Tiki Fun and Games

It was raining today and I was getting bored, so I decided to have some Tiki fun. I put together this post from my collection from the various tiki-themed amusement parks, bowling alleys etc. that flourished during the peak of the tiki period.

Let's start with the grand-daddy of them all, the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. There are lots of posts for this one so I will keep it brief.

A quick nod to the Tahitian Terrace as well

Other lesser amusement parks include Jungle Land in Storytown located in Lake George, NY. Are those Witcos by the door?

This is another Jungle Land at the Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey.

You can see quite a bit of Tiki in the close up

One of my visual favorites, the Jungleland Queen and the Volcano on the Miracle
Strip at Panama City Beach, Florida

How about Sea World?

The towering A frame entrance.

The Hawaiian Punch Village areas.

Now on to one of my favorite subjects, tiki bowling.
The famous Kapu-Kai Tiki bowling alley in Los Angeles, CA (just got this killer card)

Here is the bowling alley at the Polynesian Gardens in Plantation Florida from another post by Bigbro.

Here are some Matchbooks from the Delta Bowl and the Kona Kove Lounge.

and the Tropic Bowl with the Outrigger Room

The famous Kona Lanes

The Tiki Bowling Lanes in Lancaster Ohio.

An ashtray from the Tropicana Lanes

Some other fun places.

The Tiki Hut Petting Zoo, Busch Gardens, Tampa, FL

Here are a couple cards from The Hawaiian Village located at the Windsor Hills Mall in Oklahoma City

The Hawaiian Queen Train

Trader Jacks Juice Bar

Another Tiki Train from the Newport Dunes.

And to close, Tiki Gardens.

Hope you had fun, feel free to add some more.

DC

[ Edited by: Dustycajun 2009-03-22 10:55 ]

Thanks for posting these great pictures. I really love the one from the bowling lane in Ohio. That's intersting Tiki stuff.

Fantastic as always Dusty. That place in Oklahoma looked like as much fun as one could have is a hot dirt field. Was there more to that attraction or just the train? Strange. I guess everyone jumped on the Tiki train at one point trying to cash in. Thanks for posting these great views.

Uncle Trav,

The postcard of Trader Jacks Juice Bar is also from the Hawaiian Village at the Windsor Hills Mall in Oklahoma City.

DC

Pacific Ocean Park, Santa Monica, CA

Tiki Phil,

Thanks for posting the POP cards, I forgot about this one. Here is another postcard showing the aerial view of the South Sea Island portion of the park.

Wasn't there some sort of train ride at this park as well?

DC

[ Edited by: Dustycajun 2009-03-24 11:52 ]

On 2009-03-24 11:42, Dustycajun wrote:
Wasn't there some sort of train ride at this park as well?

DC

I knew I remembered something about a train ride at the POP. Here is a postcard I came across on ebay showing a concept of a ride through the volcano at the end of the South Sea Island area. I wonder if the ride ever came out looking like that - pretty neat looking with the hot lava and all.

DC

There was a train ride at the POP - it was the Banana Train that ran through the South Sea Island.

I found these images from a brochure.

DC

Cool! Love that cartoon rendering! First every carney operator pronounced Walt as crazy, but once it had become a hit, EVERYBODY wanted to be like Disneyland!

I remember going to Pacific Ocean Park as a small child. I thought it was the greatest thing ever and was very sad when it was closed down not that long after.

There was a lot more to the park than the south sea island area pictured above. I remember being very impressed by a ride called Flight to Mars.

Here's a website that gives more information and a lot of pictures.

http://pacificoceanpark.tripod.com/

Apparently episodes of both Get Smart and The Fugitive were filmed there.

CloudMonkey,

Very cool site. Thanks for the link. I snagged a few images off of it.

Looks like the South Sea Island started out as the "Mystic Isles".

Here are some great photos of the Banana Train in action.

DC

What a cool place this was before its demise.I am sure there are many people that have fond
memories of this place.

Nice aerial shot of POP

The famous sky way bubble gondola

A groovy family posing for a pic by the entrance water fountain circa 1964

The right surf break circa 1974 Dog town with burnt remains of POP in the background

Here is another fun use of Tikis at the Floridaland Dolphin show in Venice, Florida. This place was kind of cheesy and somewhat short lived.

