TOMORROWLOUNGE: audio animatronics

Sunday, March 21, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISSION TO MARS!!!
Mega Post #3 in a series.

35 years ago today, Tomorrowland began its McDonnell Douglas DC-88 Super-Space liner Service to the "mysterious red-planet"; MARS. In this post (post #3 if you've been following......) we meet the crew from that serviced the Tomorrowland Spaceport for so many years.

The first people we meet are our Mission To Mars hosts / hostesses wearing a beautiful cosmic ensemble of blues, yellows,white....and a orange band along the waist!.

here we have a flight hostess checking to make sure that her pant cuffs are the correct 8" diameter flare!

here we see the final concept art of what our male flight hosts will wear on the journey into space. Lots of "Sears" styling going on here. See one of the previous Mission To Mars mega posts for images of the actual costume this represent.

the sponsor identification patch

Mission Control at Walt Disney World.....note Mr. Johnson is wearing a BLUE turtle neck rather than his traditional red one??

Mr. Johnson (who replaced Mr. Morrow of the Flight to the Moon), was very modern in his silvery lab coat and futuristic 1975 turtle neck sweater! This is one of Mr. Johnson's actual work uniforms.....he always had two on hand--just-in-case he should spill some Sanka or Nescafe on himself!!

Mr. Johnson's head set.

and so no other mission control staff members accidentally took his coat, Mr. Johnson had his CLREARLY labeled!

Mr. Johnson was voiced by character actor GEORGE WALSH

AND NOW FOR AN INTIMATE VISIT WITH OUR MISSION CONTROL CREW!

"MR. JOHNSON" (MMF-9)

"BILL" (MMF-8)

"HAL" (MMF-7)

(is he named after a certain robot from the film 2001...??)

"KEN" (MMF-6)

"ART" (MMF-5)

this figure was altered to become the first African-American AA staff member at Mission To Mars. He was named "ART" in honor of famed tennis star Arthur Ashe......who won Wimbledon in 1975.

"FRED" (MMF-4)

Fred is the only staff member NOT wearing a headphone!

"JIM" (MMF-3)

Jim appears to be napping here, but he is really eavesdropping on Fred's phone call!! Looks like Fred's gotta a date to go to BeniHana's after the day's last mission!

"MARY" (MMF-2)

Of course between 1967 and 1975 there was a great deal of social change in our American Society. 1975 brought with it female staff members to Mission To Mars. Mary was named after Mary Tyler Moore who's TV show of the same name was a top Emmy award winner during this time. Ironically she looks more like Phyllis Lindstrom than Mary Richards......