The Lowdown on the Plus-up - A Theme Park Podcast
Kelly McCubbin and Peter Overstreet take on all aspects of theme parks - Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Six Flags - discussing them in historical context and then finding ways, to quote Walt Disney, to "plus them up!"
No considerations of safety, practicality or economic viability even remotely entertained!
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A Boardwalk Times Podcast
https://boardwalktimes.net/
The Lowdown on the Plus-up - A Theme Park Podcast
America's Addiction to Gravity - Mystery Spots
We contend that there is nothing more patriotic than being conned into believing that water runs uphill.
Step into a world where the laws of physics seemingly take a vacation as we explore America's beloved gravity-defying roadside attractions. From the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot to Confusion Hill nestled in California's redwoods, these quirky destinations have been baffling and delighting travelers since the '40s.
The long and cloudy history of Gravity Shacks/Confusion Hills/Mystery Spots are living reminders of the wonders of weird roadside attractions and a kind of quirky, delightful, oddball America that Pete and Kelly love. From Aldebert Ames to Bill Cipher we trace the stories, and myths, of where these mysterious, physics-defying, buildings came from.
Let's learn how to stop worrying and embrace the con!
It's the first episode of Season 2 of Lowdown on the Plus-Up: America's Addiction to Gravity - Mystery Spots
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It's a little bit difficult to know exactly when the vortex would have been discovered. The folklore we have says that the Native Americans first discovered the vortex by riding their horses up the hill. When they got to the edge of the area their horses refused to enter. So they made it to the Forbidden Ground and did not come back. It was sort of rediscovered once we had the prospectors coming up and down the West Coast. They came to Gold Hill and they began to run into problems weighing the gold out, getting construction to work quite right. So one of the mining engineers contacted his friend John Lister. He said you're a mining engineer, you're a physicist.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a podcast where we look at everyone's favorite theme park attractions, lands, textures and novelties. We talk in over about and through our week's topic and then, with literally no concern for practicality, safety or economic viability, we come up with ways to make them better. My name is Kelly McCubbin, columnist for the theme park website Boardwalk Times, and with me, as always, is Peter Overstreet University, professor of Animation and Film History in Northern California, so Pete. Yeah, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 4:Well, today is our first day of Season 2. Season 2. Yay, we've made it through a whole year. For those who haven't heard the Minnesota, go check it out. We kind of do a little recap and kind of give you some sneak previews, but this is Season 2, episode 1. And I don't want to mention what we're doing just yet.
Speaker 3:Okay, you want to ease into it.
Speaker 4:I want to ease into it because there's a great segue to this that I've devised and I hope you'll come along with me for the ride. Okay, kelly and I went on a road trip with Kelly's wonderful family and we went down to Anaheim to go to Disneyland together. Yeah, and this is our second trip together. It was a lot of fun. But we also did our final episode of season one. It was a live show in front of a bunch of other podcasters. It was great people, great people, a lot of fun. Go check it out.
Speaker 4:But during the day, kelly and his family had already purchased tickets. I hadn't purchased tickets. I was kind of hemming and hawing going. I don't know if I'm going to go or not, I don't know. So finally, first thing in the morning, I wake up and I go. All right, I'll go.
Speaker 4:I love going to Disneyland with these folks. I'm going to go and by the time I had purchased all of my tickets and I had and if I count the gas to get down there, all total, the bill to get in for one day at Disneyland without buying a single tchotchke, not including food, was $250. By the end of the day, I had spent $300. That's just for food.
Speaker 4:Yeah, as the addition and this was the first time at Disneyland and I know this is kind of like jumping on this big internet troll bandwagon of going Disneyland's way too expensive, but frankly it is, and a lot of people are talking about it because it really is turning into a thing for people and I felt bad and I started listening to sound effects of the park just to cheer myself up again with nostalgia because I realized we are living in a day at least for me. I feel like we're living in a day and age in which amusement comes at quite a cost and kind of unnecessarily so. Yes, I understand that Disney is a publicly traded company and needs to pay off its shareholders. I know that there's tons of employees that rely upon this and need to be given fair pay. However, this is one of the things that Kelly and I pride ourselves on with the show is that we don't just talk about Disney and we seek out amusements in all ranges of elaboration and costs, etc. So today we're going to talk about the cheapest possible amusements ever.
Speaker 4:And today we're going to talk about magnet houses, as we're calling it today.
Speaker 3:Magnetic magnet houses. Yes, they go under a lot of names. They go under mystery spots and vortexes Yep, haunted shacks, haunted shacks. They go under a lot of names. They go under mystery spots and vortexes, yep, haunted shacks, haunted shacks. And they all tend to operate under a fairly similar principle, though there's variations here and there. Oh yeah, and we love them.
Speaker 4:Oh, we absolutely love them. We love them, we love them. It's really interesting because they are part of a phenomenon that really stems out of the. We can blame Henry Ford Okay, often we can blame Henry Ford for this phenomenon because of popularizing the automobile as an affordable method of transportation for the American family. Yeah, it put us into the velvet trap of the commute. Yeah, but it also allowed us those of us who were growing into a middle class it allowed us to go away for the weekend and take the family for a drive Right, and take the family for a drive Right. And when you're driving for long periods of time in a Model A or a Model T, you're only going at 35, 40 miles an hour. Yes, whopping 35. So it takes a while to get there. Yeah, and if anybody's ever been on a road trip, these days you get on I-5 from San Francisco to LA. You're zipping down at CHP, you're not listening. Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, 75, sometimes 90 miles an hour, based off of one of the things I've seen. Yeah, but back then you're traveling and you go do, do, do, do, do, do. Okay, are we there yet? Are we there yet? This is also the birth of are we there yet? Yeah, so, yet, yeah.
Speaker 4:So you need places to pee, you need places to eat and you know what if you and this is also the rise of the roadside booths for produce, yeah, especially during the Great Depression, where people are trying to sell off their fruit and say, well, I can't sell it over here, but you know, let's make a few extra bucks by selling it to errant travelers coming by, yeah, and some of which became big businesses, like Walter Knott and his wife, yeah, Selling. Lest we forget, that was basically a roadside attraction Yep Boys selling boysenberries and fried chicken. Yeah, you know amazing, yeah, but they still do. They absolutely still do, yeah, but that's a different episode. Yeah, now, this episode is focused on this rise of the roadside attraction, and some of them were very successful, like diners that were shaped like cows or bulldogs or oranges, yeah, or gas stations that were even themed with giant chickens and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:Giant things, giant concrete things was a thing, and I think that was because of the rise of the concrete industry, which we could also blame Henry Ford for. Yes, no, we can't, but I mean, but you know.
Speaker 3:You know, isn't it interesting when you go to California Adventure in Anaheim and you go to that Cars Land area, which I think is great, yeah, how much it has used the iconography of the roadside attraction.
Speaker 4:Absolutely Especially like when you get closer, when you're going through the line for the main attraction there, they actually have a bottle house, yes, and they're all oil bottles. Yeah, they're not soda bottles, they're genuine oil bottles, which is back in the day, guys. They didn't come in cans or plastic containers. They came in these long necked because you had to push it into the engine. Watch a Three Stooges episode where they're running a gas station. You'll see what they're always breaking the bottles over their heads Fill with chocolate syrup. You know breakaway bottle.
Speaker 4:But it's, the house is made out of these bottles, yeah, and it's like that's great. And then you've got the food vendors that are all in giant traffic cones.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which looks similar to those old like quote-unquote teepee motels, Mm-hmm, it looks great. There's giant wood carvings, which is something you saw in roadside attractions all the time. Looks great. There's giant wood carvings, which is something you saw in roadside attractions all the time.
