The End of Pleasure Island

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Souvenirs: The Magic of Disney Animation

Roy Disney's introduction to the magic of Disney animation souvenir brochure, circa 1989:

Welcome to Walt Disney Animation in Florida!

Can you imagine an American childhood without the magic moments of Disney animation? No Mickey Mouse...or Minnie. No sputtering, rasping Donald Duck, tossing and turning through a nightmarish night on an unruly mattress. No "Whistle While You Work." No epic, comic, cliff-hanging mouse-eyeview up a mammoth stairway to Cinderella's bedroom. Will they make it in time for her to try on the magic slipper?

Suspense, slapstick, imagination, heart, gentle humor and a happy ending—all are part of the tradition of Disney animation. Audiences of kids and grown-ups have delighted in sixty years of silliness and storytelling, sentimentality and terror. Dumbo flies. Snow White runs from the scary eyes in the forest. Lady and Tramp fall in love over a plate of spaghetti. Tito tries to hot-wire a limousine—instead, he hot-wires himself. Fairy godmothers appear on cue. Mickey Mouse leads a band, battles a giant, falls in love.

Disney animation provides a generous sprinkle of pixie dust. With it, you can fly up, up and away, over the rooftops of London to Never Land—or into the past, to darkened theaters, vivid images and the plaintive voices of kids asking, "Where's Bambi's mother?"

Disney animation pleases the eye and warms the heart. It makes you cry and it makes you laugh. As the foundation and wellspring of The Walt Disney Company, animation is celebrated in the Animation Building at the Disney-MGM Studios.

The Animation Building is a working studio. Inside, more than 80 artists and technicians are creating new animated films for theatrical and video release. A unique behind-the-scenes tour includes films starring animators—and animated characters—who tell the insiders' story of animation. Strolling through soundproof corridors, guests watch as animators bring classic Disney characters to life.

The magical world of animation is introduced by The Disney Animation Collection. The Collection, a changing exhibition of the best of animation art, is drawn from The Walt Disney Company Animation Research Library and the Walt Disney Archives. Some pieces are classics, and have appeared in museums and publications. Others have never before been seen by the public. The paintings and sketches, sculptures and drawings are more than just works of art ... they are basic to the lives of three generations of Americans.

The Collection begins at the point in the animation process when pen, paintbrush or crayon is first put to paper. A storyline has been crafted, the dialogue is in its final stages—enter the artists with concept sketches and paintings. Silly, scary, impressionistic or harshly detailed, these drawings provide inspiration for a scene, character or mood. Layout drawings indicate camera movements and serve as set designs. Next, detailed backgrounds are painted to provide characters with a house to live in, a forest to wander in or a corner pocket on a pool table, from a cricket's point of view.

Once the set is in place, the focus shifts to the characters. Animation drawings are produced by animators— "actors with a pencil" —who come equipped with rampant imaginations and plenty of technical know-how. Character movement springs from long days at the drawing table, fierce story sessions and plenty of foolishness (like the eager assistant who demonstrated how Pluto ought to eat—by getting down on all fours and dining from a dog dish). How do you animate a hat brim? Grab that three-dimensional study model on the desk. Turn it. Twist it. Draw it. Or take advantage of technology and computerize it—everything becomes a tool for getting the best movement to express a character's emotion.

Finally, after perhaps years of work, a single frame of animation is ready for the camera. A set-up—inked and painted animation cels laid over a background—has been honed and perfected, checked, assembled and charted. Special effects have been added. One twenty-fourth of a second of glory is committed to film—then captured on the wall of the Disney Animation Building for you to wonder at and admire.

Six decades of Disney animation have left posterity with surprisingly few examples of artwork. Paper is fragile; pastel rubs off. And in the early years, cels were reused for economy (remember "The Dip" in Who Framed Roger Rabbit). Now collectors' items, pieces of Disney animation art evoke childhood memories and weave together a rich tapestry of fairy tales, children's books, original stories and pure movement and motion.

From Steamboat Willie to The Little Mermaid, with over a hundred Dalmatians, a few handsome princes and various woodland beasts thrown in, Disney animation has been synonymous with quality, innovation, and fun. This proud tradition, celebrated in the Disney Animation Collection, continues in the Animation Building at the Disney-MGM Studios.

The current Disney Animation attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios is but a very faint shadow of what was easily one of the premiere attractions of Walt Disney World. The shuttering of the Florida studio was certainly one of the saddest moments in the histories of both Walt Disney World and Disney Animation.

Come On In and Enjoy

I really got a kick out of this sign that was located in Tomorrowland promoting "new-fangled Air-Cooling" within the the Carousel of Progress. The attraction remains in Walt Disney World primarily due to its nostalgia qualities and historical significance, and the sign most certainly plays homage to those dynamics. It is a fun and clever design.

