Mickey's Mouseorail (& Other Vintage Tomorrowland Ride Vehicles)

In 1987, the Mark III Monorails at Disneyland were retired and replaced with the Mark V Monorails (the Mark IV was designed for use at Walt Disney World).  After retirement, the Mark III "Monorail Red" train was chopped up and converted into "Mickey's Mouseorail."



The Mouseorail was a street-legal vehicle that toured the country in 1990 to promote Disneyland's 35th anniversary.  Prior to embarking on it's promotional tour, it appeared in a pre-parade show for the 101st Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day, and then again at Disneyland in the premiere performance of the Party Gras Parade on January 11th, 1990.



If you would like to see footage of Mickey's Mouseorail making it's debut in the 1990 Tournament of Roses Parade, you can watch it below. The Mouseorail appears at the 5:40 mark, but the video includes the full Disney pre-show, as well as the entire Rose Parade.



Back in the late nineties, I used to drive to and from work using West Street (now Disneyland Drive). This was back when Disney was buying up property for their "resort" expansion. There used to be a small campground/RV park located on the east side of West Street, that backed up against the Disney property. After Disney purchased this property, they put up a gate across the driveway and used this property for storage. One of the items that was stored back there for a while was the Mouseorail. Since it could be seen just sitting there on the other side of the fence, I decided to pull over one day back in March of 1997, and take some pics of it through the opening in the gate.



Note the steering wheel that was installed in the nosecone of the monorail. There is also a pirate ship parade float that can be seen in the distance. I'm not sure which parade that would have been from. In the foreground, we can see a couple boxed-up trees. I wonder where those trees were from and where they ended up?



When it came time to design a new Tomorrowland, the original plan for the former Mission to Mars space was to have it be a restaurant where guests could eat their food while sitting in an old Skyway gondola, a PeopleMover car, or the actual Mouseorail car. One of the old Mission to Mars space capsules (there were two theaters!) was going to be left intact and guests were also going to be able to eat their food in that theater while watching the original "Rocket To The Moon" footage play on the floor and ceiling. Well, as we all know, plans can and do change very easily over at Disney (Helloooo, Westcot and Port Disney!) These plans got scrapped and what we ended up with was Redd Rockett's Pizza Port where guests can eat their food while sitting next to the Monorail, PeopleMover, or Skyway......attraction posters. Waaa waaaa!

It was then decided to just use the old attraction vehicles as decor in both Tomorrowland's Premiere Shop and in the queue of the new Rocket Rods attraction. At this time, the Mouseorail/Monorail Red was chopped up again and a portion of it went into the Rocket Rods queue along with a couple Rocket Jet vehicles, a couple PeopleMover cars, and a car from Space Mountain. (To see pics of the old Tomorrowland attraction vehicles that were used in the Premiere Shop, click here for my previous post from 2009: Vintage Tomorrowland Ride Vehicles.)

For the Rocket Rods queue, the vehicles were painted blue and tape was applied to them to give them a "blueprint" appearance.



You can see in the photo above and below that a mirror was used at the end of both the Monorail and the PeopleMover cars to give the illusion that they are longer and that they are coming out of a tunnel.

I love the way that the PeopleMover cars were just placed on top of the carpet without a base or anything. At least a fake beam-way was recreated for the Monorail. And how about the irony of that statement above the PeopleMover cars? It reads, "In the world of creativity, there's no end to the possibilities." Oh, I think there WAS an end to the possibilities and they reached it with Tomorrowland '98!



This next photo shows a couple of the old Rocket Jet vehicles. On the wall in the background, there are blueprints for the Tomorrowland Moonliner Rocket, as well as one for the Flying Saucer attraction.



Well unfortunately, there was not a happy ending for "Monorail Red." At some point after the closure of the Rocket Rods, that last remaining section of the Mark III Monorail was scrapped and another piece of Disneyland history was lost forever. :-(

(And as a side note, the front section of one of the 1971 Walt Disney World Mark IV monorails was saved after it was retired and is now in the hands of a private collector. To see a brief video tour of it's interior and exterior, click below:)



To see footage of the rescued WDW Mark IV Monorail being reunited with it's designer, Bob Gurr (at Walt's Barn), click below:

The Lunching Pad Revisited

Let's take a look at a long extinct Disneyland eatery, The Lunching Pad. This little snack bar used to be located underneath the PeopleMover station and Rocket Jet platform in Tomorrowland. It's original name was The Space Bar and that signage can be seen in these next two photos from Gorillas Don't Blog (used here with permission - THANK YOU, Major Pepperidge!) Incidentally, there was a larger "Space Bar" restaurant in the first version of Tomorrowland, but it was torn down in 1966 to make way for the Carousel Theater and the New Tomorrowland of 1967.

