pig costumes were made in such a way that the body and the head of the Pig’s ended at the shoulders of the actor inside, with the actor’s head above & inside the Pig’s hat with the hat made of a black gauze material so he could see out. The Pigs all had the job of merrily wandering the Park (at least when the Wolf was not herding them) and happily bouncing into guests. Well, few people knew that the Pig’s nose was as flexible and soft and the actor inside could put his hand inside, almost as if inside a glove and the nose thus became an appendage. This resulted in many a female guest’s being bumped into and providing the actor inside the Pig costume with the proverbial “free feel.”

I also heard from fellow staff who supervised Monsanto’s Ride Through Inner Space in Tomorrowland that when viewing the attraction through unseen slits in the set, that they would see some pretty heavy make-out sessions between the start and the end of the ride through the attraction.

See more vintage and contemporary Disneyland photos at my main website.

Dave Metz Remembers

Thanks to former cast member David M. (Cavalry Trooper, Tom Sawyer Island, 1970-71) for sharing his memories:

I got out of the Army in 1970, but was not ready to start a career and decided to take a year off to do absolutely nothing gainful – and the best place for that was in Southern California. I called my fellow First Lieutenant roommate (Bob Romoser) with whom I had served in Germany, suggested that we go to Guaymas, Mexico and then drive PCH up California to the Bay Area, then return to Orange County where I “would get us jobs at Disneyland.” He was skeptical, but rising to the moment I called the personnel director at the Magic Kingdom (Chuck Shields) and told him that two ex-lieutenants wanted to work for him – and we’d do anything Disneyland wanted, to include “cleaning up after the Clydesdales on Main Street.” He sent us the applications and said to come see him when we arrived in Orange County. We got to the area, secured housing at the Huntington Capri Singles Apartments in Huntington Beach, drove up Harbor Blvd., met the personnel director and were hired. Bob ended up working in Tomorrowland in that funky uniform with white spats (see below), but I was assigned to Tom Sawyer Island in Frontierland – and I have to say that working on The Island was fabulous – with a main job of keeping people from trying to cross the Pontoon Bridge the wrong way and possibly falling off, and keeping kids from smoking grass in Injun Joe’s Cave. I also was asked to pose with guests for their Instamatic photos. My favorite duty was to occasionally make a tour of the area around The Burning Cabin to ensure that kids had not managed to get through the fence to the back lot.

While in the area, I also had some (quite unauthorized) fun. I would stand totally still in my cavalry officer’s costume as if I has just arrived on the scene of the massacre, and would await the passage of the Mark Twain or the Columbia which would always have kids hanging over the rails watching the Burning Cabin.

I would wait until only one kid was watching and I would – just like a Disney Audio-Animatronic figure – turn, look right at him, waive and grin. The kid would always tug at a friend or his parent and say “Look at the cavalry guy!” But when that happened I would freeze until the friend or parent looked away, whereupon I would again have some fun by again acting the role. Of course, I had to be careful doing kind of thing or I would have been chewed out by a supervisor. But someplace out there, there are people that remember the cavalry trooper who grinned and waived at just them – and no one else.

David was also kind enough to share a number of non-Burning Cabin photos below, such as the ones showing him doing Tomorrowland Duty (with the funky spats) to supervise the dance floor (The Sound Castle was the band):

David also let me know that the New Orleans Square One Of A Kind shop was a favorite of his. When he told me that, I knew he was legit! Below, you can see a treasured print that David bought there of the famed dancer Nijinksy by George Barbier in 1913. He found it in The One of a Kind Shop in 1970, paid about $15 for it (less the employee 10% discount, of course), and it’s followed him around for 50 years. How it looked in his 1971 apartment:

An image I found of the original Barbier print:

Many thanks to David M. for sharing all of his stories and images!

See more Disneyland Burning Cabin photos at my main website.

Disneyland Cast Members, 1982

When I clean around my scanner, sometimes I uncover treasures like this batch of previously unscanned/posted shots showing Disneyland cast members from 1982. The first three images show cast members from Space Mountain.



Note the Starcade sign on the right:



Moving over to the PeopleMover, this particular cast member rated TWO photos!





Looks like this cast member's badge fell off:



A closeup:



Could this guy’s hair be any more perfect?



Last one for today was a scan from a mystery black and white negative. I have no idea who these people are or where it was shot. It was just sitting next to my scanner. Anybody know?



See more vintage and contemporary Disneyland photos at my main website.

Monorail Monday

 

I rarely look for "new" vintage Disneyland shots anymore; I guess I have become jaded. However, this undated photo from 1960s Disneyland was love at first sight. The cast member standing near the bubble of the Red Monorail. Wow! I can only guess that since there are no guests in sight, either they had all just exited the Monorail or it was a very light day!

   

 See more Disneyland Monorail photos at my main website.

Uncle Grumpy Remembers

Recently, I was contacted by the niece of a former Disneyland employee who found a vintage photo of her Uncle on my website. She was kind enough to interview her Uncle about his years there and share the information with me. This is the kind of stuff I love! One of these images contains Uncle "Grumpy" (not saying which one for purposes of anonymity!) and the rest are appropriate to the period that he worked at the Park.

