Father's Day In The Parks

It's time for another Father's Day In The Parks post! Once again, the photos here were all taken by my dad at various tourist spots throughout Southern California.

First up, we have Disneyland in the Summer of 1967. Here we see my aunt standing in front of Captain Hook's Pirate Ship.



This next one was taken the same day in front of the Global Van Lines truck that used to be parked in Town Square.



Next we have Knott's Berry Farm in the Summer of 1966. Here we see my uncle standing in front of the Calico Railroad, while some kid wearing mouse ears (hey kid, you're in the wrong park!) is trying to levitate the train with his special powers. We first saw my uncle inside Disneyland's Fort Wilderness in my Then and Now/Here and There post.



Below, is a shot of the "Ghost Town Express" wagon. Doc Walker's cabin from the Ozarks can be seen in the upper left. This is before it was moved near the Church of Reflections (it has since been demolished).



Now we are back in 1967 and with my aunt at Marineland of the Pacific. The structure behind her was the park's Oceanarium which consisted of two huge steel salt-water tanks.



This is Bubbles the pilot whale, performing in the Oceanarium. She was Marineland's most famous whale until Orky and Corky came along. Bubbles is actually still alive and residing at Sea World in San Diego. The owners of Sea World purchased Marineland back in 1987 because they needed a pair of breeding killer whales (Orky and Corky). They bought the park with the ruse that they would keep it open, but after the sale went through, they quickly shut it down and moved all the animals to Sea World. Note the two-level Sky Tower observation car in the background.



Last up for today, we have two photos taken at Universal Studios in the Summer of 1967. This first shot is of a western set on the backlot. The train station sign reads "Medicine Bow, WYO." Medicine Bow was the location of the television show, The Virginian, which was a Universal production and ran from 1962-1971. Train tracks can be seen alongside the depot, but they seem to disappear into the dirt as they come towards us.



This last photo shows some movie miniatures that were once on display in the "upper lot" portion of the studio. A rain special effect (translation - "sprinklers") can be seen on the roof of the structure on the right.



Just for kicks, I've included two scans from a 1977 Universal Studios souvenir book. Compare these with the two Universal shots above. The caption for this first photo reads, "New York right next to the Old West! Turn a corner in Hollywood's biggest backlot and suddenly you're in a different world." The Smith and Aagy Photographic Studio sign is still on the roof of the building on the left, but the train station sign appears to be missing.



The guidebook gives the following description for the scene below, "A "movie miniature" destroyer fires at a "movie miniature" submarine....and always misses!"



I'd like to wish my dad a very happy Father's Day and thank him for taking me to all of these cool places many times throughout my childhood. I love you, Dad!

And a Happy Father's Day to ALL dads out there!

More New Stuff At Disneyland & My 300th Post!

Last week, I got a late night "itch" to go over to the Parks. My goal was to get there before DCA closed at 10:00 so that I could go on the Little Mermaid attraction again. Well, the traffic on the 5 freeway was not pretty! It got even worse as I got closer to the Parks because the fireworks were going off and everyone on the freeway was slowing down to watch them. SMART!

When I finally arrived at the parking structure, I was surprised to see that there weren't any cast members in the toll booths. I guess even Disney isn't going to charge people 15 dollars to park for just a few hours. I wonder what time they stop charging? Anyway, I was directed over to the Pinocchio lot which is located just south of the Mickey and Friends parking structure. I think I have only parked there once before and since I have taken pics of the signs on all the different levels of the Mickey and Friends structure, I thought I should take a picture of ol' Pinoke.

When you park in the Pinocchio section, you have to cross the tram right of way in order to board the trams. The caution sign below is posted at the edge of the Pinocchio lot. Speaking of trams, since the fireworks had ended by now and people were leaving the park in droves, many of the trams were dropping people off and then just heading straight back to get more people instead of picking up the few people that wanted to go TO the park. It makes sense, I guess. They just kept driving by us and a voice over the speakers would say, "there will be another tram along shortly...." So after finally boarding a tram, I realized that DCA was going to close before I could get to the gate. NUTS!



