Saturday, December 24, 2011

Santa's Village: Part 6 - Cinderella & Alice

Let's go for a ride in Cinderella's Pumpkin Coach! Just enter through the brightly painted castle turret!



The coaches may be long gone, but yep....that turret is still standing today. This is the view from behind it. See the blue wooden railings on the other side? Those are the multicolored railings visible in the vintage postcard above.



There's those blue railings again. The Cinderella's Pumpkin Coach entrance is just out of view on the left. That tree trunk-shaped structure once served as the entrance to the Alice In Wonderland attraction. Hey, where are the caterpillar ride vehicles?



This attraction was actually a walk-thru.



And now you can just enter through one of the broken glass panels.









What a trip, huh? Maybe someone else should try to reopen this place? I read somewhere that local residents are still hoping that someone will do just that, but I don't know what that is based on exactly. Maybe the fact that someone was attempting to do it 10 years ago is giving them hope that someone else will come along?

Here's the location of these two attractions.







We'll end today with a close-up of Cinderella's Pumpkin Coach. Who's that riding on the back? Why it's Rainbow Man! Did I hear someone ask who the heck is Rainbow Man?



Well, here's a better photo of him posing along with the Lollipop Lady. It kind of sounds like a seventies variety TV show, "Lollipop Lady & Rainbow Man"! Sort of like "Pink Lady and Jeff".....hey, whatever happened to that group anyway? I wonder if Rainbow Man ever stood in for Santa?

5 comments:

Snow White Archive said...

Interesting to see how nature is slowly reclaiming the park. Looking at these "then and now" pics still feels a bit eerie...especially if the ghosts of the Lollipop Lady and Rainbow Man are creeping around.

TokyoMagic! said...

SWS, I never thought about that! I just bet they are hanging around the old place!

Major Pepperidge said...

I sometimes see Jeff Altman when I'm in Sherman Oaks! Pink Lady is never around though. Weird show, but they were cute!

TokyoMagic! said...

Major, Oh yeah I forgot, they were just "Pink Lady", not "Pink Ladies"...the Pink Ladies were from "Grease" and had Rizzo as their leader! I just checked out "Pink Lady and Jeff" on Wikipedia (a most reliable source, don't you know) and it states that only 5 episodes of that show ever aired. How do I remember it then? And what I don't remember is that Blondie appeared TWICE on the show. There was a sixth episode that never aired and the complete series was released on DVD in 2001. I just might have to look for that DVD!

JG said...

Wow, this is sad.

Rainbow Man and Pink Lady...wooo..

You can see where PeeWee Herman got started, but it's harder to see where he went off the rails...

Thank you!

JG