Official Driver's License for Autopia

Autopia has got to be one of Disneyland's biggest hits. It was extremely popular from day one. It was expanded in both the number of cars and length of the tracks several times. There was a; "Junior Autopia", "Midget Autopia", "Fantasyland Autopia" and now just one BIG Autopia! There have been at least 8 versions of the little cars. I believe the current cars are really the 1967 Mark VII's under those weird Chevron bodies.

1954 Concept drawings refer to it as "Freeway Ride" It's funny to think that a "Freeway" was futuristic! What's really interesting is that it still has a massive appeal! Even in today's video game - virtual reality world, kids still line up for a spin on Autopia.

Today we will look at the Driver License's you used to get as a souvenir for riding the cars. It appears that from early on (1955?) they started issuing these cute little licenses. I don't know when they stopped. I know that I have been riding Autopia since at least 1969 and I have never been given a "Autopia Driver's License" until 2000 that is.

Since Richfield Oil sponsored Autopia from 1955 to 1970, these little license's may have been part souvenir and part advertising to future gasoline buyers! This first License is one of the earlier ones. It's not dated. I have seen dates noted for these to be between 1955 and 1957. It's definitely the early car with the exterior bumpers. This is on the nice Globe Paper (the "D" ticket stock I would venture to guess). 4,000 stations in the west, dang that's a lot!

The back is very official looking. A Stamped License Number (Just like the lettered tickets). Neat little castle in a circle. Even a place for your finger print! I'm glad I have a clean blank original as this one, but I also would like one where a 1950's kid had filled in all the blanks.

Again no date on this one, but it's got to be newer than the one above. No drawing of the Autopia Cars, I bet the body styles were changing too much to have a recent drawing of them. Did you actually have to pass a test?

Notice the back says Junior identification card, was this for the Junior Autopia? I'm thinking not. Still 4,000 stations throughout the west!

When Autopia was redone in 2000, Chevron became the sponsor and they started passing out Driver's Licenses again! And to my amazement, they still do! These are nice and they have a place for your picture. They used to have a place to take your picture (for $$) and you got these tiny photo's so you could paste one on the license. It used to be in the current Submarine cue area, did they move it over by the exit cue?

Hey I never noticed this until today, the backs are different! I thought they all said Sparky, but looking through my collection today I see Suzy and Dusty as well! Are there more? If so, I gotta get um!

After todays post I feel like taking spin in a Autopia car! That's going to be top on my list next visit!

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Baily

I reached deep into my miscellaneous grab back today and pulled out this Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Baily Collector Series Circus World ticket. I don't have a date for this, late 1980's maybe judging by the $8.95 Price tag? It is a beautiful ticket, and large at 7" x 3".




Neat little mission statement from 1899 on the back. No mention of "There's a sucker born every minute" A quote commonly attributed to P.T. Barnum, however he actually never said it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute)

Today's post is short and sweet. Clowns freak me out so lets not even go down that path...

A friend of mine that checked out my blog recently noticed I am posting non Disney ticket things once or twice a week and he suggested I change the name of my Blog to "Vintage Disneyland Tickets and Stuff"! I don't think so! I'm keeping the name as is, but I do hope everyone enjoys a little change from the constant Disneyland stuff, I love it, but a break is nice too. There is plenty of everything to blog about....

Monday of course, we're heading back to a Disneyland post! See you then.

Magic Mountain - 1975

Today we travel about 60 miles north of Disneyland or "2 Gallons North of Hollywood" to Magic Mountain. For those readers not from Southern California or not familiar with Magic Mountain see my post about opening day May 29th, 1971. (Link)

For today, let's pretend it's sunny and warm like the front cover of this wonderful brochure from May 1975.




Supposedly Magic Mountain and it's "Our one price includes unlimited use of all rides..." policy from opening day is one of the contributing factors as to why Disneyland had to finally adopt the same policy, and lost the A-E tickets in order to remain competitive. One thing is for certain, Disneyland's tickets also has more class and actually look and felt like they were worth something. This ticket is cute, but it's just normal card stock paper and pretty basic.

