Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Entrance to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea Attraction

This is one of the attractions I never got to see and have always wanted to explore further. The E Ticket magazine many, many years ago had a wonderful article with the best maps and images of the ride. The author was obssessed with the ride and took images of the ride every time he went to Disneyland whent he ride was open. In addition, he recreated the Nautilus interior in his apartment. It was one of the best documentations of any ride or attraction I have seen. The images are from the end of the attractions run in 1966. In less than 6 months, the site would become a construction site and this attraction was gone. The two signs below show the attention to detail at the time. The admission sign is on a steel deck with rivets mimicing the outer skin of the Nautilus. And the polish on the wooden door and entrance sign would do any Navy sailor proud.

8 comments:

Major Pepperidge said...

Whoo hoo! I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to see a color photo of the exterior of this attraction! I've seen maybe one black and white. This is AWESOME. Love the use of draped fabric above.

Thanks, Matterhorn!!

Anonymous said...

Hey Patrick-

I remember seeing that photo years ago of the interior of the Nautilus themed apartment. It was pretty amazing. Where was that photo (a old issue of Disney News?). Do you have a copy of it?

ZuluMagoo

Kevin Kidney said...

Patrick! You are killing me with these incredible pictures. Good show!
-Kevin

Anonymous said...

This was a walk-through exhibit with tableaux of scenes from the movie. As I recall, the only motion in the attraction were the giant squids tentacles as he attacked the Nautilus.

Anonymous said...

It was the actual sets from the movie. Yes, the squids tentacles moved, and the opening into the nuclear reactor open and closed. The bright light of the nuclear reaction was simply the Sun, as the opening was a small window.

I LOVED this exhibit as a kid, because it was my favorite movie, and, like Tom Sawyer's Island, you could stay inside it as long as you wanted, and go back and forth through it's circular pathway. I would spend HOURS in tehre, pretending I was Captain Nemo. Now Star Tours occupies that spot. All that renains of it is Captain Nemo's pipe organ, which is in the Haunted Mansion.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, and the squid's beak opened and closed.

Also they had the deck set viewed through a portal as "The Final Resting Place of the Nautilus". And they had the 11 foot Nautilus model on display, and the major Peter Ellenshaw matte paintings - THE actual paintings on glass - of the island and the harbor.

It was extremely cool.

Anonymous said...

They also had the actual dive suits. I remember the space man used to stand real still in the dive suit chamber, in the shadows, until a cute girl would walk by. Then, he would jump out at them. Lots of screaming, and sometime some phone numbers exchanged.

Anonymous said...

Seeing this exhibit was one of my earliest Disneyland memories. Only saw it once, the next time we went, it was gone. I guess that brackets the date of the first trip i remember.

thanks for all the data, esp. the destination of the organ.

great movie.