1997 Disneyland Publicity Photos

For today’s post we’ve got some semi-vintage Disneyland publicity photos from 1997. Light Magic “A Spectacular Journey” certainly had a great logo, just a small part of the big $$$ Disney spent on this “Nighttime Street Extravaganza”.






Normally you could argue this “concept art” is awful, but compare it to photos of the real thing and suddenly this looks great!






Speaking of lots of money spent, didn’t Disneyland carve out an entire attraction sized area for this show and now it sits rarely used? Is Phoebus played by Peter Scolari? Don’t laugh, he was working for the mouse in 1997 (link).






Back to sanity, here are a few “normal” photos. Where is the “Raging Waterfall” on Big Thunder, don’t tell me it’s that weird dripping thing on the first lift-hill?






“Sail past… cascading waterfalls” only for one more year (link).






“Fun & Sun”, hey those huge beach balls do look like fun!

Castle View's - 1960

We’ve got a few interesting vintage snap shots to look at today. These first two I suppose could be described as “before and after” of “after and before”. The first photo is dated December 1960.






The second photo is (scream it with me) undated. It appears to show quite a bit more overgrown landscaping than the December 1960 photo above; this must be “after”?






This close up of the Castle is also undated.






The Castle as viewed from the left side, dated August 1960. I like how this set of photos is nearly devoid of people, my kind of photographer!

New West Magazine - December 4, 1978

Welcome to Magazine Monday. Today we’ve got lots of Disney articles is the December 4, 1978 edition of New West Magazine. New West was started in 1972 by New York Magazine to cover California life. “The Disney Vision” is a series of lengthy articles with lots of text.






A great article, with a lot to say. I’m thinking the editors had the feeling that the more words the more intellectual it will seem.

At the end of the article John Hench notices the trees on Main Street have grown too large and are out of scale, "I guess we're going to have to do something about that" he says, and in 1981 they did so something about it (link).

Cartoons Come Back! Funky early Pinocchio sketch.






Interesting stuff here… Lord of the Rings? More about that later.








Everyone seemed to know the upcoming ECPOT was not Walt’s vision, so why bother?












A sign of the times…







How about some vintage advertisements? Most of the ads are for booze, this being the best one, give Amaretto to a Priest, whisper in his ear then watch him smile.






The American car companies were in a world of hurt in 1978 (has history repeated itself?) therefore there is a noticeable lack of any ads from them. VW of course stepped right in and was ready to sell you a Rabbit (pulled from a hat of course).






Ok, technically this is an American car company, but this cute little Challenger was imported from Japan. Gotta love that interior!






“The New Toyota Truck” nah, it’ll never sell.






“The Lord of the Rings”. I must have completely missed this back in 1978. Most notable for its extensive use of “rotoscoping”, this movie looks pretty bad (link).






Glad Rags indeed.






What? You can record a show and watch a different one at the same time, pure magic. I bet within 10 years everyone will have a BetaMax in their living room.

Bonus Sunday

Welcome to Bonus Sunday. From Friday's post, here is the complete Summer 1978 "Your Complete Guide to Walt Disney World".


1978 Walt Disney World Guide Book - 50mb






And how about some nice vintage WDW Postcards to go with the guide book? This first one is my favorite.






This had to be the coolest attraction when the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, I sure wish I could have seen it.








These AA's look just like their Anaheim twins, the attraction however is not a twin.









Odd...





This is just creepy, it reminds me of the one of the first Walt Disney World commercials (link) what were they thinking?

Walt Disney World - Summer 1978

Today’s post is dedicated to Dave over at Daveland, he’s been sharing his current trip to Walt Disney World on his blog. Since Dave did a little reminiscing about his visit to WDW in the Summer of 1978 (link) here’s some tickets & a Guide Gook to go along with the fun memories.

A Junior 8 Adventures in the Magic Kingdom ticket book





Eight tickets, why not ten??






The tickets with the fancy “Letters”.






Even the back of the tickets got fancy curly-cue things.





***UPDATE*** Mick Cozart noticed that the "E" ticket shown above with the other tickets has the WEDWay People Mover and so does the "D" ticket. Someone actually looks at these things??? Well, I didn't have a Junior "E" ticket for 1978 so I substituted that "E" ticket which appears to be a couple years older than 1978. Below is a 1979 E-Ticket that more closely represents the correct attraction line up although the Hall of Presidents is missing!. Thanks for noticing Mike, at least someone is paying attention.








Here’s the cover to the Summer 1978 Your Complete Guide to Walt Disney World.






Thankfully most of the attractions (poor Keel Boats) on these pages are still at the Florida Park, even the Hall of Presidents with their Stepford eyes.!






Tomorrowland rocks, WEDway PeopleMover AND the Carousel of Progress! I wish I had a chance to see “If you had wings”.






This map actually makes the park look BIG, which it is.






Tips on your visit.






Dave’s hotel of choice, nice! Since we know were Dave is staying, lets all Krash his party!