So I went into Disneyland and thought maybe I could go on the new Star Tours again. Well, it had a wait of 120 minutes, so I figured I would try again at the end of the night. While walking through New Orleans Square, I happened upon this casket-shaped "quarter press" machine. How long has this been here? I'm guessing not too long. I love the themeing!



Did that wall behind the machine used to be a doorway?



I kind of like the Haunted Mansion designs, but why do they have to stamp "Disneyland Resort" on them? Can't they just say "Disneyland"? Am I being too nitpicky?



Well the night goes by quickly when the park closes at 12:00 and you don't get there until 10:00, so at five minutes before park closing, I went back over to Star Tours and the wait was now posted at 60 minutes. I saw where the end of the line was and compared it to when I last rode it and figured it would probably be shorter. It ended up being only about a 30 minute wait. Upon exiting the attraction, I noticed a sign that I had not seen during my last visit. Maybe it wasn't there yet? Anyway, I'm posting a photo of it here since I wasn't able to include it in my "Star Tours Preview" post last month.



Disney's "exit through a souvenir shop" trick usually doesn't work on me, but this time I did make a purchase. The following scans are from a new souvenir postcard booklet. I have a few postcards from the eighties of the old "destination posters" that used to hang above the Star Tours exit ramp, but I need to go digging for those. I'll try to get those posted later.












So that was my short DL trip from last week. This week, I decided to make a quick stop by the Disneyland Hotel after work, because I had heard there was a new water feature that was unveiled in front of the Wonder/Frontier Tower. During my last visit to the Hotel, this area was still behind construction walls.







It isn't as spectacular as the old hotel waterfalls, but I guess it's better than just a patch of grass.

By the way....today is my 300th post!

Disneyland's 100 Millionth Guest!- 1971

Forty years ago today, Disneyland welcomed it's 100 millionth guest.


As park attendance approached that number, the Summer 1971 issue of Disney News Magazine presented the following article.






The next issue featured an article about the 100 millionth guest, Miss Valerie Suldo.




I'm including this next article from the same issue, just because I thought it was pretty interesting.




To see more photos of this event, click here for a 2009 post from Daveland: Disneyland's 100 Millionth Guest.

Eighth Grade Disneyland Trip - 1978

Hey kids, it's time for another Vintage Disneyland Trip Report! Thirty three years ago today, my eighth grade class went to Disneyland for "Grad Party '78". This was different than the "Grad Nite" events. This event took place all day long up until park closing. Here is my ticket from that day.

I saved a copy of the parental consent form that was typed up and handed out to all eighth graders. That's right, typed as in on a typewriter and then Xeroxed.....or would it have been mimeographed? Well anyway, I'm pretty sure it wasn't copied on a ditto machine!

Tickets AND transportation only $8.00!!! Lunch can be bought at the park for $1.50!!!

I also saved my school receipt for the ticket. This really was an important trip for most eighth graders. It was something that many of us looked forward to all year because we would get to spend the day in the park without direct supervision. There were adults that accompanied us on the bus trip, but once inside the park, we never saw them again until it was time to go home.

I took my Kodak 126 Instamatic Camera on this trip and out of a roll of 12 exposures, I only took 6 pictures that day...I'm not sure why I didn't shoot the entire roll at the park. The rest of the shots on the roll were taken during my eighth grade graduation ceremony. Sorry, but those shots WON'T be seen here!

I mentioned in an earlier post that after Space Mountain opened, it was always the first attraction we headed for. In the shot below, it would have been only one year old and already part of the glow-in-the-dark decals on car number 5 had been peeled off! It was probably done by some eighth grader that was "not mature enough to meet the trip's conduct requirements" and "brought discredit to their entire class"! The flash cube really wasn't powerful enough to reach as far as I was hoping it would. I'm posting the original pic and a scan of the negative. It's weird how the cast member outfits came out looking red in the new scan when they were actually a horrible orange color.





