Coming Soon: Tomorrowland '67

GET READY! We are gearing up to bring you photo-filled posts about one of Walt Disney's great masterpieces, "New Tomorrowland" at Disneyland.

In the meantime......... brush up on some related knowledge found in these other posts:

The Future Was Fantastic in '57
Carousel of Progress Like You’ve Never Seen It
A Look at the Progress City Model- Then and Now
EPCOT City Model [Part 1]
America Sings
Revisiting Early Space Mountain

Signs of the Times: Tomorrowland

Let's look at some wonderful old signs in Tomorrowland that are no longer with us. Some of these signs rarely, if ever, show up in photos anywhere. Each of these photos were sent to us through our Photo Hunt. Thanks everyone for sharing!

Magic Kingdom

Above, Katherine Amante shares this great Space Mountain entrance sign taken sometime between 1982 and 1985. Look at those rad 80s stripes and colors.

This next photo from Shaun Ortolano shows the same sign with an earlier paint design on the wall behind it. This was taken in 1982.

Here Ryan Rewasiewicz shares a similar view that includes that great RCA signage on the pillar with the astronauts.

I was thrilled when Dan Zuccarelli sent in this 1985 photo of the Space Bar Hosted by Wise sign. I've never seen a close-up photo of this sign. Today the location is called the Launching Pad. Disney by Mark (great blog) shares an early look at Disneyland's Space Bar. The two Space Bars were very different in design but served similar purposes.

I was ecstatic when David West Reynolds sent this Flight to the Moon/Mission to Mars photo. It's always exciting to see both the old and new versions of a ride featured in the same photograph. Flight to the Moon closed and Mission to Mars took its place during the summer of 1975, just a few months after Space Mountain opened. Making this photo even more priceless, the story of the 11-year-old lad in the photo. He ended up working on Mars probe missions for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

©DWR This photo is not authorized for free general public use by request of its owner.

Remember Mickey's Mart in Tomorrowland? Today it's Mickey’s Star Traders and couldn't look more different. Mexsana makes sun car products and medicated powders and such. You'll notice Coppertone got equal billing on this sign.

Next we get four old signs in one photo. A large WEDWay PeopleMover sign (left), the classy white Carousel of Progress sign (center), part of the If You could Fly sign with a seagull on it (right) and the Space Bar sign we saw earlier (lower left)– this time with a different face and sponsor. Anyone know the sponsor?

Disneyland

Anna-Marie Villegas shares this beautiful Disneyland PeopleMover shot. The rotating blue sign had the Goodyear logo on one side and the PeopleMover logo on the other. It's said that the PeopleMover logo was designed to resemble that of Goodyear, using a similar typeface.

Ray Osburn sends this view of both rotating Goodyear signs– one in front of the tower, one in back. Notice the one in back is hanging. Then there's one of the Coca-Cola signs that adorned Tomorrowland for so many years.

At some point the diamondy-shaped rotating signs became rectangles. I'm not certain as to why. You'll see this in the following two photos from Connie Moreno. It looks like this first one was taken form a Skyway bucket.

Related post:

THEN AND NOW: MK Tomorrowland [Part 1]
Carousel of Progress Like You’ve Never Seen It
A Look at the Progress City Model- Then and Now
THEN AND NOW: Disneyland [Part 1]
Revisiting Early Space Mountain... Sort Of
America Sings
Disneyland Skyway in Your Backyard?

Magic Kingdom at Night

Will you be pulling an all-nighter at Disneyland or Magic Kingdom as part of Disney's "One More Disney Day"? I will be at home and in bed by ten. After watching "Disneyland After Dark" on dvd of course. Here we present some old nighttime photos of Magic Kingdom.

Where was this photo taken? The top of the train station tower? We get a nice view of backstage parking and even Tinker Bell's landing spot atop one of the Tomorrowland buildings (in green lights).

Many of the following photos were sent to us by Ryan Rewasiewicz as part of our Photo Hunt. They were taken in either 1975 or 1976.

Tomorrowland. STUNNING. What great nighttime views old Tomorrowland offered.

Liberty Square.

Frontierland. And the still-in-operation Diamond Horseshoe.

Adventureland. So nice at night. Look at those old signs. "Tropical Serenade" and "The Enchanted Tiki Birds". The Sunshine Pavilion, unique to Florida, was such a delight. This photo is from an old souvenir picture book.

Ahh the soothing water fountain. Excellent photo, Ryan.

Back to Main Street.

For those of you who make it through the night, this may be your view as you turn around on your way back to your car (minus the Skyway poles, of course). Also from a souvenir book.

Why will I not be there for the Leap Year all-night thing? It does sound fun but I'm going to stick with the memories of the many many all-night adventures I had over the years. Grad Nites, Y2K preparation, Hurricane ride-out crews, other work assignments, sneaking around after hours, sleeping on some old couch in the break room under Main Street.

Related posts:

THEN AND NOW: MK Tomorrowland [Part 1]
If This Doesn't Scare You.....
Magic Kingdom Map Found in a Main Street Wall
THEN AND NOW: MK Fantasyland [Part 1]
Atop Cinderella Castle
EYE CANDY: National Geographic Aug '63
EYE CANDY: Not Having Fun at Disneyland