Looking back on some of the toys and other items that I have saved from my childhood, I now realize that I had quite a few puzzles. Most of these were given to me as either birthday or Christmas gifts.
We'll start today, with some "Frame-Tray Puzzles" by Whitman. These were aimed at younger children and were supposed to help develop "coordination and motor control."
This Donald Duck puzzle is dated 1965, the same as the "Munsters" Frame-Tray Puzzle that I posted last year.
These children's puzzles would often have a few "special" shaped pieces. I'm not sure if that one piece on the upper right is supposed to be in the shape of a boat or a banana split.
This "Jungle Book" puzzle is from 1967, the year the film was originally released. There is one piece missing in the upper left corner. It was very easy to lose pieces to these "tray" puzzles, since they did not come in a box, like most other puzzles.
Unfortunately, this one is missing several pieces. This was one of my favorite puzzles when I was a kid....probably because it depicted a scene from Disneyland.
The following "boxed" puzzles all mention having 100 or more pieces, on their box lids.
This puzzle was manufactured by "Jaymar" and is titled, "Capt. Donald's Treasure." I remember this one being purchased at our local "Lucky's" supermarket, in the seventies.
This Donald Duck puzzle was manufactured by Whitman, and bears the same "50 Happy Years" logo, as a Walt Disney World puzzle that I posted back in 2011. That logo was designed for the 50th anniversary of the Walt Disney Studios, which dates this puzzle back to 1973.
And here is that previously posted, Walt Disney World puzzle.
Here's another Jaymar puzzle, and this one still has it's "Lucky's" supermarket price tag of $1.27 on the side of the box! The artwork (titled, "Fishing") has always reminded me of the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland.
These next two puzzles were manufactured by Whitman. The Donald Duck puzzle still has a Sav-On Drug Store price tag on the side of it's box, but the price has faded and is now illegible. Does anyone remember the Sav-On Drug Store jingle? "♫ ♪ Sav-On Drug Store, Sav-On Drug Store.....SAV-ON!!! ♪ ♫" And who remembers when all of the Sav-On Drug Stores in California changed to Osco Drugs, and then back again to Sav-On? Supposedly, the new name didn't go over well with customers. Today, many of those old Sav-On locations are now CVS Drug Stores.
And here's yet another Jaymar puzzle. This one is titled, "Toyland."
Most of the puzzle pieces were still assembled (in sections), inside the box, so I was able to put it together pretty quickly for a photo.
This puzzle was sold in 1976 (during our country's Bicentennial celebration), and was manufactured by Springbok, which was a division of Hallmark Cards Inc. The design was taken from the cover of a 1939 issue of Mickey Mouse Magazine. The artwork was also the inspiration for Disneyland's and Walt Disney World's "America On Parade" celebrations, which took place from 1975 through 1976.
I posted this "mini" Whitman's Frame-Tray Puzzle back in July of 2010. This puzzle was designed for very young children and has only 12 pieces, while the one above contains almost 500 pieces!
And here is the newest jigsaw puzzle in my collection. It was a personal souvenir from my visit to Walt Disney World, during it's 40th anniversary in 2011. Can someone tell me why Disneyland's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction poster, is included in the upper right corner of the puzzle? I know Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom had a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea "ride," but it was located in Fantasyland. Did the person who designed this puzzle, just make a mistake by using the poster from Disneyland's old Tomorrowland walk-thru exhibit? If so, that is kind of a big mistake!
****BONUS****
I thought I would include two more of the Whitman "Frame-Tray Puzzles" from my childhood, even though they are not Disney-related.
This Batman puzzle was actually my brother's, but we pretty much shared stuff like this. He is a few years older than me, and remembers the Batman TV series being on in "first run." I only remember when it was being repeated in "syndication." This puzzle is dated 1966, which is when the TV series debuted.
This Mighty Mouse puzzle is dated, 1969. By this time, the Whitman company had changed it's logo and added the line, "It's Kid Tested," to it's registered trademark.
This was another puzzle, with "special" shaped pieces:
**BONUS #2**
While scanning a childhood comic book for a future post, I came across this 1977 ad for Whitman jigsaw puzzles:
**BONUS #3**
Blogger and "Meet The World" follower, "Andrew," of the "Bayern Kurve Blog," has generously shared a photo of a vintage Disneyland puzzle (manufactured by Jaymar), which he acquired at a flea market. I really like the graphics on this one! And boy, they sure did fit A LOT of the Disney characters into it. There are five of them just in/on that one vehicle, alone!
Andrew pointed out that the title of this puzzle is "Tomorrowland," even though the artwork is depicting the Midget Autopia, which was located in Fantasyland. He also mentioned that the puzzle no longer had the "Win A Trip To Disneyland" entry blank inside. I happen to have a Mickey Mouse comic book, with that same contest logo on the cover, and the entry blank is still inside. The date on my comic book is 1960, so I think we can assume that this puzzle would probably be from the same year.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Andrew!
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8 comments:
Thanks TM, Wow, lots of neat puzzles. I don't think I ever got a puzzle as a present. Unfortunately, I was an expert at losing pieces, which could have been the reason, although I did like doing puzzles and playing board games at that age. We had fun playing Monopoly, Clue or Uncle Wiggly.
