Walt Disney World - Florida Here I Come

Today's post is delayed and short but sweet. I was busy during my normal "blog creation" time yesterday because I was booking my final arrangements for my trip to Walt Disney World this summer!!!! Oh boy am I exited. I have never even been to Florida. The Magic Kingdom has been calling my name since 1971 and I finally get to answer.

So in honor of my up coming Florida adventure, here is a nice Unused 1979 Magic Kingdom 8 Adventure book. This book has all of it original tickets including Admission and the Transportation Ticket. I guess you can't just park your rent-car at the lot and walk (or Tram) in to the front gate. Hmmmm, fascinating.

$7.50 for a Child in 1979, that's a little bit more than the 10 ticket book for a Child at Disneyland. I think WDW always had slightly higher prices and less tickets in the book than Disneyland. Oh and there were less attractions. Why the higher price? That's a future posts subject all by itself.

During the next few months, I will from time to time be sprinkling my blog with Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center and the rest. Yes I collect that stuff too. Florida Here I Come!!!!

Knott's Tickets From Disneyland Via the Fun Bus?

This is an odd ticket. at one time the Walt Disney Travel Co made arrangements for tourists to visit Knott's Berry Farm, maybe they still do? The right side of the ticket is for the "Fun Bus" round trip from your Hotel/Motel to Knott's. I wonder what Hotel/Motel you are staying at? The "slash" Motel tells me it might not be the Disneyland Hotel.

The left side of the ticket is to be exchanged for a "Admission & 10 Attraction Ticket Book and Mrs. Knott's Famous Chicken Dinner"! This ticket is not dated, and due to its really low serial number (doesn't get any lower than that!) it may just be a test ticket, I'm not even sure where or when I got it.

Based on the fonts and logos I'd date this ticket in the late 1970's. Therefore, here for your viewing pleasure today is a May 1977 Mint and unused "Complimentary Book" for Knott's Berry Farm. This book & its tickets are vivid, crisp and clean, one of my favorites in my Knott's collection. These are the larger style tickets, Disneyland switched to the smaller size in 1974, Knott's kept the larger size for a few more years (future post subject alert!).

The back shows the $8.50 value in May 1977. Note; Knott's put its three digit date code on the backs of the ticket book ("577" on this one), Disneyland put there date codes on the inside of the backing. Also, Knott's code is reversed from Disneyland's, which are actually backwards themselves, if this was a Disneyland Ticket book from May 1977, the code would be "775". There will be a quiz at the end of this post.

If you study serial numbers like I do, you'll notice this ticket below is not from the booklet show above, that baby is full and so mint I didn't even want to bend it. This ticket below looks identical to the ones in the book above, except it was from a 1/2 empty book. I tore it out just for the thrill of it, and it felt grand!

I hope you enjoyed todays little "Cross-Post", I have always read that Walt Disney and Walter Knott were very cordial and friendly to each other, so it's kind a neat to see they did some cross promotion in the later years.

OK here's the Quiz; If a Disneyland ticket book were printed this today, what would its three digit date code be? You thought I'd forget the quiz part didn't you?

Main Gate Pass - 1962

How in the world did you get one of these? This pass lets you and a party of 3 through the Main Gate of Disneyland for the entire year of 1962! It even includes parking. This must have been the Ultra Premium Annual Pass of its day. I don't think you could buy these, in fact I would bet on it. Were these for "Special Guests" or Upper lever Disneyland employees? If anyone knows, please fill me in.

My Scan doesn't show it very well, but the paper has a machined / brushed metal look to it that shifts when you move it side to side. As with yesterday's Autopia License post, I'm am grateful I have this gem in mint unused condition, but I would also love to at least see one that's all filled in and was actually used.

Some rules on the back. No Special ticketed events. Not Transferable! Management reserves the right to cancel this pass without notice, so you better behave!

Since it's 1962 and this Main Gate Pass only lets you and your party of 3 through the Main Gate (and free parking), you and your party are on your own for the attractions that require individual lettered tickets for admission.

Somehow I would imagine whom ever got this nifty little Main Gate Pass above also had a bunch of these ticket books shown below in their pockets! This is a October 1962 Courtesy Guest Book with 5 Adventures in Disneyland. These books have no $ value's printed on them or on the tickets. These booklets did not include admission to the park.

And these tickets were Magic indeed. These beauties were good on any ride or attraction. I'd be sure to use them on "E" ticket rides, I can't imagine using one of these on the Omnibus, then again, yes I can....

And just because when I pressed the "preview" button I didn't see much color in this post, here is a very colorful postcard. I don't have a date, late 80's maybe? It has a code on the back 0100-11608, I have no idea what that means, but it's pretty....

After this post I am ready to use my Annual Pass! I think I might go Disneyland tomorrow!!!!

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!