| Travel & Leisure: Happy Hollow
A Jewel of American Kitsch
When most people think of San Jose, California, the first things which come to their minds are probably Silicon Valley, Dionne Warwick's song, or even the huge flea market. However, San Jose also contains a little-known kitsch jewel, the Happy Hollow Park and Zoo.
Only a couple of miles away from the downtown area, Happy Hollow sprawls and dips across 12 acres of park land. It's a living, functioning museum of vintage 60s ferrocement sculptures thickly coated with peeling paint, twee buildings, and bent rebar play equipment which would make a personal injury lawyer's heart throb with joy. Here and there pools and fountains have fallen into disrepair, attesting to the city's ongoing battle to keep the park functioning in a time of ever-dwindling budgets. On slow days, the staff operating the basic-but-quirky rides are pared back to a minimum, so that they have to turn off one ride in order to operate another.
It is wonderful and full of character, a slice of the past and one of the last real bargains. The pace is slow and the admission is cheap. For a pittance, one can ride an unlimited number of rides and enjoy the facility all day. Staff members are friendly and patient, happy to operate rides for even a single child. The park is approachable, just the right size for a small child to enjoy without becoming utterly exhausted.
Unfortunately for us kitsch enthusiasts, as of this writing the park is undergoing the first major renovation since it opened in 1961. Its doors will close for a full facelift in the fall of 2008; when they open again, things will be different. Slicker, cleaner, probably safer. There's no telling which of the rides will survive the transition. (Please, let the Granny Bugs be spared!) There will be fewer of the things that have given the place its quirky charm: according to a park newsletter, the character light poles, insect play apparatus, and some other items will be auctioned off in the summer of 2008.
Come with us, then, on a brief tour of the pre-renovation Happy Hollow. Enjoy a small trip to the past and help us wish the old park fixtures good luck in their new lives.
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Characters like this were a staple of advertising and graphic design during the 1950s and 60s. This fellow is made of cement held together with paint. He guards the path leading to the theme park area. The instant you see him, you know the place is going to be great! |
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The heart of the park is arguably the Danny the Dragon ride. Other parts of the park are themed around him and he even has his own store. Little kids love him!
Danny is a dragon of the gas-powered variety, and as you sit behind him you occasionally get exciting whiffs of his fiery petroleum breath. Danny sounds a great deal like a tractor or perhaps a large lawn mower, but this is probably just because his digestive processes are complex.
Danny had at least one other identical sibling who also tried to make his living in a theme park. Concidentally, he was also named Danny.
Unfortunately, the other Danny didn't lead a happy, productive life. This article, The Short, Sad Live of Danny the Dragon, tells about his falling on hard times and how he "currently sits by his lonely self on the back road in the amusement park's maintenance area". Click and scroll down to see a photo of this other Danny in his prime and in his later years.
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Danny is a handsome beast, but unfortunately it looks as though he's suffering from a touch of dermatitis. With those tiny little vestigial arms, he probably can't reach up far enough to scratch, either.
Still, matters could be worse. As this article shows, at one point in his career, Danny's tongue had to be held together with masking tape. Even for a dragon, fire breath must take its toll. |
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As Danny putt-putts along, he travels through a tiny loop filled with wonderful set decorations like the one at left.
Hooray! It's a cement toadstool!
Most of the decorations are along these lines, dead-eyed concrete refugees from the local garden center or discards from one of the other rides, all haphazardly tossed in the bushes. This greatly contributes to the park's approachable charm and is not at all a bad thing. |
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For example, here we have a castoff from King Neptune's Carousel, masked and brutally heaved out in the landscaping bark to fend for itself. The Mob would be proud. |
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Another refugee from the carousel, cruelly impaled on a metal stick. Poor thing; it must have offended someone important! |
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Here's a painted cement garden gnome squashing a hapless turtle! Truly, this is a wonderland, a veritable garden of unearthly delights. |
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There's Danny's driver. Notice what he's doing: nothing. Actually, that isn't true; he's doing a fair impression of being bored out of his skull. That's because the dragon moves around its loop by itself, so one of the driver's key jobs is to make sure children don't jump off and investigate any of the wonderful set decorations. However, if someone does jump off, he'll be ready with the special first aid kid which is kept just behind his seat.
Around and around and around he goes, unable to escape the happy squeals of children and mothers as they joyfully admire each and every concrete artifact.
By early June, this poor young man's nerves will have been sanded down to nothing by their shrill shrieks. If he hears one more person yell "lookit the hippo", he may have to file for disability. |
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This is another sight on the Danny ride, the brick chalet where the three little pigs reside.
Just out of the photo is a large hollow log which a wolf may or may not pop out of. It's fun to go by it and say "Look, Sweetie, the wolf is turned on today!" |
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During his travels, Danny passes the cottage of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - all made of cement, of course.
This is the dwarf who Snow White threw out for excessive nose picking.
Not long after passing Picky the Dwarf, Danny goes through a very ordinary-looking sheet metal maintenance shed. Somehow the darkness and gas fumes floating back make it mysterious and glamorous, though, and everyone gasps and yells as they're enveloped by the dusk. That, in a nutshell, encapsulates what's so wonderful about this ride: no matter how cheesy or awful it may really be, people are willing to suspend being jaded and genuinely enjoy it. Even traveling through a run-of-the-mill maintenance shed becomes an occasion for joy.
