Pago Pago Bar Next to Disney Studios

I am looking for any information about the Pago Pago bar that was located across the street from the Walt Disney Studios in the 1940s. It was located on the East Corner of Buena Vista and Alameda. I believe the building is still standing but is now a travel office for the Disney company. Any help or images would be appreciated. Apparently the Pago Pago was the watering hole for the animators.

Have you checked any of the bios of Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, Ward Kimball, etc? Ollie Johnston is the last of the Nine Old Men still living. Maybe try contacting him directly? Also, some years ago I spoke with Michael Broggie (son of Roger Broggie - first Imagineer, before they called them that). He practically grew up on the Disney lot. He later wrote the Disney trains book. You can probably contact him fairly easily. Website is here.

I think this is the first I've heard of it, and I'd love to learn more! Where did you learn the little bit you know so far?

I seem to recall a quick mention in a DiSneyland expose book I'm currently reading. I'll go see if I can find it....

Thanks for the suggestions all but there is no mention in any of the Disney History books. Most talk about going to the Tam O'Shanter which has a large Disney history attached to it.

Humu- I posted a hand drawn postcard on my blog and received a rather lengthy post explaining all the sights noted on the postcard.

Don't know how helpful this will be, but what the hey:

This is a snapshot of a Google maps image of the area. I added the highlights of the Disney Studios, the intersection of Buena Vista & Alameda, and the alley. From the note you received on your blog:

The pago pago was the local "studio" bar across the street from the studio East of the corner of Buena Vista St. and Alameda. (even warner bros. had their watering hole as well) Its now an unmarked Disney building that holds the travel office. (If you drove the alley to the pago, one would see all the studio work bikes parked in the alley).

Since (s)he says it was across the street from the Studios, east of the Buena Vista & Alameda intersection, and that there was an alley behind it, that seems to narrow it down to five possible buildings (with perhaps those closest to the named intersection the most likely suspects?). Perhaps someone more acquainted with the buildings can tell us more about what's in those buildings today, and if any of them date back to '47? Unfortunately, A9.com yanked their BlockView service a few weeks ago, that would have given us street-level photos of the buildings.

p.s. -- "even warner bros. had their watering hole as well" could possibly be a reference to the China Trader -- that's where the Hawaiian Eye crew hung out when they weren't filming on what I believe was the Warner Bros. lot. Dunno though -- I suppose any bar in the area was a watering hole for people at the studios.

Critiki - Ooga-Mooga - Humu Kon Tiki

[ Edited by: Humuhumu 2006-11-04 16:34 ]

On 2006-11-04 16:31, Humuhumu wrote:
Unfortunately, A9.com yanked their BlockView service a few weeks ago, that would have given us street-level photos of the buildings.

Well now, that's a bummer. I liked that service and was hoping they'd add more cities.

Here's that area from http://local.live.com/

[ Edited by: TikiPhil 2006-11-04 22:42 ]

Somewhere someone told me that the supposedly the animators had an UNDERGROUND PASSAGE to that bar...which always sounded intriguing, but highly unlikely. The Disney fan lore is sometimes even more "urban myth" inspired than any Tiki stories ever could be.

Interesting post, surfed web everywhere looking for info on Pago Pago Bar. ZIP!!!!

Thortiki

PS This joint must have been fairly short lived IF it did exist
in whatever form. Cool thread topic!

somewhere I have the matchbook from that bar, I'll look around.

I have yet to see any proof of that Burbank one on paper. Might have just been a lowbudge joint with no money for printed paper paraphenalia.
There were several Pago Pago bars in the history of Polynesian Pop, starting in the Pre-Tiki era. There was one in Long Beach, one in Arizona,...where else? Anybody?

There was a Pago Pago in Portland, OR. Information on these joints seems pretty hard to come by.

-Joe

Arkiva Tropika has 8 paper items with Pago Pago ~ but nothing for the Calif location..

