Pirates of the Caribbean - 52nd Anniversary & The Pirates Arcade Museum

Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction will be celebrating it's 52nd anniversary this month. Today, we'll be taking a look at the "Pirates Arcade Museum," which used to be located at the exit to the attraction. The arcade was home to "Fortune Red" (the fortune telling pirate) and many other coin-operated machines.

One of those machines dispensed sets of postcards, featuring original attraction artwork by legendary Disney Imagineer, Marc Davis. There were two sets altogether, with six bundled postcards in each set. Here are the postcards from both sets.

This information was on the back of all the postcards.

By the way, there was a similar machine in Teddi Barra's Swingin' Arcade in Bear Country. However, it dispensed individual postcards as opposed to the bundled sets. Each of those cards featured Marc Davis' artwork for the Country Bear Jamboree attraction.

The Pirate Arcade closed in 1980 and the space was converted into the "Pieces of Eight" shop (because there weren't already enough shops in Disneyland!)

I bought this black velvet drawstring bag in the shop, back in 1983.

Fortune Red stayed behind in the Pieces of Eight shop. He remained there for many years, but was eventually moved next door, just inside the entrance to the Royal Courtyard.

The photo above, was taken in 2009. These next two pics were taken in 2014. Note that the price of a fortune had actually gone from fifty cents, down to twenty-five cents. Also within that time, Fortune Red got himself a new outfit and took up smoking!

After dropping a quarter in the slot, Fortune Red's finger follows a trail on his treasure map, while "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirates Life For Me" plays in the background. When he gets to the end of the trail, a "fortune card" is dispensed below.





Here are some samples of the cards that used to be dispensed. All of them had this Jolly Roger info on one side.

Various "fortunes" appeared on the reverse side of the cards. I think it's kind of neat how the fortunes all referenced an attraction or an area of the park. I especially like how the pink one below, mentions the "bubblin' wonders o' the Rainbow Caverns in Frontierland."

Today, the fortune cards are a little bit larger. The Jolly Roger info has remained the same, but they have added some new graphics. The cards also have "The Walt Disney Company" printed on them now, instead of "WDP" (Walt Disney Productions).

I'm not sure if all of the "fortunes" have been rewritten or not. I don't have an older copy of this particular fortune and this is the only "new" card that I have.

Incidentally, Fortune Red's outfit used to match the sketch of the pirate on the card a little more closely, but at some point, he was given fancier duds.

To see a pic of the Pirate Arcade from 1971, as well as a vintage pic of Fortune Red, click here for a terrific post from Major Pepperidge of Gorillas Don't Blog!

Happy 52nd Anniversary to Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean!

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***POST UPDATE*** I'm including this page from the Spring 1975 Disneyland Guide, to show the exact location of the Pirates Arcade Museum. Looking at the map, the exit to Pirates of the Caribbean is just to the left of the arcade (in that small indentation in the building's outline).

Here's a current photo of that "indentation" in the building, where the attraction exit is located. A little bit of trivia here - there used to be two doorways along the exit walkway, which led directly into the Arcade. When the Pieces of Eight shop moved into the former Arcade space, one of those doors was permanently closed and a metal railing was placed across the front of it.

The yellow arrow above, is pointing to the location of the doorway that was permanently closed (just inside that brick archway). The red arrows above and below, point to the second doorway along the exit walkway, which still exists today.

And of course, the "main entrance" doorways still face Royal Street.

The Magic Kingdom - Liberty Square

Hey kids, let's visit Liberty Square! This is where you will find Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion. The exterior is almost an exact copy of Tokyo Disneyland's Mansion....or I guess I should say that Tokyo's is a copy of Florida's!



After seeing online photos and video of the new interactive queue for Florida's Mansion, we felt like we could just skip it since walking through it is optional for guests. Actually, there was only an hour left until park closing and we still needed to ride Snow White's Scary Adventure's a couple more times....okay, eight more times! This headstone is located just outside the entrance to the Mansion, but it isn't part of the new interactive queue, it was added in 2002. The inscription reads, "DEAR SWEET LEOTA, BELOVED BY ALL. IN REGIONS BEYOND NOW, BUT HAVING A BALL."