Looking through my collection of old Disneyland guides, it appears the name of this facility changed from The Space Bar to the The Lunching Pad sometime between the Spring and Summer of 1977. The change appears to have happened around the same time that Space Mountain opened. Here's a pic of the Lunching Pad as it appeared in September of 1995.

I like the font that was used for the signage.

After the release of "Toy Story" in 1995, The Lunching Pad received a "Little Green Men" makeover. These next photos were taken in October of 1996.

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Notice the white architectural element that sits between the two popcorn cases and also biscects the area behind the counter.....later, we'll see a shot of how that appears today.

A close-up of those purple Disneyland cups can be seen (here.)

What, no Space Mist? I guess it had already been removed from the menu. How about those 1996 prices!

Shortly after the 1998 redo of Tomorrowland (UGH!), this space was transformed into the headquarters for Radio Disney. While I don't have any pics of the building during this time, I do have this magnet that was given out free (yes, free!) at the park to promote Radio Disney.

In 2007 this space changed once again, and it is now a souvenir shop called TomorrowLanding, featuring "Gifts from Outer and Liquid Space."

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That architectural element pointed out earlier is now located in the middle of the shop. There are more of these that surround the building. I believe they are the actual supports that hold the structure up. Unfortunately, the rest of these were partially covered up with walls during changes that were made in 1998 for the Rocket Rods. I would love to see this structure returned to it's original 1967 glory with the Rocket Jets twirling up above once more, and some version of the PeopleMover brought back. The new shop could even stay! ;-)

Just for fun, here's a shot of Walt Disney World's current Lunching Pad.

Tokyo Disneyland has a snack bar under their Rocket Jet platform too, but theirs is called the Space Place Foodport. The gantry lifts that take guests up to the Rocket Jet (Star Jet) flight deck can be seen in the background. Hey Disney, bring back Anaheim's gantry lifts!

I hope everyone enjoyed this little trip back in time to Disneyland's Lunching Pad!

Vintage Tomorrowland Ride Vehicles

Where in the 1998 Tommorrowland could you have found Rocket Jets, PeopleMover cars AND Skyway buckets? I know what you're thinking. You are thinking "nowhere" because Disney destroyed all of those attractions. Well, the answer to that question is actually The Premiere Shop, located at the exit to the Rocket Rods attraction. (Of course, the queue for the Rocket Rods even had part of a vintage Monorail car, but that's the subject for another post!)

Notice the upright Rocket Jet vehicles being used to display merchandise in the next two photos.

Here's a better view of one of the merchandise displays. Hey, the control lever is still in place! Doesn't it make you wish you could go for a ride...but up on top the old Rocket Jet platform? .

After Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters opened in 2005, the shop was renamed Little Green Men Store Command and was given a Buzz makeover, but a few of the old ride vehicles remained and can still be seen in the shop today. Here is what the displays look like today with their new paint jobs.

This is what the cash register counter looked like back in 1998. These are actual pieces of the old PeopleMover vehicles.

And this is what that same counter looks like today.

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This scooped out area on the bottom is where the small white panels originally went as seen here at Daveland.

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I definitely liked all of these vehicles better with their former paint jobs, but I'm just glad they're still around to remind us how cool Tomorrowland used to be!
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*Post Update - 2015: To view a newer post with more pics of vintage Tomorrowland ride vehicles, including the last remnant of a Mark IV Monorail, click here: Mickey's Mouseorail

Vintage Disneyland Matchbooks

Continuing today with a "giveaway" or "free" theme.....these matchbooks were free to Disneyland guests in the late 70's and early 80's. They were available at the various shops and restaurants, but were kept behind the counters and only given out upon request.



Each of today's photos show the front and back of a single matchbook. You can see in the two pics above, that Fantasyland and Tomorrowland had their own matchbooks, but notice below how Frontierland had to share a matchbook with Bear Country.

Adventureland and New Orleans Square were also combined into one......

.....but The Blue Bayou Restaurant had it's own.

I will have one more post after this one that covers matchbooks (no pun intended). I do plan to get back to posting about Tokyo Disneyland......I'm just taking a little break from it for a while.

Return to Space Mountain

Today we will be taking a second look at Tokyo's Space Mountain. Walt Disney once said that you need a "weenie" to beckon people and draw them into an area. For Tokyo Disneyland's Tomorrowland, Space Mountain is the "weenie". Tokyo still has the old Rocket Jet platform (see my posting from July 30, 2008), but that attraction sits more or less in the same spot as Anaheim's Matterhorn. This is what I like about going to the other "Disneylands". Having grown up with Disneyland in Anaheim, I could probably find my way around it blindfolded, but going to another Disney Park is like going to an "alternate universe Disneyland". Everything is a little different and unpredictable.