1915 Tournament Champions

It is a fun, albeit somewhat mysterious detail that hides in plain sight on the walls of Casey's Corner in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The Main Street eatery is decorated with old fashioned baseball memorabilia, paying tribute to Casey at the Bat, the famous poem and subsequent Disney cartoon that inspired the restaurant's name and design. Among a number of antique photographs near the large Republic Field scoreboard is this picture of the 1915 Tournament Champions. Though cleverly disguised, it is clearly of a more contemporary origin. It has been speculated that the individuals pictured may be the Imagineers responsible for Casey's Corner. Can anyone out there identify these folks?

A Gasoline Story That Won't Make You Cry?

Probably not . . .

Here are two different subjects that separately tend to get people's blood boiling--gasoline (as in the price of), and Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Bring them together and you have the powder keg-makings of a first rate fit of epic proportions.

Imagineers brought the two together in the form of the Fossil Fueler game featured in the Dino-Rama midway. Cleverly trading on the Chester and Hester gas station backstory, they created a distinct line of dinosaur-inspired fuels using tongue-in-cheek wordplay. Love it or hate it, it's a creative and fun tribute to both the dinosaur theme of the area and filling station marketing of a bygone era.

Roadside Disney: Trailer Tales

It is an icon of roadside popular culture. A home on the road for tin can tourists. Over the years, Disney cartoon makers incorporated the American travel trailer into a number of short subjects, but perhaps never more famously than in the Technicolor classic Mickey's Trailer, released on May 6, 1938.

Mickey's Trailer was not born out of happenstance. A mere decade earlier, everyman Arthur Sherman, a modest bacteriologist, turned the then fledging auto camping movement on its ear when he introduced a solid-walled trailer that was devoid of the more traditional canvas and tent based designs that had been popular up to that point. Jokingly dubbed the "Covered Wagon" by Sherman's children, it would launch both a successful new industry and a popular culture phenomenon. In their book Ready to Roll: A Celebration of the Classic American Travel Trailer, authors Arrol Gellner and Douglas Keister elaborated on Sherman's unique achievement:

"Sherman's Covered Wagon Company was a rare success story in the bleakest years of the Depression, and naturally, it attracted notice—both from competitors and from the American press, who were desperate for stories containing some glimmer of economic hope. For their part, Sherman's competitors—including those who had specialized in all manner of sophisticated, fold-out gadgetry—were eventually obliged to adopt the Covered Wagon's hard-walled construction."

This Depression-era trailer boom reached a peak in 1936, followed quickly by an unpredicted and near devastating decline shortly thereafter. Manufacturers dramatically over predicted growth and demand and the bubble quickly burst. This was coupled with a sudden public disenchantment with many aspects of trailer culture. Gellner and Keister noted:

"The media's giddy, rose-colored accounts were gradually supplanted by more hostile examinations of the trailering phenomenon. Trailer parks were pilloried as a new kind of American slum-on-wheels and were even accused of being a breeding ground for epidemics, while trailerites were increasingly portrayed as freeloaders helping themselves to public roads and facilities without paying taxes for their support."

When it was released in 1938, Mickey's Trailer encapsulated many of these both positive and negative associations. Via Walt's well known "Probable Impossible," the canned-ham style trailer featured in the short embodied with extreme exaggeration the trailer manufacturers much hyped claims of style, luxury and countless conveniences. Its interior featured a series of ingenious if not impossible transforming set pieces; a bunk room dramatically morphs into a bathroom (complete with sink and already filled bathtub) and then into its final incarnation as a dinette upon which Mickey serves up breakfast.

Yet the cartoon's creators, in a subtle yet still noticeable manner, poked fun at the various negative associations to trailer culture that began to emerge in the late 1930s. The short's opening reveal of the trio's city dump campsite is indicative of what Gellner and Keister described as local government fears of trailerite slums taking root on city outskirts. The perception of trailer campers as freeloaders is distinctly portrayed when Mickey, without conscience, absconds corn from a nearby farmer's field and similarly draws milk from a passing cow. The background music for that particular scene featured the song "The World Owes Me a Living."
A post-World War II boom returned the travel trailer to a more than receptive American public. The industry itself experienced a distinct split as larger residence-based mobile homes became as equally popular as their recreational-centric counterparts. The smaller travel trailers became linked with then very popular outdoor sportsmen dynamics that included camping, hunting and fishing. This pop culture phenomenon was not lost on Disney animators; they used it to great effect in the 1950 Donald Duck cartoon Trailer Horn. A canned ham-style trailer is the focal point of Chip and Dale's inspired antagonism and Donald's resulting frustration.

In the 1952 cartoon Two Weeks Vacation, Goofy falls victim to a well known highway convention--getting stuck behind a lumbering, slow-moving car and trailer combination. Mixed in the short with the Goof's other road trip pratfalls is a recurring encounter with an oversize and impassable trailer. Similar gags would be revisited quite famously a couple of years later in the classic Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz comedy The Long, Long Trailer.

