Western River Expedition Model & Owl Displays at Walt Disney World

From May 1973 to early 1981, a scene from the Western River Expedition was on display in the post-show exhibit area of the Walt Disney Story film.

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The Naboombu Files

Images & information related to the fictional island of Naboombu, as depicted in Walt Disney Productions' 1971 film Bedknobs & Broomsticks

This, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book... Disney just riffing on source literature has yielded a lot of magical stuff. It also often meant that things were changed without obvious reasons. Like, in the book Emelius Browne was named Emelius Jones and why they changed that probably isn't an interesting story. But how they got from a stereotypical tropical island with dangerous natives in the book to a different island with a talking lion king wearing the pendant of a murdered sorcerer around his neck as he goes off to play football with crocodiles and warthogs in the film... that we need to know.

Sadly, I don't think we'll ever know the whole story behind that but I could be wrong. Maybe answers lie in the Walt Disney Archives or in lost drawings to one day be found. We can, however, try to figure out what happened with at least the evidence on hand.

Illustration from A Visit To Naboombu Tell-A-Tale Book, 1971

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The island of Ueepe in a 1943 illustration by Waldo Peirce 

For starters, the Island of Naboombu, its inhabitants and what it looked like has been a fixation of mine since my child brain first started processing references to Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) when I was around four years old, in 1973.

Why the island and its magical animals would resonate in the mind of a child isn't hard to imagine. Why it still dogs me as a 55-year-old revolves heavily around what I still don't know about its origins and have yet to conclude about its crossed-referenced / proper mythology (something I do in my head with things that have blanks yet to be filled in) and how *that* would be transposed, Disneyesque, into an alternate post-1971 world. There are many post-1971 versions with varying characteristics to look at in the real world.

The earliest reference to what would (eventually) be called Naboombu that I can find is the "South Seas Island" of Ueepe in Mary Norton's original 1943 manuscript of The Magic Bedknob, which was first published as a book in 1944. The children Carey, Charles and Paul along with witch-in-training Miss Price use their flying bed to visit the island and land along the edge of a horseshoe shaped lagoon.

The same book contains the first illustrations of such an island by artist Waldo Peirce.

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In 1943's The Magic Bed-knob by Mary Norton, the name Naboombu does not appear but the "South Seas Island" of Ueepe served as a predecessor to the 1971 Disney film's Naboombu.

There is no reference to anthropomorphic animal inhabitants of Ueepe - or elsewhere - in the books, but rather the island is populated by cannibals. Their depiction would have been familiar to many readers in 1943 as it was a racial characterization (generally racist via factual inaccuracies and denigrating attributes) often ascribed to native societies of Africa, South America and southern Pacific islands.

I'm still learning about that subject and can't speak well to exactly how prevalent the cannibal trope was in English literature, but it went back to at least the 19th century. In Norton's depiction, the cannibals are led by a witch doctor and they capture Eglantine Price, Carey, Charles and Paul. They escape as a result of Miss Price doing magical battle with the witch doctor.

Note: They travel to the island because it's the one place they could think to travel by magical bed in the daylight and not be seen by anyone else who would be startled. In their encyclopedia set, Ueepe is described as an island yet to be explored. Carey assumes that this means the island is uninhabited, therefore safe to visit.

Erik Blegvad illustrated the 1971 edition of the book (which was combined with Norton's second book under the new title Bed-knob and Broomstick).

1971 edition illustration of Ueepe by Erik Blegvad

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Walt Disney World ... A Pictorial Souvenir 1977 Edition

This 1977 publication was the third iteration of Walt Disney World's Pictorial Souvenir series. The first two were published in 1972 and 1974. The 1977 version was the first to depict Tomorrowland in its "full" state.

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The King's Gallery, Fantasyland, WDW 1973-2007

Images & information related to the former Magic Kingdom shop that sat inside Cinderella Castle at WDW

The shop opened January 20, 1973 (WDW Eyes & Ears) and closed July 5, 2007 (D23). Its first descriptive listing in the Magic Kingdom's guide books read "Imported European clocks, chess sets, decorative gifts, handcrafted jewelry." 

