9:35pm Disneyland Fireworks?
by Steve
Monday, December 17, 2007
Dale writes to me asking why Disneyland fireworks are going off at 9:35pm, instead of 9:30pm. Living out here in Riverside County now, I don't get to see the fireworks anymore, so I don't really know what's going on at D-Land...
Steve
My son-in-law asked me why the nightly fire works go off at 9.35. Why not 9.30 or another time please let me know so I can get back to him as it is very embarrassing not to be able to answer someone that loves to know the facts.
Can anyone chime in? Click on "Post a Comment".
Labels: Disneyland
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Disneyland Accidents
by Steve
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
An anonymous OCThen reader posted a comment on an old article regarding an accident happening at Disneyland. His comment is about an incident he was involved in on the Jungle Cruise...
When I worked on the Jungle Cruise, I was working one evening in the front loader dock position. Two women and a litle girl approached as the boat was filling up. I was talking to the Mom, asking if they wanted to wait for another boat as this one was nearly full.
Before any of us knew it, the litle girl had stepped off the dock and fell between the boat and the dock. The water there is about 12 feet deep, and she was completely submerged.
I fell on my knees in the boat opening and fished for the girl in the water. I found her and pulled her out. It was a couple of seconds at best, but felt like minutes. Her eyes were like saucers, and she started crying almost immediately. All I could do was hold her close, then handed her off to her Mom.
There was no threat of a lawsuit. The Mom said she should have been watching her. I was not punished by Disney, though I did have to go back to wardrobe to change into dry clothes.
It did earn me the nickname "Lipton".
I wanted to ask our readers if they can submit their memories of other Disneyland accidents. I'm not looking for deaths, or major injuries, since those have all been well covered in the media. I'm looking for the stuff that didn't get reported in the papers, which involved little to no injuries.
Maybe someone fell into the water at Pirates of the Caribbean, or someone who actually got sick in the middle of watching Circle Vision, or some kid who got his head stuck between the bars of a fence and had to be greased up to pull it back out. I dunno.
I'm sure past and present Disneyland employees have lots to share.
I haven't witnessed any accidents, other than the countless times I slammed into the back of my buddies on the Autopia Cars. Though there was that time I nearly ran over a parking attendant because I had the sun shining in my face.
If you have something, click on "Post a Comment", and let's get this thread going.
Labels: Disneyland
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Watching Disneyland Fireworks in the Old Days
by Steve
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Mike Baldwin shares his memories of watching Disneyland Fireworks...
I grew up living in Santa Ana from 1952 till my family moved to Costa Mesa in 1963. My fondest memory is during the summers when before bed time, Mom and Dad would walk with my sisters and I up to the Santa Ana river bank to watch the fireworks at Disneyland each evening. During thoses days there were no obstructions to sight across the county to see the nightly display from Disneyland. It was a great way to end each day as the walk back home was a great time to share the the show of that night with each other and to think of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell before going to bed.
By Mike Baldwin
I lived in Santa Ana from 1978 to 1988, before moving to El Toro. But we lived on Richland Ave, out by Bristol St, and couldn't see the fireworks, but you could always hear them, and you always knew what time it was once you started hearing the "boom boom" in the distance.
Labels: Disneyland, Santa-Ana
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Tinkerbell, Buster Brown Shoes, and Santa Ana Winds
by Steve
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Cary Stolpestad submitted some nice memories of growing up in Orange County, including Disneyland, Tinkerbell, roller skating, television, and x-ray machines at the Buster Brown store...
Since Big House was two stories, towering over the one story tract homes, we had a perfect view of Disneyland's fireworks everynight out of the upstairs windows. My dad, an Orange County fire captain, once went on a call to unstick Tinkerbell, whose cable tangled midway between the castle and the Matterhorn. He broke our Disney bubbles when he announced at dinner that Tinkerbell was really a man.
On payday my mom went to the main firestation to get Dad's paycheck. I've heard the station became a youth center and later burned, but in the 1960's it was a child's dream come true as it had a brass firepole that would quickly trasport you from the upstairs dorm to the firetrucks parked below. Neither Knott's nor Disneyland had a better ride.
Life was grand in the old days. When the Santa Anas blew we'd put on rain slickers and roller skates. On the sidewalk we'd open up our rain slickers like giant outstreatched wings, and then -zoom! - the wind would propell us down the street at frightening speeds. Often our metal wheeled skates would catch a little rock, and we'd experience the worst scabbed knees and palms imaginable.
