This first one is of Mickey Mouse in a spacesuit outfit visiting guests at breakfast in what was then called the "Stargate Cafe" (since renamed "Electric Umbrella"). Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto and Chip and Dale all used to visit that restaurant and play with diners. And here's the special point: nobody had to book and nobody had to pay more for their food. In fact, so little fuss was made of the visits that my humans didn't know they happened until they experienced it. Andrew recalls the first he knew about it was when Pluto stood behind him and let his tongue drop onto Andrew's face from over his head.
Elsewhere in EPCOT Center (as it then was), you could meet Figment being carried round by his friend, the Dreamfinder. Perhaps I'll look out a picture of them for another time.
My second picture this time is of Spaceship Earth in all its original glory. This view is now crowded with lots of distracting new stuff. Inside, the commentary was by Walter Cronkite and the music included "Tomorrow's Child".
To the left and right were "Communicore": beautiful, cool, relaxed places full of interesting displays.
I suppose I have to add that another change is that there appear to be a lot fewer people around than now. You can't really blame Disney for wanting to get the best return for all the money spent on the place (or can you?).
One of the really special things about my humans' 1989 trip to Walt Disney World was that they hired a video camera. It was a big thing that took full sized VHS tapes and produced them to PAL standards (that took a lot of finding). So here's my first attempt to put a video on my Blog. It's taken in the Magic Kingdom and shows the lagoon or "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" taken from the "Skyway". Both of those attractions had, of course, disappeared long before the latest revamp of Fantasyland. The quality may not be that good but it is a little bit of history.
Ancient history, actually. As you probably already realised, this isn't "memory lane" for me at all. It is long before I even met my humans.
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