The photo above was taken from the top of the Rocket Jet platform (actually called the "Star Jets" in Tokyo). The lights on the left are on The Grand Circuit Raceway sign (Autopia) and the building on the right is the Tomorrowland Terrace.

This shot above was taken right before entering the attraction. The signage was updated last year along with the ride itself. The sign that used to be in it's place was the red chunky plastic block letters that Anaheim used to have. I wish I had taken a picture of those! You don't always think about taking a picture of something until it's gone!

Tokyo Tomorrowland

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Once again, it's back to my favorite land.....Tomorrowland, but not Anaheim's this time. The shot above is of Tokyo Disneyland's Tomorrowland entrance. The spires resemble Walt Disney World's original Tomorrowland entrance before it was destroyed in a bad remodel job in the 90's.

Below is a shot of Tokyo Disneyland's Star Jets. They still have the "Apollo Rocket" motif complete with the "gantry lift" elevators. I love the design of the platform and supporting structure. It is very reminiscent of Anaheim's Rocket Jet platform (before it was bastardized). There is even a snack bar at it's base. Anaheim used to have the Space Bar below theirs (later named The Lunching Pad, then it was Radio Disney's Headquarters and now it's the TomorrowLanding Shop).
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Long live these classic Tomorrowland structures!!! I hope they never try to "improve" upon them.

Tomorrowland 1970 - A World Still On The Move (Not Static Yet)

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Today, it's back to my favorite version of my favorite land......the original "New" Tomorrowland. This shot was taken by my dad in Spring of 1970. I wish he had taken more pictures of Tomorrowland, but I am glad to have the shots that he did take. I love this one because it shows the water fountains at the entrance. Unfortunately, I don't remember those amoeboid bowls ever operating as fountains. I only remember them after they were converted into planters. I also love how the silver panels at the entrance shine in this photo as if they were brand new (they were 3 years old). While I'm glad those panels were retained in the 1998 redo, I have hated their newer colors (copper in 1998, replaced later by the dull gray/silver of today).

If you look closely in this pic, you can see the Carousel of Progress (my favorite attraction) in the distance. And if you look even closer, you can also see the diamond shaped display boxes on poles located on either side of the People Mover Speedramp. Does anyone else remember these? They were advertisements for Goodyear products. I would love to see close up shots of them sometime. Someone out there must have photographs of them. I can't remember too many specifics, I just remember that they contained simple animated cutouts of people using different Goodyear products. I have seen photos of similar Monsanto displays that were at the unloading area of Adventure Thru Inner Space in it's earlier years of operation.

Okay Disney, enough is enough! Bring back the Tomorrowland facades of 1967! I have absolutely no faith that you could ever improve upon such a classic design. You tried once, and failed miserably. Even your attempts to "paint out" your mistakes have failed....although I must admit that it is no longer quite as painful on the eyes. But why did you stop? There are still areas in Tomorrowland that are painted brown, gold and copper and they stick out like a sore thumb. Bring back/uncover/restore or recreate Mary Blair's wonderful murals! What took their place isn't art, it's the equivalent of a freeway billboard. Bring back the People Mover! How many times does it have to be said? And stop taking out classic Disneyland attractions! It has been proven over and over that you can't replace them with anything better..... Electrical Parade/Light Magic.....People Mover/Rocket Rods.....Country Bear Jamboree/Winnie the Pooh......Carousel Theater/Innoventions.....Rocket Jets/Astro Orbitor.....Enchanted Tiki Room/Tiki Room - Under New Management. Do I need to list more? I've got more! Okay, I'll stop now.

Tomorrowland '67 - "A World On The Move"

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That was the catchphrase for the "new" Tomorrowland of 1967 (my favorite "land" for many years). The current Tommorrowland's catchphrase when it opened in 1998 was, "Imagination And Beyond!" Personally, I would add "Lack Of " to that phrase. Not much moves in the heart of Tomorowland today. There is nothing moving on the old People Mover track. Nothing exciting moves on a regular basis on top of the former Rocket Jet platform. The Carousel Theater building has been turning for the past 10 years (after remaining static for 10 years before that), but it's movement is nothing but a very cruel tease since there is no longer a revolving theater show or any type of real attraction inside.....only exhibits to try to get you to purchase one of it's sponsor's products. Are you looking for the Skyway gondolas that used to cross overhead? Sorry, those were removed 4 years prior to the reopening of this exciting new Tomorrowland. Oh wait, look....there's something moving over there on the ground. What is it? It's...it's...a giant wet marble!!!! As Mickey says at the end of Fantasmic, "Some imagination, huh?"