Happy Thanksgiving! And Happy Cake Day, Too!

Today is Thanksgiving, but it's also "National Cake Day." Incidentally, this Saturday happens to be "International Aura Awareness Day." Are you aware of your aura? A friend of my grandmother's once told her, that she and I shared the same aura, but that's a story for another time. Today, we are focusing on Cake Day! Who decides these "official" days, anyway? I didn't feel like doing any more research, to find out!

Okay...so I recently found this 1973 Wilton "Cake and Food Decorating Year Book," in my mom's kitchen cupboard.

As the cover states, it's "a month-by-month calendar of cake and party ideas." It starts out with some suggestions for January and February, and then continues with ideas for the rest of the year:

I actually remember this magazine from childhood, mainly because of the Disney cakes and cake pans that were pictured in it.

"Let's Take A Trip To Walt Disney World!" Walt Disney World would have only been two years old, when this was published.

What, no turkey-shaped cakes for November?

A special cake pan was available, to create Cinderella's cake-dress.

If you were going to make a princess or royal-themed cake, there were plenty of carriages to choose from.

More "doll" cakes:

Who knew you could make hard sugar figures and designs, out of just a little sugar and water? Here's the recipe:

The back cover listed a variety of molds that were available, for making solid sugar figures of the Disney characters.

And while we are on the subject of cakes and cake pans....in the 1990's, Disneyland sold these copper Mickey and Minnie Mouse pans/molds, in the "Le Gourmet" shop, located in New Orleans Square.

I bought these with the intention of hanging them in my kitchen, but instead they remained wrapped up with the tags still on them, for over 20 years!

The pans had been coated with a protective lacquer finish, to prevent tarnishing. If they were going to be used for actual cooking, rather than just for decorative purposes, instructions were given on how to remove their lacquer finish. It's nice to know that acetone is available from any chemist. Now, where do I find a chemist?

The Le Gourmet shop also sold a matching set of refrigerator magnets.

To give you an idea of the size of the magnets, I photographed them together, with the copper pans.

By the way, the Le Gourmet shop also carried "Unique cooking and serving accessories, exotic spices, and cook books for the connoisseur." That description is from a 1985 Disneyland Guidebook:

The shop opened along with the rest of New Orleans Square, in 1966, and closed in 1998....probably so they could sell more plush toys and T-shirts out of that space! (Remember the "people" who were in charge of the park, back in the 1990s?)

Here are a couple postcards, showing what the shop looked liked in it's original location, next door to "The Court of Angels." By the time the shop closed in 1998, it had been relocated to the space formerly occupied by the "One Of A Kind Shop."

 

Happy Thanksgiving, to all....and a very happy Cake Day, too!

Halloween, Popcorn & Westernland

Back in March, I did a post about Tokyo Disneyland's popcorn wagons and mentioned that a couple of them get decorated for Halloween. Let's take a look at those two locations and their seasonal decor.

First up, is this popcorn wagon in Westernland. Here we find Big Al from Country Bear Jamboree all decked out as the Wicked Witch. He even has a basket of apples on his arm!


Notice the wig and the small mole on his nose that help complete the costume.


Here's how he looks the rest of the year.


Next we have another Westernland popcorn wagon featuring Pecos Bill and his horse. Pecos Bill is wearing a Captain Hook hat and wig. His costume also includes a hook for his hand and a strap-on prosthetic chin.

His horse even gets to wear a coordinating Crocodile costume!

Here's how they look without their costumes.

Just in case I don't get another post up before Saturday, I want to wish everyone a very safe and happy Halloween!

Tokyo Disneyland Candy

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Last month I posted some vintage candy wrappers that I had saved from various childhood visits to Disneyland. Well, thirty years later I'm still saving this kind of stuff! Today's post includes packages/boxes from the Tokyo Disney Resort which originally held three different flavored candy bars. These are currently sold at both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. Mickey's box contained a milk chocolate candy bar.
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Minnie's was a strawberry-flavored white chocolate bar.

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Donald's was a white chocolate candy bar with small chocolate cookie crunchies.

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Now I'm hungry!

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Non-Vintage Disneyland Candy

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Staying with a candy wrapper/label theme, we present two newer items. The label above is from just a few years ago and might even be currently in use on packages of chocolate honeycomb (and other chocolate items) sold at the park today. As a kid, I always liked getting honeycomb candy from the candy counter at Sears department stores, but alas....those candy counters no longer exist!
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Next, is a header from the top of a bag of candy "spots." These were the candy dots that used to come stuck to a strip of paper. I think there were other types of "Candy Your Parents Remember" sold in the park. This is from the nineties, but I can't really remember where the candy was sold because it was actually purchased by a friend and then the label was given to me because I liked the retro style graphics....and because I collected this stuff!
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Fudge Pies and Frozen Bananas!

