Disneyland's 25th Anniversary - 1980 (And My 10th Anniversary!)

This month marks the 10th Anniversary of my blog! Can I count it as ten years, even if I didn't post anything in 2014? Oh heck...I'm still counting it, since I did begin posting way back in July of 2008!

For this major milestone (for me, anyway!), we're going to take another look at Disneyland's 25th Anniversary celebration from 1980. This large paper sculpture of the Castle was used on the cover of the Spring 1980 issue of Disney News Magazine, and was also on display all year long in the window between Coke Corner and the Candy Palace on Main Street.

Unlike Disneyland's milestone anniversaries of recent years, the 25th anniversary festivities (as well as the 30th, the 35th and the 40th anniversaries), began in January and ran only until November, when the park's Christmas decorations would go up and the holiday entertainment would begin. (In comparison, the 50th and the 60th celebrations didn't start until May of their respective years and the "60th" celebration was actually dragged out, way past the 61st anniversary!)

Early in the year, Disney aired a television special to let the public know that the park was celebrating it's first quarter century. The special was titled, Kraft Salutes Disneyland's 25th Anniversary. Let's take a look at the listing for that television special, from the March 1st issue of TV Guide.

Danny Kaye was the host and was joined by Michael Jackson, the Osmonds (what, no E.J. Peaker?) and Adam Rich (from the TV show, Eight is Enough). There was also a long list of celebrities that made singing cameos including, Annette Funicello, Buddy Ebsen, Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Ronnie Schell, Jamie Farr, Greg Harrison, Linda Gray, Ted Lange, Fred Grandy, Anson Williams, Sorell Booke, Patrick Wayne, Kim Richards, Richard Paul, Bart Braverman, Peggy Cass, John Schneider, Quinn Cummings, Danielle Brisebois, and more!

The show was sponsored by Kraft and the TV Guide featured some Kraft recipes themed to Disneyland. (Most of these recipes were republished in the January 16, 1982 issue of TV Guide for the airing of Walt Disney World's 10th Anniversary special.)

Oops! Somebody used a depiction of Cinderella's Castle from Walt Disney World in the "Close Up" feature, below. And FYI, Mork and Mindy and the Australian soap opera, Prisoner: Cell Block H were both in their second seasons, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was in it's first season.

Going back earlier in the week to Sunday night, here's the listing for Disney's Wonderful World. The 1965 Disney classic, The Monkey's Uncle, starring Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello (she's mad about his chimpanzee!) was being shown. Note the top hits of 1979 that were being "counted down" on Solid Gold!

And for anyone that might be interested in what was going on in the "non-Disney" world of television at this time, here are some more listings from that same issue of TV Guide:

Pink Lady and Jeff was a variety show starring comedian Jeff Altman and Japanese recording duo, "Pink Lady" (Mitsuyo "Mie" Nemoto and Keiko "Kei" Masuda). Only five shows aired of the six that were filmed. Rhino released all six episodes on DVD back in 2001, but it is now out of print and I am still looking for a copy that is reasonably priced!

Remember when The Wizard of Oz was shown on broadcast television every year in the Spring?

Polly Holliday, who played Flo ("Kiss my grits!") on the sitcom, Alice, had left the show to do her own spinoff series and Diane Ladd was being added as "Belle," the new waitress. Diane Ladd had actually played the part of Flo in the 1974 film that the series was based on, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

That's Incredible was debuting that week. (John Davidson alert!)

This week's episode of Eight is Enough included drama for Abby, who was played by the incomparable Betty Buckley. (Trust me, Tom! You can trust me!)

There was also drama in store for Karen (Michelle Lee), on Knots Landing.

Match Game is still one of my all-time favorite game shows! I remember my great-grandmother not liking Gene Rayburn for some reason, even though she did watch the show regularly. Watching repeats of it today on the Buzzr Channel, I do see that he acted a little "dirty old man-ish" at times.

Posters of your favorite celebrities could be ordered through the ad below. I wonder how many young people out there, have no clue as to who these celebrities are. "Who is S. Anton? And what is a B.J. and the Bear?"

Incidentally, that cover artwork for this issue was drawn by famed caricaturist, Al Hirschfeld, and depicts Herve Villechaize and Ricardo Montalban from the TV show, Fantasy Island. Here is the cover-story article.

And if anyone is interested in watching the Kraft Salutes Disneyland's 25th Anniversary special, here it is in it's entirety.





