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!!