Disney Imagineers have similarly drawn inspiration from the travel trailer and have peppered Disney theme parks with numerous trailer-inspired set pieces. Trading on mid 20th century nostalgia are trailers that appear in Animal Kingdom's Dinoland, at Disney's Pop Century Resort and in Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland. Trailers were also a featured part of a character greeting area at Disney's Hollywood Studios prior to that particular location's current Pixar Studios redesign. But likely the most prominent use of travel trailers and their connection to roadside culture are the "Elfstream" designs found at Winter Summerland Miniature Golf at Walt Disney World. The theming mixes roadside campground nostalgia with retro Christmas trappings for a truly entertaining and often hilarious experience.

The Greatest Dream of Walt Disney's Life

"The construction of Walt Disney World presents an immense challenge. However, under a policy of prudent management and orderly development, I am convinced that we can bring to reality the greatest dream of Walt Disney's life."

So said Roy Disney on April 30, 1969.

On that day, officials from the Walt Disney Company unveiled their most detailed plans to date for what would become the Vacation Kingdom of the World. Roy Disney, with Donn Tatum and Card Walker, revealed what was then considered to be "Phase One" of Walt Disney World, much of which would be realized by opening day on October 1, 1971.

Press materials released that day noted:

2,500 acres, including some 450 acres of waterways and beaches, have been master planned for resort and recreation, with the first facilities scheduled to open to the public on October, 1971. Planned for construction before and during the first five years of operation will be a new "Magic Kingdom" amusement theme park similar to California's Disneyland, five related resort hotels and an entrance complex. Varying in size from 500 to 700 rooms, the resort hotels will be themed along Contemporary, Polynesian, Asian, Venetian and Persian motifs.


Showcased especially were the concepts and designs for the Magic Kingdom:

Inside, visitors will literally bridge time and theme when they step into seven realms -- Main Street, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Liberty Square and Holidayland.

The architectural styling of Main Street in Florida will be "Eastern Seashore Resort Victorian," a decorative and flamboyant turn-of-the-century decor making extensive use of glass and wrought iron.

Throughout the theme park, visitors will discover many new concepts in amusement attractions which are now under development at WED Enterprises, Inc., the Disney architectural, design and engineering subsidiary in Glendale, California. Among them will be a series of shows "brought to life" by the patented Disney "Audio-Animatronics" process of three-dimensional entertainment.

On stage in Frontierland, the Country Bear Band will present a foot stompin' country and western hoe-down starring the zaniest group of bears ever assembled. These "Audio-Animatronics" animals will sing and swing and strum in the finest tradition of wild western musicals.

Nearby will be found Thunder Mesa, a spectacular panorama, where the old west will live again through a series of exciting adventures. Designed to resemble a "table-top mountain," typical of those on southwestern deserts, it will offer a pueblo-style village and other attractions, including the Western River Expedition, a frontier fantasy on the grand scale of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" in California's Disneyland.

The colonial shops and stores of Liberty Square, an entirely new land created for Walt Disney World's "Magic Kingdom," will depict America's past at the time of our nation's founding. Highlight of the area will be a replica of Philadelphia's Independence Hall, which will house One Nation Under God, an inspiring dramatization about the American Constitution and the 37 Presidents who have led our nation. In the finale, through the wonder of three-dimensional "Audio-Animatronics," the chief executives will appear together in the "Hall of Presidents" roll call presentation.

In Fantasyland, visitors may stroll through Pinocchio Street or attend the all-new Mickey Mouse Musical Revue, a spectacular "Audio-Animatronics" visit with 60 of the famous characters from Walt Disney films down through the years. Mickey Mouse, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Three Caballeros and all the gang will appear "on stage" to sing the songs and play the music, all the way from "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" (The Three Little Pigs) to "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" (Song of the South).

Towering over Tomorrowland will be the Space Mountain, twenty stories tall. This huge structure will house a number of adventures and attractions themed to the world of the future. Among these will be four high-speed "rocket sled" tracks, which will climb the outside of the mountain, then plunge inside for a dark ride, simulating a trip through outer space. Track engineering was so complex that it had to be worked out by computer. Also in Tomorrowland will be found the RCA System Communication Center, as well as a major exhibit sponsored by the Monsanto Company, and other attractions to be sponsored by American industry.

Holidayland, Pinocchio Street, the RCA System Communication Center and Thunder Mesa and the Western River Expedition would all enter the ranks of Lost Imagineering as those early conceptualizations evolved and changed. Card Walker spoke to other such concepts that day that suffered similar fates:

"Because of its size and scope, the master plan for the project will take many years to complete. Future plans call for the addition of an 'airport of the future,' offering service to private and executive aircraft, as well as commercial charters; an industrial park designed to showcase American industry at work; and the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow."

The Toontown Field Guide: Chinny, Chin, Chin Construction Co.

