Knott's Pitchur Gallery
It's time to delve into my small collection of souvenir photos from Knott's Berry Farm's "Pitchur Gallery". I love 'em! Both of these are from what is by far the most common scene, with folks sitting on the bench seat of a covered wagon. "Ghost Town or Bust!". Well, they made it, and now they can set those oxen free to frolic. Is dad carrying a comb in his pocket? Gotta keep that hair neat and tidy.
Next is this cute one with a brother (in a crazy aloha shirt!) and smiling sister. I have to wonder why this family photo wound up on eBay, but that's a question that I often have.
GDB friend TokyoMagic! sent me a message a while ago with the following image. I hope TM does not mind that I am quoting his email! He said... It's a pin that Knott's came out with for their 100th anniversary. They are doing a release of 100 pins (one per week) for their 100th anniversary. This one was released in January of this year. That small black and white image can be removed and you can put your own picture in it. I kind of wish it didn't have "Your Picture Here" on the actual finished product, but it does. I've bought a few of the pins, but I'm not collecting all 100 of them. At $9.99 each (and a few cost even a bit more), that would be over $1,000 for all 100 pins. And, no surprise, folks on eBay are hoping to get $25 or more for each pin. Let's see, 25 times 100, carry the 4, multiply by pi, divide by the hypotenuse, find the remainder, and I'm not good at math.
Good old TokyoMagic! also included a nice copy of the photo that was used on the pin. Aw, Walt and Cordelia, I'll bet they never imagined the life they'd have together when they were trying to scrape out a living out in the desert many years before.
Thanks to TokyoMagic! for his help!
21 comments:
Well, I have NEVER been sooooo misquoted in all my life!!! ;-)
I always love seeing the various souvenir photos from the Pitchur Gallery. I never did pose for one of those pictures at Knott's, but I did do the "souvenir photo thing" a couple times, just up the street at Movieland Wax Museum.
Major-
Ahhh... TM! to the rescue. I think we need more aloha shirts - especially when riding oxen-! Few real cowboys would be seen without one.
Thanks to TM!, and the Major.
Major, "now they can set those oxen free to frolic." The two oxen are named Ollie and Ollie.
The two boys look like they inherited their mother's mouth... and eyes... and nose. In fact, I don't think that guy is their biological dad at all! I bet he's an alien who took hooman form. He looks sorta like that guy in the Twilight Zone episode, the Venusian with a third eye on his forehead, masquerading as a diner cook. This guy isn't wearing a hat to cover up the extra eye but you can see a spot on his forehead, like The Dent, where he has camouflaged his third eye. I'M NOT CRAZY! (Just a little 'off'.) Oh, and that thing in his pocket is how he communicates with the Mother Ship.
The first two photos look like they're probably from the late forties, very early fifties at the latest, don't you think?
Thanks for the extra stuff, Tokyo!
And thanks, Major for blowing the cover of that Venusian invader.
I love Hawaiian shirts! And bowling shirts! And t-shirts with slightly odd things on them (like the last meal I ate).
I'm a nerd.
The artist did the almost impossible and made Ollie and Ollie look cute! It is widely known that oxen are the least "plush worthy" bovine.
TM, I can get the whole collection for you for nothing! Well! Except for the cost of bail and court fees.
This setting reminds me of the lyrics from Sons of the Pioneers… “… stalwart men in buckskin, their women by their side, the sunsets’ on their faces as they ride on, westward, ride.”
Swap the buckskin for an aloha shirt and we’re good.
I’m growing a collection of these souvenir portraits. Seems like everywhere we go now, there’s a photographer and at the end of the tour they have your pictures for sale. Modern tech has really made it easy. I’ve got Brooklyn Bridge, St. Louis Arch, Ft. Bragg Skunk Train, Dole Plantation, Kualoa Ranch, New Orleans Riverboat, etc. I always buy the basic package because I’m a soft touch and can’t say no to the vendors. They look good on the mantelpiece, though.
Thanks Major, a good start to the week.
JG
TokyoMagic!, Pepperidge is my name, and fake news is my game! I have more Pitchur Gallery examples (I acquired a lot of them, somehow), including a few rare scenes. My brother did the souvenir photo thing with Frankenstein’s monster at Movieland, but I never did.
Nanook, not many people realize that aloha shirts were actually a popular thing for cowboys in the 19th century.
JB, What does “Ollie, Ollie, oxen free” that mean, anyway? Why tell Ollie (or his brother Ollie) about it? He was busy building a silo. It is sometimes pretty amazing how much kids can resemble one parent or another. I had a friend who had a baby son who looked SO much like the father, it was eerie. Including the mustache. Maybe that guy’s third eye only emerges at certain times, otherwise it is covered by a thin, translucent layer of skin. We’ve seen it a million times. I would guess that both of those photos are from the 1950s, but they actually might be from the 1940’s. I don’t have them in front of me, but I like getting them when they say “Knott’s Berry PLACE” on the back, so… pre-1946.
stu29573, I especially like photos from the ‘40s and ‘50s where folks are wearing aloha shirts, because you know that they are authentic! Not the phony balonies of today. My dad had one that he bought in Hawaii in the late 1950s (when he was in the Navy), but nobody seems to know what happened to it after he died. I hope he’s wearing it up in heaven. As for those pins, now you can see sellers hoping to get $30, $40, or even more per pin. So for a mere $4,000 you can have the whole set.
