Knott's Berry Farm, September 1962
If you love vintage Knott's Berry Farm, you are my kind of people! And if you don't love vintage Knott's, enjoy your borscht, comrade.
How often did a girl get to pet a friendly burro in 1962? Not very often! Little Miss Blue Dress is patiently (?) waiting her turn, but she's already made a connection to Buttercup. "You and I will be friends forever!" (said Buttercup, not the little girl).
Next is this nice family portrait next to ol' #41, the Red Cliff. Guests could lie down in front of the train just for laughs. What a hoot! Notice how close the parking lot is, just beyond the depot. Of course this was long before Knott's charged an admission fee - just show up and walk in! Preferably clothed, but I'm not the boss of you.
If you look closely you can see the two men from the previous photos, along with Little Miss Blue Dress. They're about to strike it rich panning for REAL GOLD! Then they'll all wear top hats and speak with clipped mid-Atlantic accents. It looks like they could open up the sluice to allow more customers to pan for gold, and it might be high-time to do so.
10 comments:
Ha! Little Miss Blue Dress is practically floating off the ground (perhaps with the help of Grampa). Buttercup seems to be taking an interest in Gamma's purse. Perhaps it is stuffed with Purina Donkey Chow. The man in the plaid shirt, behind Gramma, looks like he's wearing a "Groucho" nose. I'm sure it's just something in the background that's making his nose look bigger. What was that building behind Little Miss Blue Dress used for?
That's an unfortunate pose for Little Miss Blue Dress. Too bad we can't see more of the Red Cliff's color scheme. I was hoping to see Chuck spew his oatmeal across the kitchen table.
The kid up on the rocks, next to the "Keep Off" sign, is tempting fate. Do they have a churro mine at Knott's? I don't see any of the Gramma's here. They must have stayed up above to watch the scene, and maybe take the picture.
Nice Knott's! Thanks, Major.
JB, Little Miss Blue Dress is standing on her father's or her grandfather's foot!
Ha, ha! I also noticed Little Miss Red Shoes & Socks, standing next to the "Keep Off" sign on the rocks. What's the matter, can't she read? And where are her parents? You know that is my biggest pet peeve, when parents don't pay attention to what their children are doing. That is exactly how they get eaten by alligators, and later fried up and served with boysenberry aioli sauce. Knott's doesn't have churro mines, but that child needs to be chained to a seat in the Bird Cage Theater, and forced to watch the Walter Knott A.A. perform over and over again, all day long.
Thanks for the vintage Knott's pics, Major.!
In the second picture, she's decided to do her gorilla imitation, or maybe practice a bodybuilding pose.
They should tell the kid climbing near the Keep Off sign what happened to the kid that caused them to put that sign up (eaten by burros). Maybe he's the grandparent of the guy who tried to climb the pyramid building at the Mexico pavilion in Epcot.
Was I the only kid who thought you could just swirl some slit around in a pan from any old stream and find gold? I don't know if I ever tried it, but cartoons gave me that impression. (Also, they led me to expect to see a lot more quicksand in real life than I have)
While these are cute and excellent pictures of Knott’s and the visiting family, one fun aspect is how each of the adults passed the camera around so everyone shows up in a picture at least once.
Shout out to red-shoes kid! YOLO! On my last visit to Space Mountain, I watched a kid about that age climbing on the planters by the helipad deck. He finally bumped his head and started crying.
The Knotts punishments sound far worse than those at Disneyland. Fed to burros or alligators, much worse than life in the churro mines.
Thanks Major, love old Knotts!
JG
Johnny is on the way to the fields of cactus waiting to be wriggled in. I would say that I would be the one going into the "don't go into here" sign. I still am. I have an entire collection of photos on my phone touching things that say "do not touch". Wonder where that trait came from: probably Vikings. In any case, blue dress looks quite sturdy...and perhaps that is because of the 3 day old popcorn there in the distance. That Knotts would do this kind of blows my mind to the thriftiness of it...but looking back at Walter: the real one, not the audio animatronic one....it seems that he had a lot of hardship before becoming a berry magnate, so it makes sense that it would stick forever. I do think that there is a difference between those people of my age range of parents that were actually in Europe in WW2 and those that were in America: the habits of rationing or "being good with going without" still trickle into my world. So I understand why Knott's would save old popcorn. When I cleaned out my Grandmothers garage: who went through two World Wars....there were hundreds of empty yogurt cups, and piles of used Aluminum foil...and plastic wrap...all neatly stacked. I admit when I threw a piece of barely used foil away yesterday I felt kind of guilty. I also save popcorn like Mr. Knott...only because I like the texture and taste of stale popcorn. Another carryover from the "waste not want not" period. I also like stale bread, stale corn chips....all from the days of getting these items from the day old bread store...Moving on to panning for gold. I would have been SOOO into that. I was jealous of my friends who got the little bottles of gold. I wonder if that old guy with the beard actually panned for gold in the wild? But perhaps he is not old...as we all know: everyone looked older back then. That they used sticks to prop up the lamps is wonderfully authentic: in fact it all looks pretty authentic, and it perhaps was. I'm wondering if you took all the people out of the photo would we think that this was an old mine? I'll leave you with that. Thanks Major!
