New Year's at Disneyland - Various Years

We've got a bunch of New Year's at Disneyland tickets for your review today.

Happy New Year Everyone! First up is this GIANT Disneyland Team 2000 commemorative passport just barely breaks my "if it starts with a 19 its vintage" rule, but just by one day! Here's the ticket in its envelope, can you tell whats inside?





This ticket is unnecessarily huge measuring in at 13 3/4" by 4". I'm convinced they made them in these giant sizes so that you'd be embarrassed to use them!





When I first got this ticket I thought "Wow, Cynthia Harriss signed it" but upon closer inspection her signature appears to be printed on the ticket. Here's the big question, would this ticket be worth more or less if she actually signed it?





Now lets go back to 1975 - a Mickey Mouse Watch and a cool fireworks silhouette.






From 1978, this pair of tickets shows it saves (2 bucks) to purchase tickets in advance!




Here's a fun ticket to Disneyland's New Year's Eve Party December 31, 1977. This complimentary ticket was never used, too bad, that must have been a grand night! Open till 2:30 AM, nice! I hear Disneyland will be open till 2am this New Year's Eve, that's got to be weird being at the park that late, you'd find me sleeping somewhere warm & quiet....





Free Complimentary Parking.





1977 Flyer:




Minnie Riperton and MECO of "Star Wars Disco" - Sweet!






Now for your guide book to match the season, here's the Fall/Winter 1977(78) Disneyland Guide Book. No waiting for Bonus Sunday for the complete guide, it was posted a while back, here's the link.


Complete Disneyland Guide Book Fall/Winter 1977


The brand new Space Mountain on the cover, while the large palm trees in Tomorrowland look nice, I never understood how they fit the futuristic theme?





Back when Disneyland ROCKED!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from Me to You

***** Originally posted December 23, 2008 *****

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all the wonderful readers of my blog. I hope this holiday finds you safe and well, and in good cheer.

As many times as I've been to Disneyland growing up and as big of a fan that I am, you’d think there would be lots of photos of me at the park. My parents have dozens of photo albums from my childhood but there is only one photo of me at Disneyland.

Here is that one photo, me and my family at Disneyland - December 1970. My dad looking every bit the part of his job as Plumbers/Contractors Union Boss, my mom looking pretty hip considering she is only 25 and had to deal with me and my brother constantly trying to kill each other. My older brother is on the left and the silly little kid on the right is yours truly… Blame dad for the hair cut and mom for the clothes.

Werner Weiss’ great site “Yesterland” recently ran a fun vintage Disneyland Christmas update (link) where he posted this photo below. It looks like the same type of white Christmas tree as in my picture above. Thanks Werner!

Family Circle Magazine - December 1958 + a Bonus

******* Originally posted December 15, 2009 *******

Welcome to Magazine Monday. Today is a special Holiday edition of Magazine Monday that includes a fun alternate look at a vintage magazine that features Disneyland.

From December 1958 we’ve got Family Circle Magazine. This issue features the tale of “A Christmas Adventure in Disneyland”. The Disneyland story covers eleven pages and has poems and song lyrics accompanying it.






As you can see my copy of this Magazine is not only old and faded, but appears to have some decent water damage as well. And naturally the Disneyland article has the worse damage!






Rather than present dull, faded, stained pages, I just so happen to have the same story as told via a 1958 Disneyland Record. This grand LP included a full size booklet in between the covers and has held up remarkably well for 51 years.






The inside cover describes what’s on the record.






How about listening to the record as you follow along reading the story? I recorded each side of the LP, the files are below. No video this time, I discovered you get much better sound quality when you connect the stereo directly to the computer. That said, this record is 51 years old and has its share of pops & scratches.

The narration is a bit annoying, with the worse Mr. Toad impression I’ve ever heard. However, the record is fun to listen to. You MUST check out the song “Jingle Bones” at 10:30 on side one, classic late ‘50’s Disney at its best.



