D&M Tribute to WED Imagineer Bruce Bushman - Part One

Here is the first part of D&M tribute to Disney artist and WED Imagineer Bruce Bushman who did plenty of wonderful artworks for Disneyland, California. And i've got for you today something really cool as it is a document published in a non-Disney american magazine prior to Disneyland opening in 1955. What's really interesting in it - click on each images to see them in big size - is of course these WED Enterprises renderings drawn by Disney artist Bruce Bushman, and specifically the one about the Snow White dark ride showing how the ride was envisioned back in 1955.

As you can see, a lot of scenes still  now exist in the Snow White dark ride but here they're not shown in the same order and a slightly different ending scene.  

You'll note also the difference of design on the ride vehicle itself as at that time they envisioned to have a sculpted dwarf on the front of the vehicle. 

The rendering above showing the Dumbo ride also prove if needed that they thought to have pink colored Dumbo elephants instead of the grey ones that we know.

But the other artwork interesting on this double page is this flume ride with Monstro, the giant whale from Pinocchio. We've seen this artwork before and know that it is one showing "a ride that never was" but obviously the magazine, specially in 1955, got all these artworks from Disney, meaning that the ride was at that time really envisioned to be built and may be even shortly after Disneyland opening day. This Monstro sketch showing a quite vertical fall was likely in reaction to the popular ride at Coney Island that every operator told Walt he needed to have. Finally the Monstro ride was never built but who knows, may be it will be one day?

On the second double page of this 1955 article we have the original concept for the beloved Peter Pan's Flight ride. This Peter Pan sketch is pretty faithful to what was the ride on opening day, the only surprise in it is that the track mechanics are shown on the sketch of the boat at the upper left of the picture above.

Also on this double page another sketch from Bruce Bushman for Mr Toad's Wild Ride vehicle...

...but also this concept of a Donald ride that never was in which "seagoing visitors would have been captain of their own electric powered boats in the shape of wash tubs. Inflated inner tubes would have encircle each craft to absorb the shock collisions." It's funny, but when i see this artwork i thought that they still could do it using the same old Flying Saucers technique, the one they used at DCA for the Luigi Flying Tires attraction.
As for the Dutch mill in the background this one was finally built by Imagineer and DLP Fantasyland show-producer Tom Morris at Disneyland Paris Fantasyland - although with a slightly different design - and was of course a tribute to Disney's short animated and Academy Award winner The Old Mill.

A great idea - specially for a pre-show decor - was this decor of a huge table from Alice in Wonderland which would have made DL guests feel like Alice did after the potion made her tiny...

Last but not least, the artwork of the Alice Mad Hatter tea cups ride is another one showing an attraction that has been built, except that we don't have the table with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare in the center of the ride. It was probably not possible for technical reasons, but it would have been a good idea to have the tea cups turning all around this unbirthday party table...

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Pictures: copyright Disney