More Haunted Mansion!

And more pins! Here is the pin that I was purchasing on Disneyland's 55th birthday that led to my discovery of the special limited pins featured in my Art Corner post from last month. This pin is a copy of the roadside billboard that advertised the opening of the Haunted Manison back in 1969. I know I have a photo of the actual billboard somewhere, but I have searched high and low through my computer files and can't find it!


Here's a set of five pins featuring the Haunted Mansion's changing portraits. I wish they had included the original April-December portrait in the set instead of the newer Master Gracey portrait that replaced it (The Master Gracey portrait is original to Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion and wasn't added to Anaheim until 2006.)

When exposed to black light, these pins/paintings change to their alternate versions. Disney is selling a mini blacklight flashlight that clips onto the back of a bat-shaped lanyard medallion.

You might recognize the bat from the queue posts inside the Haunted Mansion.

Alice Behind Bars....and the Kalamazoo Handcar!

This is a Friday the 13th "mini" trip report from The Happiest Place On Earth. I stopped by the park yesterday after work, and found the Alice In Wonderland exit leaf/track outlined with some very ugly railings. Evidently, this is something that OSHA is making Disney do for the safety of the employees when they have to perform evacuations of the attraction.

Don't worry, the "path to Wonderland" will eventually reopen and when it does, it will be safer than ever before.

Some of the new railings can be seen in the top portion of the photos above and below. There are also tarps hanging below the track.

Too bad the leaves that are "stuck" to the railings aren't the same quality or color as the original ones. Those leaves are actually hiding the areas where the bars are joined together.

Lovely!

Actually....UGLY!

In the close-up shot below, you can see what looks like a walkway and stairs to the right of the track. I believe this continues around the entire track.

Right now, there is sort of a "portico" built over the track near the loading area. I wonder if this will be permanent or if it's just temporary while the construction is taking place.

On a happier note, I also noticed that the Kalamazoo handcar was back in front of the Main St. train station. I'm not sure when it first reappeared, but I know I was just pointing out to a friend two weeks ago that it was gone and that it had been missing for quite some time.

The handcar sits on a spur of the track that was once used by the Disneyland trains for passing each other if needed.

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!

Haunted Mansion - 41st Anniversary!

Today is the 41st Anniversary of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. In honor of the occasion, let's take a look at a vintage Haunted Mansion souvenir. This postcard booklet was purchased during one of my childhood visits to the park back in the early seventies.

This last pic shows the Hitchhiking Ghosts before "Phineas" (the first one on the left), had his eyes removed. I would like to know why they were taken out. For years now, they have been just dark empty sockets. To see how he appears now, click here for Daveland's post on the Hitchhiking Ghosts and check out the very last pic of this guy.

Happy 41st Anniversary to a Disneyland classic!

Greetings from The Art Corner at Disneyland!

Let me start this post by saying that I don't consider myself a big Disneyland pin collector. I'm being specific here when I say "Disneyland." I actually own more pins from Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris than I do from the original Disney theme park that I grew up with. Maybe it's because I buy more souvenirs in general when I visit other Disney parks, than I do from the park that's right here in my own backyard.

Well, on a recent visit to Disneyland, I discovered that there had been a special "pin event" about a week before Disneyland's 55th birthday on July 17th. Attendance at the event was limited and after paying to go to the event, attendees could have first crack at a wide array of limited edition pins. About a week after the event, the remaining pins were placed into a couple pin selling locations in the park. I wandered into one of those pin locations during DL's birthday weekend and found just one "regular" pin that I liked, but when I went to pay for it, I discovered the "limited" edition pins behind the counter and ended up buying more than I had planned. Below, are four of those pins (plus a bonus pin.) All of these pins are mounted on replicas of postcards that were once sold at the Art Corner in Tomorrowland.

This first pin features Mickey Mouse as an astronaut.


Here's the actual postcard that the pin is based on. Note how the TWA logo has been removed above. Oh, and there will be some glare from the cellophane wrapping on these pins since I didn't open any of them!

Next, we have Jiminy Cricket.....

The words, "from the Art Corner" have been removed from the reproduction.

Here are Chip and Dale giving a great big "HELLO!" from Disneyland. (The actual pin is just Dale.)

The original postcards have a little bit more detail going on.

The last one from this set features Lady and the Tramp.


Once again, "from the Art Corner" is missing. Also the paintbrush has been removed from Lady and Tramp's mouths.

Here's what the back of all four original postcards looked like. Oh, and all of these can be found in the book, "The Nickel Tour" (on pages 208-210.)

