How Could I Have Missed This?

Jungle Cruise 1955

How Could I Have Missed This? 

by

Todd James Pierce

The three artists most responsible for the 1955 version of the Jungle Cruise were Chris Mueller (the man who sculpted the animals), Bob Mattey (an effects man who made the animals move), and Harper Goff (the art director who oversaw the entire attraction).  Only once before had all three men worked together.  The previous year, in 1954, they were working on Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.   Not surprisingly, on the film, they performed similar tasks.  Chris Mueller sculpted the squid and other props; Bob Mattey brought the squid to life using vacuum hoses, a small motor, and reels of piano wire; and Harper Goff art directed the world of Nemo into existence.  There is one odd story about how the squid scene from 20,000 Leagues almost ended up in either the Jungle Cruise or in a second (unbuilt) boat ride similar to the Jungle Cruise.

from 20,000 Leagues

“Walt wanted to use the squid in [an early version of the Jungle Cruise],” Harper Goff related in an interview, “in real water, with fish swimming around it, but the wires that pulled the tentacles would have been hard to hide.”

Jungle Cruise 1958

Now, it might be easy to dismiss this story as a fanciful idea Walt briefly floated with one member of his WED design team, except this same story shows up in another interview, this time with Bill Evans, the man who landscaped Disneyland: “Walt wanted to use the squid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but it was in bad condition and the wires that pulled the tentacles would have been hard to hide…[and so] we began to think of hippos and other animals which could be operated without wires and still have animated elements.”

from 20,000 Leagues

Of course the squid from 20,000 Leagues never showed up as part of the Jungle Cruise, nor did any other element from the movie.  Or so I thought, until last month, when I viewed the film for the first time in 10 years.  I was watching it with my kids, both of whom had never seen it, when, roughly halfway through the film, Ned Land (Kirk Douglas) wandered off into a Caribbean island, only to find a group of hostile cannibals.  And then, rather suddenly, the scene looked very familiar.  I’d seen these cannibals someplace else.  I’d seen them on the Jungle Cruise.

In the movie, Ned Land becomes aware of the cannibals’ presence when he sees human skulls placed on stakes.  Ditto for guests on the Jungle Cruise.

In the movie, the cannibal sequence is underscored by tribal drum rhythms.  Ditto for guests on the Jungle Cruise.

Jungle Cruise 1955

In the movie, some of the cannibals wear elaborate headdresses made presumably from feathers.  They carry hand spears and hoist oval shields that have been narrowed to a point on two ends.  On their arms, strips of cloth or animal skin banded at their biceps.  Ditto.  Ditto.  Ditto.

Now I’m not claiming that the cannibals on the Jungle Cruise are intended to be the cannibals from the movie.  They aren’t, of course, as the two cannibal tribes are presumably from different parts of the world.  In fact, as I poked around, the only thing I can confirm is that Chris Mueller sculpted both the spearheads used by the cannibals in the film and also those surprisingly similar spearheads used by the cannibals on the ride.  But it seems clear, at least to me, that design elements from the cannibal scene in 20,000 Leagues were still so fresh in the collective imagination of Goff, Mueller, and Mattey that they appear to have been—pardon the pun—cannibalized into the ride.

So what do you think?  Is there any real overlap between the cannibals in the film and the cannibals on the ride?  Or is my imagination simply in overdrive?  Post your observations below.

As usual, today's post is filled with new, never-before-published photos of the park.

There will be no post next Monday.  But come back in two weeks.  No guarantees, but hopefully I’ll have a short video containing footage of a 1958 Disneyland stunt show--a show that few people have ever seen.

Recent DHI Posts: 

The Greatest Disneyland Tragedy

Sam McKim and the Cartography of Maps

Canon Style: Disneyland in the 1950s

The 1932 Academy Awards

 

DISNEYLAND HOTEL Guest Historian Don Ballard

Todd and I are excited, privileged, and happy to welcome Disneyland Hotel expert Don Ballard as a Disney History Institute guest historian. He has put together this fascinating (and rare!) video of the 1956 Grand Opening of the Disneyland Hotel. Seeing as how the footage was recently discovered in a storage vault in Hollywood, it has not been seen since, well, probably 1956--thus it is a real treat for the followers of the Institute; a magnificent window into the past. And if you are interested in more of this kind of history, Todd and I highly recommend Don's book, more information of which can be found at: Magical Hotel.

Enjoy!

The Greatest Disneyland Tragedy

Disneyland Helicopter 1957

The Greatest Disneyland Tragedy

by

Todd James Pierce

More than one viewer has asked about that curious shot in “Disneyland Canon,” the shot of the helicopter hovering behind the castle.  And this, of course, reminds me of one of the saddest stories in the history of the park.

