1978 Doodle Map, annotated

It's not often I post scans "original size" because it wreaks havoc on most everyone's display and those of you on phones are typically stuck, unable to scroll over to view. 

But here's an exception, primarily because the poor quality (it's a screen grab for now. Original in 600 dpi is on my next trip "to-do list") and because there is so much going on in each little section that it's impossible to condense them and still be seen.

In the 1978 Dobie yearbook Jim Fairchild and David Kidd created an end-page spread for the ages. Or, at least, the time capsule moment that was the fall of 1977 and the spring of 1978.

I'm going to try and list as many "Easter Eggs" on the map as I spot. Please point out any I missed. 

And some I will have no clue as to the exact reference. Please add comments!

I've got four quadrant screen shots here.

Bottom right quadrant panel, here's what I've got:

Top left to right:

Telephone Road has an old rotary phone in the center of it, as well as the poles flanking it. 

Woolco

"To Head's"?

Dutch Kettle with a UFO and alien behind it

McDonalds on Edgebrook almost lost in the fold

Gulf Freeway going over Edgebrook but under Almeda Genoa

The Excuse Me/Steve Martin guy in the grocery store parking lot (Fiesta?)

Gallaghers Steak House

Palm's Nursery

A bulldozer near what might be where the Twin W motel was?

Senior 78 billboard

Gulfway Drive-Inn with what appears to be "Bop Shoe Wop Meets Darth Vadar" on the marquee

Center, left to right:

Hobbit Hill (a play on Honda?), Almeda Mall swallowed in the fold, with some fencing happening on top of Penny's and Bracewell branch library in the mall parking lot.

Haverty's, Almeda 9 theater and Total Camera

A reference to the year's big smash, Grease, 

The crumbling facade of Best Products

Guessing David or Jim's house? which gets us back to the Gulfway, etc.

Lower, left to right:

Beverly Hills park, Target, Pizza Hut, with a cigar smoking clown on the Jack in the Box in front

a flasher and a giraffe with a beer bottle and a sign reading "Love Live Long Necks" to its left

The Dobie parking lot a complete wreck, with tow trucks and Mr. Brawn up on the band box over the practice field

Someone on the roof with a ball mitt

Dobie with drag racers on Beamer in front and a chopped down tree with the ax still in the stump

a Longhorn peeking from the far right of the building near the tennis courts, apparently smoking behind the building

a football passing through the uprights behind on the fields, 

where the fence to Kirkville has a stop sign on the backside and a horse and angry farmer in front. 

And the very bottom of this quadrant:

Tarzan swinging through the trees

Guy lighting one up, leaning on a fire hydrant, saying 'gee, I feel cool' and dog about to attack him from behind

bald pirate-y dude holding a bottle with a label I can't read emerging from bushes near angry dog

behind him, about to get mowed down by the drag racers is a thief (?) on a bicycle

Two guys I would guess to be David and Jim amid the trees, with a slurpee?, working on what might be this map, overlaid to their right with numbered page (the lost ones, perhaps?) and a sign I cannot read.

Guy with a maniacal look wearing Mickey Mouse ears with an arrow through them, reading the Chapparal 

Way more wholesome guy at a fishing hole, can't tell what he's landed

A cameraman popping from the bushes, shooting the drag racers. He was identified by Kathleen for me:

NASA with a downed shuttle broken in half and a confused astronaut (long before the Challenger or Columbia tragedies)

And R2-D2

Bottom left quadrant of the map:

Top, left to right:

Astroworld surrounded by an electric fence (complete with guy getting electrocuted) with a number of ride references and the Dome behind it

Rides include the Texas Cyclone, the Alpine Sleigh Ride (with Abominable Snowman?), Greezed Lightnin', Dexter Frebish Electric Roller Ride (renamed Excalibur a couple of years later when they changed the theme from County Fair to Nottingham), the lost World Adventure boat ride, the AstroNeedle, and (edited addition) the darkest spot on the map that I've been told must be King Kong on the River of No Return ride.

A witch leaving her house near what would be 610 and a kiddie train -- Peppermint Park?

A lake I'm not sure about that has a duck and tiny Lock Ness monster looking creature

Near . . . Gulfgate? Not sure on that building

A water tower and an unknown building behind Woolco and near the alien

A guy sitting on the telephone wires in front of that

A guy near a building marked S.I.P. and we're back over to the Steve Martin reference at Edgebrook

Bottom left to right:

through the midst of the bushes, a runner, a bi-plane 

with a tiger? popping from the foliage,

a girl leaving the Flea Market

Hobby Airport 

and at bottom, a shark on the wrong side of the sand, 

the Chevy van and trash near the "No Vehicles on the Beach" sign, and dude with surfboard

and the guys pointing out the beach is on the wrong side of the map.

Top left quadrant:

Top, left to right

Galleria area with trees growing out of windows of the tallest building

Trader Vic's (@Shamrock Hilton) with a werewolf drinking a piña colada. In case you might not get the reference, they also have a guy shouting out "Werewolf of London" nearby as another nod to the very popular '78 song.

House of Pies 

Southwest Bank

Museum of Fine Arts and Mecom fountain

Warwick hotel

"Goodguys" Blimp overhead with Jim and David's names 

Sewage plant with a guy falling in from a parachute (?)

Rice University

The Summit

Alabama Theater with Rocky Horror on the marquee

one skyscraper outside downtown looks like it's toppling over: was one demolished around this time?

Traffic "Jam" at the Pierce Elevated of I-45

Downtown Houston of 1978: skyline buildings a few years before the boom of scrapers would hit in the 80s would include:

Exxon 

Tenneco

One Shell (tallest at the time)

Gulf 

HL&P

Kellogg Tower

Entex

Hyatt Regency & Spindletop restaurant

Penzoil 

Niels Esperson building

One Allen Center & Citicorp

First City National

I think that's supposed to be Antioch Mission Baptist church nestled in the skyscrapers, too. 

Bottom, left to right

Astro Village Hotel, where they had prom that year, has a guy shouting "JFD" from the roof

Houston Zoo and Zoo train

Museum of Natural Science with the dino bones outside

Sam Houston statue with roundabout and Mecom fountain

Miller's Theater

University of Houston and Jeppeson Stadium

a car that's flown off the 59 curve and into St. Joseph's 

Downtown YMCA

Top right quadrant:

Top, left to right
A plane nearly collides with the space shuttle. This was the year it landed at Ellington atop a plane.
Below, a freighter goes down, Titanic style, in the ship channel.
People ride the channel bridge like a roller coaster, while one guy dives from it, and another guy fishes from a boat.
Lots of industrial plants around, Texas Rice and Goodyear are labelled
And the San Jacinto monument is apparently being bombed by Battleship Texas.
Upjohn?
Saloon, next to San Jacinto College with water tower and golf course 

Center, left to right
DPS
Pasadena bank building, not sure what's happening to the fellows to its left
Windy's? with a death reaper looking fellow popping out from behind the sign
Guy on the Harley has just passed something I can't make out to his left
The driver of the Tex-Pak yearbook truck, running from the truck on fire, from the flamethrowers? held by (presumably) David and Jim on the roof of the 7-11



Bottom, left to right
Back around to Steve Martin in the parking lot of Fiesta (what was it before?) across the street from Gallagher's
The one I'm surprised they managed to get away with sneaking in: the lynching from a tree just to the left of
Memorial Football Stadium, Stoney Phillips Gymnasium, P.I.S.D. admin building, and . . . 
Shipley's Donuts.

David and Jim had their own page in the same yearbook, as they were seniors graduating that year. The aforementioned entire re-work of the end pages is mentioned in the story: