Weeki Wachee Springs is a wonderful State Park in Florida with both a vintage roadside attraction vibe and a natural habitat reality. While taking a trip down the Weeki Wachee River, I saw this tree on a perfect day for photography:
c.2009
What can one say? The shape of the tree with the Spanish Moss draping from it with a aquamarine sky behind it simply begged to be photographed!
If I was to be a bit picky about the image, I’d wish that the foliage in the top left corner wasn’t intruding into the shot. But sometimes nature doesn’t cooperate and has its own ideas about composition.
Old timey goodness comes from obsolete technology, don’t you agree? And what is more outdated than this gem from RCA, the SelectaVision VideoDisc player and movie discs.
I still remember living next to a convenience store that had a movie rental area in the back. But they weren’t renting the new fangled VHS format movies! Nope. They had dozens and dozens of SelectaVision VideoDiscs instead, and you had to rent the player with the movies.
Each VideoDisc was the size of a LP record (33 1/3 rpm format – 12″) and had to be inserted into the player with the cover. Once inside, you flipped the switch down (on the right, in the image above) and that unlocked the cover, which you then pulled out, leaving the disc inside. But you weren’t done yet! It only played half the movie. You had to stop part way through, flip the switch, reinsert the cover, flip the switch again, take the cover out, turn it over, reinsert it again, flip the switch yet again, and then pull the cover out again. This would allow you to play Side Two. Easy Peasy.
All that just to watch something like this:
RCA first got this technology completely right in September of 1972. They created a disc that contained ten minutes of a Get Smart TV show. But it wasn’t long before they licensed movies from all of the major studios and thus we have the titles that are shown in this post.
But before we get to more of those, have a look at some promotional footage for the RCA SelectaVision VideoDisc system:
RCA had formally started their VideoDisc project in 1964, when a four man team assembled to determine how to go about making video recordings on a high density version of a phonograph record. Yes, a black piece of round plastic! Let’s have a look at one of these high density phonographs by looking at what is inside one of the covers:
I was amazed to find writing on the disc! The disc is never out of the cover unless it’s released inside the player, so no one was ever meant to see what you are seeing now. So having a detailed copyright warning where no one will ever see it just goes to show how crazy Disney is about protecting their IPs!
And how did I get it out? Take a look:
Each cover has two tabs hidden in the top corners (Left Image, above). When you depress these, it releases the tray that holds the disc (Right Image, above). Normally the lever on the player would do this, but I used a pen to see what was inside.
Okay, time for some more titles that I have, but sadly, can never play because I don’t actually have an RCA player:
Obviously, as I said, I can’t play any of these titles but I collect them for the artwork and text they contain. But who knows? Maybe someday I’ll find a player that I can justify buying. They sell for between $150 and $300 US on selling sites! The discs are more reasonable at between $2.00 and $10.00 US, each.
FUN FACTS: In the beginning of the technology, each electromechanically mastered disc took 200 times as long to record as it did to play back! RCA’s VideoDisc system was called Discpix until 1971, when it adopted the SelectaVision name that was originally used for Holotape.
For more old timey fun, check out an earlier post entitled History 101: From Phonograph to Laser Disc that not only expands on the VideoDisc technology from this post, but adds information about other obscure formats as well.
Although Disney was hoping for much more of a celebration during the 2020 season for Disneyland’s 65th Anniversary, and so were we, no one got it! But we did get the merchandise, like this POP! Rides Mr. Toad at the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride Attraction vinyl figure.
Now were has Toady driven himself to now? Let us have him tell us in his own words:
“Come along! Hop up here! We’ll go for a jolly ride! The open road! The dusty highway! Come! I’ll show you the world! Travel! Scene! Excitement! Ha ha ha!“
Pausing beside a Roadside Attraction on the open road, Toady looks to be enjoying the road trip we all wish we were on!
I do like the packaging for the Funko line of 65th merch! The sepia tones of the boxes and the cool graphics really, well, pop.