Even before Disneyland opened, park executives announced that visitors would have the option of arriving by highway or skyway.  One year before the park opened—in July, 1954—Walt himself took the initial test flight, from the studio green in Burbank out to the construction site in Anaheim, finding the air commute was significantly shorter than the land commute.  A mere 20 minutes by helicopter.  From there, Walt signed off on plans to open a helicopter terminal on undeveloped land just outside the park.

Plans for the helicopter terminal progressed with the park.  By May, 1955, TWA advertised that a person could soon buy a ticket from New York City direct to Disneyland, with the last leg of the flight completed by helicopter.   Those Disneyland flights were managed by Los Angeles Airways, a company that offered helicopter service to nearly a dozen southland locations, including Los Angeles International Airport and Long Beach.  It was one of two airlines in the United States that specialized in helicopter shuttle service, with the other, of course, being in New York.

In 1955, a helicopter flight to Disneyland cost roughly $4 per person, each way (depending on city of departure).

Disneyland Helipad 1961

The helicopter pad, itself, was located just outside Tomorrowland, on a little strip of asphalt not far from the skyway station.  Throughout the 1950s, well-to-do guests arrived at Disneyland by helicopter, thousands of them each year, most arriving in the Los Angeles Airways shuttles, but some arrived by private or military copters.  These distinguished helicopter guests included future U.S. President John F. Kennedy; Prime Minister of Afghanistan, Mohammad Daud; Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru; and King Baudouin of Belgium.

The problems for the helipad first began in 1962, when the Anaheim city council informed Los Angeles Airways that they would need to construct a full air terminal—complete with an indoor waiting area and public restrooms—to continue its service to Disneyland.  Six years later a group of Anaheim motel owners banded together to formally protest the low-flying aircraft, calling the helicopters “dangerous” and explaining that their noise disturbed “motel guests.”  But the tragedy occurred on Wednesday, May 22, 1968 when a helicopter flying from Anaheim to LAX crashed into a Paramount dairy farm, killing all 20 passengers and three crewmen.  The passengers had all spent the day at Disneyland.

One witness saw the helicopter listing from side to side, only 1,500 feet from the ground.  Then he saw something strange: a crewmember or perhaps a passenger throwing excess baggage from the bird—bags that later were discovered to be sacks of US mail—most likely in a failed attempt to lighten the load.  Then one of the helicopter’s rotors lurched free. 

“It was over Alondra Boulevard, coming down like a rock,” another person reported.  “It was making a big noise…Parts were flying everywhere.”

According to a third witness, the helicopter burst into flames as it struck ground.  It skidded over a street, with much of the wreckage ending up in land owned by the dairy. 

It was the worst civilian helicopter crash in US history.  A later study found that the probable cause was a single missing bolt, one that secured a pitch change rod for one of the five main rotor blades. 

Los Angeles Airways immediately suspended all air service.  Though it briefly resumed flights to Disneyland, a subsequent union strike—coupled with civil suits stemming from the crash—forced the company’s closure in 1969.  After a three-year hiatus, in 1972, helicopter service to Disneyland resumed for a time, operated by Golden West Airlines.  Golden West scheduled 28 flights per day, with a one-way passenger charge of $16.  But Golden West’s service only lasted five months, with the company ending all flights in mid-August.

From there, Anaheim officials proposed adding a helipad to the convention center, with an opening date in the 1980s.  But essentially, after Golden West walked away from the Disneyland Helipad, the most reliable route to the Magic Kingdom became the “highway on the ground,” with air service to the park just a memory of times past.

-- Come back next Monday.  I'll post up some new photos.--

(The banner photo today is taken from “Disneyland Canon 1957.”  The helipad shot is a new, never-before-published photo of helicopter service at Disneyland.  The headline detail was taken from the LA Times.)

WALT & LILLIAN--BIRTHDAY & VALENTINE'S DAY

Seeing as how Lillian's birthday is today ... and Valentine's Day was yesterday, I thought photograph of both of them together would be appropriate. As a candid photograph, it is one more piece of evidence to refute the thoughts of Marc Eliot in his book Hollywood's Dark Prince (see my previous essay on this here). This photograph, as I recall, came to the Institute via the Gene Lester Photograph collection I purchased many years ago (although the photo is not by Lester, but rather another famed Hollywood photographer Len Weissman). It is a snapshot (thus the poor quality of the image) that was, when it was taken, not done so for the Disney's, but rather for famed entertainer Paul Hartman. The image was snapped in 1938 at the Cocoanut Grove of the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel, while Walt and Lillian were enjoying the antics of Hartman's act, who at that time was a dancer and stage performer (later on he became a familiar face on television as a character actor).  Hartman sent a copy of the photo to Walt in 1964 along with this sentiment expressed in a hand-written note: 

"Years ago, about 1938, when I was playing the Cocoanut Grove as THE HARTMANS a photographer took the enclosed shot of you laughing at our antics. I thought you might enjoy having it. But mostly I want to thank you for the most wonderful evening I’ve had in a motion picture theater since I first saw Snow White at the Music Hall, last night when I spent two and a half hours with MARY POPPINS. A classic. Thank you so much for giving this to all America."

