The Family Circus is a comic strip, created by Bil Keane. It debuted in newspapers in 1960, and has been in continuous production ever since. Bil's son, Jeff, began helping him with with the series in 1981 and took over production in 2011, after his father passed away.
.jpg)
In the Summer of 1978, the series followed "the family" (which consists of a mom, a dad, and their four children) as they visited Disneyland, over a period of 27 consecutive days. I was 13 years old at the time, and my mom subscribed to two different newspapers, but I rarely ever read the comics section. It was my mom who alerted me to the fact that "The Family Circus" was doing a series at Disneyland. And she didn't realize it herself, until several days into the series. Once we realized that "Disneyland" was going to be a continuing theme, I went outside to our trash cans to dig out our old newspapers to see exactly when the series started, and how many I had missed.
I thought I had been able to find all of them back to the very first day, but it turns out that I had missed the very first one. Fortunately, "Meet The World" reader and commenter, "Kathy!", was able to locate that first panel and was nice enough to share it with us (thank you, Kathy!).
Monday, July 24, 1978:
This panel is the earliest one I found, when going through my family's trash cans!
Tuesday, July 25, 1978:
While searching online, I also found out that this series was republished in the Summer of 2015, apparently for Disneyland's 60th anniversary. Color was added to all of the panels by Bil Keane's son, along with some other minor changes to a few of them. This one was republished on July 17, 2015:
.jpg)
For some reason, I was also missing the panel for Wednesday, July 26, 1978, but again....thanks to "Kathy!", here it is:
Thursday, July 27, 1978:
The Mad Hatter shop used to be located in Fantasyland, between Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and Peter Pan's Flight. I took this photo of the Mad Hatter shop, in early 1982. You can see how accurate Bil Keane was, at replicating the signage for the shop.
Friday, July 28, 1978:
Saturday, July 29, 1978:
Please check back each week, throughout the month of July. I plan to post a "week's worth" of The Family Circus' 1978 visit to Disneyland, every Friday this month!
.jpg)
%20-%20Copy%20-%20Copy.jpg)
17 comments:
If I'm not mistaken, Glen Keane the Disney animator is Bil's son as well.
Mark
InsightsandSounds.blogspot.com
Mark, you are absolutely correct! I forgot to mention that fact....thanks!
Some friends of ours used to have a guest room /den the kids would play board games in after dinner and on a bookshelf was tons of paper back novel size comic books of things like THE WIZARD OF ID, PEANUTS and others … but I swear there’s was a FAMILY CIRCUS one that was almost all Disneyland … it may have been sometime before 1980 … have you ever searched for this edition?
By 1978 I was well on my way to being obsessed with Disneyland and neighbors and family members were always saving magazines and newspaper articles and anything regarding Disneyland and Walt Disney World ….. but I have no memories of ever seeing these Family Circus comics outside of that paperback book.
TM! and Mike Cozart, I know I have the little Family Circus paperback with the Disneyland comics in it, I can look to see what the third one is (and the real caption for the first). It's fun to see the very accurate drawings for the different attractions; I bet Bil had some souvenir Disneyland books, or took a "business trip" to take photos.
Mike, it never occurred to me that there might be "Family Circus" book with the Disneyland series of panels in them! I'll have to look for that one!
My family was also always saving things for me which were related to Disney and Disneyland. They still do!
Kathy!, that is SO cool that you have that book. I would love it if you could tell us what that missing one was, and also the caption for the first one! You can just tell us what they are, or if you are able to scan them and would like to share them here, my email address is: toykomagic@hotmail.com
Either way, it would be greatly appreciated....thank you!
I very much remember one of the comics featuring the kids and the dad exiting the Haunted Mansion … and the drawing of the Mansion was fairly detailed . I’m still kinda surprised nobody - family or friends never saved any of these Disneyland Themed Family Circus series …. Maybe the Disneyland ones were not syndicated in San Diego?
Mike, that Haunted Mansion one is coming up in "Part 4," at the end of the month. As Kathy! pointed out, the drawings of all the DL attractions are very accurate. I think she's right that Bil Keane either had a souvenir book, or visited the park before starting this series, or both!
Tokyo : I totally missed the part to check back for other Family Circus comics …. Sorry about that!
I always loved the Disneyland details in the comics and the humor related to Disneyland. I grew up reading Family Circus daily and Sunday in the newspaper comics sections when I was a kid.
Great stuff! I'll definitely check back weekly. Thanks for a great post as usual, TM!
Thank you, Ken! I had never read Family Circus on any kind of regular basis. But I was definitely "glued" to it (like it was a soap opera), during those weeks in the summer of 1978, when they were visiting Disneyland!
I saved all of them I could get my hands on when the series was republished in 2015. I will have to look at them again when I get home. Back then, I remember our paper was only printed in color on the weekends (now it's only printed three days a week), so most of mine are still black and white. I do remember that the level of detail really impressed me. Thanks, TM! I will be looking forward to the other posts in this series.
These are so cool It's awesome to think of how many creative people have been inspired by the parks over the years.
Andrew, that's interesting that the 2015 panels were in color, but your newspaper was still printing in black and white (on weekdays). It sounds like you might have most of them, but I believe they did not republish about 5 of the panels. Three of them had references to the old "ticket system," so I'm assuming that is why they skipped those. Another one had a "Bear Country" reference.
I hope you are enjoying your last day at Disneyland, today!
Melissa, I have always loved this kind of "nod" to Disney, by another artist. Some of my favorites are when Matt Groening/The Simpsons lampoon anything Disney....but especially the Disney parks!
Wow, I have fallen so far behind on "Meet the World"!! SORRY. I actually sort of remember when Family Circus did this series of strips - I never really cared about Family Circus, but hey, Disneyland! It's clear that Bil Keane used some photo reference (nothing wrong with that), I appreciate the attention to detail. Now you'll excuse me, I need to sit down from laughing so hard at "Billy! Dolly! Stop playing on the stairs!". Oh, that nutty family!
Major, you're not that far behind, it's just that I've been posting every week this past month. I never really followed "The Family Circus" prior to this series, or after. Some of the panels in the series are funny, but some others aren't....like the "Omnibus" one, as you already pointed out. Someone out there on the internet had come up with an alternative caption for that particular one, which read, "Back up!!! You're parked on P.J.!!!" Nothing beats sick humor, I tell ya! Larry Wilde would be proud.
Post a Comment