Winter is upon us. This is usually a time for cold and flu. When I was a kid, I spent my sick days home from school watching the “spay and neuter man” himself; Bob Barker on “The Price Is Right.”

On this game show program, highly caffeinated college students and permed Wisconsinites compete to guess the price of junk like Rice-A-Roni and grandfather clocks. If they guess the price right, they win prizes like a pontoon boat, or “A New Car!”

Everyone’s favorite price guessing game is Plinko fo-shizzle.

The contestant has to guess prices correctly to win some big plastic hockey puck looking chips. Then, they ascend to the top of this 20-foot slanted platform.
The slanted part has a grid of pegs topped with plexiglass.
The bottom is segmented into columns and marked with different amounts of money ranging from nothing to a thousand dollars.

The contestant slides the hockey puck-chip down the slant and the grid of pegs make it bounce, spin, and constantly change directions left and right all the way down. This makes it hard to tell which column it's going to end up in and what prize the contestant will win.

This brought a fun random element to the game as you tensely waited as the chip-puck trickled down the course and ultimately into riches or bitter defeat.

Wow! That's great Mike, but what the hell does this have to do with Archaic Amusements!?
Well, our next wild ride asks the question, what if you could ride that Plinko chip?

We go back to 1905 Luna Park Coney Island for “The Tickler!” Believe it or not, a “Coney Island Tickler” is not a sex thing, but was a rad Archaic Amusement!

It consisted of a huge football field sized wooden ramp, that kinda looked like a giant Pinball machine.

A zigzag serpentine path is formed by posts and rails winding down the slope of the ramp. The riders are seated in round, tub-like cars on caster wheels.
They can spin on a center axis and hold 4 or 5 people. (Like a free-spinning Teacup on shopping cart wheels.)

A chain-lift pulls the riders to the top, then gravity takes hold.
The round tub-cars bump into the railing and thanks to the rubber bumper ring around it, start spinning and ricocheting off the side railings as it careens down the path like the aforementioned Plinko chip.

Also like Plinko, the bumping and spinning lent a random element.
You would need to hold on to each other to prevent going flying out, so it was kind of seen as a good date ride.

If there were multiple people in the tubs, by the time the car got back to the station, there was a pile of tangled up giggling (or groaning) riders trying to stager out.

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Like the studio audience on “The Price is Right”, there was usually a crowd at the bottom of the ride cheering and laughing. Like Plinko, this ride is one of the most popular in Luna Park and got renovated and upgraded through the years. It survived through the end of the great Coney Island era in the 1950’s. There were even other Ticklers’ built in parks across the country.

In fact, there is a new-ish ride in today’s Luna Park Coney Island called “The Tickler.”
It’s a spinning Wild Mouse Coaster and is a bit like a free spinning Teacup stuck on top of a rollercoaster.

It’s not quite the same as the old wooden whiplash version, but it’s neat the tradition is carrying on, and it looks pretty fun!

I like learning about old rides like “The Tickler” because they have some of the trappings of a modern ride with chain lifts and familiar structures, but when you consider the ride vehicles were on shopping cart wheels, coasting down a hardwood floor, bouncing off the side rails like a Plinko chip while spinning like a possessed washing machine; you realize it’s not like anything you’d be allowed to ride today.

It’s uncertain whether “The Tickler” would tickle, or cripple your funny bone, but it seems like a hoot. Despite the danger, a Coney Island Tickler may be just what you needed for a larf (or a barf.)

-Mike O.