Speaker 4:In fact, you see giant wood carvings in a lot of the roadside attractions that feature these magnetic houses. Oh, yes, there is a particular roadside attraction that we will talk about, but before we get to it you have to drive up Highway 101 in Northern California to get to it on your way to Oregon. So my parents live in Port Orford, oregon. I grew up in Gilroy, but they moved up there to retire, so to visit them it's a long trip to get there. So what do we do? It's not a straight shot, no, it is not. But what we do get to do is we get to go to all of these classic roadside attractions and every time we stop at least one, maybe two of them. And there's one it's the giant cob of corn.
Speaker 4:This is from my partner, tanya, so she downloaded an app that actually helps you map out these roadside attractions oh neat and tells you the distance between each one. So you could literally go I'm going to go on Route 66. Yeah, I'm going to go from Chicago to LA or vice versa. Yeah, how many roadside attractions are on Route 66? And it'll go like you could stop here. You could stop there, and here's the distance between all of them and it tells you where nearby hotels and eateries are that are weird. Yes, so it's like the ultimate weirdo road trip. App Right, awesome. Yeah, you know, it's Atlas. Obscura is the company that put this out.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've bumped into them before.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they're pretty great. I do not remember it like my partner's going to go. I told you today but, to be honest, we've been talking about so much stuff I've kind of like flipped it out of my head. So I apologize, sweetheart, I've totally forgot the name of the actual app, but look it up through Atlas of.
Speaker 1:Sierra.
Speaker 4:There is an app for this and check it out if you're interested, anyway, and it is interesting.
Speaker 3:So where your folks live, that's out on the coast. And the closer you get to the coast, the more roadside attractions you're going to run into Right Like when we go up to southern Oregon. But we're not near the coast, you don't see much, you're just on the highway. No, the 505 and the 5.
Speaker 4:Oh boy, Lake Shasta again.
Speaker 3:That's nice, that's nice, yeah, that's nice. But once you're over on the coast and you're driving north or south, or if you're starting in California and heading Route 66, you are going to see a dog-choking motherload of roadside attractions.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah, oh yeah. So we used this app that I mentioned aforementioned app and she logged in. We got to see it, guys, we got to see it. It, we got to see it. It's the giant cob of corn and I went why here, biggest ball of twine in Minnesota? Pretty much yeah, thank you Weird Al. Yeah, and I went wait a minute when. Why? Okay, I'm game, let's find out, we get there. Uh-huh, they had literally carved a redwood stump.
Speaker 4:Uh-huh into it's about it's about seven feet tall. Yeah, and it's a cob of corn, it's a chain, it's chainsaw art right there surrounded by poison oak. Yeah, and you, we just started laughing our butts off and taking pictures in front of it because it was like, all this buildup, like how giant is it? You know, is this the corn of Cobb that Paul Bunyan used? You know, to wipe his hiney or something Like what is this thing? And we get there and it's like what?
Speaker 3:Is it the Cobb whose coming was foretold? Yeah, right.
Speaker 4:That's. You know, I can imagine the kernels when it pops, bang, it's a nuclear explosion. But I got to say I think why I mention it is the giant cob of corn kind of encapsulates the joy and the appeal of these roadside attractions, which is the building up of expectation. Yeah, which is the building up of expectation. And they also have this weird kind of vibe of old Kearney. Yes, and in some cases some of these roadside attractions were founded by carnival owners.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, most of them at this point have been bought out by people later. But yeah, you see that a lot. Yeah, I think we were talking earlier, before we started recording, about the Thing on the coast of Arizona and California, yeah, which used to be in California. I guess they moved it, they moved the Thing, they moved the Thing and it was totally set up by a huckster carny guy.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah, and that is literally about building up an expectation and having something that the carny folk refer to as the blow-off yeah, in which you have to get them excited. Yeah, you build, you do what is called building the tip. Yeah, you tell them you're going to see the most like. Here's a great example Mm-hmm. Ladies and gentlemen, on the inside, it's on the inside. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's the world's largest bat, that's right. It's over 12 feet in length. It can kill a horse with a single blow. That's right. It is over 360 pounds of pure bat. And it's inside and real, right in front of your eyes. Just for one thin dime, one-tenth of a dollar, you can see the world's largest bat, and they usually have, like they do, what's called a 10-in-1, where they have nine other attractions. Yeah, yeah, you know. See JoJo the dog-faced boy.
Speaker 4:See the eyeball kid see Harry Weinbaum, the midget that once sat in JP Boddy's lap, you know, and it's like okay, and finally you get in and you see the amazing frog band and it's those taxidermied frogs with cardboard instruments and everything Right. But then they finally get to the bat. Yeah, and it is literally a 12-foot-long baseball bat carved out of a telephone pole. And everything he said is true it is 12-foot-long, it is over 350 pounds. If you dropped it on a horse it would probably kill it in one blow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you saw the world's largest bat. You cannot deny it. Yeah, but the banner that's behind him is of this huge winged bat flying over some poor guy going ah, it's the size of a Volkswagen flying after this guy. And that's what you're expecting. And it's basically dad jokes personified.
Speaker 3:I remember I lived in Massachusetts for a while through the late 80s, early 90s, and we would go to the. You know the states are smaller there and so instead of the state fair, you had what was called the Big E, which was a bunch of states all together, and I remember going there and there was an exhibit. You know this is just on the tail end of these kind of like super huckstery exhibits for this kind of thing, but there was an exhibit that was supposedly Bigfoot, frozen in ice, and outside it was said prove he's not real. I love that and you have to do it right, yeah.
Speaker 3:So you go in and there was a thing that said if you can prove that he's not real, you win the attraction, you win the exhibit, and so, and you know, you go in and of course course there's like all these pictures and it's really dark and spooky, because that is really effective in shows like this, if they can keep you a little bit off guard. Oh yeah, anything at the end is going to feel like a relief. Oh yeah, and you go into this room and it's dark and spooky and there's this kind of glass thing on the floor and you can sort of vaguely see a furry human figure in it and that's it, and then you leave. But I will tell you this we went back to the Big E the following year and it wasn't there anymore. Somebody won it. I think someone maybe proved that it wasn't real.
Speaker 4:It was some philosopher. Yeah, what exactly is reality? None of us are real. Actually, it was some philosopher. Yeah, what exactly is reality?
Speaker 3:None of us are real Actually it was Alan Watts.
Speaker 4:He probably won it High as a kite yeah, high as a kite, with his creaky little microphone. And, of course, when you have to consider the possibility that Bigfoot is very, very retro-Nirvanic. He doesn't go anywhere. He doesn't have big feet. He has a big foot. So he only goes in one direction. If you go only one direction, like the band, you won't go anywhere.
Speaker 3:like the band speaking of cryptids, we're gonna come up on a really strange cryptid that I'd never heard of I never.
Speaker 4:Yes, and a little bit about this earlier, and I my my eyebrow went so high it actually pierced the ceiling, yeah, but let's talk about magnet spots here. Let's get back to our story here. So these roadside attractions yes, the heyday where it really kicked off was the Depression and into the 50s, the 50s. But then, like you said, some of these places started getting worn down or they got sold for real estate or whatever. But there are still a lot of holdovers from that era out there.
Speaker 4:And this is one of the oldest. It is one of the most satisfying, so much so there's a cartoon series based off of these attractions, is there?
Speaker 3:Gravity Falls. That's right. I brought it up to you, didn't I? Yeah, the mighty Gravity Falls man.
Speaker 4:And I've constantly been referred to as Grunkle Stan.
Speaker 3:So, like you know, and that shows something my kid introduced me to and I just love it. It's just great.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, it is so fantastic. Yeah, but it's based off of one of these magnet houses, as we're referring to it.
Speaker 3:So, interestingly, I did a little research just going back to like, where did these come from? Yeah, and as with a lot of stuff like this, we don't entirely know, but it seems to be related to what they call Ames Ro rooms. Now are you familiar with these.
Speaker 4:No, please explain.
