Art of Animation and The Art Corner 1966

In my years of looking at photographs and collecting items, I have never seen the entrance to the Art of Animation display that was in Tomorrowland. It appears that the Animation building first in Florida and in California mimic the entrance with the curve and the painting of characters on the wall. I had also thought the exhibit was free, but the ticket sign says a B ticket (not even an A ticket!) The third image is of outside the Art Corner. If you look closely, you can see inside the store and the streets of Paris theming. I think the ladies are looking at their animation cels and thinking, hmmm should I buy more...nah, the store will still be here many years from now.

Frontierland Railroad Station 1966

Continuing to showcase images taken in 1966 by a person obsessed with signs, here are two shots of the Frontierland Railroad Station. The first shows the ticket sign (an E Ticket!) with the theming of a railroad switch lantern on top. The second shows the second Frontierland Railroad Station with the old station across the tracks. The colors and openness of the station are a little different than the current paint scheme. The detail of the Santa Fe cross is a nice touch.

Mad Tea Party Entrance 1966

The Mad Tea Party was once located more central to Fantasyland and had a bright green building with the same theming as the surrounding dark rides. Since the building once was a ticket selling location, it has many windows. To cover them up, they put the sign listing what ticket was required and to purchase your tickets from the Central ticket booth in Fantasyland.

SOP Saturday (On a Sunday)- You're Onstage at Disneyland

In the early years, the Disneyland University and Van France were trying various ways to train employees and to maintain the standards that Walt Disney was trying to achieve at his new amusement theme park. This was the training that was rolled out in the 1962 training session I posted a week ago. This SOP is pretty slick and I love the art on the pages, especially the two Frontierland costumed employees with the Monorail in the background and the driver for Casey Junior. I believe the drawings are by Charles Boyer but they are not signed.

Souvenir Friday-Sunkist Citrus House Menu Late 1970s

This is one of the few Restaurant menu signs I own. I loved the smell of the Citrus house with the lemonade and orange juice. I also like the athletic history for the employees who worked at the Citrus house. They were the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Lakers in the Disneyland recreational sports leagues during this time period. And looking at this sign makes me hungry!

Two More Casa De Fritos Plus Frontierland

Two more images from Casa De Fritos.

And two nice images of the rustic directional signs in Frontierland. I do not think I have ever seen an image of the directional sign for the Mine Train. The giant hand is very cool.

Casa De Fritos 1966

As I have said before, Casa De Fritos was one of my families favorite restaurants in Disneyland. I remember the archway specifically. Here are some nice views of the signs from 1966.

Big Game Shooting Gallery Adventureland 1966

Today I present two nice images of the now extinct Big Game Shooting Gallery in Adventureland. The location is now the shops and stores featuring plush animals from the Lion King and Finding Nemo, Indiana Jones merchandise and surf designed clothing by Roxy and Paul Frank. But in the day it was a nice shooting gallery where one could imagine you were in the wilds of Africa on safari. However in these photos it appears the gallery is closed and you would have to settle for shooting at bears and a ghost town in the Frontierland Shooting Gallery. As a side note, who as a kid wore a bowler?

The sign in image one is owned by Richard Kraft and displayed on his website Finding Kraftland and can be seen in this photo:

Tomorrowland Signs and Art Corner Poster

The collection of photos taken in 1966 documentating the signs throughout the park is pretty comprehensive. I plan to stay with it for a while and show some of the obscure signs. Today are two of my favorite signs, the old Tomorrowland direction and light pole and the Art Corner Attraction poster. I love the old Tomorrowland directional signs and wish Kevin and Jody had created small versions of one of them. The other image is of the rare Art Corner poster. This is in reply to 2719 Hyperion post for Art Corner memories. Enjoy!

Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship Signage 1966

Continuing the posts of the signage found throughout the park is this series taken of the signs seen around the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship and Skull Rock. These signs do show up in images of the ship, but not usually this close and direct.

SOP Saturday- 1965 Version Disneyland and You Employee Orientation Handbook

This is the 1965 version of the Disneyland orientation and employee handbook. Titled Disneyland and You, it describes the various rules, requirements and expectations for the job at Disneyland. I like the small graphic symbols used as topic headers especially the one for contagious disease.

Souvenir Friday- SFDRR No Trespassing Sign

A sign marked for the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad once used to keep guests out of backstage areas. Sign is painted onto very heavy metal. Sign is vintage 1960s and out of an estate of the cast member who was in charge of the railroad and Monorails.