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Today we have another candy wrapper from Disneyland circa the late seventies/early eighties. This cellophane wrapper contained a small aluminum "pie tin" filled with chocolate fudge. Like the candy bar wrappers from my last post, the Fudge Pies were also sold at the Candy Palace on Main St. and the Castle Candy Shoppe inside Sleeping Beauty Castle. The price tag is still on the back...only .55 cents! Now they would probably charge $6.95. (I'm just guessing.)
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Next, we have a paper wrapper for a Frozen Banana. This is also from the late seventies. I believe these were sold throughout the park, but for some reason I remember always buying them from an ice cream cart that sat at the entrance to Bear Country.

Here's a close-up of the print on the back of the banana wrapper.

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And just in case you want to make your own at home, here are the ingredients. Just make sure to process your cocoa first with alkali. That actually doesn't sound very healthy. Don't they put that in batteries?
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Does Disneyland still sell frozen bananas? I lost interest in them quite some time ago. They take too long to thaw and in the meantime, it always feels like you are going to break a tooth on them. During a recent trip to Tokyo Disneyland, I discovered that they sold chocolate covered banana SLICES. They thawed much quicker, which made them less frustrating to eat. I wish I had saved the wrapper for those, darn it!
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Both of the wrappers today were saved from childhood visits to the park. I remember being fascinated by the graphics on these and I wanted to take home a piece of the park that normally would not have been kept or saved. Yes, even as a kid I was thinking of stuff like that. One person's trash is another person's.........

Vintage Disneyland Candy Wrappers

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Today, we have two vintage candy bar wrappers (fronts and backs.) These were sold at Disneyland in the late seventies/early eighties at the Candy Palace on Main St. and at the Castle Candy Shoppe located inside Sleeping Beauty Castle.


The candy bars were actually wrapped in foil, and then these paper sleeves went around the outside of the foil. I saved these from a childhood visit to the park and just recently came across them.

For other vintage Disney ephemera from my collection, check out my previous posts from January 2009 on Disneyland paper cups and also, old Disneyland matchbooks.

Got Popcorn?

Popcorn is just as popular in Japan as it is here in the United States. The Tokyo Disney Resort however, has only a few popcorn stands that sell just plain popcorn. Most of the popcorn sold in their parks is flavored popcorn. Here is a partial list (from memory) of just some of the flavors: Cappuccino, Chocolate, Curry, Honey, Black Pepper, Strawberry, Sea Salt, and Soda (don't ask...I don't know what the Soda flavored one tastes like!) The next time I am there, I will have to make a complete list of the flavors, but this post isn't about the flavors, it's actually about the locations that sell the popcorn.

First up, is the Popping Pod, which kind of looks like it just "landed" in Tomorrowland.

Also in Tomorrowland is this moon rover-looking cart. I do wish the Disney Parks worldwide would stop sticking brown, beige, and copper colors in their Tomorrowlands. Am I the only one that feels that way? I actually don't hate these colors, I just don't like them in Tomorrowland!


This next cart is from Adventureland and has a Tiki bird (complete with chef's hat and scarf), turning the little crank mechanism.

These last two pics are both from Westernland. First we have Big Al turning the crank at one cart.....

....while at another cart, we have the politically incorrect version of Pecos Bill turning the crank with his foot, while smoking a cigarette! (Incidentally, upon it's video release, Disney digitally removed Pecos Bill's cigarette from all scenes in the film Melody Time.)

For Halloween, Tokyo Disneyland puts miniature costumes on Big Al, Pecos Bill and even his horse! I will include those pics in a future post.

*Post Update: I visited Tokyo just about a month after this post and the popcorn flavors that I had listed from memory was a complete list!

*Second Post Update: For the newer post showing the miniature figures wearing their Halloween costumes, click here: Halloween, Popcorn And Westernland.

More Disneyland Cups

Today we have more paper cups from Disneyland. These are all much newer than the cups shown in my last post. The photo above shows the front and back of a cup from Christmas of 1997. This was the first year that Disneyland did their holiday conversion of "It's A Small World."

Below, is a cup that was used in the park throughout the nineties, and I believe into the 2000's as well. Tokyo Disneyland actually used this exact same design until just last year, when their graphics were changed for the park's 25th Anniversary.

Next, we have a cup from Disneyland's 50th Anniversary, "The Happiest Homecoming On Earth."

The cup below should look familiar to regular park goers. It was used during the "Two And A Half Years Of A Million Dreams" campaign.

Last up today, we have a cup from Christmas of 2007. The logo reads, "Disney Parks, Where Dreams Come True." I am assuming they used this cup in Florida as well. I wonder how much money is really saved by making everything generic? Personally, I think it stinks! I don't want a shirt or hat that says "Disney Parks" on it. I want one that says "Disneyland", "Walt Disney World", etc......but that's just me!