Riveting Rosie's

Rosie's All-American Cafe on Sunset Boulevard at Disney's Hollywood Studios is more than just a great place to get a cheeseburger. It's also an homage to one of the great icons of World War II, Rosie the Riveter.

"Rosie the Riveter" was a popular song in the early '40s, and the term came to represent the movement toward American women stepping into male-dominated factory jobs to keep things going while their men were off fighting the war. Although fictional, Rosie the Riveter became most closely associated with a woman named Rose Will Monroe, whose job as a riveter in an aircraft factory was popularized in a wartime propaganda film.

Rosie's All-American Cafe is packed with details telling this story, from Rosie's lunchbox and welder's equipment to the bulletin boards covered in clippings about fly boys and working girls. Look closely, and you'll find a picture of President Roosevelt, some of the Defense Bonds (a precursor to War Bonds) that Rosie has purchased, and a great article entitled "Milady is Making Airplanes."

On this last board, we even find a couple pictures of Rosie's guy, along with a hand-written letter from him: "Rosie, I really had a great time Saturday night. I think you're really swell! It would be great to see you again before I ship out. That is... if it's alright with you. Fondly..." (Unfortunately, the young fella's name is covered up by his photo.)

The Set Decorators at Walt Disney Imagineering work hard to give the stories told in the parks a sense of authenticity. Whenever possible, especially when telling a story set in a real time or place, they try to find props from the actual period or locale. At Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, for example, Imagineers canvased the country to acquire genuine mining equipment from the 1800s. This attention to detail can be found everywhere, including here at Rosie's.

Most of the props and items found in the location are antiques from the 1940s. Their reality helps to ground the fictional story. Some of the best of these props are actually on display just outside, as part of the condiment stand. The next time you're grabbing forks and napkins, take a moment to admire the WWII-era toys, postcards, pins and ration books.

Another fun discovery inside Rosie's All-American Cafe is this bit of Hidden Disney. Scattered among the props are several wartime insignia featuring Disney characters. During World War II, the Disney Studio was pressed into service making training and propaganda films for the military. Disney artists also designed more than 100 insignia for various divisions of the armed forces. For more about Disney's involvement in the war, check out the DVD collection from Walt Disney Treasures, "Walt Disney on the Front Lines," and the (out of print but still available) book Disney Dons Dog Tags.

Helping the War Effort

The Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard districts at Disney's Hollywood Studios take Guests back to the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s & 40s. To help flesh out the illusion of the period, references to World War II can be found scattered through this section of the park.

Sitting atop Hollywood Blvd. is a billboard (pictured above) advertising the Hollywood Canteen, a club offering "Servicemen's Entertainment." This area represents an earlier time, though. Once we round the corner to Sunset, the U.S. is definitely "in the fight," and everyone is being asked to do their part to help the war effort.

For some, that means an invitation to visit the nearest recruiting station and join "The Few, The Proud."

For others, it's a reminder that buying war bonds and stamps can help fund the war. War bonds were a type of security issued by the government to help raise money for the military. They came in many different values, so just about any citizen could feel he or she had a way to contribute. Even if you couldn't afford the cheapest bond, you could buy and collect stamps (typically for about 10¢ each) until you had saved enough money to purchase a security.

There were many different methods for the folks at home to help out their country and the boys "Over There." One of the more popular, albeit indirect, ways to help was the planting of Victory Gardens. Private fruit and vegetable gardens started cropping up as both a morale booster and a way to alleviate pressure put on the nation's food supply by the war.

This particular Victory Garden near the Sunset Ranch Market is tended by Rosie, the proprietor of Rosie's All-American Cafe. Rosie's a great gal and a huge supporter of the war effort.

Carthay Circle

The Carthay Circle Theater, built in Los Angeles in 1926, was the site of many of the most spectacular film premieres in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Everything from Romeo and Juliet to Gone with the Wind opened here. In December 1937, the Carthay Circle hosted the world premiere of Walt Disney's first full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The title on the theater marquee, Once Upon a Time, is not only the name of the shop here at Disney's Hollywood Studios but also a reference to the opening of that classic animated film.

Inside, the space is beautifully appointed, from the fixtures to the dramatic recreation of the Carthay's lobby ceiling. On the wall behind the registers are framed photos from the Snow White premiere. Listen closely to the audio track playing in the shop, and periodically you'll even be treated to bits of the radio interview conducted with Walt Disney that night in 1937.

The original Carthay Circle Theater was torn down in 1969, but it lives on here on Sunset Boulevard at Disney's Hollywood Studios. In a couple more years, the Carthay will also rise on Buena Vista Street at the entrance to Disney's California Adventure, the perfect icon to represent the Hollywood of Walt Disney's early years in the business.

Planet Hollywood

Further down Sunset Boulevard is the Planet Hollywood SuperStore, housed in yet another grand Art Deco movie palace facade, this time based on the former La Reina Theater in Sherman Oaks, California. While the interior of this shop and its product selection are distinctly modern, great effort has been taken on the outside to blend Planet Hollywood into the 1940s story of the area.

Coming Attractions feature such sure-to-be-future-classics as Out of This World, Flyboys over Hollywood, and It Came from Another Planet. The poster for the latter even depicts the alien robot's ship as the Planet Hollywood restaurant from Downtown Disney.

Beverly Sunset

The Beverly Sunset, home to the Sweet Spells and Villains in Vogue shops, was modeled on the Warner Theater built in Beverly Hills in the early '30s. Stepping through the doors under the marquee, the candy shop is the first space you enter. Here, it plays the role of the concessions counter in the grand movie palace.

