LAUGHING SAL - SO MANY REMEMBER THIS AMUSEMENT PARK ICON

 

 

Close-up of Laffing Sal at the Musée Mécanique in San Francisco

 

 

Phyllis Carter

 

BELMONT PARK - MONTREAL, CANADA -

THE LAUGHING LADY. I DID A LITTLE RESEARCH ON THIS A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. TURNS OUT THE LAUGHING LADY APPEARED IN OTHER AMUSEMEMNT PARKS AS WELL AS MONTREAL'S BELMONT PARK.

 

My father took us to Belmont Park all those years before Expo '67. The Laughing Lady was, in fact, "the end of the line".

 

You entered the pavilion  - I believe it was called "Laff in the Dark."

 

Inside, you found yourself surrounded by all manner of distorted mirrors, where you appeared fat, thin, tall, misshapen - and lost.

 

When you finally got out of that maze, the only way out was down a chute. There was no exit, no staircase - the chute or nothing. It took guts to take the plunge.

 

When you came outside, spectators were watching you. Why? Wait.

 

As you came out, you crossed in front of the Laughing Lady. I can almost hear her cackle right now.

 

And, at the same time, a great burst of air came up from under your feet and sent your skirts high up in front of everyone, and everyone laughed.

 

Marilyn Monroe's famous shot came decades later. No doubt the writers of that piece knew the Laughing Lady in their own amusement park.

 

Phyllis Carter

Montreal, Canada

July 6, 2013

 

Laffing Sal is one of several automated characters that were built primarily to attract carnival and amusement park patrons to funhouses and dark rides throughout the United States.^[1] Its movements were accompanied by a raucous laugh that sometimes frightened small children and annoyed adults.^[2]

Laffing Sal (sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Laughing Sal") was produced by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (PTC) of Germantown, Pennsylvania during the 1920s and early 1930s. PTC subcontracted the figures's fabrication to the Old King Cole Papier Mache Company of Canton, Ohio.^[1]

The figure stood 6 feet, 10 inches high, including a 12-inch pedestal. It was made of papier mache, consisting of seven layers of pressed card stock with horse-hair strengthener, mounted over steel coils and frame. It wore an artificial wig and had a large gap between its front teeth.^[3] The head, arms, hands and legs were detachable and were held together with fabric, staples, pins, nails, nuts and bolts. When activated, the figure waved its arms and leaned forward and backward. A record player concealed in its pedestal played a stack of 78 RPM recordings of a woman laughing. When the records finished, an attraction operator re-stacked and restarted them.^[1]

PTC produced two other "ballyhoo" (attention-getting) figures, Laffing Sam and Blackie the Barker, which used similar construction. The Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California featured Sal, Sam and Blackie over the center of its Laff In The Dark dark ride.

Laffing Sal was a fixture at the Balboa Fun Zone in Newport Beach, California when it opened in 1936. Decades later, the park's management learned that Funni-Frite Inc. of Pickerington, Ohio still had the original molds of Laffing Sal's head and hands, and commissioned them to make an updated Sal to stand above the entrance of their Scary Dark Ride. An endless tape cartridge provided its audio. The figure was removed when the attraction was closed in 2005.

Sal's asking price in 1940 was US$360, equal to $5899 today;^[4] in 2004 the one now in Santa Cruz, California cost the bidder US$50,000.^[3]

As one of the first animated amusement figures, Laffing Sal is considered a forerunner of the many animatronic figures seen at attractions around the world, including the Audio-Animatronic figures at Disney theme parks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffing_Sal