Here is a link with some additional information.

http://www.lostparks.com/fland.html

DC

DC,

Another good example of tiki fun and games is mini-golf. This thread has some pics that you posted:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=22578&forum=2&hilite=golf
I'll bet that you have more :)

Tiki Phil,

Don't have much in the way of mini golf.

The Holo Wai matchbook that Bigbro posted

A scorecard from the Polynesian Putter located in St. Pete Beach Florida with a Tiki that looks suspiciously similar to the tiki at Tiki Gardens which was located just down the road from the golf course.

Here is the actual tiki from the golf course.

DC

Man if ever there was a place I wish I could of gone to its that Pacific Ocean Park place. So damn cool!

Really makes you stop and think why did that place not make it?
The more I look at all the old pictures the more cool the place becomes.

Here are a few more for today.

This postcard is from the Orange County Fair. A great scene of the tiki carving area where one could watch the tikis being made and buy them.

This card is from Cypress Garden's in Florida. Tiki fence posts at the Shangri-La Tree.

DC

Summer is here, time for some more Tiki Fun.

These postcards are from the Tommy Bartlett Water Ski show at the Wisconsin Dells with Doug Alii and the Hinano Dancers. Great Limbo.

This is a nice card from the old Paradise Pacifica on Kauai - I have been to the old ruins of this place on a kayak up the river.

DC

Aquarena Springs, San Marcos, Texas.

The Submarine Theater was where you could watch Mermaid Shows, similar to the Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida. Looks like it had a Polynesian theme as well.

From the back of the postcard: "Amid a tropical setting of bamboo and lush foliage our submarine theatre performers pose before the visitor's camera, saying 'Aloha' and welcome to Aquarena Springs."

:down: I've lightened this closeup to show the tiki? carvings on the post

Great images here of places I wish I'd gotten to visit..:) And what the heck is Hawaiian Punch Village? Never heard of that & I LOVE the post cards. Was that some sort of "Polynesian Cultural Center" cash-in?

Sabu,

Another awesome find!

Kaiwaza,

The Hawaiian Punch Village was a Tiki inspired exhibit at Sea World that was sponsored by Hawaiian Punch.

Here is some more info from a brochure I have:

DC

On 2009-11-19 00:37, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
Aquarena Springs, San Marcos, Texas.

The Submarine Theater was where you could watch Mermaid Shows, similar to the Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida. Looks like it had a Polynesian theme as well.

Gack

I went there as a kid!!
But I have no recollection of anything so cool, either because I just wasn't clued in, or even more likely: my family skipped the show. We never saw the shows for this kind of stuff.

Dammit.

I picked up a few matchbooks with the tropical Tiki bowling theme.

The famous Java Lanes and East Indies Room located in Long Beach, sadly demolished in 2004.

This is from the Tropicana Lanes with a tropical logo in St. Louis.

DC

Thought I would add a few photos of the Java Lanes to go with the matchbook,

DC

Here is a fun old photo of the Kon Tiki float from the Rose Parade in Pasadena.

DC

A little levity for a tough week.

Picked up this funny postcard showing a Tiki Hut at the Aloha Lagoon at Cape Coral Gardens in Cape Coral, Florida.

Odd little concrete Tikis in the front and on the columns of the hut.

Cape Coral Gardens opened in 1964 and was a small amusement park that had a dolphin show centered around an old pirate ship. It had lush gardens around the Aloha Lagoon and a night-time Waltzing Waters show. There were several Tiki influences to be found.

Here is a brochure from ebay and a few other images.

DC

DC- Java Lanes had tikis by the entrance as well as lava rock before you walked
in the front doors.It also had cool tikis inside.I have not ever come across
or seen any significant interior shots or tiki pics of Java Lanes.Hopefully
there some out there and some one will share with is.

[ Edited by: 1961surf 2010-04-26 18:43 ]

I used to hang out at Cape Coral Gardens in the 80's. By that time it was a forgotten abandoned overgrown jungle. The dolphin pool was intact and filled with nasty green water. The whole place was like a set for an Indiana Jones movie. I would have liked to have seen it in all of it's original glory but have fond memories of how it was in the 80's...strange.

As a side note, Cape Coral Gardens can be seen in the 1966 film "The Fat Spy" shot entirely in Cape Coral.

