Author: Doug Marsh
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The Official Opening of Bayou Country Marks a Fourth Location for a Venerable Disneyland Attraction
Take a look at the only attraction to appear in four lands at Disneyland, without having to move through its long history.
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A Big Change – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
This month, Doug looks back at the era of Paul Pressler and analyzes the impact it had.
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Farewell to a Classic Attraction – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
This month Doug takes a look back at the Skyway, 30 years after it took to the skies over The Happiest Place on Earth for the last time.
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A (Mostly) Ever Changing Landscape – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
Every now and then I try to offer a stroll around the park, usually with an eye to seeing how much the Disneyland “landscape” has changed over thirty years. This month though… I’m not so sure. For example, this is what Main Street Station looked like in the fall of 1994. Is that a big…
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Disneyland Railroad History on Display
Learn about the history of the Disneyland Railroad while it currently is being refurbished at The Happiest Place on Earth!
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Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio Square is Dedicated in Los Feliz
Disney Bros. Cartoon Studios Square is dedicated in Los Feliz with a ceremony and other special offerings.
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Disney’s ‘So Dear To My Heart’ (1948) Depot – Disney On Location
Take a look at where this train station from ‘So Dear to My Heart’ came from and went in this Disney on Location!
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Souvenir Guidebook 1994 – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
Take a look at the 1994 Souvenir Guidebook for Disneyland on this newest edition of 30 Years Ago at Disneyland!
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Looking Forward to the Fortieth – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
Just a few days ago we were celebrating a rather low key 69th birthday at Disneyland. Everyone knows that they will be pulling out the stops for next year’s milestone 70th. Thirty years ago, the situation was kind of similar, except that the marketing mavens at the Happiest Place on Earth wanted to be sure…
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A Lost Experience: The Original 1989 Disney-MGM Backstage Studio Tour
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the opening of the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park (now Disney Hollywood Studios) in Florida. No other Disney park has gone through as much of a change, or has had as thorough a shift from its original guest experience as this one. Indeed, so swift were certain changes that…
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Pollyanna (1960) Opening Credits – Disney On Location
Walt Disney Productions began making live action films at a time that American studios had begun placing a greater emphasis on location shooting. The 1960 Disney release Pollyanna was shot largely on soundstages in Hollywood, but several key sequences were shot on location in Santa Rosa and the Napa Valley. This column will be devoted…
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Busy Summer Nights – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
The return (again!) of Fantasmic! brought back some very specific memories of Disneyland from thirty years ago. These days, crowds jostling to get good viewing spots for the nighttime spectacular have no idea what it was like back in the early 1990s. In previous columns I have already touched on those first season adjustments that…
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More Construction Mysteries – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
The last couple of months have been spent unraveling some mysterious (for the time) construction that was taking place out in the parking lot to the west of the entrance to Disneyland. Early in 1994 all was revealed when the construction of the Indiana Jones Adventure was officially announced, and a big construction wall went…
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A Construction Mystery – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
The January, 1994 opening of Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin started the year off on a high note at Disneyland. By now, fans had grown to expect something new and exciting on a fairly regular basis. After all, we were approaching the middle of “The Disney Decade.” Even walking through the vast parking lot that…
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Toontown Redux – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
If you were reading this blog a year ago (and I sincerely hope you were), you were sharing the excitement of the grand opening of Mickey’s Toontown, on January 24, 1993. Or January 26th. Or the 25th. (You will have to check out last year’s blog to figure that one out.) And what are we…
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New Orleans Square’s Old New Waterfront – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
The last new “land” that Walt Disney personally dedicated at Disneyland was New Orleans Square. The appearance of the deceptively small area has remained pretty much the same since that July 24, 1966 day, with winding streets and secluded courtyards creating the illusion that it is much larger. One important area of New Orleans Square…
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The Arrival of the Partners – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
Do you remember “The Globe of Death?” If you do, it will remain only a vivid memory. That is because, thirty years ago this month, Disneyland dedicated the Partners statue at the center of the park, creating a permanent tribute to the man who started it all, and the mouse that he said started it…
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Santa Returns for His Annual Holiday Visit to Redwood Creek Challenge Trail
For many Disneyland Resort guests, no visit during the holidays is complete until they have paid a call on Santa Claus. As he has for the last several years, Santa, with his elves, is greeting one and all at the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail in Disney California Adventure. Those mischievous elves love to play games,…
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That Christmas Playlist on Main Street, USA – Day Twenty-Three – 23 Days of Thanksgiving
Disneyland holds many things for which I am thankful. With the arrival of the holidays, a big one is the annual return of that familiar Christmas music on Main Street, USA. Who doesn’t love the warmth and nostalgia of Main Street, forever preserved as a quaint microcosm of small-town America, poised on the brink of…
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Step Inside the Reimagined Adventureland Treehouse and Meet Its New Residents
There’s a new family in town! The town, in this instance, is Adventureland, and the new family has moved into that spacious treehouse. The Disneyodendron Semperflorens Grandis (that means “large, everblooming Disney tree,” for those who do not speak Latin) was originally home to the Swiss Family Robinson, and in recent years to Tarzan and…
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I’m Thankful For Big Pieces of Colorful Plastic – Day Twenty – 23 Days of Thanksgiving
Most people tend to get lofty when giving thanks. Or else they consider “the little things,” easily overlooked until brought out and magnified in thoughtful prose. Today’s meditation is neither of these. This is about being thankful for big pieces of colorful plastic. Specifically, themed souvenir popcorn buckets and other food-adjacent ephemera offered up at…
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I Am Thankful For Mickey Mouse – Day Eighteen – 23 Days of Thanksgiving
As every Disney fan is well aware, November 18 is the “birthday” of Mickey Mouse. It was Disney archivist Dave Smith who established the “once and for all” birthdays for Disney characters, based on their first film appearance for the public. Some may quibble with that, but I for one am thankful that Mickey’s birthday…
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Souvenir Guidebook and Disneyland Today – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
If you read this column last year, you may recall we explored the 1992 Disneyland Souvenir Guide, which weighed in at a hefty 32 pages. This month, we will be looking at the 1993 Souvenir Guidebook. The addition of “book” to the guide was most appropriate, as it had expanded to no less than 36…
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No Longer Banking on Main Street – 30 Years Ago at Disneyland
Last month’s article was all about an auspicious early July opening (Aladdin’s Oasis, if you missed it). This month’s is all about a quiet closure that took place near the end of July. One of Main Street’s older tenants, in continuous operation since 1955 in fact, closed its doors for the last time on July…