![]() ![]() "It was supposed to open on Easter 1961," says Pierce. And there was a ride into King Tut's tomb, which has nothing to do with the Bible at all. There was the the "Garden of Eden" boat ride, which looks a lot like Disneyland's jungle cruise, with scenes of Adam and Eve standing side by side with cavemen and dinosaurs. And then you could go to Circus Maximus and see a recreation of the lions and the Christians played out on stage, and then afterwards you could eat lion burgers. So there was this type of cavalier attitude, this junkiness to it, that smacked of religious profiteering." Nat Winecoff talked about the trip to hell, and he would get so animated and excited about seeing Satan and the sulfur baths and fire fountains. "They hired people with minimal contact with religious communities," says Pierce, "to create a theme park for Protestants and Catholics. Todd Pierce, a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo professor who's currently working on a book about early theme parks, says the designers didn't really put much thought into what their audience would think. The mythical beasts! I never found that in the bible myself."Īnd neither did the local clergy. You see this girl riding on a half horse, half mermaid, with dragon feet. But to the left of it is the 'Carousel of Mythical Beasts'. It would be a typical carousel, but built inside a large ark and filled with zebras and camels going around the carousel. And each place would have rides relating to the Bible. You'd be in the Garden of Eden, then Rome, then Egypt, then Israel, and Babylon. And the park was going to be divided into 6 different lands. "They wanted to create it in a heart shape," says Jordan, "which supposedly represents God's love of humanity. They even hired two former Disneyland designers, Nat Winecoff and Bruce Bushman. Together they planned to build a new theme park in Cucamonga, one that would rival Disney in its ambition. In 1960, just five years after Disneyland opened, Jack Haley, the actor who played the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz and a devout Christian, teamed with Donald Duncan of Duncan Yo-Yo's. I grew up in Southern California and never heard of Bible Storyland." "It turns out they were for a theme park that was never built. He quickly bought them from the estate and took them to Disney's studios in Burbank. He rushed to Todd's house and found 75 of the drawings had survived. One day Jordan learned Todd had died in a house fire. Jordan desperately wanted the drawings, but owner Jeffrey Todd spent the next 3 years wavering on his price. He had about 250 of these originals drawings by an artist named Bruce Bushman and I was taken right away." "He invited me over to his apartment to see them. "Immediately my eyes lit up 'Disney, Disney'," says Jordan. Harvey Jordan was running an art gallery in North Hollywood when a man came in and told him he had some very rare Disney drawings that he wanted to sell.
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