Random Amusements
Happy Valentine's Day! I didn't really have anything for this occasion, and then I remembered this photo in the collection of images from Irene, Bruce, and James. It is a window (somewhere on Main Street - perhaps the Candy Palace?) with Roger Rabbit dressed to the nines. I have the feeling that the red shiny heart on Roger's chest pulsed out in rhythm, cartoon-style! And no wonder, with Jessica as his sweetheart. He holds a framed portrait of Jessica in one hand, and a box of chocolates in the other.
This next slide, date-stamped "July 1978", had me baffled. "Whaler's Wharf"? Was that at Sea World? Or even Six Flags Magic Mountain? No! This was Ports O'Call Village in San Pedro, CA. Ports O'Call was an outdoor shopping center that featured souvenir and gift shops, along with restaurants, sweetshops, fish markets, and quick-bite eateries. The "seaside village" encompassed 15 acres of shops, restaurants and attractions. A meandering promenade of cobblestone streets connected the specialty shops, which had an "improbable mix of New England, Spanish Colonial, and Asian themes," stood from 1963 to 2020. I remember going here when I was a kid, my grandma liked to buy lemon-pepper seasoning from one particular store. But all of the charming architecture has been completely erased from my brain.
This next one, date-stamped "September, 1979" is a bit baffling to me. I thought it was from Knott's Berry Farm's "Roaring '20's Airfield" (there was a little airplane ride over there); but I found a photo of a ride that looked essentially identical to the one in the photo, complete with the checkerboard "control tower", from Six Flags Great America in Illinois. It's called the Red Baron, and it looks way too scary for me.
This last one, dated "September, 1970" was also a complete mystery to me. I asked friend of the blog Chris Merritt if he had any idea where this could be (because I mistakenly thought it might be Knott's again), and he thought it might be Sea World San Diego as they had this Cap’n Kidd’s play area at one time in the late 70s/early 80s. That's sounds like a pretty good guess!
I hope you have enjoyed these oddball slides.
21 comments:
Major-
Based on the reflections in the glass of the 1st image, it could very well be the Candy Palace.
Happy Valentine's Day, Major.
1) Ah, the lovely and alluring Jessica. But of course, she's "just drawn that way". Major, I think you're right about Roger's heart. It looks like there is a cartoon-type spring peeking out from behind it.
Looking at the reflection in the window glass, one of our Jr.Gs might be able to confirm that this is indeed the Candy Palace.
Thanks to the Dream Team for this photo.
2) I can understand the logic of the person who wrote "Disneyland" on the slide. There's a monorail track... it HAS to be Disneyland! I also suspect the person doing the writing was not one of the people who was on that trip, and has probably never been to Disneyland, or they would know that it isn't.
3) "Whaler's Wharf". If whalers were the only ones allowed on the wharf, then nobody has set foot on it for close to 200 years. And yet, the woodwork looks to be in fine shape for having been abandoned for that long. Besides the shops and restaurants, I wonder what sort of "attractions" were present at Ports O' Call?
4) Those 1979 kids aren't much interested in the Red Baron ride. They're scrolling through pornographic cat videos on their smart phones, "They aren't wearing any clothes!"
5) After being soaked by playful dolphins leaping high into the air, you could hang your kids out on this clothesline to dry. Genius!
Ah, I see Nanook looked at the reflections in the Roger Rabbit window. We still need a confirmation!
A nice selection of Saturday Randomness. Thanks, Major.
The Whalers’s Wharf was located at PORTS O’ CALL village in San Pedro. That is indeed the first version of San Diego’s SEA WORLD “Captain Kid’s World. It opened in 1976 and had several “remodels” over the years …
Those kids in the Bi-Plane aren’t even paying attention !! They just are looking down on their Cel phones!!!
…. I just noticed you said the date of the last slide is Sept 1970 ( the people look much later than that ) but if it is 1970 - that could not be Sea World - as that opened in 1976 - however those are the same apparatus and amusements Sea World had. At one point the giant bop-bags had cartoon pirates on them as if you were fighting your way through a hoard of marauding buccaneers. I don’t think there was ever a visit to Captain’s Kids world where there wasn’t a kid with a bloody nose … scraped knees or crying kids after colliding heads into each other. One amusement was a series of sloped vinyl “tents” made to look like waves that kids would attempt to climb and become “king of the wave” . Another was a series of wooded towers connected by tubes made of thick rope. Kids were constantly having their arms slip through the rope netting … and getting intense rope burns, to reach the towers kids had to climb rope netting like that of a ship! Despite the injuries, bumps , falls and bruises , KIDS LOVED CAPTAIN KIDS WORLD!! Each renovation it became more and more tame. In the winter mass amounts of snow were trucked in from San Diego’s Laguna mountains and part of the area became “Snow World At Sea World”.
