🎄 It’s mime time at the Most Magical Place on Earth in 1978’s “Christmas at Walt Disney World.” 

🎙️ Drew Crowley and John Dedeke from The Hourchive drop in to watch Shields and Yarnell as the most 1978 couple imaginable, Pablo Cruise and their indifference to help a screaming woman escape from pirates, Phyllis Diller in the world’s poofiest princess dress, the Doritos guy as a wildly off-model Geppetto, Dee from “What’s Happening?” as an ungrateful passenger in a magical pumpkin coach, and Broadway’s original Annie singing Christmas carols with surprisingly reverent Disney villains. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Map of what Walt Disney World looked like in 1978. 

Vault Disney. 

How “My Favorite Things” became a Christmas song. 

The opening music, “The Great Gate of Kiev” from Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” or as I know it best, Jerry “The King” Lawler’s theme music. 

Shields and Yarnell on “American Bandstand” (1976) 

Drew eating a gigantic spoonful of mashed potatoes at the Liberty Tree Tavern. 

Photos from the long-abandoned Discovery Island in 2009. 

Disney’s short-lived plans of reopening Discovery Island as an attraction based on Myst. 

One-day admission to the Magic Kingdom plus a book of attraction tickets in 1978 cost $13, according to this Ticket Price Guide. 

“Ernest Goes to Splash Mountain.” 

Winnie-the-Pooh wearing a honey pot on his head. 

Giant, smoking cigars in a theme park parade for children. 

The (1970s) “Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World.” 

“Kraft Salutes Walt Disney World’s 10th Anniversary” (1981) 

The Hourchive on Walt Disney World: Part 1 and Part 2. 

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“Christmas at Walt Disney World” © 1978 Walt Disney Productions. 

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