My dear neighborhood pal, Carol, was named after Christmas Carols as her parents were listening to them on the hi-fi when they received a call that a baby was available for them to adopt if they could come down and pick her up now - Christmas Eve. They did, but I'm not sure her mom ever adjusted to children as every stick of upolstered furniture was covered with plastic and there were plastic runners throughout the house for us to walk upon. Her mom always had the best kid snacks, such as Moon Pies and Otter Pops, but Carol's mom dolled them out through the kitchen door so we could receice and eat them in the garage. They moved out of Clinton Ave. tract house to the first developments going in at Knoll Ranch.
After dinner car trips to the Carnation Ice Cream Parlor on Tustin Ave., Sunday dinners st Knott's, experiencing "lung burn" from swimming during smoggy afternoons, watching Hobo Kelly and hoping she'd put on her magic glasses and say, "I see a present under Cary's bed!"... yet she never did. To this day I still sometimes get the "Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal" commercial stuck in my head, and I still wonder if Cal ever had a real dog in his backyard or if his kids had to play with bears and alligators and monkeys.
My sister and I also wonder if we will die an early death as we always were taken to the Buster Brown shoe store, just off The Circle, for our shoes. They had an x-ray machine that you put your foot into to check to see if the new shoes fit properly. As Mom paid for our shoes we'd stick our newly shod feet in and out of that x-ray machine over and over and over again. Radiation maximus.
We moved from OC in 1967. Our one acre of paradise, surrounded by oceans of tracts, wasn't the OC life my parents remembered, nor the smog choked life they wanted us to lead. They bought a plum and peach ranch in the San Joaquin Valley, and moved us, two dogs, four cats, and 47 rabbits (who traveled in cages systematically stacked inside our ski boat) to start farming anew.
Visiting OC in the 1970's and 1980's always seemed a little too busy, smoggy, crowded. Visiting Villa Park stilled seemed low key and country, yet in the 1980's the old dump road, that ran up the canyon behind one grandparents' house, became a road leading to million dollar houses, not a road leading to the dump. Go figure.
Cary Stolpestad
(part of the Thomson, Popplewell, Workman, Smith, and Bennett clans)
Labels: Disneyland, Roller-Skating, Santa-Ana-Winds, Villa-Park
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Disneyland Hotel Blueprints Wanted
by Steve
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Don Ballard, the author of a book entitled, "Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years 1954-1988", would like to ask our readers if anyone can help him locate original blueprints of the Disneyland Hotel...
I am the author of the book Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years 1954-1988, please see www.magicalhotel.com. I wanted to post a request to try and locate the original blueprints for the Disneyland Hotel. I have checked with the architects (Pereira and Luckman, both deceased) present facilities with no luck. I was wondering if there may be a copy somewhere in the archives of Orange County or Anaheim. I checked with Chris Jepson and he is not aware of their location either.
Maybe if we put out a request for these, somebody would come forward with some information. I also have some great shots I would like to post on your site. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you and best regards,
Don Ballard
If you have information that can help Don, please click on "Post a Comment" below and post something. You can also contact him through his website:
http://www.magicalhotel.com.
In fact, check out his website and see lots of old photos of the Disneyland Hotel, and buy a copy of his book online.
Labels: Disneyland
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Duck Clubs of Orange County
by Steve
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Skip Fleming, who grew up in Orange County during the 1950's, shares his memories of "duck clubs", Disneyland, drag strips, and other stuff...
I found this site looking for info on duck clubs in orange county. I was born in orange December 1947. Went to Irvine elementry school.
I grew up on the Sprigg duck club. There were five duck clubs in a five mile area close to John Wayne airport. My uncle Clarence Jessee ran the Aliso duck club and farmed about 150 acres; some of land was where the Fluor corp. is now. Mostly he grew barley. The Irvine company had a ranch with cows and cowboys.
I had another uncle who ran a duck club on what is I think the San Joaquin bird sanctuary. I also had an uncle Paul Plavan farmer inventor who in the 1930s farmed land around the Santa Ana river, which flooded and was covered with silt making the land almost unusable. The land was covered with 2 or 3 feet of silt, and he built a giant plow to turn up the good soil it took three cat 60's to pull the plow. He restored a lot of farm ground back to being productive again.
