Walt Disney Productions' The Rescuers

Walt Disney Productions' animated feature, The Rescuers, debuted on June 22, 1977. I was 12 years old when the film was released. Two other big events (for a 12 year old, anyway) happened to be occurring right around the same time. Just one month earlier, the very first Star Wars film had been released. And that very same week, Space Mountain had it's grand opening at Disneyland.

Above, is the original theatrical poster for the film (which I purchased in the 1980s). Below, is an ad for the film, which I cut out of the Los Angeles Times at the time of the film's original release.

The artwork for that newspaper ad, was also used for this movie theater lobby card.

There were eight more lobby cards available to theater owners, for promoting the film (as seen below).

Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor provided the voices of the film's heroes, Bernard and Bianca:

Geraldine Page (The Happiest Millionaire) provided the voice of the film's villain, Madame Medusa:

Jim Jordan (Fibber McGee and Molly) provided the voice of Orville, the albatross.

Disney sound effects artist, Jimmy McDonald, created the sound effects for Evinrude, the dragonfly.

Joe Flynn (Million Dollar Duck), who passed away before the film's release, provided the voice of Madame Medusa's business partner, Mr. Snoops.

Child actress, Michelle Stacy, was the voice of Penny, the kidnapped orphan.

Another promotional item available to theater owners, was this three-dimensional countertop display.  It only measures 14 inches in height, so I assume that it was meant to sit on the counter of the theater's snack bar, or maybe inside the ticket booth.

The Summer 1977 issue of Disney News Magazine, included this article about the film:

The back cover of the magazine featured a dual ad, which included Walt Disney Productions' other summer release, Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo:

The only "Rescuers" film-related merchandise that I bought back in 1977, was this Walt Disney Showcase comic book. I have scanned the entire comic book, and will include it at the end of this post.

The characters from The Rescuers were featured at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, as "walk-around" characters. I took this photo of Bernard and Bianca at Disneyland, in November of 1981.

Costumes were actually made for most of the film's main characters, including a "face character" version of Madame Medusa.

The next two pics of Orville and Bernard at Disneyland, are from the blog, "Stuff From The Park."

This Walt Disney World publicity photo shows that there was even a "Penny" character, complete with her "Teddy."

Today, you would be hard-pressed to find any of the characters from The Rescuers, walking around Disneyland or Walt Disney World, but they can still be found in one of the Tokyo Disney parks. The following postcard is from Tokyo DisneySea, and shows Bernard and Bianca peering through the window of the New York Deli restaurant, in the American Waterfront section of the park.

At the time of The Rescuers release, scenes from the movie were recreated in miniature, and displayed in the windows of Disneyland's Main Street Emporium. (As a side note, doesn't the cast member below, look a little bit like Penny Marshall of Laverne & Shirley fame?)

 

In 2005, some of the scenes from past Emporium window displays, made a return for Disneyland's 50th anniversary. This particular window contained scenes from The Rescuers, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Fox and the Hound, and The Jungle Book.

Here's a close-up of the Rescuers scene, which was brought back that year.

Incidentally, in the earliest planning stages for The Rescuers, Cruella de Vil (seen above) from One Hundred and One Dalmatians, was originally being considered for the film's villain. The following preliminary sketches were done by Disney animator, Ken Anderson, and show Cruella wearing an alligator coat, instead of her usual white fur coat.

   

 

About eight years after the film was released, I came across this production cell from the film. It was in a comic book shop (the Comic Castle, in Fullerton) not too far from Disneyland, and was only $5.00!

 

 

The cell was labeled, "Production Cell from The Rescuers."  There are actually two cells here, one for each bat, with one cell placed on top of the other.  At that time, I really couldn't recall a scene from the film which included bats, but the store owner assured me that they were from the film.  I remember him saying that he had acquired the piece, from someone who worked at the studios.  I went ahead and purchased it.  This was around 1985, so the film had not yet been released on video.  Years later, when it finally came out on video, I was very pleased to see the cells used in this scene:

 

 

The Rescuers was originally released on VHS in 1992. It went back into "The Disney Vault," in 1993.

It was re-released on VHS, in 1999.

Three days after it's re-release, Disney recalled over three million copies of the videotapes, because of "objectionable images" in one of the film's backgrounds.

