Happy 200th Birthday, America! (1976 Sunday Comics & More)

Thirty-nine years ago, our nation was celebrating it's bicentennial. I recently came across the Sunday Comics section of the Los Angeles Times, dated July 4, 1976. These pages were stored in a box in my mom's garage along with some other bicentennial items that I had saved.

First up is the front page. It's odd that Peanuts and Andy Capp did NOT have a patriotic theme that day, especially when almost all of the other comic strips did.

Here are some highlights from the pages inside:

These commemorative bicentennial Pepsi cans were in the same box as the comics. The can that's been converted into a bank was given to me at a barbershop back in the summer of 1976. The barber had a case of these and was giving them out to his customers. I saved the other can after "emptying" it's contents. This was back when the tabs on top of the soda cans were removable. Just about this time, the tabs started being made to stay on top of the cans in order to reduce litter. As Woodsy Owl used to say, "Give a hoot, don't pollute!"

Last up for today is this bicentennial pressed penny. I don't remember where I got this originally, but I found it in a separate box along with some pressed pennies from Knott's Berry Farm, Universal Studios, and Magic Mountain. I will post photos of those in a separate post.

To view a couple pages from the "Long Beach Press Telegram" that are also dated July 4, 1976 (including a vintage Disneyland advertisement) click here: Long Beach Press Telegram - Disneyland Advertisement

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!!!

Mickey's Mouseorail (& Other Vintage Tomorrowland Ride Vehicles)

In 1987, the Mark III Monorails at Disneyland were retired and replaced with the Mark V Monorails (the Mark IV was designed for use at Walt Disney World).  After retirement, the Mark III "Monorail Red" train was chopped up and converted into "Mickey's Mouseorail."



The Mouseorail was a street-legal vehicle that toured the country in 1990 to promote Disneyland's 35th anniversary.  Prior to embarking on it's promotional tour, it appeared in a pre-parade show for the 101st Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day, and then again at Disneyland in the premiere performance of the Party Gras Parade on January 11th, 1990.



If you would like to see footage of Mickey's Mouseorail making it's debut in the 1990 Tournament of Roses Parade, you can watch it below. The Mouseorail appears at the 5:40 mark, but the video includes the full Disney pre-show, as well as the entire Rose Parade.



Back in the late nineties, I used to drive to and from work using West Street (now Disneyland Drive). This was back when Disney was buying up property for their "resort" expansion. There used to be a small campground/RV park located on the east side of West Street, that backed up against the Disney property. After Disney purchased this property, they put up a gate across the driveway and used this property for storage. One of the items that was stored back there for a while was the Mouseorail. Since it could be seen just sitting there on the other side of the fence, I decided to pull over one day back in March of 1997, and take some pics of it through the opening in the gate.



Note the steering wheel that was installed in the nosecone of the monorail. There is also a pirate ship parade float that can be seen in the distance. I'm not sure which parade that would have been from. In the foreground, we can see a couple boxed-up trees. I wonder where those trees were from and where they ended up?



When it came time to design a new Tomorrowland, the original plan for the former Mission to Mars space was to have it be a restaurant where guests could eat their food while sitting in an old Skyway gondola, a PeopleMover car, or the actual Mouseorail car. One of the old Mission to Mars space capsules (there were two theaters!) was going to be left intact and guests were also going to be able to eat their food in that theater while watching the original "Rocket To The Moon" footage play on the floor and ceiling. Well, as we all know, plans can and do change very easily over at Disney (Helloooo, Westcot and Port Disney!) These plans got scrapped and what we ended up with was Redd Rockett's Pizza Port where guests can eat their food while sitting next to the Monorail, PeopleMover, or Skyway......attraction posters. Waaa waaaa!

It was then decided to just use the old attraction vehicles as decor in both Tomorrowland's Premiere Shop and in the queue of the new Rocket Rods attraction. At this time, the Mouseorail/Monorail Red was chopped up again and a portion of it went into the Rocket Rods queue along with a couple Rocket Jet vehicles, a couple PeopleMover cars, and a car from Space Mountain. (To see pics of the old Tomorrowland attraction vehicles that were used in the Premiere Shop, click here for my previous post from 2009: Vintage Tomorrowland Ride Vehicles.)

For the Rocket Rods queue, the vehicles were painted blue and tape was applied to them to give them a "blueprint" appearance.



You can see in the photo above and below that a mirror was used at the end of both the Monorail and the PeopleMover cars to give the illusion that they are longer and that they are coming out of a tunnel.

I love the way that the PeopleMover cars were just placed on top of the carpet without a base or anything. At least a fake beam-way was recreated for the Monorail. And how about the irony of that statement above the PeopleMover cars? It reads, "In the world of creativity, there's no end to the possibilities." Oh, I think there WAS an end to the possibilities and they reached it with Tomorrowland '98!



This next photo shows a couple of the old Rocket Jet vehicles. On the wall in the background, there are blueprints for the Tomorrowland Moonliner Rocket, as well as one for the Flying Saucer attraction.