JB, kids love animals, especially the gentle “petting zoo” variety, and a gentle, patient burro would be so appealing to boys and girls. Buttercup can tell that grandma has six grams of cocaine in her purse (he used to work for the government). Maybe the man wearing the Groucho nose is actually John F. Kennedy, he wanted to visit Knott’s incognito. I don’t know what that little building is, but TokyoMagic! sure does. I remember watching kids climb up some rocks at Disneyland (though I forget exactly where it was, it must have been in Frontierland), and one of them fell pretty hard. I walked over and pointed and laughed, as was required by law.
TokyoMagic!, I’ll bet Little Miss Blue Dress ruined lots of her dad’s shoes by standing on them. Some say she was crazy! When it comes to signs, I’ve noticed that people either don’t read them or don’t care what they say, and children are famously clueless anyway, which is why I won’t let them work in my gear factory. They really should make a Walter Knott AA figure, he can tell you all of his political views. Maybe you could ask him questions, like how he feels about hippies.
Dean Finder, ha ha, now that you mention it, she IS standing in a weird pose. Was she about to Hulk out? I was once almost eaten by a wild burro, only to be saved at the last second by a friendly mountain lion. Was the guy who tried to climb the pyramid at the Mexico pavilion unclothed? Or am I conflating two different stories? I can’t remember my thoughts about panning for gold, but my mom had some pans, and often if we were up in the Sierras, we’d try swirling some of the dirt in a creek around and around. There was always sparkly stuff in the dirt, probably pyrite or mica.
JG, it’s driving me crazy, I know I have a few exceptionally beautiful vintage photos of Knott’s, but I have not been able to locate them. I’m starting to worry. Did I accidentally sell them when I got rid of some other slides?? Park designers should know that kids are going to want to climb rocks if possible, it’s just too tempting. Which is why they should electrify those rocks. Churro mines sound great until you’ve had your 500th bite of cinnamon-coated fried dough. Then you must pay the real price. Enough said.
Bu, I guess I’m too much of a good boy to go where I’m not supposed to, or (really) too worried about being caught and kicked out. I used to want to go up the stairs to the old Fantasyland Skyway Chalet, it looked so easy to do, just slip past the little chain and scramble up. But it was never worth the thought of being escorted to the exit and kicked in the butt by security. “And STAY out!”. I wonder if Walter Knott was so involved in the micro-management of KBF that he was even aware of the gross popcorn policies? Maybe one of his sons-in-law had that bright idea. I appreciate being thrifty, but not when it comes to foodstuffs served to the public. We used to joke that my dad lived like he was still in the Great Depression, he did not like to spend unnecessary money, even though he’d done well for himself. He’d buy a TV that wasn’t quite up to snuff, and then would complain about it. Meanwhile, my mom was more than happy to spend money! Granted, she grew up a “privileged child”, as my sister says. Meanwhile, now that my mom is 89, she saves tiny scraps of Saran Wrap if they are still clean. But then she’ll spend a lot of money on some useless piece of junk. I have a little bag of Knott’s vials with gold dust in them, some have barely anything, others have miniscule pieces that have noticeable mass when you shake the bottle.
Te guy who climbed the Mexico Pyramid was dressed, but quite drunk. I think you're thinking of the naked person in iASW at Disneyland more recently.
Lots of unfortunate excitement these days.
Major, that last picture is my favorite - with Keep-Off-Kid in action. You know he grew up to be a blast at parties. I hope he finds GDB, one of these days.
Dean, wasn't there another crazy guy (always guys!) running around DL lately...I think in NOS? I'll have to do some searching and will be right back.
^ Yep, SEE HERE!
I always loved Knott's. Maybe because my family and I went there *before* Disneyland (shocking, I know).
I was wee at the time, and only have fragments of memories of both parks from that visit, but for maybe that very reason I have a bit more fondness for Knott's.
I'm guessing the gentleman at the far right is watching his son(s) pan for gold. If that's truly the case, I apologize to those boys on his behalf. I have a very similar hairline to the dad, and suspect the boys were there not terribly far into the future after this photo was taken. :)
A great set of photos, as always Major! Thanks!!
-AlbinoDragon
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