Puamana ~ anything else in your Arkiva that hasn't yet been posted?

Of course! Why look far away when great sources are so nearby. Any Pago Pagos on Critiki? Here's a good one, from Humu's Blog, from the SF airport exhibit:

http://photo.humuhumu.com/v/sfoexhibit/P1020667.JPG.html

There are four Pago-Pagos in Critiki, but none from the Burbank area. The image you linked to is from the Tucson, Arizona location (Fun Fact!: floats that Eli Hedley's shop created for the Tucson Pago-Pago can be seen at Forbidden Island).

Kerrrrazzzy! :)

Are we sure it was called "Pago Pago"? Would you mind posting the link to the postcard photo?

I can almost swear I can remember a sign for a Pago Pago Bar in that area still in the mid-'80s, back when I was riding a bicycle from Arcadia to Burbank every day for work. I never stopped in 'cause I was always broke & running late for work, but I was also always looking for shortcuts & routes around traffic so I might've been down a back alley when I saw it but I don't think so. I think it was right between Edison & Buena Vista? I remember it being just caddy corner to St. Josephs.

Here is the front of the postcard, which is a hand drawn depiction of the Walt Disney studio in 1946. Menition is made of the Pago Pago. When I posted it on my blog Stuff From the Park I received comment from someone who worked at the Disney Studios at the time.

Holy smokes! That's quite a unique item. Can you post a link to the entry on your blog? I searched your blog and couldn't find it. I wonder about that "ten minutes from Anaheim" though unless there was a bullet train running back in the 40s.

I hope I don’t sound like an ass but I think the Pago Pago mentioned on the postcard might be a joke, it was used as a funny destination in early cartoons just like Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga often were.

There was one in Dallas too:

ROBERT L . NORTON, 3414 Manana Street, Dallas, Texas, owner of the Pago Pago Club (formerly known as the Pago Club), 2822 McKinney Avenue, Dallas, was interviewed at his place of residence .
NORTON stated that on Saturday night, November 23, 1963, he had given 850.00 in cash to JACK L . RUBY at the Pago Club prior to RUBY leaving the club that night.

Ha! Now we know it: The Pago Pago clubs all over the country actually all WERE secretly connected, and were training hubs for the Kennedy assassination...and those working to cover it up afterwards! And Disney was involved, too, yeah....

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2006-11-06 21:43 ]

The post and replies are from September 08, 2006. The writer was positive about the view and the name of the bar so I believe it does exist. In one of the TC posts that mentioned Pago Pago, a musician spoke about playing the bar in the valley. I would assume the bar in the valley is this Pago Pago.

I put my resident Burbank researcher, my girlfriend Naomi Alper, (owner of the swank 8-Ball store now on Magnolia Blvd) on this, who has done some local Tiki research for me before, here is what she found so far:

Pago Pago WAS a real bar; it did exist. In fact, many of the people who assisted me in my search remembered it, yet no one seemed to be able to recall what it looked like, inside or out, and I haven't come up with any photos or ads yet. So name aside, we still don't know yet if it was actually a Tiki bar.

But this is what I know so far:

According to a 1952 Burbank City Directory, the Pago Pago Club was located at 2413 W. Alameda Ave. and owned by a Mrs. RT Swartz (a woman!). If you try to get a satellite photo of this address through Google, it will land you in the middle of the street and not on a building, but I have a feeling that it was located where a Disney building now stands (someone called it a travel center in this thread, but I'd always heard it was a day care center). Even if this isn't the exact location, chances are that the original building has been torn down; the only period building that remains on that block is California Kitchens (2305 W. Alameda), a beautiful mid-century gem with gorgeous signage.

