Bonus Sunday

Welcome to Bonus Sunday. I hope your'e a train lover because today's post is all about trains, the Ghost Town & Calico Railway to be specific. This little book is dated 1953.






Download the entire book here **** Ghost Town and Calico Railway - 60mb *****






Half the book is the history of the Denver and Rio Grande narrow-gauge railway and the last half of the book is all about Knott's, here a few pages from the back half of the book.

Ghost Town & Calico Railway’s Grand Excursion Tickets

Time for some vintage Knott’s Berry Farm Tickets. But first here’s the cover to the 1953 booklet that tells the history of Denver and Rio Grande narrow-gauge railway and how it ties into the trains at Knott’s. Come back on Bonus Sunday for the entire booklet (59 pages) there’s some great early photos of the trains at Knott’s and lots of neat facts and drawings.





The Ghost Town and Calico Railway’s Grand Excursion tickets have always been pretty cool. They really go for authenticity; I think the different shaped punch marks are a nice touch. You can see the tickets got smaller over the years, the later version isn’t even on safety paper but at least it’s still only 50¢! The larger ticket is HUGE, these are scanned on an uncropped 18" by 12" piece of construction paper.





The Child tickets did see price increase somewhere along the way. No gun play in the lounge cars!





The back cover to the booklet, see the inside on Bonus Sunday.

Disneyland in Slides - July 1969

Let’s take a look at a couple of slides from July 1969. Do you suppose this was July 4, 1969? That banner looks pretty cool! Lots of neat people to check out, nice souvenir bag.




I’ve posted the large souvenir back before here (link) but here’s an exclusive look at the small souvenir bag - groovy baby.




It’s almost four O’clock according to Timex - I bet its still hot as heck!

Operation M.O.U.S.E. Money - Follow up - Part 2

This flyer promoting Operation Mouse was from at a post back in January 2009 (link).




Right after I posted the flyer in 2009 a blog reader contacted me and we made an exchange. I got myself a real Operation Mouse Money 50¢ coupon thing (link). As an added bonus it’s on that wonderful “castle and star” paper.





Notice the expiration date in 1969; these were literally “January Only”.





Another great blog reader recently sent me some great scans of more Operation Mouse Money, thank you Mr. Disney Dollar collector! This copy from Winter 68-69 Disney News came with the coupons.





Wow, a couple interesting things to note here. First, these are two different colors than my sample above? And neither one matches the colors of the samples in my flyer at the top? What gives?





Notice the expiration date; 1968? My flyer is dated 12/68 clearly intended for January 1969.





These “voids” have very low serial numbers; maybe these were tests done earlier in 1968 so it made sense to print 1968? Or maybe they did this promotion in 1968 as well as 1969? Jason, what’s the database got say on “Operation Mouse”?

People Magazine - March 10, 1980

Welcome to Magazine Monday. Britt Ekland graces the cover this March 10, 1980 edition of People Magazine.





This four page Disneyland article is in celebration of the park’s 25th anniversary. Since its People magazine they chose to highlight celebrity “People” at Disneyland over the past 25 years. Hey there’s Sophia Loren again (link).





I wonder if Jack Benny used the free tickets Walt gave him (link).





Anwar Sadat, Ernie Kovacs, Johnny Cash, Sir Lawrence Olivier – who hasn’t been to Disneyland?




Nixon’s, Osmond’s and Groucho Marx!





“Two men, Different as they could be… One, losing hope. The other, helping him find it again”. Wow this looks awful.





Who is this Larry King guy? I bet he can’t hold a steady job.





John Lennon just months before his tragic death.





Now for some advertisements. It’s hard to believe this was 31 years ago! Film, what’s that for?





Margarine you squeeze – it must be Parkay.





Automobiles were in a “transition “ in 1980. While I do like Oldsmobile’s, I happen to know firsthand these particular models were trouble prone and they're dreaming with those mileage estimates!





Ford was still stamping out Granada’s in 1980, this was the last year of the first generation Granada’s, which were pretty much a 1960 falcon underneath.




“Oh what a feeling” – Toyota couldn’t build these cute little cars fast enough. I like how the ad copy talks about the restyled front end yet doesn’t bother to show it to us?





Poor Dodge, even though Chrysler was bailed out by the US Government in late 1979 to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars in loan guarantees, they still had cars like this in the pipeline. While it actually looks kind of cool it is in reality a total pile of junk. I remember seeing these on Dodge lots in 1981 - acres of them, dusty and unwanted.





Remember when TV's had a picture tube and came enclosed in fine furniture?





Back when phones had cords and you could rent them from the phone company.





This “early” Early Pregnancy Test seems rather complex and scientific, that or it’s a mini meth lab?

YMCA’s Day at Disneyland! - March 4, 1967

Once again my calendar is broken so please pretend today is March 4th. It’s YMCA’s Day at Disneyland! This Disneyland News from March 1967 is the special YMCA Day Edition. You can OWN Disneyland for an hour before the park officially open to the public and the attractions are FREE during that hour – I bet that was a mad house!




Grand Prize is a family trip to Hawaii with hotel accommodations at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. I stayed there once as a kid in the 70’s, it was old then but super elegant and right on the beach!





Go ahead, start singing it..