We've met some of my childhood friends in my past Vintage Disneyland Trip Reports. Today we'll be meeting....well, let's just call her Carrie B. We had known each other since Kindergarten, but we had become even closer friends in Junior High. We had planned to go on this trip together since the beginning of the eighth grade school year. I actually located her about 10 years ago through Classmates and we exchanged emails for a while. Since she doesn't appear to be on Facebook, maybe I should go through my old email addresses and ask her permission to post her picture here. For now we'll just have to settle for Jane of "Dick and Jane" fame (that's actually BEFORE my time....I tried to find a decent picture of Janet from the "Janet and Mark" books, but didn't have any luck.)



I don't remember what it was that she bought that day, but it must have been a lot since she purchased the heavy duty Disneyland shopping bag with handles. I have one of those bags and I will eventually get around to posting it.



This next photo is probably a good place to tell my "New Matterhorn" story. Once again, the year was 1978, so most DL fans probably know that this was the year the "New Matterhorn" was unveiled. At this time, the 19 year-old attraction became more "enclosed" and special effects were added such as "glistening crystal ice caverns" and "howling winter storms". The bobsleds were also redesigned and were now tandem instead of single. And of course the Abominable Snowman himself began making an appearance within the attraction.

I had already been to the park twice since the beginning of the year and had seen the construction taking place on the mountain. I had saved the special color Disneyland advertisement from the newspaper and I had seen the "New Matterhorn" commercial playing repeatedly on TV. The new attraction was even featured on the front of the Grad Party ticket. It had opened almost 2 whole weeks earlier (May 27th) and I was soooooo ready to ride it. Then a friend's father who worked at the park told me just days before the class trip, that the Matterhorn had shut down because they were having technical trouble with it and they didn't know when it would be up and running again. AW NUTS!

Okay, so at least we knew before our trip that it was going to be closed, but then at some point during the day while riding on the PeopleMover, we noticed one of the brand new bobsled trains traveling down and around the mountain with people in it and we got very excited. We got off of the PeopleMover and immediately ran over to the Matterhorn, only to have a cast member tell us that they were just testing the ride and that it would not be opening to the public that day. Yep, at second glance we noticed that everyone riding in the bobsleds was wearing "office attire" and Disneyland name badges. DOUBLE NUTS!

Well, time goes by very slowly when your that age, so it seemed like forever before I was finally able to experience the new attraction, but the reality was that I got to see it within a month or two when my friend's father got us into the park. That will have to be a story for another post....but that friend's father worked on the construction of Big Thunder, so I have construction shots and backstage shots that I will be posting in the future!

This photo was taken while riding the PeopleMover and shows the "test subject" cast members going for a ride on the New Matterhorn.



One last New Matterhorn detail.....while riding the Skyway, we happened to notice that the Abominable Snowman was visible while passing through the Matterhorn. We passed by him too quickly though and I just had to get a picture, so we went on the Skyway again. Actually, we went on it two more times and I have a second photo almost identical to this one. Alas, my attempts to capture him on film were all in vain since I didn't know that the flash cube wouldn't reach that far. Of course I didn't realize it until I got the prints back from Photomat. TRIPLE NUTS!



Oh, and speaking of Big Thunder construction, this sign was hanging on the construction wall over in Frontierland so I had to take a picture of it. There was a more colorful version of this artwork that later replaced this earlier version. Note the geysers which did not end up in the attraction at Disneyland.



Other memories that I have from that day are, calling home from the "Chatterbox" speaker phones in the Bell exhibit in Tomorrowland and purchasing this souvenir book at The Character Shop across the way (now The Star Trader).



Here are a few scans from the inside of this 74 page hardcover book.





At the time this book was purchased, these Matterhorn pictures were already outdated. The piece of Matterhorn track seen below, was an outdoor portion that became enclosed after the remodel.




If you have read this far, I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane....and thanks for going with me!