This explanation is from Wikipedia: "The image in question is a blurry image of a topless woman. The image appears twice in non-consecutive frames during the scene in which Miss Bianca and Bernard are flying on Orville's back through New York City. The two images could not be seen in ordinary viewing, because the film runs too fast — at 24 frames per second."

An article about the recall, appeared in a 1999 issue of Entertainment Weekly.

A local newspaper also featured an article about the incident.

Inside the videotape's package, was this order form for a "free" children's book.

The "free" book was originally published in 1977, as a part of Disney's "Wonderful World of Reading" series.

Here are some scans of just a few of the pages inside (borrowed from ebay).

The back cover:

The Rescuers was first released on DVD in 2003.  It was released again (on DVD and Blu-ray) in 2012, as a part of a 2-movie collection, along with it's sequel, The Rescuers Down Under.  The 2-movie set was released specially, for the original film's 35th anniversary.

By the way, The Rescuers Down Under was released in movie theaters in 1990.  But that film will have to be the subject of a future post....maybe.

 

And finally, here is my Walt Disney Showcase comic book, in it's entirety. Enjoy!

****BONUS / LATE ADDITION - March 9, 2021****

I just came across my lobby card for the 1983 theatrical re-release of  The Rescuers.  Released along with it, was the brand new Disney featurette, Mickey's Christmas Carol.  This was the studio's first new theatrical Mickey Mouse cartoon in over 30 years, and this was The Rescuers first theatrical re-release.  The film's next (and last) re-release was in 1989, in anticipation of the sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, which was released the following year (1990).

I also came across my April 1956 issue of Popular Science, which included an ad for Evinrude outboard motors.  In reader's comments left below, both "K. Martinez" and "JG" mentioned realizing that the name of the character, "Evinrude," was a nod to this brand of outboard motor.  I had never heard of this brand name before, so I didn't make the connection to the character until I bought this vintage magazine, about 10 years ago.

A Vintage Disneyland Trip Report from February 20, 1985 (& A New Camera for Me!)

Picture it.....February, 1985.  I was leaving for Hawaii in just a few weeks, and I was determined to take some decent photographs on that upcoming vacation. For quite some time, I had not been very happy with the Disneyland photos I had been taking, with my brother's Kodak Instamatic camera and it's "110" film. (We have seen some of those pics posted here, in the past.) I really wanted to buy an "automatic" 35mm camera that would do everything for me, just like the ones I had seen Bruce Jenner and Cheryl Tiegs advertise on TV.

I went to a store called "Consumers," which was similar to Service Merchandise or Jewelcor, if anyone remembers those stores. They would only have one of each item out on display, and if you were going to purchase something, they would have to go bring it out from the stockroom.

The camera that I ended up purchasing, was the 35M Canon "Sure Shot" with auto focus.

Here is the cover of the camera's instruction manual:

I found the original store receipt, tucked inside the manual!

So, now I had a brand new 35mm automatic camera. I was very excited and I wanted to try out all of it's features right away, so the very next day, I went to Disneyland!

The park had already begun it's year-long 30th anniversary celebration.  This first shot that I took shows one of the 30th anniversary "tents," which were set up in front of the ticket booths. Below them, various GM cars were out on display. The promotion for the 30th anniversary was "It's our birthday, but you get the gifts." That year, they were giving away a GM car to every 30,000th guest who walked through the gates.

Notice the old Disneyland parking lot in the background. And is that a boat strapped to the roof of a van on the left? It looks like something is also strapped to the van on the right, but I can't make out what it is. The Grand Hotel can also be seen in the distance. That hotel was eventually imploded and I believe that site is now a parking lot for Disney cast members.

The "Gift Giver Extraordinaire" machine had been installed at the park's entrance. It kept track of the number of guests passing through the turnstiles. For every 30th guest that passed through, an alarm went off and a light bulb lit up at that particular turnstile. The guest was then awarded a prize. As I mentioned above, some of those prizes were cars. We'll see some of the other prizes in just a minute.

The turnstiles also produced a ticket for each and every guest, letting them know what number guest they were, and whether or not they had won a prize. This was my ticket for the day, which reads, "Sorry No Win."  It was also letting me know that I was the park's 242,206,833rd guest!

This was the Disneyland Guidebook for that day:

I don't seem to have an entertainment guide from that same day, but here is one from about a month later:

And here is a list of the various prizes, which were awarded to guests:

The explanation for the Thumper's Easter Egg Hunt contest seems a little convoluted.

