Thursday, January 16, 2014

1955 Disneyland Fantasyland Original Design, and more


I've got some great WED Enterprises artworks to share with you today! And we will start by this rare and awesome bird eye view artwork above showing Fantasyland as it was envisioned before Disneyland opening in 1955! If you've read my two articles posted two weeks ago showing a January 1955 McCall's magazine article then you probably remember some of the concepts included in the artwork above.

So, in this artwork done by artist Bruce Bushman you can see that after entering Fantasyland through Sleeping Beauty castle Disneyland guests would have found the Carousel, with on its left the Snow White and Alice in Wonderland rides and on the right the Peter Pan's Flight and Mr Toad rides. Behind the Carousel was located the Donald boats ride as well as the Dutch Mill ride, with behind them, the Monstro flume ride. On the left and right of this Monstro were originally located the Mad Hatter Tea Cups and Dumbo The Flying Elephant rides. And, on the top left and top right you can see the Casey Jr track as well as Story Book Land which apparently were envisioned to be separated until someone probably thought that it would be better to have them both together, as they are now, to avoid a waste of land. Please read the two previous articles HERE and HERE to have more infos about some of these rides.

In addition to this great artwork i also have for you others bird eye views or artworks plans on specific attractions - click on each to see them in big size.  And we start by the one for Peter Pan's Flight.


Next is the one showing the tracks and scenes of the Snow White attraction...


...as well as the one for the Alice in Wonderland ride...




...and a rare artwork showing what was a first version of a Pirates of Caribbean attraction at a time it was envisioned as a walk-through with guests walking through a pirate town...




We will end with this great plan showing the different scenes of the 20000 Leagues Exhibit at DL Tomorrowland as guests could see it in the early years of Disneyland.




Pictures: copyright Disney

1 comment:

Marco Antonio Garcia said...

These are all great artwork, thanks for posting Alain!

I specially love the first one; this early plans for Fantasyland were nicer than the final 1955 opening day version, as both the Monstro Flume ride and the Donald boats were great concepts.

I just love the simplicity and charm of early Disneyland pictures, videos and artwork.