The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (141 page)

Incongruously,
Atwater Ink & Paint
sells
not
art supplies, but coffees, teas, mugs, and snacks–all
Disney
-themed and high-quality, of course.  But there
are
animation references hidden inside the store.  Look at the back of the shop, where a bulletin board displays posts by famous
Disney
animators and their characters–doodles, announcements, ads that all have something to do with
Disney
history.  One gem: 
Snow White
is offering house-cleaning services.  How many of the posted items can you decode?

So even if you don’t need a
to stock up on
Mickey
cocoa or tea, drop by
Atwater Ink & Paint
, and take in all the wonderful little tributes to early
Disney
animation. 
Did You Know?
  In the early days of animation, men were animators, drawing the cels, while women (who were paid far less than the men) completed the inking and coloring of the cels. 
Walt
fell in love with an inker-and-painter at his original
Kingswell Avenue
studios–future wife
Lillian
.  After courting her for about a year,
Walt
married
Lillian
in 1925.
Did You Also Know?
 
Atwater Ink & Paint
’s street number, 2719, is a reference to
2719 Hyperion
, the site of the
Disney
animation studios from 1926 to 1940.
Did You Also Know?
  One famous
Atwater Village
landmark is the
Glendale-Hyperion
bridge, which crosses the L.A. River and the 5 Freeway.  It opened in 1928, and
Walt
and his animators most certainly would have utilized it during the
Hyperion
studio days.  From 1929 to 1959, “big red cars” crossed the river parallel to the bridge.  Having done their research scrupulously,
Imagineers
included a miniature version of the
Glendale-Hyperion Bridge
in their design for
Buena Vista Street
.  That pretty span crossing
Buena Vista Street
, where the
monorail
runs?  That’s
Hyperion Bridge
, an homage to the
Glendale-Hyperion Bridge
.

Big Top Toys

[
FastView:
 
A charming old-time toy shop for the child in all of us.
]

In the shadow of
Buena Vista Street
’s bridge, on the east side of the street, is a charming little toy shop, narrow but deep, called
Big Top Toys
.  The plate-glass window displays are vintage 1920’s and ‘30’s–old-fashioned stuffed animals and mechanical toys.

The sign on the door proclaims that
Big Top Toys
has been established since 1925.  That date seems part of the
Imagineers
’ efforts to create a 1920’s atmosphere, rather than a specific
Disney
reference.  In 1925, the
Disney
studios were still on
Kingswell
, and they were cranking out
Alice
comedies, combination live-action and animated shorts.  None of the 1925
Alice
films were set at the circus (
Alice’s Circus Daze
was released in 1927), and
Disney
’s most famous circus-themed films,
Dumbo
(1941) and
Toby Tyler
(1960), wouldn’t be released for decades.

It is enough to say that
Walt
loved the circus, and that circuses were still popular in the 1920’s & ‘30’s, not just the big shows we still know today, but dozens of mom-and-pop circuses criss-crossing the country by rail.  The Great Depression and talking pictures would eventually send circuses into decline, but in 1925 they were still popular.  A proper big top tent for a major circus could accommodate an audience of 10,000.  Parents bought their children circus-themed toys–circus monkeys, elephants, railway cars—as birthday and Christmas presents.

On
Buena Vista Street
,
Big Top Toys
’ bright red sign and large gold letters invite children of all ages to step inside and rediscover the fun of the classic circus.  The interior is very gold and very red and very blue, patterned with stripes and images of old-time clowns.  A miniature big top tent, lit with exotic lamps, hangs over the cash registers.  Behind the cash registers stands a vintage puppet stage.

Although
Dumbo
wouldn’t join the
Disney
pantheon until 1941 (and the story it was based upon wouldn’t even be published until 1939),
Imagineers
anachronistically but quite forgivably layered
Dumbo
references within the shop.

What you and your kids will find most appealing here, beyond any historical nods, are the shelves upon shelves of delightful
Disney
toys and dolls. 
Mickey
! 
Minnie
! 
Pluto
! 
Tigger
! 
Pooh
! 
Phineas and Ferb
! 
Perry
! 
Buzz
! 
Tink
!  There are small dolls and large dolls, action figures, Pillow Pets, gizmos, hats, T-shirts, princesses,
Pirates of the Caribbean
swords and play sets, bubbles–in a word:  Everything.

Some people are freaked out by dolls and clowns.  This is not the store for them.  Everyone else in your party should step right up, step right up, to the greatest toy shop in the park! 
Did You Know?
 
Walt
loved the circus, and you will find many circus connections in his work, from
Alice’s Circus Daze
(1927) through
Toby Tyler
(1960).  Examples include attractions like
Disneyland
’s
Mickey Mouse Club Circus
(1955 - 1956) and
Casey Jr. Circus Train
(1955 - present), cartoons like
Mickey’s Circus
(1936), and comics like Dell’s
Big Top Bedlam
(
Chip ‘n’ Dale
, #14, 1955). 
Did You Also Know?
  In the 1970’s there was a plan to convert the land north of
Disneyland
’s
Fantasyland
into
Dumbo
’s
Circusland
, complete with an
Audio-Animatronic
circus, a
Pinocchio
dark ride, and a wild
Mickey Mouse
dark ride.
Disneyland
’s
Circusland
was never built, but
Pinocchio
got his dark ride in
Fantasyland
in 1983, and
Walt Disney World
unveiled
Storybook Circus
in 2012 as part of its new
Fantasyland
. 
Storybook Circus
offers
two
, count them, two
Dumbo the Flying Elephant
rides. What did
Disneyland
finally build where it was considering constructing
Dumbo’s Circusland
? 
Mickey’s Toontown
, which opened in 1993.

