A Ton of Fun to be had at the Amusement Park

By: Jason Petrina



Amusement parks and carnivals may be the last bastions of small town family fun and excitement to be found in the United States. Not as corporate or flashy as any of the big and impressive theme parks with which we are all familiar, the local amusement park and small traveling carnival offer good times to all who cross their dusty thresholds looking to ride midway rides, play booth games that are almost always fixed, visit a palm or card reader, and eat food that normally wouldn’t be palatable under the best of circumstances. These aspects don’t seem like positives, but the truth is we all have come to expect them at the amusement park and the carnival and the experience wouldn’t be the same without them.

Carnivale Anyone?

The essence of the small traveling carnivals of the 1930s was captured beautifully in HBO’s surrealistic television drama Carnivale. Although the plots of the show’s mere two dozen episodes dealt with bizarre supernatural themes (a fact that probably led to the series not being picked up by the cable giant for a third season), Carnivale offered an interesting inside look at the workings of a traveling carnival. All of the clichés – from the corrupt carnies to the bearded lady – were represented but cast in a light that made the characters believable and real to the viewers. Watching the show allowed one to feel as if they knew and understood what it would be like to live on the dusty highways of depression-era California, moving from place to place like a band of Gypsies and setting up in this town or that for only a few days before moving on again.

The More Things Change…

Part of what made Carnivale so believable in its depiction of the lives of the carnival workers is that things have not changed all that much for those who earn their living this way. The rides and equipment are more modern and the governing laws regarding safety and fairness are more strict, but the carnivals of today are much as they were seventy years ago, albeit fewer and farther between. The carnivals of today offer the same “see it for a nickel” atmospheres (although the nickel has grown with the years) and aspects of unbridled entertainment that the traveling shows of yesteryear provided. You can still see the sideshow freaks and many of them are still a scam. You can still pay to try to knock over heavily weighted milk bottles by hurling softballs at them, and you can still ride rickety Ferris Wheels and roller coasters to your heart’s content before getting a snack of cotton candy and hot dogs.

Gradual Extinction

Unfortunately, as fun as they may be, the small amusement parks and traveling carnivals are slowly disappearing. Every year there are fewer and the ones that do exist have trouble setting up near any major city. Smaller towns and suburbs have become the domain of the traveling carnival because the major cities have multiple regulations that make it difficult for the carnies to make a living. Many have switched to traveling the state fair circuit rather than run full-fledged carnivals. The small amusement parks just don’t see enough business and find themselves being replaced by other family entertainment centers such as miniature golf centers and water parks. In those respects it is a very different world for the carnie than it was during the time in which Carnivale was set, although the existing carnivals are still very much the same.



Jason Petrina is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit - www.articleclick.com