chiller blog

Posted Jul 6, 09 07:06 PM

Carny-saur

There's something delightfully transporting about a midway - that is, in a sinister, sentimental, thousand-bulb sort of way. Forget about the scrubbed-clean, offend-no-one theme parks and the state fairs that juggle stock car races, second-wind concert tours, and blue ribbon celery preserves. I'm talking the good stuff...

Gnarly candy apples that no one ever seems to buy. Those toy bulldozer machines - the ones sweeping quarters that won't drop over the ledge and down your chute. All sorts of fascinating, what's-their-life-story chain-smokers (the truckers of pop culture entertainment, if you will) staffing the Tilt-a-Whirls, Kit Kat throws, and hydraulic Tunnels of Love.

Carnivals don't just appear, they suddenly appear, as if blown in by the same cold autumn breeze that foretold Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. Oftentimes, with that inimitable calliope music echoing, they inhabit Elks Lodge parking lots and undeveloped and abandoned plots of land. The very sight of carousel swings, banners, and cotton candy stirs up a revert-to-childhood indulgence and park-the-car spontaneity. And then - similarly unforetold - carnivals vanish, off to another unsuspecting small town or neighborhood outskirt. And yeah, you better underline the "unsuspecting."

That power of throwback is what underlies the carnival's lure. No matter how old we are when we walk a midway, we take in the kaleidoscopic, sensory overload through young eyes. And not all sights are intended for young eyes, but there's a predestined magnetism between young eyes and a tell-tale hole in a taboo curtain.

I remember my junior high friend Steve Olson (see " The Cable Guide" blog) and me discovering the freak show exhibit: " Nature's Wonder: The Petrified Woman." The pre-recorded barker - no doubt trying not to laugh - blared, " Could this be your daughter?" and offered a cool $25,000 to anyone who could disprove the authenticity of the display. At which the " prehistoric" woman in a faux-stone body suit exclaimed, " Oh, I'm petrified!" Mom said the prior side shows featured a captured Yeti and The Iron Lung. Where's the breaking news teams from CNN when you need them?

But, obviously, the big draw was any variation of the carnival haunted house. Funny, but the haunted " house" (or forest, or witches' cove, or castle or whatever a coat of paint declared it to be) was Mayfair Moving Van-shaped and usually had a hitch at the end of it.

There's a great Little Rascals short about the gang stowing away in a trunk and ending up crawling out in a midway haunted house (" Many enter... but few depart alive!" ). Sort of reminds me of the walk-through variety vs. the clattering cars on a track type. The latter gave you a three-alarm migraine: Bells and buzzers signaling rubber skeletons and ungreased doors slamming shut before you could get a good look at what was supposed to scare you. Oh, well.

Carnival horror still begs for a current definitive entry. But I can't not think of the Sensurround thriller Rollercoaster - and, to a lesser extent, Final Destination 3 - every time I see rides flying by with screaming passengers. Or, Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse as night falls amid the dust, strobe lights, and cotton candy. Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train resonates permanently with carousels. And abandoned midways? Why, Carnival of Souls, of course. Long-since abandoned midways? HBO's too-short-lived Carnivale.

Wishful thinking, but as I walk off the Ferris wheel grounds, the test of strength hammers behind me, sometimes I DO imagine hearing that classic chant from Freaks (1932), " We accept you! We accept you! One of us! One of us!" Director Todd Browning, coming off the Bela Lugosi version of Dracula, tirelessly employed a real-life carnival and circus side show cast to populate a backstage tale of chilling duplicity and even more chilling revenge. For his too-realistic efforts, the Universal brass disowned the film, now considered a rare cinematic benchmark.

But I don't think you'll be able to catch it on Disneyland's Main Street Theater on a double bill with Steamboat Willy.