One of the librarians who assisted me in the search recalled hearing that a Disney animator liberated the Pago Pago sign when the bar closed. This story was corroborated by this blurb that I found in the LA Times archives from an article dated 1/23/1994:

"A sign in the back yard reading "Pago Pago" offers a clue to the party's origins. "It used to hang outside this bar across from the Disney studios, in Burbank, where the old-time animators met and drank," says Dave Spafford, a Disney vet himself before forming Spaff Animation with [Debbie Spafford] in 1989. Among their credits: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and Woody Woodpecker's Oscar presentation for Best Animated Short Film of 1990."

(Unfortunately, you have to pay to read the rest of the article, and the scripts on the LA Times page kept freezing up my computer, so I didn't want to risk it.)

Another librarian gave me the name of a gentleman who has worked at Disney since 1966, so hopefully he'll be able to provide more info when I call him tomorrow--and maybe provide us with some photos or ephemera? We can only hope!

---Reporting from Burbank, Naomi "Legs" Alper

Way to go, Sven!

That building on the Northeast corner of the intersection in the TikiPhil post above, is the Disney Employee Day Care Center.

Have no idea what was there before they built or converted that building to the Day Care Center.

I'm an Ass.

On 2006-11-07 22:38, Bora Boris wrote:
I'm an Ass.

roflmao!

On 2006-11-07 22:38, Bora Boris wrote:
I'm an Ass.

Not at all! Kicking the tires on our information is a critical part of the process, and much appreciated!

Naomi sinks a three-pointer! Now that the information is getting all solid-like, and there's an actual address, I've added this Pago Pago to Critiki. The address mapped just fine for me at Google, Yahoo! and Maporama, though I'm sure the building is long gone. It looks like it was about here:

Chisel slinger, have you had luck finding a matchbook?

Thanks so much to everyone who's chipped in on this -- it's so cool to see so many people working together.

I've been re arranging the tiki room, I'm still looking. theres still stuff hidden. arrrgh.

To all who posted to this, thanks for the information and hard work. I originally thought the same Bora Bora that the writer had made up the name of the bar....so this is really cool. Now I hope to see some artifacts from the bar so I know what to look for!

Nothing really to add to what's already now known, but just got off the phone with a friend of mine that worked as an animator at Disney 1970-1989 before moving over to Disney Consumer Products as an artist there.

He confirms it was indeed a real bar. He only went to it a couple of times himself. I asked about any tiki or theming and he didn't really recall any but said there might have been some. To quote him, "It was just a typical Burbank dive bar."

I think that blue arrow is correct as to its location. On the very corner of the main intersection of Buena Vista and Alameda, used to be a Jack In The Box. That was torn down to make way for the Disney Day Care Center that's there now.

But for sure the Pago Pago was real, and it was a favorite of many a Studio employee that wanted a drink and a drag.

[ Edited by: PremEx 2006-11-08 13:24 ]

I'm the ass in the joint. my pago pago ended up being the pooki pooki in cinncinnatti matchbook. never mind.

On 2006-11-07 22:02, Haole'akamai wrote:
Way to go, Sven!

No, way to go Naomi!

On 2006-11-07 23:53, Humuhumu wrote:
Naomi sinks a three-pointer! Now that the information is getting all solid-like, and there's an actual address, I've added this Pago Pago to Critiki. The address mapped just fine for me at Google, Yahoo! and Maporama, though I'm sure the building is long gone. It looks like it was about here:

That's it! That's where the bar I remember biking past back in the mid-'80s was. And wasn't the old Buena Vista Travel Agency the first store front in the building just West of that?

OK, I'm trying to envision the front of the place from biking past it Twenty-mumble years ago. All I can remember is a vaguely Beachcomber-looking front featuring Lahula Matting (?), bamboo trim (?), the name, and possibly bamboo around the sign? Mostly I remember it being a darker brown than the surrounding buildings.

On 2006-11-07 21:33, bigbrotiki wrote:
I put my resident Burbank researcher, my girlfriend Naomi Alper, (owner of the swank 8-Ball store now on Magnolia Blvd) on this, who has done some local Tiki research for me before, here is what she found so far:

Pago Pago WAS a real bar; it did exist. In fact, many of the people who assisted me in my search remembered it, yet no one seemed to be able to recall what it looked like, inside or out, and I haven't come up with any photos or ads yet. So name aside, we still don't know yet if it was actually a Tiki bar.