 Enjoy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILLIAN DISNEY

Happy Birthday to the love of Walt Disney's life, Lillian Disney. We are not 100% sure, but we believe this photograph was taken by Walt. Enjoy.

Happy Valentine's Day from DHI (And Mickey & Minnie)

Todd and I wanted to wish all of our faithful DHI readers an "unsurpassed" (and happy) Valentine's day. We could think of no better way to do this, but through Disney history (our namesake, you know) and the most famous Disney couple we could think of.  This wonderful art was created for a very popular promotion done in 1939 and 1940 for Standard Oil of California (a lengthier essay on this, with a plethora of never-before-seen images, is scheduled for a future DHI post). The Disney characters were featured up and down the west coast on billboards, signs, taxi hubcaps, maps, publications, and so much more. This particular art was for a sizable poster (4' x 8'-ish) and meant for display at Standard Service Stations. It is dated September 1939.  Enjoy!

Canon Style - Disneyland in the 1950s

Disneyland 1955

Canon Style

by Todd J. Pierce

So what are the cultural differences between Disneyland in the 1950s and the park as it exists today?  Based on the video, “Disneyland Canon 1957,” I’d first point out the open spaces, also the absence of overcrowding.  Environment is at least as important as the rides: throughout the video, park guests are captivated by the scenery.  I might also point out the lack of vending carts.  But, based on the comments on YouTube and other sites, viewers were most impressed with the clothes people once wore to the park.

Disneyland 1956

For today’s post, I’ve uploaded four photos from the mid-1950s—all of them new, never-before-published.  The banner photo (above) is from August 1955, when daily temperatures regularly spiked into the 80s and 90s.  But even there, with that heat, some men are in suits and ties, women in dresses with hemlines falling below the knee.  Part of this style, I’m sure, is cultural.  People in the 1950s simply dressed more formally than do people now.  In my opinion, the 1950s were more about appearance; whereas, our current decade is more focused on experience.  But, for me, this alone doesn’t fully explain the style of dress one used to see at Disneyland.

I’ve got a couple theories.

You see, from the start, Disneyland presented itself as a playground for celebrities.  The live telecast of Disneyland’s opening (in 1955) included dozens of high profile guests, all of them dressed as though they were attending a social event and not an amusement park: Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Fess Parker, and Danny Thomas.  

Disneyland 1958

Beyond this, Disneyland was the first amusement park to consciously incorporate the art direction and stage design one would usually find on a Hollywood set into a physical setting.  For most families, this was their first opportunity to explore an extended jungle set or a western village, something that previously they could only see at the movies or on TV.  For us, this type of themed space is common.  You can find it at most every mall.  But in the mid-1950s, it was new: a blending of film and a real-world location.  More so than now, Hollywood was touched with prestige.  The park's association with that fabled city, I suspect, encouraged people to dress up a little.

Anyway, check out the photos.  You can click to enlarge them.  Post your own ideas below as to why people once dressed up to visit Disneyland.  And if you want to help recreate the elegant style of the 1950s, Dapper Days hosts two events each year to bring back the era of Eisenhower.  You can find their site here.

Come back next Monday.  I’ll post up a couple more photos.

Todd J.Pierce

Disneyland 1956

WALT IN WINTER WONDERLAND

In honor of the snow storm we are having here in the mountain west today (while Todd basks on the beach in California), as well as the previous Walt skiing photo I posted here at DHI, I offer another rarely (if ever?) seen 1930s candid photo of Walt Disney on one of his vacation retreats to the California snow-capped mountains. 

I wanted to get this photograph of Walt up before Todd and I start posting several essays on the "Disneyland Canon: 1957" DHI Film that has created a great deal of interest so far (by the time you read this, it will be over 200,000 views!). Coming soon (very soon!) are Todd's thoughts and insights regarding many of the comments made around the Internet on the film. Later this week, I'll post a material culture essay on some of the minutia as seen in the "Canon" (can you say Keppy Kap). So look for a great week of Disney History here at the Institute.

Disneyland Canon: 1957

 Disneyland Canon: 1957

by Todd J. Pierce

Juice up your Delorean and set the dial for 1957.   10 cents for a trip down Main Street.   A helicopter gliding over the castle.  And wait, is that Aunt Jemima out by the Pancake House?