It is certainly not difficult to trace the roots of the Chinny, Chin, Chin Construction Co., the latest identification from our Toontown Field Guide. This window is featured on one of the buildings in Mickey's Tootown in Disneyland. The Silly Symphony The Three Little Pigs was released in 1933 and has long been considered a high water mark in the history of Disney animation. Central to the story was of course the building of houses, thus the casting of the three heroes as Toontown construction contractors.

Even more fun is that if you travel cross country to Walt Disney World in Florida, you will find Practical Pig and his brothers similarly referenced in Mickey's Toontown Fair at the Magic Kingdom. There, the Chinny, Chin, Chin Construction Co. has been contracted to do remodeling work on the kitchen in Mickey's country house. This is evidenced by blueprints that can be found on Mickey's kitchen table.

Disney's Hollywood: Crossroads of the World

It is a dynamic visual and architectural centerpiece and likely the first sight most visitors see upon entering Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World. With Mickey Mouse perched atop the spinning globe that crowns its tall spire, the Crossroads of the World is almost as much an icon of the Studios park as the backlot water tower or the Fantasia Sorcerer's Hat.

Extending the Streamline Moderne design found at the parks entrance gates, the combination information kiosk and souvenir stand is based on the centerpiece building of the famous Crossroads of the World retail-office complex located on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Designed by Robert V. Derrah, the building was inspired by early 20th century ocean liners and included features such as decks, railings and portholes. The Disney park version reproduced that building's street-facing circular storefront space, complete with spire and crowning globe.
The Crossroads of the World debuted in 1936. It was especially unique at the time for being a collection of retail shops in a small plaza setting and is frequently noted as being an early precursor of outdoor shopping malls and centers. Though the complex still exists and has physically changed little in the last seven decades, it is currently used as office space and is void of the shops and restaurants that were its hallmark during the golden age of Hollywood. The location has been used in a number of motion pictures, most notably in the 1992 film L.A. Confidential, where it served in helping to portray a slightly grittier noir version of post-war Hollywood.

The Toontown Field Guide: The Official Seal

Navigating the details at both Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland and Mickey's Toontown Fair at Walt Disney World sometimes requires at little research. Hence we present the Toontown Field Guide, a new ongoing feature here at 2719 Hyperion.

Our first identification takes us to City Hall at the west coast Toontown incarnation. While the Official Seal denotes the year 1928 in reference to Mickey Mouse's debut in Steamboat Willie, the character featured on the crest was born in 1946 in the Pluto cartoon Rescue Dog. According to John Grant's Encyclopedia of Walt Disney Animated Characters, the little seal was named Salty. He would return to torment Pluto a year later in the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey and the Seal.

A Visit to Toad Hall

Fantasyland at Disneyland is a treasure of architecture and details. Its 1983 makeover gave it a vibrancy and excitement unfortunately not shared by its counterpart in Walt Disney World. As a Florida Disney veteran, it was a thrill to be able to revisit Mister Toad and his loyal companions. But as fun as it was to take that wild ride again, I was simply amazed at the architecture and exterior details of Disneyland's Toad Hall. Sculptures of Toad, the family crest and the parked motor car are among the elements that enhance the elaborate brick and stone design.

Slightly off the radar is an exterior queue area to the left of the main entrance. There you will find these four reliefs depicting Toad and his loyal and steadfast friends--Moley, Rat and MacBadger.And our often repeated mantra of "Look Up!" is here again good advice. The weather vane for Toad Hall is a visual treat as well.

Roadside Disney: Cartoon Crazy and Studios Programmatic

"At the beginning of the automobile age, in that most car crazy of places, Southern California, roadways were dotted with eye-catching beacons for travelers. Diners shaped like chili bowls, pigs, and coffee pots; hotels and theaters in Aztec and Mayan motifs; and all matter of oddly shaped buildings were part of the western architectural landscape--a trend that spread across the country."

From the book California Crazy and Beyond by Jim Heimann

Programmatic architecture, more commonly referred to as "California Crazy," was a visual mainstay along the roads and highways of southern California for much of the early half of the 20th century. It was not surprising then when Disney cartoon makers drew inspiration from programmatic design when creating the 1949 Donald Duck short All in a Nutshell.

In the cartoon, Donald Duck is the proprietor of a roadside stand called Don's Nut Butter. Shaped like a giant walnut, the stand is not just simply a background element--it is the gag that propels the story. Coveting this huge "nut," Chip and Dale set about attempting to crack its shell. When they breech an opening near the top, they discover its non-organic nature, but then decide to instead dedicate their efforts to pirating off as much of the duck's nut butter as they can possibly manage.

Don's giant walnut was inspired by numerous roadside establishments that were typically produce stands or counter service cafes. Very similar in appearance and style to the Nut Butter stand was the Jumbo Lemon, one of a chain of drink stands with locations throughout California. Other notable examples included the Chili Bowl, the Mushroom Cafe and the Tamale, all small diners that sprang up in southern California during the 1920s and 1930s.

