The "Funhouse" at Playland Park (amusement parks, house)

[OzzyRules]

Does anyone else remember anything about the Funhouse at Playland Park? I found some interesting descriptions on a Playland Park history site. Below are some of the descriptions. Feel free to add any of your own memories of the attraction.

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"Fun House -- The Fun House(aka Dipsey Doodle,) was an exceptional attraction. It was not the kind of funhouse like at so many European parks where once you enter it's like a large, well lit gymnasium floor where there are a variety of attractions to freely chose from: human roulette wheel, slides, cakewalk, revolving barrel, et al.

No, this fun house was the kind with an entrance and exit and all of its features were experienced sequentially.

It was constructed of cinder blocks, so the pitch black hallways you felt yourself through had no cracks of light, nothing but black.

After you entered, you felt your way through a switchback of black hallways, until you come to a very dimly lit room surrounded by doors. You would try door after door, until you found the one that opened into a hall surrounded by a revolving barrel lit up by blacklight. The walkway did not revolve, but it sure felt like it did( like the barrel in SFOT's original Cave ride.)

Back into blackness, you did several more turns, then daylight! You exited the facade momentarily so spectators could watch compressed air blast from the floor and scare the hell out of you and blow up girls dresses back when they wore dresses at amusement parks. Also out front you crossed a section of floor that would collapse as you crossed it.

Then back inside to blackness. Some of the hallway walls had rows of foot long rubber "fingers" sticking out from the walls at ankle level, making it feel like your ankles were being grabbed if you walked close to the wall. Somewhere in this part was a moving floor(back and forth) in the dark.

Your hallway turned a time or two, then was a big elevated section of moving floors you had to climb over with the help of handrails, and you could jump up and down on the top middle section. There was light in this hallway because right after the "bridge" you turned left and entered the well lit mirror maze. It was a large maze, with the front open to the front of the building so spectators outside the attraction could again watch people, this time going through the maze. Once you found the exit to the maze, you are back in blackness. Halfway down the next passage you step on a sensor, and a lit up blacklight monster scene lights up and makes noise right next to you.

At the end of the hallway at the turn was a turntable maybe two feet wide you could stand on and rotate.

After another turn or two, you entered the anti gravity room. Actually the entire room was slanted and the walkway went across, back , and across the room again. Then another dark hallway and you entered the room of crazy mirrors. For the first time in the attraction, you actually got to chose the order of fun house mirrors you looked at, and the amount of time you spent looking at them. Some made you look tall and skinny, others short and fat, or a little of both.

After that you exited the front of the building again to spectator scrutiny, but the path went back and forth several times, with compressed air blowers at all the turns(operated by an attendant, who was trying to surprise you,) and also had side by side pairs of boards going forward and backward opposite each other, cakewalk style.Then the path went behind a waist high walled off corner that had a floor that felt like it was being pounded on from underneath. There was one more set of air jets, and you exited onto the midway through the turnstile.
There was a "laughing Sally" to the left of the facade so that her insane laughing was always audible when you weren't inside."

[catriona]

I remember the fun house and the description is perfect! Wouldn't it be nice if someone could take that description and make a new one? Oh how I miss Playland!

[Nostalgic]

"rides" at Playland. Your description brought back some memories of it that I had forgotten. Walking around in that mirror maze was incredible. Sometimes you would run right into a mirror and all the time you and your friends would be laughing. Playland Park was a great place; what a lot of wonderful memories. I loved the Tilt-A-Whirl; always wondered if the operator could make it spin as he wanted it too. And the Rocket! I was so afraid to ride it, but on a pep squad party there,my math teach teased a few of us girls into riding: I was hooked and loved it forever after LOL When you were in that park with your friends, you just let go and had the best fun in the world!

[OzzyRules]

By the time I first saw the funhouse there were no mirrors in the maze. Just glass or plexiglass panels. That was difficult enough. I remember thinking they must have been mirrors before and how maddening that would have been. But at least you were out of the dark, creepy funhouse by that point and in the open light.

