Friday, July 17, 2015

Happy 60th Birthday, Disneyland!


In honor of Disneyland's 60th birthday today, we are going back 50 years to when the park was celebrating it's "Tencennial." This coloring book from 1965 has the official Disneyland Tencennial logo on it's cover.


I don't own the coloring book shown above, but I do own the one below which is from the same year and contains images from the park's Tencennial celebration.


This book is actually copyrighted both 1964 and 1965, so I'm thinking this is the 1964 edition of the coloring book and in 1965, it was probably updated on the inside to include the Tencennial and then later in that same year, they gave it a new "birthday" cover.

Hey, who scribbled out the floral Mickey?


These next four images all reference the special "Disneyland 10th Anniversary" episode of The Wonderful World of Disney that aired on TV that year. There was a segment with pieces of cake that danced around, as well as candles that danced on top of the cake. ♪ ♫ "Ten years of happiness, ten years of fun......." ♫ ♪ I'm including a link at the end of this post for anyone that wants to watch it. I highly recommend it....it's a hoot!





I wonder where these construction photos were being displayed? The Walt Disney Story obviously didn't exist at this time.







The Enchanted Tiki Room would have been just two years old at this time. Most of the show is featured in the same 10th Anniversary TV special.









This is interesting! I know the park maps and pictorial souvenirs often included "future attractions", but they were even including that information in the coloring books.


The "talking statue." It makes Lincoln sound more like the talking Confucius statue that was planned at one time for a Chinese restaurant in Disneyland. I wonder why they didn't just tell kids that Lincoln was going to be a "robot"?



The new Plaza Inn exterior and interior is shown in model form on that 10th Anniversary special. Here are a couple scenes from it with Walt showing the Plaza Inn models to Julie Reihm, the very first Disneyland Ambassador. Imagineer Harriet Burns is seen seated next to the model in the first photo and Imagineer John Hench can be seen in the second photo.



It appears by the scribbling below, that somebody didn't like the "promise" from Walt. Maybe they were psychic and they knew that quote would continue to be used for years to come, as an excuse for whenever management wanted to get rid of some beloved attraction such as Captain Hook's Pirate Ship and Skull Rock, or Adventure Thru Inner Space, or the Skyway....or the Main St. Electrical Parade.....or Country Bear Jamboree! I could go on and on, but I won't. Okay wait, one more.....OR THE PEOPLEMOVER!!!


There were more images in the coloring book than what I've posted here. If there is interest out there in seeing more, I can scan and post more of the pages. I also have 3 more Disneyland coloring books that are all dated a little bit later than this.

Here's that 10th Anniversary Special in it's entirety. Again, if you haven't seen this, I highly recommend it! The footage includes artwork and models for Pirates of the Caribbean ("By going UP the waterfall?), and the Haunted Mansion (A SKELETON GHOST!), as well as almost full coverage of the Enchanted Tiki Room show.

Happy Birthday, Disneyland!




7 comments:

Unknown said...

I Love the 10th Anniversary Coloring Book. And That's My Favorite Episode from Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (Alongside with Disneyland Showtime, Disneyland Around the Seasons, Disneyland Goes to the World's Fair, Disneyland After Dark, etc). I See the Gorilla from the Jungle Cruise Which was the Old Yeti.

TokyoMagic! said...

Josh, that is one of my favorite episodes as well! I believe they will be showing that one in the Opera House on Main Street this Wednesday (July 22nd) as the final installment of "Wednesdays With Walt." I almost made a comment about the gorilla from the Jungle Cruise being used for one of the old abominable snowmen in the Matterhorn!

Major Pepperidge said...

Well, you beat me to it! I have a copy of this coloring book (the one with the birthday cake cover) and was planning on scanning or photographing some of it, mostly because I found those "Future Attractions" pages to be so unusual. That's what I get for procrastinating!

TokyoMagic! said...

Oh sorry, Major! So were all of these pages included in the version with the cake on the cover? And were there just those two future attractions listed in that version? You could actually scan and post that cover and some of the many pages that I didn't post.....just a thought!

Major Pepperidge said...

Ha ha, it's OK! I really was planning on using the coloring book someday, but I frankly got lazy. To the victor goes the spoils! As far as I can recall (the coloring book is at my mom's house), the future attractions are the same. I think it's interesting that the same book has two different covers! I have some other coloring books that might be worth scanning - at least the covers are nice.

Unknown said...

TokyoMagic, I Didn't See that Episode at Disneyland Because I Owned the Two DVDs of Walt Disney Treasures that has Disneyland 10th Anniversary Special. However, I Did Went to See Wednesdays with Walt on Thanksgiving 2014 and a Month Ago.

mackyton said...
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