An "Official Birthday Party" was held daily:

This is the button which was included in the "Birthday Party" price of $2.50.  It was exclusive to the guests who paid for the birthday party package. The button shown at the very beginning of this post, was smaller in diameter and could be purchased in various souvenir shops throughout the park.

I just had to take a picture of the train engineer, since he was so friendly and waving to us from up above. I'm glad that the Global Van Lines lockers building can be seen through the archway, because I don't have any other personal photos of it. I have never liked the building/facade that replaced it. In my opinion, it never matched the rest of the architecture on Main St. It's really too bad they didn't just leave the facade of that original building, when they expanded the Emporium into that space.

I climbed the steps up to the train station, to get this pic of Town Square with the Castle in the distance. Of course, if you try to "center" the photo, then the flag pole will block the Castle, so you have to step to one side. Notice the special signage and bunting on the lampposts. This was for the park's "Salute to American Heroes" promotion. Each sign had a different hero on it. The one closest to us and on the right, is John F. Kennedy.  The one on the left is, Ronald Reagan.  To see close-up shots of these signs, taken just about two weeks later, check out this post from Major Pepperidge and "Lou and Sue," over at Gorillas Don't Blog. 

Back in the day, the free Disneyland guidebooks would state that "It's A Small World" was the only attraction, where flash photography was allowed. We went on the attraction that day, so I could test out the camera's built-in flash.

Two years earlier (in 1983), while the "New Fantasyland" was still under construction, many of the Tomorrowland cast members were telling us that Tomorrowland was going to be the next "land" to be completely remodeled. Because of this, I decided that I better start documenting it on film. That is the reason for this shot of the Mission To Mars facade. I probably should have waited for that PeopleMover vehicle in the distance, to come a little closer!

Even though plans were obviously changed, and Tomorrowland did not get remodeled for many more years, Adventure Thru Inner Space was rumored to be closing at the end of the year, for a brand new attraction. For this reason, I tried (in vain) to capture several of the scenes within the ride.

This first one didn't turn out too bad, I guess. The only thing missing here, is the projection of the smaller snowflake, rotating in the center of the larger three-dimensional snowflake. The projection ended up being "washed out" by the camera's flash. I know, I know....that's what I get for using a flash inside the attraction!

I also tried to capture the wall of "vibrating" water molecules; "What are these strange spheres? Have I reached the universe of the molecule? Yes, these are water molecules, H2O! They vibrate in such an orderly pattern, because this is water, frozen into the solid state of matter!"

The molecules in this part of the ride, were behind a two-way mirror (and I believe they were also in front of another mirror, which helped create the effect that they went on forever). Unfortunately, the bright camera flash was reflected back in the mirror. I know, I know......don't say it! But at least one of the molecules showed up in the photo (upper left corner).

This is the part of the ride when the vehicles, or "atomobiles," would pass by the eyepiece of the microscope and riders would see a giant eyeball looking back at them. As the eye shifted back and forth, riders would hear the narrator state, "There is no cause for alarm! You are back on visual and returning to your normal size!" I LOVED everything about this attraction, but the giant eyeball was my favorite part! Unfortunately, the flash from the camera reflected on the piece of glass in front of the eye and blocked out most of it. I know.....I KNOW!

I took this pic of the Atomobiles in the unloading room, just as a PeopleMover car was passing by. The hourglass-shaped structure on the other side of the Atomobiles, was at one time, a giant floor-to-ceiling "rain lamp." Rather than try to give my own description of what a "rain lamp" is, here's the definition from Wiktionary: "A type of lamp, popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that moves droplets of water or oil along filaments, to create the illusion of falling rain." Disney turned off the oil on their lamp, sometime in the 1970s.

That's it for the photos I took that day. Well, actually, I placed the camera on top of a trash can, in order to test the automatic timer. It worked and I got a decent photo of myself and a friend, but there wasn't anything very interesting in the background. And since I would have to place white ovals over our faces, I decided to leave that one out!

As an added bonus, here is the GM flyer, which was being handed out at that General Motors car display, in front of the park:

 

 

And one last item.....in addition to the prizes awarded to every 30th guest, all winners were given one of these buttons:

 

 

I hope everyone enjoyed this trip back to 1985!