It has been quite a while since we had the last installment of our Walt Disney World photo tour series, so this time around we find ourselves in Mickey's Birthdayland/ Starland/ Toontown Fair. The land that opened in 1988 was the first new land in the Magic Kingdom since the park's opening in 1971, but that new land had a little bit of an identity crisis. When it first opened, it celebrated Mickey's 60th birthday. Most all the publicity and notes from that time mentioned that this new land was only temporary. But for whatever reason, they decided to keep it around after Mickey's birthday, so they renamed the area Mickey's Starland and changed the character show. Then in 1993, Mickey's Toontown opened at Disneyland, and Mickey's Starland paled in comparison to that new land. So for Walt Disney World's 25th anniversary, the area was upgraded to Mickey's Toontown Fair. Now in addition to Mickey's house, you could also find Minnie's house, Donald's Boat, and Goofy's Barnstormer roller coaster. So now let us step back in time and view the land that a mouse built. Or maybe a duck, as you will see. First, let's take a look around town.

Mickey's Birthdayland was originally built on the theme of Duckburg. The DuckTales television show was quite popular at this time, having premiered the year before. Also, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was released to theaters just after Mickey's Birthdayland opened, so the idea of Toontown was still new. So the Imagineers decided that Mickey's house would be in DuckBurg. I always liked this sign, with the civic organization signs on it just like you would find in a real-world town.

Much of Mickey's Birthdayland consisted of small-sized building fronts, such as this one. From the picture, it is a little hard to get the scale of this building, but a small child of around 6 years old would just fit in the doorway. The main purpose of these building fronts was to hide the show "tents" from the view of the guests as they walked down the Duckburg streets.

A statue of Duckburg's most famous resident, Scrooge McDuck, with Space Mountain in the background. It is quite fitting to have a statue of Scrooge, since he owns most of the town anyway.

This was one of the street signs found in Mickey's Birthdayland. Even though they were celebrating Mickey's birthday, it was obvious what the hit cartoon show of the time was. This sign honors two people influential in Donald Duck's life. Cark Barks was the famous artist who created Duckburg and all of Donald's relatives in the comic books. Clarence Nash provide Donald's unmistakable voice for 50 years.

Along the walkway to Mickey's Birthdayland from Fantasyland were some of the Disney topiaries, such as these of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Of course, I couldn't quite fit all of them into the picture. And in the background you can see the Grand Prix Raceway, now better known as the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway. Part of the Raceway track was shortened to make room for the new land. This was back in the days before the internet, so there was no public outcry that a ride was shortened in length. Of course, that also probably helped the Raceway lines move faster.

Now we will take a look around inside Mickey's house. Here are a couple of views into Mickey's bedroom. You can tell that Mickey must really live here, because his bedclothes are in different locations in the two pictures. And who says that none of this is real?

Continued

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