Monday, May 17, 2010

The Dining Rooms of Club 33

This is Part 4 of my Disneyland "Club 33" series.

Club 33 has two dining rooms. We'll take a look at the Main Dining Room first.


In the photo above, a fireplace can be seen off to the far right. Below, is a close-up shot.


We were told by the staff that the restaurant had recently been refurbished/redecorated.


This next photo was taken a few years ago by Dave of Daveland (used here with permission....thanks, Dave!)


Compare Dave's photo with the one above it and the one below. All of the woodwork....the crown molding, wainscoting, and the French doors....have all been stripped of their paint and now have a dark wood finish. Even the ceiling medallions above the chandeliers have been stripped and refinished. I'm wondering if the painted wood was original to Club 33 when it opened in 1967, or if it was painted over at some point during the restaruant's 43 years?


A close-up of the draperies.......


....and one of the chandeliers.


Shades have been added over all the light bulbs.


Close-ups of some of the artwork........



The second dining room is the Trophy Room, also referred to as the Disney Room in the Club 33 history sheet that's posted inside the menus. Camera flash reflection....D'OH!!!


This room happens to be located above the foyer of the Blue Bayou Restaurant.


According to Wikipedia, "Walt Disney wanted to make use of Audio-Animatronic technology within Club 33. Microphones in overhead lighting fixtures would pick up the sounds of normal conversation while an operator would respond via the Audio-Animatronic characters. Though the system was never fully implemented, it was partially installed and remains so to this day. An Audio-Animatronic vulture is perched in one corner of the club's "Trophy Room." The microphones are clearly visible at the bottom of each of the room's lighting fixtures. The animal trophies (Walt inherited them from a friend), for which the room was named, have since been removed by Disney family members."

Sorry, I didn't get close-ups of the microphones on the chandeliers, but you will see the vulture at the end of this post.


Some close-ups of the room's decor....




These aren't real taxidermied animals. I don't know the back story on these. Perhaps they were replacements for the real animals that were removed....or maybe they are stand-ins for some of the audio-animatronic figures that were never installed......


....but here is that Audio-Animatronic vulture. Too bad Walt's original plan to have it speak was never carried through!


In my next post, we'll take a look at Lounge Alley and one of the Restrooms at Club 33 (yes I took pictures inside the restroom.....hey, nobody else was in there at the time!)

3 comments:

Daveland said...

Not crazy about the new decor; a little overdone and too dark.

Major Pepperidge said...

Interesting "before and after". I kind of like the dark wood finishes! The talking vulture is a fun idea, but ultimately I think I would eventually want it to shut up so I could talk to my friends - and eat.

TokyoMagic! said...

Not having seen the previous decor in person, I think I like the finished wood, myself.

I like the idea of the vulture talking to guests. It reminds me of Walt's idea that never came to be for a Confucius that would talk to guests in a Chinese restaurant....or his original idea for the Tiki Room to be an actual dinner show. Maybe the Vulture was only going to talk once in a while....like a little "after dinner show" rather than a constant thing.