This video is taken from some 1957 pro-stock that I've owned for years.  The transfer was done on a Spirit DataCine (i.e. the same machine that Ken Burns uses to transfer historic footage for his PBS documentaries).  The entire reel is 20 minutes.  These are the best clips, none of which have ever been shown in public.  

Here are a few things that I've noticed:

* The color values here are so much brighter than those presently used in the park, leaning in places toward a florescent vibrancy.  (And yes, it does look like the film has a slight color shift in the reds, but overall, I think the colors are pretty spot on.)  During the early days of Disneyland Walt was often focused on color, particularly in Fantasyland and on Main Street.  As with his animated films, he saw color as a key element toward affecting a guest's emotional experience.  Over the years, I've interviewed many of the original art directors for Disneyland, who have told different versions of this story, that Walt used to walk through the park, making notes to repaint various buildings with a slightly different hue, that Walt sent his animators and background painters (such as Ken Anderson) into the park specifically to review the park's use of color.  Here, Fantasyland holds the dreamy qualities of a children's storybook and Main Street is washed in tones that, for me, suggest nostalgia.  During Walt's lifetime, Disneyland had many imitators, but none of the other parks understood how Walt controlled environment to create mood. 

* This film was shot the month Monsanto opened the House of the Future.  Look, there's no line for the House, with only a few people wandering out its exit. 

* Up through 1958, the Omnibus travelled back to the Tomorrowland lagoon (future home of the Disneyland subs).  Here, you can see it roll past Holiday Hill (AKA Snow Mountain).

* There, in by the mule train, leaning over the fence, is Owen Pope, the man with the chocolate-brown pants.  Sure, it's not the best shot of Owen Pope.  You can't see his face, but that's definitely the hat he most always wore for photographs.  He oversaw construction of the Disneyland stagecoaches and also managed the Disneyland stables.

* But my favorite sequence in the entire film occurs on the Mark Twain.  There, the Disneyland band director (Vesey Walker) conducts the band while talking to a park guest.  This reminds me of one of the things I most admire about the park as it existed 55 years ago: the park contained a unique type of open space that encouraged conversation.

Leave me some comments below about the video or those things you most admire about early Disneyland.  And swing by next Monday when I'll post up a few photos.  About what?  I'm not yet sure.

WALT AND ELIAS

I have always been perplexed by the fallacy that Walt and his father had a contentious and estranged relationship. Sadly this notion is prevalent as it has stemmed primarily from a lot of the more prominent Walt Disney biographies. In these books Elias is often portrayed as an unloving, evil task master, bent on whipping his boys into submission. Like any family, there were obviously tensions in the Disney household, especially when times were difficult on the farm. In some oft-told stories, they are given without a dose of historical context (which I heavily preach, offering almost a full hour lecture on this in my Walt Disney & American culture class); that is we should not view an early 1900s family relationship with today's sensibilities. Even when these biographies explore the Disney family during the times that were good and plentiful, they can make Elias sound demonstrative and hateful, but in reality  without the editorializing the events described are simply representative of a turn-of-the-century family. Within this context, various writers have taken some isolated events, and turned them into far more than they ever were, often adding a nefarious element to Elias and his supposed disappointment with Walt.

As Walt evolves into manhood these normal sociological stresses continue, as changes within the family dynamic, especially as it relates to the father/son relationship, are at their peak.   And yet, once again, many writers over emphasize the angst and anger Walt felt due to, according to them, his overbearing father. In several cases this is done to support the writer's pre-conceived notion of Walt and his creativity (or his "escape"); in other instances, this is done simply for the purpose of tarnishing an American icon with the end result of trying to sell more books. Whatever their reason, the final father/son picture always seems to portray the relationship devoid of love and affection, while at the same time villainizing Elias as a disconnected father who never supported Walt or his dreams. 

The research and interviews that I have done portray a completely different picture ... which brings me to the subject of this essay ... a picture (allegorical and literal!). In honor of Elias' upcoming February 6th birthday, I thought I'd share this 1941 photograph of Walt celebrating his father's 82nd birthday (oddly 41 years in the 19th century and 41 years in the 20th century). What I like most about this "moment caught in time" is the obvious appreciation and affection they have for each other. Before someone counters with the "well, Paul you idiot, it is staged" argument, let me state that I have seen tens of thousands of Walt Disney photographs over my decades of research; I know what a staged Walt photo looks like! I know when Walt is genuinely faking interest or a smile (can you say Robert Kintner!) and I know when he is thoroughly enjoying himself (and most everything in-between). As for Elias, most candid photos I have seen of him, he is smiling and generally seems to be content with life. And so I offer this rarely seen Institute photograph which shows them ... well, I'll let you decide. But to me, it seems to be as clear as the smile on your (Elias') face!

Enjoy!