By the way, I had been looking for the park's 25th Anniversary television commercial on YouTube for many years and found it only recently. Unfortunately, this particular version of the commercial does not include the full song, due to the announcer speaking through part of it. But hey, I'll take whatever I can get!





I'll end this post with the cover of Television Times (the Los Angeles Times' version of TV Guide) from that same week.

New Year's Eve At Disneyland - 1980 & 1981

I remember reading an article in Disney News Magazine when I was a kid, about a New Year's Eve party at Disneyland. It made me really want to go to the park for New Year's, but I never got that chance until I was actually old enough to drive myself there. The newspaper advertisement below happens to be from 1980 and even though I had my driver's license and had already driven myself to the park for the first time just one month earlier, I did not go to the New Year's Party that year. I would still have to wait one more year.


So one more year passed and finally I was able to go to DL for New Year's Eve. It was 1981 and back then, the park would close at 7:00 p.m. and then reopen at 8:30 for a separately ticketed New Year's Eve event. Again, this is the year that I was working at the park, so I had to perform in a 2:00 parade during the day (there was only one parade performance on the 31st), then I went home and got ready to go out for the evening, then I went back to the park that night for the party, then went home and slept, and then went back to the park the next day for a 2:00 and 9:00 parade performance. I can't imagine doing that now.....29 years later. I will be going out to a party tonight, but fortunately I am off both today and tomorrow!

Here's the entertainment guide from that night:

Gee, Skiles and Henderson sure did appear at the park a lot back then. I wonder if The Manhattan Transfer sang their "Twilight Zone" song? I don't remember seeing any entertainment that night.....except of course, for the "Midnight Spectacular"!

Tickets for this event were "advanced sale" and could be purchased either at Disneyland or at Ticketron locations. Remember Ticketron? This ticket was purchased at a Ticketron that happened to be located in the basement of a Sears Department Store!


My only clear memory from that night is of riding the original version of Snow White's Adventure's and seeing that the Wicked Witch's apple was laying on the ground right next to the path of the ride vehicles. Someone must have attempted to grab it and it had fallen. It was right there on the ground within reach! I wanted to go back and try to get it, but my friends thought I was crazy and I caved to the peer pressure. Or is that "reverse peer pressure"? Maybe they did me a favor. I could have lost a finger, or ended up in the Disneyland jail.....or both! I wonder where that apple is today?

I ended up going to the park for New Year's Eve two more times after this, but I will never do it again. To read about the reasons why, click here for my post from last year.

A VERY Happy New Year to everyone out there! Be safe!

A Disney Christmas In Black & White - 1980

For today's post we have some Los Angeles Times newspaper clippings from 30 years ago. Up first, is an advertisement for the 1980 holiday season at Disneyland. The S.O.S. band was back at the park and the Lennon Sisters were performing as well. Michael Landon was the celebrity guest for the Candlelight Procession/Ceremony that year. I like the way that this ad was drawn as if it were needlepoint....or is it cross-stitch?

Come home for the holidays......come home to Disneyland!


Next, we have an ad from October of 1980 announcing auditions for the Christmas Parade at Disneyland. As we can see in the ad above, the Christmas Parade that year was "Fantasy On Parade" which was making it's return after being on hiatus for several years ("The Very Merry Christmas Parade" had taken it's place in 1977). I happened to go to the parade auditions one year later and was hired for the 1981 edition of "Fantasy On Parade."

And here's an ad from December of 1980 for the first re-release of the animated film, "The Aristocats."

Happy Birthday to L.A., From Disneyland! - 1980

Here's another item from 30 years ago. It's a ninety-six page special supplement to the Los Angeles Times. Even though Los Angeles celebrated it's 200th birthday in 1981, this insert was included in an August 1980 edition of the newspaper.

So far, the newspaper articles and ads that I have posted have all been from my personal collection that I started as a child. However, this supplement was recently found in a box in my mom's garage, where it has been sitting for the past 30 years....that's why it is a little warped and distorted. If I had a scanner that was big enough, I could have pressed it flat, but since it would not fit on my scanner, I had to use my camera to take pictures of both the cover and this Disneyland advertisement.

There are also some advertisements/birthday greetings from other companies including many that no longer exist today, such as Bullock's, The Broadway, Ohrbach's, May Co., Robinson's (before the "Robinson's-May" merge), Alpha Beta, Barker Bros., American Savings, Crocker Bank and Western Airlines. Oh, and just days after mentioning Pat Boone and Hoffy hot dogs in my last post, look what I happened to find in this insert!

