Chicken of the Sea, July 1955

From July 16, 1955 (one day before opening), the Chicken of the Sea "dignitaries" were picked up in grand style at the LAX airport by a customized car. How’s that for fancy?!? In shot #2, I really like this "artsy" silhouette shot of the ship, showing the COTS Maiden herself.



For Rich at I Can Has Pixie Dust (site no longer online), here’s some closeups of KAP; I zoomed in on the eye though, and it doesn’t look like KAP inside of it:





For George, here’s the closeup of the Mickey sign, which unfortunately is still unreadable when zoomed in on:



See more Disneyland Chicken of the Sea restaurant photos at my website.

Early Tomorrowland Exhibits: Kaiser Aluminum

Let’s start out the new year with the bright & shiny Kaiser Aluminum Exhibit. Guests saw this 40' polished aluminum telescope at the entrance. Naturally, the pen for the guest book was made out of aluminum. The mascot of this exhibit was KAP, the Kaiser Aluminum Pig, which is a reference to pig aluminum (the unmilled rough form of aluminum). The exhibit bemoaned the past without aluminum and extolled the virtues of the future (space suits and more), thanks to aluminum. In this next photo, you can see KAP on the right-hand side.

I believe that the K-7 on this man's spacesuit refer's to Kaiser...experts feel free to chime in on that one.

In the excellent book Disneyland the Nickel Tour, the authors tell that Kaiser Aluminum wanted out of Disneyland almost 3 years before their 5 year contract had expired because they felt that the Disneyland TV show had competing sponsors on it. With some persuasion from Walt, this exhibit stayed on until July 1960. Happy New Year to everyone - what a year it has been. This blog and my regular website have opened up so many opportunities for me; many thanks to the readers and co-bloggers who make it all worth it. See you back here in ’09! More Disneyland Tomorrowland photos at my website.