Happy 8th Anniversary to Disney’s California Adventure!

Happy 8th Anniversary (Tomorrow) to Disney’s California Adventure! Let’s celebrate with a bunch of paper stuff from the opening days of the “Second Gate”.

Up first, this is the cover to a lavishly done 28 page, full size and full color brochure that was created for the opening of “The Great California Adventure”. If only the park came out as well as this brochure! Check back tomorrow for the entire brochure, it’s amazing in its detail, quality and wishful thinking.






A commemorative medallion was produced for the Grand Opening on February 8, 2001.






The medallion wants to be released from its plastic prison.






The Medallion came in this fancy envelope.






While we're on commemoratives, here’s the Commemorative Cast Member Issue of cast preview gate flyer for February 6 - 8, 2001. This art work is interesting, the park must have been finished enough to get a photo of the front for this flyer. It seems like they are trying to invoke some of that “Disneyland Concept Art” magic, sorry, it didn’t work.







And now the rest of the brochure. It’s funny, with the changes that have already occurred and the upcoming changes, this is quickly becoming a vintage flyer.









And finally, this giveaway card tells an interesting fortune:  “Our Ride To The Future Has Begun!” translates to “Sorry, Not a Winner”...





See you tomorrow on Bonus Sunday.

Disneyland Stub Style Tickets Galore

Hopefully you like “Stub” style Disneyland tickets, because we've got lots of the little gems to gaze at today.

These scans come from a ticket binder that contained sample tickets and was once at Disneyland. It was used to determine what “old” tickets could be exchanged for the new “passports”. Most tickets, lettered or otherwise had (or have?) a point value, a certain number of points gets you a passport. We’ll examine the exchange process in a latter post.

I say this binder “was” at the park because I think these ultimately ended up being individually sold on eBay. In fact, I’m sure of because I bought one! See my post from January 2008 (link) my Skyway ticket is the exact same ticket as the one in the top right of the first scan page below, even the staple mark is in the correct spot.






“Frontier Transportation” what the heck was that, everything seems to have it's own ticket? “Speed Boats” The Phantom Boats before or after they were “Phantom”?   Neat stuff!






“Adventure Boat” Some of the names on these stub tickets don’t exactly match the letter tickets.




Thanks again to "you know who" for the binder scans, they are pure gold. (There's lots more!!)

Information for Disneyland Summer '62

A couple weeks ago we took a close look at a January 1962 Disneyland Ticket Book (link). Today let’s fast forward to the Summer of 1962.

Here’s all the “Information for Disneyland Visitors” that you could possibly want. This brochure was designed for hotel and motel guests.






Oh boy there's tons of information in here for ticket geeks like me! So many choices! Ticket Books, Guided Tours, Starlite Ticket Books (link), General Admission tickets and even a whole paragraph on why ticket books are your best value!

Saturday nights from June 9 through September 8 a special one hour show from Disneyland was telecast on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles. “The program will emanate from different locations in the Park”. Has anyone ever seen one of these programs? It appears they were broadcast “Live” I wonder if they were also video taped? Wouldn’t those be great to see?






So much entertainment that they didn’t have room for a paragraph break!






The back of the Child’s 15 Adventure book with the typical fold down the center to make it fit in someone pocket!





The attraction list has a few more attractions compared to skimpy the January 1962 list (link).

• Main Street: Same attractions, but they individually listed the Main St. Motor Vehicles.
• Tomorrowland: The Astro-Jets & Autopia are back, The Monorail is now “via Disneyland Hotel” and the SF & D RR Trains now “through Grand Canyon Diorama”. Was the Diorama closed for the winter?
• Fantasyland: Missing from January 1962 but now back are; Sleeping Beauty Castle, MM Club Theatre, Midget Autopia, Dumbo, Motor Boat Cruise, and the SF & D RR Trains.
• Frontierland: Also missing from January 1962 but back are; Mike Fink Keel Boats, Indian War Canoes, The Sailing Ship Columbia and Tom Sawyer Island Rafts.
• Adventureland: Adventureland was completely missing from January 1962, but now sports three attractions: The “Updated” Jungle Cruise, the Big Game Safari, and the brand new Swiss family Tree House.

I’d say that Winter/Spring 1962 had lots of attraction closures. Those lucky folks coming in June had a nice full list to chose from.






