Friday, December 18, 2009

WALT DISNEY WORLD'S 1971 JUNGLE CRUISE POSTER compared with DISNEYLAND'S 1956 JUNGLE RIVER:AND THE DEBUT OF THE FIRST SECOND GENERATION ATTRACTION POSTER

Ahh......Major Pepperidge: if you look closely, WED designers DID alter the Disneyland poster for Walt Disney World's set of 1971 attraction posters!

WDW : Walt Disney World's poster is titled "JUNGLE CRUISE" (the first poster to use this nomenclature!)
    DL :  Disneyland's poster is titled "JUNGLE RIVER"
             ***if you look carefully you can see where one of the screen layers was left open for the
                    "RIVER" wording, but  "CRUISE" has been added on the WDW 1971 version--
                   by the late 60's even Disneyland had stopped using the title Jungle River.

WDW: The boat is named "Congo Connie"
    DL : Disneyland's poster "Congo Queen"

WDW: poster size is 30" x45"
     DL: poster size is 36" x 54"

          small alterations yes, buy does differentiate the two as being from Anaheim or Florida!

in 1975 many of the posters were starting to be completely revised. First was the Disneyland Railroad Bicentennial Special 1976.......the artwork for the regular version of this  poster was also created at this time, but not screened until 1977. This is the very first of the NEW GENERATION ATTRACTION POSTERS, spearheaded by WED illustration wizard Jim Michaelson.  The 1976 complete redo of  the JUNGLE CRUISE was the first of these new "WINDOW BOX" style posters...............most feature  themed "framing" around a center scene with elaborate decoration and trim around the boarders......... These posters were done  with the intention of creating posters that could be used at both parks. As much as the simple crisp-graphics of the attraction posters of the 50's and 60's are so appealing to us today,  by the mid 70's they very highly outdated and out-of-style looking compared to the graphic trends of the day.

Walt Disney World's "JUNGLE CRUISE" (1971) attraction poster

it's Disneyland predecessor

Florida's first "WINDOW BOX" attraction poster series --notice how this has been designed so that you cannot tell if it is imagery for Disneyland or Walt Disney World.
not all the "WINDOW BOX" posters would be like this. "Eventually we used some tricks to keep some of the production costs down a bit" said Ken Kerr-a WED graphic designer----of on the Imagineers I interviewed years ago for my attraction poster book. "We did things like, show WDW's Space Mountain exterior, but show a Disneyland rocket sled".......Ken remarked regarding the SPACE MOUNTAIN attraction poster. If you look closely--it's faint.......you can see the WDW WEDWAY track structure behind the Space Mountain building.
       

The "grandaddy" of the the second generation attraction posters........The Disneyland Railroad Bicentennial Special" (1976) by Jim Michaelson.  These were some of the most complicated posters EVER created........and not just among Disney theme parks.


The is  the beautiful general edition of this poster........also an elaborate serigraph poster.......


This is a 1972 version of THE COUNTRY BEAR JAMBOREE shown in use at Disneyland under the Main Street train station. It is the first known attraction poster to feature BOTH Disneyland AND Walt Disney World's name on it at the same time. A forerunner to the second generation "Window box" posters.


Ken Kerr mentioned they drafted up plans do redo most of the major attractions......20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA........THE MATTERHORN BOBSLEDS.........THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE......some
we got going..............others we couldn't justify the costs at the time. .......................and with that I'll explain more about these "other" posters in another post.

3 comments:

  1. I stand corrected! I sure love all of the info that you are sharing. Those WDW posters are incredible, have you ever seen even one with your own eyes? I wonder if they were all destroyed.

    THANKS!

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  2. Mike,

    Fantastic blog, my brother just sent me the link.

    I was wondering about your attraction poster book that you mentioned in this post. I couldn't find it on amazon so I assume it's not out presently, can you tell us all a little more about it?

    Thanks!

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  3. Hi there ... I’m hoping you still get these comments. I am curious about the DL Railroad poster that has the smaller thumbnail and you credit that poster to calling it the “beautiful general edition” version and I think you said it was an elaborate serigraph. I think I just purchased that verson, it looks to have a built in white border, Disney in the lower left corner... and measures about 11 X 15. Can you date that poster edition? Where did they sell them, what era? Would appreciate any info. Hoping I didn’t get scammed.

    Gil

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