The county fair was only a couple miles away from where I lived as a kid. We’d ride our bikes (over a steep hill) and spend all day there several times during the fair.
(Can you imagine parents now letting 12 year old kids ride their bikes to spend the day at the fair?)
So I saw a lot of odd-ish things but nothing really bizarre. The carnies were interesting, of course. Took a while to figure out the cons going on. Hey, I was young. The “industrial” halls with their hucksters selling the latest wonder crap. There was a small building for the photo contest display. Some of the pics were fairly interesting from a kid point of view.
There was an arcade tent with different coin-op old school things. They had some stereo-viewer things. Put in a dime and see some pics in stereo. Some had pictures of ladies with certain parts blacked out with a marker. We soon discovered they only did one image. If you close that eye the other wasn’t censored at all. This was a big thing to young boys but nothing compared to the Internet today.
At night we’d go back with the parents (because of the horse racing). The galaxy of lights was amazing.
Can’t say I’ve ever been to anything but the State Fair of Texas, and that for the first time in 2009.
But by far the craziest thing I’ve seen there are the attendees. Bizarre clothing, strange behaviors, you name it. You get the salt of the earth there for sure; it’s one of the few places I’ve ever been where there’s both a low income urban and low income rural crowds intermixing.
Can’t recall anything particularly weird at THE FAIR! I did leap at the opportunity to buy a totally rad Iron Maiden necklace there.
My boyfriend’s aunt and uncle worked at the fair one year. I remember his brother saying dejectedly, “Man, I always knew we were trailer trash…but now we’re related to carnies!”
Fondest memory: I was probably eight or something, and I played one of those crane machines, for a dime, and I won a switchblade comb. GREAT prize for only ten cents.
Another memory: I don’t now why I remember this, but I recall the woman running the “basketball” game calling after my brother and me (we were tall kids) and trying to get us to spend money there. To encourage us to come over, she threw the ball to my brother, hoping he’d catch it and at least engage with her, but he just let it drop and kicked it down the midway; she had to chase after it. It was funny to me at the time.
I was too nervous to see any of the human freak shows, but I did pay to see the “largest horse” once, when I was about 11 or 12. It was about six feet at the shoulder, so not really a world record, but still plenty big.
I had wanted to go to the freak show for years after seeing Popeye drumming up business by standing outside the tent and popping his eye out of its socket as the barker told of all the other wonders waiting inside. Finally the big day came! I was quickly disappointed as the “world’s tallest man” (not all that tall) was also the “world’s fattest man” (he did stand out circa 1969, but I routinely see more obese guys around town in 2018). The sword-swallower, the fire-eater, and the “bed of nails” daredevil were all the same guy. You get the picture.
One performer who never disappointed was Bobo. He’d sit on a perch above a dunk tank and taunt passers-by into ponying up a few quarters in exchange for balls that could “Make Bobo splash!” if your toss hit the target. No prizes, just the joy of seeing that insulting clown plummet into the water and shut up for a minute or two until climbing back up and starting his spiel all over again. Although this guy is not as entertaining as the Bobos I remember, here’s a taste (spoilered for potentially offensive language):
The Zipper. Years ago I won some wind chimes for my girlfriend at some booth, then took them with us on the Zipper. They shattered and there was flying shards of glass everywhere.
Good times.
I remember a sideshow where the ad depicted a nekkid woman pulling another nekkid woman’s arm off. Looking back, the women in the crude paintings looked a lot like mannequins. This was at the Appalachian Fair in Gray Station, TN circa 1973.
I’ve been to a few county fairs in the Dakotas over the past few years, and one just down the street from me in Indiana this past summer. They seem pretty uniform now. Reading this thread makes me wish I had been around in the good old days.
Sort of the opposite thing here. I saw the chamois cloths being sold at fairs/conventions some time in the late 80s/early 90s. So when the ShamWow thing came out I always saw that as a repackaged copycat of that, which of course it was. Those infomercials often used products that were sold much earlier in demonstration booths at events and grocery stores and such and just pretty much rebranded them. A lot of those infomercial personalities started out with in-person product demonstrations.
'64 World’s Fair. A line of slender poles similar to flag poles. On the top was a wheel similar to a steering wheel. The performers would climb the poles and get them to swaying, and swap poles. At the end they would slide down face first. Not particularly crazy assed, just memorable to me.
Desert Empire Fair was a yearly occurrence in my hometown. I’m visiting there at this moment for my 40th HS reunion (Homecoming Week!), and the Fair is in town next weekend. I never saw anything to terribly weird (mom and dad didn’t let us go into the sideshows ), but old-style fair rides cannot be beat! Zipper, Hammerheads, and that wonderful ride where you stand up strapped in to the side of a rotating wheel, which then turns 90 degrees so it’s vertical and you are horizontal, whirling around and around. Tilt-O-Wheel, where you learn some interesting things about physics to impress your girlfriend (why guys think trying to make their girlfriend puke will endear them to her, who knows!? ). The Midway games (my favorite was the horserace, which used to involve a pinball-like method for deciding how far you advanced). And, of course, the food. Does anyplace other than a fair even MAKE cotton candy??
Years ago we used to be able to get cotton candy from a stand just inside the entrance to our local department store. Pretty sure you can still get it at baseball games, too.
The strangest thing I remember seeing at the fair was these black chickens. They are black inside and out - their skin, bones and organs are all black.
), but old-style fair rides cannot be beat! Zipper, Hammerheads, and that wonderful ride where you stand up strapped in to the side of a rotating wheel, which then turns 90 degrees so it’s vertical and you are horizontal, whirling around and around. Tilt-O-Wheel, where you learn some interesting things about physics to impress your girlfriend (why guys think trying to make their girlfriend puke will endear them to her, who knows!? ). The Midway games (my favorite was the horserace, which used to involve a pinball-like method for deciding how far you advanced). And, of course, the food. Does anyplace other than a fair even MAKE cotton candy??