An Eddie Meck Anecdote

Following up on last week's post about Eddie Meck, here's a fun story from a Don W. Martin column in the Oxnard Press-Courier, May 30, 1964:

Every now and then, these publicity fellows come up with a Funny.

Like Eddie Meck, for instance.

Eddie is charged with the responsibility of telling the world of the glories and grandeurs of Disneyland. Recently, I got a letter from Eddie, informing me that I had been named as an honorary member of the Big Band Boosters Club.

As a member, the letter said, I would receive--absolutely free--my very own 14-piece band.

Today, I received another letter from Eddie. I opened the piece of mail, and a small envelope fell out. These words were printed on the envelope: "Here is your 14-piece band!"

The envelope contained a rubber band, chopped into 14 pieces.

* * *

Actually, Eddie was attempting to promote "Disneyland After Dark," a series of five nights, June 13-17, in which five of the nation's leading bands will appear.

These are Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Wayne King, Count Basie and the Elliott Brothers. All bands will be there each of the five nights. The bands will be playing throughout the park during these evening stomp sessions.

Also, June 13 will mark the return of "Fantasy in the Sky," a fireworks display that begins with the flight of that Tinker Bell chick above Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

As I said, the band gimmick was designed to promote this "Disneyland After Dark" thing. Apparently, it worked.

Simple, but effective! I had always known about the 1962 television special "Disneyland After Dark," but in doing this research I've found that it was also used as the name for a specific event and as an umbrella term for nighttime entertainment throughout the summer (in several years, I think).

Lost & Found Tally

Sometimes, when things were slow at the Resort, I'd keep a tally of one thing or another. Before Lost & Founds of the two Parks were combined at the old Package Pick-Up Window, Disney's California Adventure had its own Lost & Found, near the entrance, adjacent to the Guest Relations Lobby. This was very frequently a slow location, as my tally below for April 8, 2001, indicates. These numbers are from an eight-hour shift, but do not account for any Guests (if there were any!) during my breaks or lunch.

The first thing I kept track of was how many Guests actually wanted Lost & Found, versus how many really wanted services offered by the Guest Relations Lobby. (It seems the stylized location signs above the doors didn't attract the attention of Guests, who would just go to whichever location looked the least busy.) A grand total of 18 Guests came into Lost & Found with questions actually for us... and 22 came in who actually wanted the Guest Relations Lobby.

This is an hour-by-hour breakdown of all the Guests:

8 AM: 5
9 AM: 7
10 AM: 10
11 AM: 0 (yes, 0)
12 PM: 5
1 PM: 5
2 PM: 3
3 PM: 4

(I realize these two totals differ by one person, and I have no explanation for that). The thing I most remember about my days in DCA Lost & Found is spending a bunch of time reading the writings of then-executive vice president of Walt Disney World Lee Cockerell on the intranet.

Alpine Gardens

In response to Major Pepperidge's recent post on the Alpine Gardens area, here are a few shots of the souvenir stand that was there from an unknown date until August 24, 1997. I have a receipt from its final day of operation somewhere; I believe I purchased Candy Sours.

I do not have any photos of the actual demolition of the stand, but I do have a thrilling image of the area as dirt!

Ariel's Grotto opened in this location circa December 1997.

Know Your Foods Supervisors!

One of the things Disneyland fans know the least about, in my opinion, is how Disneyland operates (in its entirety) and how the organization is structured. Van France's Window on Main Street circles around this, but his experience was atypical, mostly focused on training and communication. I therefore relish any organizational information I can find, such as how the functions of operating the theme park are and have been divided, and who occupied what roles through the years. While such information isn't readily available, I know that it's out there--and I plan to gather quite a bit of it.

The following organizational chart, of the Foods Division from Summer-Fall 1972, is one small piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately, a few corners are missing. I assume the crossed out faces are people who left the division, Park, or company by some point. I haven't a clue about the pink marker; perhaps these were extraordinary Cast Members? Or ones to watch out for? Or they were found scheming to take over the division? Give me your best guess in the comments! And can you spot the Disney Legend?

