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Funhouses.

R

rob666

TS Member
My favourite attraction of my early years was the Funhouse at Southport, then as I got a little older the Funhouse at Blackpool. Things come in threes, and the next one to come along was the one at Morecambe, a poor relation to the other two.
To be clear, I don't mean walkthrough mazes, but indoor playgrounds with a number of powered rides and slides.
Chatting on here with one of the other older gits last night got me thinking back, about all the old mini rides in there, cake walks, mini monorails, trick stairs, spinning joywheels, barrels, slides and the like.
I know the Towers had a sheltered play area with a drop slide and a few roundabouts, and Lightwater had/has something similar, but do any of you know of any more?
A search of google/YouTube hasn't found much, just one decent video of Blackpools.
They were a real H&S nightmare, you never came out without a few skin burns and bruises, but they were amazing fun, especially after a beer or two!
 
Oh they were great. Last time I went on one of those was about 13 years ago, but I can't remember clearly as I was pretty young at the time. Always enjoyed the stairs that kept on moving forward and backward and the slide at the end! I think it was at the old Walsall illuminations, which sadly closed about 9 years ago
 
There's a good fun house at Toverland, and the one at Gröna-Lund is hilarious as well. There's also usually an excellent one at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. I've not done Hotel Tartüff at Phantasialand myself, but I've heard very good things about it.
 
Are these walkthroughs or open big sheds?
Not seen a decent open one since the Blackpool one went up in flames.
 
Luna Park in Sydney has a traditional ‘Blackpool-style’ funhouse.

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Hotel Tartuff at Phantasialand, and Villa Fiasco at Toverland, are good ‘modern’ walkthrough funhouses.
 
Nice to see Grona's getting a mention, going through that in a massive group was great fun...
 
Jonathan said:
There's a good fun house at Toverland, and the one at Gröna-Lund is hilarious as well. There's also usually an excellent one at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. I've not done Hotel Tartüff at Phantasialand myself, but I've heard very good things about it.
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Hotel Tartüff is great and I didn't know anything about it on my first trip. It was a brilliant little surprise and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We ended talking about this more that Taron on the way back.

Unfortunately I went again last October and it is very much in need of some TLC. Some of the effects were covered in safety tape, not turned on or missing pieces. We still had fun but could do with a spruce up. Maybe it looks like that every October though.
 
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I nearly broke my leg in that thing at Phannyland. Went down a slide, the heel of my right trainer suddenly found grip, and I watched in slow motion as my leg twisted first under me, then out to the side. Twisted my knee something rotten. It was a good six months before I could bend it properly.

Put me off funhouses for life.
 
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Ah yes, the "sudden grip" syndrome, got me many times in the rolling barrel.
Being a lanky git I was so proud when I could do a rolling handstand.
The Sydney one looks very much like the old Blackpool one.
 
They all feel like relics of another era at this stage. The European ones are fun and I spent a very drunken evening in the Luna Park Sydney one about 10 years ago.

It's a shame we have gone from hero to zero in the Fun House stakes in the UK.
 
Jonathan said:
There's a good fun house at Toverland, and the one at Gröna-Lund is hilarious as well. There's also usually an excellent one at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. I've not done Hotel Tartüff at Phantasialand myself, but I've heard very good things about it.
Click to expand...

The slide with an ORP at Grona Lund's funhouse was surprising, the whole thing was very much never in the UK!
 
Tivoli has a funhouse buried in the structure of Rutschebanen. It's not always open but it's worth experiencing when it is. It features a lot of elevated walkways with all of the usual rollers and seesaw sections. It also has a couple of large steel tube slides. To me, a large part of its appeal is that Rutschebanen's trains come rumbling past at regular intervals reminding you that you're in the centre of a 100 year old rollercoaster.
 
Best fun house experiences have to be running into a glass wall and having a massive dark green lump appear on my head at a travelling one and a couple of years back in a barrel when I held on the whole way round went round again and fell onto my back :rolleyes:
 
I have fond memories of the one in Southport and it's a real shame it's gone, especially as they're so rare here. The one in Grona Lund is fantastic and really adds to how special the place feels. The one in Phantasialand, when I visited at least, was in great shape, felt really new and looked after, and really fitted in to the Berlin area nicely. I wish there were more over here, I guess insurance is one of the reasons why there aren't.
 
My earliest memories of Alton Towers as a nipper was the Fun House. I think it was inside what was the Ice Age 4d theater when there was just a fairground at the back of the Towers. When I went next in the early 80's they had moved some of the bits from the Fun House to an outside area I seem to remember there was the spinning disk that you tried to stay on as long as possible, the slide and maybe the barrel moved but it was a long time ago so very foggy memories.
 
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