[satx56]

Pretty good memory Ozzy. I remember the mirror room and the shuffling boards and air blasts out front. What I really remember best about Playland Park was the Fortune Teller. Wicked Mechanical woman in the glassed in booth. You could hear her wicked giggle all over the park. Remember the Paul Bunyan statue on the left when you first entered just past the carousel? The bumper cars you wanted to do all day of course. The Rocket !! I remember being afraid of it when I was little. I finally got the nerve to go with my dad on it!! Then rode it many times later. I liked the spinning bullet looking thing. The Funhouse was great in a much simpler time. I would trade Fiesta Texas and Sea World back for the return of Playland Park and the simpler time of innocence.

[Camper1]

Originally Posted by satx56

Pretty good memory Ozzy. I remember the mirror room and the shuffling boards and air blasts out front. What I really remember best about Playland Park was the Fortune Teller. Wicked Mechanical woman in the glassed in booth. You could hear her wicked giggle all over the park. Remember the Paul Bunyan statue on the left when you first entered just past the carousel? The bumper cars you wanted to do all day of course. The Rocket !! I remember being afraid of it when I was little. I finally got the nerve to go with my dad on it!! Then rode it many times later. I liked the spinning bullet looking thing. The Funhouse was great in a much simpler time. I would trade Fiesta Texas and Sea World back for the return of Playland Park and the simpler time of innocence.

I need some of what ever meds you take! Your memory is great. I cant even remember what i even came into this room for.

And yes, I would trade it all for those times too.

[Snowglobe]

The only part of the "fun house" I remember is the mirror maze. I remember feeling very claustrophobic because I was having some trouble getting through it the one time I remember being in the fun house. When I kept running into the mirrors, I kept banging my glasses on them and I was afraid that I was going to break them (my glasses).

I have a book about Playland Park by Ed Gaida that was published in 2007. I have not read the entire book, but I looked up the fun house in the index and not much is written about it on the referenced pages. Apparently it was not air conditioned until 1967.

The Rocket was a truly outstanding roller coaster, especially for such a small amusement park. An entire chapter is devoted to it in the book I have.

[satx56]

Originally Posted by Camper1

I need some of what ever meds you take! Your memory is great. I cant even remember what i even came into this room for.

And yes, I would trade it all for those times too.

My memory is selective and generally horrible. But, I do recall when times were best.....

Originally Posted by Snowglobe

The only part of the "fun house" I remember is the mirror maze. I remember feeling very claustrophobic because I was having some trouble getting through it the one time I remember being in the fun house. When I kept running into the mirrors, I kept banging my glasses on them and I was afraid that I was going to break them (my glasses).

I have a book about Playland Park by Ed Gaida that was published in 2007. I have not read the entire book, but I looked up the fun house in the index and not much is written about it on the referenced pages. Apparently it was not air conditioned until 1967.

The Rocket was a truly outstanding roller coaster, especially for such a small amusement park. An entire chapter is devoted to it in the book I have.

I guess you know the "Rocket" was dismantled and moved up north. I forget where but it's the center of attention in a new land!! I know of the book but have not seen it!

[Snowglobe]

According to the book, in 1985, "The Rocket" was moved to Knoebel's Grove Amusement Resort in Elysburg, Pennsylvania and was renamed "The Phoenix".

In 1979 it was chosen as one of the top 10 wooden roller coasters in the U.S. The author states that it retains that status. I don't know if that is an opinion or a fact.

[satx56]

Yep!! I've read all that. Pretty sure I've seen it on one of the specials on TV about Coasters. I still can't figure those wooden roller coasters. I don't trust them ..yet I've ridden the Rattler too!! Just seems like the maintenance would be very costly. And what a puzzle to construct!! What keeps them from cracking or snapping with all the movement??