Speaker 3:Ames rooms. You've seen one, I'm almost positive. Oh yeah, what they are is a room wherein you can see people who look like they're radically different sizes, even though if you know them outside of the room they aren't. Yeah, so one's on one side, one's on the other. One seems incredibly tall, one seems incredibly short, and then if they cross the room to each other, it looks like their sizes dramatically change. And those are called Ames Rooms, and it's an optical and psychological trick. What they've done is they're misshapen. One side of the room goes way, way farther back than your eye thinks it does. The floor is also slanted in a way that your eye can't discern and you know I'm not going to be able to describe it as well as if anyone goes and wants to look.
Speaker 4:I just did a quick little Google thing here. So here's these Ames rooms were first conceptualized. I thought this would have been actually like a Victorian optical illusion. It's a lot more modern than that. Yeah, it's actually 1934 by American ophthalmologist Adelbert Ames Jr.
Speaker 3:So here's an interesting about that. I was looking at it and I found that piece of information as well. But then the next place I looked it said, oh, adelbert Ames was a scientist and he found this in 1940. And then I looked again and I found another page that said he was a psychologist and he discovered this in 1934. And then another one that said he was a psychologist who discovered it in 1946. Then I found another page I'm not making this up Another page that said the Ames Room was discovered by someone named Jesse Ames in the early 1900s. Then I found another page we're going to rob this bank.
Speaker 4:This is Jesse Ames. Everybody stand back or I'm going to put you into forced perspective.
Speaker 3:Another page that said the Ames room was discovered by a mathematician named Sir William Ames in 1648. What, and sometimes I found different information on the same page.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:It was bizarre. I think the consensus is that this really was a guy named Aldebert Ames yeah, Not William Ames in 1648, but Aldebert Ames who sometime between like 35 and 45 did some experiments, some optical experiments, and discovered this.
Speaker 4:He closed one eye, opened the other one. Hey, I got an idea. Which is better, the left one or the right one?
Speaker 3:And you will see, in almost every single sort of gravity shack that we talk about, we'll also have this feature at some level the size change feature, where people cross their sizes change.
Speaker 4:So it all just comes down to. Edelbert aims to please, and so does Louise yeah. Sorry.
Speaker 3:Ain't that the truth.
Speaker 4:Ain't that the truth here? Close one eye and open the other. Get ready for some fun here with my trompe l'oeil which, folks, is actually the term that this particular illusion goes into, which means to fool the eye? Yeah, trompe l'oeil. I'll tell you my favorite experience with trompe l'oeil is because I have one Looking at me right now. Yeah, Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Because, pete, most of you don't know this Pete's actually two-dimensional, I am. The fact that he looks three-dimensional is just a shading illusion.
Speaker 4:It's all how you see me, yeah.
Speaker 3:But my favorite Trompe-l'oeil illusion was when I went to Amargosa. Okay.
Speaker 3:And I stayed. That's very specific. I stayed. You've been to Amargosa? Yeah. So I stayed in the hotel, the Marta Beckett hotel, where she has the you know used to before she passed away the little opera house. The opera house this might be a whole other discussion, but if you guys are interested, go look up Marta Beckett and look up Amargosa. It's fascinating.
Speaker 3:In the hotel and there is nothing within many, many miles of this hotel you can walk around at night and Marta Beckett did all of these Trabloil paintings on the walls. So people will be walking around at night with like flashlights or their phone lights just looking at these weird little like three-dimensional paintings on the walls. That's so cool, it was really neat. Anyway, I digress. So the reason that Aldebert Ames' Ames Rooms are significant to the Gravity Shack is that part of the Ames Room experience was that he would build in, at least on the early versions of it. He would build in this little groove that would make it look like a ball was rolling uphill. Now it's pretty much the exact same theory as all of these gravity shacks, because your eye can't tell that the floor is slanted. He can put something in that's slanted the other way, just less so that he could then put a ball on it and it would look like it rolled uphill, and that was the invention of the slide whistle.
Speaker 4:sound effect too. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And that is, as far as we know, the origin of the gravity shack.
Speaker 4:as far as we know, Right, and of course you know, these roadside attraction owners being the industrious entrepreneurs, ie ripoff artists you've got to do what you've got to do. If you see a good idea and it works and it's selling tickets, steal it. And so there are a lot of these gravity shacks, magnet houses we're just going to say gravity shacks because, yeah, you call them a million things, whatever, yeah, but these particular attractions are everywhere because they're fairly inexpensive to build, pretty easy, and they're very easy to make. And if you have a good story and a good location, you can really make a mint.
Speaker 3:Real quick, before we completely get off the Ames room, two great film examples.
Speaker 4:Wait, you're too tall. I'm going to go to the other side here, so that way you're actually taller.
Speaker 3:You're walking away from the microphone. No one can hear you.
Speaker 4:I know I'm much bigger now.
Speaker 3:This is getting weirdly Andy Kaufman-like. So two great films that you will recognize that they used the Ames effect for special effects, one of which the Lord of the Rings films. Oh yeah, the reason that one of the ways that they made the Hobbit characters, even though they are full-sized actors, look so small was using the Ames effect. It was by changing what you were seeing in the background Right. And another one and I love this one. They kind of they did a weird inversion of the Ames effect in the original Willy Wonka film. Oh, when he's going down the hall to this very, very, very small door. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they used an Ames effect there to get that weird misproportionate thing.
Speaker 4:There's a third example, too, in Hollywood, which is just about any film that Tom Cruise is in. Sorry, it's a very, very crass knock at one of the greatest movie stars. Don't worry, he'll do some crazy stunt and land on me in the middle of my commute.
Speaker 3:He's going to wake up and he's going to be hovering there like in the first Mission Impossible movie Dun dun dun, dun, dun.
Speaker 4:Oh God.
Speaker 3:Alright, so on to the gravity shacks, yeah, mystery shacks.
Speaker 4:So there are three within close proximity, or I should say close. This is a mouthful Close-ish proximity to where Kelly and I are recording this, which is Vallejo, California. Yep, and there are three of note that we're going to talk about Now. For those of you who are listening, who hear this and you know of a Gravity Shack, Haunted Shack, Mystery Spot, whatever, tell us about your local Gravity Shack. Yeah, We'd love to hear about it. Yeah, Send us pictures, scan a postcard. We would love to see this and we would like to encourage this more with our show, with our listeners. It's like share your memories and thoughts on any comment section, whether this is YouTube, Spotify or whatever. Absolutely, Because we love hearing from you and we want to hear what you guys think and see. Yeah, but the three that I'm thinking of is one is in Santa Cruz, California.
Speaker 3:Yeah, arguably the most famous one.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean to the point where everybody uses the name. Basically, as most laymen will refer to this particular one, yes, there's another one that is Very close to the Oregon-California border and this one was very much an influence on Gravity Falls yes, which is called Confusion Hill. Yeah, and there's a third one. What is the third one? I'll look for it, just keep talking. Oh, no, well, if you don't find that one, there is a definite third one, which is actually in Knott's Berry Farm. Oh, or used to be, it's not there anymore, right it?
Speaker 4:used to be. I don't think it's there anymore, or if it is, it's a shadow of its former self, yeah, but it was a location called the Haunted Shack, yeah, and it had an Ames room, it had the bowling ball going uphill, it had the water flowing up, you know holding suspending something up in the air gags. All that stuff was there, and they all have similar and yet very unique takes on this particular phenomenon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wonder if, by the way, the one you were thinking of might have been the Oregon Vortex.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's the one, Old Hill, oregon. Yes, the Oregon Vortex, that's exactly the one I was thinking of.
Speaker 3:But so describe the effect.
