specifically Robot World.
Wisconsin Dells is pretty bad alright. The water parks are fun and all, but the rest of it? Shudder.
Have any of you guys lived in South Dakota? I did. Let me tell you, after a winter in South Dakota, you will do almost anything for entertainment—think of the Corn Palace as therapy for the people in Mitchel; if it weren’t for the Corn Palace, God knows what those people would get up to.
As to Wall Drugs, it is just an inside joke. If you don’t get it, it cannot be explained.
Bagnell Dam at Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri. Hard by the dam lives an outpost of the 1950s – arcades, cheesy gift shops, boat rides on the lake, tacky bars, I think there’s even a tattoo parlor in there somewhere.
It’s an assault on the eyes and on anyone’s sense of taste. It seems to be inhabited mainly by young couples who only graduated from high school by the grace of God. It’s where carnival workers work when the circus isn’t in town.
I love it!
It also happens to have the only 10 cent Skee Ball arcades that I can find left in the entire United States, and Mrs. Kunilou’s entire family was born with a gene that makes them unbeatable at Skee Ball (she passed it on to the Kunilou kids). Hanging in our den is a paint-by-numbers Paris cityscape that only cost us something like 2,700 hundred points in the arcade. Mrs. Kunilou and the kids racked up the total in less than an hour and far less than the roll of dimes we had alloted for it.
I recently went to South of the Border and with all the build up of how tacky it was supposed to be I was a little let down. Oh don’t get me wrong it’s still pretty damn tacky. I bought sparklers and a bullwhip.
Up in Lake George NY there are lots of tacky tourist things. My favorites are the Wax Museum of Horrors and Gooney Golf. The wax place has quite a few scenes of torture and dioramas depicting Edgar Allen Poe stories. It also has one of Poe sitting at a desk writing. (scary!) I love Gooney Golf because of the sign that reads “Gooney Golf, it’s the Gooniest”. Keep in mind that there are lots of mini-golf places in town and none of them lay claim to any of Gooney. Why do they feel the need to brag about how much goonyism they posses when there is no competition for the title?
All and all I find Epoct center on the tacky side.
This crummy dump is the only place I’ve ever seen, which offers more “ELVIS” memorabilia than Graceland! You have a ELVIS museum, Elvis souvenirs, etc., ad nauseum.
The really weird thing is that the surroundings are so beautiful! The Great Smokey mountains are just gorgeous, any time of the year. Unfortunately, the ride up to Mt. Michell runs through “hilbilly” country-complete wth mini-trash dumps, old cars, abandoned appliances and such junk. I think this is where old cars go when they die!
I’d like to nominate a small restaurant just off I-70 in Missouri that proclaims “Elvis is Alive!!” on the billboard outside. Once inside, you can take a tour of a section devoted to the memory of Elvis (it has a coffin and gravestone!!) and peruse some of the “evidence” for Elvis still being alive. One amusing “fact” out of many - Elvis is still alive because his middle name is misspelled on his gravestone at Graceland.
Ah, Lake George and Fort Billy Hank.
aka Ft. William Henry.
- The giftshop is twice the size of the original fort.
- Everything is made of cedar (salt & pepper shakers, bathroom door knockers, “board of education” paddles to swat yer kids with).
- Salt-water taffy shops (but not a dentist in sight).
- The dioramas depicting life during the Revolutionary War were so out of proportion - two badly-posed plastic dummies dressed as military men “jumping out of their chairs in horror” as a Mohawk Indian (actually a cut-out of an oversized Indian head the size of a human torso) stares at them from the window.
- Zippers in full view on the ‘re-enactor’ costumes.
- The two ‘re-enactors’ I chatted with amused themselves by throwing stones from the walkways into Lake George.
Gah, I remember StoryTown USA, Gaslight Village (vo-de-oh-doh, vo-de-oh-doh, vo-de-oh-dohhh-doh-doh – cheesy little jingle), and a bunch of other “amusement parks”. I think StoryTown (with the bronze pig that people would rub the snout for ‘good luck’) is now park of a Six Flags Park conglomerate?
Good ol’ Lake George -
"Where the trout all jump
And the bucks heads bump
And the bears waddle down
To the village dump.
[2 lines missing since I can’t remember them]
On the shores
Of Old Lake George.
(The song continues with something about buying antique clocks cotton candy and Chinese Woks - basically expounding on the tackiness of the town.)
CalMeacham and egkelly both decried the evils of the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountains. Yeah, it can be pretty tacky. eg I think that you may have been confusing Gatlinburg with Pigeon Forge, which comes just before Gatlinburg on the way into the park. Pigeon Forge has the aforementioned Elvis museum, a famous car museum (Al Capone’s bullet proof car, Hank Williams’ silver dollar Cadillac), a police museum (complete with Buford Pusser’s death car), and the Holy of Holies, Dollywood. Pigeon Forge also has more outlet malls than you can shake a stick at, go carts, bungee-jumping, and the only Wings t-shirt shop I’ve seen outside of the beach. They’ve even started adding several Theaters in an effort to be the next Branson.
Growing up in Knoxville, we did a lot of hiking in the Smokies. We would hate having to go through Pigeon Forge to get to the mountains. Here, as of late, they’ve done a bit of a sprucing up of Gatlinburg and it’s pretty nice.
/Slight hijack
When I was six I went camping with my family at Restoule Provincial Park in the middle of nowhere. On leaving, we went to some local general store and dad reluctantly let us purchase a cheap souvenir.
I bought a small white box labelled “Silent Alarm Clock” and a way cool self-adhesive plastic snail. The silent alarm clock, for 50 cents, contained a small white candle with a sticker on it marked 11am, 10am, 9am, etc. and the instructions “Silent Alarm Clock. Just light the candle and STICK IT IN YOUR ASS. This clock will silently awake you when the wick burns down to the desired level of insertion”
My mom tried to get her 50 cents back without luck. Still the tackiest souvenir possible. As for tourist traps, Magnetic Hill in New Brunswick might be up there.
Dollywood. I remember it was in Tennesee, I don’t remember the exact city. The best part was the constant reminders that Dollywood has a very high family atmosphere…and every sign was near a picture of Dolly Parton and her chest. Yeh, family atmosphere my ass! It’s been a running joke between my friends and I ever since.
South of the Border was pretty bad…a friend of the family insisted that we HAD to visit the place on our way up north. I was highly disappointed.
Nominees are:
Dogspatch KY (It may even just be a store named that) it’s off I-75 on the way to FLorida. Absolutely ever single item that could be made with Elvis, cedar wood and/or an outhouse theme.
Gaylord MI - it was torurous - we’d be heading up to Boyne for our family vacations (in my childhood) and for miles there’d be road signs advertising the Call of the Wild Museum we’d pester Dad to within an inch of his life. He finally broke down one year and stopped. My heavens. A large warehouse style building, one room has a bunch of moth eaten stuffed animals and a few Indian arrow heads and the like, the other, much larger room has all of the rest of the world’s cedar wood tourist stuff (that didn’t stop in KY), and a bunch of Gen-U-ine Indian bead work, straight from China, so you know that it’s good.
I don’t see where anyone has posted Niagra Falls yet. That has to be one of the suckiest tourist traps ever, to put it bluntly. Ugh.
Las Vegas, the place is as tacky as they come.
I have to agree, Gatlinburg in Tenn. is pretty nasty. Ugh, bad memories. I personally like Wall Drug. Yeah it’s tacky, but it’s damn fun. I mean there’s plenty of cheesy things to buy. And free ice water too. What about a South Dakota Turd Bird? I kid you not.
The park itself is actually very pretty. I wouln’t call it a tacky tourist trap at all. I live in the Atlanta area, and I go over there to be outdoors.
I have to go with DollyWood as the tackiest one. I remember when it was built, and it made us laugh then.
Of course, I’ve not managed to visit the new theme park(I think it’s called Jazzland) just outside New Orleans. Anyone been there yet?
SOOB definity gets my vote for #1, with #2 Las Vegas.
I can’t BELIEVE I am the first person mentioning this place…
The Madonna Inn, San Luis Obispo, CA. Shield yer eyes!
You will never buy a pink object in your life ever again. Your baby girls will just have to learn to like yellow.
I don’t know if this is tacky or just plain sad. There is a place in Waterbury Ct. called Hollyland USA. It is at the top of a hill with its name spelled out Hollywood style on the hill. There is a huge cross that lights up at night, and you can see it for miles around. The theme was a town with biblical references and displays. The town was all miniature, with the buildings about the height of the average adult. It closed down due to lack of funding in the 80’s and now is crumbling apart. Its kinda scarey to go in there now because there are people living in the abandoned buildings. I remember going there before it closed with my catachism classes. The only thing that is still fuctional there is the giant cross. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/holy/
I thought I’d just mention that I have been to the following sites mentioned above:
**
- Cave City: I’ve stayed in the concrete teepees.
- Las Vegas: Mondo Bizarro City
- The Corn Palace: Yup. Lots of corn. Corn murals, corn cob pipes, pop corn, etc.
- Wall Drug: The only one out of the bunch that I would say was purposefully and self-consciously tacky.
- Gatlinburg / Pigeon Forge: Can’t forget the “Ripleys’ Believe It or Not Museum,” and “Hillbilly Golf.” **
I’ve been to some others but am having a difficult time recalling them right now. They’ll probably be mentioned at some point in this thread.