As Columbo would say: “oh just one more thing!” ; another amusement at Captain Kids World was a series of very wide slide made up of stainless steel rollers ( like what a warehouse with use to move boxes on) as you rolled down you’d pick up quite a bit of speed and I remember the metal rolling sound as each kid rolled down… HOWEVER, often your fingers would get pinched between the rolling rods and O U C H ! ! !
Mike, those "attractions" sound like fun... until you lose a finger or two... or break a bone or two. 8-\
I'd probably have a blast doing those things as a kid, but my adult self would be saying, "YOU IDIOT!!!"
How did they ever allow these sorts of 'amusements' to be built as late as the 1970s?!? O U C H, indeed!
Yes, that display window in the first pic is a part of the Candy Palace on Main St. It's located just to the right of the two windows that allow guests to look into the kitchen and watch candy being made. I took a pic of that Roger Rabbit display in February of 1996. I'm not sure if it was the exact same year as the image from Bruce, James and Irene, because the merchandise on display is different. Here is the 1996 pic that I took:
Candy Palace 1996
I also miss Busch Gardens in Van Nuys! I have very fond memories of a couple visits my family made. I have been wanting to write a post about the place for years, but I keep putting it off for some reason.
In 1982, we took my great-grandmother and a couple of her friends to that Ports O' Call restaurant, for her 85th birthday. By then it was called The Yankee Whaler, but the signage had that same logo with the eagle and shield. I have a photo of my great-grandmother standing in front of the sign, and I also have a "Yankee Whaler" book of matches from that same visit. (And no, my great-grandmother did not bring her own fried chicken to the restaurant!)
Thank you, Major! And happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
I loved Busch Gardens, and would enjoy the flamingos, flowers, fountains; while my father guzzled the free beers under mid-century pavilions. The factory tour from this monorail was not the pretty part of that park. It was all striped away to ramp up production of this new fangled stuff called 'lite' beer.
Give whoever you love an extra squeeze.....puleeeese.
MS
Roger Rabbit was a good effort at bringing back good cartoons. Of course Jessica stole the show. Thanks Dream Team! Good effort on the window ID too.
Oh yes, Busch Gardens. We visited once and enjoyed the gardens very much. I’m not sure I would recognize it from this view though. Thank you Major for figuring it out.
We did visit Ports of Call once as well. I don’t have much memory of it except that it was similar to a development in Long Beach by the Queen Mary. Seems like spices would be a natural specialty for this place.
Kids in airplane rides. I can see why this would be too scary for me today. Just thinking about climbing into that seat makes my back hurt.
Wow, Sea World sounds like it must have had the ambulance on speed dial. We didn’t visit here until 2003 (?) so all the fun stuff must have gone by then.
Happy Valentines to Major and all my Gorilla chums!
JG
Well, we can see a horse car in the reflection, but also the clock on the other side of the street, giving us a good location. Busch Gardens was fun and malty! We still have one on this coast.
Nanook, the coffee mug full of different-flavored “peppermint” sticks was my main clue!
JB, I don’t think they would use the movie-accurate version of Jessica anymore; maybe for good reason? I don’t know, I’m a little bugged by the “trenchcoat Jessica”, but I admit that I may be off-base. Yeah, how “Disneyland” got written on that slide is a bit of a mystery; it’s so clearly NOT that park, so maybe the person selling the slide just made a wild guess. I wish I remembered Ports O’ Call better, reading the description makes me sad that it’s gone. I wonder if it just fell on hard times, sort of like many malls today? It really does look like those darn kids are looking at their darn phones! I never wanted to be in the “splash zone” at Sea World, those dolphins (and Orcas) pee in that water!
Mike Cozart, thank you for the confirmation on Captain Kid’s World!
Mike Cozart, I’m not sure where the original slide of Captain Kid’s World is right now, but my guess is that I screwed up somehow. I either read the date-stamp wrong (sometimes they are indistinct), or else I mis-typed it - my fingers are not so good on that number row of keyboard keys. I sort of love that Captain Kid’s World was originally a bit unsafe (i.e. “FUN”), I’m sorry if some kids got bloody noses, but as we all know, a tiny bit of danger is the spice of life. That’s why we love roller coasters, they *feel* dangerous, even if they have been engineered to be safe. I think back to some of the playground equipment at my elementary school, some surprisingly tall monkey bars, with nothing but a hard rubber mat beneath them… it’s amazing that kids weren’t killed regularly!!
