Swiss Family Treehouse Model
Fritz ;)
I ran across this on one of Mike Cozart's blogs. Hope you don't mind me posting this, Mike. You guys may be familiar with one of his other blogs, TomorrowLounge67. He built this 1/8 scale model at the request of a friend who worked with him at Disney a while back. It's a model of the Disneyland Swiss Family Treehouse of the late 70s.
This thing is one of the coolest looking scale models I have ever seen. I worked on scale models at a few model shops years ago and ever since I've admired a good model every time I've seen one. Excellent work, M.C. More photos here.
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The square grid marks 1" squares so you can see how small these pieces really are.
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Actual Swiss Family Treehouse Leaf on model
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Fantasyland Expansion Model
2 Fantastic Disneyland Scale Models
Reader Comments (13)
WOW. I miss this version.
When we walked through Tarzan's tree house in Disneyland for the first time I was kinda bummed. But then we got to a point where the gorillas had made a mess, and Instade of the Doobeedoo music from the movie playing, they had Swiss family robinsons Christmas-time-lets-fight-over-Roberta-Dancing-music. My family loves Tarzan, but we also love Swiss Family Robinson, and when my sister and I heard this music playing, we started dancing around together as if we were Fritz and Roberta. We probably got weird looks, but we didn't care. We just got so excited that they had kept SOMETHING from the old tree house. I don't know if it is still like that, (it's been a few years since I've gone).
Thanks for posting this. It brought back a fun memory.
Fun memory. I walked through it and was excited to hear that music too, but I was extremely depressed about the overall change. Even if a large percentage of people are not familiar with the Swiss Family Robinson movie, the tree was unbelievably cool and fun to tour. If anything it encouraged people to experience for themselves a great movie. Splash Mountain encouraged me a few years back to learn about Song of the South and watch a copy of the movie.
SO DETAILED. I'D LIKE ONE.
That is fantastic looking! Great detail work!
I'm really glad Florida still has this Swiss Family addition..
I really think someone should create one of these for general sale to collectors, similar to other "Big Fig" models produced during the past several years. I have the Enchanted Tiki Room, and Jungle Cruise "Big Figs" in my collection; and a Swiss Family Treehouse would be a GREAT addition to those! Also, a Matterhorn "Big Fig" wouild be awesome, too! Has Disney expressed any interest in producing a Swiss Family Treehouse or a Matterhorn "Big Fig"?
The scale doesn't appear to be 1:8. Barbie is slightly larger at 1:6th scale and I am very familiar with PlayScale. How big is that leaf from the actual treehouse? At one-eighth scale the figure sizes indicate that the 'real' leaf is 21 or 24 inches wide.
1/8th of an inch equals 1 foot.
If the scale is 1/8th of an inch to the foot, then the scale is correctly expressed as 1:96
I'm setting the record straight because I do scale modelling myself. Walt Disney's own backyard train set was 1:8 scale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Rf7Ygy6TA
Tarzan's Treehouse is 70 feet tall. At 1:96 scale that would make the model 8-3/4th inches tall. If it had been 1:8th scale that model would have been 8 feet 9 inches tall. I wonder how much that 8-3/4ths foot model would weigh; the Disneyland Tarzan's Treehouse weighs about 150 tons!
Alan
Before Tarzans Tree House was conceived, a plan was under way to revitalize the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. It was based more on the end of the movie and what would have been had the sequel been made back then. A new bedroom was planned for the newly wed couple of Fritz and Roberta. They also would turn the Library into an art studio where Roberta would be painting Fritz, and Fritz would be sculpting ship figureheads based on Roberta as a model. Ernest would have returned for Nautical School and have his own room as would Francis. A new lookout would be added with a large 24 hour Nautical mechanical clock and telescopes that would monitor all 4 points of the compass. These would be feed with footage from the film. More interactive additions were planned for guests below in the kitchen and eating areas. Maybe one day after a sequel is made it will return to Swiss Family Robinson.
Alan: most architectural models are built in the most popular sizs--1/16th inch (close to N scale) 1/8th inch (close to HO scale) and 1/4th inch (O scale-old Lionel) Today 1/8th and 1/4th inches are the most common SHOW MODELS used and even more common by Disney is 1:100 (close to 1/8th inch and still 1/4th inch. Sometimes 1/2inch models will be done. Again this is for architetcural model. No one in the design industry architectural or Environmental design will ever say 1/96th etc..they say 1/8th scale and that means 1/8th of an inch equals a foot. In the kit hobby world and engineering people might not be familiar with 1/8, 1/4, etc. My degree is in architectural design and in all studios architectural and model (and WED/WDI) that's the way we've always referred to it.
In the 1970's, there were quite a few 1/2 inch and 1 inch scale design models done at WED Imagineering, to work out structure, mechanical, and show details.