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Pago Pago Bar Next to Disney Studios |
Humuhumu
Grand Member (5 years) 
Joined: Aug 22, 2002
Posts: 3536
From: San Francisco
|  Posted: 2006-11-06 10:36 am Permalink
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).
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Critiki - Ooga-Mooga - Humu Kon Tiki
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 10562
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2006-11-06 10:46 am Permalink
Kerrrrazzzy! 
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Haole'akamai
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 07, 2005
Posts: 2269
From: The Polynesian Port of NOLA
| Posted: 2006-11-06 2:19 pm Permalink
Are we sure it was called "Pago Pago"? Would you mind posting the link to the postcard photo?
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"If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."
-Catherine Aird
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freddiefreelance
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Feb 15, 2003
Posts: 2983
From: San Diego, Ca.
| Posted: 2006-11-06 4:54 pm Permalink
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.
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Matterhorn1959
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Feb 18, 2006
Posts: 177
From: Mile High City
| Posted: 2006-11-06 4:58 pm Permalink
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.
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GatorRob
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 20, 2004
Posts: 1766
From: 3 hrs 33 mins to paradise
| Posted: 2006-11-06 5:26 pm Permalink
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.
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Bora Boris
Mr. Unreasonable
Joined: Mar 25, 2005
Posts: 2401
From: Boogie Wonderland
| Posted: 2006-11-06 7:14 pm Permalink
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.
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Paipo
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 22, 2006
Posts: 1886
From: Aotearoa / NZ
| Posted: 2006-11-06 7:39 pm Permalink
There was one in Dallas too:
Quote:
| 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. |
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 10562
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2006-11-06 9:41 pm Permalink
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....
[ This Message was edited by: bigbrotiki 2006-11-06 21:43 ]
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Matterhorn1959
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Feb 18, 2006
Posts: 177
From: Mile High City
| Posted: 2006-11-07 08:45 am Permalink
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.
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 10562
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2006-11-07 9:33 pm Permalink
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<<
[ This Message was edited by: bigbrotiki 2006-11-07 22:27 ]
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Haole'akamai
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 07, 2005
Posts: 2269
From: The Polynesian Port of NOLA
| Posted: 2006-11-07 10:02 pm Permalink
Way to go, Sven!
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PremEx
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 23, 2006
Posts: 271
From: Houston, Texas
| Posted: 2006-11-07 10:05 pm Permalink
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.
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Bora Boris
Mr. Unreasonable
Joined: Mar 25, 2005
Posts: 2401
From: Boogie Wonderland
| Posted: 2006-11-07 10:38 pm Permalink
I'm an Ass.
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Haole'akamai
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 07, 2005
Posts: 2269
From: The Polynesian Port of NOLA
| Posted: 2006-11-07 11:03 pm Permalink
Quote:
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On 2006-11-07 22:38, Bora Boris wrote:
I'm an Ass.
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roflmao!
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"If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."
-Catherine Aird
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