Coneycopia

coneycopia.

Beautiful time-lapse video of New York and Coney Island by Graham Elliott.

Bump!

Evolution of Scooter (or Bumper-) cars made by Reverchon in France. From top to bottom: 1950, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1980

Drivin´ n´ smokin´

I don´t know what she is trying to sell, but I can tell when she did it

Nice detail of a vintage scooter made by Ihle

Another classic Ihle-car: The Mercedes-scooter

Dreamlando

As far as I can think back, I was always fascinated with Japan, amusement parks and tacky, mass-produced kitsch.

All of these obsessions seem to have met at "Nara Dreamland", or "Nara Dorīmurando" as the Japanese would say it.


clicking on pics increases the magic!

"Nara Dreamland" opened in 1961, near the city of Nara. It is always said that the Japanese like to copy things, while making them better in the process. "Dreamland" on the other hand just copied "Disneyland", there was nothing better about it.


Some parts of "Dreamland", like the entrance and train-station look like a carbon copy of its Californian inspiration. The whole layout of the park, the castle and most of the rides are also copied.


The fact that the park opened just six years after Disneyland shows what an impact Disney´s ideas must have had worldwide. Upon closer inspection "Dreamland" might have taken the ideas but certainly not the imagination and devotion that made Disney parks such a lasting success.


Where Disney´s imagineers went all the way to create convincing and immersive worlds, "Dreamland" used cardboard, concrete and plastic. This makes it so much more interesting for me.


Through the years, the park must have lost it´s artificial magic as the owners jusr added random rides and coasters without integrating them into the faux-Disney-look. With the opening of the immensely popular Tokyo Disneyland in 1983 the naive 20 year old forerunner in Nara must have appeared like an embryonic version from a parallel universe.


Neglect and dwindling visitor numbers took its toll on "Dreamland". Throughout the late nineties and early 00s the park was almost looking abandoned. By the end of august 2006 the "Dreamland" closed its doors forever.


Here you can witness "Nara Dreamland" on opening day in 1961. The resemblance the park had to Disneyland in this early phase is uncanny and amazing. The second video is even longer and shows more of original rides like the "Jungle Cruise".


The last video shows bits of Dreamland in its later days, when the crowds have gone and only a handful of school-children are stumbling across the cracked concrete.


A bizarre photo-trip to Dreamland, shortly before it was closed can be enjoyed here.

Pacific Ocean Park (Pt. 4) - Who Will Buy?!

I can´t believe that I never found this one before! Nancy Sinatra performing a song in the closed down Pacific Ocean Park! She even poses on the top of the "Sea Serpent"-coaster and the camera moves around with her in a great panning shot. Sometimes things just fall together...




I am not too wild about the song "Who will buy" from the musical "Oliver!" (it must be a musical if it´s got an exclamation mark) but everything is well when the hilarious dance break sends the "West Side Story"-ballet into wild dance routines inside the coaster´s wooden structure.

Here is the whole thing:

Fun In Numbers

Since I am posting more about abandoned amusement parks, I thought it would be nice to reverse the trend for the spring and do something else. For those who are interested in numbers, here is an interesting pdf-file listing the global theme-park attendance for 2008, compiled by the Themed Entertainment Association.
There are charts for USA, Europe, Asia, Mexico and the Pacific Rim as well as combined listings. For the US there is also a breakdown explaining the gains and losses towards the last season, indicating where and when the recession has hit first.


It´s no big surprise that Disney is blocking the top positions on every continent where the mouse is present. More than 17 million people are visiting The Magic Kindom in Florida each year, making it the top park on the list.

Automatic Everything

In 2009 everything is coming up robots, but is there still anything romantic about the man-machine?

"Terminator: Salvation" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" will both have giant robots smashing things up this year. The former will also have it´s own roller-coaster: "Terminator Salvation: The Coaster" will open at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California. But -strange marketing ahoy- it will be a wooden coaster. So robotic!


Then there is the news that the re-make of "Tron" will have a soundtrack provided by Daft Punk. On a smaller level, Röyksopp´s next single -a duet with Robyn- will be called "The Girl and the Robot" and most recently every politician is eager to have a photo taken on which they generously reach out their hand to shake the mechanical extremities of some robot. Say hello to our new overlords.


Robots and art are always a good combination and now someone wrote the first robo-drama for humans and robots. The machines were supplied by Mitsubishi and judging from this still-shot, the whole thing looks very serious.


All this robo-love brings a few metallic words to my head: "I am your automatic lover. beep." Let´s have a few looks and listen to Dee D. Jacksons notorious, cheesy but groovy eurobo-hit "Automatic Lover". Any song that opens with the words "Love in space in time, there´s no more feeling" and goes on with immortal lines such as "He´s programmed to receive automatic satisfaction" is a classic in my book.