Continue down to Villains in Vogue (the exterior of which is based on The Ice House in Pasadena), and you find yourself in the theater. Curtains are parted on one side, showcasing the main attraction, an award-winning merchandise selection.

On the opposite side of the shop, look up and you'll find the theater's projection booth, complete with reels of film. It's showtime!

Legends of Hollywood

One of the first theaters Guests encounter as they tour the Theater District of Sunset Boulevard is Legends of Hollywood. Based on the Academy Theater in Inglewood, California, this classic example of Art Moderne design was built in 1939 to host the Academy Awards (although the Oscars never did move there).

Coming Attractions posters outside the theater advertise a wide variety of films soon to be playing at Legends, from comedies (Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and thrillers (Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca) to gangster pictures (Angels with Dirty Faces) and musicals (Broadway Melody of 1940).

Tonight, Legends of Hollywood is hosting a grand premiere. The red carpet has been rolled out, and ritzy cars are pulling up to the theater to deliver their glamorous celebrity passengers for the evening's event.

For those who don't already have a ticket through the studio or their publicist, just stop by the Box Office:

The beauty of the theater carries over to the inside, with bold Art Deco styling in the flooring and fixtures:

A graphic mural along the back wall of the interior depicts each of the movie palaces represented at Disney's Hollywood Studios, along with the grandest of them all, Grauman's Chinese.

Hollywood vs. Sunset

The "Hollywood That Never Was" at Disney's Hollywood Studios is comprised primarily of Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. Collectively, these two neighborhoods transport us to the Golden Age of Tinseltown, a period primarily couched in the 1930s and '40s.

At first blush, this whole stretch of the park may seem pretty much the same, but the two areas are actually quite different. Hollywood Boulevard is representative of the Business District and calls up an earlier Hollywood when the town was full of promise and rapid expansion. It starts with Sid Cahuenga, who was here before the movie biz, and continues to the Pacific Electric trolley depot. One can literally go anywhere from here.

Sunset Boulevard has a completely different character. For starters, it's the Theater District. This is the place where grand movie palaces and live performance venues can be found; everything from Legends of Hollywood, based on the old Academy Theater:

To the Theater of the Stars, whose proscenium was inspired by the concentric arches of the band shell at the Hollywood Bowl:

Sunset Boulevard is set in the latter part of Hollywood's Golden Age. Throughout much of this corner of the park, from Rosie's All-American Cafe to the recruitment posters, it is most definitely the 1940s. War time. The world is changing. Hollywood will never be the same. The street does culminate, after all, in a dead end... an abandoned hotel.

But there's also hope and optimism here. Rosie and her neighbors have planted Victory Gardens in support of our boys on the front lines. New enterprises are beginning, and a degree of normalcy (Hollywood normal, at least) can be found in the glamour of a red carpet premiere.

The show must go on, and the Hollywood that never was always will be.

The Red Car

Hollywood is a growing metropolis. What better way to get around it all than by taking a trip on one of Pacific Electric's Big Red Cars (Pacific Electric, a real public transportation company that thrived in Hollywood during the '20s and '30s, was also the trolley system depicted in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?).

Well, you can dream anyway. The Red Car Trolley popped up a couple of times in Disney's Hollywood Studios history as a potential attraction. It was part of early concepts for the park and was later proposed for Sunset Boulevard. In the end, the trolleys themselves never materialized (a version is being planned for Disney's California Adventure by 2012), but details alluding to them can be found throughout the park.

Down at the corner of Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards is a large Spanish Mission-style structure. On the Hollywood side, it's L.A. Cinema Storage, but around the corner on Sunset it becomes the garage for the Pacific Electric Trolley Co. Notice the oversize door for the trolleys that opens up onto the street, as well as the Pacific Electric logo at the top of the building. Pacific Electric World's Wonderland Lines - Comfort, Speed, Safety (and there's that year again... 1928).

This corner of Disney's Hollywood Studios is a literal crossroads. It's the first point at which Guests entering the park have a decision to make as to the direction their next adventure will take. It also plays the role of crossroads in our story.

Hollywood Junction at Sunset Boulevard, aside from being a great spot to check attraction wait times or make dining reservations, is dressed out as a trolley depot here in old Hollywood. Below the Pacific Electric-branded clock is the departure board, letting us know how long it might take for each of the listed destinations.

A map on the back wall details the complete Pacific Electric Railway route, serving all of Southern California.

Schedules for each of the routes are available at the desk. None of these routes serve your specific destination? There's a direct line here so you can phone a cab. They'll even hold your luggage for you on the patio while you wait.

If the Big Red Car is your transportation of choice, there's a Car Stop right there on the corner and a line running straight down Sunset.

While a trolley attraction never became a reality at Disney's Hollywood Studios, that doesn't mean there isn't a Red Car to be found. Down Sunset near the Theater of the Stars stands a merchandise cart in the form of a Pacific Electric trolley car.

The route ID on the side of the trolley lists Hollywood, Sunset and Gower Street (the cross street that runs in front of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror toward Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith), and the number of the trolley - 694 - is a tribute to the June 1994 addition of Sunset Boulevard to the Studios landscape.

Alas, the Red Cars weren't meant to last in Hollywood. Just as talkies replaced silent cinema, the automobile did in the trolley system. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Judge Doom and Cloverleaf bought the Red Car just to shut them down and build freeways. Here in "the Hollywood that never was," the tracks have simply been paved over. Near the corner of Sunset and Gower, portions of the asphalt have worn away, revealing the original brick and trolley tracks beneath. If only we could hop back in time and take a ride...