Sleeping Beauty Castle is the original Disney Park icon and symbol of Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Something else unique to the castle is it’s drawbridge. It actually works (or did) and has only been used twice.
On opening day, July 17, 1955, the drawbridge was lowered to let the children into the most magical land of Fantasyland. Then after a complete renovation of Fantasyland, the drawbridge was lowered again on May 26, 1983. In 2014, heavy wooden railings replaced chain lifts, virtually removing any chance of it opening again. The next time you visit, take a look as you walk through the gates to see the old gate mechanism used to move the gate. A fun piece of park history sitting there for everyone to see. When the park first opened on July 17th in 1955, a single $1.00 admission ticket was sold at the park’s main entry gate, while tickets for each individual attraction could be purchased at the ticket booths located throughout the park. There were general booths located throughout the lands, like Fantasyland, but it was the individual attraction booths that stood out. Opening day attractions like the Storybookland Canal Boats and later additions like Alice in Wonderland, had highly themed booths that fit the look and design of the attractions they promoted. On October 11, 1955 ticket books were created and offered admission to the park and coupons to experience eight attractions—for a total price of $2.50 for adults, $2.00 for juniors, and $1.50 for children. Through the years the ticket booths were updated and added as expansions like Matterhorn, ‘It’s a Small World’ and the always changing Tomorrowland kept coming. In June 1981, ticket books began to be phased out and by June 1982, they were a thing of the past. This left ticket booths without a purpose. Around this same time, Fantasyland was undergoing a renovation and it was decide to keep to booths, but to seal them up and make them part of the overall theme and appearance of the ride. Ticket booths used to be everywhere in Disneyland and this booth from Tomorrowland is a perfect retro-futuristic example of what tomorrow look like in the 1960s. As design and aesthetics changed, booths like this went away. The bright white and blue was a positive futuristic look. Today, you can still see booths, the the Alice in Wonderland booth pictured here, the Canal Boats’ lighthouse booth and others throughout the park. Little bits of history that might go overlooked, but still hold that old Disneyland history and charm.
Mary Blair’s Tomorrowland murals opened on July 2, 1967. Along with with new attractions like the PeopleMover and Adventures Thru Inner Space, two new murals were unveiled.
The north mural on the AT&T Circle-Vision 3D building (now Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters) shows children from different nations dancing and making music. Ribbons above their heads symbolize global communications. The south mural on the Adventure Thru Inner Space building (now Star Tours), is about energy, with nods to solar energy, wind energy, water power, and fire. Each of the murals was 54 feet in length and at least 15.5 feet tall. The murals welcomed you as you walked into Tomorrowland. The south mural lasted until 1986, when it was changed to a space them in preparation of Star Tours opening (1987). The north mural survived until 1997 a victim of the 1998 New Tomorrowland project. The lighthearted, colorful and playful designs showed the genius of Mary Blair. Audio-Animatronics can often have more than one life in Disney parks. These geese, originally a quartet in America Sings, are no exception. As their original show was winding down, a new attraction was being created. Splash Mountain. The goose animatronics (along with the other animatronics of America Sings) were repurposed for the newly developed attraction. Their patriotic clothes were traded for a more country look. But two of the geese found themselves in a different type of attraction. These geese would be removed of their synthetic skins and turned into droids named G2-9T and G2-4T in the Star Tours queue.