Dee D is/was a clever British girl who used to produce sci-fi short films and comissioned the fabled Giorgio Moroder and members of his Munich Machine to do some soundtrack work. From there she took the idea to produce a record which turned out to be the brilliantly titled "Cosmic Curves". "Automatic Lover" and the follow-up "Meteor Man", produced with Gary Unwin and Keith Forsey in Munich became world wide mega hits.


Today, Dee D Jackson lives in Italy and runs her own record label where she reportedly releases hip-hop and trance records. I was secretly hoping that she became a robotics scientist, but running a record label in sunny Turin is certainly not a bad career choice. It goes without saying that she has a superbly awful website, complete with badly scanned photos. Must visit!

Pacific Ocean Park (Pt. 3) - In Ruins

After Pacific Ocean Park closed it´s doors forever in late 1967 the era of the so called "Coney Island if the Pacific" came to a sad end.
Due to urban re-development the area around the pier became a seedy place. With the closing of P.O.P, the decay of the neighbouring area called Dogtown got worse.


All sellable assets of P.O.P were auctioned off (parts of the Hawaiian tiki decoration of the "Mystery Island Banana Train Ride" later turned up in one of Germany´s first theme parks). Since some rides were too old and too heavy, they were left to rot on the pier. So the massive "Mahi Mahi"-Tower, which had served as an impressive backdrop for the showdown of "The Fugitive" a few months earlier became an eerie landmark of the abandoned funland.


The dilapidated pier was not only dangerous because of the crumbling wood, it was also a hide-away for several outcasts. Among them were the surfers of Dogtown who would later move to the empty canals and swimming pools of Venice Beach to famously swap their surfboards for skateboards.


As far as I know, Hollywood had also lost its interest in P.O.P. Only a 1972 French/American co-production used the ruins of the pier for an effective showdown: Une homme est mort (aka "The Outside Man") featured Jean Louis Trintignant as a French contract killer who is lost in L.A while trying to do his job. Sadly the movie, which also features Anne Margret, Angie Dickinson and Roy Scheider, is not available on DVD. As mentioned before, the quiet showdown in the sun drenched ruins of the amusement pier us very haunting.


Finally the city of Venice decided to get rid of the "eyesore" and by 1975 all traces of the pier had disappeared. Since debris and stilts are still lying in the water, it is still forbidden to swim and surf where the pier once stood.


Check these great sites about P.O.P: Rest in Peace - Pacific Ocean Park and The underground website of P.O.P..
Part 1&2 of my P.O.P-trilogy here and here

Joyland after Dark

As soon as an amusement park is closed or abandoned it is transformed into a surreal place with a fascinating and eerie aura.

Joyland in Wichita, Kansas closed its gates in 2004 after 54 years of operation. There are still attempts to re-open the park but it is currently dormant.

These are a couple of photos which were taken in the abandoned park in it´s current state. The photographer uses a similar "light painting"-technique as legendary Troy Paiva.
Long exposure and coloured gel lights create the superbly eerie atmosphere in these photos. (click on them for bigger fun!)







See more photos from this set and others from Josh.

Get Smart Fugitive - Pacific Ocean Park (Pt. 2)

Pacific Ocean Park (P.O.P.) was the last incarnation of the big amusement piers which once gave Santa Monica´s Venice Beach the title of "Coney Island of the Pacific".



The piers used to be a welcome open air background for the nearby Hollywood studios. There was hardly any silent movie star or slapstick-icon who wouldn´t use the rides and the lively atmosphere as a vehicle for their films at least once.



In the 1960s Disneyland was off limits for TV-productions so they went to P.O.P whenever a carnival was needed. By the mid 60s, the park, which started out as a serious competitor to Disneyland was already in serious decline. This might be the reason why two prominent series used the park as a spooky and empty stage-set for their respective episodes.



"Get Smart" used the park for the usual antics, but the final episode of "The Fugitive" used P.O.P. as a star attraction for the showdown between Richard Kimble and the one-armed man.
Aired in august of 1967, the episode "The Judgement" made TV-history as the most watched fiction program ever (a record that was only broken by the "Who shot J.R."-episode from "Dallas".)

Before the final showdown on the massive "Mahi Mahi" ride, there is an extensive chase that uses the bizarre and strange architecture to an almost surreal effect. Sadly even this media exposure didn´t help the struggling park. Only two months after the show aired, Pacific Ocean Park was shut down forever.

Here is the whole sequence in two parts:



Click here for P.O.P. pt 1. A place that kept my imagination despite I have never been there while it was in existence.
Part 3: In ruins