Disneyland decorating: ATTRACTION POSTER WALLPAPER!!!

This past Wednesday, the Disneyland Hotel completed the new FRONTIER (land) Tower. In it's lobby is a nice 1/4"= 1' scale model of Big Thunder Mountain RR. Continuing the Frontierland theme right into the restrooms is ATTRACTION POSTER WALLPAPER!!!

This isn't the first time I've seen attraction poster wallpaper however. Wally Boag's daughter's boyfriend showed me some pictures of a spare bathroom Wally Boag and he wallpapered  with REAL 1950's/60's attraction posters! (yes--I cringed too!) They trimmed posters up and  collaged them together creating what I though would be the only use of Disneyland attraction poster wallpaper --until a few days ago.

If you started to cry at the thought of real attraction posters being cut up for a 1970's home-improvement project, then you probably don't want to hear this: The Disneyland staff shop used to take attraction posters for rides that were no longer existing and tear sections from them so that sawdust and scraps could be swept into  the torn sections like a dust pan!!! Thank GOD Disneyland was thinking green and recycling back then!! What else do you do with stacks and stacks of unusable poster for Flying Saucers, Space Station X-1, Casa De Fritos, Carousel of Progress, Rocket to the Moon, Nature's Wonderland,Tahitian Terrace, Rainbow Caverns etc...........Well, you can do what the Disneyland paint shop did: use old attraction posters as paint drip cloths or masking off things. Yup. Is everyone cringing again?

Well, one more attraction poster cringe: The Disney Attraction Poster Book by Disney Editions.........has had it's delivery date pushed to Spring of 2012!

DISNEYLAND'S NEW GENERATION III STAR TOURS POSTER DEBUTS!!!!

This past week yet another NEW attraction poster for Disneyland went on display. There hasn't been this much attraction poster "action" at Disneyland since the early 1980's!! STAR TOURS 2011 became the 3rd version of a Disneyland Star Tours attraction poster.

Another interesting note is that this is Disneyland's SECOND PRE-OPENING attraction poster!........I'll let readers of this blog guess what was the only other attraction to feature a pre-opening version........any guesses????? (Sorry Jason S. you can't play since we already discussed this!!)

This is Disneyland's second version of the Star Tours attraction poster. It uses artwork developed for Disneyland Paris & Tokyo Disneyland. It's amazing to know that this is a screened poster!------the layers ink and the craftsmanship used to create this poster is stunning, and I think Walt would have been proud. This was produced under the direction of WED/WDI graphic master, RUDY LORD. For you collectors.....there are a few variants of this --some without Disneyland screened on........and some  with  M&M  (MARS CANDY) Sponsor --but no one has a version with Disneyland and Tomorrowland on it because none were produced!!

Above is the raw art for Disneyland's first Star Tours poster of 1987.  Tim Delaney of WDI painted the original and the final poster was lithographed (not screened) for use at the park. Delaney created this out of shear love of his work: You see there was NO money left in the budget for a attraction poster and Tim Delaney said he wasn't going to let Star Tours opening without it's own poster, so he painted it himself!!!! I bet Disneyland was grateful that he did since it appears on some of the earliest Star Tours merchandise.

WALT DISNEY WORLD MONORAIL POSTER #2 1978

WALT DISNEY WORLD MONORAIL POSTER #2 1978

While WED was laboriously working on new attraction posters during the mid 1970's , Walt Disney World's opening day posters were wearing out and suffering from the extreme temperature and weather changes. At this time Disney wasn't using  Stuart Burroughs Print service (the vendor that screened most of the attraction posters of the 1950's 1960's) anymore mainly due to costs. WED  now had a one-of-a-kind serigraph silk screening equipment set up. WED was so busy working on new highly detailed posters for Jungle Cruise and Disneyland/Walt Disney World Railroad they did not have the time or money to replace ALL of the early WDW posters with elaborate silk screen re-dos.  The solution: paint new attraction posters and lithograph them until we have time to do new tyvek-paper silk screen versions. This leads us to the great WDW poster replacements of 1978!!!! Some of these 1978 re-dos include HAUNTED MANSION, GRAND PRIX RACEWAY, CRYSTAL PALACE, IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, TROPICAL SERENADE, SWISS FAMILY ISLE TREEHOUSE, 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, and......................