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Cinderella Castle hallway with King's Gallery doors c. 1973

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Sea World of Florida 1973-1987

Scans from the park's first fifteen years. 

Whale licks a woman's face c. 1980
from 1983 Sea World Souvenir Publication

Pete Penguin & Wally Walrus greet kids c. December 1973
Sea World photo archives

Starkist's Charlie the Tuna with guests c. 1977
Source tbd

1977 Sea World Print Ad
Image source: Ebay

Great White Shark Exhibit c. 1977
Sea World photo archives

Sea Lion & Otter Show, Sea World of Florida c. 1978
Image Source: 1983 Sea World souvenir guide

If You Had Wings Documents

This is where my current and future scans of official / recreated If You Had Wings documents  are intended to go. Some scans came from actual blueprints taken from the attraction during its conversion to Dreamflight. Some are from the Florida State Archive's microfiche collection.

Cleaned up scale map of If You Had Wings, adapted
from blueprint scan

Original scan of If You Had Wings
track layout blueprint detail

                         

If You Had Wings Entrance Signs
blueprint scan from Florida State Archives

If You Had Wings Holding Area Signs
blueprint scan from Florida State Archives

If You Had Wings Holding Area Globe
blueprint scan from Florida State Archives

If You Had Wings Entrance Facade
blueprint scan from Florida State Archives

If You Had Wings Rain Forest Foliage
blueprint scan from Florida State Archives

Sun Bank on Main Street USA, WDW

Orlando-based Sun Bank (also Sun Banks and later SunTrust) operated a branch on Main Street USA at Walt Disney World from June 24, 1977 to c. June 23, 1997.

Prior to Sun Bank occupying the building, which was there from October 1, 1971 forward, I believe the space was used for booking guided tours of the park. That operation was based in the adjoining garden space by the time I paid any attention to this corner of Main Street as a kid. After Sun Bank left the building 20 years later, it became The Main Street Gallery which opened September 6, 1997, selling Disney-themed art and collectibles. Years later it was converted to The "Main Street Chamber of Commerce" and began handling the park's Lost & Found services, which were previously based in City Hall.

My parents used the original downtown Orlando Sun Bank as far back as I could remember. I opened my first bank account at Sun Bank's Windermere branch in 1985 when I was sixteen and got a job (with paychecks to cash) at Orlando's Mystery Fun House. By the end of that year I was working at WDW and was cashing my weekly checks at the Main Street USA Sun Bank branch using the backstage cast member walk-up window.

I took out a $3,000+ loan from Sun Bank in 1988 to buy my first PC, mostly to start writing books (which I never finished) and to create document files using the Disney information I'd been collecting since fifth grade. A lot of that information helped me get WYW the fanzine & website going a few years later. And because I was an annual passholder, I kept using the Main Street USA Sun Bank to cash post-WDW job paychecks up until about 1994, when I finally started doing direct deposit. The line to see a teller was never very long and walking up to the old-fashioned counter with its big antique safe behind the desk reminded me of The Apple Dumpling Gang.   

According to WYW reader Monica Roddey, Sun Bank "was always our first stop at the Magic Kingdom as my mom would hop in there to cash some traveler's checques!"

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Sun Bank exterior February 20, 1995
image source: Widen Your World

Main Street WDW Elevation Art c. 1971 by Ernie Prinzhorn, with the
building that would become Sun Bank to the far left
image source: WDW

Sun Bank lobby interior, southeast corner, January 6 1994
image source: Widen Your World 

Sun Bank lobby interior, south wall center, January 6 1994
image source: Widen Your World

Sun Bank lobby interior, southwest corner, January 6 1994

image source: Widen Your World

Sun Bank lobby interior, northwest corner, January 6 1994

image source: Widen Your World

Sun Bank deposit envelope logo & lettering, 1992
image source: Sun Bank

1984 WDW Eyes & Ears article about
Main Street USA's Sun Bank

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WYW's basic WDW Sun Bank credits: Tom Morris, Monica Roddey, Sun Bank, WDW Eyes & Ears, The Walt Disney Company