I think there were a couple of Sav-On drug stores here in Tucson back then, but Revco and Walgreen's made every other drug store disappear fairly quickly. Then Revco went away and CVS took over. Progress.
I know we did have a lot of Whitman stuff...kids books, puzzles etc. I did keep some Whitman books, like Dr. Goat of course.
Great piece on the Munster's by the way. Lots of info about the house which was really interesting. I'm glad I missed that reboot, it looks pretty awful. I might throw caution to the wind and watch Mockingbird Lane if I feel masochistic some day.
Hope you put some of those gems together, if just to enjoy the memory.
Once again, thanks TM. What a treat.
The Donald Duck at Home in his hammock with his Nephews puzzle with the 50th Logo is my favorite. I always loved reading the Duck Stories in Disney comics and it reminds me of many of the covers from those comic books. I love the humor in the scene of the puzzle. Very much like the old Duck Stories
The Mouse Factory puzzle is cool too with the Jungle Cruise vibe. I remember watching The Mouse Factory religiously because it was one of the few shows along with The Wonderful World of Disney available to watch on TV in the 70's.
Disney entertainment was scarce on TV in those early days.
That's not even the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Submarine Voyage) attraction poster. It's the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Exhibit poster. Just another one of their screw ups. Even on shopDisney today I saw a binder album for Disneyland and it had WDW's Haunted Mansion on the cover intead of Disneyland's anti-bellum mansion Things haven't changed that much.
Love the bonus puzzles. Especially the Batman & Robin with Joker puzzle. Thanks, Tokyomagic! for another wonderful and fun post.
Mistake aside, that WDW 40th puzzle looks like it would be fun to put together. Did you ever assemble it? I enjoy doing puzzles when they have little pictures to zero in on instead of one big picture.
I like the Frontierland puzzle. It's pretty funny to see an oversized mountain on Tom Sawyer Island. The teepees on the cliff really remind me of Peter Pan's Flight, but the landscaping gives me a Storybook Land vibe. :-)
It's unrelated, but you and Ken mentioning how Disney is sometimes careless on park merchandise made be think of a book I have that has a picture of one of the old Disneyland Fun Maps. This is a case in which they were overly careful, as every sponsor name was carefully Photoshopped out.
DrGoat, I think once I was old enough to have the boxed puzzles, I was good at not losing the pieces. But I sure did lose pieces with those "Frame Tray" puzzles. I have a Bugs Bunny one, which I didn't even bother to share here, because it is missing too many pieces. I also have some similar framed puzzles, but they have a thicker frame and thicker pieces, and are made out of wood. I think those were aimed at an even younger aged child, and those are missing pieces as well!
My brother and I had Monopoly and Clue, and I seem to remember our second grade teacher had the Uncle Wiggly game in the classroom, but we didn't get to play it that often.
I also had quite a few Whitman items....coloring books, sticker books, games, etc. I posted a Whitman "Mad Tea Party" game here, almost 10 years ago: https://meettheworldinprogressland.blogspot.com/2011/07/mad-tea-party-game-its-kid-tested.html
I'm glad you liked my "Munsters" post, from last year! :-)
Ken, I didn't think about that, but you are right about that one Donald Duck puzzle. It reminds me of some of the artwork on the old "Walt Disney's Comics and Stories" comic books, which I bought as a child.
I watched "The Mouse Factory," too! Yeah, there wasn't enough Disney programming on TV, in the days before cable TV.
Yep, Disney was always making mistakes on their own products and even on their own TV shows! I think the worst mistake is when they "reverse" a photograph taken in Disneyland, in one of their publications or souvenir books. I always catch that right away, but I suppose the average guest does not notice it. Andrew just shared a puzzle with me (which I've now added to the end of the post), and he pointed out that it also has a mistake on it. The title of the puzzle is "Tomorrowland," but the artwork shows the Midget Autopia in Fantasyland! By now, I have just come to expect mistakes from Disney!
Andrew, I am very sad to say, that I never even attempted to assemble that WDW 40th anniversary puzzle. However, I have been eyeing it these past 9 months of "social distancing" during the pandemic, and thought about working on it. The thing that always keeps me from moving forward and doing it, is the fact that I have three younger cats who will have an absolute field day with the pieces! I need to find a board or something to assemble the puzzle on, where I would be able to lift the whole thing up and put it away, so they can't get to it when I'm not working on it. If I do put it together, I will take a photo of it and add it to this post.
You are right, those TSI mountains and cliffs with the teepees are a bit "Neverland-ish!"
Thank you so much for the email, with the image of your vintage DL puzzle! I've now added it to the post! :-)
I've always loved puzzles, but haven't put-together any for a while. I seem to do it in spurts - 10 in a row...then nothing for a couple years. It's relaxing, that's for sure.
TM! It's great you kept your childhood puzzles. I didn't, but I still remember what some of them looked like, after doing them over and over, as a kid. Thank you for sharing yours!
And have a very Merry Christmas!
Sue
Sue, it has been so long since I've put a puzzle together....like, literally decades. I just remembered that someone gave me one a few years ago, which I never assembled. It's a photo/image of many different vintage candy bar wrappers. I really should get that one or my Disney World 40th anniversary one out, and see how enjoyable or relaxing it would be for me, today. And I know the kitty cats would love to help me work on them!
Merry Christmas to you, too!
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