Travelport Destruction

I never did spend too much time at the Disneyland Hotel. I lived in Southern California and if I was going to Disneyland, I was going to Disneyland (Park)! One of my few Disneyland Hotel memories was going there on a Saturday afternoon to buy Mighty Ducks merchandise on the first day it was available. (I still have the hat.) I only dined at the Monorail Cafe once, about a month before it closed. I did take a number of photos of destruction of the Travelport, though; here are a "select few" of that. The first batch is from September 7, 1999.

September 19:

September 30:

October 11:

Hey, a photo of the parking structure! And the Pinocchio lot! I hope it's OK to post...

More Tomorrowland Demolition

We're back next to the Mary Blair mural today, seeing a few shots of the Circle-Vision entrance through time...

It sure is magical, isn't it?

Disneyland Park

Despite the blog's title, I haven't discussed too much nomenclature (yet!). Partly this is because I'd like to use a lot of sources to talk about name changes through time, inconsistencies in naming, or what have you. The source base I've gotten through so far is broad, but not yet terribly deep. Nevertheless, I'll still try to address nomenclature from time to time. Today, we'll start at the top!

In an earlier post, I mentioned that Disneyland is not an approved term in my thesaurus. One function of a thesaurus is disambiguation, and since Disneyland can refer to several things, Disneyland exists as a lead-in to more descriptive terms: Disneyland (television), Disneyland Park, and Disneyland Resort.

I remember when I first heard sustained use of Disneyland Park in the late 1990s. It certainly left a bad taste in my mouth! I remember a February 1999 thread from alt.disney.disneyland about this very topic. I didn't recall seeing Disneyland Park used much in earlier times, but for several reasons I now accept its utility (though Disney's California Adventure Park has never warmed my heart).

For starters, being able to distinguish Disneyland Park from the Disneyland Resort proved immensely helpful to me as a Guest Relations Cast Member. Especially in 2001, Guests would arrive and have no idea what was what. They might think "Disneyland" had just expanded and everything new was all part of "Disneyland." I don't know what they did after I explained that they were at the Disneyland Resort, and there were now two theme parks, including Disneyland Park. They might have gone off as confused as ever, but at least I knew I was as specific as possible. Perhaps a detail-oriented person in their group would recall that the nice man at the Information Booth had kept repeating "Disneyland Park." (I think I was also one of the few Cast Members that would never shorten "Disney's California Adventure," no matter how much of a mouthful that was to say.) So, it served as a useful point of distinction.

As I've been doing this thesaurus research, I've also found that it has historical precedent (though not terrifically strong) and was used even before Opening Day. But as Werner Weiss notes in that Usenet thread, and as I have found so far, Disneyland Park is used to differentiate the park from the Disneyland Hotel. The earliest source I've yet seen for this is a March 19, 1955 Los Angeles Times article about construction of the Disneyland Hotel, which is described as "adjoining the new Disneyland Park." The other early mentions I have in that vein are in the big souvenir newspaper insert a couple of days before Disneyland opened (when it's clear which Disneyland we're talking about, there's no reason to be verbose!) and the 1960 edition of "Walt Disney's Guide to Disneyland."

It then seems to go into hibernation for a time; the next mention I've found (thanks to VintageDisneylandTickets) is the January 1993 guidebook. There are many mentions of just Disneyland, and the logo certainly has no "Park" attached to it, but some text has begun to refer to it as Disneyland Park. The references to it since then have increased in intensity. It now has a very specific legal usage (Disneyland is an adjective modifying Park) and always has the registration symbol. If the 1990s is indeed when this usage took off, I might have a source who can shed further light on this. I will, of course, pass along whatever I find.

One thing I can say conclusively is that it has always been known colloquially as "the Park." Newspapers, guidebooks, Disneylanders (both people and the publication) and other sources refer to it that way. It is still used in conversation today. Sometimes I'll say "I'm going to the Park" when I'll be visiting Downtown Disney or Disney's California Adventure as well, but I'd never use "the Park" to refer to that other park! The use of "the Park" is certainly strong amongst Cast Members and Annual Passholders; heck, I even had a co-worker here in Maryland ask me something about the Park (well, maybe "the park"), and he's never even been there!

Does anybody out there have feelings one way or the other on the use of Disneyland Park? Do you talk about "the Park" with your friends? Is there anything like this in Walt Disney World, or do people refer to the parks by some variant of their proper names?