WALT DISNEY WORLD MONORAIL SYSTEM 1978
off-set color lithography


here's the original 1971 opening day poster:

WALT DISNEY WORLD MONORAIL SYSTEM 1971
silk screened



And if you DISNEYLAND only attraction poster fans out there think this looks familiar:

Here's the Florida's ancestor next to the 1971 WDW counterpart. It's a mystery on the 1971 WDW posters as to why certain modification were made to showcase Florida only designs -----Like why does the 1971 Florida  SKYWAY poster use the 1956 round Disneyland Skyway buckets?? These were already long out of use at Disneyland by 1971. And here on the WDW Monorail poster: why does the monorail exiting the Contemporary Resort Tower show a Disneyland Monorail while in the distance a correct White WDW Monorail heads towards the Magic Kingdom Monorail Station?????  My speculation is both time and cost. Or were these just design flubs?

RIDE THE RAILS IN REVERSE!!! Walt Disney World Railroad backwards attraction poster

While Walt Disney World's Splash Mountain was under construction, railroad service around the Magic Kingdom came to a halt as the trains were unable to complete the circuit and pass through Frontierland. To accomadate guests, the Walt Disney World Railroad operated trains From Mickey's Starland to Main Street USA........and back. This limited point-to-point service had imagineers create a whole new poster to  reflect the new route of the Walt Disney World Railroad!!

The poster was done by Rudy Lord and Jim Michaleson. Sscreenprinted on tyvek. 1990.
Also, as a reminder the Disney Attraction Poster book should be hitting the park shelves around May 2011!!

COUNTRY BEAR JAMOBOREE HOLIDAY POSTER "JINGLE BELL JAMBOREE"

JINGLE BELL JAMBOREE, Tokyo Disneyland  attraction poster

In 1984 Disneyland debuted a holiday overlay  variation to the Country Bear Jamboree called, Country Bear Christmas. Walt Disney World followed shortly after. A concept poster was proposed for the American parks that used the original Country Bear Jamboree attraction poster with holiday details added ------ snow deposits on various parts of the poster, a wreath above the "Five Bear Rugs" portrait and some graphic changes to the lettering. This poster never went into production. However a smaller playbill size poster was created for the entrances of the Bear Band show featuring the Christmas show and another showcasing the Vacation Hoedown show. These are similar to attractions posters, but are not.

Sadly at Disneyland, the original Country Bear Jamboree could no-longer be shown due to the fact that when the two new holiday/vacation shows were done with a new tape-playback and the 1972 show tapes could not be used on the new equipment.

TOKYO DISNEYLAND was excited to add the additional Country Bear Shows, and changed the attraction's name from COUNTRY BEAR JAMBOREE to COUNTRY BEAR THEATER.  This name changed introduced 3 new attraction posters to celebrate all three shows. The original 1983 Country Bear Jamboree attraction poster was the same artwork from Walt Disney World and Disneyland all done in an offset litho process. The NEW Country Bear Theater posters for Tokyo Disneyland were all silk screened!!

The new posters included a detailed redo of the regular Bear band poster and two new seasonal show posters

COUNTRY BEAR THEATER, Tokyo Disneyland, 1991

COUNTRY BEAR THEATER , Jingle Bear Jamboree, 1990

COUNTRY BEAR THEATER, Vacation Jamboree, 1991

The JINGLE BELL JAMBOREE attraction poster is the ONLY Disney park Holiday poster ever done with the recent "BELIEVE IN HOLIDAY MAGIC" poster at Disneyland. No posters have ever been produced for "It's A Small World"  or the "Haunted Mansion" holiday shows. Even a concept poster was developed for a Enchanted Tiki Room holiday show -an attraction that never materialized.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAVE A GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL NEW YEAR!!!

ATTRACTION POSTER DESIGN CONCEPTS

Like anything, most design projects start with some serious thought and study. Here are some very rare views of some early attraction posters. Some turned out very similar to what you see, while others never went into production at all. And keep your eyes peeled for an amazing new attraction poster book due out in the spring of 2011!!