Two years prior to All in a Nutshell, Disney animators made reference to one of the most famous examples of programmatic architecture, in the 1947 feature film Fun and Fancy Free. At the end of film, Willie the Giant is seen walking through the Hollywood landscape, searching for a "teensy-weensy little mouse." He spies the famous bowler hat architecture of the Hollywood Brown Derby Restaurant, picks it up and places it on his head. This very funny and then quite topical gag poked fun at the original Hollywood Brown Derby on Wilshire Avenue and its over the top California Crazy design.

When Disneyland opened in 1955, it could be said that it was in many ways an extension of California Crazy, taken to a much more sophisticated level of design and execution. But the Walt Disney Company would in fact revisit programmatic architecture in the style's more historic context when, in 1989, the company recreated an idealistic golden age of Hollywood as part of the theming for Disney-MGM Studios. Included in the park's initial design were two very distinct homages to 1930s era California Crazy motifs. Both were located into the Echo Lake area of park; both were counter service food establishments (as were the vast majority of vintage-era programmatic buildings), and they both bore thematic connections to early Hollywood productions.

Dinosaur Gertie's Ice Cream of Extinction paid homage to the star of Windsor McKay's landmark animated cartoon from 1914. Dinosaurs have long been a popular subject for novelty architects and Gertie is similar in design and scale to other roadside dinosaur structures. Other creature-inspired establishments ran the gamut from dogs and chickens to pigs and fish.

Min and Bill's Dockside Diner was inspired by the 1930 film Min and Bill starring Wallace Berry and Marie Dressler. Imagineers drew on the movie's waterfront setting to create the counter service venue that takes the form of a vintage tramp steamer. Nautical design was an especially popular theme of California Crazy, distinguished typically by land-bound ships, boats and even inspired interpretations of Noah's Ark.

In an interesting, and somewhat ironic twist, Imagineers did not reproduce the original bowler hat design when they recreated the Hollywood Brown Derby Restaurant at the Studios park. Instead they based the signature eatery's design on the Hollywood Brown Derby location that was built near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. But Imagineers did recreate the storefront facade of the Darkroom, a well known Hollywood retail store, for the park's own camera shop on Hollywood Boulevard. And it certainly could be argued that the oft-debated giant Sorcerer's Hat that has become the icon of the Studios is but another shining example of programmatic architecture.

One final interesting Disney-California Crazy connection to make note of: comics writer-illustrator Dave Stevens incorporated one of the more famous programmatic structures, the Bulldog Cafe, into his graphic novel The Rocketeer. Disney recreated the cafe when it adapted the work into a film in 1991, and that particular set piece resided for a number of years on the back lot at Disney-MGM Studios. The original Bulldog Cafe dated back to the 1920s and was located on West Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles. A very similar building, called the Pup Cafe, was a popular hot dog stand and served the citizens of Venice, California during the early 1930s.

Screenshots © Walt Disney Company

Disney's Hollywood: The Pan-Pacific Auditorium

I must admit I have a very strong sentimental attachment to the moniker Disney-MGM Studios. But I'm really warming up quickly to its new Hollywood identification.

Let's face it, there is a lot more Hollywood than MGM in the Disney Studios at Walt Disney World. Much of the theming of the resorts third gate is embodied in idealized architecture that is rooted in the southern California environment from which Disney entertainment emerged. When Walt Disney created a letterhead in 1923 that listed his uncle Robert Disney's Hollywood address at 4406 Kingswell Avenue, it was the genesis of a geographical dynamic that would inspire the elaborate design of a central Florida theme park nearly sixty-five years later.

As part of a new ongoing series here at 2719 Hyperion, we are going to show you the true Hollywood behind Disney's Hollywood Studios. And we are going to begin this parkeological expedition at the recently rechristened front entrance to the park.

The entrance area to Disney's Hollywood Studios and the architecture surrounding the ticket kiosks were inspired by the Pan-Pacific Auditorium, an arena-entertainment venue that served the Los Angeles area for close to forty years. The Studio's entrance facade recreates that building's own front entrance and its distinctive four towers. The towers reflected a sleek, aircraft-inspired look, and each was crowned with a high-reaching flagpole and corresponding flag or pennant. It opened on May 18, 1935 and was the first major commission for architecture partners Walter Wurdeman, Charles F. Plummer and Welton Becket. Three decades later, Becket would partner with United States Steel and Disney in creating the design for the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World.

The Pan-Pacific was one of the more famous examples of Steamline Moderne design, an extension of Art Deco that became prominent during the mid-1930s. The style proved especially popular for much of the architecture created for the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair. The style's influence could be seen in the art direction of films such as Lost Horizon and The Wizard of Oz, and also in the designs of consumers products including appliances, automobiles and trailers.

