If you’ll be making a visit to the Magic Kingdom during The Chapeau’s upcoming refurbishment, there’ll be a new shopping spot to add to your list if you’re looking for Disney hats and headwear!
Box Office Gifts, found in Town Square Theater, will be your go-to place during The Chapeau’s temporary closure. Let’s take a peek at the selection!
You’ll find all things ear headbands, hats and caps at Box Office Gifts, and if you’re looking to have your brand-new pair of Mickey ears embroidered, the cast members at Box Office Gifts can help you with that, too.
Box Office Gifts and Fantasy Faire (located next to Mickey’s PhilharMagic) will be the two Magic Kingdom locations offering embroidery during the refurbishment.
A small selection of Disney trading pins can also be found at Box Office Gifts as well.
The refurbishment of The Chapeau and The Confectionery begins on Monday, March 29th. At this time, a reopening date has not been announced.
The featured story in this issue was The Main Street Electrical Parade’s retirement. If you didn’t experience it at the time it’s hard to convey how much of a big deal this was. Every TV newscast and newspaper in the LA and OC area had multiple stories about it, a special party was held at Disneyland to see the final performance, and Disneyland was packed every night with tens of thousands of people trying to see the show for one last time. As you now know, The Main Street Electrical Parade has returned and retired multiple times from Disneyland. But at the time we all had no idea that would happen. Disney made it clear the parade would never return. Anyway, that’s not what this post is about. Let’s get to the ads!
This colorful Disneyland ad not only shows off a lot of what the resort has to offer, but it also serves a heaping helping of 90s RADitude. We’ll just ignore that fact that Mickey’s head looks like it’s turned in the most unnatural and uncomfortable position ever. Also I wanted to point out that there’s no mention of “Disneyland Resort.” That’s because Disneyland didn’t receive that moniker until Disney California Adventure opened in 2001.
Indiana Jones Adventure may have been a year old by the time this issue released, but make no mistake at that point it was still the hottest theme park ride in the world. The marketing blitz for Indy was still going well in to 1996 and the ride was still the most popular ride in the park.
I’ve had friends who worked at Magic Kingdom who have told me EVERY DAY they would get asked about how to buy one of the bricks in front of the park (and around Seven Seas Lagoon). The bricks haven’t been for sale in almost 20 years now, but back in 1996 you could purchase a brick for the low price of $96. That’s $160.96 when adjusted for inflation.
Several of my previous vintage magazine ad posts have featured Magic Kingdom Club ads so I’ll shamelessly take on of my previous descriptions:
For some reason the human non-animated child stands out to me like a sore thumb in this ad for Pocahontas’ VHS release. Also unsettling is the look on Percy’s (that’s the dog) face. He looks like he is in the middle of having a nervous laugh and would rather be anywhere in the world besides in that raft.