Happy Birthday to you, dear blog readers! Welcome to the Birthday Cake Room, that odd circular gallery at the rear of the Disneyana Shop! Why don't you come on back and check out some of the beautiful paintings hanging around in here (and I'll be darned, there's one by me!) What—you didn't know this was the Birthday Cake Room?
For many years, I'd hear older Disneylanders refer to this little space as the Birthday Cake Room, and I often wondered why. Perhaps, as some said, it was simply because the room was shaped round like a cake. Or maybe, as others believed, it was built to house a giant pastry for one of the early birthdays of the Park.
Well, that answer's nearly right. Here's the real story behind the Birthday Cake Room...
In 1955, April to be exact - only 4 short months before Disneyland was set to open - Artist Sam McKim was asked to sketch a small alcove that could be built at the back end of the Market House. The store, equipped with marble counters, large glass jars, cracker and pickle barrels, and a pot-bellied stove, was sponsored by Swift & Co. Meats, a company signed on to be a major sponsor in the Anaheim park. Besides keeping those pickle barrels stocked in the Market House, Swift would be providing beef, bacon, poultry, cheese, butter and ice cream to two new restaurants (namely, the Red Wagon Inn and Swift's Chicken Plantation in Frontierland) -- AND they were going to co-sponsor the nationwide opening day telecast.
Sam McKim's 1955 rendering of Swift's Birthday Cake Room
In 1955, April to be exact - only 4 short months before Disneyland was set to open - Artist Sam McKim was asked to sketch a small alcove that could be built at the back end of the Market House. The store, equipped with marble counters, large glass jars, cracker and pickle barrels, and a pot-bellied stove, was sponsored by Swift & Co. Meats, a company signed on to be a major sponsor in the Anaheim park. Besides keeping those pickle barrels stocked in the Market House, Swift would be providing beef, bacon, poultry, cheese, butter and ice cream to two new restaurants (namely, the Red Wagon Inn and Swift's Chicken Plantation in Frontierland) -- AND they were going to co-sponsor the nationwide opening day telecast.
So, when it was announced that 1955 also happened to be the company's 100th year in business, a special room in the Market House was set aside to house a huge fake birthday cake... a cake "with 100 candles and topped with the Swift Centennial emblem." Windows cut into the cake's sides showed scenes depicting "a century of progress in food preparation", as the press release described it. There were pictures of wood-burning stoves, antique iceboxes and modern refrigerators, great-grandpa butchering a steer and great-grandma cooking a pot roast. It was a veritable carousel of progress in the form of an eight-foot tall layer cake. Man, what a party!
The new unbirthday cake room, circa 1967
After the celebrating was over the big dessert was rolled out of there, and the open space became a charming getaway from the crowds in the Market House. A collection of antique nickel-operated music machines tinkled out old-timey tunes for happy folks who wandered back to enjoy a cookie and a cup of apple cider.
Hank, honey, get up and
put another nickel in,
in the nickelodeon...
Special details, such as these ceiling ornaments, seen in Sam McKim's original concept drawing remain in the Birthday Cake Room to this day.
Through the open doors above we see the 1967 Burry's Cookie Shop - formerly the Swift Butcher Shop, and our current day Disneyana Shop! The wall separating the two rooms has since been opened for easy entry into the galleries. No roadblock to get in your way as you head for that wall of big figs!
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