Speaker 4:Okay, well, to describe the effect is one thing. We're going to do a disservice just by generalizing here. Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:So I haven't been to the—. So what we're going to do is invite every single member of the listening audience to come over, and we're just going to kind of tilt you sideways and you'll get it.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So the effect is that, for whatever reason that is given to you as a patron of one of these attractions, gravity does not work in the conventional manner anymore. So water flows uphill and time slows down, and et cetera, et cetera. You weigh less, or a ball rolls uphill, or you get smaller, you get bigger, you can lean in ways that seem impossible. And that's the most famous is this trick of an effect which is actually inspired by a Buster Keaton film I can't remember if it's called Yukon Ho or something like that but he's trapped inside of a cart that is rolling downhill and he remains upright the entire time. There's a famous Fred Astaire sequence in which he's dancing on the ceiling sequence that's similar in which the camera moves with the room.
Speaker 4:So that way, the person who is being filmed remains upright, but the room is spinning Right, and so it's based loosely off of this effect where, if you are taking a photograph of somebody and you're standing in the right location, you can get a picture of your loved one leaning at a ridiculous Michael Jackson smooth, criminal angle and it looks great. Or you can hang off of a bar and you're hanging sideways and that kind of stuff and your hair is going sideways, or you're pouring water at a weird angle. It's a great photo op because, along with Henry Ford, you also had Thomas Edison giving everybody a camera, yeah, and of course, the Kodak Eastman Company coming up with the Brownie, where everybody had, on these summer vacations, would be taking snapshots of their trips, and so this was a great way to capitalize on it and a great way for these spots to make money.
Speaker 3:Not only would they sell you snacks, they'd sell you film, yeah photos, and I've noticed this is a fairly consistent thing, even now, where they tend to dissuade you from taking your own pictures. Yeah, because they want to take a picture and charge you for it, right, and there's a couple of elements to the effect that are significant. So the main thing, the main thing that causes this to work, it makes things like seem like they flow uphill, or water flow uphill, or whatever. You are leaning farther than the lean that you are perceiving Right, so you are leaning one direction and the lean of the room that you are looking at is leaning another direction, but less so Right, so your mind is interpreting a kind of level. That's not true.
Speaker 3:The things that kind of make this work, aside from the actual just construction of the shack. But usually when you go into them, there's a transition period. You usually go through either some carefully constructed wooded area or a tunnel or something that slowly adjusts you to the lean. And it's not that you can't tell that you're leaning. You can, it's pretty clear, but your brain doesn't know how far. And the other element of this is that they have to remove all visual inconsistencies when you're looking at the leaning room.
Speaker 4:Right, there's very few of these places that have a window, right? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, because anything you saw that was straight would screw up the effect. There are, interestingly enough, there are gravity hills. There are actually ones outside in nature. Some of them have occurred naturally, where things just have grown and positioned in just the right way. That tricks your brain.
Speaker 4:Absolutely yeah, so I'm not too familiar with the Santa Cruz one, the mystery spot yeah, I am a bit, so do you want to talk about that one first?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we can kind of talk about that one. The story behind it is that it was discovered in 1939, when surveyors were tasked with building a cabin and their instruments refused to work properly on this specific plot of land. Now, this is a thing right, Our instruments are not working on this specific plot of land. Now, this is a thing right, Our instruments are not working on this particular plot of land.
Speaker 3:This is a thing you see through. The stories of a lot of these gravity spots is that, oh, your compass will go crazy. Whether that's usually not true, your compass is usually fine. There are some places you can go. Not true, your compass is usually fine. There are some places you can go. I believe Crater Lake is one of them up in Oregon where there is something going on that makes it so that your compass doesn't work very well. But for the most part they just say that and they expect that not many people are going to bring a compass and check.
Speaker 4:Wait a minute. I want my money back. My compass is fine.
Speaker 3:But they, you know, while they attempted to this is the story While they attempted to figure out why all their gadgets were malfunctioning, numerous surveyors reported the feeling of a mysterious force pushing them over. There was a strange feeling of nausea, and they found the area extremely disorienting. When the landowners found out, they ditched their plans to build a cabin and decided to capitalize on the bizarre vortex. So they built the mystery spot. So a large cabin Used to. There was a whole spiel. When you went through the mystery spot, oh yeah, absolutely. It sounds like they don't always do that now. It sounds like they sometimes just kind of send you through the room.
Speaker 4:Which you kind of want to go. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, because it goes to the world's largest bat. Yeah, I need to hear about the bat, I need to know that I'm going to go see this thing that can kill a horse. Yeah, you know, like, build it up, because if you don't, if you go through, okay, neat, it's a room on its side. Who cares it?
Speaker 3:speaks to the gravity shack that I grew up with, which was at Six Flags Over Texas, the original Six Flags Park. Yeah, and it was called Casa Magnetica, wow, yeah, and it is still there, it's still operating.
Speaker 4:The Aztecs had unleashed a new technology.
Speaker 3:And so they. You know, and there was this whole story that went with it. There was someone named Don Juan, oh God, really. Yeah, it's in the Spanish section of. So Six Flags Over Texas is the only of the one of the six flags. That actually explains why it's six flags Right. So, because there were six different flags that flew over the state of Texas, right, so Deep in the heart, right, and they so the Spain section. This is where the Casa Magnetica was, and this old landowner, don Juan, discovered these weird properties and he was kind of an eccentric and so A hunched over old cockroach named Don Brujaha Brujaha. Follow the snake.
Speaker 3:So he was like a painter and he didn't really like guests, and so there was this whole story. Oh, this is the story.
Speaker 4:This is the story. I thought this was the actual attraction. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry, I got confused there.
Speaker 3:So they tell you this during the attraction. It's like, oh, don Juan, he was a painter and you know he would—but he was a very slow painter. It took a long time and he would buy all this fruit from the mountain and the fruit would go bad. I guess he was a slow eater too, because he was painting. He was busy Right, no-transcript where a ball would go into this kind of wooden I don't even know like gutter, and it would roll up this series of wooden gutters and then like drop onto the table.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, yeah, and it was neat and there's like maybe three effects in the whole thing, three or four, okay, uh, with with the narration about this eccentric old guy's house, and then that would be it and you would leave. So that was what it was like when I was growing up. Okay, after a while I don't know what was going on, but when they got into kind of the late 80s, they just just stopped doing the narration, which was lame, and so people would just stay in the rooms and kind of just roll the ball and then they would pull the thing and the ball would go up the chutes and it was lame. But as I understand it, they've now rewritten the narration. It's still pretty similar to what it was originally, and they're doing it again.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's cool, yeah, because I mean that is something that these places really need to provide. That buildup and also that expectation is it needs the showmanship. Yes, if you just have an optical illusion, big deal. Optical illusion, big deal. But when you actually have this narration, you're building up this expectation ooh, we're over a giant engine that was once an ancient. You know, ancient astronaut, you know hot rods of the gods man, you know, or it's, you know, a vortex into hell or whatever you know.
Speaker 3:It's like that type of waxing eloquent is what really makes those places, especially if you get tour guides who inevitably are all of the this month at Boardwalk Times we're writing a lot about Muppet Vision, what the loss of it means to the parks and to us as fans. We're also discussing Doctor who on Disney+. Have we reached the end of the partnership? Will the show live on?
Speaker 4:Come check it all out at BoardWalkTimesnet you're either loggers who gave up on it right, or you bought it off your brother-in-law. Yeah, you know, I've heard many a story behind these, like how people like you wonder who and most people live near these things. Yeah, there's usually like a weird little house off to the side and that's where they live and they then they wake up All right Time to open a gravity shack, and it's always up uphill. It's like why are you going downhill to open a gravity shack?
Speaker 3:Like that?
Speaker 4:No, anyway, don't you think it was a gravity shack? It'd be uphill anyway, but it'd be easier. It would just be easier to live downhill from a gravity shack If that vortex was real, you know.
Speaker 3:But anyway, you know what's interesting is the Oregon Vortex which maybe has the most elaborate backstory around it. Oh do tell, I know it's pretty crazy, but one of the pieces of their backstory is that they are a central vortex that attaches to all the other vortexes.
