Chapter 128
It’s a Jolly Holiday

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(Originally posted January 2, 2014)

Of course, the centerpiece of the exhibit—which we were really excited about—was the Mary Poppins retrospective. Here are some storyboards from “Jolly Holiday.”

The banner from the premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

This letter from PL Travers could be said to have inspired the ending of Saving Mr. Banks, as it highlights how much she was impressed by the film at the time. Having now seen (and really enjoyed) the new movie, I wish I could understand the real, non-dramatized Travers a little better. I can’t imagine how she wrote a letter like this highly praising the film but spent the rest of her life despising it as much as she ever did to begin with. It just seems like she was quite the piece of work…

Here were the original carrousel horses from the Jolly Holiday scene. Mary’s was in much better shape than Bert’s.

And here are some of the most iconic costumes and props from one of the greatest films of all time.

As we went out toward the exit from the Treasures exhibit, we passed through the gallery of fan art, and I loved this homage to Disneyland and Walt’s love for “Feed the Birds.”

The whole Treasures of the Archives exhibit had definitely not been what we were expecting, but we enjoyed it. I thought it was an interesting decision to focus so heavily on the three different franchises they chose, but I was glad to see so many interesting pieces of Disney history.

We exited the Treasures exhibit and went back to the show floor where Tracy made her big Expo purchase. The D23 luggage from American Tourister had caught her eye the first time we walked by the booth the previous day, and she decided to buy this bag.

We walked back into the Collector’s Forum and saw that Bill Farmer (aka the voice of Goofy) was back there signing autographs. We didn’t have anything exciting for him to sign and didn’t really know what we would say if we met him, but it was fun lurking nearby his table for a minute and listening to how much he sounds like the character when he talks.

We went back to the WDW Radio booth once more to check out who they were interviewing now. It happened to be this artist who makes really cool sculptures out of paper. Here she is holding the one she had done of Alice in Wonderland.

At this point, we had a decision to make. We thought about trying the standby line at the Voices of the Disney Parks panel, but we changed our minds. You see, the most alluring event of the entire Expo—at least in Tracy and my minds—was tonight’s concert featuring legendary composers Richard Sherman and Alan Menken. Every other event truly paled in comparison to the concert, but we knew it was going to be EXTREMELY popular. In fact, we’d heard grumblings that people would begin camping out in line for this particular presentation overnight (I don’t think that actually happened…).

We realized, in the end, that we really wanted to see the concert, even if it meant giving up the better part of our afternoon/evening to wait in line. So we decided to skip the Voices panel (and any other panels for that matter) so that we could start lining up as soon as necessary to absolutely guarantee seats in the arena.

It was still early yet at this point, and we wanted to take a second walk through the Imagineering pavilion because there had been so much to see the night before that we KNEW we’d missed plenty.

The line was long yet again, but we waited. Tracy was wearing the necklace she made, featuring cut up pieces of an old Disneyland ticket book. I think it’s really cool.

While we waited, the big blue curtain in the center of the show floor was supposed to be coming down any minute now. They had already illuminated the Tomorrowland sign behind it, so it wasn’t really a secret what was coming.

Right as we were about to head into Imagineering, the curtain actually came down, but we were on our way back into the pavilion, so we couldn’t really see what was included behind it.

We tried to be a little more methodical about visiting every single outpost in the Imagineering pavilion this time around to be sure we didn’t miss anything.

Our first stop was one part we’d skipped the previous day, where we got to see several original pieces of concept art for Disneyland. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but we got to see three amazing drawings up close.

First was a very early design by Harper Goff (when Disneyland was still planned for Burbank). The park wasn’t very recognizable, but it did feature some elements that would make it into Disneyland, including the Rivers of America. (These pictures are obviously not mine since we weren’t allowed to take any).

Second, we went into a room where we got to see the famous sketch by Herb Ryman, which mapped out the hub-and-spokes Disneyland that actually came to pass. I’ve heard the story MANY times about Herb and Walt sitting in a room all weekend, subsisting off coffee and sandwiches, while they got this sketch ready for Roy to take to present to potential investors, and seeing such an important piece of Disney history truly left me awestruck. I think I got chills being in the same room with it and seeing the very defined pencil marks that mapped out the original design for the place we know and love.

The third and final room of this mini-exhibit featured the Peter Ellenshaw painting that almost accurately depicts how Disneyland actually came to pass.

This painting was done so that Walt could present the park to the world on the Disneyland television show, and it was really beautiful. One of the coolest things about this room—and one of the coolest things about the entire pavilion—was that Ellenshaw had actually painted the lighting for Disneyland using black light paint (adding dots of light to every window and streetlamp). When viewed under a black light, it showed a relatively accurate depiction of Disneyland after dark. We were told that it had never been shown to the public with a black light before, but after a few minutes of seeing it in the light, the lighting transitioned to black lighting, and we were able to see the painting in all its glory.

After viewing these three masterpieces, Tracy and I once again found ourselves noting that it felt like we had recouped the entire price of admission to the Expo in the last few minutes.

Here are a few of the other things we noticed for the first time as we went through this pavilion for the second time.

The room devoted to the painting process was really cool because they can make flat surfaces look SO textured.

HATBOX GHOST.

We got to see Abe Lincoln’s head up close this time and watch as he did part of his speech. It was both fascinating and incredibly creepy.

We also got to control the little Destini animatronic using levers. It was all just an amazing look into what goes on behind the scenes.

Finally, we went into the room where you could do a virtual ride-thru of several attractions. The ones for Mystic Manor and the Seven Dwarfs’ Mine Train were both very interesting, but it was also fun riding thru Radiator Springs Racers since it’s an attraction we’ve been on tens of times and could compare the mockup to the final result (in case you were wondering, the model was almost identical to the actual attraction).

We exited the Imagineering pavilion back out onto the show floor and saw that a big crowd had formed around the new Tomorrowland exhibit.

We wanted to check it out, but they were giving out return times for the exhibit rather than letting you wait in line. The return time we got was, unfortunately, when we already planned to be in line for the concert. We had to chalk this display up as one of the things we wouldn’t get to see at the Expo, but from what I’ve heard, the exhibit was more confusing to see than it was illuminating. I’m sure it will all make much more sense once the Tomorrowland movie is released.

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