Up until the opening of the Los Angeles Convention Center in 1972, the Pan-Pacific Auditorium was the primary indoor venue for the city and its surrounding population. The interior itself encompassed 100,000 square feet and could seat close to 6,000 individuals. It played host to trade and consumer shows, circuses, concerts, ice shows and political functions, and was also a home for sporting events including basketball, hockey, tennis and wrestling. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley were among the many notable figures that appeared there.

Following its closing in 1972, the building sat vacant and neglected. It gained a temporary degree of notoriety in 1980 when it was featured in the film Xanadu, but quickly faded again from public notice shortly thereafter. Its deterioration continued nearly unchecked for almost another decade. Then on May 25, 1989, just three weeks after the debut of Disney-MGM Studios and its Pan-Pacific-inspired entrance, the once famous southern California landmark was destroyed in a spectacular fire. The location has since become the Pan-Pacific Park, administered by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. The architecture of the facilities recreation center recreates in part the auditorium's entrance design, albeit on a much smaller scale.

The Pan-Pacific Auditorium entrance design will be recreated again in the near future at Disney's California Adventure. The look of its front entrance area will soon emulate that of Disney's Hollywood Studios, in a re-imagining that is intended to evoke the setting of southern California in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Catalina Eddy behind Catalina Eddie's

To follow up on the recent post concerning the origins of the name Catalina Eddie's, Werner Weiss provided some additional enlightenment:

I have a comment about the origin of the name Catalina Eddie's at the Studios park, which was the subject of your February 17 blog entry. Catalina Eddie's is a play on the Southern California weather condition known as the Catalina Eddy — at least that's what I've always assumed. I have to believe that the WDI folks in Glendale had the Catalina Eddy in mind when they coined Catalina Eddie's as one of the food service counters of the Sunset Ranch Market.

When I grew up in Southern California, TV weathercasters would often describe how a Catalina Eddy condition would bring cooling winds to the Los Angeles basin. The Pacific Ocean off the Los Angeles basin is the Catalina Channel because of Catalina Island. An eddy is usually defined as a circular movement of water, counter to a main current. But I believe the Catalina Eddy is a movement of air, not water. I assume that Southern California TV weathercasters still talk about the Catalina Eddy. With the ridiculously perfect summer weather in the Los Angeles area, they don't have much else to talk about.

Thanks, Werner!

Werner is one of the true pioneers of the Disney online community. If you haven't checked out his amazing and wonderful Yesterland, what are you waiting for?

From the Mailroom - Catalina Eddie's and the Sunset Market Ranch

Our virtual Mailroom here at 2719 Hyperion recently received this inquiry from a reader:

In (then) MGM / (now) Hollywood Studios there is a building directly outside of Rock N Rollercoaster grouped with all of the counter services. It is called Catalina Eddies (I belive they serve pizza or something). Is this in reference to Eddie Valiant (of Roger Rabbit) always making a point of returning to Catalina with Delores? I have asked many of people but can never seem to get an answer. I'm pretty sure that is the origin of this counter service but I simply just need some vindication and figured that you could get me some answers. Thanks and keep up the good work. I really love the site.

Ian

Thanks for writing, Ian. Your question gives me the opportunity to briefly showcase an area of Disney's Hollywood Studios that is often overlooked in regard to its architectural inspiration and historical references.

Catalina Eddie's is part of the Sunset Market Ranch that is located along the left side of Sunset Boulevard as you approach the Hollywood Tower Hotel. The area consists of counter service food venues that, in addition to Catalina Eddie's, includes Rosie's All American Cafe, Anaheim Produce, Hollywood Scoops and the Toluca Legs Turkey Company.

The Sunset Market Ranch was inspired by the original Farmers Market located at the intersection of 3rd and Fairfax in Los Angeles. During the summer of 1934, a group of farmers set up an informal market at that location. The idea for the market originated with two individuals, Roger Dahlhjelm, a businessman, and Fred Beck, an advertising copywriter. The two asked the owners of the former Gilmore dairy farm at 3rd and Fairfax if local farmers could park trucks on the land as a means of selling their fresh produce. A complex of stalls and buildings quickly grew out of the formerly vacant area. The market's now iconic clock tower was built in 1941 and remains a part of the complex to this day. The buzz-phrase "Meet me at 3rd and Fairfax" has become ingrained in southern California popular culture. One interesting notation on the Market's web site states:

"When Walt Disney was preparing his early designs for a place called Disneyland, he did some of his work while dining on one of the Farmers Market patios. Elements of the Market’s unique design - it is said - are incorporated into his original drawings."

The Sunset Market Ranch at Disney's Hollywood Studios is distinctly themed to World War II-era southern California. Anaheim Produce alludes to a pre-Disneyland time frame when Anaheim consisted mostly of farmland, primarily orange groves. Rosie's All American Cafe pays homage to the iconic character of Rosie the Riveter, who symbolically represented the country's women who became the nation's blue collar workforce during the war years. A Victory Garden can be found adjacent to Rosie's Cafe.

