Pirates of the Caribbean
Hark to this wisdom, ye'll be overjoyed:
'Tis better t' be idle than ill-employed.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - NEW ORLEANS SQUARE
This reproduction is one of the original sketches used in creating the
New Orleans Square attraction, "Pirates of the Caribbean." Waterborne
guests in traditional bayou bateaux are carried through dramatic and
humorous adventures of fighting, pillaging and plundering pirates. (A
17th century buccaneer's rhyming pen gives us the colorful axiom.)
Mind this, ye swabs, should ye choose to compete:
'Tis a very sharp point 'tween success and defeat.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - NEW ORLEANS SQUARE
This reproduction is one of the original sketches used in creating the
New Orleans Square attraction, "Pirates of the Caribbean." Waterborne
guests in traditional bayou bateaux are carried through dramatic and
humorous adventures of fighting, pillaging and plundering pirates. (A
17th century buccaneer's rhyming pen gives us the colorful axiom.)
This be a fact no hand will contest:
The wonders o' nature begin in th' nest.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - NEW ORLEANS SQUARE
This reproduction is one of the original sketches used in creating the
New Orleans Square attraction, "Pirates of the Caribbean." Waterborne
guests in traditional bayou bateaux are carried through dramatic and
humorous adventures of fighting, pillaging and plundering pirates. (A
17th century buccaneer's rhyming pen gives us the colorful axiom.)
A pirate's loot warn't always gold;
A pullet had value served hot or cold.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - NEW ORLEANS SQUARE
This reproduction is one of the original sketches used in creating the
New Orleans Square attraction, "Pirates of the Caribbean." Waterborne
guests in traditional bayou bateaux are carried through dramatic and
humorous adventures of fighting, pillaging and plundering pirates. (A
17th century buccaneer's rhyming pen gives us the colorful axiom.)
Fo'c'sle swabs in lofty positions
Are oft beset with strange afflictions.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - NEW ORLEANS SQUARE
This reproduction is one of the original sketches used in creating the
New Orleans Square attraction, "Pirates of the Caribbean." Waterborne
guests in traditional bayou bateaux are carried through dramatic and
humorous adventures of fighting, pillaging and plundering pirates. (A
17th century buccaneer's rhyming pen gives us the colorful axiom.)
Notes on the illustrated postcards
To my knowledge (and dismay), no Pirates of the Caribbean photo postcards were available for several years after the attraction opened in 1967,
up until about 1971. For some reason only these preliminary artist illustrations were available of this very popular attraction.
The picture postcards I will include here are from later years. Little has changed over the years in most scenes, so the picture cards faithfully show the Pirates as it was in 1968.
These illustrated postcards were occasionally available singly,
but usually in groups of six each, wrapped with a thick paper band encircling the cards lengthwise. I bought #010506 singly in 1975, and I bought the two packets later. I labeled the packets A and B, though I don't remember now if that order had any significance. (I've seen people on eBay calling their groups A and B, also.) The serial numbers of the cards in these packets were as follows; they span #010502 through #101513, consecutively. It's quite likely these serial numbers are in the same order, front to back, in which they were when I originally bought the packets.
Group A: 010509, 010510, 010511, 010512, 010513, 010508
Group B: 010502, 010503, 010504, 010505, 010506, 010507
A well-known fact among Disneyland fans is that Marc Davis is the artist of these illustrations, though his name is not mentioned on any of the cards themselves.
Trivia
- The boats that carry guests through the attraction used to have names
of French ladies. The only one I remember is Desire�.
If anyone knows of any others, please let us know!
(My guess is that another was Evangeline.)
- The name Laffite's Landing for the dock loading area comes from
the French pirate Jean Laffite.
(And it's pronounced la-FEET, not LAUGH-ite.)
It was misspelled as Lafitte's Landing on the illustrated map
in the official Pirates souvenir booklet.
- The name on the pirate ship in the fort bombardment scene is
Wicked Wench.
- Every coin in the treasure scene is fastened down.
(This factoid is from a high school acquaintance of mine who
jumped out of the boat once to grab a souvenir!)
- Two features in the attraction that
I believe were absent until at least 1969
were the man sitting outside the shack in the Blue Bayou,
and the blinking lighted bats' eyes in the cave on the up-waterfall.
The shack had the sound of music playing inside, but no man outside.
- The long underground corridor that employees use
to get to the New Orleans Kitchen from backstage is lined with some
doors that open into the Pirates attraction.
Employees are warned never to open such doors or explore unless they
have authorization.
Miscellaneous
Blue Bayou
fireflies
Updated: November 13, 2001