Speaker 4:Wow yeah. If that is not a giant FU to all of the other Gravity Shack owners going. You're part of our franchise.
Speaker 3:Well, they also claim that the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot was stolen from them, that it was actually an exact copy of them. Wow, so there's some bitterness, but they do crazy stuff. You can go buy books by the imaginary discoverer of the vortex about his scientific discoveries. They're cool.
Speaker 4:And where is the Oregon Vortex located? It's in Gold.
Speaker 3:Hill, oregon. Okay, which is, I believe up, past Grants Pass, I think. Okay, I've never been there, okay, but like central-ish Oregon.
Speaker 4:Time to make a trip. Yeah, central Oregon Okay, that's worth a shot. So, further south, we should go to probably one of the most eccentric of these, yeah, so much so that a lot of people actually view this as like one of the main inspirations not the only one, but one of the main inspirations for Gravity Falls, yeah, which is Confusion Hill. Confusion Hill, Not too far from the Bigfoot Museum, which isn't much of a museum, no offense, guys, but they have more redwood carved bears than they do have Bigfoot stuff. Yeah, I was like come on, guys, it's Bigfoot, you can make anything up, just be clever.
Speaker 4:It's fine. Oh, and you know what? The Bigfoot Museum is for sale, is it? Currently it's for sale. So I kind of went ooh, kelly and I should open up our own Bigfoot museum.
Speaker 3:We're getting about to Bigfoot museum age right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're almost there. I need to find a diner waitress to settle down. I haven't gone through my biker phase yet, so I'm going to have to get through that, but anyway. Yeah, let's see if we can accelerate, accelerate. But I mean come on, guys, like put in an animatronic Bigfoot, make this. You know it's Bigfoot. You know we found a Bigfoot nest. You know these are Bigfoot turds. You know, check out these Bigfoot turds over here. Anyway, just sell shoes that are bigger than size 12.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know it's like the ultimate, big and tall for just shoes, you know, pumps that are size 16, men's, you know, anyway. But not too far is Confusion Hill, and when you pull into Confusion Hill it is buried deep within the redwoods. It's kind of like tucked away a little bit, and I love this place for its eccentricity. And I love this place for its eccentricity. It's run by some of the most bitter human beings I've ever met in my life. And yet the location is the most charming, like it's a great respite from driving through the California redwoods. And you're like I got to go to the bathroom, I need something to. You know, the sun's coming through and that flashing of the sun kind of gets to my eyes every once in a while. It's like I need a break, yeah, and my dog needs to take a leak. So let's go for a little walk, you know. And you go to confusion hill and the first thing you notice are chipmunks. Yeah, everywhere. And Kelly has a story about these specific chipmunks.
Speaker 3:So they, their lore is so fascinating and they've invented, they've created this thing they call the chipalope. Oh yeah, the chipalopes. It's supposedly elusive, so hard to find but the chipalope is as opposed to the common chipalope.
Speaker 4:Yes, the common chipalope, the elusive chipalope, the red-crested chipalope. As opposed to the common chipalope.
Speaker 3:Yes, the common chipalope, the elusive chipalope, yeah, the elusive chipalope, the red-crested chipalope. He's half chipmunk, half antelope.
Speaker 4:Okay, so let's back up for a minute For that type of genetic merging yes, somewhere out there, probably in an Ames room. Yes, in Ames illusion. Yeah, a chipmunk wandered in and went that is the shortest antelope I've ever seen in my life, and thus the mating process occurred in order to create the chipalope.
Speaker 3:The Ames room made them almost the same size when they stood in the middle of the room.
Speaker 4:Yeah, was he that? Or was Henry Ford inventing the 12-foot ladder for chipmunks? Alvin Simon, what the hell? Theodore Alvin, Get off that antelope. You're a king, I just want an antelope.
Speaker 3:So I love this. I read this on their site the people that started the—or that owned Confusion Hill at least early on Campbell Brothers oh yes, they said that there was a magical accident that combined two happy male and female antelope and chipmunk couples.
Speaker 4:Okay, hold on a second, because that just got even creepier than what I came up with. You're not going to let that one just slide by. Huh yeah, no, that's like a bad Albert Brooks movie.
Speaker 3:Yes, the first chipalope, the male version. His name was Chester I, and he gained self-awareness and realized that he was a rare species and has hidden away from humans ever since. My God, look at me.
Speaker 4:I'm so small, yet these prongs are so big. I am very aware I am Chester me roar or don't.
Speaker 3:I love their literature. For centuries, people have called such things as magnetism and gravity laws of nature hey, what's up, baby?
Speaker 4:You know you're related to deer and I'm related to a squirrel and it's kind of a natural mating. So so Let me climb them antlers a little bit.
Speaker 3:Jeez. So the confusion is so fascinating, and I gather that they're still doing a full-on narration show with people. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, they're also. This is interesting they are both a gravity shack and a gravity hill. Oh yeah, so they have a natural one outside.
Speaker 4:Yes, they do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and a gravity hill? Oh yeah, so they have a natural one outside? Yes, they do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I don't recall if they have an Ames area. They do. They have an Ames room. They also have a switchback railroad Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which I supposedly. It's like really steep like a mountain climbing railroad.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you get in this thing thing and this crusty old guy. Yeah, again, see part about bikers. Yes, this guy was super cool, though, no, no shade to him. Actually he was really I cannot remember his name and, dude, you were amazing. I like I'm no, no dig, no shame, no, no foul. Yeah, you were awesome because he was one of the first that I ever encountered, first people that gave you the full narration, gave you the full bag of chips and everything. That's awesome. Welcome aboard. Let me explain the Vortex to you. And he just sold it and I'm on this just smiling like an idiot going. This is great.
Speaker 4:And my kid is looking at me going. Are you insane?
Speaker 3:This is like when I make people go on the cave train in Santa Cruz.
Speaker 4:This is entertainment. Someone here is a cheat. Yeah, it was, it was bad, but no, it was great. And what it is? Yeah, the train is a logging style train to to transport workers. Loggers up the hill at a rapid pace. Rather than going the long way, it literally goes. Switch back up loggers up the hill at a rapid pace Rather than going the long way. It literally goes. Switch back up, goes a reverse, switches back around, switches back up and back and forth. It kind of zigzags up the hill and then it travels around through these little redwoods where they've set up these little dioramas, and you go through the chipalope tree where there's a chipalope looking down and it's Chester above you. Chester, I.
Speaker 4:Chester I looking down upon you as you go through this hollowed-out redwood that the train has gone through and you know, and he's giving you all the spiel and tons of I mean it's northern, northernmost California, so lots of rusty used farm equipment and logging equipment everywhere. You know this is our display of unused chainsaws. You know, you're like, okay, whatever, it's cool, man, because they had a hot saw there where, like, the blade is, you know, six foot long. You're like, oh, I want to use that chainsaw, you know, and then you go up, up and then you come back down, but it's like an hour long ride and dang it. I was satisfied with my ticket price. I'm like I'm never going to see a show like this again. This guy is so eccentric and so good at selling it. Yeah, he gets an A plus for his effort on this, even though what you actually see you're like really, yeah, okay, but you know what he sells it You're like I don't care, this is great.
Speaker 3:That's what you want. You want the hucksterism? Totally yeah, I want to be.
Speaker 4:I don't want to be fooled when I go to a gravity shack. Yeah, I want to get conned. Yeah, like, like I really do, like I walk into these things going bring it.
Speaker 4:I'm such a skeptic and I know how a lot of these things work, so sell it to me Like just make me go for a minute and go like, yeah, okay, you almost got me with that one, you get A plus on that one, and yeah, so they have one of the sculptures. It's a giant faucet with the waters coming out of it and it's suspended over the tub of water. They have a redwood totem pole that was made in 1982 or something like that. They have a little lady who lived in a shoe thingy that you know photo op for little kids to climb on. I got a picture of my dog in it, because toad. And then what else? Yeah, they've got a little display on Chipolopes, yeah.
