Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Amy & Greg at the Magic Kingdom (1979)

While last week we looked at a childhood photo of mine taken at EPCOT Center, this week it's time to dive into Amy's past. For that we jump back to 1979 and a family vacation she took to Florida.

Here we see adorable little Amy (age 3½) at the Magic Kingdom with her brother Greg (age 7), posing for a photo in front of Cinderella Castle.  Of course, Amy has her Mickey Mouse stuffed animal, with the pose looking like an affectionate sister/brother moment.  However, in reality, Amy was trying to brush away Greg's arm in a "hey, don't touch me" sort of way!

Over the years Amy & I have had fun adding our own captions to this photo.  What's yours?

Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

World Showcase Omnibus (1985)

The year is 1985. The place is EPCOT Center.

While my parents had taken me to Walt Disney World before, this was my first "memorable" trip, which I experienced at age 10. EPCOT Center was just 3 years old at the time. That vacation had quite an impact on me becoming a Disney theme park enthusiast.

Today's photo — taken with a Kodak Instamatic 126 film camera and cropped accordingly — spotlights the World Showcase Omnibus, a double-decker vehicle that used to provide transportation for guests to visit the various countries around World Showcase Lagoon. It was phased out in the mid-1990s, probably because it couldn't contain a gift shop, timeshare information stand, or pin trading station.

Standing in front of the bus is my little sister Karen (age 7), sporting a lovely red Walt Disney World visor… and I'm not sure what she's really doing with her hands. I'm standing cluelessly next to her in my 1985 Walt Disney World shirt (I wore that thing a TON!) and tan EPCOT Center visor. To be honest, I'm not sure if we actually ever rode the bus!

Nevertheless, they are missed in World Showcase, as the buses provided motion, activity, and a unique sense of place.

Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Vintage WDW Logo on SpectroMagic (2009)

Did you know that Walt Disney World celebrates its 40th Anniversary this year? Probably not, given that Disney doesn't seem to care about individual park milestones these days, instead favoring global "Disney Parks" marketing campaigns usually promoting some derivative of "Wishes/Dreams/Magic blah blah."

Today's photo is one of the opening units for the SpectroMagic Parade, a long running nighttime experience at the Magic Kingdom. It debuted in 1991 as a replacement for the Main Street Electrical Parade, and aside from a few hiatuses, has lit up for almost 2 decades now. It was mothballed last year when Walt Disney World's Summer Nightastic campaign brought back the Main Street Electrical Parade once again… which continues to run.

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It's Thursday, which means it's time to once again celebrate Theme Park Thursdays. Here we post a photo from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Steve wants Old Management to return! (2006)

This photo is from January 2006 and was shot at Walt Disney World, specifically the Magic Kingdom. Here I'm standing out in front of one of my favorite attractions, the Tiki Room. Unfortunately, since 1998 this attraction has been known as The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management… and has been horrible.

While the original attraction opened at Walt Disney World in 1971, it was rebooted in the late 1990s to make it "hip and edgy," mainly through the inclusion of Iago (from Aladdin) and Zazu (from The Lion King). The storyline was changed to these two birds being the "new owners," with a postmodern take on music and dialog to follow.

And it's bad.

In an interesting twist of fate, while I was at Walt Disney World for a conference in January, a fire broke out in the Tiki Room ceiling. It hasn't reopened since. There are rumors that maybe the show is being changed out to something else. Here's hoping!

The other day I was rereading Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality, a book by Alain Littaye & Didier Dhez.  This 320-page hardcover pictorial documents the history of Disney's park in France, first known as Euro Disneyland.  Originally written in French and featuring many photos, detailed stories, and concept art, I was able to get one of 3,000 limited copies of the English edition a few years ago.

1999's "El" Train: Chicago

The above image from the book caught my eye because it mentioned Chicago, but is illustrated as to reflect a 1900's Victorian view of the future.  Posters like the above for many U.S. cities sit in Disneyland Paris' Discovery Arcade, one of two "back hallways" that run parallel to Main Street U.S.A. — a feature unique to the Paris park.