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Of course, Danny isn't the only park attraction worthy of admiration. There are some rather wonderful garbage can lids, for example. |
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This one is especially fine. Its tongue is black and is coated with the discarded goo of thousands of runny-nosed children. |
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There's also a child-sized labyrinth made of brightly-painted crumbling concrete. Its floor is lined with candy wrappers and shredded bark. It really is great. Unfortunately, it probably won't survive the renovation. |
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The park has both a small merry-go-round with horses and a larger carousel with sea animals.
Here are two of the characters from King Neptune's Carousel. Like all of the animals, their paint jobs are truly exquisite!
Unfortunately, we failed to get a photo of the snail painted to look like a NASCAR entry. |
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This is the Granny Bug ride. Boy, is it great! The bugs bob up and down as they go around and around and around a giant toadstool. It's a classic, a kid-sized introduction to the wonders of motion sickness.
As with Danny the Dragon, the Granny Bugs have siblings around the country. For example, there's one at the Bay Beach Amusement Park in Green Bay, WI. (Scroll down the page to see a photo.) There's also one at the Lakeside Amusement Park in Denver, CO and a very similar ride at the Hershey Park. For a fee, you can probably even rent one from these people.
Given the number of them around, it's safe to assume that bugs are more prolific than dragons. |
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What would a kiddie park be without little cars which mindlessly went around and around in circles? The fire engines have brass bells which really ring. When the children all ring them, it's truly headache-inspiring. Fortunately, most of the time the kids are half-comatose from ingesting junk food and can barely remain upright in their seats. |
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One of the larger attractions is a faux viking ship made of painted concrete. (Painted concrete being a staple of this park.)
America is truly a wonderful place. We have a positive genius for stealing bits of culture, reproducing them in cement or plastic, and claiming them as our own. |
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A former inlaw used to claim that it wasn't necessary to travel outside the U.S. - you could see everything there is to see right here.
By George, he was right. Look at this wonderful fountainhead near the viking ship! It's MUCH better than the Fountain of Neptune or Avenue of the Hundred Fountains at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli!
On the other hand, he also used to claim that Europeans have the worst diets in the world, worse than Americans. Um, yeah...
Speaking of bad diets, one thing to avoid during the off-season is the park's concession. One day we were driven by desperation and bought food there. Evidently the items were left over from the summer season and/or had endured a freezer failure. The nachos were particularly hideous, comprised of stale chips and jalapenos which tasted disgustingly of kosher pickles. An ice cream sandwich was likewise stale and had perceptible ice crystals. An accompanying child who usually has a cast iron stomach would have nothing to do with either. |
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Watch out! The giant rusty metal ants are coming! They might ... give you tetanus or something.
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This octopus is suspended by chains, and is delightfully unstable when one tries to stand on it. Note the beautiful patina caused by successive, differently-colored coats of paint which have been chipped away by the feet of little visitors just before they fell on their rumps. |
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One rule of theme park design is that you have to have some really pointless architecture. It doesn't get much more pointless than this motionless water wheel, which services a barren gravel pit.
Inside the building, there are historical exhibits which almost no one looks at. |
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This crooked house is very popular with toddlers, who are expressly forbidden to use it. A steep, uncrooked set of stairs leads to the second floor, where one can board an equally steep slide made of thigh-abrading sheet metal. |
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A truly disturbing scene. A headless man has escaped the jail and is holding up two equally headless people and two headless animals alongside the opera house.
Nobody ever uses this photo vignette. Ever. |
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This scene is painted on the back of a building which houses funky mirrors. It isn't clear where it's supposed to be, but for the sake of argument, let's say it's in the European Alps. After all, the peak on the righthand side looks a little like the Matterhorn. So .. |
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... what in the heck is a tiger doing by the lake?
Never mind. Accuracy is too much to expect for $6 admission. |
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There are many other adventures to be had - a shoe-shaped building with a slide inside, puppet shows, the extremely boring 911 Safety House, a real fire engine occasionally infested with real wasps. However, it's time to move on to the zoo.
The zoo isn't particularly tacky, so it hasn't been the focus of this article. However, it is well worth a visit. Like the theme park area, it's friendly and approachable, geared to the crayon and sippie cup set. Most of the animals are either petting zoo staples like goats or small creatures like guinea pigs and meerkats. |
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One notable exception is this jaguar, Sophia. Her habitat is leafy, green and fairly natural, but small for even a modest-sized predator. She does spend quite a bit of time pacing, an indication that she may not be particularly happy.
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Until he died in 1994, the zoo also housed a male black bear, Tarik. He was probably best known as the voice of Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies.
Speaking of movie stars, didn't the guy at left appear in "Escape from Guinea Pig Island"?
If you're in the San Jose area before Happy Hollow is renovated, be sure to drop by and enjoy its kitschy delights. When you go, tell 'em Tacky Living sent you! They won't know what you're talking about, but you can tell them that anyhow. |
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