JG, oh I love the idea of your collection of souvenir portraits! It sounds very cool. Like Johnny Cash, it sounds like you’ve been everywhere (man)! I only know a few songs by the Sons of the Pioneers, but I love them. I’m not ordinarily a big fan of country music, but the old stuff, particularly cowboy songs, are OK by me.
Hooray, pitchurs! I haven’t bought any new ones for my small collection in a while, though I finally found a “Knitting Cats” background one that I really wanted. The youngest in photo one looks like he saw some chilling things on their journey. I missed out on buying that pin and was sad about the reseller markups. Thanks for a nice post, TokyoMagic! and Major.
Stu, when I first started to read your last sentence, I thought you were going to say, "I can get it for you wholesale." While you are at it, take two of each pin.....the Major can sell the second set for you, on the black market! ;-)
Major, my brother posed for the souvenir pic with Frankenstein, but we don't know what happened to it. During the same visit, I posed with the Wolfman. I posted that pic in the past, along with the white oval, of course. A friend of mine shared his Movieland/Frankenstein photo with me, and I also posted that a few years back.
Kathy, it looks like Knott's still has the Pitchur Gallery pin available, on their "Online Marketplace":
https://marketplace.knotts.com/collections/pins/products/ghost-towns-pitchur-gallery-collectible-pin
Oh great, thanks TM! I looked before and didn’t see it, must have missed it.
Kathy!, I haven’t acquired any new pitchurs either, though I did buy one a while ago that came with the original negative, which is a first for me. I’d still love to find one of the large-sized prints! Congrats on getting the “Knitting Cats” example, it’s so odd, and that’s what makes it great.
TokyoMagic!, so funny, when I read “I can get it for you wholesale”, I immediately think of a Warner Bros. cartoon. “Prehistoric Porky” to be exact! 1940. Porky hunts for a new suit, and when a panther learns that Porky wants his hide, he says he can get it for him wholesale! I love your Wolfman photo because (apparently) you are the Invisible Man.
Kathy!, you can buy all of them and then you will control the market. Like gold!
Sadly, I have no connections...
Major, "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" was the name of a Broadway musical, in the 1960s. It's probably had some revivals since then, but I've never seen it...I'm just familiar with the title. I'm sure the title came from a common saying, especially if it was used in a vintage Porky Pig cartoon. All I have to say about that is, "HOBOKEN??? I'm DYING!!!"
Kathy!, I'm glad that I was able to help! While you are at it, you should buy the other 99 pins in the set. Or maybe Stu will "get them" for both of us! ;-)
Still giggling over Ollie and Ollie.
A post came across my Tumblr dash the other day, featuring the keychain souvenir photo viewers I've described here before, that they used to sell at Darien Lake when I was growing up. For years I had one with a picture of me on their antique car Autopia-type ride. The ones in the Tumblr post contain, er, some naughty pictures that are almost certainly NSFW, but I was just glad to finally have a picture of what the viewers looked like.
https://atomic-chronoscaph.tumblr.com/post/677316674020589568/vintage-risqu%C3%A9-slide-viewer-key-chains-1960s
Melissa, I imagine it would be annoying having both oxen with the same name: "Git-up there, Ollie... No, not you Ollie; the other Ollie! Consarnit, anyway!"
Melissa, I have a viewer that looks just like that. Inside, is a picture of a friend and me, standing in front of the entrance to Six Flag's Magic Mountain (we're fully clothed!). The pic and the viewer is from circa 1986/1987.
"Hi, this is my brother Darrell, and this is my other brother Darrell".
JG
JG, there were two boys in my high school class named Darrell and Darryl, and I don;t think a week went by without somebody quoting Newhart to them.
stu29573, but I thought you were in the Yakuza!
TokyoMagic!, gosh, I would have guessed that a musical of that name would go back to the 1930s. I remember cartoon characters saying, “I’m dying!”, but I didn’t remember the Hoboken part.
Melissa, when you think about it, Ollie is actually a good name.
Melissa, there are some Disneyland keychain viewers from the 1960s (I think) that go for BIG MONEY if they ever come up on eBay, I bought a few from a friend. I don’t know why they fetch such a big price since you only get one image, and the image has usually turned red. Naughty pictures you say? Time to do some investigation!
JB, maybe the two Ollies would understand which one you were talking to by subtle inflections in your voice?
TokyoMagic!, a friend gave me some boxes of slides from his boss’s house, and there were some custom keychain viewers mixed in the boxes. I gave those back! Sadly, the slides are all photos of Europe from the 1990s. Pretty, but not really what I am looking for.
JG, a sitcom classic!
Melissa, that reminds me, I had a class with a boy named “Don”, and a girl named “Dawn”. Hilarity ensued.
Major, I think the "HOBOKEN!?!?" line came from the Bugs Bunny short, where he's putting a lot of effort into trying to get a little lost penguin back home to the arctic, only to find out at the end that little guy is from Hoboken, N.J. Also, a couple times throughout the short, Humphrey Bogart shows up out of nowhere, and says to Bugs, "Pardon me, but can you help a fellow American, who's down on his luck?"
I don’t know if anyone will see this here on yesterday’s post, but one of my favorite vintage photography blogs posted a picture recently I thought it would fit right in, from a similar “Photo op” setup:
https://cabinetcardgallery.com/2022/02/19/three-men-in-a-faux-plane-novelty-studio-rppc-brickfield-hill-australia/
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