Day 7 - Friday, 10/6 - Exploring Disneyland with Bob Penfield
Disneyland was hosting one of the Halloween parties tonight. We went back and forth on whether or not we wanted to attend, but we did the Halloween party with the kids in 2013, and we've done the WDW version a couple times in the past too. So without the kids, Stephanie and I weren't too gung ho to spend the extra cash on it. This was a tough call though, because we knew this meant non-party goers would flock to California Adventure in the evening. Ultimately, we decided to do Disneyland in the morning and then move over to California Adventure when the party started…
And also, we had plans to spend the morning with Bob Penfield, the Last Original Disneylander.
I guess we need a little back story here…. Living in St. Louis, Missouri, we are a couple hours away from Marceline, MO… where Walt spent the better part of his childhood. I could go on and on about Marceline, it's such a cool town with some great Disney history.
Did you know that Walt came back to Marceline many times as an adult, and that he even purchased his boyhood farm and had plans to make it into a mini-theme park? The plans were on his desk the day he died. Roy decided that he wouldn't be able to complete the Marceline and Orlando projects, so the Missouri project was scrapped.
Anyway, Roy sold the land back to his Marceline business partner, whose daughter currently lives on the Disney farm today. She also heads up the Walt Disney Hometown museum (and has a fantastic story growing up with Walt knowing her on a first name basis.) Which is awesome! I could go on and on about the museum and the folks who work there, but I don’t have time for it here… if you are interested, check out their website at
https://www.waltdisneymuseum.org/
Anyway, the museum has really stepped up its game other the last couple of years and they've been bringing in some fantastic Disney guest speakers.
About a year and a half ago, Bob Penfield came in to give a presentation with some of his friends. And who is Bob Penfield?
He was the last person to retire from Disneyland out of the group who worked there since opening day. He worked there for a little over 40 years, retiring in the 1997. He's also held the role of "historian" of Club 55, which is/was the group of cast members who started working at Disneyland during its opening year. I say "was" because most of the members have passed away and only a few of them are still living. With all that in mind, it's needless to say that Bob has some fantastic stories to tell!!!
About a year ago, he published a book with his some of his stories in it. It's a great blend between a personal narrative (autobiography) and a history book. Telling stories about opening day, and all sorts of Disneyland history since. Including the time he spent working as a supervisor at the It's a Small World ride at the New York World's Fair, and his efforts to help with Disney's activities at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley. These truly are some great stories and insights!
Anyway, we attended Bob's presentation and loved it. We got to meet Bob and spend a few minutes chatting with him afterwards. He gave us his business card and said that if we ever make it out to Disneyland to look him up. So we did!
I contacted Bob a couple of months before we headed out to California and he said that he'd love to meet with us. And that he'd meet us up in the front gates and escort us into the park. Wow!!! (It turns out that he visited Marceline one more time before our trip, and we got to spend a little more time with him then. And oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Bob donated a bunch of his Disney memorabilia to the hometown museum. The have a small section dedicated to him. How cool!)
We normally like to be in line before the gates open, but Bob suggested we wait until the initial rush gets through… so we planned to meet him around 9am.
After a busy day yesterday, it was nice to sleep in and take it easy. It was such a lovely morning, that we chose to walk instead of taking the shuttle...
And a few minutes later, we had arrived. Yahoo!!!
It was fun to see all the Halloween banners…
And the other various decorations!
We arrived a few minutes before Bob did, so we just relaxed and soaked in the atmosphere. Lovely!
And a few minutes later, Bob showed up and we headed into the park!
We probably spent an hour and a half to two hours with him, and it flew by so fast! He told so many first hand stories, that I can't even begin to remember them all! We hung out around the train station area for a while and then decided to take a ride around the park first.
He told us all sorts of stories throughout the train ride and those were mixed in with random conversations about all sorts of stuff. It was a lot of fun! Between train stops, he'd point out interesting things with the landscape and stories about the backs of buildings an whatnot.
