The Family Circus At Disneyland (1978) - Part 4

In the Summer of 1978, The Family Circus comic strip followed "the family" as they visited Disneyland, over a period of 27 consecutive days.  I have been posting a "week's worth" of those comics each week, within the month of July.  This is "Part 4," the final part to this series.  To see "Part 1," click HERE.  For "Part 2," click HERE.  And for "Part 3," click HERE.

Sunday, August 13, 1978:

Monday, August 14, 1978:

Tuesday, August 15, 1978:

 Wednesday, August 16, 1978:

Thursday, August 17, 1978:

Friday, August 18, 1978:

Saturday, August 19, 1978:

I don't have the panel for Sunday, August 20th.  I think if there had been a Disneyland-related panel that day, I would have it in my collection.  I'm assuming by then, the family had gone back to "normal activities" at home, and that's why I didn't save that one.  However, the next day (Monday, August 21, 1978), the family was back at home, and there was a reference made about their Disneyland trip:

I hope everyone enjoyed this series of "The Family Circus" comics, from 1978!

The Family Circus At Disneyland (1978) - Part 3

In the Summer of 1978, The Family Circus comic strip followed "the family" as they visited Disneyland, over a period of 27 consecutive days.  I have been posting a "week's worth" of those comics at the end of every week, within the month of July.  This is "Part 3."  Please check back next week for the fourth and final set from this series!  To see "Part 1," you can click HERE.  To see "Part 2," click HERE.

Sunday, August 6, 1978:

Monday, August 7, 1978:

Space Mountain was only one year old, at this point.

Tuesday, August 8, 1978:

The following day, the family was still waiting in line for Space Mountain.  Clever!

Wednesday, August 9, 1978:

Thursday, August 10, 1978:

I'm pretty sure that the short mouse wearing the pillbox hat and the large bow, is supposed to be "Bianca," from The Rescuers.  That film had it's original release just one year earlier, and it's characters were still being used within the park.

Friday, August 11, 1978:

This one is dedicated to Meet The World reader, commenter, and guest blogger, J.G.!  And he knows why!

Saturday, August 12, 1978:

The Family Circus At Disneyland (1978) - Part 2

In the Summer of 1978, The Family Circus comic strip followed "the family" as they visited Disneyland, over a period of 27 consecutive days.  I will be posting a "week's worth" of those comics at the end of every week, within the month of July.  This is "Part 2."  Please check back each week for a new set!  And to see "Part 1," click HERE.

Sunday, July 30, 1978:

Monday, July 31, 1978:

Tuesday, August 1, 1978:

Wednesday, August 2, 1978:

The "New Matterhorn" had just opened, that summer of 1978.

Thursday, August 3, 1978:

Friday, August 4, 1978:

Saturday, August 5, 1978:

For the 2015 republishing of this panel (for Disneyland's 60th anniversary), Jeff Keane had altered his dad's original caption by replacing "The Bee Gees," with "Justin Bieber."

The Family Circus At Disneyland (1978) - Part 1

The Family Circus is a comic strip, created by Bil Keane.  It debuted in newspapers in 1960, and has been in continuous production ever since.  Bil's son, Jeff, began helping him with with the series in 1981 and took over production in 2011, after his father passed away.

In the Summer of 1978, the series followed "the family" (which consists of a mom, a dad, and their four children) as they visited Disneyland, over a period of 27 consecutive days.  I was 13 years old at the time, and my mom subscribed to two different newspapers, but I rarely ever read the comics section.  It was my mom who alerted me to the fact that "The Family Circus" was doing a series at Disneyland.  And she didn't realize it herself, until several days into the series.  Once we realized that "Disneyland" was going to be a continuing theme, I went outside to our trash cans to dig out our old newspapers to see exactly when the series started, and how many I had missed.

I thought I had been able to find all of them back to the very first day, but it turns out that I had missed the very first one.  Fortunately, "Meet The World" reader and commenter, "Kathy!", was able to locate that first panel and was nice enough to share it with us (thank you, Kathy!).

Monday, July 24, 1978:

This panel is the earliest one I found, when going through my family's trash cans!

Tuesday, July 25, 1978:

While searching online, I also found out that this series was republished in the Summer of 2015, apparently for Disneyland's 60th anniversary.  Color was added to all of the panels by Bil Keane's son, along with some other minor changes to a few of them.  This one was republished on July 17, 2015:

For some reason, I was also missing the panel for Wednesday, July 26, 1978, but again....thanks to "Kathy!", here it is:

Thursday, July 27, 1978:

The Mad Hatter shop used to be located in Fantasyland, between Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and Peter Pan's Flight.  I took this photo of the Mad Hatter shop, in early 1982.  You can see how accurate Bil Keane was, at replicating the signage for the shop.