---

"Anyone who has ever seen them is thereafter haunted as if by a feverish dream" Karl Woermann

[ Edited by: uncle trav 2010-05-02 09:10 ]

Here is a nice tiki set from Floridaland theme park in Florids.

Sea-Arama Marineworld in Galveston, Texas:

In 1970, Sea-Arama underwent a major expansion in which they added a "Garden of The Gods" with two large tikis. The largest was 16-foot tall and weighed 5,000 lbs.

In this old map of the park, you can see the two tikis on the left-hand side:

Ironically, the park would host these big Christian youth conferences in the 70s and the contemporary Christian bands would play in the The Garden of The Gods, with the two pagan idols towering over them.

Cool find, wonder if there are more photos of young Christians with these. I vote them to be Barney Wests, based on the small Ku with its unusually large nostrils, kinda like the one on the left in Barney's Tiki Junction line up:

Picked up a brochure from Floridaland, it included 50 acres and 10 Big attractions (including a Whiskey Still!)

A map of the compound.

Some more photos of the Tiki dolphin show.

Complete with bongo drums and hula dancers.

I also got another postcard of the dolphin show that features Tiki palm trees.

DC

This one was in my backyard as a kid, remember shaking my grass at Porpoise Island in Pigeon Forge, Tn.

There were Tiki's and a lot of island decore, will dig around and see if I can find a few more pics.

Paul

Blacklagoon,

Thanks for the post, I had not heard of Porpoise Island before.

A friend of mine gave me the game Tiki Topple, it's fun and Mensa approved!

A few other Tiki games...

Kapu

Bali

Konane

And Big Kahuna Solitaire.

DC

Due to rainy weather, time for some more games.

Anybody up for a little Batta Hai?

Or how about some good old fashion cards.

Here is a deck that uses the Don The Beachcomber image from Hawaii.

This is a really weird deck with a white woman's head superimposed on the hula girls body!

New Zealand Tiki deck.

And last but not least, a deck from Trader Vic's that I tried for on ebay.

It has some nice old photos of the Oakland restaurant.

DC

Sabu had posted this info about the link between Jungle Land at Storytown USA and the 1964/65 New York Worlds Fair.

I found this photo of the large Tiki at Jungle Town that came from the Polynesia exhibit at the NY Worlds fair.

The website also had some other great photos of the huts, Witcos and Tikis at the Jungle Land entrance.

The end was not pretty.

DC

I recently picked up a few more items from the South Sea Island at the Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica.

Here is an old photo showing the extent of the South Seas Island area with the bridge crossing over from the pier.

And a concept postcard rendering from when the park originally opened.

Close up of the South Sea Island area.

I also found these old tourist photos on-line featuring a few of the Tiki types on the South Sea Island.

The Banana Train.

The waterfall.

What a place.

DC

I bet they wouldn't be able to ask kids to ride the banana train nowadays.

Some more from info from Jungle Land. I picked up an illustrated brochure

Advertising Storytown, Ghost Town and Jungle Land - 3 for the price of 1.

Close up of the Jungle Land area.

DC

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee -
Porpoise Island

i used to go there all the time in the summer.. they would also have live shows i saw Johnny Cash there i was 12 or 13 and you could feed the fish and all kinds of cool stuff,

I scored a post card from the Jungle Cruise at the Drayton Manor Park and Zoo.

A low budget knock-off of the Disneyland exhibit, but it did have a couple of Tikis.

Also picked up this news wire photo of the Polynesian Pavilion snack bar from the mile-long beach in Cedar Point, Ohio. Apparently there were a few of these located along the beach.

DC

I found a few more photos of the two big Tikis at Sea Arama in Galveston.

Boy that sure was a big Tiki.

Bigbro,

Not sure about those being Barney West Tikis, they look to crude somehow.

DC

Found this old photo online showing the end of the POP pier that contained the South Sea Island attraction.

Really gives you a sense of scale on how big the place was.

DC

wow this is a great thread! I love seeing these old photos. So many places I would have loved to visit, even here in Vegas.....

Fond this photo of the Smothers Brothers at the Pacific Ocean Park on Getty Images.

And a aerial of photo of Mystery Island and the Banana Train ride.

DC

Now that a cool pier