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Pat Walsh
Pat's Peeps Podcast
Ep. 244 Today's Peep A Sacramento Time Machine: William Land Park Funderland, Fairytale Town, and Zoo Memories, A Spin on an Amusement Ride Ruins My Chilhood Crush, and "How Long Has This Been Going On?"
Returning to my childhood stomping grounds at William Land Park brings back a flood of memories from Thunderland, Fairytale Town, and the Sacramento Zoo.
• Exploring Thunderland (now Funderland) where the little train still runs through the expanded amusement park
• Reminiscing about Fairytale Town, which opened in August 1959, with its iconic attractions like Humpty Dumpty's wall, the rabbit hole slide, and pink popcorn
• Sharing memories of the Sacramento Zoo and its memorable exhibits, from the reptile house to the mischievous monkeys
• Reflecting on the zoo's planned move to Elk Grove and how these attractions have always felt connected
• Telling the hilarious story of my first crush at age 12 and how it ended disastrously on the spinning teacup ride at Thunderland
Please check out PatsPeeps.com to see what we're doing with local businesses. We'd love to represent and endorse local mom and pops, welcoming new businesses every day.
Hi, it's Patrick. This is Pat's Peeps 244. And today I just happen to be in my old stomping grounds. I've been here before on a previous podcast, but I'm in William Land Park, where my mother and father used to take us as kids, and right now I'm by Thunderland. I just happen to be over here. I had some dental things, of course, going on this morning, and this is a Thursday morning, so now I had some time to pass it.
Speaker 1:I'm outside of Thunderland. Here comes a little train. Oh my gosh, I have such great memories of this place and, if memory serves me right, this guy's pretty. You know they'd be pretty animated about the little train. I love this. Let's see if we can hear the train. You know, this guy's not nearly as animated, in fact he didn't say anything. But there's a little train. Usually the guy would be really animated. You can hear the bell, so there's a bunch of people on this little train. You know this place has been around a long time. So Thunderland. By the way, again Thursday.
Speaker 1:What is today? The 17th? I believe the 17th of April. I hope I got that right. It's kind of an overcast day, but a little sun peeking through. It's kind of weird, because it was so nice yesterday, but this area here in William Land Park I've mentioned on previous episodes here on the Pat's Peeps, by the way. Thank you for listening. Please go to patspeepscom and support local business and this particular area. Not so much Thunderland, but I have a great story about Thunderland as well. But where else am I going to walk here real quick. They are very special memories to me. So I'm standing right in front of the gate here at Thunderland and you know this is a place it used to be just like this little kid's roller coaster. There'd be a few rides. But take a listen. I mean you hear that in the background they got I don't know if we used to call that the scrambler or whatever.
Speaker 1:We've got the plane rides over here, big carousel. I got to hand it to this place. It really has not only been able to stay in business all these years, but they've really added to the place. They've really added a lot of rides and things to this, to what used to be this quaint little place. How exciting is that? So looks like everyone's having a good time on a Thursday. Now I'm just going to walk over here. Well, so, as I'm walking to this other place, oh, look at this. Cotton candy, snow cones, apples, popcorn Ah, it smells so good. I just got a whiff of like the popcorn or the something over there. Oh, man, that smells good. So let me just take a walk across a little road here. I love this park, you know.
Speaker 1:Just coming back from Italy, I will say this this is still, in terms of a beautiful park, this place. I've always thought William Land Park was beautiful and again, I grew up in this area. That's why I say my old stomping grounds. I grew up in South Sacramento, for my early years in Elk Grove, and we've got people out here at the picnic tables, people walking their cute little doggie. But this place I'm coming up to right now, these two places were very special to me and probably to you if you were growing up in Sacramento. Up to my right here is Fairytale Town, man, when I was a kid, you know, and again six kids in the family we'd load up in the station wagon, head over to the Country Squire the 72 Country Squire head over to the and, even earlier, the Rambler, come on over here and we'd go to Fairytale Town and to the zoo. And there it is, the zoo which, what I'm sad to say, is moving, and they're actually moving to Elk Grove, which is ironic and a bit strange for me Because, again, I'm from Elk Grove, initially born in Elk Grove, technically in Sacramento, at Mercy Hospital on J Street.