Which brings us back to Catalina Eddie's. Was the name of this restaurant inspired by the characters from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Seeing that there is no documentation that can be found that validates this theory, I would have to say that in the end it appears that the name Catalina Eddie's is simply an interesting coincidence. But to be sure, I put the question to Disney historian and Imagineering expert Jeff Kurtti, author of numerous books about Disney theme parks, including Since the World Began: Walt Disney World The First 25 Years and the upcoming Walt Disney's Legends of Imagineering and the Genesis of the Disney Theme Park.

Jeff responded, agreeing that there likely was not a Catalina Eddie's-Who Framed Roger Rabbit connection. He explains:

I think the reference to Catalina is self-evident: a nostalgic, romantic island, closely linked geographically and culturally with old Los Angeles. The idea of a "beach shack" probably relates most closely to the culture that began to evolve in the early 20th century around the lifestyle of beach living and surfing. It grew even stronger after the war, when returning GIs brought back the ideas and paraphernalia of the South Pacific islands.

Catalina Eddie's is no doubt an evocation of the California "beach bum," of which Wikipedia says, "The members of this subculture are typically ocean and beach-going people who enjoy spending spare time sitting or relaxing on a beach. As such, the life of a beach bum is usually one of leisure. This holds true if the particular beach bum is a local, a retiree, a vacationer, or just someone who enjoys life by the ocean."

It appears Ian, that I can't give you the vindication you were seeking. But while there may be no direct Disney connection to Catalina Eddie's, its design and execution still reflect the Imagineers' passion for detail and authenticity to the theme they are presenting.

Wilson's Cave Inn

Tucked away in a remote corner of Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom is an often overlooked set piece inspired by both American history and Disney entertainment. Along the edge of Tom Sawyer Island and visible only from the deck of the Liberty Square Riverboat is Wilson's Cave Inn, a combination tavern, gambling den and underground hideout for river pirates and other nefarious types.

Imagineers based Wilson's Cave Inn on a place called Cave-In-Rock that is situated on the shores of the Ohio River in southern Illinois. An imposing 55 foot wide limestone cave, it was first discovered by European explorers in the late 1720s. Following the Revolutionary War, it became a haven for criminals and pirates who preyed on travelers along the Ohio River. One individual gained especial notoriety for occupying the cave in the last few years of the eighteenth century. Jim Wilson stocked the cave with provisions and then opened up a business called Wilson's Liquor Vault and House of Entertainment. He would lure unsuspecting travelers to the cave with promises of food, shelter and gambling. Members of his gang would then typically kill the travelers and plunder the cargos of their riverboats. Samuel Mason, a former officer in the Revolutionary Army, engaged in similar criminal enterprises following Wilson's occupancy. He took over the tavern and changed its name to Cave-In-Rock. Disney Imagineers blended the two hideout names into Wilson's Cave Inn for their theme park incarnation.
The activities of those river outlaws inspired the 1955 episode of the Disneyland television program Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. The writers incorporated the historical figures of Sam Mason and the Harpe brothers into the storyline. The Harpes were notorious serial killers who had used Cave-In-Rock as a base of operations subsequent to the Mason gang. It's interesting to note that Crockett would have still been a teenager when Mason and the Harpes were plundering and killing along the Ohio River. Scenes from the show were filmed at the Cave-In-Rock location, which had become part of a 200 acre Illinois state park. Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen can be seen approaching the entrance to cave just prior to the episode's climactic battle. In the early 1960s, Hollywood filmmakers used the site again for scenes for the movie How the West Was Won.

Max's Directing Academy

What would Sunset Boulevard be without a tribute to Sunset Boulevard?

While that particular avenue in Disney's Hollywood Studios was directly inspired by the iconic Tinsel Town street of the same name, a second floor window above the Sunset Beverly Shops pays subtle homage to the classic 1950 Paramount film Sunset Boulevard.

Max's Classic Directing Academy employs the latest movie techniques. Its motto: "Are you ready for your close-up?"

The movie Sunset Boulevard was a showcase for Gloria Swanson, portraying a faded silent movie queen who becomes infatuated with a down-0n-his-luck screenwriter played by William Holden. While the name of Swanson's character, Norma Desmond, has found a place in pop culture vernacular, the name of Desmond's butler, Max von Mayerling, is not nearly as well known. According to the story, Max, played by Erich von Stroheim, was in fact a movie director, having worked with Desmond at the height of her silent-era stardom. The casting was significant in that Stroheim was similarly a director of silent movies and had worked with Swanson on a number of films during the 1920s.

The motto on the window refers to Swanson's famous line at the end of Sunset Boulevard, "All right, Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close up."

