NOW IS THE TIME

Appropriate that the Carousel of Progress opened at this time since 1974 and 1975 was a time when so much progress was being made in bringing life to the Magic Kingdoms Tomorrowland. And the Carousel itself had its own progress as it appeared with it's new theme song (previously it had featured "There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow") Also, this was the Carousels' second transplanting, as it had first appeared at the 1964-65 worlds fair as the central draw to General Electrics Progressland pavilion, then at Disneyland. The words of the New theme song "The Best Time of Your Life" must have seemed quite appropriate to the time and place, with memories of an opening like no other, and dreams of "city of the future" to be built nearby, an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. Still as central as some of these ideas of a bright , or . . . dare I say it . . . Great Big Beautiful, Tomorrow seem to that vision of the future only three post cards of Tomorrowland were available until the 1980's (four if you count both versions of 0111-0361) .
Probably the most eagerly awaited attraction that opened was Space Mountain and this is reflected in the early postcards. It was Walt Disney Worlds first roller coaster and when hurtling around its' unseen curves through the dark ( not counting those points of starlight and asteroids) it seems to be going much faster than its actual top speed of 27 miles per hour.


If you look at the background behind the characters closely in both versions of this card you can see that these photos were taken in the same location, but in the shot with just Mickey and Goofy there are no benches along the planters behind them, My guess is, that shot was taken before Tomorrowlands construction walls were remover and the land really opened up, in order to have some post cards ready in time for opening. On the card featuring an aerial view of Tomorrowland a bit further down the page you can see an orange looking wall in front of the building that houses the loading platform for the WEDway Peoplemover and the Rocket Jets perhaps that photo was taken before the walls came down too.


Above:0111-0361 WELCOME TO THE FUTURE Below:0111-0362 MAGIC KINGDOM MANY WORLDS IN ONE, 0111-0369 OUTER SPACE RIGHT HERE IN FLORIDA



These are some nice views of Tomorrowland, but still with as little representation got in the early postcards I'd like to share another image of Tomorrowland that captures the optimistic, joyful view of the future this land represented for so many of us. So I turn to the talents of another Walt Disney World fan Greg Maletic


If Gregs name sounds familiar you may remember him for the series of columns he wrote for Laughing Place, (also available from his own site ), or you may remember him because of the attraction poster he did that appears on another WDW history web site, the "If You Had Wings" poster at the Widen Your World Web site. http://home.cfl.rr.com/omniluxe/wyw.htm