Here's some more Disneyland walkaround costumes. I'll start with Captain Hook from...I'm guessing...the early 1970s. Yikes!
The park seems to have had trouble with this character. In the photos I've seen they never seem to get it right. Here (above) the character has a boxy face and shark eyes. I admit that it's kinda' funny, but....he's not the animated Disney Hook. No way.
Here's (above) a Disney redo of the costume and this time it is Hook, but it's a different Hook. It looks like Cyril Richard from the Mary Martin live action Peter Pan. Richard made a great Hook but so did Hans Conried. Why would Disney abandon its own character in favor of someone else's interpretation? Strange...very strange.
So far as I know, the Hook costume likeness that came closest to the one in the animated film was a Halloween mask by the famous mask maker, Don Post. I have one of those (above), and it looks great.
Another character the studio had trouble with seems to have been Minnie Mouse. Here she is looking like a dog (above). She's standing beside Pluto who actually is a dog but who looks more like a chicken here.
Actually these costumes are probably the Ice Capades costumes that Walt borrowed for the opening of Disneyland. Poor Walt. He doesn't look very happy with what he's seeing.
Here's Mickey and Minnie from an earlier Disney era, before Disneyland. It was common for licensed dolls and costumes of the day to look horrific and amateurish. That's odd because because that period coincided with the Golden Age of American illustration.
HAW! These costumes (above) are from 1931 and probably weren't designed by the studio. They look like some kind of bondage outfit filtered through a Silent Hill sensibility.
This story has a happy ending, though. Eventually most of the costumes (above) were done right.
Well, actually it doesn't have a happy ending, because during the hippy period the costume (above) designs started to degenerate again. What happened?
Maybe somebody thought the old costumes were too scary for kids. I doubt that kids felt that way. I'll bet they loved them.
I think the boy in the 6th picture from above is afraid to get executed by these creatures from hell XD
ReplyDeleteI guess companies just like to corporatize stuff overtime that works thinking they don't have to put much effort into their product once it's been a massive success.
ReplyDeleteGreat post -- there's a whole book that needs to be written on the de-evolution of cartoon imagery at Disneyland, and across American culture in general, frankly. Just a casual comparison between the toys, walk-around costumes and Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloons of the past with what passes for them (blecch!) today shows a slow but definite deterioration. What the hell happened?
ReplyDeleteJohannes: Haw!
ReplyDeleteRoberto, Mike:
I'd really like to understand how good things degenerate. My guess is that a new and trendy idea (in this case political correctness/shielding kids from violent images) becomes more important in peoples' minds than than the timeless ideals of beauty and intellectual stimulation.
There may be more to it than that, though. I'll try to do a post about it sometime.
The Big Bad Wolf in both pics doesn't have much difference, except maybe the eyes.
ReplyDeleteI remember those Don Post masks too. I have one of the Big Bad Wolf actually, and it looks more like as he appeared in the cartoons than the official park suits. (I'm using it for the head on my Big Bad Wolf fursuit actually...)
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/wile_e2005/16186524/328453/328453_600.jpg
Wile-e: Nice mask! For an adult it could have been a little bigger, but it's still definitely worth having!
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