The neat thing about this headstone is that every so often, it's eyes will open for just a couple seconds and then close again. I remember the very first time I saw this, it reminded me of the "I Love Lucy" episode when Lucy turns her head into a clay bust and is trying to hold still, but opens her eyes briefly to look at Ethel. Here's an animated pic using two photos that I took on a previous visit. (Editor's note: Sorry, but the animated photo doesn't seem to be working the way I had hoped. Doesn't Blogger support GIF files anymore?)



The Haunted Mansions in Orlando and Tokyo have a few extra scenes that are missing from Anaheim's version. One of those scenes included a hallway with portraits of people whose eyes would "follow" you as you rode past them in your Doombuggy. Orlando replaced these not too long ago with Anaheim's "changing portraits" and put a window on the opposite side of the hallway with lightning flashing outside. The portraits that used to hang on the walls have now been moved to the loading area. Below are two of those paintings. I know the painting of the fisherman is based on original concept art by Marc Davis, but I'm not sure about the other one. If someone out there knows for sure, please chime in!




Another scene missing from Anaheim's Mansion is the music room with a piano that plays all by itself.



Just outside the gates of the Haunted Mansion is a shop called The Yankee Trader, which carries "Jams, Jellies and Kitchen Needs".



The shop was formerly known as The Yankee Pedlar (Gourmet and Culinary Aids). Here's a photo from 1975.



This next shop is called Heritage House. I did not go inside and unfortunately the maps for the Orlando parks, just like the maps for the Anaheim parks, no longer give a description of any of the shops or their wares. Whatever happened to the guidebooks that were given out at the ticket booths that had a description of the attractions, restaurants AND shops for each land? Even the official WDW site didn't care to tell me what was sold inside the shop, but according to an unofficial website I found, this shop sells "everything from the revolution era....flags, T-shirts and lots of historic replicas....here you can also find metal plates that were made by real modern day blacksmiths." I hope that's true and that they don't just sell the same souvenirs that every other shop in the park sells.



The Liberty Belle Riverboat is also located in Liberty Square. I'm planning on doing a separate post on that attraction so for now, we'll just take a look at "the stocks" that are located in front of the riverboat landing.



Here are three vintage pics from the 1970's. This guy seems to me making his own imaginary guillotine with his hand as a blade. I bet that was his wife!



Now it's his turn in the stocks.



I believe this is him once again, but taken during a different visit. Hey....that guy on the left......is that.....no it couldn't be.....but it kind of looks like.......SQUIGGY!



Liberty Square contains a replica of the Liberty Bell that was cast from the same mold as the original. According to Wikipedia, it's the only other bell to ever be cast from those molds. Who knew?





The Liberty Bell is surrounded by flags from the original thirteen colonies. In the background is The Hall of Presidents building.





The original attraction poster hangs outside the entrance.



The United States Seal can be found on the carpet in the lobby.



Funny, in this closeup it looks more like an eagle (ha, ha!)



Now in the past, I think the cast members have stated "no photography of any kind" during the show, but this time they only stated "no flash photography" (and maybe no videotaping), so I took the opportunity to snap a few pics. Of course without a flash they came out a little blurry, but here they are. The first one shows Abraham Lincoln delivering his Gettysburg Address. The interesting thing here is that he speaks in the middle of the pre-show. This is something new just since Barack Obama's addition to the show. One of the projection screens raises to reveal Lincoln with curtains strategically placed behind him to block out the rest of the Hall of Presidents stage sets and audio-animatronics.



And now, the Presidents of the United States....



....including the Barack Obama animatronic (in the foreground and on the far left.....of the photo that is.) Another new addition to the attraction is George Washington standing up to deliver a speech. He does this before Obama speaks. In the past, Lincoln was the only figure in the show that spoke, but beginning with the addition of Bill Clinton in 1994, the current president now delivers a speech that is recorded by the actual Commander-In-Chiefs.



Here's high definition video of the current version of The Hall of Presidents show.

Part One:



Part Two:




And just for fun, here's a short video showing the Lincoln Audio-animatronic experiencing some minor technical difficulties back in 1992.