PEOPLEMOVER THRU THE SUPER SPEED TUNNEL

Disneyland c.1976 Jim Michaelson

BIG THUNDER MOUNTAIN RAILROAD

Disneyland c. 1978 Jim Michaelson

HAUNTED MANSION

Disneyland, Walt Disney World c. 1981

Jim Michaelson

This elaborate redo for the Haunted Mansion was done in the famous "Window Frame" style popularized by WED graphic artist Jim Michaelson. He was the "father" of the second generation attraction poster. The Haunted mansion's "sister" attraction..........PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN had a revised poster created in 1982. WED was able to justify the cost of the new Pirates poster as Walt Disney World had no poster for their attraction, and Tokyo Disneyland would also be able to use the same artwork. The production of the revised Haunted Mansion was "dead-in-the-water" as the production costs for the elaborate re-do was predicted to be too expensive and time consuming. Also the new Pirates poster was well received at Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland, however the director of Disneyland's decorating department said "It looked like a cereal box" and few were every displayed at Disneyland and the original 1967 poster for pirates stayed on display for years.

                                                        WEDWAY PEOPLEMOVER

Disneyland c.1966

STAGECOACH MINETRAIN AND MULE RIDE

Disneyland c. 1955/56 Bjorn Aronson

TOM SAWYER ISLAND

Disneyland c. 1956 Sam McKim

JUNGLE RIVER

Disneyland, c. 1955/56 Sam McKim

WORLD BAZAAR

Tokyo Disneyland, c. 1982 Herbert Ryman

This is the first study for the all-new "land" World Bazaar. Tokyo's equivalent to Main Street USA. The final poster changed drastically, but Rudy Lord --a close friend of Herbert Ryman made sure the text remained the same.

Check back for MORE attraction poster concepts and stories on these great works of art

PATRIOTIC ATTRACTION POSTERS!!

For this Fourth Of July weekend here is a cavalcade of patriotic themed attraction posters from the 1960's through today!

our first real patriotic poster CIRCARAMA-"America The Beautiful"

this version lets guests know that the admission is FREE! a rarer version of this poster printed for use at the attraction's entrance announced "AIR CONDITIONED!"

a thumbnail sketch on a alternate-unproduced version of the poster above

A concept for the New Tomorrowland 1967 version of the poster --at this time the attraction was still being referred to as "'CIRCARAMA" and not yer "CIRCLE VISION"

another very tiny thumbnail sketch for a 1967 redo of the poster--starting to look closer to the final version!

here is a image of the final 1967 "America The Beautiful" poster --shown here c. 1987 on the patio of the Disney Gallery when you could buy REAL attraction posters

This poster was re-done for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World in 1975/76 for the Bicentennial version of the attraction done in the smaler poster size of the period.

And now some of the many, many versions of "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln"

this is referred to as the "Dollar Bill" poster

at one point this  show was being performed at the New York World's Fair and Disneyland simultaneously!

A "generic"  version of the 1974 poster--missing it's remaining graphics and "Gulf" sponsor call outs.

The 1984 Version of the attraction is revamped with the new "Journey To Gettysburg" show--complete with authentic 1860's 3-d SFX headsets!!!

Better hurry up and try the headphones on one last time!!

An old friend is coming back!!

The current incarnation of this poster as seen today at Disneyland!

Here is the 1983/84 poster for "AMERICAN JOURNEYS" --the first version at Disneyland features "PSA AIRLINES" as it's sponsor, the second version displays "Delta Airlines". The fist WDW version of the poster features "Black and Decker" as it's sponsor.

And in 1997 "AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL" comes back to Disneyland for a farewell performance. This was a WDW backup print copy of the 1975/1976 version of this very popular film. At some points of the show, the film had deteriorated so badly that guests were watching a motionless image--a example was the St Louis Arch segment!!

And the famous Disneyland Railroad Bicentennial Special poster!!

ALL ABOARD!!!

The Walt Disney World "HALL OF PRESIDENTS" poster. There are a few versions of this poster, including the first 1971 version, a 1978 version and a 1980's silk screened version based on the original poster --all have a similar layout, however the text fonts change and some other minor alterations.  In a later post reg the WDW attraction posters I will show the concept art for a unproduced 1990's Hall of Presidents poster, with Lincoln and Bill Clinton depicted.

shown is the 1978 poster