Well unfortunately, there was not a happy ending for "Monorail Red." At some point after the closure of the Rocket Rods, that last remaining section of the Mark III Monorail was scrapped and another piece of Disneyland history was lost forever. :-(

(And as a side note, the front section of one of the 1971 Walt Disney World Mark IV monorails was saved after it was retired and is now in the hands of a private collector. To see a brief video tour of it's interior and exterior, click below:)



To see footage of the rescued WDW Mark IV Monorail being reunited with it's designer, Bob Gurr (at Walt's Barn), click below:

Knott's Kingdom of the Dinosaurs - Mega Post

With the grand opening of Knott's Berry Farm's "Voyage to the Iron Reef" taking place today, I thought it would be fun to revisit one of the rides that used to exist in that same attraction space.



Kingdom of the Dinosaurs opened in 1987 above the Buffalo Nickel Arcade, in what was then called "The Roaring 20's" section of the park. Out in front of the attraction was Rocko, a Triceratops that was sculpted out of serpentine marble by artist John Cody. The sculpture was started in January of 1988 and was completed the following month. During that time, visitors to the park could watch Mr. Cody sculpting Rocko out in the open, over near the Wheeler Dealer Bumper Cars.



After the closure of Kingdom of the Dinosaurs in 2004, Rocko was moved to the center of the Huff 'n Puff attraction in Camp Snoopy (pictured below). Unfortunately, he disappeared from this location not too long ago, and is currently nowhere to be found inside the park. I certainly hope he is being stored safely somewhere backstage. Maybe he is resting comfortably with the large chicken that used to sit in front of Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant.



This mural was located in the attraction's loading and unloading area. It was supposed to represent Los Angeles/Hollywood in the 1920's.



Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of the attraction's first scene, which was the professor's laboratory. After leaving the laboratory, guests would see images from the Renaissance and Byzantine eras flash briefly across a cave wall. Following that, riders found themselves in the scene featuring Early Man.



I somehow also missed taking photos of the Sloth and Wooly Mammoth animatronics, but I did get a pic of the Saber-toothed Tiger.



Here's Dimetrodon.....



Stegasaurus....



I have to say that these figures looked MUCH better in the dark under dramatic show lighting, and without the harshness of the camera flash on them. This was especially the case with the flying Pteranodon that would circle above the riders below.



Two young Triceratops....




Tyrannosaurus Rex with the adult Triceratops on the far right.....



Apatosaurus.....



Next door to Kingdom of the Dinosaurs was the Dinostore Digs shop. This shop later became the Ride Warriors shop and also the seasonal Elvira's "Boo-tique." (I found these exterior and interor pics of the store on the internet and wanted to give credit to whoever took them, but I was not able to locate the "owner" of the images. If these are your pics, please leave a comment below and I will either remove them or give you credit.)





Here is a park merchandise bag from around the time that the new ride and shop opened.



A postcard from the same time period:



This graphic of Snoopy with a Triceratops was from a souvenir T-Shirt.



I bought this pin in the Dinostore Digs shop back in the summer of 1987.



This button was also sold in the park during that first summer.



These next two buttons were exclusive giveaways for employees only.



The button below, shows a Triceratops clinging to the new "Slingshot" attraction that opened in Fiesta Village that same summer. That attraction's name was later changed to "WaveSwinger" and is still operating in the park today.



This T-shirt was also an employee exclusive and was given out at the 1987 Employee Summer Kick-off Meeting. These pre-summer meetings were held every year and a T-shirt was usually given to employees at that time.





The Berry Vine was an employee newsletter that came out every Friday (which also happened to be payday). This issue shows the Tyrannosaurus Rex figure sitting outside the attraction right after it was delivered to the park, as well as a pic of it being lifted into the air by a crane. There is also an article about the park's new "Five-Year Plan." The "major new attraction" that was alluded to for 1988, would have been Big Foot Rapids.



When I was working at the park, I had heard that the T-Rex was dropped on the ground while they were lifing it up into the attraction, and that supposedly it's complex movement was compromised because of that. Does anyone know if this was true? I do remember riding it during an employee preview and thinking that it's motion seemed pretty limited.



Cathy Rigby, who played Peter Pan on a semi-regular basis at the La Mirada Civic Auditorium, brought her production to Knott's for a couple weeks in May of 1987. I had already been fortunate enough to see Sandy Duncan play the part of Peter Pan at the Pantages Theater in 1981....with Christopher Hewett (Mr. Belvedere!) as Captain Hook.

Note that tickets for employee night at Disneyland were only $12! Also, the Knott's employee bowling league was meeting at the Aztec Bowl. This bowling alley was located just up the street from Knott's, in the spot where the Pirate's Dinner Adventure is located today.



The ACM Awards used to be held every year at Knott's in the Good Time Theater. Also, the bucking bronco in The Pitchur Gallery was being replaced after 20 years. Another 28 years has now passed. I wonder if it has been replaced since 1987? And Knott's was selling a mule?



Here is the press kit for Summer of 1987....or at least the part of it that pertains to Kingdom of the Dinosaurs.



The graphics on the upper right of the Fact Sheet below, show silhouettes of the three new attractions that were opening in Fiesta Village that summer, Slingshot, Tampico Tumbler, and Gran Slammer. This was the year that the Tijuana Taxi was taken out and the Merry Go Round was moved to it's current location by the lake, in order to make room for the three new attractions. I scanned this press kit quite a while ago and did not scan the pages with the info on the Fiesta Village rides. I'm not sure why I did that, but I will try to get them scanned and posted soon.