The 4th Annual Coney Island Talent Show is tomorrow, July 27, from 3-8PM. It’s too late to register to perform, but spectating is free. The stage is on the Boardwalk between West 10th and West 12th Streets. Here’s what it looked like last year — once again the talent categories are Creative Kids, Song and Dance, and Circus Freaks and Sideshow Geeks! Produced by Jen Gapay of Thirsty Girl Productions and emceed by The World Famous *BOB*, the Coney Island Talent Show is sponsored by the Alliance for Coney Island.
Cha Cha’s, “Home of Wild Women and Wise Guys” and “Live Entertainment for the Hole Family” is gone from the new Coney Island, but the video “Coney Island Poker Face” lives on! Shot in September 2010 by historian Charles Denson, the video features Cha Cha’s regular Frankie Oil dancing to Lady Gaga’s hit while his pal Johnny Corona cheers him on.
Try typing “Live Entertainment for the Hole family” and Google will ask — Did you mean: “Live entertainment for the whole family”?
Nope, we meant “Hole Family.” The charmingly idiosyncratic spelling on the sign is visible in Denson’s slow pan of the Boardwalk bar and cafe, which also takes in the floral wreath for Cha Cha’s longtime manager John Thomas, who had just died, and the lettering of the doomed Shoot the Freak next door. Was “The Hole Family” a painter’s typo? An inside joke like the sign’s enigmatic “Don’t Sleep”? It definitely caught people’s attention and became a conversation piece.
Who is this “Hole Family” you speak of? –PJ Coleman via flickr
“Where else but Brooklyn would you see a sign that offered ‘Live Entertainment For The Hole family.’ Who’s the Hole family? Courtney Love and Frances Bean Cobain?” — MemoriesofBrooklyn.blogspot.com
ATZ uncovered clues to the identity of “the Hole Family” a few years ago, but amid the upheaval over Cha Cha’s Boardwalk bar losing its lease in 2011 and the move to Surf Avenue sans the original sign, we never had a chance to write about it. Cha Cha’s officially closed after SuperStorm Sandy.
Coney Island, The Whole Darnd Family. circa 1910. Bain News Service
“The Hole Family” is related to the Whole Darnd family, who are pictured visiting Coney Island with their monkeys in this vintage photo, which also happens to be part of the mosaic at the top of this blog. The Darnd family is a polite takeoff on the title of Edwin S Porter’s silent screen hit “The Whole Dam Family and the Family Dog” (1905).
According to one of the many comic postcards and lithos featuring the Dam family– Mr. I.B. Dam, Miss U.B Dam and their relatives — they were the most popular and widely known family in the United States on account of their unfortunate last name. “Too much notoriety” was rumored to have killed the Dam Family. The curious thing is that at 2:36, the animated letters spell out The Hole Dam Family before the last letter, the “W,” finally tumbles into place.
When we came across this wonderful, old-timey Bonanza Shooting Gallery on the midway at the June 17-July 7 NJ State Fair Meadowlands, our first question was — can we photograph it without triggering all the targets? Vintage Bonanza galleries used photocell sensors activated by a bright light source, usually from the rifles. That’s why there were multiple signs saying “No Photography” at the one in Coney Island’s Astroland, which is by the way up for sale. The attendant at the Bonanza Shooting Gallery at the Meadowlands Fair said, “Take all the pictures you want.” Since their rifles got a redo, they no longer have a problem with the targets going off when folks snap photos.
“The rifle shoots an infrared beam of light instead of flashing light,” Bonanza Gallery owner Matt Gallapoo said in an interview with ATZ. “It feels like a shotgun, but the sound is digital.” The Ohioan, whose family has been in the amusement business since the early 20th century, brings the Bonanza Shooting Gallery to the Orange County Fair in Middletown, NY (July 12-July 28, 2013), Erie County Fair in Hamburg, NY (August 7-18, 2013), New York State Fair (August 22- September 2, 2013), Florida State Fair (February 6-17, 2014) and other big fairs.
Manufactured by Taylor Engineering, Bonanza Shooting Galleries first debuted in 1958 and this one was built for his father in 1976. Gallapoo had the family heirloom refurbished in 2010 after acquiring it at a sheriff’s auction where it ended up after having been neglected by an ex-brother-in-law. The largest traveling shooting gallery of its kind has approximately 26 guns and 100 original interactive targets including a piano player and cigar store Indian. The gallery is housed in a 60-foot wide by 32-foot deep tent.
“My mother was born into the business. She was one of the original Otterbacher kids,” says Gallapoo whose family takes credit for pioneering such carnival games as the bottle-up and the softball in the milkcan and giving away live rabbits as prizes in the 1980s. He still has food concessions at some of the spots on their route including the August 23-25 Wine and Walleye Fest in Ashtabula, Ohio, where they will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most portions of fish and chips sold.
Amusing the Zillion 