Speaker 1:But we lived in Elk Grove, then moved to Sacramento, south Sac. But you know, you'd come over here like on a field trip in school, could be or Cub Scouts, or Weeblos or whatever you know with your friends, your mom, dad would take you and you'd have so here's Land Park, what is that? Drive, or whatever. But you've got the zoo on one side and then Fairytale Town right across the street, just walk across the crosswalk. Well, unfortunately, I don't say I shouldn't say unfortunately, you know, I guess it had to be done for whatever reason, but the zoo is moving to Elk Grove, which Elk Grove used to be, like Mayberry. It's one of the reasons that my favorite show is the Andy Griffith Show. It reminds me of Elk Grove the way it used to be, the way I grew up. We even had a lady, honest to God, that lived catty-corner from us, on Halverson, and her name was Bea, and you know, of course, aunt Bea in the Andy Griffith Show, and so it really reminded me of it like Little Mayberry. And now it's just, it's huge. It's not what it used to be when you had EG Market and Mar-Val and when you had Parkway Drive-In. Anyone remember Parkway Drive-In? God, it was a great community. We had the Regal gas station on the corner, four-way stop that made the front page. We had a red flashing light in the middle of town. But now it's different. But the zoo's going to be there.
Speaker 1:So I don't, you know. I'm just looking across the street from Fairytale Town. Right now I'm in front of the wall, the very familiar wall at fairytale town, where you have Humpty Dumpty who sat on the wall. That's funny, joe Michaels, my colleague at work, by the way, host of the Pat Walsh show on KFBK he kept referring to, for whatever reason, to Humpty Dumpty last night. How random is that. And laughing. Anyhow, today I'm sitting here in front of the Humpty Dumpty last night how random is that. And laughing. Anyhow, today I'm sitting here in front of the Humpty Dumpty wall, so, and that's the entrance to Fairytale Town, and God you know. And I'm looking at the zoo. It looks so beautiful across the street, the property is so nice and I just wonder what are they going to do with that. There's a lot of potential I can see there, but I hope they do the right thing. I just it's going to be sad for me to see the zoo moving because again, it was like certain great songs over time Shining Star, that's the Way of the World by Earth, wind, fire.
Speaker 1:They used to connect together. You know, heartbreaker, live and Love, and Made by led zeppelin. Things connect together. Well, the zoo and the fairy tale town, they connect together. To me they're supposed to be next to each other, so I have such vivid memories of coming here. You know, fairy tale town that was like that would have been like the cool place to have. Oh, look, it's the old mother. I'm okay, I have the oh they've added like a big cottage or something back in there. It's oh, that is cool little straw roof, what they call it thatch roof or whatever they call that. Maybe I said that wrong. Anyhow, that's something new that I had never seen. And they have the castle in there Was that they used to have birthday parties. I have a little history of Fairytale Town. God, I remember we used to buy the pink popcorn in there. Anyone have these same memories. You get that like that block of pink popcorn. But Fairytale Town let's see this thing I don't know how long has it been around Fairytale Town. So January 2nd of 1956, they started making little models of it, what they were going to build. They started breaking ground in October, october 2nd of 1958. That's when the construction began. With the help of the local school children who just picked up the shovels, broke ground there, right here at Fairytale Town. They continued the construction to 59. Actually, my let's see, the grand opening was in August of 59.
Speaker 1:You could have birthday parties. Like I said, birthday parties began at Fairytale Town and they provided you a decorated cake. I always wanted to do this when I was a kid, but I couldn't tell if it was for boys or girls. It seemed kind of like it was more for girls, so I never really asked for it, but I still thought it would be cool. And so they provide you with this decorated cake with candles, ice cream, punch utensils, a card for the birthday child, you know, to be signed by the party goers, and a recreation A recreation which I guess it was like a recreation of like a royal kind of a birthday party. Anyone ever have those? I don't know if my parents could afford that. I don't know if they could afford that for six kids. Every time there was a birthday they used to have the Easter egg hunts out here, which started April 2nd of 1960. Fairytale Town's first birthday, august 30th 1960. They put in the Hiroshima Taro Japanese Garden in 1961.
