Just more Stuff,,,,,

[Born 2 Fish]

On July 6, 1971 , one of America's all time musical greats, singer and jazz trumpeter passed away, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong.

During his time, he had many famous hit songs, you may remember one called , "What a Wonderful World", (and one of my all time favorites too.)

He one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, passed away in New York City at the age of 69. Armstrong had recorded an album titled "Disney Songs the Satchmo Way" in the mid 1960s, and appeared as a guest on the 1962 TV special "Disneyland After Dark." He performed live many times at the Anaheim park with his band as part of the seasonal Dixieland at Disneyland.

 

[2goofycampers]

On this day in 2004:
A 230-pound female African elephant calf is born in Disney's Animal Kingdom.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

On this day July 7, 1989,, Jim Varney, (of "Hey Vern," fame), was featured on the Disney Channel comedy "Ernest Goes to Splash Mountain".
Ernest Goes To Splash Mountain chronicles the adventures of Ernest P. Worrell who trains as America's first "Splashtranaut" destined to become the very first person to conquer the Disneyland mountain.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

According to tradition, the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is one of many bells rung to summon citizens for the reading of the Declaration of Independence (which had been adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4).

Today a replica of the Liberty Bell sits on display in Walt Disney World's Liberty Square. The replica was cast
from the mold of the actual Liberty Bell! (In 1976, 50 replicas were cast and molded in honor of the 200th birthday of the USA. Each state received one and placed it in a spot of their choice. As Pennsylvania now had two Liberty Bells, Disney asked if they could have one for their Liberty Square.)

 

[Born 2 Fish]

On this day , July 10,1981 , Disney's animated The Fox and the Hound premieres in U.S. theaters.

It features the voices of Jack Alberston, Pearl Bailey, Sandy Duncan, Corey Feldman, Kurt Russell, Paul Winchell and Mickey Rooney.
A wonderful cast of people ,(for those of you who aren't as young as we usta be, will remember them,)

Loosely based on the novel of the same name by Daniel Mannix, two
childhood animal friends find themselves forced to become enemies. The Fox and the Hound marks the premiere effort of a new generation of Disney animators, who in a few years will create The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

The street lamps on "Disneyland's" Main Street USA are approximately 100 years old.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

Ever wonder where the idea came from for Spaceship Earth at Epcot ?

From a man born on July 2 1895, Richard Buckminster Fuller - visionary, designer, architect, futurist, and inventor . It is widely believed he developed and named the geodesic dome first - from field experiments with Kenneth Snelson and others at Black Mountain College (in North Carolina) in the late 1940s. (The invention of the geodesic dome was a solution to the pressing housing problem at the time.) More than 500,000 geodesic domes have been built around the world since then.
Among them ... the 265-foot wide Spaceship Earth at Epcot! Fuller actually coined the phrase "Spaceship Earth" to express concern over the use of limited resources available on our planet.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

On this day, July 13,1925,
Walt Disney marries Lillian Marie Bounds (one of his first employees) at Lewiston's Episcopal Church of the Nativity in Lewiston, Idaho. Since Lillian's father is deceased, her uncle who is chief of the Lewiston Fire Department gives the bride away. Reverend D.J.W. Somerville performs the ceremony with Hazel Sewell and Sydney Bounds acting as witnesses. (Born in Spalding, Idaho, Lillian grew up in Lapwai, Idaho, on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, where her father worked as a blacksmith and federal marshal. She moved to Los Angeles in 1923, and got a job at the fledgling Walt Disney Studio as a secretary and "inker" of animated cels.)

 

[Born 2 Fish]

A 31-year-old actress named
Joann Killingsworth was Disneyland's very first Snow White. She was a part-time sales clerk at the Neiman-Marcus department store in Newport Beach, California when she was found through a Disney nationwide search!

 

[Born 2 Fish]

TODAY, July 15, 2011

"Winnie the Pooh", a new animated film, is released by Walt Disney Pictures.

