Random Thursday

As I'm writing my posts ahead again I find myself returning to Disney Facts Revealed: Answers to Fans' Curious Questions by Dave Smith. I find this book a little harder to read through as I'm trying to basically make short of a long question and longer answer and present it as small little factoid! So I trudge through it slowly.

In this book we left off in the chapter on Disneyland and that's where we shall pick it back up again!

(image borrowed from Davelandblog)

There's a mural in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride queue that Disney Imagineer, Marc Davis helped design with nautical personages Sir Francis Verney, Ned Low, Sir Henry Mainwaring, Anne Bonny, Mary Reed, and Captain Charles Gibbs. In 2006, Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa were added into the mural, they didn't replace any of the previous characters.

(image borrowed from Davelandblog)

There once was a ride called the Flying Saucers that had a floor where air came up and you could steer your little saucer around. It ran from 1961-1966 but was finally removed due to overwhelming maintenance issues.

(image borrowed from disneyland.disney.go.com)

At some point in time, Disneyland Cast Members would pose or hide somewhere in The Haunted Mansion to spook the guests!

(image borrowed from Storyblocks)

At one point, Japan sent a prop of a ghost known as O-lwa from one of the most famous Japanese ghost stories of all time. But since the image was a little too scary, the park never used it. Instead they put her in a case in the archives. According to some Archive employees she is so scary looking that they will not go near it.

(image borrowed from Pinterest)

Since its debut, Disneyland has been coined "The Happiest Place of Earth".

(image borrowed from disneyland.disney.go.com)

In the French Quarter of Disneyland there is a terrace with seating on the second floor of the building between Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jack Skellington shop, there you will see iron gates that surround the deck with a brass WD and RD in the middle of the center panels. These are the initials of Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney and this was place was originally meant to be an apartment for the Disney family. Though, that never ended up happening. The balcony was part of the Disney Gallery for years before becoming a part of the Dream Suite during the year of a Million Dreams in 2006.

(image borrowed from Disneyland Club 33)

There are many nods to the Disney family throughout the park, such as the gates aforementioned in the French Quarter. There was a special train car that was named the Lilly Belle after Walt's wife, Lillian. There was once a Willard P. Bounds Blacksmith and U.S. Marshal sign in Frontierland named for Lillian's father. There's also on display a chunk of a petrified tree that Walt gave Lillian for their anniversary.