My dad was a carpenter who worked on many projects including Disneyland. All of the employes and family got into Disneyland before the public. I remember going there in 1955. I also remember my dad saying Disney wanted to pay employees with stock in Disneyland but my dad wasn't about to take stock from a guy with his head in a cloud and trying to borrow money to pay the workers.
I remember the Santa Ana drag strip only a couple of miles from the duck club where I lived. I remember Oscars drive in, Merle's drive in on Jamboree, and the Coast Hiway Halls drive in on south main in Santa Ana, Lions drag strip in Long Beach.
I remember when you got into Knotts ghost town for free.
I remember meeting Andy Devine on my uncles duck club. I also met Andy Carey who played for the New York Yankee's 1957. A member of our duck club was Newt Bass who was famous for his part in Apple Valley.
We moved from Tustin in 1989, too many people, too crowded. My mother moved with us she was born in Santa Ana. Most of the old farmers and their families are gone or have moved. I went back 6 years ago I couldn't envision in my mind what it was like when I was kid in the fifties. The bus ride to school took almost an hour sometimes. We drove three miles between picking up the next kids.
What a great place to grow up we had the mountains, the beach, hunting, fishing, but it is all gone now.
Skip Fleming
Labels: Disneyland, Drag-Strips, Duck-Clubs, Farming
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Annual Passport for Disneyland
by Steve
Monday, January 16, 2006
I suppose if you live in Orange County, there's a good chance you hold, or once held, an annual passport to Disneyland.
In the early 1990's, my wife and I bought annual passports. We would go out for dinner on a Friday or Saturday night, and then cap it off with a evening visit to the Happiest Place on Earth.
What really made this convenient was that the cost of parking was included in the pass. We'd go to Disneyland two or three times a month.
We didn't do a whole lot during these evening visits. We'd start by jumping on board the Disneyland Railway there at the Main Street station, and usually rode a couple times around the park. Then we'd jump off at Tomorrowland Station and head over to the People Mover for a ride.
During the Summer months we'd try to time things perfectly so that we could
ride the Skyway and watch the fireworks from up there.
And that was probably all the rides we'd take. We often perused the wares at some of the shops, and then relax on the bench on Main Street at the photography shop. We'd stay there until closing just watching the people go by.
We bought annual passports three years in a row, and then the whole experience just started to get old, and that was that.
Labels: Disneyland
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Skyway and Fireworks at Disneyland
by Steve
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Sitting here reading about
another blogger's trip to Disneyland made me recall some good times my wife and I used to have at Disneyland.
For a few years in a row we had annual passes to the Happiest Place on Earth, and we'd go there on weekend nights after dinner to enjoy the peaceful rides like the Train, the People Mover, and the Skyway.
On Summer nights, at 9:00pm sharp every night (or was it 9:30?), Disneyland presented their fireworks shows (they still do). We'd try to time things perfectly by getting into line for the Skyway and trying to get aboard just as the fireworks show started. On those times when we timed it perfectly, we were treated to a spetactular show high up in the sky.
Of course the Skyway is long gone. So is the People Mover. While I considered these to be among my favorite rides, I realize not everyone cared for them. But watching a fireworks show high up in the sky is something most folks just can't do anywhere else.
Labels: Disneyland, Fireworks
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Black Sunday at Disneyland
by Steve
Sunday, July 17, 2005
There is an
interesting article published by the Associated Press describing what took place at Disneyland on the day it first opened, often referred to as "Black Sunday". Despite all the fanfare, the writer recounts all the stuff that went wrong:
Long lines formed at the rides, forcing visitors to stand in the sweltering sun. Later it was discovered that counterfeit tickets had been used by the uninvited. Adding to the congestion, crashers scrambled over fences and berms in remote areas of the park.
Several of the rides shut down because of overuse, and by the end of the day all the "Autopia" cars had been sidelined. The deck of the river boat Mark Twain was awash; too many passengers had climbed aboard. And a gas leak was discovered in Tomorrowland, forcing evacuation of the entire area.
Refreshment stands quickly ran out of food and drink, and there were few drinking fountains. Women's spiked heels sank into the newly laid asphalt on Main Street. Families waited in long lines to use toilets. A saboteur snipped electrical lines in Fantasyland, bringing all rides to a halt.
