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The
year 1970 saw only two of the original Chambers stunts in place
as the rest of the house was dark again, literally.
Cliff Johnson, a local 17-year-old from Bristol Eastern High
School, convinced the Nortons to replace ten monsters,
which he would make for $1,000...
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Here
in Cliff’s own words, is what transpired:
“As
a kid, it always bothered me that our Laff In
The Dark was increasingly becoming all dark
with no laffs. After I visited Disneyland for
the first time I fancied myself a young Walt
Disney and got it into my head that I would
turn our Laff into the Haunted Mansion. Ah,
youth.
I received permission to go into the Laff and
my high school sweetie and I measured the dimensions
, position of the cages , and the track layout.
I went home and built a cardboard scale model
of the ride. She drew some illustrations. The
next thing I know this 16-year-old kid is proposing
to build ten monsters for $1,000 at a board
meeting of the Norton family. Mysteriously,
they agreed to let me loose inside the ride.
The ‘we’ was the cast and crew of my Super 8
feature-film-in-progress, "The Return of the
Freshman." We used wood, wire from coat hangers,
and steel mesh to form the body shapes and then
layered them with "plaster tape." similar to
that used for making a cast for a broken leg
except this was designed for the hobbyist at
a bargain price. We spray painted the monsters
with oil paints and mounted them inside the
existing empty cages (10) I believe with two
or three more original monsters only left.
I didn't want to use the ugly steel grills over
the monsters originally installed in the 50's
and I thought of plexiglas, but discovered that
it could shatter. Then I came across something
called polycarbonate that the hardware guy demonstrated
by taking a hammer to it and battering it. It
did not shatter. So all the monsters were sealed
with polycarbonate and I used the $ 1,000 to
fund the completion of my film. "Stretch" Norton
became Mayor of Bristol and had a cameo in the
film, gawking up at a flying saucer over City
Hall.”
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Mike
Dudko, the ride operator in 1974, fondly remembers refusing
a ticket from then Governor Meskell, which was a good thing
as the ride broke down again with the good Governor in it! He
then turned on all of the lights, escorted the Governor out
and was assured everything was OK. Mr. Meskell would keep the
ticket as a funny memory. In 1975, Peter Rasulo was asked to
“snaz-up” the façade up again, so he filled the white backdrop
of the gable as much as possible with an imposing black bat.
Come 1979, Stretch Norton had no funny memories of the infamous
“maintenance headache” as he called it. Another ten years had
taken its toll and the Nortons decided to trade the interior
stunts, track, six cars and operation booth to Mr. Bobby Bechard
(owner of Modern Amusement Company) who in turn traded a small
kiddy coaster to fill in the Dark’s emptiness. Richard Norton
had the “Laff” removed from the sign and replaced with “Roll”
to put the final touches on along with repainting the bat to
white.
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| In
1982, the Roll in the Dark was permanently closed
due to an electrical fire in the “Roll” part of
the sign itself. Go figure! Now, Compounce uses
a Sally interactive dark ride by name of Ghost
Hunt to entertain customers. |
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Photos
courtesy of Howard Behrendt
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