Snow White's Adventures Signs 1966

Staying in Fantasyland with the sign photos, here is Snow White's Adventures attraction signage.

The front entrance sign with the nice shield. The Fantasyland rides in the courtyard had these shield designs featuring the characters and logo in a heraldic manner.

The D Ticket sign for Snow White.

One of the ride vehicles named Grumpy. The Mine Carts were designed by WED and built by Arrow Development. There were 13 mine carts with names as follows (number in parenthesis is of how many cars bore that name) Dopey (2), Doc (2), Grumpy (2), Sneezy (1), Bashful (2), Happy (1), Sleepy (1), and Snow White (2).

A rare shot of the entrance to the ride withe Seven Dwarfs Mine sign.

Tinker Bell Toy Shop Signs 1966

The Tinker Bell toy shop used to be one of my favorite places in Disneyland. In the store was a nice selection of Matchbox cars from England and Britains Toy Soldiers. The annual tradition was to purchase a knight in armor from the colletion of Britains. Each one of the boys in the family would pick one out. We would also get to pick out a Matchbox car as well. Now, Tinker Bell is a Princess shop without fun toys for boys.

On the second photo painted on the wall is a cute little boy with the title Pegleg Pirate. I cannot read what the character on the other side of the sign is, but it looks like the Pegleg Pirates dog. The sign also has great pixie and star accents similar to the stars and pixie dust that trail behind Tinkerbell on the opening sequence of the Disneyland TV show.

Sleeping Beauty Walk Through Attraction Signs

The entrance and exit sign from the now closed Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough. The signs are very pretty with their crown shape and the vine design intertwined in them. The vines mimic the scene in the film where the castle is surrounded by thorns and vines put there by Malificent. And for Major, here is a close up of the mural for the Peter Pan load area. The mural shows all the characters from the film in front of a tree with the map of Never Never land to the left side.

Peter Pan the D Ticket Ride 1966

Two wonderful images of the Peter Pan Ride front facade in 1966. Peter Pan was a D ticket ride as the second sign points out. The bottom of the sign states that money was not accepted at the ride, you had to either use one of your tickets from your ticket book or a ticket purchased. In the first photo you can see the lovely mural at the load section.

Parking Lot Tram Signs 1966

At Disneyland in 1966, guests leaving the park would come to one of these areas designated by the pictured signs to board the Parking lot tram and head out to their cars. I know everyone misses the signs and the parking lot and the old trams, same as I do. The sense of arriving has definitely changed with the new trams and new parking structure. But with the new park and new Downtown Disney, the Disneyland area has changed for the better, becoming closer to what Walt wanted to acheive in Florida...a true destination. But the loss of the Hotel Tram is pretty significant. Now if I could only find this sign for my collection.

SOP Saturday- 1962 Summer Training Program

This is a very unusual item, the draft and schedule for training Disneyland employees for the summer of 1962. I believe this was sent to all supervisors and managers to involve them in this important training. Additionally the training was not just for new employees and the summer employees, but all employees including those from the lessees and WED were required to attend. I like the justification for the training at the front of the document, I wonder if it still holds true today? Note I do not show the entire document as the last pages are just training dates.

Souvenir Friday- El Zocalo Ash Tray

About 6 months ago I posted images of an outdoor market area in Frontierland. This area was known as the Mexican Village and also as El Zocalo park. Here is an image of that area as it looks in Disneyland 2007:

One of the souvenirs that was sold there was this Mexican sombrero shaped ashtray. The ashtray does come in a couple of colors, having owned a yellow one in addition to this green one. All have the Mexican painting of cacti on them. The name on the brim is part of the ceramic design as is the Walt Disney Productions on the bottom. I have seen other sombrero's marked for hotels in Baja California and Mexico.

More Views of Disneyland 1977

Here are several more views from the same trip to Disneyland in 1977.

A nice view of the Tomorrowland of my youth with the Peoplemover in front of Matterhorn mountain.

The Disneyland band playing a full concert at the Town Square. The band leader does look like a person from the 1970s! In the background is the Main Street Cinema and it is playing Charlie Chaplin. Does anyone know when it switched to playing all Mickey, all the time?

A nice moody shot of Main Street from the hub. The sign in the front left is for the First Aid and Lost Children area.

