Today we're taking a look at my Disneyland Fun Map, copyright 1968. This style of map was sold in the park for years, and even when newer versions were released, they often built upon the base earlier maps such as this provided. It was drawn by
Sam McKim, the master of this type of souvenir. Anyway, let's take a closer look at what's pictured! I apologize for the okay quality of these images, as I wasn't up to try and piece together larger pictures with our tiny printer scanner!
Just as almost every similar map ever produced, there's a transcript of Walt Disney's opening day speech and a great old-school variant of the familiar Disneyland logo in the bottom right hand corner.
Before we enter the park, take a quick look at the Disneyland Hotel. You can ride the elevator to the Top of the Park lounge, play several types of golf, and even ride a Helicopter to and from LAX!
The old arrangement of the entrance leads straight under the train station and into Town Square. One of the many minute details is the trains of the Disneyland Railroad, which are all labeled by their names and function (in this case, "passenger train").
Journeying up Main Street, USA, we get an accurate listing of all of the shops present during the era. I like how the more important listings are bolded (hence
Candle Shop vs. Silhouette Studio), and attractions, like the Main St. Cinema, get a star by their name.
Sleeping Beauty Castle is nicely lined up with the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship, but the King Arthur Carousel and Mad Tea Party have been slightly rearranged for some artistic license. There's also no Big Thunder Trail at this time.
Moving to the left at the Hub, we come across the Jungle Cruise. You've got to love the boats with their festive, striped canopies! In the Adventureland shopping area, iis really a shame that the "Big Game Shoot" has gone to Yesterland. :-)
Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion are two of the most interesting components on this map, for the reason that they show the attraction "show buildings" in the proper location behind the railroad tracks. The Haunted Mansion is marked with a blue X as a "future attraction," but Pirates has all of its scenes labeled.
Panning out a bit, we see the grand expanse of the Rivers of America. There's also Nature's Wonderland in the upper right, and you can really see how the waterways of both areas were connected here. Still, though, you have to appreciate the extensive labeling, right down to "Catfish Cove" on Tom Sawyer Island. I understand that some of the earlier maps went even more in depth! Check out the neat line art and Indian Village.
We've already glimpsed Fantasyland, so let's jump across the park to Tomorrowland. The second of the two "future attractions" on this map is the "Spaceport and Rocket Flight," which of course evolved into Space Mountain. But unlike the Haunted Mansion, this process was over a much longer period of time, as Space Mountain didn't open until 1977.
Here's the rest of Tomorrowland. There are some slight differences in this upper corner of the park today: the Motor Boat Cruise and Skyway have been lost, along with the Fantasyland Autopia. The Peoplemover also isn't running to tie everything together any longer.
These souvenir "Fun Maps" are literally so cool, and I wish that all theme parks had artists on hand that could have designed something like this. I can say that I, for one, would be able to pour over them for hours, especially if they included such a sheer amount of detail as this one.
I hope that you have enjoyed your trip to Disneyland, c. 1968!
8 comments:
This is my favorite edition of the Disneyland wall maps, but I do have many of them on up to 2005 when I believe the last one was produced. The Disneyland wall maps along with the pictorial souvenir booklets and postcards were a favorite souvenirs to buy when visiting Disneyland in the old days. It was the best way to remember my trips.
I literally poured over my Disneyland wall maps for hours and hours when I was a kid and one of them I looked at so much that it became worn out so I got another in better condition on eBay.
Thanks for another great post, Andrew!
Thanks for reading, K. Martinez! I've also heard that DL Fun Maps were made through the 50th, and the one made that year looks to be exemplary. I'm sure that you would have to pay premium price for it, though. If they brought back selling detailed wall maps back, it would be successful, and it would be something else they could easily over-charge for. Thanks for sharing your story about your obsession with the maps - I've definitely read similar!
I've always loved these maps. I remember when I was probably three or four going to a family reunion at my mother's cousin's house, and they had a framed map of Disneyland (probably this one, since that would have been in 1972-73) hanging on the wall of their basement rec room. A family member held me up for a long time to get a good look at it.