Most Funko figures no longer come with backing cards in the boxes, but this one did. It had a nice fireworks graphic along with the Castle logo just inside on the lid lip.
Let’s have a closer look at the scourge of the open road:
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is a classic dark ride at Disneyland which was one of the original attractions in the park on opening day on July 17, 1955. Its story is based on Disney’s adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, one of the two segments of the feature film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
We enjoyed riding this attraction during our one and only visit to Disneyland and snapped a few pics to remember the illustrious Mr. Toad:
Tapestry from the ride queue c. 2013
As you can see from the image above, the Funko vinyl representation of Mr. Toad’s car is pretty much spot on!
But mustn’t tarry another moment, chaps, we still have a few more miles to cover:
The bottom of the figure is stamped for 2020 and tells us it was manufactured in Vietnam. We can also see a bit of the construction method used to assemble the product.
We’ve had a jolly ride together with Mr. Toad and his wonderful automobile! But I also would like to introduce you to just the amphibian himself be means of the Mr. Toad Funko Vinyl Figure that was also released to celebrate Disneyland’s 65th Anniversary.
I don’t often worry about baby stuff. I don’t have one so… but my wife loves them so… she said I should feature stuff like this once in a while so… I found a Disney Baby Onesie at Walmart!
So…
I will concede that it is cute! There are a lot of Disney-themed clothes at most large retail outlets and some of it is pretty original and clever. With the Disney Store gone and the Theme Parks (presently) a COVID-19 nightmare road trip away, this might just be as close to Disney style as any of us will get for awhile.
For only $12.95 CAN who could resist wrapping up their little bundle of joy in this little onesie, whether they like it or not. Okay, be truthful parents, would you actually ask your child if she wanted to wear this, or would you put her in it, giggle at how cute she looked, and post a pic on Social Media?
It’s a guilty pleasure and blackmail fuel for later!
I don’t often worry about baby stuff. I don’t have one so… but my wife loves them so… she said I should feature stuff like this once in a while so… I found a Disney Baby Onesie at Walmart!
So…
I will concede that it is cute! There are a lot of Disney-themed clothes at most large retail outlets and some of it is pretty original and clever. With the Disney Store gone and the Theme Parks (presently) a COVID-19 nightmare road trip away, this might just be as close to Disney style as any of us will get for awhile.
For only $12.95 CAN who could resist wrapping up their little bundle of joy in this little onesie, whether they like it or not. Okay, be truthful parents, would you actually ask your child if she wanted to wear this, or would you put her in it, giggle at how cute she looked, and post a pic on Social Media?
It’s a guilty pleasure and blackmail fuel for later!
“For Stan – The onlie begetter.” – Shakespeare (in part)
There have been countless comedy teams since the days of Vaudeville brought slapstick humor to the masses. Some teams added members to become three or four, or more. But who was the best team of all time?
I say: “Laurel and Hardy”, hands down!
This wonderful little paperback is a fun and informative look into the origins, comedy, movies, and the rise and fall, of histories most beloved pair of fools.
It’s not compulsory, but if a book I am reviewing can have a Disney tie-in, that’s works for me! Dick Van Dyke was tasked with doing the Introduction to this book back in 1966. Van Dyke was fresh off his starring role in Mary Poppins and was doing another Disney film as he wrote his tribute to the duo. Just a few years later he would be flying high with a car named Chitty.
As with all famous people, you probably think you know a lot about them until you read an biography like this one. The rosy picture you may have had about the subject starts to tarnish, just a little bit. The pages of Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy don’t quite do that, although you will learn that not everything was fun and games, gayety and laughter in their lives.
In CharacterAs Themselves
Above, we see a famous scene that was played out many times and in many films. Stan is about to inexplicably light his thumb on fire to light a cigarette, much to Ollie’s consternation! I know the gag through and through, but Ollie’s reaction makes me laugh out loud all over again every time I see it.