Friday, July 28, 1978:

 Saturday, July 29, 1978:

Please check back each week, throughout the month of July.  I plan to post a "week's worth" of The Family Circus' 1978 visit to Disneyland, every Friday this month!
 

Father's Day In The Parks: Downtown Los Angeles Edition (& "L.A. In The "Future")

Father's Day is still a little over a week away, but I am celebrating it early with some photos taken by my dad, back in the 1960s. 

First up, we have a few shots of Los Angeles' City Hall, from August of 1965:

I will apologize for the color on all of these.  It's improved over what it was in the original scans of the slides, but I can't seem to make it any better than this.

This distant view of City Hall was taken from the Los Angeles Music Center, which would have been completed only 8 months earlier.

For a modern day (2019) comparison, I took this photo, standing just a few feet to the right of where my dad stood, in 1965.

The building pictured below, is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, one of several performance venues at the Music Center.  Based on photos and film footage that I had seen in the past, I always thought these reflecting pools and water fountains were a part of the Music Center.

Years later, when I visited the Los Angeles Music Center for the first time, I was surprised to see that the fountains are actually located across the street, and are a part of the area surrounding the Department of Water and Power building.  The DWP building was also brand new at this time, having been completed in 1965.  An interesting feature of the pools and fountains is, that they are located on the roof of a parking garage (as seen below).  The parking lot in the foreground, is the property on which the Walt Disney Concert Hall now stands.  (Ford Mustang alert!)

I took this photo of the DWP building, in 2014, while standing in a raised garden area, on the backside of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

And I took this one at the street level.  The fountains around the building were turned off at this time.  I believe that they only turn them on now, for special occasions.

Here are a couple more close-up shots of the fountains, taken by my dad.

My dad took this next photo, while standing in front of the DWP building, and facing the Music Center.  It shows a sliver of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and a sign advertising Hello, Dolly!, which was being performed at the Music Center.  Carol Channing was starring as "Dolly," in this 1965 touring company of the show.  She had originated the role on Broadway, just one year earlier.

I took this picture of the same street corner, in 2019.  The frame for the sign had been updated at some point, and was advertising The Mariinsky Ballet.  The Walt Disney Concert Hall would be just out of frame, to the right.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Walt Disney Concert Hall, here's a photo I took of it in 2019.  The building was designed by architect, Frank Gehry, and opened in 2003.

I'm including this Los Angeles Times article, just because I think it's pretty interesting.  It's dated June 17, 1999.  At that time, there were some ambitious plans for a new tourist attraction in Downtown Los Angeles.  It's centerpiece was going to be a tower taller than the Eiffel Tower, and topped off with a statue of an angel, which itself was going to be taller than the Statue of Liberty.  Apparently, the plans fell through!

And to close out this post, here's a vintage Father's Day card that my brother and I had given to our dad, when we were kids.

Happy "early" Father's Day, to all of the dad's out there!

(To see some of my Dad's other vintage photos, taken at Disneyland, Knott's, Universal Studios, etc., click here:  Father's Day In The Parks.)

 

 ****Post Update - June 15, 2022****

I've decided to add this extra shot of City Hall, also taken by my dad.

I was curious about the poster on the side of that bus.  About the only thing that I could even remotely make out, was possibly the name, "John Wayne."

I looked up John Wayne's filmography, to see what movies he had made in 1965.  It turns out the poster is for his film, The Sons of Katie Elder:

 

****Post Update - June 19, 2022****

I've decided to go ahead and add the rest of my dad's photos, from this batch.  I'm not sure why I chose to edit these out of the post.  I guess I initially thought there were too many pics of the Music Center and the DWP fountains!

Here's one more shot of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  This would have been taken while standing on the property, where the Walt Disney Concert Hall now sits.

After realizing that my dad took this from the same spot as his photo of the Department of Water and Power building, I thought I would try to merge the two photos together.  It didn't turn out too bad, I guess, although it looks like both buildings are tilting a bit.

This is another shot taken from the DWP building, looking across the street towards the Music Center.  City Hall can be seen peeking out from behind the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

And these last two shots are of the DWP fountains.

This one shows a bit of the 101 (Hollywood) Freeway in the background, just as it goes over the 110 (Harbor) Freeway.