A few years later, my little sister and I were with my mother at one of her friend's houses, and to keep us from getting bored while they visited, the friend pulled out a Disneyland map which I then pored over for the entire visit, spread out on the living room floor. That's the first time I remember seeing the Space Mountain art on the map.
I finally managed to talk my parents into buying a map on my final childhood visit in 1976 (my sister got one, too). Like Ken's maps, it wore out along the folds.
My wife and I picked up one in 1995 during the 40th anniversary. While we were waiting in the parking lot at a temporary post office to have post cards postmarked with the special July 17, 1995 cancellation, there was a person in front of us who had a 1995 map that she had put a 1968 6¢ Walt Disney stamp on. The value of that map increased the moment it was postmarked, but I think it would have been neat to have a map with a postmark that proved I was there that day. Wish I'd thought of it myself.
I think part of my fascination with the maps is not only what they show, but the way they get away with not showing things in a way that still reinforces the memories. Look at Main Street, or Pirates of the Caribbean, or the tunnel housing the Grand Canyon Diorama and Primeval World - the roofs are just flat, gray expanses. It's like seeing them in an aerial photograph.
That in itself isn't all that interesting to look at (look at the Haunted Mansion show building). But then they put labels on them, showing which shop is where or roughly where individual show scenes are, which makes it infinitely more interesting and a valuable record of what you saw. I think that's pure genius.
Thanks for sharing this Andrew, and congratulations on this great find!
I loved reading your Disneyland map memories, Chuck! This map is also slightly worn out along the folds; I wonder if it too was treasured by someone? That's a great idea to get a postmark on a map. I guess you could do that with any other paper souvenir, too! I find it funny that Disney set up a temporary post office solely for that purpose; that kind of lavishness was what they did every 5 years back then, I guess. And you're right - date verification = $$$ on eBay. The flat roofs are definitely true-to-life, but it would have been even better if there were cutaways on Pirates or the dioramas that showed the actual scenes in that area of the show building. I guess that might be showing too much of a "behind the scenes" look, though. Thanks again for such an awesome and detailed comment, Chuck!
My brother and I used to also spend a lot of time going over our souvenir wall maps, not only after a recent park trip, but also before a park trip, so that we could talk about what we wanted to see and do on our next visit.
And yes, those maps sure did have a lot of "labeling" on them. I guess I never really focused on how some of the labels were in bold print. I wonder how they decided what to put in bold print and what not to?
As with Ken, this is my favorite version of the wall maps. Not too long after this, they stopped including the DL Hotel down in the corner of the map, and always replaced it with whatever the park's next "future attraction" was.
I believe at one time, Disney sold the earlier versions of these maps, already mounted and framed, without the "folds" in them. I also knew someone who had one of the maps framed and they said they had bought it that way at DL. I knew someone else, who's parents found one at a garage sale and it was also already mounted and framed, without the "folds."
Chuck, I was also there on July 17, 1995 and got several items stamped with the special DL postmark. But unfortunately, I didn't have a Walt Disney postage stamp with me!
Thanks for sharing this item, Andrew!
Thanks for the great info about the maps, TokyoMagic!! Preparation before any park visit is always one of the most exciting parts for me. That's interesting how they stopped featuring the Hotel; I wonder if Wrather Corp. wanted them to show it for some reason, and they didn't feel the need once they owned it themselves. But that acquisition wouldn't happen until many years after 1968. Yes, the folds are the biggest detraction from the map's quality. Why couldn't they have just been sold rolled up? Who knows, you could've been right behind Chuck in line that day... I'm glad you enjoyed the post, TokyoMagic!
I have (had?) one of these. I think it was a little later date, I seem to remember having bear country, not the indian village, but the helicopter was still landing on the hotel, and Space Mountain was called Space Mountain, so maybe 1974-75.
There was a special 1976 edition with Bicentennial graphics added, and mine was before that. I have a fairly high-res scan of that one that I made into a PDF, and it is still fun to look over when things are slow.
Thanks for this post and hearing everyone's stories. Really brings back memories.
JG
It's nice to hear from you here, JG. The Bicentennial version of the map you mentioned sounds interesting. Thanks for reading.
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