That said, I have always dug the Wizard and the trolls; Blop, Bloop and Beep. I'm glad they made it on the ticket. $5.95 for an adult is about the same cost of a Disneyland Adult Admission and 10 Adventures book in 1975. Why do I like low serial numbers, are they really any different???

Your Guide to Magic Mountain. If you ever went there in the 1970's, why don't you study this map? It will bring back fun memories...

This brochure is HUGE, when fully open it's approx. 15" by 22", way out of range for my little scanner so I scanned it as best I could. The next two scans are the top left and right sides, sort of a day and night thing.

Daytime fun! I want the Metro Monorail back so bad it keeps me awake at night! It's all there still, the track, the trams, the stations. BRING BACK THE METRO!

Night time activities. Yes, that's Doc Severinsen!

Four new additions for 1975. Here's the first three; The Grand Centennial Excursion Railroad was Great, gone in 1985. Portal House, must still be there, remodeled I am sure. Oh, and some little Roller Coaster that has a LOOP! Too bad it did not make the Winter 1975 completion date, it opened in 1976. I wonder why it was delayed?

And forth of the new attractions, the Magic Pagoda. This has got to be one of the weirdest places in a major amusement park. It was a fun house of sorts. I don't remember it all, but here is what I do remember. It's a walk thru attraction that starts in a maze of mirrors and bad lighting, I've been lost in there for at least 15 minutes, next some freaky Buda statute, not sure what the point was there, I was kid I might be missing parts of this. Then there is a huge dark room with strobe lights and a dragon flying around the ceiling on a concealed track (this room was famous for, um, closeness with your date) then off to some odd little glass chamber where you could get in and then everyone else on the other side of the glass would witness you disappear then reappear. Man that place was just weird.

Here's Bloop (or is it Bleep or Blop?) telling how the 70's folks should get high, "On Fun" It's a cool message, an area Disneyland never traveled into. I wonder why this little bird has an exclamation point over his head?

Tomorrow is ----------> "Random Sunday" See you then......

Jiminy Cricket Ticket - And sorry for the rain...

Jiminy Cricket is absolutely my favorite Disney cartoon personality. I'm not sure exactly why, especially since I have a pretty decent fear of insects. I think he's my favorite because when Jiminy sings "When You Wish Upon a Star" it embodies all that is Disney to me; the man, the cartoons, the movies, the park, the dream. It's all there in that one little song, sung by a cricket.

It surprises me that the little guy is a bit under-rated, but I kind of like it that way. I like Mickey and Minnie, I think Pluto is cute and Goofy is funny, Donald's fun, and the rest are cool too. But I just love Jiminy Cricket! Designed by Ward Kimball himself and voiced by Cliff Edwards, who was also the voice of the head crow in Dumbo and had an "interesting" life with a sad end.

I don't have an exact date on this ticket, but it must be from the late 1970's. It seems Disneyland really started to push the "kids" ticket specials using characters and prizes in the late 70's (in a future post we'll look at Tigger's Tickets). Jiminy looks happy on this ticket, complete with little green stars!

The back has the normal wording, just separated by distinct paragraphs and surrounded by a dotted line box, why?

Since this post is about Jiminy and I think we might be getting some rain today in Anaheim, here is a little card I was handed on a trip I took to Disneyland in October 1986. Jiminy appears to have lost his smile a bit. It DID rain that day, but they did not close the park (have they every really closed early because of rain?), however, lots of rides were closed. Somehow I ended up on Tom Sawyers Island (it opened when there was a break in light early morning rain). While I was over there it started to pour buckets, we hid in the cave for about 45 minutes. We bought Mickey rain ponchos that day, I was the only one in my group who refused to wear it! Boy did I get wet! Ah but I still have that 1986 Mickey poncho, sealed in the package!

