It's hard to believe it's Friday again and already time for another "Flashback"! With all the hubbub surrounding the D23 Expo this past week, we almost forgot! But luckily for everyone we didn't so here we go.
I was sitting around listening to music from Disneyland this past week off of my "A Musical History of Disneyland" set and came across one called "Let's Dance At Disneyland", by a group called The Elliott Brothers Band. The song was recorded and cut for a record in 1956 (so just one year after Disneyland Park officially opened), called Date Night at Disneyland. If you're interested in hearing part of what the song sounds like, you can check it out here on the iTunes website where you can buy the entire album should you so desire. I may just have to myself one of these days.
At any rate, through a little bit (and I do mean a little bit) of research, it appears that back in the early days (and some people report into the 70s even), Disneyland hosted "Date Night at Disneyland" events on the weekends. Bands would come in (such as The Elliott Brothers), special ticket books would be sold (you can see one from the 1960s on this Vintage Disneyland Tickets blog), and couples would come out and dance the night away in the Plaza Gardens. Sounds pretty cool to me! Well, other than the dancing part because I have four left feet. They still do something very similar to this many weekends with swing dancing in the now Carnation Plaza Gardens, if we're not too terribly wrong about it.
The confluence of several events led to my deciding to feature "Date Nights at Disneyland" in this week's flashback:
- I was listening to a song about said "Date Nights at Disneyland"
- It was performed by a band called "The Elliott Brothers" which is my last name (they even spelled it correctly!)
- Word came out at D23 last weekend that the Carnation Plaza Gardens would be leaving us soon to make way for a new Fantasyland Fantasy-Faire
Without belaboring it too much more, Disneyland is one of my, if not my absolute, favorite places to take my wife on a date. We don't get to much anymore because of all of our responsibilities with work and the kids, but if given the opportunity it's where we'll wind up most of the time. There's just something magical about being there with the person you care most about in the world, your best friend, and it's something that Disneyland obviously knew from the beginning and has kept alive lo these many years. And it's something that I think both of us look forward to being able to partake in for years to come.
So that's what I'm sharing today. Are you a "Date Night at Disneyland" person? Have a great "Date Night" story you'd like to share? Leave us a comment because we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, it's an "Elliott Date Night at Disneyland". Enjoy!
