Pearl Bailey At Disneyland!

Pearl's Here! Showcased on Disneyland's all new "Rivers of America" floating stage! This was before the hideous and permanent Fantasmic stage existed. The floating stage was smaller and floated out in front of the Old Mill on Tom Sawyer Island. This ad ran in the L.A. Times on Wednesday, November 24th, 1976 and was advertising the park's entertainment for Thanksgiving weekend.

In addition to Pearl Bailey, we have the big band sounds led by Louie Bellson, Les Brown and Teddy Buckner. Over in Tomorrowland, there's Papa Doo Run Run and Sunshine Balloon! And this is all at regular admission prices! Don't forget that Disneyland is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays!

Let's flash forward now to 1981. Disney's "The Fox and the Hound" is released that year and Pearl Bailey provides the voice of the character Big Mama. And THEN, that summer...she's back! Back at Disneyland and back on the Rivers of America floating stage! I saw her at Disneyland that summer. She came out and did a set of songs including "The Best Of Friends," from "The Fox and the Hound." She was wonderful. I have a whole series of photos from that day (looks like I will have to do another vintage trip report!) but out of all the photos I took, I wish I had taken just one photo of Pearl Bailey performing on that stage, but alas I did not!

And in case you were wondering what's on the reverse side of this vintage Disneyland advertisement.....it's an ad for another Southern California attraction!

I loved Busch Gardens in Van Nuys and still miss it to this very day!

I want to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving!!!

Farewell to Knott's Corkscrew!

Twenty years ago today, Knott's Berry Farm threw an employee farewell party for the Corkscrew. Commemorative buttons were handed out and employees were given a chance to ride the attraction one last time.


Built by Arrow Dynamics, the Corkscrew opened at Knott's in 1975 and was the first modern inverting roller coaster in the U.S. There actually used to be a recorded welcome announcement in the queue stating this historical fact.

Here are three vintage Corkscrew postcards. The first one shows what it looked like when it first opened....the track and the supports were all painted white. Notice also that there is no Sky Jump parachute tower in the background. That came one year later when the Airfield area was added to the Roaring Twenties section of the park. I can't remember exactly when the Corkscrew's track was painted blue, but I believe it was shortly after the Airfield opened.

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After the Corkscrew closed in 1989, it was packed up and shipped to Silverwood Theme Park in Idaho where it opened in 1990 and still operates to this day. The Silverwood website even explains the history and origin of this historical attraction. Below, is a photo of the Corkscrew at Silverwood.

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The closing of the Corkscrew came as a surprise to me. Why wouldn't Knott's have wanted to keep this little part of U.S. theme park history? They replaced it with "Boomerang" which isn't any longer in length (935 ft. of track compared to the Corkscrew's 1,250 ft.) Of course Boomerang goes backwards, but Knott's already had a coaster that did this....Montezooma's Revenge. It didn't make sense!

As a side note....I have not been to Silverwood Theme Park to ride the Corkscrew in it's new home, but several years ago, I visited Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida and they had a roller coaster called The Python which was identical to the Corkscrew. The Python had opened in 1976 and was the park's first roller coaster and Florida's first inverting roller coaster. Unfortunately, The Python was removed from Busch Gardens in 2006. :-(
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The Python 1976-2006