Speaker 1:So anyhow, just looking at some of the, you know what my favorite thing was. I don't know what you Was. It called the Lost Trails. You know they had that wall. What was it? I don't know what the technical name, maybe I can find it here. But you get on that Lost Trails and I'd like to get ahead or behind my brothers, and then I'd jump down off there into the bushes. Wait, wait for them to come by and I jump up. Ah, scare them, god. That was fun.
Speaker 1:Okay, they had the rabbit hole slide. Remember that? Oh my gosh, what memories. You go down the rabbit hole slide. At Fairytale Town. They had the oh God. I remember they had the barn slide. Remember the barn slide? The old woman who lived in his shoe I'm looking at that right now. That was a slide. The old woman who lived in his shoe I'm looking at that right now. That was a slide. The old woman who lived in his shoe, the old hippo. So they had King Arthur's Castle. That was the name of it.
Speaker 1:King Arthur's Castle, originally built with no roof. So in 1980, no roof. So in 1980, a roof was installed to cover the Royal Court. That's what I thought. I didn't think there was a roof to it, but it was a gift from the Junior League of Sacramento. It was made possible by donations, but anyhow, that's when that went in. I remember you could go up the barn slide.
Speaker 1:Remember the barn slide? They used to have an owl up there in a cage at the barn slide. I'm going to take a look over here and see what else I can see. Mother goose, remember, they had a huge tortoise. I swear. They said it was 100 years old. This old, old tortoise they had, it was a hundred years old, this old, old tortoise they had. Yeah, I remember the barn. They had cows out there, sometimes, next to the barn slide, jack and the Beanstalk. They had, oh gosh, the garden out, the Japanese garden, little Sherwood forest. They had that little stage. Oh, wow, anyhow, what is it? The Yellow Brick Road. So Fairytale Town's been around a long time. Yeah, here we go. The renovated. It was the Farmer Brown's Barn, farmer Brown's Barn. It got repainted, it was renovated, I guess, so visitors could enjoy viewing the farm animals and sliding down the slides. Renovations included adding a chicken coop to the barn, new wildlife exhibits and more. But that was the barn slide, but there was another one. There was another slide over there that had the owl up there on the top of the tower and I'd stand there and stare at that thing. So great memories here.
Speaker 1:And then you go over again to the zoo and I think the first thing that I was always interested in excuse me, the first thing I was for whatever weird, weird reason I was always interested in was going into the reptile house. You know, you go into the reptile house. They had a nice reptile house. So you go in there, check out the snakes you know be like, don't tap on their glass. You're looking in the. You know they have these huge anacondas and pythons and poisonous snakes in there and big lizards and things. Then I used to like to look at the nice bird exhibit in there. What do you call that? Sanctuary or whatever for the birds? If that's what you call it, I don't know. Of course I always want to look at the big cats, see if you could find a black panther, which you would A leopard, sorry, coughing for some reason, all of a sudden. All of that was so cool, seeing the lions and the tigers, you know, just the zoo, but then I'd always.
Speaker 1:The thing I really wanted to see was the monkeys. For some reason, like the orangutans, the chimpanzees and those little spider monkeys, Dargonit, I apologize for that. I think I I'm walking to this dirt area and I think I kicked up dirt here and I'm choking a little bit on some dust. But anyhow, you know monkeys, I used to like to look at the monkeys. Monkeys can be a filthy little disgusting animal, can't they? I remember well I can't even tell that story I saw this monkey doing something.
Speaker 1:I said are you kidding me? You're doing that in public? Hey, now anyone else would be arrested. He's like yeah, whatever. I remember one time you know. It says do not feed the animals. And like an idiot, I decided I don't know, I was probably late teens or whatever. Yeah, I just give this little monkey. It's not, it wasn't tiny. I give this monkey because the monkey was reaching through the bars like looking at you know how they look at you got those little eyes and looking at you, the monkey reaches out to you, give me something. So I went to give him a peanut or something.
Speaker 1:This little son of a Grabbed my hand. I'll tell you, superhuman strength freaked me out. Little monkey grabbing at me Learned my lesson. I think someone yelled, I don't know, I tried to put it out of my mind. I think someone yelled at me or something hey, don't feed the monkeys. There's a sign there. All right, so over at Thunderland, I was going to tell you that story earlier.
