New Year's Eve At Disneyland - 1996

Today we have two photos from the 1996 New Year's Eve party at Disneyland. Walt was sporting what I like to call a "trash hat." The park used to give these hats out to guests on New Year's Eve. I call them trash hats because they were made up of shrink wrapped scraps of paper and cellophane. I wonder if they still pass these out? On this particular night, someone had managed to get over to Walt and place one of the hats on his head. Funny or sacrilegious? You decide! 

The photos today were taken the year of the Disneyland New Year's Eve "Flower Trampling" incident. We were in a pretty safe situation....and so were those poinsettias seen around Walt and Mickey, because this was actually "the eye of the storm." Things stayed calm in the dead center of the Plaza where we were located while everyone was going crazy around us. I mentioned the incident in my Disneyland Millennium New Year's Eve post from two years ago. Here's the part about the flower trampling: 

"The last New Year's Eve that I spent at Disneyland was in 1996 and it was so unbelievably crowded that I haven't attempted it since. It seemed like the entire park was packed into the Plaza for the midnight countdown and fireworks. Afterward, it was complete gridlock in the Plaza and surrounding areas and it was taking forever for the crowd to dissipate. People got very impatient and eventually just started climbing over railings and trampling flowers to get out of the area. It was a little scary!"

According to the clock on the Castle, the previous photo was taken at 11:23 (and 02 seconds!) It really doesn't appear to be that crowded around us.....but it was! Oh, and you can see two people in the crowd wearing their "trash hats."

Here's a close-up of the signage on the Castle. This was actually taken earlier in the evening as shown by the clock.

Well, I will not be going to Disneyland tonight for New Year's Eve....and you can't make me! I'll be spending the evening at a much smaller-scale event. I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year! (To see some Disneyland New Year's Eve ephemera from 1980 and 1981, click here.)

 

Halloween at Disneyland - 1996 (or "Farewell to Tomorrowland")

Well, it's Halloween Time again at the Disneyland Resort! Last year I did a Vintage Disneyland Trip Report from 1995, the very first year that the park decorated for Halloween. Today, I have a few pics from the following year, but not really enough pics to warrant a full blown vintage trip report. So, how about a mini trip report to Disneyland in the Fall of 1996?

Once again, the Maleficent balloon that was originally used to promote Fantasmic in 1992 was resurrected in the fabulous Disneyland Parking Lot. The banner for "Mickey's Halloween Treat" is actually covering the original Fantasmic promo. Artist, blogger, and former DL employee Kevin Kidney coordinated the construction of this mega-Maleficent!

I wonder what happened to this inflatable? Is she being used somewhere to sell cars? (I know... Disney wouldn't allow that!)

This particular year, the floral portrait of Mickey had been reworked and given a "face mask". And look, the Kalamazoo Handcar is parked out in front of the train!

The flowers at the entrance to Tomorrowland were also changed to more of a Fall-ish color palette. (In today's Tomorrowland, the flowers have been replaced with brown concrete rocks.) Yay, the Rocket Jets are exactly where they should be in this picture! Notice the construction wall off in the distance. Work had already begun on converting the wonderful 1967 Carousel Theater building into.....well, nothing.


If we pan just a little to the left, we see that there was a special Hunchback of Notre Dame display set up just for Halloween. The Disney animated film had been released earlier that year. (For the previous Halloween, a Goofy topiary stood in one of the Tomorrowland planters.)

Note the crane on top of the Matterhorn in the photo below. In the nineties, the Matterhorn was undergoing a major renovation that took place every Winter over the course of several years. Actually....is it still shutting down every Winter for major refurbishment?

Hey, there's Phoebus signing an autograph for a fan!

He must have been heading for a break, since it looks like he's signing "on the run."

Coming Soon: A Very Brown Tomorrowland. This sign was located underneath the PeopleMover track at the entrance to Tomorrowland. It turned out to be a very cruel joke, however. The sign should have read "Tomorrowland - Lack of Imagination and Beyond! - The Future Ends Spring 1998" I know, not too clever but hey I'm a little bitter.....YOU DESTROYED MY FAVORITE LAND, DISNEY!!! Okay, I feel better and I'm over it....for right now, anyway.


That's it for the 1996 Halloween pics. The park's Halloween decor was not yet at the level that it is today. It would still be a couple more years before the Haunted Mansion would get it's first holiday overlay and another thirteen years until Space Mountain's "Ghost Galaxy."