But this is what I know so far:

According to a 1952 Burbank City Directory, the Pago Pago Club was located at 2413 W. Alameda Ave. and owned by a Mrs. RT Swartz (a woman!). If you try to get a satellite photo of this address through Google, it will land you in the middle of the street and not on a building, but I have a feeling that it was located where a Disney building now stands (someone called it a travel center in this thread, but I'd always heard it was a day care center). Even if this isn't the exact location, chances are that the original building has been torn down; the only period building that remains on that block is California Kitchens (2305 W. Alameda), a beautiful mid-century gem with gorgeous signage.

One of the librarians who assisted me in the search recalled hearing that a Disney animator liberated the Pago Pago sign when the bar closed. This story was corroborated by this blurb that I found in the LA Times archives from an article dated 1/23/1994:

"A sign in the back yard reading "Pago Pago" offers a clue to the party's origins. "It used to hang outside this bar across from the Disney studios, in Burbank, where the old-time animators met and drank," says Dave Spafford, a Disney vet himself before forming Spaff Animation with [Debbie Spafford] in 1989. Among their credits: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and Woody Woodpecker's Oscar presentation for Best Animated Short Film of 1990."

(Unfortunately, you have to pay to read the rest of the article, and the scripts on the LA Times page kept freezing up my computer, so I didn't want to risk it.)

Another librarian gave me the name of a gentleman who has worked at Disney since 1966, so hopefully he'll be able to provide more info when I call him tomorrow--and maybe provide us with some photos or ephemera? We can only hope!

---Reporting from Burbank, Naomi "Legs" Alper
[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2006-11-07 22:27 ]

I got the full article via my SDPL account (Love them libraries!):

PALM LATITUDES Los Angeles Times Magazine; Times Magazine Desk, Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext). Los Angeles, Calif.: Jan 23, 1994. pg. 9
BY: Judy Raphael
(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1994all Rights reserved)

Dave and Debbie Spafford's neighbors have gotten used to the noise and the laughter and even the occasional limo. They know that every Friday night, a corner of their quiet neighborhood becomes the center of the world-well, the animation world.

For the past five years, the Spaffords' Friday night house party (or "animation roadhouse" in Debbie's words), has drawn animators from all over the city, with W.O.M. spreading as far as Europe and Australia. Recent guests have included "Nightmare Before Christmas" director Henry Selick, Ralph ("Fritz the Cat," "Cool World") Bakshi and John Kricfalusi, creator of "Ren & Stimpy."

A sign in the back yard reading "Pago Pago" offers a clue to the party's origins. "It used to hang outside this bar across from the Disney studios, in Burbank, where the old-time animators met and drank," says Dave Spafford, a Disney vet himself before forming Spaff Animation with Debbie in 1989. Among their credits: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and Woody Woodpecker's Oscar presentation for Best Animated Short Film of 1990.

The idea for the parties came out of the Spaffords' experience in England, when they were working on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." (Dave drew the piano duel between Donald Duck and Daffy Duck.) There, animators socialized at a local pub after work, connecting with the film-and each other.

Back home though, animation get-togethers didn't seem to work. "We tried sitting over margaritas at this Mexican restaurant, but it wasn't the same," Dave says. So the Spaffords decided to do it at home-with its Alice-meets-Haight-Ashbury decor, a cartoon fantasy of weird fiberglass horses, spinning mirror disco balls, four pinball machines, a pool table and a '30s-era jukebox.

"This is no football bar," says Dave. "After a few beers, we put out grease pencils and draw on the table, so our whole bar ends up being one big cartoon! We're all freaks. Who else wants to do cartoons?" Byline: Judy Raphael
[Illustration]
PHOTO: COLOR, "Ren & Stimpy" production manager Maureen McCann, left, with the Spaffords. / Dale Berman

Sorry, but the picture doesn't seem to be available.