Speaker 4:And then when you get back to your car, they no longer do what they did all the way up into the mid-90s yeah, almost all of these places. One of the great mysteries of these gravity shacks is no one knows where they come from, no one knows how they got there. But when you leave your car, there's nothing on your bumper. But when you get back, whether you want it there or not, whether you ask for it or not, someone has attached with bailing wire, a waterproof with bailing wire, a waterproof, tough as hell sign in bright yellow, bright orange or bright pink. Yeah, I just survived gravity Like it's part of your ticket price.
Speaker 4:Whether you went there just to use the bathroom or not. If you step in for more than 10 minutes, it just pops up on your car and you go like, wait a minute. How did I suddenly become a shill for you? Yeah, because that's the deal. That's the deal you get stamped with it. Now they will leave a coupon or something on there. Yeah, I kind of miss the vandalism part. Yeah, I kind of miss the vandalism aspect of like bailing wire and hard. It's like real estate sign plastic that they would put these things on. Yeah, and you used to see them all over the place. You'd be driving down the coast and somebody's got one of those things on the back of their RV. Yeah, you could always tell the people who loved them because they were faded and like I left it on forever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it's great Well, and I mean you know you travel up and down the five from Northern California down to LA. You are going to see a ton of cars with mystery spot bumpers Because you know we passed by it. Yeah, it's a thing, it's a mystery spot.
Speaker 4:You got to go, you know. And the same thing with Confusion Hill. Yeah, and Confusion Hill has some of the greatest t-shirts ever. Yeah, yeah, when they've got, like you know, I've got about five of these things because I just, I go, I stop, I'm a total sucker for it. Yeah, it's a very 1950s style design with question marks. What's up with Confusion Hill and his eyeball in the center of your chest, like looking out?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, and that t-shirt was one of the you know the inspirations for Bill, the infamous intergalactic, you know interdimensional being that terrorizes Grunkle Stan and his family in Gravity Falls. And if you're careful you can actually spot Bill at the Confusion Hill, yeah, so let's talk about the Cypher Hunt. Yes, the great Cypher Hunt, the great Cypher.
Speaker 3:Hunt. So, everyone, if you haven't watched Gravity Falls, you should, it's great. Yes, and again, thank you. Haven't watched Gravity Falls, you should, it's great. And again, thank you, penn, for introducing me to that and explaining to me about the Cypher Hunt. So right around the time that Gravity Falls was I believe it had already been canceled, so it was off the air. The creator of the show decided, for whatever reason, that he was going to do this massive scavenger hunt to find what turned out to be a statue of the character Bill. Bill Cipher Yep, bill Cipher is a sentient triangle based on David Lynch. They actually tried to get David Lynch to do the voice and he wouldn't do it. God, what a pity.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that would have been great. A plea with a smoker's cough. It would have been great, so great Anyway.
Speaker 3:So this thing was crazy and I actually spent some time just writing down all of the places that there were clues. There were clues. So it starts in St Petersburg, florida, russia. What In Russia? Yeah, the Kazan Cathedral. The next clue was in Tokyo, at the Kanda Shrine. Okay.
Speaker 3:So this is I'm trying to remember the name right now Alex Hirsch. Is that the creator? Yeah, yeah, and so he at that point is in a relationship with Dana Terrace, who's the creator of the Owl House. Just a little bit later, they traveled around for a while and I gather they put some clues down. So, st Petersburg, russia, the Kazan Cathedral. Then there's a clue in Tokyo, the Kanda Shrine. The next clue is at the Shriner's Temple in Atlanta, georgia. Next clue is at Griffith Park in LA, okay. Then the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita Okay, a tree stump on a corner in Piedmont, california, which is, you know, 20 minutes from here, yeah. Then back to LA, a post office box, a street corner in Portland, okay, and this is in. I'm reading them in order, so you have to go.
Speaker 3:Wow. The next clue was at Confusion Hill in Piercy, california. The next one was on a telephone pole, actually by a pair of telephone poles, in Amity, oregon.
Speaker 4:Okay, which is not open during Fourth of July. Oh right, sorry.
Speaker 3:I've often this is just a weird trivia thing. There's a I don't know if you've watched the Owl House, but it's great. There's a very substantial minor character in it named Amity Nice. That is kind of a fan favorite character and I was like and Dana Terrace was involved in this, and I was like, oh, I wonder if there's a connection there, Nice, Anyway, just me.
Speaker 4:Okay, so anyway in.
Speaker 3:Amity, yeah, anyway, just me, okay. So, anyway, in Amity, yeah, so on a pair of telephone poles, okay. Then the next one's in Turner, oregon, at the Enchanted Forest Amusement Park. Okay, the next one is in Reedsport, oregon, and it was near the Reedsport Community Charter School. Oh, I'm sorry, the Turner, the Enchanted Forest one was the last clue. The first one was the last clue.
Speaker 3:The final piece of this was in Reedsport, oregon, which is where they found a statue of Bill Cipher. Wow, now, there's some interesting things about this. There's a statue there and there was a buried treasure chest under the statue. And people did solve these clues. Occasionally the creators of the show would give them a little bit of help, but for the most part they figured it out, and these were not easy, like if you go read about it or there's a documentary about this. These were complicated clues using really advanced cipher techniques. Pretty crazy stuff. Yeah, cipher techniques, pretty crazy stuff. That said, the statue was found before the scavenger hunt started, because this guy his name was Bradley Pick, okay, and he found the statue eight days before the start of the cipher hunt. He did not know anything about the show, right?
Speaker 3:He just stumbled on it, hey look at this Triangle guy with an eyeball.
Speaker 4:I think it was buried and he just found it dug it up and he posted a picture online of the statue. Don't trust those old guys with metal detectors, folks, Right? Hey, look at this. I found a watch. What the heck is this? So it ended up.
Speaker 3:He was a pretty cool guy. He posted a picture on some social media site, yeah, and the creator of the show found out about it, reached out to him and said please could you take that down. He paid him like a hundred bucks. He said could you please take this down? This is what I'm trying to do. And so and the guy was like, yeah, totally, I'll do it for you.
Speaker 3:So then, a little bit later, as the hunt was going on one of the things that I hope I'm not getting his name wrong, alex Hirsch, I think, but if not, I'll correct it in the notes he realized that he had wanted to put a little USB key in the final treasure chest that was going to have a link to Grunkle Stan's singing, and it was. I don't remember what it was, it was something like I'll be seeing you, or something Sure. And he had forgotten to put it in the treasure chest. Oh no.
Speaker 3:So the creator of the show called up this guy, bradley Pick, and said hey, could you help me out, since you live there. And so he sent him the stuff. The guy put it on a USB port, dug up the treasure chest, put it in there. But one of the things he did was because he wanted to prove that he had found this before anybody else and there was all these like fake pieces of paper, fake money, all this stuff in there. So he wrote his name, bradley Pick, on a bunch of the fake money before he reburied it just to prove that he had actually found it beforehand, but I thought it was actually he was being pretty cool about it.
Speaker 4:That's pretty cool. So this episode is dedicated to Bradley Pick. Bradley Pick, yeah.
Speaker 3:And he. So the reason that this yes, one of the clues was actually at Confusion Hill, but the statue was not found at Confusion Hill. No, but the statue was not found at Confusion Hill, but it turned out that the place the statue was found, there was some confusion about who actually owned the land. They thought they had gotten permission from the right person. Someone else came in and said what are you doing, putting this weird triangle on my land? So there ended up being kind of a legal battle. So there ended up being kind of a legal battle and the Gravity Falls. People came in and said, hey, don't worry about it. So they took Bill and took him back to Confusion Hill, yes, and put him there, him and the treasure chest. Supposedly, if you go to Confusion Hill like Bill's, just there you can see him. Oh yeah, but if you want to, you can ask them to see the treasure. That's cool. And they keep it behind the counter. Yeah, that's cool, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because when I was there fairly recently, there were a couple people there, one who were cosplaying, and one was this girl who was cosplaying as Bill that's awesome. And another one was cosplaying as Grunkle Stan. He had the fez and the whole thing Nice and they were taking pictures, but they were there to see the statue, yeah. And that's when I found out about Bill and I was like, okay, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So yeah, confusion Hill is probably one of the more eccentric places. It's very elaborate.
