Friday, April 30, 2010

Friday Lull

I'm still working on organizing the paper collection, if you like, you can amuse yourself with this vintage TreasureTone slide. The Bertha Mae looks about as beat up as this slide! Is that the "prop" from the movies before they replaced her with a more reliable version? I miss this fort.


5 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

I think the movie prop that was converted for DL only had two "windows"...but not 100% sure.

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

Hi TM! I used to think the same thing, however, even photos from 1956 (link) shows the Bertha Mae with 3 windows, the GullyWhumper originally had two windows (link), then went to three windows when they both got updated.

According to some comments on Matterhorns blog (link) they used the original Keel boats until the keel boats for WDW were made and then they made both new sets at once, not sure how true that is... But Daveland's photos from the keel boats in the 1960's (link) they do support that theory.

Daveland said...

Tim - For some reason I thought I heard that question come up about the Keelboats (when we were at Knotts) and that the answer was that the movie props were never used at Disneyland.

Major Pepperidge said...

Tim, your theory seems to be as good as any, although Daveland's comment has got me all confused!

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

I sort of recall hearing that too. But I can tell for certain that the Gullywhumper was replaced at some point (or it grew a third window!) and both boats seem a little different by the 1970's.

I read a long time ago that the "props" we only used that first season (Winter 55/56) and then replaced pretty early on. I suppose those early replacements may be what I call the "props" with the newer (1970-ish) boats being the "replacements" that were used until the late 1990's?

Looks like we need to corner Tony Baxter for the real story. Although, does he really even know? We are talking 50 years ago :-)