Knott's Pitchur Gallery
Gosh, I sure do have a lot of souvenir photos from Knott's Berry Farm's "Pitchur Gallery". I know they might get a bit redundant for some of you, which causes me great emotional pain. OK, not really. I wish I understood hu-man emotions, but they are not a part of my programming.
Here's a familiar scene, taken in a crude town that still smelled of fresh lumber (and other less pleasant things). Two young girls have decided to try their luck at striking it rich, one rides a donkey, while the other leads the way while carrying a heavy pack - you can tell that she's the one with GOLD FEVER.
I believe that the next example is the only one of its kind in my collection; two women (sisters, presumably) hold hands while sitting on a fence in front of a sparse and spooky landscape.
Next is another familiar scene, two couples dance the night away while dressed in their finest outfits. There's Roy and Orva (Orva??), an unnamed woman who labeled the photo ("Me"), and her beau ("Gid" - short for "Gideon"? Or perhaps "Gidfrunkel"?).
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Oh yes, I have more Pitchur Gallery photos for you!
6 comments:
"they are not a part of my programming". Major, it sounds like you need to upgrade your positronic brain with Data's (or Lore's) emotion pack.
I like the expressions on the gold fever girls. I was trying to figure out how that girl is sitting on a 2-D mule cutout. I guess she's sitting on a stool behind the cutout? It's very convincing! I had to look up "botica". It's spanish for "pharmacy"... I thought it might be a variety of tobacco.
The fence sitter sisters really is an odd one. I wonder why they chose that particular background? Dismal and Dreary (that's the sisters' names). Maybe their last name is Addams?
Hmm, I suppose "Orva" could be the feminine form of the name "Orville"? The gals' waists are so thin that I'm afraid they'll break in haif! And their heads will snap off of those long skinny necks!
These were fun pitchurs, Major. Thanks.
Major, I didn't really remember seeing that first setup before, but I did a search and found several others on your blog. How could I have forgotten? You also have one photo with the same "Drug Store" background, but they moved the miner, burro and water pump out of the scene, and replaced them with a taxidermied bear.
Knott's should have just gone all in on the "sparse and spooky" scenery in that second pic. They could have thrown in some headstones and a skeleton hanging from the tree, or maybe a skeleton sitting in an outhouse, like the one you would see when leaving the Haunted Shack attraction.
Thanks, Major!
I always thought that the most impressive thing about these pitchurs is that the people taking them could pose the folks so well behind the cutouts. Whenever I take one of these type pics, I look like a bobblehead whose spring neck has sprung! Not real convincing.
These are fun views. People having fun. Those ladies are definitely sisters, or at least cousins. My Dad had a pic of Mom sitting on a stuffed horse similar to these.
I’m reading through a stack of old family letters from the 1940’s and some people sure had funny names back then. “Ora”, “Velma”, “Evon”, etc. these folks are right in style for that era.
Thanks for the KBF pics, Major!
JG
JB, I like my lack of hu-man emotions! Yes, I assume that there was a half-round stool for the mule-rider to sit on. High tech! Maybe that second photo looked better when you saw it in color; the one color picture that I’ve seen of the Pitchur Gallery shows them with sometimes-vivid hues. But it looks like a scene from The Addams Family here. I’ve never heard of a feminine form of “Orville”, but you never know.
TokyoMagic!, that one particular scene isn’t that rare, I’m surprised you forgot about it! You know everything about Knott’s! I’ve only seen that one example with the stuffed bear, however. I actually do think it would have been fun if one of the Pitchur Gallery scenes had been more “ghostly”!
Stu29573, I suppose that the folks who actually took the pitchurs got pretty good at it after dozens and hundreds of times!
JG, both Disneyland and Knott’s will still do these sort of “fun photo” setups, but I think they could spend some time, make them really good, and people might actually pay a few bucks for a souvenir photo! I agree, names in the old days were unusual (from the “old country”?), I remember a letter that I posted on GDB, the names of the ladies were Faetta, Whenn, and Vesta. I’ve never met anyone with any of those names!
I’ll never get tired of Pitchurs, never! I haven’t bought one in a while—maybe it’s time for an eBay search. I like finding ones with names written on. I also had a friend named Vesta and thought it was a cool name. Thanks, Major!
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