Lastly today, please indulge me a little since Jiminy is my favoite.

In addition to collecting Disneyland Tickets, I also have a large collection of 16mm Films. All kinds; school study films, syndicated TV shows, feature films and of course Disney films! I have the entire collection of the 1955/1956 "I'm no fool" series with Jiminy Cricket. These are all in stunning technicolor, and they are my favorite 16mm films to watch. Anyone remember these words?

I'm no fool, nosiree
I want to live to be 93
I play safe for you and me
'cause I'm no fool.

You can view many of these films on You Tube. Do yourself a favor and follow this link and watch "I'm no fool with having fun" (there are links to some others from the series on the right hand side of the You Tube page, check'um out). This is Disney Education at its best!

That's it for today's post, thanks for letting me share my passion for Jiminy Cricket!

Date Nite at Disneyland - 1967

For a brief time in the 1960's you could attend "Date Nite" at Disneyland. I don't have many details about when or how often these "Date Nites" occurred. Were they special events or just for summer nites or ?

This ticket book is from May 1967. I love the back of the book, the dancing couple is too cute and they totally remind me of the cartoon Darrin and Samantha from the Bewitched opening title scene! Seems like a bargain at $6.50 for two admissions, but it's only 5 rides each, However, since you could not enter the park until 5pm, 5 tickets each may have been enough.




Unfortunately, this rare book only has 2 "A" tickets left in it, but you can get good idea of how the other tickets looked. It's just a regulation May 1967 "A" ticket (although it is on the unique 2 year only "Castle Paper") with the snazzy dancing couple printed in Blue in the the middle of the ticket. The serial number is unique also starting with "N"

The back of the "A" ticket does have a special message only found on these "Date Nite" tickets. "Good only after 5:00 p.m., when Disneyland is open after 10:00 p.m. And when ticket books are on sale" That is fairly unusual as most tickets I have seen have no time restrictions.

The Welcome message is the same text as the other ticket books. However, the reddish/purple ink was used from 1958 thru 1973 is Blue on this ticket book, again, fairly rare.

May 1967 ticket books include the new Tomorrowland, and this attraction list is plenty full.

I can't find much info about date nite on the web, mostly just crude notes from peoples "adventures" on date nights. If anyone has more info on date nites, please let me know.

Parking 25 cents?????

It's hard to imagine that parking was once only 25 cents at Disneyland.. I'm not great in math, but it seems to me the current $11 is way out of whack. I guess Disneyland is still trying to recoup the cost of building the largest free standing parking structure in the United States.

I don't have a date on this 25 cent ticket, but I know its one of the early ones. I have others that look very similar, but they have more "Sections" and "Aisles" than this ticket.

Here's a neat parking ticket. Also not dated. No mention of California Adventure. I think this a commemorative ticket of some kind, but I have no details. If anyone knows when these were used, please let me know.

The back of the ticket has some clues; "Disneyland Resort" when did they start calling it that? Notice it doesn't really show the parking lot, it this that period when the old lot was closed, but the new parking structure wasn't finished yet? I remember going to Disneyland in the late 90's and parking in the big open area off West street, just south of where the big structure was being built.

I have a favor to ask of my Disneyland Blogger Friends. I took this picture last Friday night in a vein attempt to get a decent shot of the Castle Overlay (you should see how poor the other ones came out!). While the Castle is OK in this picture, notice all the Orange Trees??? I didn't even notice them when I was there. This is taken from somewhere on the way out of Tomorrowland and south of the main hub. Here is my question; Are these original orange trees? I reviewed some very old photo's of this area (thanks to Daveland, Gorilla's Don't blog & Stuff from the Park) and sure enough, there were orange tree there in the late 50's, not so sure about the 67 redo.

Anyone know if these are original? Are there other original orange trees still in the park. Photographing these original trees will be my mission on my next visit, so any info you have would be welcomed.