All I know is that Chicago sure didn't look like that in 1999! It is interesting, however, to note that the art was probably done by a non-Chicagoan, as we use the 'L' as shorthand for our train cars, not 'El'.  In any case, I'd totally want to ride a train through a steampunk-inspired world that reflected the writings of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. But I'm sure there would also be some sort of Windy City corruption that would ruin it all. And then the mayor would probably want to privatize the rail cars or something. Don't get me started on the air traffic problems we'd probably see at O'Hare with that flying hot air balloon/plane thingy.

Maybe it's good that we didn't get this type of future after all!

It's time for another Theme Park Thursday photo. This one is from Disney's California Adventure…

Amy loves Disney's California Adventure (2005)

In January 2005, Amy & I got to travel to California for a conference I worked while on staff with Kidology.  For me, it was my first visit to the West Coast.  More importantly, it was my first visit to Disneyland, the mother park!  In typical Tanner fashion, it pretty much rained the entire time we were there.  We got to spend 2 days at the Disneyland Resort, which gave us a chance not only to check out Disneyland, but also explore the park that everyone loves to hate, Disney's California Adventure.

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Even though I've written many stories about our trips to Disney theme parks, there are often photos and situations that never get told. So I had this idea to start what I'm calling "Theme Park Thursdays." Basically, I'll post a photo or two from a previous trip and jot down a couple of words about it. Well, at least that's the idea. We'll see how it works in the coming weeks!

Dusk approaches on Crescent Lake (2009)

In December 2009, my family was given the fortunate opportunity to rent a Disney Vacation Club villa from a friend, giving us a week at the Beach Club near Epcot around Christmastime. Given that we typically camped at Walt Disney World (Fort Wilderness Forever!), this was quite a different experience.

One of the highlights for me was the entire well-themed Boardwark area set around Crescent Lake, which joins the Yacht Club, Beach Club, Boardwalk, Swan, and Dolphin resorts together. The lights and setting were quite magical!

Recently a tweet I wrote about Disney's release of Fantasia on Blu-ray was republished in a children's ministry-oriented magazine:

Tannerman tweets!

I'm flattered that it was included, even though it really didn't have much to do with ministry. For those curious about the censorship I mentioned, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

The 1969 theatrical release of Fantasia included the removal of the Sunflower character, a centaur depicted as an African-American girl in the Pastoral Symphony segment.

Censored scene in "Fantasia"

According to The Memory Hole, "Performing menial duties for the blonde, white female centaurs, Sunflower is a racial stereotype along the lines of Amos and Andy, Buckwheat, and Aunt Jemima". John Carnochan, the editor responsible for the change, said "It's sort of appalling to me that these stereotypes were ever put in". The edit has been in place in all theatrical and home video releases since 1969.

These edits resulted in 3 short scenes being cut. They've never appeared on a DVD release, so there was hope that in the "restored" Blu-ray release these scenes would appear. No such luck.

Disney just continues to edit the film without saying a word. Of course, this isn't the only film they've post-humorously edited "for modern audiences." It's quite a long list!

I was recently looking at some old View-Master reels through my "new" viewer when I came upon this booklet for a Disney-themed set.  Back when View-Master reels came in paper packets, they often included multi-page booklets that further explained each shot, such as this from a G3-style packet.

Walt Disney World Fantasyland View-Master Booklet Cover

Through various ownership changes, View-Master dropped the use of packets and shifted to bundling reels in blisterpacks, eliminating all included supplements like order forms and paper booklets.  Today's View-Master sets ironically focus mostly on cartoon and preschool properties, but we no longer get to view the type of artwork featured on the cover of the Fantasyland set that I've shown here.  So take some time to enjoy this nice 1970s montage of things found in the land, in great contrast to what we'd probably see today (i.e. there's only 1 princess featured!)

Can you identify the ride depicted in the image that is no longer found in WDW's Fantasyland?

In January, I got to travel to Florida for a few days to attend the Children's Pastors' Conference on behalf of Kidology. Lucky for me, the event took place on the grounds of Walt Disney World, specifically at the convention facilities of Coronado Springs (which we stayed at back in 2006 for the same event).

While we were all there in the official capacity of being exhibitors, we did get away from the convention every now and then. One afternoon we decided to hop the bus over to Downtown Disney for a bite to eat… and then this photo was taken:

Why is Steve perplexed?

As I sit in my yellow jacket between my coworker Daniel and my boss Karl, I really have to wonder what I was thinking at the time.