Adventure Christmas Adventure in Disneyland - Side 1 (9mb)


Adventure Christmas Adventure in Disneyland - Side 2 (7mb)



The 11 pages of the story are below. They are posted without interruption, my only comments are; WOW – amazing artwork and Gee- what a neat story. Merry Christmas!


























Some of the other “Story Teller” series of Disneyland Records available in 1958. I have few of these, most are fairly rare including this one.







Now back to the magazine. These sets of pages represent all things Christmas in 1958. Each of these five articles is spread over two pages. I did a decent job of stitching them together but you will notice color variations on each of the two pages. It appears to have been printed that way or half the pages faded more than the other half.

A hearthside supper for your tree-trimmers.






A cheery welcome – check out that snack cart, yummy!






This marvelous buffet includes a “Chicken-cranberry Mold” yuck…






“Cooky fantasies to charm children” Those cookies mounted on the wall are not for human consumption, I know this for a fact…






Sugar Dandies indeed!






"Stockings to treasure” – paging Kevin Kidney.






How about some vintage holiday time advertisements? Up first a classy lady for Pepsi, nice hat – especially created by Sally Victor for Pepsi.






This lady must be related to Barbara Billingsly?






Bake a “Mystery Fruitcake” from Betty Crocker. Aren’t all Fruitcakes mysteries?






“No shrink, no waste” precooked sausage from Disneyland sponsor Swift Meats.






More Christmas cookies with recipes, this time from Ceresota Flour (unbleached – naturally white). Have you ever heard of “Ceresota Flour”, I sure haven’t.






Mazola was way ahead of the health food curve, promoting corn oil as more heather than regular oil (lard).





I hope you enjoyed this little Christmas treat.

CastleView - December 1981

******* Originally posted December 9th and 13th, 2009 ******* 

CastleView is the “Disneyland Cast Magazine”, not to be confused with the Disneylander or the Disneyland Line. Isn't the cover painting on this December 1981 issue spectacular? It’s as if Charles Boyer knew that someday they would actually put snow on the castle and make it snow on Main Street.






Here’s a note from Dick Nunis. This is issue 1 volume 1 and the only issue of CastleView I’ve ever seen. Does anyone (Jason…) know how many issues were produced by “Cast Communications, Disneyland University, Disneyland”?






That looks more like Main Street in December. In case you are curious, that towering tannenbaum is a white fir, 62 feet tall. Notice the guy-wires (no relation to Guy-Williams) steadying the tree, they don’t use those anymore, come to think of it, they don’t use a real tree anymore either.






The index of the magazine lists this article as “Fantasyland (a brief history)” then proceeds to spill out eight pages filed with tons of super text and 21 vintage photos. Come back on Bonus Sunday to get the entire article.






This page is for my friend TokyoMagic. Doesn’t this awesome photo look amazingly similar to early 1955 photos of Disneyland Anaheim?






This maintenance article has lots of information about the tree replacements on Main Street (the original Elms grew too large) and rebuilding the Frontierland entrance from scratch.






Getting some color back in this post and getting back to Christmas, here’s your invitation to the 30th Annual Disney Family Christmas Party at Disneyland.






The party was exactly 24 years ago today - December 9, 1985. Tickets are based on your dependency listing - Huh? Are they talking about how many kids you have or your drinking problem, either way its kind of weird. Oh look, Dick Nunis signed our card, I recognize most of the other names too, but who is that Michael E. guy?





Come back on Bonus Sunday for the entire CastleView magazine. (its below)


Here is the entire issue of CastleView Magazine.


CastleView Magazine - December 1981 (98mb)









So that's what Spaceship Earth looked like when they built it. I really enjoyed this attraction at EPCOT, although the end part (the way down) was weird.






More construction photos of Tokyo Disneyland.






Fun little ticket booths. How come the Matterhorn ticket booth never gets included in the "did you know these used to be ticket booth" articles? It's still there too...