Speaker 4:It's very elaborate Probably not as elaborate as the Vortex that has published books and so forth, right, yeah, but it's a great place to get a hot dog, get a soda and chill out from a long road trip. It does what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to chill you out and, if you're paying attention, if you're there on weekends, especially during the spring and the summertime, some of the locals have a little fruit stand nearby. Yeah, please support them if you go to Confusion Hill, absolutely. They sell fabulous plums and nectarines and they're very nice people. So that's a little plug for some of the locals. I want to talk really briefly about the Haunted Shack.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, yeah, At Knott's Berry Farm. Yeah, I want to hear about this because I never experienced it.
Speaker 4:Okay. So the Haunted Shack I mean we're going to do an episode on Knott's Berry Farm, so I don't want to go too much into the whole backstory of the park etc. But this is now when it was installed was fairly early, probably in the 40s or the 50s, and I mean Knott's had already been a staple from the Depression on. Yeah, I mean Knott's had already been a staple from the Depression on. Yeah, but because there were so many people going to it just to get boysenberry jelly and because Walter Knott invented the boysenberry, yeah, they bred the boysenberry there, yep, named after his buddy, mr Boysen, mm-hmm. And then to get some Mrs Knott's chicken Yep, famous chicken, by the way. Yes, her's chicken, famous chicken, by the way, her famous chicken. And, believe me, mrs Knott was very, very sick of Walter coming in and going hey, you know what? Chicken butt.
Speaker 3:Oh God, I do that to my kid all the time.
Speaker 4:I just bought a t-shirt today with that on there. It says you know what? And she says guess what? It's this picture of chicken. Looking at you like give me a break.
Speaker 4:Anyway, they started at you know, walter had purchased an entire ghost town, yeah, and installed it in his right near his fruit stand slash kitchen. Yeah, this is not his chicken. And then they realized there's more and more people coming, more and more people coming to see this eccentric little roadside stop, and so they actually started charging admission to get in. And that's when they started having to add more actual attractions and they started dipping into the pool of roadside attractionalia with obvious ones. One was gold panning, yeah, where you got the big trough which Mr Knott himself, throughout his entire life, every single day, would load the gold into the gold panning attraction until he died. Wow, that was a great little touch. He was like I'm going to add the gold so that way, I know, I guarantee that kids have a chance to get some gold. So here it is gold dust. I mean, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, so right near the gold panning was the haunted shack. And the haunted shack is literally what it is it's a creepy old Western shack, probably one of the buildings from the ghost town that he purchased, yeah, and there was a lot of the same type of shtick, only this time, this being the 50s, they're tapping in more, you know, late 40s, early 50s they're tapping into the Western as popularity.
Speaker 4:So, and Walter Knott was fascinated by Native American cultures, mm-hmm, and he was a collector of a lot of artifacts, yeah, by Native American cultures, and he was a collector of a lot of artifacts. So they tended to tie it in with a lot more Native American symbolism and mysticism. Right, there's spirit animals that are causing it, or the ancient spirits of this particular tribe are causing this. Right, and it had a lot of the same. It had Ames Room, it had the ball rolling uphill, it had the lean-to room, it had all of the same gags, yeah. But my favorite part was the exit. Yeah, and here's why Because the exit was this kind of switchback pathway in which you walk towards this jail, a little miniature jail, and on the inside was a dummy or a skeleton in Western clothes, right, and it would talk was a dummy or a skeleton in Western clothes, right, and it would talk to you, uh-huh, and it would be like hi there, peter. What are you doing here today? I've been in here since 1847.
Speaker 3:Would it actually use your name?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it would actually use your name and what it was. It was the people at the ticket booth that had a mirror, and so your mom or dad would go his name's Billy. Hi there, billy, how are you today? Just remember to brush your teeth. You're going to wind up, just like me, without none. You know that kind of stuff, and when you're a kid and you got this skeleton or a dummy talking to you, it's like how did he know? My awesome, I know everything, even though I'm stuck in here. You know it's dumb, but yeah, even Walter Knott, who I would actually argue is the king of the roadside attraction.
Speaker 3:Well, his is certainly the roadside attraction that blew up the biggest.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was the mouse that roared. It really like it may not have been the most original as far as like stuff like the gravity shacks and stuff. But it really took off, yeah, and a lot of that just became that it was a family-run business that just put a lot of heart into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, you know, it's interesting to me like and we'll certainly go into Knott's a lot later oh yeah, and Walter Knott can be a very problematic person in a lot of ways. Oh yeah, but it is interesting to me that he and Walt Disney maintained a friendship for his entire life. There was never any ill will about the competition with each other. They would take out ads in the paper to compliment each other. Oh yeah, it was strange, the two waltz. Yeah, Disney would very much admit he would go over to see what Knott's Berry Farm was doing and take some of the ideas.
Speaker 4:The Calico Mine Train is a fabulous example of this. You know, the Calico mine train, which we'll again, we'll talk about in a later show, yeah, was very much an inspiration for you know, was it Journey Through Nature's Wonderland? Yeah right, you know, no, I'm not going to do the prospector right now. You're holding off, I'm holding off, I'm trying. I've already done him. He's somewhere in there in this episode. You have to. That's our scavenger hunt Find the prospector, find the prospector in each episode, anyway. So yeah, so we've reached a point, I think in our episode now that we reach in all of our shows. And if you've never heard, the show.
Speaker 5:Before.
Speaker 4:Please go back to our episodes, especially the one about the golden horseshoe. Okay, my rant is over. It's actually a really good episode, guys, come on. So anyway, if you're listening, if you got me through this episode, you can make it through the Golden Horseshoe, because it's a better episode than this one.
Speaker 3:This episode will like toughen you up and that one's just going to be a breeze.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it'll build up a huge podcast, callus Callus, yeah, but anyway. So this is the part of our show in which we ignore all thoughts of safety planning and budget and schedule and do a plus-up in which Kelly and I concoct new ways on how to improve or revitalize an attraction that we've talked about. Yeah, and this being, I actually consider myself to be the sidekick of the show, so I'm going to let our main host of the show You're the sidekick, I'm the sidekick. Oh, I think I'm going to let our main host of the show You're the sidekick, I'm the sidekick.
Speaker 3:Oh, I think you're the gold. You're what people come back for. I doubt that tremendously. I'm just like Ed McMahon over here. Man, let's see.
Speaker 4:Let's get the great Carshoni out here with the envelope. Let's see. Yes.
Speaker 3:Chipalopes hot dog counters and a giant corn cob.
Speaker 4:Chipalopes, hot dog counters and a giant corn cob. What are three things that Peter Overstreet is going to talk about again and again? No, I'm not Johnny, I swear to God. I'm more like Doc Severin, you know.
Speaker 3:If you're Doc Severin, then I'm Tommy Newsome.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So anyway, Kelly, what's?
Speaker 4:your plus up for Gravity Shacks.
Speaker 3:It's tough because this is the first time we've done well. It's not the first time we've done a collection of things, but in this way it is so for me. I mourn the passing of the roadside attraction. There's less and less all the time, Just weirdo Americana, Like we need more of it. I think it unifies us as a people. The weirder the crap that you run into on the highway Celebrating our eccentricity is a thing that we can kind of all agree on, yes, and if you can't agree on that, you suck as an American.