Now for a few tickets. The “E”, “D” and “B” are all that’s left from this June 1962 Child ticket book.

This Child “E” ticket is one of my personal favorites, it’s the original larger size “E” ticket and I sure like that tan Globe Safety paper!






The “D” ticket for the Child is not the usual goldenrod color the Adult and Junior tickets have, is this color “peach”?






Child’s “B” ticket in pink.






How about a fun Vacationland cover? From the Summer 1962 issue.






“On Safari” This explains why Adventureland was MIA over the winter. Fascinating talk about the “Dinner show” at the Tiki Room and “Stouffers in Disneyland” Disneylands first “by reservation only” dining spa.





Come back on Bonus Sunday for the entire issue, its full of fun vintage Disneyland stuff.

Vintage Knott's Souvenir Slides

Here’s an undated, but certainly very old set of Souvenir slides for Knott’s Berry Farm. These were from “Meston’s Travels Around the World”. The set came to me with 8 slides, I’m not sure if some are missing, but these 8 are in order. 

Slide scanning is not my specialty, scanning paper items is much easier.  There are no color corrections or adjustments, the more I mess with those the worse things get!  These seem to have some color left in them, unlike some of the newer Pana-Vue slides that turn bright magenta.

Slide 1351a – “Main Street, Ghost Town”: Check here (link) for a recent photo of the blacksmith shop.






Slide 1351b – “Gold Mine, Ghost Town”: Wow, none of this remains, except there’s still a tower (link).






Slide 1351c – “Pioneer Woman”: What is this building? It looks like a log cabin, I’m guessing it’s long gone.






Slide 1351d – “Judge Roy Bean’s Saloon”: I’m told this structure has been moved from its original location, but its still looks pretty much the same in 2008 (link).







Slide 1351e - “Boot Hill, Ghost Town”: Boot Hill is still at Knott’s (not much of it, but its there). However, I think Deadwood Dick's grave was always near Hop Wing Lee’s Laundry where he still rests in peace today (link). The current tombstone is either the same piece of wood or someone did one heck of a job recreating the thing, even down to the knot holes!






Slide 1351f – “Prospectors”: Are they still at Knott’s?  I think so.






Slide 1351g – “Wagon Camp, Ghost Town”: Still at the farm, but very condensed.






Slide 1351h – “Chapel”: The best slide was saved for last. The poor Little Chapel is out in the trash heap along with the original berry stand and so many other of Knott’s treasures.






This is what the slides look like. Weird ghostly effect when you scan it this way…

Popular Mechanics Magazine - November 1957

Welcome to Magazine Monday. From November 1957 it’s Popular Mechanics Magazine. This magazine is small compared to the "Life" sized magazines from the last few weeks, it's only 6 1/2" by 9 1/2".  That’s one beautiful Yellow 1958 Chevrolet on the cover.






Here’s the index page. Let me know if anything strikes your fancy and I’ll throw it in on Bonus Sunday.






“Walt Disney’s Mechanical Wonderland” is a detailed and somewhat technical look at, what else, the Mechanics of Disneyland circa 1957. It’s a total of 7 pages, and it's an easy paced read. Enjoy.












Look what I found on page 119, "Alweg Monorail Train Makes Experimental Run”. Maybe someone famous will see it and build one in the United States? Nah…






An interesting article on the upcoming “jet age” and how Los Angeles International airport would be built to handle the large jet planes. If you’ve ever been to LAX you know it came out very much like these designs and despite its massive crowds, it still functions well today.






The new cars for 1958, tons and tons of USA Steel. And of course fiberglass for the Corvette, “The only American production car that is taken seriously by the sports-car set”.








Now for a few ads. Buick was so proud of the 164 individual free floating chrome squares in its monster-grill that it took out a two page ad. It’s hard to argue that its not a “Fresh, Bold Look”.






A Bold Look, but maybe not so Fresh. You gotta love those floor tiles!






Perfect Circle rings. You don’t want to be the embarrassment of your neighborhood! If you missed my post of the “Magic Circle” magazine from June 1956 check it out here (link).





That’s really about it for interesting full pages ads. Most of the ads pages (at least 75 pages) are like this one; these old Popular Mechanics are stuffed with these cheesy little ads.






The back cover is a little beat up, but hey at least its in color!