Saving Sal

There's a great little article over on Laff in the Dark called Saving Sal, which talks about the efforts of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to acquire, restore, and display the original Laffing Sal animatronic which welcomed visitors to the Playland-At-The-Beach park in San Francisco.

Interestingly, the park paid $50,000 at auction for her, and then invested what must have been a goodly sum to hire experts in animatronics, costume design, and art restoration to return her to her glory condition. I'm impressed that there's a park out there with such a commitment to the historical roots of today's theme park industry as to spend that much for a single artifact. Makes me want to go see it.