A clip from Sunset Boulevard appears in the montage at the end of The Great Movie Ride, in which Swanson, when talking of silent films, tells co-star Holden, "We didn't need dialog, we had faces."

Hollywood Polo at Hollywood Studios

The 1936 short Mickey's Polo Team was inspired by Walt Disney's involvement in the sport during the 1930s. The sharp-eyed visitor to Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World can find a homage to Walt's love of the game and the Mickey Mouse cartoon that grew out of that enthusiasm.

The store Mouse About the Town, located on Sunset Boulevard, features an assortment of Walt Disney polo-related props and photos. Vintage black and white photographs of Walt in polo garb adorn one wall, while nearby are sketches of scenes from Mickey's Polo Team. A color photo from the cartoon sits amidst travel-themed items on a high shelf, while a helmet, mallets and riding crops hang decoratively above the store's main entrance.

According to Disney historian Wade Sampson, "Walt and Roy would play regularly with their employees on Wednesday mornings and Saturday afternoons. In addition, Walt and Roy joined the prestigious Riviera Club where such Hollywood luminaries as Spencer Tracy, Leslie Howard, Darryl Zanuck and others held court on the playing field. During this time, Spencer Tracy became a close friend of Walt's, and Tracy and his wife were often invited to Walt's home."

Check out Wade's terrific and very extensive article on Walt Disney and his participation in the Hollywood polo scene at MousePlanet.

Adrian and Edith's Head to Toe

To most, its just the place in Disney's Hollywood Studio's to purchase Mouse Ears. But Adrian and Edith's Head to Toe, located on the right side of Hollywood Boulevard as you approach Sunset Boulevard, is in fact a clever homage to two very distinguished figures from Tinsel Town's golden age. The shop's tag line "Costumes to the Stars" and its interior props and decorations are the clues that lead to celebrated designers Edith Head and Adrian Adolph Greenberg.

It is rare that the names of costume designers live on in the way of stars and directors, but these two individuals have each achieved similar legendary status. Known simply as Adrian on most screen credits, Greenberg created costuming for over 250 films, working primarily for MGM during the 1930s. His most celebrated work was likely for The Wizard of Oz, which included Judy Garland's famous and iconic ruby slippers. Ironically, he was never nominated for an Academy Award.

Such was not the case for Edith Head, who earned 34 Oscar nominations over a career that spanned some five decades. Some of her more well known efforts include The Ten Commandments, Roman Holiday, Samson and Delilah and The Sting. She had just completed work on the Steve Martin comedy Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid prior to her death in 1981.

It is speculated that Head was also the inspiration behind the character Edna Mode in Pixar's The Incredibles.

Adventurers Almanac: The Belsky Bass

How did Merriweather Pleasure come to find and purchase the land adjacent to Lake Buena Vista and name it Pleasure Island? Well, that's quite a fish story!

For the next installment in our Tales from the Adventurers Almanac series, we present an article from Volume No. 55, Issue No. 9. Club Curator Fletcher Hodges relates the true and accurate story of the Belsky Bass, one of the club's more notable trophies. Here is the that issue's Curator's Corner column:

Greetings Adventurers; Hodges here. My topic for this 'Curator's Corner" is the Belsky Bass. Now, I'm sure when you have visited the Club, you have had the dubious honor of having a conversation with the loquacious Professor Otis T. Wren. In addition to the many self-aggrandizing events he may have recounted for you, he has probably taken your valuable time to tell you of that glorious day he landed the magnificent fish that perches (pardon the pun) on the wall high above the Treasure Room. I feel duty-bound to inform you of the accurate version of how this particular, and often overlooked specimen, came to be a part of the Adventurers Club.

In 1910, Merriweather Pleasure was floating around Lake Buena Vista assessing the possible purchase of the Ferderber Peninsula. Without warning, a Belsky flung itself into his dinghy! It, of course, began doing its characteristic "Belsky Gyrations," unique to a Belsky out of water. Mr. Pleasure took the sighting of the rare Belsky Bass as such a good omen that he promptly bought the land he had been surveying and renamed it Pleasure Island. He took the fish as a pet - naming it "Sue."

There was an uncommon attachment between the two, which ultimately led to tragedy. One afternoon during the construction of the Adventurers Club, before the patio doors were installed, while Merriweather was surveying the design of the Main Salon, "Sue" spied him from the lake. Apparently longing for it's master's company, the fish did a "Belsky Leap" out of the water, ricocheted off of Zeus, and landed smack dab on a freshly painted wall towering above the Treasure Room. There she remains to this day. Thankfully, Mr. Pleasure immortalized Sue's exhuberant spirit with "Forever Fish" -a natural preservative of his creation. This has prevented the summer heat from taking its toll, if you nose what I mean.

Yours in authenticity,
Hector Pledges, uh I mean,
Fletcher Hodges, Club Curator

KUNGALOOSH!