Pat Boone says, "Hooray for Hoffy! Hooray for L.A.!", but there's no mention of Hoffy being the official "meat product" of Knott's Berry Farm. Those commercials have to exist somewhere!

The insert also contains an interesting article (along with artwork) about what L.A. might look like in 100 years. The Los Angeles Central Library building is visible in the lower right corner of the second pic below. The other buildings kind of look like something out of "Logan's Run."

In addition to L.A.'s possible future, there are many photos from L.A.'s past, including pics of the Hollywood Bowl, the Chinese Theater, Angel's Flight, the Music Center, Tail O' The Pup, the Greek Theater, the La Brea Tar Pits, Watts Towers, the Bradbury Building, etc.

If anyone is interested in owning this Los Angeles Times supplement from 1980, here is a link to a site that has a copy of it for sale. I do not know this dealer or anything about their reputability, and I am not endorsing them. I'm just passing along information that I came across while I was doing research on Los Angeles' Bicentennial.

Well, since 2011 is just around the corner....Happy 230th Birthday, Los Angeles!

Knott's - 30 Years Ago and A Goldie's Update

Today, we have another Los Angeles Times newspaper advertisement from thirty years ago. This one is for three different events that were held at Knott's Berry Farm back in 1980.


First we have Jubilation, which was an annual event that focused on contemporary Christian music. Then there was the Knott's Country Music Party. This particular year featured Debby Boone who's humongous hit song, "You Light Up My Life" was the most successful single of the 1970's, reaching number one on the Billboard charts in 1977 and staying there for 10 consecutive weeks! (I'm still looking for those TV commercials which featured her father, Pat Boone promoting Hoffy Hot Dogs as "the official hot dog of Knott's Berry Farm".) And then there's Halloween Haunt, which is still going strong today. Back then, the Haunts were held only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and for only two short weeks. Now, the Haunt nights begin in September (tonight marks the first Haunt of the 2010 season) and are scheduled Wednesdays through Sundays for the entire month of October. Notice the price of the Haunt tickets back in 1980. Haunt tickets for this year are $56.00! To see some photos from a Halloween Haunt in the '80's, including a shot of Elvira performing live on stage, (click here).

Next, we have a Goldie's Place update. My last Goldie's report showed demolition photos and then new construction photos taken one, two and three weeks later. Well, I missed out on getting any photos at the four week mark, but the following photos were taken last weekend, only five weeks after demolition had begun on the original structure.

Is that an original window being used on the ground floor?

The two windows upstairs (on the side of the building) also appear to be older. Would they use the original window frames on the new structure?

Well, this answered my question from my last post....the outhouse is being rebuilt! And it looks like at least one of those wooden panels laying around a couple weeks ago was from the original structure and is being reused as well.

That roof might even be original! Perhaps blogger OutsideTheBerm can tell us for sure.

Cowboy Weekend at Disneyland!

Thirty years ago, Disneyland was hosting "Cowboy Weekend." Yep, the Magic Kingdom was "goin' country" for a weekend that featured "the hottest talent this side of Texas!"

Donna Fargo was the "Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A." (that song was a top 10 country hit for her in 1972), Johnny Lee was "Lookin' for Love" in all the wrong places (his song was used in the movie, "Urban Cowboy" and went to the number three spot on the Billboard Country Charts and number five on the Pop Charts) and Johnny Paycheck said, "Take This Job and Shove It" (his song went to number one on the Billboard Country Charts in 1978.)
 

I did not go to the park for Cowboy Weekend, but I do remember seeing the Bear Country Hoedown many times throughout the early eighties. I believe this show was done as an attempt to try and draw guests back into that corner of the park in the late evenings. I remember guests had to sit on the ground for the show. Square dancers would come out and dance a few numbers and then they would grab guests from the crowd and teach them some of the steps. Then they would do a dance routine using those guests as their partners. I wish I had taken photos of one of the shows! I remember being picked quite a few times because I had been in "Fantasy On Parade" with some of the performers. Check out this post to see a 1981 Disneyland entertainment schedule listing the Bear Country Hoedown.

This ad was from a September 1980 edition of The Los Angeles Times. The park had been celebrating it's 25th birthday that year, with the yearlong "Family Reunion" campaign, but that would be winding down completely by Thanksgiving Weekend.

 

*****Post Update (April 2024)*****

I just found advertisements from 1981, and 1982, promoting Disneyland's "Country Weekends."  Apparently, they decided to change the name of the event, and use the word "Country" instead of "Cowboy."  I hope Jerry Reed sang, "When You're Hot, You're Hot"!

