Prepping for Disneyana Expo at the Disneyana Fan Club

So its been very quiet here at the VDA blog, and I do apologize for that.  But it has been for a good reason.  This year, in addition to the Dayton Show last month, I will be setting up at the biggest Disneyana show in the country, the Disneyana Fan Club Expo in Garden Grove, just down the street from Disneyland.  The show is on July 20th, come on down!  I've been gathering lots of new things to offer, something for everyone I'm sure.  Stay tuned!

Disneyland Hotel Room Service Fold Out Menu

The last of my menus :-(  This is a really weird one, but weird = = cool.  A Disneyland Hotel room service menu.  Now that in and of itself would not be that interesting, except for the format:  It is a penta-fold menu, folded 5 times accordion-style, making this thing huge at 15x27 fully unfolded!  I love the art of Goofy with winged feet delivering your meal.

I could probably date this better than 1960s or 1970s based on the list of other restaurants at the hotel, but I don't have any ready reference material to do it, so if anyone can date this for me, feel free!

The list of items available is quite impressive, I'd love to see bottles of Disneyland Hotel Label scotch, bourbon, gin, vodka and rum.  Bet there's no character art on those labels.

eBay listing

1970 Disneyland Blue Bayou Menu

This is a rare menu, from the Blue Bayou restaurant in New Orleans Square.  I've seen some of these from later years (1980s and 1990s), but the previous owner was kind enough to date this 1970 on the inside.

This is a large menu, approximately 9x13.  I love the color of this menu, a color that I always associate with the Haunted Mansion rather than Pirates.  Nice to see that my favorite Monte Cristo was available even in 1970.  Who knows, I probably ate one in the summer of that year.

eBay listing

Disneyland Hills Brother's Coffee House Menu

This is a great vintage Disneyland menu, from the Hills Brother's Coffee House.  I don't really have any memories of this restaurant, we probably never went there when I was a kid since we stayed at the hotel and would generally have breakfast there.

Great red color on this menu, kinda like the Carnation menu from earlier, but this has a full page ad for Hills Bros coffee inside since there was nowhere near enough menu items to fill up the inside.  Again, this is a full sized menu, approximately 8x10, so larger than the Carnation menu.

It is difficult to date this menu with any accuracy, but at least we can ballpark it by the map of Disneyland on the back.  The monorail is present, but we still have old Tomorrowland, so sometime between 1959-1966 would be my guess.

eBay listing

Holiday Inn Dinnerhorn Menu and Placemat

This one is a little odd, it is not really a Disneyland menu, but a menu for the Holiday Inn restaurant called Dinnerhorn.  But it looks cool, and is reminiscent of Disneyland, so I bought it.

  The placemat is a cool find, who would have thought to save those things.  Well, I guess I would but I'm crazy.

eBay listings

Disneyland Carnation Ice Cream Parlor Full Size Menu 1960

Over the years I've managed to acquire a bunch of Disney menus, both Disneyland and Walt Disney Studio.  I have decided to part with them, but thought I'd post them all here over the next few days in advance of their posting to eBay.  Get 'em while they're hot!

First up is this classic Disneyland menu for the Carnation Ice Cream Parlor.  You usually find the small, postcard size menus, but this is the full size menu you'd get at table service.  The cover has a date of 1955, but inside there is a numeric code that seems to imply that this particular menu is from 1960.  I love the prices on these old menus.

If you'd like to bid on this or any others, you can find them all here.

Diary of a Disneyland Mermaid

Some of you may remember my post from back in August of 2010 regarding a set of photos I had acquired of the Disneyland mermaid tryouts.  I was recently contacted by Mermaid #1, a lovely woman named Edie, and she was kind enough to share the following with me.

Edie in 1966 at the tryouts

I grew up on the beaches of Southern California.  Only three girls at our high school surfed and I was one of them, so everyone assumed I was a good swimmer.  Not so.  My survival depended on a blend of backstroke and desperate spurts of dog-paddling. 

One more time - the camera loves you!

