Thursday, January 31, 2008
Building Disneyland TWA Rocket Ship to the Moon
Because of all the black and white photographs I have been posting from Esther's photo album, I decided to add a little color. The images are from the placing of the TWA Rocket Ship to the Moon in Tomorrowland. The images come from a funky little strip of photographs that had an unusual viewer allowing the image to be seen in 3-D. The brown envelope sleeve reads Building Disneyland Scenes of Disneyland Taken During Construction Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom Anaheim, California. I will be posting more of the image sporadically throughout the next month or so.
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10 comments:
Unbelievable! These are amazing. And they are in 3-D, that's even better. Wow, I would love to find one of those film strips with the viewer!!
VERY cool images PJ - I believe this was pretty much last minute stuff going on before opening.
These kind of remind me of the day Moonliner III was put upright for the first time in 1998. Bruce Gordon let me behind the construction fence and I had a front row seat. From my photos, it looks like they used a very similar system to hoist it!
These are neato! I like the white text at the top! I wish the 1998 Moonliner was the same size as the 1955 one.
Great stuff, do you think they sold these at the park?
Have heard rumor of these. Where'd you find a set? Great stuff.
I found the images at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet years ago...more than I care to admit. Unfortunately I have not found a viewer so I have not seen the images in 3-D.
The following link will take you to a sight that is a close duplicate of the original viewer that came with the slide sets:
http://www.3dstereo.com/viewmaster/mf-fold.html
I remember trying it out at Disneyland, but it all cost to much for me (I'm a dope!) How cool to see these in 3D.
Is the original rocket ship still there and if not, what happened to it?
I finally got to Disneyland @ 25 in 1975 and most disappointed that the main thing I expected to see, the TWA rocket, was gone. I had trouble finding an employee who remembered it. As I recall they determined that it was removed in the late 60s or very early 70s. 3D viewers are easy to get and if you practice, you can even do what is called "free viewing" without special viewer.
My father painted the rocket ship. He worked at a company in Southgate named
Waldrip Manufacturing. They landed the contract for the rocket ship and the
original carts used to take people from their cars to the front gate.
As the deadline neared to have the rocket installed at Disneyland, it still
needed to be painted. My father went to work on Saturday and painted it white.
A few days later the red trim and lettering was added. Every time we went to
Disneyland I was very proud.. I was very sorry when it was removed from it's
place of honor.
California Girl
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