In later years, the two weren’t as close as they had been. Their careers were on the wain and Hardy’s health was failing. But they did one more tour, this time, through the British Isles.
1954 basically brought an end to the long history of this legendary comedy duo. But they could look back on a career of almost unmatched hilarity and heart.
I love finding older books like this one. They have a character all their own with the yellowing pages and that distinct old-book smell! Perhaps it’s an acquired taste.
I would give this book a 5 Out of 5 Stars with no problem, both for the casual fan and the rabid fan alike.
I’ll conclude with an excerpt from a poem that Dick Van Dyke sent to Stan Laurel. I think it very well encapsulates what Laurel & Hardy did for the world:
“God bless all clowns, who star the world with laughter,
Welcome to a full week of photographs! Photo Spot Week will feature one photograph a day from February 21st through to February 27th. The seventh and final image in this series is what came out to look like a leafy spiderweb, although, it was just leaves and branches:
c. 2012
‘You can’t make this stuff up’ is a popular way of explaining how unusual something is. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!
The only thing I had to do to get this shot was identify the composition as something interesting and then crop the subject matter within the viewfinder to obtain the desired effect.
Welcome to a full week of photographs! Photo Spot Week will feature one photograph a day from February 21st through to February 27th. The sixth in this series is an image of an African Baobab Tree seen in the Kilimanjaro Safari attraction at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World, Florida.
Or… is it?
The African baobab tree, also called the monkey-bread tree and upside-down tree, is a large tree that is very common in much of the African continent, on the hot, dry savannas of sub-Saharan Africa. It has also been introduced to other places like Asia and Australia, but this was through intentional plantation and not natural dispersal. There are eight species of baobab. Nine, if you count the one below:
Yup, it’s a fake!
But it still makes for a great shot. We start with a small ribbon of water at the base of the image, the main tree is slightly off-center and low in the image, but in the foreground to cement it as the subject. Cemented, because that’s what it’s probably made of. The band of lesser trees in the middle ground provide a nice contrast with their colour. And the vibrant almost cloud-free blue sky finishes the composition.
Sometimes a straight forward glamor shot just works!
Welcome to a full week of photographs! Photo Spot Week will feature one photograph a day from February 21st through to February 27th. The fifth in this series is an image from the past in the present: The Marietta Diner. It doesn’t matter when I took the picture, it’s timeless!
A perfect image for a Foodie Friday, this vintage eatery has been a gem along the I75 Highway in Georgia since 1995! But it features a roadside diner prefab building from much earlier. But more on that later.
It was a cloudy day when I snapped this pic and it made for good lighting for the subject. The building was all white, glass and chrome with many reflective surfaces. I let things wash out a bit to further accent the monochrome nature of the structure. The end result is otherworldly and retro.
Curbed had this to say about these wonderful roadside masterpieces: “Existing in a unique nexus of culture, culinary evolution, and construction history, diners offer simplicity and standardization by design. Built to be everywhere, they come from ‘nowhere’ (an assembly line), and serve as a spiritual precursor to modern takes on prefab, mass-manufactured spaces. The American Diner Museum defines these humble restaurants as “prefabricated structures built at an assembly site and transported to a permanent location for installation to serve prepared food.” And if I may add, they look good to!
Welcome to a full week of photographs! Photo Spot Week will feature one photograph a day from February 21st through to February 27th. The fourth in this series is an image of a little lizard that I found scurrying around at Weeki Wachee Springs National Park in Florida.
This isn’t likely my most technically proficient shot! But you know what you do when life gives you lemons, right? You make up a story to explain how you meant to do that all along!
I’m not a professional photographer, as you’ve probably guessed by now, but I do have an eye for composition. And I’m not afraid to keep shots that may have problems but still contain some interest. What I like about this shot is how the ground under the lizard was washed out completely thus showcasing the little guy as the undeniable subject.
The splash of colour from the brush and the jagged edge of the shadow set on a rakish angle just serves to add to the unusual nature of the shot!
Disleelandia 