This ad is from just 5 months later, so the park's country music event must have been pretty popular.  Mel Tillis was already well established in country music, so I'm a little surprised to see that he was playing at Disneyland.  Reba McEntire was still an "up and coming" country artist at this point.  However, not too long after this, her career began to really take off.

 

Disneyland Trip Report....From 1980!

Once upon a time....well, November of 1980 to be exact, I drove myself to Disneyland for the very first time. Having just gotten my driver's license a few days earlier, I no longer had to depend on my family or my friends' families to take me to the park. So, I headed out with a friend (we'll call him Alvin) in my mom's 1974 Ford LTD....hey, it's the car that I had just passed my driving test with! Sure it was like navigating a cruise ship down the street, but it was also the car in which I learned to drive, so it was no problem for me to drive it without sideswiping every parked car alongside the road.
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So I picked Alvin up, and off to the park we went. We had met each other 2 years earlier in Jr. High School and became friends when we discovered that we were both HUGE Disneyland fans. By this time, we had been to the park several times together already, but only because his mother had been nice enough to drive us there.
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Even being a new driver, I guess I was feeling brave enough to stop in the middle of the road long enough to snap a photo of the entrance sign. I know I didn't take this while driving with one hand....I wouldn't even do that today. Notice how the sign had a special panel for the 25th birthday. This was the very end of the year long 25th Birthday celebration. The birthday parade was actually getting ready to end for good and the Christmas parade would be starting up soon.
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The park doesn't look very crowded in the shot above, even though it was Thanksgiving Weekend.
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Here's a shot taken from Casey Jr. Notice how back then, the boats did not travel under "the same arches that Aladdin and Jasmine flew under on their magic carpet ride." Who wrote that line anyway? They never flew under any floral arches in the film. It's like when they say that the thin little strip of land in the middle of Storybook Land was "the exact same park where Peter Pan taught Wendy, John and Michael how to fly." THAT didn't happen.....he taught them how to fly in the children's nursery. And if that tunnel really is now the Cave of Wonders, then where is the tiger head-shaped entrance? They confuse me so, because they used to tell me that it was the very same cave that the witch traveled through to bring her poisoned apple to Snow White. Oh, but I digress!
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Next, we have a photo of Big Thunder Mt. Railroad taken from the queue. The attraction would have been just a little over a year old here. Maybe I should take the time here to apologize for the quality of these photos. They were taken with a Kodak 110 Instamatic camera. It would be 5 more years before I would buy myself a 35mm camera!
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The Mouseketeers were also celebrating their 25th anniversary that year and they were appearing on the Space Stage in Tomorrowland on select weekends in October and November. The next four photos are from their show.

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I really miss the Space Stage and the whole look of the ORIGINAL Space Mountain complex. Guests could watch the shows from seats within the amphitheater, or from the dining areas adjacent to and above the stage area. The shows could also be viewed from above while waiting in line for Space Mountain. Boy, have they destroyed that area of the park, or what?

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I remember the Mouseketeers singing, "I Wish I Was A Kid Again" at this point in the show.....hence the jungle gym on stage! They had sung that song during their 25th Anniversary Reunion on the Wonderful World of Disney earlier that year.
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This depiction of the castle was a paper sculpture that was made for the 25th Birthday and was on display in the window next to the Candy Palace. Notice the China Closet across the street reflected in the glass. And there's my friend, Alvin! This sculpture was also used on the cover of the Spring 1980 issue of Disney News Magazine, as well as on other promotional items that year.

 

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My last photo for today was taken just before leaving the park. This large model of the castle was on display in the Emporium for the 25th Birthday. It rotated on a big turntable in the center of the store. I believe it remained there for a while after the 25th Birthday celebration was over. If you look closely on the right side of the photo, you can see the old brass elevator doors that used to be towards the back of the Emporium. We were told by cast members that this used to be a functioning freight elevator, but I can't remember if they said it went up one floor or down to a basement. They told us however, that it had not been used for anything other than storage for quite a while. At some point in the late eighties or early nineties, this was removed when the Emporium was remodeled and expanded into what had previously been a stock room and also the guest "Locker" area next door.
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Here is the entertainment guide for that weekend. Frankie Avalon was also appearing at the park!

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I hope everyone enjoyed this trip report from almost 29 years ago. This was the Disneyland that I grew up with and loved going to so very much!