My favorite image of the lot is this one for Skull Rock. I have distinct memories of eating tuna sandwiches and looking at the Skull.

And this is from one of my favorite areas in the park, Snow White's wishing well. If you have not been there, I highly recommend it. And with the new Princess area, they no longer have the Snow White meet and greet in the location. The spot has returned to a nice quiet out of the way part of Disneyland.

The Rescuers at Disneyland 1977

Over the years there have been many different costumed characters roaming Disneyland. In support of the studio's twenty third film, The Rescuers, characters from the film showed up in the park. I believe the costumes are now in a permanently retired area. The first two shots show the mouse hero Bernard in meet and greets. The first shot includes one of the little pigs and a salivating Big Bad Wolf thinking of a pig sandwich with a mouse chaser.

The second shot shows Bernard meeting a young child. I like the kid in the white pants as he is wearing an Incredible Hulk shirt.

Finally a shot of Oroville the Albatross signing autographs in the Plaza with Tomorrowland in the background.

To be honest with you, I think I have only watched this film once and never saw the sequel. The story and characters are not that appealing and during this time period when I was growing up, I was not that excited by Disney animation. Maybe I should revisit the film? I do like Orville as he appears as a fairly interesting and fun character and fondly remember Disneyland at this time.

Sleeping Beauty Castle and Update on Yesterday's Post

Well it was a Monday morning for me...the post of the Mark Twain is actually of a movie prop at Universal Studios. On Daveland Universal Studio Website the same river boat can been seen. Thanks for all those who wrote and for Major and Dave for helping to ID the image. And also the second image was flopped, but is now orientated correctly. Today's image is just a pretty shot of the park icon. Enjoy.

Two Views of Frontierland

The first image shows a very barren Frontierland with not many trees and other activities. This shot really looks as if the Mark Twain was on the mighty Mississippi River going through the wilderness. I believe this was taken in 1955 from one of the wagons in the deserts of Frontierland. I believe this was taken in the evening with the Twain parked as there is no one on board.

A nice 1960 shot of the Old Mill with the Matterhorn and Golden Horseshoe in the background. Of course this area is now undergoing its second major change in its lifetime.

Made In the Shade

Major Pepperidge of Gorillas Don't Blog has been putting up some interesting photos. So to complement his photo's I went through some of my collection and have posted images of umbrellas and shade canopies from Disneyland. Most of the umbrellas appear to be from Fantasyland and can be seen in Major's shots of the Dumbo ride from the skyway he posted on February 3.

And to complement shaded areas, here are two shade canopies from Tomorrowland area. I like the multi color fiberglass to give it a futuristic look (remember when the future was going to be filled with color?) Also some more of the wonderful chairs for eating in Tomorrowland. The eating establishment is the Yacht Bar located next to the Submarine Voyage.

I hope you all enjoy these obscure and esoteric images. What possessed the photographer to take these shots is a mystery to me. However, I am glad he did.

SOP Saturday- Main Street Vehicles

I have always enjoyed the Main Street Vehicles especially the large Omnibus and the taxi cars. This is one of the best SOPs with great history on the vehicles and also one of the first ones I purchased so many years ago. The page with the signs and route on the back is very nice and I believe one of my fellow bloggers owns some of those signs.....

Souvenir Friday- Pirate Ship Vinyl Bank

I thought that with everything at Disneyland turning into Pirates to showcase the fact Pirates have been part of Disneyland for years. This is a nice vinyl bank that looks kind of like a purse. The great graphic on the front is of course the Chicken of the Sea Pirate ship in all its glory. The small lock on front I guess is to keep your saved pennies from your mom or dad stealing from your bank. All in all a pretty cool early piece of park merchandise that was for sale at Tinkerbells Toy Shop.

Ward Kimballs Emma Nevada at Grizzly Flats Postcard

Today I am going to step a little away from Disneyland and show a postcard from Walt Disney's genius and one unique person- Ward Kimball. The postcard is of his full size train the Emma Nevada at the train station at Grizzly Flats. Ward was a unique person who definitely enjoyed life. The train was featured in several magazines in the 1940s and Ward was one of the first private citizens to have a steam engine and to restore and collect full size railroad equipment. His toy collection focusing on trains and transportation was also legendary. This train is now at the Inland Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California. Ward had a very strong influence on Walt Disney and the Santa Fe and Disneyland railroad. For a great interview with Ward Kimball, bop on over to Sacred Tree of the Aracuan Bird.