Mike Cozart, huh, I’ve never seen a slide made up of those rollers you described. Couldn’t they have put kids on a foam mat and instructed them to cross their arms over their chests (like they do on waterslides)? That would avoid pinched fingers!
JB, when you think about it, ten fingers is too many anyway. There are a lot of kid’s attractions that I’ve never tried, but look like they would have been fun. The classic “ball pit” is one example, too bad they were so unsanitary. And bounce houses have been around long enough that I remember loving them, even though they got incredibly hot inside!
TokyoMagic!, I used to love watching candy getting made at the Candy Palace, even though I have never eaten a single bite of candy from there. Thank you for the link to your photo of Roger Rabbit, I would not be surprised if they used that basic display for more than a few years. Do you remember people walking around with metal buckets of beer at Busch Gardens? I believe that customers could get them for free, though I might be mistaken. Write that Busch Gardens post! You are lucky to have known your great-grandmother, that’s pretty incredible. I was very close to my grandma, but my great-grandma died long before I was born.
MS, I know that the Busch Gardens Monorail was nothing compared to Disneyland’s Monorail, but it got you up high, and you saw some stuff. That was good enough for me! And yes, the gardens, ponds, birds, etc were all wonderful.
JG, I don’t know why I was a little sad to learn that Disney had let their ownership of Roger Rabbit lapse. They never could figure out what to do with him after the feature film and a few fun short subjects. Now the guy who wrote the original book owns the rights again, and he has plans, but I find it hard to believe that he will be able to produce anything near as good as that 1988 film. I have a photo or two of some oddball shops that I believe were near the Queen Mary, those must be the ones you mentioned. I need to scan them. I don’t know if those little airplanes would make my back hurt, but I do know that most dark rides were not really built for people over 6 feet tall! I last went to Sea World in the 1980s, it was mostly fun because I was with a bunch of friends, but otherwise it was about what you would have expected.
Steve DeGaetano, good eye on the reflections, I did try to ID them, but admit that I didn’t work at it very hard. Have you ever gone to the Busch Gardens in Florida?
Mike Cozart, I see by the title of the scan that the Captain Kid's slide is actually from 1979, NOT 1970.
The notorious Action Park in NJ had a slide made up of those rollers. It was a few parallel track of them that ran down a hillside and was called "Alpine Slide" (if I remember correctly). You would carry your sled, kind of a stiff plastic sheet, up a long set of stairs parallel to the tracks, so you could see how the ride would maim you, and yet we would go through with it nonetheless. I never saw anyone lose a fingertip, but I did see a girl with long hair lean back too far and get it caught in the rollers, which tore out a chunk. It was fairly horrifying, but somehow didn't make 16 year-old me reconsider riding it.
And yes, the park had ambulances there all the time. The park actually bought the town several new ambulances when the town council balked at the stress the park put on EMS.
Maybe those boys are just reading the flight manual for those biplanes. A little on-the-job training.
I don't drink any of AB's products, but I'd really like to go on a monorail tour of the brewery. The massive AB brewery in Newark never had a monorail, but did have a tour with an old-fashioned taproom at the end (also long gone). The age of big factory tours is over. I think Hershey's animatronic "factory tour" ride is about the last one of its kind.
After Dean Finders comment I now do recall that the Captain Kid’s World roller slides ( “rolling waves”??) did use a plastic mat - but fingers still got pinched .
For whatever reasons , and having grown up in Southern California, I only went to Busch Gardens once . It was after the monorail accident … and the amusement area had been closed … a person told my grandfather it was because they just could not complete with Knott’s and Disneyland . ( I’m sure the monorail accident and lawsuits had something to do with it) . The boat excursion and a melodrama “golden Horseshoe” type show still was operating . And lots of birds everywhere. I still remember the busch gardens commercials with Connie Stevens and the Eagle costume character singing “there are the days my friends we thought they’d never end….” Connie Stevens could not have predicted the monorail accident! Each of the three bush gardens had a theme : CA : AMERICAN TURN-of-the-Century , Virginia : Busch Gardens The Old World and Florida was Busch Gardens The Dark Continent ( Africa) . When I was a senior in high school I purchased a very expensive book on architectural model making from a local blue printer / drafting supply shop -man I miss that place ! The book featured a whole section on model making for themeparks and all the examples and construction techniques were for the busch gardens Van Nuys location! However I think I learned the most about architectural model making from the Christopher Finch EPCOT CENTER massive book!!
