May 18, 1958

It may not be a significant day to you, but for this group of guests, it sure was a day of fun and smiles. In shot #1, this guest is so awed to be standing in front of Walt's personal Autopia car that he takes his hat off in respect. In the background, you can see the entrance to the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea movie prop exhibit.

In shot #2, she doesn't give a hoot about cars and motors; she just wants to show off the still very young landscaping.



Over at the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship, you can almost reach out and grab this man’s guide book!



Last stop for today is one of the teepees in the Indian Village with Fort Wilderness in the background:



See more Disneyland photos at my regular website.

Sailing Through Sundays on The JC: Suwanee Lady, August 1956

This dock shot of the Suwanee Lady is from August 1956. Looks like the one lady is going to have to talk her friend into braving this trip! See more Disneyland Jungle Cruise photos at my website.

Scholarly Saturdays: Encyclopaedia Britannica & Frontierland, Pt. 5

Hard to believe but at one time, Fort Wilderness was an attraction itself as opposed to the restroom stop that it has morphed into today. Here Bobby & Susie enter this former world of Frontierland fun.



This is right up Bobby's alley! Not so much Susie's.



I hope Bobby isn't aiming at these guests here on the Indian canoe!



We close with a shot of the beloved Keelboat:



Only one more post to go for Frontierland! See more Disneyland Fort Wilderness photos at my regular website.

Freaky Fridays @ The Haunted Mansion: The Attic

After the birthday banquet, your Doombuggy rounds the corner and comes across the revamped attic, showing various portraits of the Bride with her husbands, who intermittently lose their heads over her. Although the special effect is neat, there’s something jarring about these photos and the new “improved” bride; they just don’t seem to fit in with the rest of the mansion and its tone.

For you Old School fanatics, here’s a vintage undated shot; popup ghost barely visible on far left.



Here is the first wedding portrait you see as you enter the recently revised attic area.





And without the head:



Fading fast:





This Bridal Portrait is from 1874 and shows The Marquis & Constance.



From 1875 we have Reginald & Constance; one year between marriages is not a lot of time to plan for the ceremony.







Be sure to notice the ghostly apparition making music to the right of Reginald:



Another Bridal Portrait, from 1877, shows George & Constance.





The attic bride “then” (2002) versus now, in the 2.0 version:







Frankly, neither one of them really excites me. If you're going to put a haunted bride in, something more comic in the Marc Davis style would seem to fit better. All of the characters in the mansion bear the Marc Davis magic and style stamp, with the exception being the Leota heads; for some reason, those both work for me. However, the bride just seems to break the wall and come out of nowhere like she doesn’t really belong with the other elements. An animated face rather than the face of a real person would probably be more effective for me. Same thing on the fading bridal portraits; the entire attic section seems like an "add-on"; which is also how I feel about the Jack Sparrow treasure room at the end of Pirates, which is a shame as the rest of the added figures and effects are seamless.





Before closing this post, here are a few 2002 attic photos (pre-Constance) from the Ambiguous Confabulation collection:







See more Disneyland Haunted Mansion photos on my website.

Travel, Snow, and The Circus

I will admit that my blog has been less than stellar lately; actually, I was in Philadelphia for the last week, visiting family and getting a reminder of why I no longer live on the east coast or the midwest. SNOW! Yup...and a ton of it. As you can see from the first 3 shots, taken from my plane on an early sunny morning in San Diego, everything started out just ducky.





And then I landed in Dallas for my layover. Nothing but white for miles. It was a mess. Fortunately, I was on one of the last planes to leave Dallas before the airport shut down. It was a nailbiter as I felt the wheels skipping on the runway during takeoff, but I made it safely to Philadelphia, and got to watch the de-icing process to boot!



In Philly, I was pretty much on house arrest due to the weather, but still managed to snap a few photos.







You folks aren't here for my travel shots though, so let's get back to the show...or more specifically, the circus. Recently, I bid on a number of negatives that were labeled 1955 Gil Gray Disneyland Circus. I’ve read that Gil Gray’s Circus was involved at Disneyland, but whether it was during the Mickey Mouse Club era or after is unknown to me. Maybe one of the historians out there can fill in the gaps for us. My guess is that it must be during the MMC period since it appears by the bunting on the lightpoles that it could be Christmas time. Unfortunately, one of the better negatives got away from me, but here's a low-rez version of what was advertised. If I were a betting man, I'd guess that the man on the left in the dark uniform is Disneyland Band Conductor Vesey Walker.



And here are the 3 shots that I was able to acquire. Looks like this truck was about to unload its contents. Detail shot included for all the Gladys Kravitz's out there.







The clown on the truck looks similar to the clown featured in this color photo from December 26, 1955.



And a shot of the Calliope going through what is now the Tinker Bell meet-and-greet area.



Chances are the Gil Gray troupe handled the circus part and the Mickey Mouse Club was added for branding. That's my theory! See more Disneyland Mickey Mouse Club Circus photos at my regular website.

San Diego to Dallas to Philly, Pt. 1

Last Thursday I went to the San Diego airport at the crack of dawn, ready to fly home to Philly for my annual trip home to visit mom. Mother Nature had other ideas. A few early morning shots from the plane show the gorgeous sunrise over downtown San Diego and the perfectly picturesque cloud formations that I was able to capture through the window.







Flash forward a few hours later and you have these horrible shots of Dallas Forth Worth’s airport: talk about winter white! Fearing I might get stuck overnight in Dallas, it was a nailbiter as I sat on the plane for a few hours waiting for us to be cleared.



Once the plane got "de-iced" (which is a rather unsettling process!), I knew we’d be cleared for takeoff shortly. Feeling the wheels spin on the runway, I was saying my prayers!





Once I made it home, all was okay. The icicles and snow made for some beautiful photos, and the warm red of a male cardinal added some pizzazz!







See more Philadelphia photos at my website.