Thus, when I found myself standing in a circle of ninety girls around a pool at Disneyland, waiting for the mermaid try-outs to begin, I was plenty nervous. There were two requirements for mermaids: long hair and being a good swimmer.  Six of us were chosen.

from left to right:  Edie, Judy, Lynn, Marcia,
and Cynthia with Jini in the water.  She was the
head mermaid, the only one from the previous year.

Being a professional mermaid for Walt was nothing to take lightly.  The Productions Department measured us from hip to toe for neoprene tails, complete with large flukes, and green starfish bras.  We were taught to slither into the Submarine Lagoon from a hidden chamber and dolphin kick underwater to magically surface in the center of the pool.  There we sat on a rock and untangled our hair with immense blue and yellow plastic combs, and plucked ersatz lyres.We worked in shifts of two, and traded off hourly.

Photo from Edie's local paper

Each time a submarine passed, we dove underwater to frolic about, hang upside down by spinning our tails, and to wave at curious faces plastered against the portholes.  With practice we learned to smile without emitting bubble screens that would distort our faces into repulsive creatures from the deep.  For all this we were paid $1.85 an hour - a whopping net of $59.55 each week. 

Edie's offer letter

Each weekend flotillas of sailors in dress whites draped over the handrails around the Lagoon, ogling with off-duty exuberance.  They rolled quarters inside dollar bills and tossed them into the lagoon for us to retrieve,a lucrative bonus to our income.One young hero flung himself into the water and swam to our rock. He basked between us,waving to his howling buddies, until Security retrieved him.

A princely sum to be sure

A section of the Monorail hung above the Submarine tank.  It was a ride that gave passengers an aerial view of the entire park and had several stations for boarding, one of which was next to the Lagoon.  Three flights of stairs zigzagged up, giving visitors a bird’s eye view of our rock. One of the Monorail conductors told me of a conversation he’d had with an elderly lady:
         “Are they real?” she asked.
         “Oh yes.”  He replied, assuming she thought we might be robots.
She sighed in amazement and said, 

         “I wonder where they found them . . . probably the Sargasso Sea.”

Edie today

During our hour between shifts we were supposed to stay in a trailer behind the border of the Park (unseen) - they gave us colorful short muumuus to wear.  But we ran around inside the Park - the cutest guys were in Adventureland.  Some of us would go underwater and “re-arrange” the fish, which were attached to rocks by fishing line (to hold them in place).  We would place them in groups, etc. - really fun.

Still a kid at heart

I want to thank Edie for sharing her story with me, and for identifying herself and her fellow femmes of the fin.

Disneyland Armadillo Band Membership Card 1990

Man I loved these guys. It was the early 1990s and these 4 psychotics in band uniforms adorned with armadillo heads and claws would wander around the park making wisecracks and generally being dorks. Fantastic!

I particularly remember one day we were walking by Golden Horseshoe and the guys showed up. At the same time, four horseshoe girls in full regalia were headed back towards the Horseshoe, and the head armadillo said "Hey, look, Horseshoe girls!! Four of them, four of us", then much winking and nudging ensued, much to the total embarrassment of said horseshoe girls. Ah, memories.

Anyway, this is the card these bozos would hand out as they wandered through the park. I cherish mine.

Disneyland Mermaid Tryout Photos - Summer 1966

If there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's pretty girls. Add to that pretty girls dressed as mermaids? Forget about it. Which is why I couldn't resist these photos taken during an audition for Disneyland Submarine Lagoon mermaids. Thanks to Don Ballard for identifying the season these photos were taken in (Summer 1966).

First up is a very nice group shot of 6 hopefuls, 5 sitting on the edge of the pool and one in it. I dig the oversized combs a couple of the girls are holding.

The photographer must have really liked this particular mermaid hopeful (who could blame him) as she is in 3 of 4 of these photos. I call her mermaid #1 since she is first on the left above.

Here we have another closeup of mermaid #1, this time she's looking more or less at the camera. Be still my heart.

And finally we have mermaid #3, sans tail. I you can drag your eyes away from her impressive cleavage, you will notice what looks like a nametag attached to her suit strap, probably her call number for auditioning in the pool.
These photos are very high quality, although these prints appear to be enlargements. For more pictures from this exact same day, you should head on over to Viewliner's blog, he has some color candid photos of this same group of girls. You can see mermaid #1 in photos two and three.