The train stopped at the New Orleans station for quite a while, and he told all sorts of stories about the original jazz bands and the various players... And more stuff.
And then we started making our way through Frontierland and the back of Rivers of America. This section had recently undergone major renovations to make room for the upcoming Star Wars land. They basically chopped off the north end of the river and put a new trestle over it. It actually turned out to look quite nice!
We eventually stopped at the Toontown Depot and chatted about... you guessed it ... all sorts of random stuff… including his time spent living in Manhattan for the World's Fair. Some really interesting stories here. (You can read about them in his book.)
I asked him if he got to ride It's a Small World very much during his time working at the fair? He sort of chuckled and said, yeah… at least once an hour. As a supervisor, part of his job was to ride it periodically throughout the day to make sure that all the animatronics were still working.
Here's an example of the random stuff he'd point out… The rocks in this next photo aren’t regular old landscaping rocks. Their actually exhausts for the submarine ride.
During this stretch, he told us all sorts of stories working on the various attractions in this area. Some interesting stuff about Autopia and how difficult/expensive the submarines are to maintain.
I asked him which was attraction was his favorite to operate (seems that he worked on all them at one point or another. And at one point, he was responsible for scheduling about 400 cast members in this area.) He said that the Mine Train in Frontierland was his favorite to operate, but the Jungle Cruise was his favorite as a foreman/supervisor. He said that he liked the Jungle Cruise because celebrities and Walt would often visit it. He apparently had multiple interactions with Walt when he worked in that area.
Eventually, we made our way back to Main Street. We casually made our way down from the train station all the way to his window near Coke Corner.
I can't even begin to remember all the stories he shared. Stuff from opening day and everything in between. For example, he pointed out these water fountains…
Commenting that there was a plumbing strike leading up to opening day. There was only time to complete the bathrooms or water fountains, but not both. Obviously, Walt chose the bathrooms. But unfortunately, people who didn't know about the dilemma thought that the drinking fountains were left out on purpose… so that they could sell more Coke.
One of Bob's last projects was re-doing the sound system for the parade. He pointed out some interesting things about the sound and various locations for hidden speakers. For example, there are speakers at the base of this bench/planter structure.
Again, I'm glazing over all sorts of stuff. I wish that I had taken notes. He had some interesting stories about when the Penny Arcade was an actual arcade. And that there was also a shooting gallery back there. And how the guns used to be air powered, and you'd have to be careful of ricochets. Yikes!
Eventually, we made our way down to Coke Corner and he pointed out where his window is.
So yeah, working there for 42 years, Bob was a pretty well-known and respected cast member. And since he was the last of the originals to retire, they made a pretty big deal about it. They had a retirement party and presented him with his own window.
He said that it was the biggest retirement party that the company had up to that time. He downplayed it, saying it was because he was the last of the originals to retire, but I think he was being a bit too humble. He said that they drove him down Main Street in the parade before revealing the window. He was shocked that so many people were waiving to him, until he realized that Mickey Mouse ended up riding right behind him. Hahaha.
So yeah, we hung out around the window for a while. He told us how the windows are made, the art of painting them from the inside and not. It says, "Club 55 School of Golf". He said that he never really heard the full story, because he was never a golf instructor. He thinks the golf part is a play on the word "club". And of course the Club 55 part comes from his role in that group of cast members. How cool!
A little while later, we decided to part ways. Bob is in great shape for a guy in his 80's, but I don't think he was up for walking the whole park with us. We grabbed a photo and parted ways.
So yeah, that was pretty awesome. A highlight of the trip. And one of our overall all-time favorite Disney experiences. Bob is such a fun and friendly guy. And after all these years, he's still a huge fan of Walt Disney and the Disney company.
How generous of him to take some time out of his personal schedule to spend his morning with a couple of fans like us!
And two final plugs. #1. If you are ever passing through Missouri, you MUST make a stop in Marceline. And #2, if you are a fan of Disney history, you should go pick up Bob's book from
Amazon!!
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Original-Disneylander-Stories-Secrets/dp/1937878066