Tikis at the Late Great Movieland Wax Museum

I don't know if any of you folks went to the last days of Movieland Wax Museum, but I did have a tiki sighting there...a very bizarre scene in the musical stars section, depicting Madonna, Sammy Davis Jr and Liza Minelli (who came up with that trio?) in a small set surrounded by bamboo and tikis...

Movieland Wax Museum, RIP.

The one in Buena Park???

It's...it's...it's...it's...not there any more?

It's...it's...it's...it's...not there any more?

http://www.nbc4.tv/entertainment/5212931/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news

Here's a thread in Beyond Tiki about the close of the Movieland Wax Museum:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=16950&forum=6&19

I went to that place, that Deer Park thing, a long time ago! That was more than thirty years ago, wasn't it? The deer would come up and nibble little pellets out of your hand, and the pellets were like a dime out of those many red gumball-type machines?

I don't remember the Deer Park...but I do remember the Alligator Farm, and how there used to be a pond with picnic areas across from Knott's. They had one of those little trains that you could ride around in.

Does anyone remember a thing called "Movie World" that used to be on Orangethorpe Avenue in Fullerton? It was some kind of movie history type museum and has probably been closed about 26 years or so. I remember going there when I was 7, and the only things I really remember about it was a giant slide and that they had a car used in the movie "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". That was the same trip where we went to Disneyland, with all the good cheesy stuff that's gone now: Mission to Mars, the Submarine ride, the Painted Desert ride...

BDM - you may enjoy these threads:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=8541&forum=6
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=6496&forum=6

No matter how much I begged my parents as a kid, we never went to Movieland. We did Knott's or Disneyland, or spent the day at Ports O' Call. Of course, visits to Ports O' Call also became a fave of mine, as that also meant we'd do a bit more travel along the coast, and get dinner at Sam's Seafood. It's things like this that explain how I've ended up here.

The Japanese Village and Deer Park, if I recall correctly, was located in Buena Park on Knott Avenue @ Village Drive. There were a number of attractions there, including karate shows, pearl diving, etc. Not just the deer.

Here's a photo from the place. No tikis, however.

The California Alligator Farm was one my parents only took me to once. The place stank to hoch himmel. I also seem to recall it being a cold day, so the reptiles were less than spectacular. Likwise, they only once acquiesced to the "Jungle Island" side of Knott's, with all the weird, painted wood "wood-imals" hidden amongst the dense foliage. They weren't tiki, except in maybe a six-year-old's mind. I was probably around six at the time, and enjoyed it immensely

The only "Movie World" I recall was the Movie World Cars of the Stars and Planes of Fame Museum -- which was in Buena Park, not Fullerton. In the 1970s, apparently, Von Dutch used to park his bus behind the building. Of course, that only tangentially keeps this remotely on topic. Sorta like alligators and Japanese villages.

I imagine that -- like any wise entrepreneur -- some of the more regional parks made as much hay as they could out of the tiki "craze." Hence why Movieland Wax Museum had a tiki in an otherwise unrelated display (as I recall, they had issues with space limitations, and tended to get funky combos because of this -- this will get worse at San Francisco's location now, I suspect), or that there was a "natives boiling a missionary" sequence in "Jungle island" (let alone naming an attraction area "Jungle Island").

Of course, this is also why Monterey Park had "The Tikis" and why Disneyland has The Enchanted Tiki Room -- let alone sites like the Kona Lanes (R.I.P.) and South Sea themed apartment buildings. Yow, back on topic, yet again!

Cheers,
Gwen Smith

[ Edited by: gwenners 2005-11-08 23:17 ]

Wow! I now wish I'd been to that Japanese Deer Park...I know roughly where that was, and from what I've heard, that Nabisco plant is no longer there, although the building remains.

Those pix of Jungle Island by Knotts was a total trip down memory lane...I hadn't seen any of that for years...thanks Tangaroa!

Does anyone remember the restaurant called The Farmhouse/The Buttery? (There's a pic of it in Charles Phoenix's book "Southern California in the 1950s, page 30 lower left). I always remember my parents taking me and my sister there...it was a cafeteria style place if I remember right. I think it was located just off the 5 freeway by Valley View, or thereabouts. When it closed, they were going to keep the windmill sign as a historical item, but it's since disappeared.

On 2005-11-08 21:45, BryanDeanMartin wrote:

Does anyone remember the restaurant called The Farmhouse/The Buttery?

I never got to "dine" there but I do remember their windmill. On visits to Knotts Berry Farm, this windmill was the landmark that indicated to me that we were almost there.

Thanks a lot for jogging my mind and making me feel so old..

It makes me feel old that my family were regulars at The Farmhousee...we even had our picture on the wall with the rest of the regulars.