Happy Valentines Day to all the Jr. Gorillas and all their loved ones. Such interesting randos for us today. And yep, they run the gamut of SoCal. Ports O'Call was a wonderful attraction for the family. First it was a nice drive from Costa Mesa and second, it was free to park and enjoy. Do such attractions exist today? Nothing comes free anymore and of course Ports O' Call is gone as well. As for the AB Brewery monorail in Van Nuys, it was on the same road (Roscoe Blvd) as my Dad's aunt's house in Northridge, just a couple miles to the West. I can recall the monorail going up way back when. Busch Gardens was a must stop. And to imagine that they once handed out free beer in full size cans to us wanna be adults. KS
Happy Valentine’s Day to all the Jr. Gorillas—and our leader—Major!
Dean Finder, whoa, I’m impressed that you went to Action Park! I think there was a documentary made about it. Injuries aplenty, and at least one fatality? Of course Disneyland has had some fatalities too, but those were (generally) freak accidents, though there was also some serious negligence in some cases. You know something isn’t right when an amusement park has to buy ambulances for the local town.
Dean Finder, when my family first moved to Pennsylvania, we went to Hersheypark (I think it was “Hershey Park”) and we toured the real chocloate factory. The next time we went, it had become a Disney-style boat ride through a fake factory. I still enjoyed it, but obviously it was quite a shock!
Mike Cozart, as much as I liked going to Busch Gardens (my grandparents lived about 15 minutes away), I can’t say it was anything near as good as Knott’s, Disneyland, or even Magic Mountain. You’d go for a few hours, and there were fun things to do, but it was not the “whole day” park that one might wish for. Still, I do miss it a lot, I have to wonder how much the nearby Universal Studios Hollywood also funneled customers away from Van Nuys?
KS, my memories of Ports O’ Call are so vagues, since I was pretty young the one time I went. But we sure were lucky in SoCal, with Movieland Wax Museum, Japanese Deer Park, the Alligator Farm, Jungleland, Santa’s Village (which I never saw, sadly), “Cars of Stars, Planes of Fame”, and MORE. It was truly a great time to be a kid who loved to go to places like that!
Lou and Sue, Happy Valentine’s Day to YOU!
Ports o call is long gone of course , but in Long Beach is SHORELINE VILLAGE … which was once themed to a port of merchant smugglers and importers of fine things and good times …founded by a mythical sea captain called “the great Scott” a very Discovery Bay esque idea. Also still in existence is San Diego’s SEA PORT VILLAGE … it has three themed areas … Gold Rush San Francisco ( again very discovery bay) old Monterey , and old Mexico seaports … theme theming over the years has been watered down greatly. The art directors for both SHORELINE VILLAGE and SEA PORT VILLAGE were ex WED imagineers … and the creator was the designer of the Sailing Ship Columbia … who ALSO did some early work on Disneyland’s Discovery Bay concepts .
Do you remember people walking around with metal buckets of beer at Busch Gardens? I believe that customers could get them for free, though I might be mistaken.
Major, I do remember the buckets of beer, but I don't remember if the buckets were free. I do remember that they gave free samples of the beer, but I just don't remember if the samples were served in those buckets, or if they were handed out in cups. I do remember them selling an orange drink that was served in plastic "orange" with a straw. The orange had "Busch Gardens" in raised lettering on one side, and the park's eagle mascot on the other side. I kept mine as a souvenir, and I will include a photo of it in that future post.
The "roller slide" description reminds me of a funhouse attraction at the L.A. County Fair. It was in a permanent structure in the Fun Zone, and was basically a minimally lit walk-through maze, with some mild scares and a "Haunted Shack" type of room. At the very end of the maze, there was an employee who opened a door to a closet-sized space. Inside, there was a bench seat made of metal rollers. The employee would direct you to enter and sit down on the "bench." After they closed the door, the wall in front of you would raise up and the bench seat would "straighten out," forcing you to slide down a hill of rollers. I do remember it being a little scary that there was nothing to hold onto and I remember trying to keep "upright" and not allow myself to fall backwards onto the rollers. When you got to the bottom of the smaller rollers, you landed on sort of a burlap "conveyor belt" with larger rollers underneath. Those rollers would raise up and down and propel you forward until you landed on some large cushions. It was very "old school funhouse," like something you would see in the "Our Gang" comedies. There must have been people who got pinched by the rollers, or "pulled" something while trying to remain upright on all those rollers. The maze was called "Magic Carpet Ride," presumably because of the large carpet-like conveyor belt thingy at the very end. The permanent structure was there for years, but was eventually torn down in the late 80s or early 90s. They ruin everything!
Oh, and there is something currently being built to replace Port's O' Call. It's going to be called West Harbor, and will have restaurants, a 6,200 seat amphitheater, and a giant Ferris Wheel. From what I've seen of the plans, it looks "modern" and totally lacking of any of the charm of Port's O' Call. They ruin everything, I tell ya!
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