Elias & Company Department Store

[
FastView:
 
A wide range of
Disney
wares in beautiful Art Deco and Streamline Moderne surroundings.  The
Disneyland
Bullocks!]

It is beyond debate that
Walter Elias Disney
’s father,
Elias Disney
, had a tremendous influence on his son. 
Elias
moved the family to
Marceline
,
Missouri
, when
Walt
was a boy, initiating
Walt
’s lifelong appreciation of nature and small-town values. In
Kansas City
,
Elias
pushed young
Walt
and
Roy
to take newspaper delivery jobs that were demanding grinds, and required the boys to rise well before dawn, arguably launching
Walt
’s lifelong workaholism. 
Elias
was ambitious;
Walt
observed his father’s largely unsuccessful attempts at business scheme after business scheme, while
Walt
honed his own ambition and business acumen.  And
Elias
spun tales of the time he had helped to build
Chicago
’s
1893 World’s Fair
, the grand
White City
, stories that must have been like fairy tales to young
Walt
, and no doubt inspired, in part, his desire to build a grand and
magical
place.

Walt
largely went his own way after he was 17 and joined the American Red Cross, driving ambulances in France at the end of World War I.  Over the years he always kept in touch with his family, was fond of them and very good to them (even teaming with
Roy
to buy their parents a house in California), but once
Walt
left home as a teenager, he was his own man.

Even as a youth,
Walt
had a very strong belief that he was going to achieve extraordinary things, though at first he was not clear what those things would be, or how he would achieve them.  Nothing and no one shook this belief. 
Walt
’s father was a builder and businessman. 
Walt
’s mother had a gift for design.  Their youngest son had inherited the talents of both parents, but he manifested his genius in ways that they didn’t always understand.

Elias
considered many of
Walt
’s interests–magic, plays, art, cartoons–to be frivolous, but could not dissuade the boy from following his star.
Elias
was more tractable when there was a clear end game, when
Walt
’s efforts were bent in a direction that would mean a steady paycheck and allow the boy to support himself.  Commercial art, for instance, had meaning for
Elias
.

Whether he could not, or would not, or both,
Elias
didn’t bankroll
Walt
’s dreams after the young man’s first animation company,
Laugh-O-Gram Films
, folded in
Kansas City
. 
Walt
turned his attention to California.  There were three things in Los Angeles that
Walt
found promising:  His big brother
Roy
(recovering from
tuberculosis
); his successful uncle
Robert Disney
; and a burgeoning film colony, which was beginning to move from New York to the sunnier, steadier clime of Southern California.

Walt
arrived in Los Angeles by first-class ticket, wearing a mismatched suit, with 40 dollars in his pocket, in June of 1923.  Hollywood wasn’t interested in the unproven young director from the Midwest.  Uncle
Robert
wasn’t bountiful with the ducats, or sanguine about his nephew’s prospects, but he
did
give the boy a place to stay and some small loans to help him launch a little animation studio.  Big brother
Roy
was the ace.  He went into business with his little brother, and made invaluable contributions to their empire from its very lean early years until long after
Walt
had passed away.

Elias
seemed to fade into the wallpaper of
Walt
’s story.  He remained a part of
Walt
’s life, but became older and more frail as
Walt
became a figure of greater and greater consequence in the American–and, later, global–landscape.  Yet however much
Elias
recedes in the official biographies, it is undeniable that many of his traits–hard work, ambition, restlessness, and persistence–lived on in
Walt
and drove the success and trajectory of the
Disney
empire.

One can wonder, even, how much the fact that
Elias
often deprived his sons of fun (indirectly through the family’s frequent poverty, and directly by demanding hard work at so young an age) influenced
Walt
’s lifelong fascination with recreation, entertainment, and play.  Ironically,
Walt
worked so hard at his entertainment empire–dozens of hours a day, seven days a week, with with a cigarette almost always burning between his fingers–that he seemed to wear himself down into an early grave.

From his enchanted tales of the
White City
to his demanding nature,
Elias
loomed large in his youngest son’s life.  He never could control
Walt
, but he made a mark on the boy.  It is fitting that
Elias
finally receive a tribute on the scale of his importance.  He has long had a window on
Main Street
in
Disneyland
, above the
Emporium
.  Now, with
Elias & Company
opening on
Buena Vista Street
,
Elias
has a whole emporium!

Elias
passed away in 1941, but we can speculate how he proud he would have been to see
Elias & Co.
on the
Carthay Circle Plaza
.  This man of great ambition would have approved, surely, of this store, the most elegant in
DCA
and–possibly–at the resort.

In keeping with the district’s 1920’s – ‘30’s time period, the department store’s exterior, interior, fixtures
, and décor are all rendered in the vocabulary of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne, the styles most popular during that erea.

It is a time of progress and forward thinking.  The cluttered, baroque fussiness of the Victorian age has passed.  Industry is booming.  The world is full of promise.  Young people are moving to the cities to seek their fortunes–and many will make fortunes.  The Victorians had so much
stuff
–so many layers of clutter, in their décor, even in their clothing designs.  Art Deco slims it all down.

Clean, straight lines, horizontal and vertical.  Dynamic geometric shapes.  Manufactured materials are paired with natural materials, but even the natural objects are smoothed to a beautiful sleekness.  Everything is symmetrical, and luxurious looking.  Clothes are sleek and symmetrical
, too.  Streamline Moderne, a later form of Art Deco, takes sleekness to the next level, as everything looks aerodynamic, sculpted, ready to fly.