There was also a large postcard that the Art Corner used to sell that featured Donald Duck riding on a train. There was a dial on the side of the card that let you change the hat that he was wearing. The sign in the foreground also changed.

A pin version of this postcard was released for DL's 55th and it also has the dial on the side. I did not purchase this particular pin....I "borrowed" the image from ebay!

According to this sign in Downtown Disney, pin trading has been going on for ten years now. Gee, and I don't even own a lanyard!

Viewliner In The Sky & Second Anniversary!

While strolling the grounds of the Disneyland Hotel and checking out the soon to be removed waterfalls, I came across this artwork in the lobby of one of the hotel towers. There were two other pieces of concept art for Tomorrowland that I had previously seen either in books or in the Disney Gallery, but I had never seen this particular piece before. I wonder how long this "Viewliner on a monorail beam" concept was being considered before the final "Mark I" design came about?

Well that's it for today....sorry for such a short post! Oh, and today marks the second anniversary of my blog!

Disneyland's 26th B-day - A Trip Report From 1981

It's time for another vintage trip report! The date was July 17th, 1981 and it had been 8 months since I had gotten my driver's license and drove to Disneyland for the first time. Actually, by now I had already driven myself to the park several times, but this was a special day because it was Disneyland's 26th birthday. It didn't matter that they weren't doing anything special at the park like they had the year before for the park's 25th birthday. Just the fact that it was July 17th made it special enough for two huge Disneyland fans like myself and my friend, Alvin.



We'll start out with the entertainment guide that was being handed out at the main gate. The Fox and the Hound had just been released that summer and was being advertised on the back of the guide. There was also a special Fox and the Hound Electrical Parade unit that was featured in the parade for that summer only.




Pearl Bailey was appearing on the River Stage in Frontierland! She was the voice of Big Mama in The Fox and the Hound and she sang "The Best of Friends" in her Rollin' River Revue. She was fantastic!



The map portion of the guide folds down for more entertainment info. Hey, it's the "Small World Character Parade"....we have to see that!




This was the only thing special that was done to acknowledge the 26th birthday. Cast members were given these tags to wear along with a carnation. After playing dumb and asking several cast members, "Hey, how can we get one of those?", a cast member in the Candy Palace took hers off and handed it to me saying that I could have her tag and that she just wanted to keep the carnation! This was a major score at the time for a Disneyland fan and collector like myself. Remember, there was no eBay back then!



So we're starting out the day the way that we usually began our visits to the park....by entering Tomorrowland first (after Main St., of course). Tomorrowland was the coolest of all the lands and it was my very favorite land from childhood all the way up until 1998 when they, uh....oh never mind! I see the handiwork of Mary Blair off in the distance.....but where is E.J. Peaker? And you have to love the ameoboid bowl planters at the entrance (which were once actually fountains....REALLY!)



After riding Space Mountain (because we always went on Space Mountain first back then), we'll take a spin on the Tomorrowland Autopia. The PeopleMover track is overhead, and this yellow car appears to be driving itself through the course.


Wheeeee! A ride on the Skyway and YOU ARE THERE!



After passing through the Matterhorn, I took this shot of a bobsled racing below us on the Fantasyland side.



Now we'll take a ride around the Rivers of America on the Columbia Sailing ship. Big Thunder Mountain can be seen in the background. It would have been only two years old here, but even then I would have traded it in to have Nature's Wonderland back!



We have reservations for the Golden Horseshoe Revue. We can't miss that!



They've seated us in the balcony! By the way, these pictures were all taken with my Kodak 110 Instamatic Camera and this particular photo was taken using a handy dandy Kodak Flip-Flash. Hey, where's Betty Taylor?



Now it's time for the Small World Character Parade. What IS the Small World Character Parade, did you ask? It's a parade featuring the Disney characters dressed in costumes from around the world. And of course the Small World Theme song plays in different languages throughout the parade. (These three parade photos have been shown here on my blog previously, but I'm running them again since they were from this visit.)



I'm not sure which country Snow White and Dopey were supposed to be from, but Snow White is wearing a wreath of flowers in her hair and an embroidered apron of some sort. This was one of the earliest uses of the newly designed Dwarf costumes. Prior to this they had used the very large disproportionate costume heads.



Hmmm, these four don't seem to be wearing anything special. I do remember there also being a Latin unit and the dancers and the characters were wearing ruffled sleeves....sorry, no pictures of them.



A shot of the Castle always has to be taken when you're at Disneyland, right?



Here's the old Alice facade. I kind of like the vintage attraction poster on the cover of the book instead of what is there now, but that's just me.