Post #380744 by Mr. Pupu Pants on Fri, May 16, 2008 12:43 PM

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!