Disneyland-Silver Spring Connection

Well, I finally found the connection between Disneyland and where I now reside in Maryland. Some might consider it tenuous, but it can act as a placeholder until I find something better. The connection comes from the Snow White Wishing Well. Quoting Magic Quizdom:

Where does money from Snow White Wishing Well go? Children's charities. Originally, it was put into a trust established between Disneyland and the Variety Clubs International, to go to such places as orphanages, schools and children's homes. The trust was terminated in 1972 when federal regulations restricted contributions to foreign charities, and now it goes to domestic children's charities.

In 1971, $5,000 was given to the Variety Clubs for the Indian Health Service-Navajo Hearing Project in Silver Spring, to treat Navajo children suffering from middle ear problems and hearing loss. I don't know how many of those children there were in Silver Spring, though...! (For those who don't know and can't be bothered to open up a map window, Silver Spring is an unincorporated area of Montgomery County immediately outside the District of Columbia. I live across the street from the headquarters of Discovery Communications, which moved into downtown Silver Spring in February 2003. Oh, and the headquarters of the National Weather Service are down the street.)

Dick Cook's Promotion

By now you've probably heard the news: Dick Cook has been promoted. That's right, he's just been named supervisor of Group Services! I am sure you will join me in congratulating Dick in his new assignment and will cooperate with him in every way possible...

Disneyland Encyclopedia Excerpt on the Web

I noticed that Santa Monica Press has placed an excerpt from Chris Strodder's Disneyland Encyclopedia on its web site. I have some initial impressions, but I'll wait to post about them until I have the book in hand.

More Early Matterhorn from the Newspapers

I had a brief post about an early Holiday Hill mention in 1955. A February 1956 item by gossip columnist Mike Connolly is somewhat intriguing: "Walt Disney is about to spend another $250,000 at Disneyland for a huge ski ride." Too bad he didn't have more to say about it!

A (Small) Bit More of Carousel Theater Destruction

So apparently I lied when I last informed you that I only had one image of the Carousel Theater interior when it was gutted in 1996. I discovered a few more images. No, don't adjust your monitors; they really are that size.

These have not been scaled down--they were the full resolution shot at the time! It was pretty cool to have a camera that would allow me to upload photos to my web site (in 1996, "Wicket's Disneyland Home Page" with somewhere around 10 or 25MB of storage space) the same day! Photos could also be taken at 640x480, but the image quality suffered (yes, even compared to these!). I used a Casio QV-10, which I'm sure we still have somewhere around the house. You can read a period review of the camera here. It talks about a bunch of design flaws, but the only thing I remember about the camera is how small the photos are!

Check back tomorrow for a fun internal document from the 1970s. The promised Thesaurus Thursday post might wait until Thursday.

The Earliest Mention of Holiday Hill?

In a pre-opening column on Disneyland, May 23, 1955, Hedda Hopper writes in the Los Angeles Times:

One hill is completely covered with pines, and [Disney will] have a snow machine working full time, so that kids in this area who've never had a sleigh ride can rent a sled and sail down hill.

It sounds like Cosmic Waves--but frozen!

I'll probably have a Thesaurus Thursday post tomorrow (yes, on a Friday!). I found some interesting documents online that I want to write about...

Fantasyland Theatre (1965-1981) Destruction

It's been some time since the last installment of my destruction series. Today we'll travel back to January 1982 and get a look at a bulldozer pulling down the Fantasyland Theatre structure. While Disneyland retained the roof of Snow White's Adventures, the Fantasyland Theatre/Juice Bar/rest room structure was torn down completely to facilitate construction of the Fantasyland Basement, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, and the Village Inn (later renamed the Village Haus for reasons unknown to me--hopefully for better reasons than the renaming of the Golden Bear Lodge).

First up is the bulldozer poised down below with a line running to the top of the building...

A simple mechanical action and gravity does the rest:

The still photos don't really give you the destructive effect, though; to compensate, I've created an animated GIF, which gives a better sense of the demolition process. Click the image to enlarge.

Oh, and it's a big anniversary day today. In 1960 both the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland and The Art of Animation opened; in 1966 "it's a small world" opened. ( and Disney A-Z and The Nickel Tour say "it's a small world" opened on May 28. If it did open on the 28, it was not dedicated until May 30.)