Friday, October 16, 2009

DL Halloween Trip Report...From 1995!

Today, we'll be taking a look at Disneyland's Halloween decorations from 14 years ago. It's October of 1995, the very first year of "Mickey's Halloween Treat." As we approach the park, a huge inflatable Maleficent can be seen in the parking lot. This is the same inflatable that was used to promote Fantasmic in 1992. Check out this photo of the Maleficent balloon on Westcot 2000's blog.


Once inside the park, we are greeted in Town Square by Grandmother Willow from the film, "Pocahontas." This is the same spot where the Christmas tree is placed every year as well as the giant Mickey-shaped pumpkin and the recent "Celebrate" envelope and balloons.


If we stop and take a peak inside the Emporium, we'll see that the revolving centerpiece of Mickey, Goofy and Donald has been decorated with leaves and acorns for the Fall.


On a recent trip to Disney's California Adventure, I took the following photo but I didn't realize that I had seen these figures before until I was reviewing my photos for this post. It looks like they have repositioned Donald and changed the color scheme on Goofy, but they are obviously the same ones. They also decorated these figures for the Winter of 1995 and I will be posting a photo of that in the near future.


Moving a little further up Main St., we see that the Candy Palace has also been decorated for the season. Here's a vignette featuring the Wicked Witch. There is a jar of candy corn nearby, as well as a Jack O' Lantern filled with more yummy treats.


Now let's head on over to the patio area of the Plaza Inn Restaurant, where there is a giant pumpkin carving demonstration taking place. That pumpkin on the right weighs 516 pounds!


Upon leaving the patio area of the Plaza Inn, we get a nice view of the Fall flowers planted in the Tomorrowland entrance way. I could rant right now, but I've done enough of that in the past, so for today I'll just say, oh how I miss THIS version of Tomorrowland!

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Note the topiary of Goofy on the far right. He's wearing a mask and cape and from what I remember, he was holding a sword too.....sort of a la Zorro. Also note the absence of PeopleMover cars. I believe it had closed for good at this point, even though I have photos of it running just 3 months earlier. That year was kind of sketchy for the PeopleMover. Sometimes you would go to the park and it would be open and other times not.

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Unfortunately, the Halloween decorations stopped there back then. They did not decorate Frontierland and there was no Haunted Mansion Holiday yet. I have a set of photos from the following years' Halloween season (1996) and will try to get those posted before the 31st!

6 comments:

Daveland said...

I was actually there in Oct. 1995; didn't document my trip quite as well as you did though. Excellent Halloween decor shots. Thanks!

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

Great post!!!! Wow, I was there in Oct. 1995 as well and I do recall the Mickey, Goofy, Donald sculpture, thanks for the memory jog!

OMG those Tomorrowland entrance shots make me cry.....

Kevin Kidney said...

Great blog!
I just had one of those crazy flashback moments -- I coordinated the construction of that giant Maleficent inflatable for Fantasmic. Haven't seen it in years. Yikes!!

Thanks for posting your pics.
-Kevin

TokyoMagic! said...

Thank you for all of the nice comments! I really like doing these trip reports from the past. I have TONS of older park pics, so I will try to get more posted soon.

Don said...

There actually were some Fall/Halloween decorations in Frontierland in both 1995 & 1996. The Haunted Mansion, while HMH hadn't started yet, also had some decorations. For 1996, there were also wagons, coffins, tombstones and tumbleweeds around New Orleans Square. Oh, those were the days!

TokyoMagic! said...

Thank you for that information, Don! I didn't take pics of it, so I guess over time I forgot about it!