Welcome to 2008, how's it treating you so far?

New Year's Eve December 31, 1987

I've got my Guess Shirt and Guess Jeans on and I'm ready to head over to see Expose' on the Videopolis Stage at Disneyland, anyone else want to join in? The Commodores on the River Stage! Richard Marx, the Harry James Orchestra and More! Can it get any better?

In 1987 Disneyland stayed open until 3:00am. This year at Disneyland they are open until 2:00am (1:00am for California Adventure). All those closing times seem late to me, I'll be at home and asleep already!

What a grand line up don't you think? Do they still have this many famous acts in one night? (Don't laugh, Expose' was famous for about 20 minutes, and don't laugh again, it's the first CD I ever bought!) I have no idea who "Krash" was, maybe they were a cover band like "Reunion" that plays there now. Ah the Tahitian Terrace is still open, I wonder if the "South Sea Paradise Revue" was any good?

And just because this post needs some color and cheer, here is a picture I took Friday night of Dumbo in action. It's an amature attempt, but I think it sets the right mood for the holiday's.

Speaking of Friday night (see Saturday's post) I hear from a highly reliable source that the Friday after Christmas and before New Years is record breaking in attendance, a few years back they had over 100,000 people between both parks, that's A LOT of people!

Everyone please have a safe and Happy New Year! See you on the other side of 2007!

Pacific Ocean Park

Pacific Ocean Park or POP as my Dad always referred to it as. I only saw POP in person once, that was in 1972 and it was very closed and very scary. It had been abandoned for years, partial burned down and was collapsing into the ocean. Obviously it had seen much better days. This 1959 Child Special Group Plan Admission Ticket was from from those better days. (cool inter-active web site)

I dig the Seahorse Logo, check out an old guide book full scan here.



This Junior ticket isn't dated, but I am guessing its newer than 1959, notice it's not on safety paper. Plus I think there are some of these still left to purchase, in fact I am sure of it. Check out Bob's Travels' current auction on EBay (link). I bought these exact ones your looking at from him. I've actually gotten some great deals from him, check his other stuff too!

I wonder what would cause them to refuse you admission?

Tomorrow join us and bring in the New Year of 1988 at Disneyland!

A not so "Vintage" Disneyland Ticket

The only thing Vintage about today's post is me and how long I had to wait in line last night to get this Annual Pass! It was well worth it however, it's my first pass and I plan to use it plenty.




I arrived at the park at 5pm, somehow I thought I could just pop in and get my AP then lazily roam around Disneyland, taking in the nice crisp winter air, fat chance! The park was as crowded inside as I have ever seen it, ever!

Here is my Big Thunder Mountain Fast Pass, I never made it to 9:10pm to use it. I kinda knew I was going to keep it anyway, yes I collect Fast Passes too....

Just as the Parade was ending (along with my patience) I got a Dole Whip to go and then started to head down the right side of Main Street to leave. It was then that the crowd control CM's started pointing everyone going south around to the right side of the Coke Corner and BEHIND Main Street.

I have read that this happens when its packed (and did I mention it was packed?). I started walking like one of the many sheep when I realized "wait" I have my Camera!!! I got one shot with the flash off (blurry as heck) and this nice shot below before the CM (you can just see half of her the left) told me "No Pictures Tonight Please"..... The lady in front of me is trying to explain to her children where Disneyland went, she wasn't having much luck. That's the dry dock area for the Jungle Boats on the right.. I walked real sloooow thru this "land"...

And here is a land I thought was gone forever. The "Vast parking Lot Land" Since I arrived at 5pm, I got my first chance to see the roof parking (I usually arrive before the park even opens). It's massive up there. On my walk (or more like a "journey") back to my car, it almost felt like the old parking lot. Here is a shot from where I parked, it's about as far a you can get from the escalators/elevators.

Even with the crowds from H#$@ it was fun and I still enjoy Disneyland. It will be a lot more fun next month when 1/2 of America wont be there at once :-)

Next post? Check Sunday to see...

