Fowl Stuff At Disneyland! - The Walt Disney Story

Well, it's time for Part Three of my "Fowl Stuff At Disneyland!" series. To see Part One on the Enchanted Tiki Room Barker Bird, click here. (I just updated that post with some home video footage that I recently found). To see Part Two of this series, which featured the live birds that were located at the base of the Swiss Family Treehouse in the late nineties, click here.

On with today's post! Today, we're taking a look at the Audio-Animatronic owl that was a part of The Walt Disney Story for many years, starting back in 1973 when the attraction first opened in the Main Street Opera House.



He sat in an alcove just inside the entrance to the exhibit and was the host for a short film about the "animal actors" in Walt Disney's "True-Life Adventure" films. Notice the gold lettering above the stage reads, "Walt Disney, Naturalist".

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this owl was based on the Wise Old Owl from the 1948 Disney movie, "So Dear To My Heart."



Today, this alcove has been enclosed and houses the large model of Disneyland as it was in 1955.



I wonder what happened to that little Audio-Animatronic critter? Hopefully, he is being stored in a safe place somewhere, perhaps awaiting a return to the park for some future use. I know, I know....and Max, Buff and Melvin are just hangning around in the Pooh attraction awaiting some future use too, right? Hey, I can hope, can't I? By the way, the upholstered bench seats from this area were moved just across the room and are now available for guests that want to sit and watch the film "Disneyland, The First 50 Magical Years."



For those that were never able to see this presentation or don't remember it that well, here it is in it's entirety. I shot this footage myself back in 1997. I don't know who the actor was that supplied the voice for the owl, but it sure sounds like it could be Hans Conreid. Enjoy!

Fowl Stuff At Disneyland - The Swiss Family Treehouse

It's time for Part Two of my "Fowl Stuff At Disneyland" series (to see Part One on the Enchanted Tiki Room's Barker Bird, click here)

Today we're going all the way back to the Spring of 1997, when for a brief time, The Swiss Family Treehouse had live birds perched at it's base. Here, are a couple shots I took 14 years ago.

Here's a short video that I shot around the same time. At the very beginning, you can hear a friend of mine say something like "The audio-animatronics are wonderful!" You will also hear a very annoying child making very loud animal noises....those are not coming from the birds! Around the thirty second mark however, the red macaw does attempt to say something.

I'm not sure how long the birds were around. I only remember seeing them during a few visits. Unfortunately, less than two years later, the Swiss Family Treehouse was converted into Tarzan's Treehouse and ugly static figures from "Tarzan" were added. Personally, I think the new attraction overlay would have been more effective without the statues......after all, we didn't need to see the Robinson Family members when we walked through their home.

I am going to title this last photo, "FOUL Stuff at Disneyland!" Sorry, bad pun obviously intended!

Fowl Stuff At Disneyland - The Enchanted Tiki Room Barker Bird

(This is the first of a three-part series on "Fowl Stuff" at Disneyland.)

Today's post features The Enchanted Tiki Room's "barker bird", which sat on a perch over the entrance to the attraction when it first opened back in 1963. The idea was to have one of the audio-animatronic birds outside talking to the crowd below, trying to get them to come inside and see the show. Supposedly he was so popular, that he bogged down the flow of traffic through the area and was eventually removed. The photo below is courtesy of Major Pepperidge (thank you again, Major!) of Gorillas Don't Blog and shows one of the audio-animatronic birds that was used (there was also one with blue plumage).


For a while, one of the barker birds was on display inside The Walt Disney Story in the Opera House on Main St. He sat in this showcase which now contains a display of past, present and future Disneyland attractions.


Below, is a photo of the same showcase taken in 1997. The barker bird can be seen sitting on his perch at the bottom of the display.

Here's a closeup shot.

If we zoom in, we can see the cords that were used to provide the bird with sound and movement.

I was going to attempt to include footage of the barker bird doing his thing outside the Tiki Room, but being AV challenged, I just couldn't get it together. However, footage of the barker bird can be seen in the "Wonderful World of Color" episode, "Disneyland's 10th Anniversary" which aired in 1965 and is included in the DVD set, "Your Host, Walt Disney" (released in 2006 as part of the Walt Disney Treasures series.) There is also a short audio snippet available on one of the CDs from the "Musical History of Disneyland" boxed set (released in 2005 for Disneyland's 50th anniversary.) I should also mention that Wally Boag provided the voice of both the barker bird and the show's host, Jose.

***POST UPDATE*** - May 13, 2011:

Here is some footage that I found of the Barker Bird on display in The Walt Disney Story. I shot this footage in 1997.





And here is that footage from "Disneyland's 10th Anniversary" showing the Barker Bird in action.