I remember my first time visiting Disneyland, though I don't remember the date. It was like 1974, or something. I remember Monsanto's "Journey Through Inner Space". That was my favorite ride at the time. More recently, my wife and I would enjoy resting our feet on the longer rides like Disneyland Railroad, or the People Mover. Actually, I think the People Mover was the best ride they had!
The last time I went to Disneyland was a couple years ago, and it was on a Wednesday. Man, there were SO many people crammed into that park, and it wasn't even a weekend!
I'd like to read what you have to recall about Disneyland "back in the day". Click on "Post a Comment", and share it with us.
Labels: Disneyland
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The Disney Way...
by Lynn
Monday, March 28, 2005
Anyone who grew up in Orange County and made regular trips to Disneyland through the years learned the "Disney way". When your parents paid $2.00 for parking at Knotts they had to pay $5.00 at Disneyland. When you could get a LARGE coke at Mc Donalds for $1.29, you knew you would be paying $3.00 for a medium at Disneyland. Where else were men not allowed in the park because of the length of their hair or woman because their clothing did not cover enough? YES! Disneyland had a dress code for the guests as well as the "cast".
I had a friend who worked in a souvenir stand and she had GREAT stories she had heard in the locker rooms about things that went on in he park. Back in the day of "E" tickets, guests from out of state would give my friend their left over ticket books. She would save them up through the year and in the summer when a group we wanted to see were performing in the park, she would use her pass to get us in and after the show we would use the free tickets. I remember the big story about the ride in tomorrowland where you went inside an atom, was the times they would find "under garments" I guess some couples would use try to use the "DARK" to get busy.
Do you think these were included in "
Private Tours" that were being lead several times a year by Jim Hill, the New Hampshire man was ousted from the park for leading last week? He was reported to security when 2 woman who had paid for the Disney Tour accidentally got into his tour by mistake. Personally, I think there were 2 Reasons why the Disneyland CIA ran the man out of the "Happiest Place On Earth": 1) He was spilling inside info on the park that he had learned from stories left on his
web site. And 2) HE ONLY CHARGED $25.00 and the park got $0.00!!! So do any of you have GREAT INSIDE STORIES from Disneyland of yester year??? How about the secret tunnel that ran under the park, so trouble makers could be whisked away?
LET ME HEAR FROM YOU...
Click on comments below and tell your inside scoop!
Labels: Disneyland
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Accident at Disneyland Forces Ride Closure
by Steve
Friday, March 18, 2005
The Storybook Canal Ride at Disneyland was
shut down because a boy injured his finger. According to the OC Register:
The child's fingers were pinched between the boat and the dock while passengers were unloading, a state report says.
The ride remains closed while state officials investigate whether any corrections need to be made, said Dean Fryer, spokesman for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
And this requires a State investigation??
The kid got his finger pinched between the boat and the dock. Is this Disneyland's fault, or his parents' fault? It seems like we've moved to the point where getting hurt at Disneyland is like winning the lottery. If not for the litigious atmosphere that plagues Disneyland, there wouldn't be a state investigation.
But better yet, is this the first time a child got his finger broken on the Storybook Canal ride, or any of the other boat rides, in Disneyland's 50-year history? I bet this has happened before, but was always accepted to be the parents' fault.
And of course, such an investigation would only occur at Disneyland. I mean, what if a door got slammed on some kid's finger at school? Would that prompt state officials to shut the school down pending a safety review? Of course not; I imagine more fingers have been broken in Orange County Schools than at Disneyland. So, why pick on Disneyland?
Labels: Disneyland
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Michael Eisners successor named, Disney President Iger to be Promoted to CEO.
by Lynn
Sunday, March 13, 2005
It was
announced today that the search for the replacement CEO of
The Walt Disney Co. has ended when
Robert Iger, current president of the company,was named to the office. This came after
Meg Whitman CEO of
EBay Inc. and only other contender, withdrew her application on Friday, electing to stay with Ebay after meeting with the Disney board earlier in the week.
Since Iger was the only candidate backed by
Michael Eisner, one has to wonder what changes are in store for the Disney holdings in Orange County: "
Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure, The Disneyland Resort, and The
Mighty Ducks of Anaheim."
Labels: Disneyland
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Disneyland
by Steve
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Articles about Disneyland published here on OCThen.com...
Labels: Disneyland
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