Grumpy, my uncle, worked at Disneyland from 1959-1961. It was back in the day when it was mostly college kids working there. They had a lot of fun joking around with guests or hiding out on an attraction waiting to scare them...all in good fun of course! Grumpy’s Disneyland employment started with a friendship with a girl who already worked there. She arranged for him to meet her uncle who was a supervisor there. He met her uncle who interviewed him and then walked him over to the personnel department. He was interviewed by a few more people, then hired two weeks prior to the opening of the Submarine, Monorail, and Matterhorn rides in June 1959. His first job at the Park was as a driver on the Submarine Voyage. At the time the attraction opened, some local laws in Anaheim had to be changed to allow underwater vessels to operate inside city limits. With eight submarines, Walt Disney was the commander of the world's eighth largest submarine fleet.



There was a lot of excitement at the time with a movie being filmed to promote Disneyland. They were also testing the new attractions and preparing for the arrival of Vice President Nixon and his family for the dedication ceremony. Grumpy didn't get to see Vice President Nixon but he saw Walt Disney in the park many times. Walt was there during the testing for the new attractions and was spotted up by the loading area for the Monorail, looking down at the Submarine Voyage. One of the supervisors walked up to my uncle and told him that he had been promoted by Walt Disney to be a Monorail driver. It was quite an honor! Walt Disney and his family made the choices for all of the transportation rides, and Walt only had certain people that he wanted for these positions.



In the beginning the Submarine lagoon had live mermaids that swam around the subs, and they would also sunbathe on the rocks. It eventually became a problem when young men started jumping into the water and swam out to meet the mermaids! The girls practiced swimming in the Disneyland Hotel pool but soon realized that the chlorine was changing the color of their hair. There were also costume malfunctions; Grumpy recalled one instance when one of the girl's shell bras came off and she was sitting on the rocks yelling for someone to bring her a towel! They had him row out to her in a little boat and save the day. Disney eventually decided not to use "real" mermaids and they became part of Disneyland history.

Most cast members do not stay in one place; they get scheduled to work in many areas throughout the park. Grumpy also worked on the Monorail and the Matterhorn. These attractions (Submarine, Matterhorn, and Monorail) were the reason for Disney adding the "E" ticket to their ticket books. My uncle worked all three rides (and a few others) during his time at Disneyland. When he wasn't working, he would call his friend Bill and some of their buddies to go have fun at Disneyland. His favorite attractions were the Jungle Cruise, Matterhorn, and the Submarines. The park was especially fun at nite with all of the lights, and the lines for the rides weren't as long. He didn't really have a favorite place to eat since they were young and broke! But he has always liked to stop by the Carnation Ice Cream Parlour.



While driving the Monorail one day, a group of guests insisted on sitting in the back of the Monorail. Grumpy explained to them that it's winter and the windows in the back of the Monorail will fog up. The guests had heard that you have the best views in the back, and that's where they demanded to sit. When the Monorail came to a stop, the guests were pounding on the windows and yelling to get out. The windows had completely fogged up and they couldn't see a thing!



Since he worked on the Matterhorn, I asked if Grumpy saw a basketball court up in the top of the attraction. He did not recall it being there at that time. Occasionally there were technical difficulties on the Matterhorn. One day one of the bobsleds was stuck on the track, so Grumpy and an electrician ran up the stairs inside the Matterhorn. They reached the disabled bobsled and the electrician released it, but Grumpy didn't have time to get out of the way. He was okay but a little banged up. Disney scheduled him to work in Town Square over on Main Street for a while until he felt better. They had him dress up as President Lincoln and talk with guests. He saw a mother and her son walking toward him and decided to freeze like a statue. The little boy asked his mother if he was real, and the mother replied yes. Despite this, the little boy said he was a fake. She told her son to touch him and find out. The little boy hesitantly reached out with his finger and poked him. Grumpy yelled "Boo!" and the little boy took off running down Main Street. The mother looked at Grumpy and said, "I told him so!"



A painter was hired once to touch up some paint on the guns at the Shooting Gallery in Frontierland. All of a sudden the painter ran out screaming. When asked what was wrong, the painter turned around to reveal a dart in his backside. It turned out that a little boy had a dart gun and shot him in the rear!



Grumpy was also a Skipper on the Jungle Cruise. One day some guests ran up to him claiming that the natives in the jungle were real! No, he told them; they're mannequins that move. Just in case, Grumpy decided to check it out for himself. He and his supervisor walked back through the jungle to find some college kids that had hopped the fence and were dancing around with the Native Indian mannequins. Interesting fact: the water in the Jungle Cruise is dyed brown so that it looks real and you can't see the bottom, which is only 3’ deep. Walt had originally wanted real hippos and elephants on the attraction.

Disneyland still has a special place in Grumpy's heart. It is there where he can still be a kid and his memories will live forever.

MANY thanks to Uncle Grumpy and his niece for sharing these amazing stories!

See more Disneyland photos at my main website.

A Tale of Two Stations

Because it had already moved to the other side of the tracks by the time I started going to Disneyland, I was never able to step foot inside the original Frontierland Depot. Vintage pictures make me yearn for that ability even more! This December 1959 shot gives me the ability to see some of the cool details like the hardware on this door:



The conductors and their hats:



This previously posted vintage 1955 shot of the front of the station…



supports what I was recently told (but never realized) about how the Frontierland Depot inspired the design of the Toontown Depot:



Who knew? Probably some of you smart readers. Just not me.

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