Winnie the Pooh sets out to find some honey, but when he misinterprets a note from Christopher Robin, Pooh convinces Tigger, Rabbit, Piglet, Owl, Kanga, Roo, and Eeyore that their young friend has been captured by a creature named "Backson"! Inspired by the stories of A. A. Milne, the film is a continuation of Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise, and marks the first time a Pooh film has hit theaters since the 2005 Pooh's Heffalump Movie. Burny Mattinson, a Disney veteran who worked as the key animator on Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, served as lead storyboard artist for the film. Winnie the Pooh is preceded by an animated short called The Ballad of Nessie about a friendly Loch Ness Monster named Nessie and how she and her best friend MacQuack, the rubber duck, came to live in the moor they now call home.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

"I first saw the site for Disneyland back in 1953, In those days it was all flat land - no rivers, no mountains, no castles or rocket ships - just orange groves, and a few acres of walnut trees." -Walt Disney

 

[Born 2 Fish]

On this day, in 1955

After years of planning, Walt Disney's very first theme park Disneyland debuted on Sunday afternoon July 17, 1955 in Anaheim, California. Television crews, Art Linkletter, Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings, the Mouseketeers, Thurl Ravenscroft, California Governor Goodwin J. Knight and over 28,000 guests witnessed the opening of Walt's dream. Broadcast on ABC at 4:30, it was the biggest live telecast to date.

Actor Ronald Reagan (who would later become president of the United States) introduced 53-year-old Walt Disney - "And now, Walt Disney will step forward to read the dedication of Disneyland." Walt christened his 160-acre park with these now famous words (penned by Winston Hibler):

The park offered 5 themed lands with a total of 18 attractions. Disneyland
opened as invitation only on this day, given to studio workers, construction workers, the press and officials of company sponsors. (The park opened to the general public the following day - July 18.) Because tickets to the
grand opening were counterfeited, a surprising total of 28,154 attended. The day was marked by numerous disasters, including a traffic jam, a shortage of food, and a gas leak in Fantasyland. Even a chunk of window from the Mark Twain Steamboat crashed on the head of an invited state senator!

Cast Member Ron Dominguez was working as a ticket taker at Disneyland's main gate. He would spend his entire career at the park eventually becoming a top executive (between 1971-1994). Ironically he grew up on one of the Anaheim orange groves later purchased by Disney for the theme park. The Dominguez family house was located just about where the entrance to the Pirates of the Caribbean is!

Celebrities visiting Disneyland that day included Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr., Danny Thomas, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

July 17, 1955 is known by Disneyland old-timers as
"Black Sunday" (because of the numerous mishaps)
... yet in those first 7 weeks more than a million
people walked down Disneyland's Main Street USA!



OPENING DAY
ATTRACTIONS, SHOPS
& RESTAURANTS:
JULY 17, 1955
TOWN SQUARE
City Hall
Fire Department
Plaza Pavilion Restaurant

MAIN STREET USA
Bank of America
Camera Center
Carnation Ice Cream Parlor
Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner
Emporium
Horse-Drawn Fire Wagon
Horse-Drawn Street Cars
Horse-Drawn Surreys
Main Street Cinema
Main Street Penny Arcade
Ruggles China and Glass House
Story Book Shop
Santa Fe / Disneyland Railroad (featuring 2 engines:
#1 C.K. Holliday & #2 E.P. Ripley)

ADVENTURELAND
Jungle Cruise (featuring 2 boats: Ganges Gal and Congo Queen)
Red Wagon Inn

FRONTIERLAND
Chicken Plantation Restaurant
Davy Crockett Arcade
Frontier Trading Post
Golden Horseshoe Revue at Slue Foot Sue's Golden Horseshoe Saloon
Mark Twain Steamboat
Mule Pack
Stage Coaches

FANTASYLAND
Canal Boats of the World
King Arthur Carrousel
Mad Tea Party
Merlin's Magic Shop
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Peter Pan's Flight
Snow White's Adventures

TOMORROWLAND
Autopia
Circarama USA (presenting the film
A Tour of the West)
Monsanto Hall of Chemistry
Space Station X-1

Nine-year-old Bonnie Williams was an opening day guests because her church youth group was invited. She was among the first children to cross the drawbridge into Fantasyland and ride Disneyland's rides! "I remember seeing Walt," she says. "He looked like a giant. I told him, 'I saw you on TV!' The whole day was magical. I felt like a real princess."

