Disneyland Lost Media - Color Footage of the Rainbow Caverns

My line of work is pretty unique and allows me to dive into many Americana-based rabbit holes. It's interesting to me that a place as thoroughly-documented as Disneyland has some genuine lost media. Below is my favorite example, but there's a ton of early stuff to dig into, such as the first iteration of the Alice in Wonderland ride.

First iteration of the Alice in Wonderland ride, 1958

But I'm not going to get into that. I want to talk about the Rainbow Caverns, which is the focus of today's rabbit hole. Before Thunder Mountain, there used to be a mine ride that would culminate with the train arriving inside stunning caverns full of vibrant, colored water. These caverns were called the Rainbow Caverns. You can watch a pretty accurate recreation here. 

A gorgeous silkscreen poster of the Rainbow Caverns as featured in Disneyland's entrance

Because of the way the cavern was built, it was basically impossible to film the inside of these caverns. There's a few interesting color photos you can find if you poke around, but I've searched for about a year and have only seen about five. Most of the photos posted online are inaccurately labeled and are actually pictures of Thunder Mountain's homage. 

The above image is the most common image you will find of the Rainbow Caverns. Most photos that circulate feature this scene in various forms of saturation. It's difficult to determine exactly what colors these caverns utilized.

There is black and white footage of the inside of the caverns, but the footage is so blurry that it is hard to get a scale of the achievement the Imagineers were able to accomplish. The color recreation posted in the above video is sourced from that black and white footage, and it is colored inaccurately. 

By all accounts, the caverns were a stunning achievement and one of the highlights of the park's opening years. What I find interesting is this ride had a pretty long shelf life and eventually closed in 1977 with zero color footage of the rainbow cavern. Walt Disney was clearly proud of this creation, which makes it fascinating that there is such little documentation.

One of the coolest pieces of the Rainbow Caverns was the eerie, ethereal music that accompanied the attraction. Just imagine listening to this while looking at the cascading rainbow water! They were really cooking.