Jack

Jack

Friday, February 17, 2006

Another Ticky Tack Landmark Gone...

...and southern California is the sadder for it.

Movieland Wax Museum, which opened in 1962, closed forever on Halloween 2005. On March 11 of this year, they will auction off EVERYTHING in the building, and I do mean everything! Check out the auction catalog here:

http://www.icollector.com/viewAuctionSessionInfo.aspx?auctionSessionid=10798

Movieland was one of those kinda creepy touristy places where you would wander around and wonder how anything like this ever got started. The figures were badly done and nearly always damaged somehow...wigs askew, spitwads decorating the faces, fingers and noses chipped off, etc. But it was kinda cool because it wasn't big time, if that makes sense.

So anyway, if you want you can even buy the huge, glitteringly lit sign that runs along the top of the building. Or employees uniforms. Or wax, molds and wax figure making equipment (open your own wax museum!). Wax figures. Sets. Boxes of postcards. It goes on and on.

As I was looking through the auction catalog, it got sadder and sadder. The last time I went was back in 1978, and it only got more forlorn and abandoned-looking after that.

Movieland Wax Museum joins the rest of long-gone southern California theme parks such as the Japanese Deer Park and the Alligator Farm, which were nearby. I have a wonderfully tacky tin California souvenir plate that includes the big places like Disneyland, but also features Movieland, The Japanese Deer Park, The Alligator Farm, Marineland, Graumanns Chinese Theater, The Pike...

All the good stuff is gone.

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