Speaker 1:So at Thunderland, where I'm headed back to right now, so I had the biggest crush when I was 12 years old. I had the biggest crush on my friend John Bandy's cousin, cheryl Bandy, and she lived, I think, in Arizona and she had visited and, oh my God, I was just smitten and she was coming to visit again. And I would just again 11 or 12 years old and John Bandy played on my little league team. We played little league together. My dad was the manager for that particular team and when I found out that his 12-year-old cousin, cheryl, was coming to town, I was so excited I was, I couldn't believe it. I said, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to talk to her and I'm going to be nice to her and you know, like maybe I could hold her hand or get a kiss or something. You know, I don't know whatever, you're thinking of a little kid like that, but you have a mad crush. So here she comes to town and boy, oh boy, I remember her being so cute. Man, you know that feeling you get when you're a kid and you have that crush on someone and you're just it's like overwhelming, it's so exciting. What are you going to do? Are you going to talk to them, whatever? So she comes to town and I thought, okay, I'll be brave and I'll talk to her. And then I, then we decided, oh, we're all going to go to Thunderland. So must have been.
Speaker 1:John's parents took us over here to Thunderland, me, john, and his cousin, the beautiful Cheryl Bandy, who proceeded. The first thing she wanted to go on, and again this park was much smaller. Back then, the first thing she wanted to go on and again this park was much smaller. Back then, the first thing she wanted to go on is the ride, which I don't know, I just call it the Barf-a-tron or the Vominator, vomit, the nausea, the nauseator. So you sit down, it's like the mat, what is the one? It's like you sit in a cup and it's got a wheel in the middle of it. And if you spin the wheel. Not only does the thing go around, you know, in circles, the ride itself, but if you spin the thing in the middle, now you're spinning this teacup thing. It's like the teacups at disneyland, how I imagine that they were. And so this thing, the starts spinning. And I'm looking at her and man, I didn't want to spin at all, and she started spinning it. And the next thing, I know, everything is going blurry and now and now the well, the sickness begins, and as they begin to, you know, get sick everywhere. I believe that that probably turned everything off and thus probably came the end of the dream of later in life, when I was a grown-up, being able to marry Cheryl Bandy Because she was so darn cute.
Speaker 1:But you just can't throw up on them On the first date, even at 12 years old. You know what I mean. You can't throw up on them, even at 12 years old. Oh, look, here comes a little car. It's like Utopia. Was it called Utopia at Disneyland? Is that what that was called, where you could drive the cars? Autotopia, something like that. I loved that.
Speaker 1:So, anyhow, it is a beautiful day, hello, hello, hello. It is a beautiful day. All the kids are having a great time. Let me start up my car here. I usually end it with some music. I don't know if I should or not, but why not? You know what? I think I'll just leave it at that today. I'll just leave it at that today. No, wait a minute, let's do it. Start it up. All right, just do it. I have to end with something here. Some music. Patspeepscom. What is this? 244. Patspeeps. 244. Stroll through William Land Park. Memories of William Land Park. Let's see what we would have on the radio here. Let's see if we can guess what it is. Here we go. Oh, how long has this been going on? This is, uh what.
Speaker 2:Ace right, ace 1975, baby, it's Pat's Peeps 244.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you'll get a chance to check out PatsPeepscom, see what we're doing with local businesses. We'd love to represent you, endorse you, local mom and pops, patspeepscom, welcoming new businesses every day. Here we go. Now you know what I think I'm going to do. I think I'm going to go over to my old neighborhood over here over on Franklin. I think I'm going to go to Scott's Burger Shack. Get me a Fat Boy Combo. That's what I might do. Thank you for tuning in. Please check out my radio show, the Pat Walsh Show KFBK Radio Sacramento.
Speaker 2:Heard everywhere on your free iHeart app. I'm a little crazy for fancy persuasion. Don't admit that it's part of a scheme, but I can't help but have my suspicion, cause I ain't quite as dumb as I seem. All you say is that we're pretending To break up and see in this way, but there ain't any use in pretending it could happen to us any day. Thank you.