"To all who come to this happy place: welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past...and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts which have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world."

 

[Born 2 Fish]

Actor & Disney fan John Stamos was the winning Ebay bidder for the galvanized steel Disneyland sign that stood in front of the park from 1989 to 1999. He paid $30,700 for the marquee.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

"I don't want the public to see the world they live in while they're in the park.
I want to feel they're in another world." -Walt Disney



I believe Walt certainly accomplished that goal,
our thanks to you Mr.Disney.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

Two for the price of one,,today only,,

At one time, Walt Disney wanted to build Disney World in Sanford, Florida. But his appeal to Sanford's city council was declined. The citizens of Sanford did not want "the crime that was sure to come with tourism."

----------------------------------------

Space Center Houston (the official visitor's center of NASA's Johnson Space Center) was designed by Walt Disney Imagineering.

Space Center Houston is located at
1601 NASA Parkway
Houston, Texas.

I really hate to see the space program being shut down,

 

[Born 2 Fish]

On July 21, 1954
Construction officially begins on Disneyland.
Amazingly it will be built in less than a year!


"We did Disneyland, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster - closed and forgotten within the first year." -Walt Disney

 

[Born 2 Fish]

"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into ... The Twilight Zone." -Rod Serling

Yes, that's right,,on this day July 22, 1994 , my all time favorite ride opened at Disney World ! The Tower of Terror

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction opens on Sunset Boulevard at
Disney World's Disney-MGM Studios. A simulated freefall thrill ride, it is
themed after the popular television series The Twilight Zone, hosted and
created by Rod Serling. (The television anthology series originally ran for 156 episodes between 1959- 1964.)

The Disney attraction takes place in the fictional Hollywood Tower Hotel (itself inspired by the Hollywood Tower, a real structure built in 1929 and named an historic landmark by the US Department of the Interior). The story of the hotel is adapted from elements of the television series, including the hotel being struck by lightning on October 31, 1939 and mysteriously transporting an elevator cart full of passengers to the Twilight Zone!

 

[Born 2 Fish]

The "Partners" bronze statue of Walt and Mickey appear in Disney theme parks all over the world.
There is what appears to be a 'tie clip' on Walt's tie,,the STR symbol on Walt's tie refers to "Smoke Tree Ranch", a place in Palm Springs, California, where he had a vacation home.

At Disney World, this is the statue in front of the Castle , on Main Street.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

There are more than 4 million trees, plants, shrubs, ground-covers, vines, epiphytes and grasses from from every continent (except Antarctica) at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom!


"To keep an operation like Disneyland going you have to pour it in there. It's what I call 'keeping the show on the road.' You have to keep throwing it in; you can't sit back and let it ride. Not just new attractions but keeping it staffed properly... you know, never letting your personnel get sloppy... never let them be unfriendly." -Walt Disney

 

[Born 2 Fish]

The Coral Isle Cafe, opened at WDW's Polynesian Resort since October 1, 1971, closed it's doors on July 25, 1998.
After extensive renovations, it reopened on November 23, 1998 as the Kona Café.
And I gotta say , it is a favorite of my beautiful bride and I. Mmmmm !

----------------------------------

Yes indeed folks, it was a question on one of Americas favorite game shows !

On the television game show Jeopardy!, "What is Hakuna Matata?" is the question for the Final Jeopardy answer. A Swahili phrase, it means
"There are no worries here."

--------------------------------------------

"We're interested in doing things that are fun... in bringing pleasure and especially laughter to people. I think what I want Disneyland to be most of all is a happy place... a place where adults and children can experience together some of the wonder of life, of adventure, and feel better because of it." -Walt Disney