The Shopping’s Fine in 1989!

Ahhhh… 1989. It was a good year. I was stoked to be in the “upper grades”, wearing fluorescent colors, and hitting my friends with slap bracelets. Music was all about Michael Jackson, Tiffany, and Debbie Gibson. We were swooning over George Michael and never for one second did we think Milli Vanilli wasn’t actually singing. Politically, the Berlin wall came down and there was protesting in Tiananmen Square. Disney revived animation with the release of The Little Mermaid, Disney’s MGM Studio opened, the third generation of The Mickey Mouse Club debuted, and the best advice anyone could give you was “Don’t worry… be happy”. 1989… Heck yeah!

1989 also had some beautiful Disney art you could collect! Just feast your eyes on this catalog from The Disney Gallery Collection, courtesy of reader Steve “sb-illustrations”. (The copyright is from 1988 but it seems to have been used in 1989.) Inside you could purchase a Blaine Gibson maquette of Cinderella, posters by John Hench and Herb Ryman, and a Ken Anderson and Sam McKim concept painting for Haunted Mansion. Do note that you were ordering directly from The Disney Gallery inside of Disneyland. Pretty cool!

The prices were still… well… “Disney” back in 1989, but if we take our flux capacitor-equipped DeLoreans back with a full wallet of cash, I think we’d be feeling like we scored, more or less! Have a look!

It’s my bag!

I just returned from a fabulous trip to Disneyland and Club 33 this week and my nitpicky brain picked up on something that I had not thought about in a good while- bags.

Show of hands! Who misses bag individuality in the park? I sure do! I will let my Disney dork flag wave and admit that I actually do keep most of my Disneyland shopping bags (because I keep everything from that place), but I will say that I’m not a fan of them. I was especially disappointed that even Club 33 doesn’t have their own merchandise bag; they have their own tissue paper, but not bag.

Normally, I preach the need for the flow and cohesion of storytelling in the park, but this is one time where I do not like it. I would really love to see some specialty, land-specific bags back. Granted, some of the individual bags came from the lessee establishments, but I feel that it would really create more of a realistic experience, especially to Main Street. It might also subconsciously divide Disneyland up so that it didn’t all feel like one large shopping experience. While we’re on the topic, I would also like the return of land-specific merchandise. But, that’s another blog entry.

To refresh everyone’s memories of merchandise bags of the past, I stumbled on this wonderful Disneyland Flickr Pool and found the following artifacts of consumerism (unless otherwise credited), before it all went to one design around 1990 for the 35th anniversary. Great stuff!

My personal favorite, circa late 70s-80s. I actually made stationery out of this. Word files look a lot more fun now! Photo credit.

It just makes your purchase from the Art Corner a little more special! :)

Bags from the 1970s. Photo credit.

Original bag from the 1950s. Love the atomic styling of it!

This is also one of my favorites! Look at the charm!!

Yep, they had their own, too! Photo credit.

 

Small wonder what decade this represents!

The individuality spilled out into the Disneyland Hotel, too!

This is also a great bag! I can only assume that perhaps it contained a little something from the One-of-a-Kind shop?

The styling on this bag is great. I love the red accents!

For your psychedelic purchase. Photo credit.

This bag is also from the 60’s. Be sure to enlarge it so you can see the wonderful line drawings. Photo credit.

Looks to me like 2 delicious churros would fit in here! Great piece from the 1970s.

And, just for fun, because I found it in my travels, a bag from the 1964 World’s Fair. Photo credit.

Little Bit o’ N’awlins! (with a side of silly story)

All right, so every time I see something from New Orleans Square, I’m reminded of Christmas 1997. I was working in the park and there was a campaign going, “Welcome Home for the Holidays!” in which, we were forced to greet every guest with that same phrase.

The management in New Orleans Square was very particular that we would address the area with an “accent” and say N’awlins rather than New Orleans. So, the spiel when working in that area was, “Welcome home to N’awlins!” or “Welcome home to N’awlins for the holidays!” or some such compound. Not really the most natural greeting, but we do what the Mouse commands.

So, being the dutiful cast member, I greeted a guest, with a big Disney smile, and it went something like this:

Me: Welcome home to N’awlins! Happy Holidays!

Guest: (confused expression) I… I don’t live here.

Me: Yes, sir. I know.

Guest: (still confused) I’m from Nebraska.

Me: (not sure how to get out of this one) Well, welcome to Disneyland, sir! Are you enjoying your day here?

Guest: Can you really  live here?

Me: No, sir.

Guest: Then, why did you say, “Welcome home”? What’s Naw-linns?

Me: (ignoring the first question, trying not to say “I have to say it.”) N’awlins is New Orleans Square. Now, how may I help you?

Guest: Why didn’t you just say, “New Orleans Square”? 

Me: (little bit hating on the management at this point) Because that’s how they say it down south, sir. How can I be of assistance to you?

Guest: You know you’re not in the south, right?

Me: (really quite embarrassed at this point) Yes, sir. Proud Californian. What can I do for you?

Guest: (walks away).

HARSH. 

Since then, every time I see anything from NOS, I think of that day… which was, by the way, the last time I said that phrase, and henceforth stuck with a simple, yet effective, “Happy Holidays!” I figured Walt would prefer it that way.

Anyway, that was a long introduction for a very small little item, which is seen here. A lil’ beauty from the late 60’s, I believe. Just check out the great color! I am assuming this was to be something similar to join the miniature plates of each of the lands that were produced prior to this (which I should post photos of in my next blog post… note to self), though it’s not round. Either way, I keep them all together and they look mighty perdy. I have to say, the look of the whole thing reminds me of the London Bridge section of “The Truth About Mother Goose”.

Hope y’all are having a mighty fine week! ;)

Monday's Catch of the Day!

All righty, things have slowed down a bit and I have time to do some more blogging again. Sorry to keep everyone waiting!

I thought I should do a bit of vintage Disney merchandise, so I pulled this odd little number from my collection. When I received it, it was very badly tarnished, but with a little care I got it looking quite sweet and shiny again. It is a pendant- a lobster to be exact... an odd choice for Disneyland merchandise, with a tag attached that says "New Orleans Square" on it. It appears to be something from the late 60s. I've never seen another or any other crustaceans from N'awlins. Does anyone have any idea which shop might have carried this? I'd love to find out.

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope it's a great week! :D

On a side note, in addition to being an artist I also work in medical research in search of a cure for paralysis/spinal cord injuries. We are a private group and are in desperate need of more funding to move things into human clinical trials. We have applied for funding and find out this week if we get it. Any prayers you all could make would be so greatly appreciated! We need this so badly! Thanks! :D