YouTube Goodness

[James]

[Dacey]

Original ads? Sweetness!

[EricJ]

They took the empty historic train station that was on the fairgrounds and turned it into a restaurant during the fair. After the fair it again sat empty for decades. About 12 years ago, they turned it into a magnet high school in Worlds Fair Park. Both my kids got to go there and it was extremely cool to have that as your campus.

Sadly, that's one of the reasons we don't have World Expos anymore, since the problem of What to Do With the Leftovers ends up being more of a problem than the reason for holding them in the first place.
(Ie., putting an overlooked tourism-hungry city "on the map", like Seattle, Vancouver, New Orleans, Knoxville, or that '20 Dubai Expo that was indefinitely postponed by Covid.)

I have dim memories of Montreal as a kid, which became infamous for trying to keep their Expo ruins as long as possible--
And I would have forgotten all about it, if I hadn't seen the Man & His World building used as post-apocalyptic sets in Robert Altman's "Quintet", and thought, "Yeah, wait, I remember those big murals on the wall... "

[Randall]

World Expos do still happen. The Dubai one wrapped up at the end of March. The next one will begin April 2025 in Osaka, Japan.

I had a high school band trip to Expo 86 in Vancouver. It was a fabulous time.

[EricJ]

Well, WE don't (ie., North America) since Vancouver, and TBH, Knoxville and New Orleans were contributing reasons why.

My only regrets about Expo '86 were not being able to buy a legally hunted wolf pelt at the Northwest Territories pavilion, and always putting off Japan's ride on a real bullet train because the lines were always too long.

(And while some might have had their first Furry stirrings from Disney movies, I'm still looking for a photo of that dancer in the Canada goose mascot outfit, at Canada's pre-show. )

[James]

New Orleans in '84 definitely -- they declared bankruptcy DURING the fair! But the '82 Knoxville fair was one of our best attended, and is considered the last successful World's Fair held in the US. (Lived there a long time and spent a lot of time on those grounds! Also this past year was the 40th anniversary so retrospectives got a lot of press!)

EDIT: Apparently Minnesota is bidding on the 2027 fair.

[Ben]

So the Sunsphere was/is pretty massive then! Went back and looked at Eric's commercial (wow, that guy had a real screen personality presence did he?) and see what you mean. Cool that you can still go up there to see the view, but kind of a shame they didn’t keep it open. I mean, yeah, most expo things like this have a shelf life, but a restaurant is a restaurant and you’d think there would be a way to make it a viable business comcern, maybe adding another reason for going on one of the other floors to make it a real night out (or lunch), like a bar, hireable meeting space, or somesuch.

It’s pretty similar to what is known as the Post Office Tower here in London, which has a rotating level that spins (very slowly) around so you can take in all of the city. It’s otherwise a communications structure, but they turned that level into a restaurant too. Must be something about food and heights, though I wouldn’t have thought that was the best combination!

Thanks for posting Muppets James! That’s a find!

[GeffreyDrogon]

Here is a nice short made by Pixi-Gags!

[Ben]

I guess "nice" is subjective…?

[Daniel]

What a twist.

[GeffreyDrogon]

I like Luca's reimagining of "The Three Little Pigs" because in many stories, the wolves are always the losers. Those occasions where the wolf actually wins make me happy because I like wolves.

[Ben]

We have noticed.

[James]

Pluto's Christmas Tree is one of my favorite Disney shorts. (You can watch it legally here!) But I'd never heard of this! Apparently a few years after the shorts' release, a Little Golden Book called Donald Duck's Christmas Tree was published. It basically has the same plot but with Mickey switched with Donald! Instead of carolers at the end, it's Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

[Randall]

Ya gotta love Little Golden Books! I have never seen this one, either.

[James]

Should have put this in the post. The short was 1952, the book 1954, which makes it even weirder to me!

And yes, Little Golden Books are the best!