On 2006-11-09 21:04, freddiefreelance wrote:

On 2006-11-07 22:02, Haole'akamai wrote:
Way to go, Sven!

No, way to go Naomi!

SO TRUE! I read the post too quickly; I should give credit where credit is due....

Naomi, you rawk!

I sent the postcard image over to Michael Broggie (son of Disney legend Roger Broggie) who said he does not have any memory of the Pago Pago. However, he told me he would show it to his stepmother, who worked at the studio in the '40s, and to some other contacts he has. Hopefully, something will come of it.

I was hoping I would have at least a matchbook from this place, since every bar, no matter how small, had a matchbook even if it didn't have a postcard - but no luck. I've two matchbooks from the Pago Pago in Long Beach, CA, and one from the Pago Cocktail Lounge on York Blvd in Los Angeles. That's about it for the California Pago Pagos. It was a common name and was used all over the U.S.

As far as women owning these tiki bars, it's more common than you would think. Quite a few of my matchbooks and postcards have a woman's name preceding the name of the tiki bar, such as "Vivian Lairds SOUTH SEAS" on the 101 hwy between Anaheim & Santa Ana.

Sabu

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2006-11-15 14:23 ]

Hi Guys, GatorRob asked me (on another thread) to post some info about the sign.

The owner of the sign is a good friend (Dave Spafford) and it is still standing proudly in his backyard. I'm not sure if he has any pictures of the actual bar in it's heyday but I'll be happy to ask him.

He worked as an animator at Disney in the 70's (but left to ultimately start his own company--Spaff animation) and used to go to the Pago Pago after work. Years later, when they were tearing the building down, he stopped by the construction site to ask what would happen to the sign (they were literally in the process of getting it ready to pull it out with a crane). The foreman told him it was headed to the dump so Dave offered them some money to hold onto it long enough to arrange to transport it to his house.

Some people at Disney got wind of it and actually filed a suit to somehow claim the sign (because of it's Disney history--even though they had no ownership rights). Dave is friends with Roy Disney and Roy stepped in to tell the Disney people to back off.

The sign is absolutely beautiful and Dave has it wired up so the neon still glows!

That would be awesome to get some pictures of that sign on here! Would be a good addition to this interesting post about the Pago Pago that really doesn't have a lot of information about it.
Thanks, TabooDan

I used to work for Disney Imagineering, and lived in the area.
The building in the foreground is Disney Film Studios. They don't do anything for Disneyland Park there. That's done at the Flower & Sonora cite, or at the Tujunga facility.
There's a small restaurant, Chinese, I believe. Just to the East (out of frame to the right) of the Kitchen Showroom building on the extreme right upper corner of this pic.

So there may have been a tiki bar there, but there was no street sign for one. As for the undergroung passageway... I believe that's Disney Fairy Dust.

Kelly

I used to work for Disney Imagineering, and lived in the area.
The building in the foreground is Disney Film Studios. They don't do anything for Disneyland Park there. That's done at the Flower & Sonora cite, or at the Tujunga facility.
The blue arrow is actually pointing to a small tree-lined fenced playground, at a very exclusive child daycare center.
There is however a small restaurant, Chinese, I believe. Just to the East (out of frame to the right) of the Kitchen Showroom building on the extreme right upper corner of this pic.

So there may have been a tiki bar there, but there was no street sign for one. As for the underground passageway... I believe that's Disney Fairy Dust.

Kelly

LA Times 1954

LA Times 1959

Hello,
On Facebook I follow the "Burbank in the 60's" account. Well, yesterday they posted this photo; and it triggered a memory of this thread.

Can't really tell much from it.. no address is visible. But there looks to be a 76 station next door. Was there a 76 station across from Disney in those days? The Facebook comments state that the 76 Station became a Jack in the Box.