While Splash Mountain has closed, and we wait to see if some of these animatronics return, you can still see the Star Tours geese, greeting guests in their second life, 50 years after their America Sings debut. In California, after moving from Kansas City, Missouri, Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks were continuing work on a series called Alice's Wonderland. These episodes were of a live-action girl in an animated background full of animated characters. It was a revolutionary process in its day and used well into the future by Disney. Walt knew the series was not destined to last forever, the technological limitations of the time would yield only so many gags and interesting scenarios. In 1927 Charles Mintz, a notable cartoon producer with Winkler Pictures, told Walt he was in negotiations to provide Universal Pictures with a new animated character as long as it wasn't of a cat. (One of Alice's episodes sported Julius the cat.) With the market flooded with cats, Walt had his head animator Ub Iwerks design different sketches of rabbits and sent them to Universal. On March 4th 1927, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was signed on for 26 animated shorts. The first short entitled Poor Papa was finished by the end of April. Completed within a mere two week time frame, Mintz is said to have criticized the design of Oswald and Universal thought the film short lacked a sufficient story. Walt agreed with both of these criticisms and re-imagined Oswald's physical design and character. No animated character anywhere had ever had a set personality, the decision was groundbreaking for its day. The profile and physique Walt wanted was to make "Oswald peculiarly and typically Oswald." Walt believed, at least at the time, that shorts bogged down by story plots were typically the least successful so what he wanted was a personality that could really excite and resonate with audiences. Oswald's second appearance was in Trolley Troubles and performed miles above his initial debut. Some shots were actually from Oswald's point of view, an angle never done before in animation. It made headlines among the film trades, claiming Oswald was destined for stardom! Soon there was merchandise! Chocolate bars and pins were sold across the country and by the end of this first pivotal year, Walt's small two-man company had grown to accommodate 22 employees. Oswald became one of the biggest cartoons of the 1920s! Behind the scenes lay Charles Mintz who was scheming with Walt's animators to start a new studio. Walt was in fact warned this was happening but thought it too ridiculous to be true. However on February 2nd 1928, less than a year from the first Oswald short, Mintz and Universal signed a three-year contract entirely removing Walt from the Oswald shorts. Still Walt did not believe what he was hearing was true, he went to New York to not only negotiate his contract with Charles Mintz, but to negotiate for a bigger budget. He even brought his wife Lillian, considering the trip a second honeymoon. In Mintz's office, Walt expected to hear a counteroffer and he did. Mintz oddly offered Walt roughly 20 percent less money per Oswald short. After this meeting, Walt wired a message to his brother Roy back in California, "Break with Charlie Looming." Realizing the rumors he'd been hearing had been true, Walt also instructed Roy to draft a contract with each of his animators so he wouldn't lose them but none of this was fated to happen. Walt and Mintz were set for a meeting the following day. Walt is said to have wired Roy again, telling him to get the contracts with the animators signed immediately. Walt and Mintz met the following Monday where they negotiated at length getting absolutely nowhere. Walt got a reply from his brother stating that the animators refused to sign the contracts. Now perfectly aware, Walt was wrestling with mutiny and underhanded deals behind the scenes. Walt met with a Universal executive by the name of Manny Goldstein who told Walt that he could work on the Oswald pictures after another year seeing as how Universal just signed a brand new contract with Mintz. Goldstein asked Walt not to mention this to Mintz leaving Walt to believe he would get Oswald back. Mintz offered Walt a weekly stipend if he and his brother Roy agreed to hand over the Disney company. Walt flatly refused! Walt eventually traveled back home to Los Angeles distraught from the knowledge that he had lost the battle for Oswald. In a train car alongside his wife Lillian, Walt began the first sketches of Mickey Mouse. Charles Mintz gets a bad rap from this story, that he was just a producer doing his job when actually he secretly stole an animation staff from a small company, then took the character for himself and Winkler Pictures. And it should be mentioned here that Mintz also married into the Winkler family so their success, was his success. He strategically axed out Disney and the original creators, essentially claiming as much profit as he could for himself. Shameful! Mintz did go on to make more Oswald shorts. The Oswald character lost a lot of his personality of course, the cartoons relied more and more on gags. Most of the Oswald shorts have completely disappeared never to be seen again and perhaps rightfully so! The Disney corporation did regain Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from Universal in 2006 some 79 years later. Overall it may seem like a tragic story, but the lessons Walt learned during this crisis set the amazingly high standards for the character of Mickey Mouse. There would in fact likely never have been a Mickey Mouse if not for Disney losing Oswald. Even Walt had to admit that in spite of everything that Charles Mintz put him and his company through, he learned to set high standards that would grow into the legendary house of Mouse.
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