Speaker 4:I think, well, I think the roadside attraction has pretty much been replaced by shorts on Instagram, yeah. Where you flip through and it's like, oh, look at that weird guy who's putting plungers on his nipples and dancing around, or, and dancing around, or. You know, I'll send that to my friend. You know who are you watching on Instagram? My friend, you don't want to know what I've got on my Insta feed. We'll let it go. Let me tell you something. Oh, yeah, anyway.
Speaker 3:But so I think it's sad we're seeing less and less of this of the roadside attraction. What I would like to see here's my plus up I think there should be Arts Council funding for roadside attractions. I think the National Endowment for the Arts should pay a certain amount to small roadside attraction developers, inventors, whack jobs Because they don't cost much. It's not like you're funding a theater.
Speaker 4:Or a public radio station, or a public radio station which you should fund.
Speaker 3:But, like you know, pop $10,000 to Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel in Utah who wants to put up his own gravity shack.
Speaker 4:Or even Enos, the tight-jawed yokel.
Speaker 3:Yes, I mean like Because he's got braces Invisaligns.
Speaker 4:But I decided to go the hard way.
Speaker 3:Anyone find me a porcelain crowbar.
Speaker 4:I'm telling you you should see what they're going to do with my goiter.
Speaker 5:Anyway, anyway.
Speaker 4:That got gross fast.
Speaker 3:That's my plus. Up Is actual public funding for roadside attractions. That's what I want. The giant peach pit maze. I don't care Anything, the that we can get the you know the giant peach pit maze. I don't care Anything. The weirder the better.
Speaker 4:Right, I love it. Okay, so my plus up kind of ties in a little bit to yours, but it expands upon the eccentric artists of the world, in which there are communities that are losing their eccentric centers for artists. Yeah, there are communities that started off as eccentric artists enclaves and have been gentrified to the point where they are now giant chic yuppie communities. Yeah, places like Mill Valley or Santa Cruz at one time was a hub of weirdness. You still find elements of it there. Yeah, I mean, there's little pockets, but it's not really not what it once was. Monterey used to be an eccentric world and now it's not so much anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bolinas is kind of hanging in there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh, yeah. But you go to Portland and all these other places where you expect that type of eccentricity and it's just not there. Portland and all these other places where you expect that type of eccentricity, and it's just not there. Even San Francisco, like in the Haight, yeah, it is really more of a tourist attraction of what it once was, yeah, than what it actually was, yeah, yeah, like even eight years ago, it's a lot more eccentric than what it is now.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, I think that colleges that run theater programs and other art programs yeah, so we're going to that. Colleges that run theater programs and other art programs, so we're going to tie into colleges by tying it into the Arts Council. I think they should actually offer paid internships and on-site internships and basically each one of these places should have a small cabinet, so it's like a summer camp, yeah, and you send kids who are into marketing classes, people who are in theater classes, improv and stagecraft artists and, like you say, inventors, and use these as a way to showcase new talent of college students who are, like, I'm going to be a big improv artist. Okay, here's the basic structure of the script Sell it, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sell this and you get to be on site for three or four weeks. You've got a summer internship working these places, yeah, and so the way people go oh, you've got to go during the summer, yeah, or during the spring because there's season Like go, oh, you got to go during the summer because, or during the spring because there's season like they actually set up like a whole, like there's a whole storyline built so during this.
Speaker 4:A little bit frankly, like what Evermore was trying to do, where in the wintertime the vortex changes into the winter vortex and it's like Santa Claus pops out, you know, and you have seasonal internships that you don't really have to. You know what you're doing is you're allowing these kids to come out and make your attraction better and in those off times you're coasting on their efforts. Yeah, and that's the understanding. Like the students know you're going to do it, like they're not going to walk away going. They ripped me off. It's like that's part of the deal here. Yeah, yeah, but the students get a chance to have their first opportunity to have support, encouragement, a little bit of a budget, yeah, but also have the free agency to try. Like it's so dang weird, yeah, roll with it, yeah, just do something that's so bizarre. That makes our gravity pit come out better than their gravity pit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so they have a little bit of restraint, like you're working in this field, but then go for it, right.
Speaker 4:And then what that does? It's almost like, yeah, it's like a college summer camp, or high school kids could do this too, like the STEM programs. And then it's like a college summer camp or high school kids could do this too yeah, like the STEM programs. And then it's like an eccentric summer camp, like it's a summer camp where kids would actually go. No, this is actually pretty cool and you are working a job, but you're inhabiting a world where you're like yeah, I'm weird, man McGee, and I'm going to take you up the switchback railroad.
Speaker 4:Hi, everybody back railroad Hi everybody, and it's these teenagers that are just living this bizarre little alternate reality of running these mystery spots and building a world that is small, simple and not necessarily chip-a-lope free. Right, you should have chip-a-lope attacks. Yeah, all of a sudden, a chip-a-lope will you have, like a quint? Y'all know me, know how I earn a living. I'll catch this chipalope for you, but it ain't easy. Those are bad little rodents out there. Trust me, they'll hit you in the back of the head with a ladder that they were mounting those antelope with. Mr Hooper, get away from that chipalope. You know it'll bite your head right off. Chief, start putting out the chum line. Guy's like throwing peanuts out of the back of his car, these little chipalopes. That's a six-incher, seven inches, three tons of them. He's very smart, but he's very dumb.
Speaker 3:Can you measure the teeth on that one?
Speaker 4:Now I actually want to do this Now on my next road trip. I want to get an outfit like Quince from Jaws and go on a chip-a-lope hunt. Yeah, confusion Hill. Yeah, go to Confusion Hill. We're looking for those bad chip-a-lopes. It's not like when I was on the USS Indianapolis, we were shipping a bunch of chip-a-lopes in the back of the Indianapolis and two torpedoes took us down. Chief Woke up with all these little puncture holes around me, ankles and me calves from those little buggers.
Speaker 3:There's a venom you never get out.
Speaker 4:That's true. Come over here, I'll crush an empty beer can Wow, I like yours I love the fact that, treating it as an art form, because I do believe it is. I do too, and some people view it as carny trash, but it's like the carnival. That gaffe is an art form Totally. And same thing with these roadside attractions. I'm right there with you.
Speaker 3:You know, just because something might be cheap or just because something might be a con game, doesn't mean it's not art. Oh yeah, and ask a professional wrestler.
Speaker 4:Ask anybody who's bought a ticket for Disneyland recently.
Speaker 3:I don't know about cheap. Oh yeah, let's go and look for chipalopes, all right?
Speaker 4:Quentin, randy Macho man Savage on a chipalope hunt. We can do this, folks. All you Randy Macho man Savage cosplayers, meet me at Confusion Hill. We'll have a ball, all right. So, anyway, I think that wraps up our first episode. I'm being stared at by a couple of chipmunks right now. They're like glaring at me, shut up already Making us nervous. Yeah, so anyway, thanks for joining us. I'm Peter Overstreet and I'm Kelly McGovern, and you've been listening to the Lowdown on the Plus Up.
Speaker 3:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us, and if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at boardwalktimesnet. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I at Lowdown on the Plus Up on Blue Sky, Mastodon, instagram and all the other socials, or you can send us a message directly at comments at lowdown-plus-upcom. We really want to hear about how you'd plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker, soldier Spy by Kevin MacLeod at incompetechcom. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we, like you, hit it.
Speaker 5:We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. Keep smiling through, just like you dudes always do, till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away. So will you please say hello to the folks that.
Speaker 1:I know Tell them.
Speaker 5:I won't be long. They'll be happy to know that as you saw me go, I was screaming this song. We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. Hey kids, it's me, your old pal and overlord, bill Cipher. I'm sure you all miss me, but if you ever feel bad, just remember that I watch you while you sleep. At the end of the day, your brain is just a meat computer.
Speaker 5:In a bone cockpit piloting a skin robot. You think the world makes sense. Nothing makes sense, so you might as well make nonsense. Think about it. We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. You dudes, I hate you all.