The "E" Ticket - Part 5 the final years

I hope everyone had an outstanding Christmas this year, I sure did. I got a Premium Annual Pass to Disneyland from Santa! I guess I've been more nice than naughty! Since I am feeling so merry, we have 8 "E" tickets for your viewing pleasure on this post.

Picking up a couple of years from where we left of on Part 4 of the "E" Ticket, this June 1975 "E" is the new smaller size. Although I am not a big fan of the "little" tickets, they are still the real deal and lots of fun to look at. America Sings has its proper place on the "E". I thought America Sings was the ultimate show when I was 10 years old, I still do. I ride Splash Mountain today just to see my friends in the scene at the end. There is a great two part video on You Tube of America Sings last show on April 10th, 1988 (link).

Missing; Frontierland! The Pack Mule trails are already showing two years of over-growth, I bet this area was starting to look a little too "rustic" by this time. And the Mine Trains have moved to the "D" ticket for its last few years. I like the lower even serial number on this one.

Tomorrowland opened "Space Mountain" on May 27th, 1977. Certainly a mega hit attraction if ever there was one (so much so there are five of them around the world). Obviously an "E" Ticket attraction from its first appearance on this pair of May 1977 "E" tickets (One Adult and One Junior, they are they same size, my scanner is possessed!). American Sings has already moved on to the "D" ticket. Was this move due to the huge capacity of the attraction and an attempt to keep it full. I seem to recall it being pretty busy thru the 70's.

A slight change can be seen on this "E" ticket from June 1978. Apparently people did not know that Space Mountain was indeed a "Roller Coaster Type Attraction". I knew what it was from day one. What could people have thought it was? I guess because you couldn't actually see the track or cars until you are in the big launch room (actually I remember there used to be smoked glass that you could kinda see the ride before you got to the big room) Either way, there was and still are a few "Chicken Exits" anyway, so why the warning? Lawyers I bet!

This is also June 1978 "E". However, this is from those "Complimentary" books. Weird serial number on this one, nice and low, but what is the RX part? I've been told by a reliable source that the "X" serial Numbers were for cast member give aways, I wounder what RX was for?

May 1979 finds the Lawyers at work again. No attraction changes, but notice the asterisk * in front of some of the attractions. These are the attractions (as noted in the back of the ticket book - see next scan) were "Children under seven must be accompanied by an adult on most attractions except those marked by an asterisk (*)" It seems to me the Submarine Voyage is one attraction you would NOT want your 3 year old to ride alone, how about the Tiki Room? Am I the only person who finds this odd?

Frontierland is back, and with an all new Attraction. Opening September 2nd, 1979 Big Thunder Mountain Railroad raced and roared thru what was once Nature's Wonderland. This is also a "Roller Coaster Type of Attraction", maybe they just ran out of room on this rather full May 1980 "E" Ticket to tell us that fact.

Last of the line, call it day, the fat lady has sung... This September 1980 Child Admission "E" ticket is the latest (or newest) I have found. They may have printed Lettered ticket books in 1981, but I have yet to see any. That Globe paper is bold as ever! If Disneyland had left the Country Bear Jamboree in place (like they should have) every attraction on this 1980 "E" ticket would still be at Disneyland!

Well that does it for our trip thru the ages with Disneyland lettered tickets. I hope everyone out there enjoyed as much as I did. I know it can be a little dry to some people (I read technical manuals just for fun, so there's not too much I find dry).

I have LOTS more to post, research and talk about. I have Tons of tickets to show everyone still and Lot's of other unique tickets and ticket related items to share. And some just cool Disneyland stuff to show as well. Maybe I should have called my Blog "Vintage Disneyland Ticket and Stuff"!

Plus for you Knott's and Magic Mountain fans, check on weekends, I have decided to post about Disneyland's neighboring parks at least once a weekend.