S.F. Playland at the Beach's Laughing Sal for sale

Big bucks for yuks
Defunct Playland's Laughing Sal could bring pretty penny
Joe Garofoli, S.F. Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, January 18, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/18/BAGO44CIF11.DTL

Generations of Northern Californians remember Laughing Sal, the maniacally cackling wooden woman posted outside the funhouse at San Francisco's Playland-at-the-Beach. Now, 32 years after the amusement park closed and sprouted into oceanside condominiums, the old gal is about to be the focus of a bidding war in a culture that's turning memories into objets d'art.

Sal herself is fine and living in San Francisco -- both Sals, that is. One Sal is on display at the Musee Mecanique, the collection of antique games at Fisherman's Wharf. But some Sal-ologists believe her to be Playland's back- up Sal, the one the park's owners banked just in case No. 1 Sal was vandalized or otherwise rendered unable to guffaw.

That tidbit, like much Sal mythology, is far from definitive. Her life is a funhouse filled with legal battles, conflicting histories, dying wishes and urban legend that's slowly unraveling as she approaches the auction block.

It's Playland's supposed first-string Sal that Richard Tuck wants. Tuck is trying to build a shrine to amusement parks, "Playland-Not-at-the-Beach," in a 2,321-square-foot space in back of his El Cerrito executive search firm. Like a curator in search of a signature sculpture to generate buzz for his new space, Tuck has zeroed in on his Rodin -- the one purists refer to by the name her manufacturer gave her, "Laffing Sal."

Tuck is trying to raise $40,000 to make an offer to the estate of a San Francisco collector named John Wickett. Before he died at age 87 in July, Wickett was a wealthy businessman and collector who stocked his South of Market museum with everything from Playland artifacts to stuffed Bengal tigers to 18th century Buddhas. Sal and the rest of his possessions are locked in a warehouse until probate issues are worked out.

Tuck envisions Sal as the centerpiece of his growing collection of arcade remembrances, which include a 300,000-piece miniature circus, a Skee-ball lane, vintage pinball machines and a full-size replica of a seance in a Victorian parlor. Admission would be free.

Symbol of Playland

"Laughing Sal is Playland-at-the-Beach," said Tuck, 56, who as a little boy growing up in Petaluma visited her every year -- and is willing to max out his credit line to get Sal because, "It's Laughing Sal."

Which leads to Tuck's main problem: He's going to have some competition.

To the untrained eye, a Sal's a Sal. Standing around 5-foot-5, centerfold busty and sporting red hair and gap-toothed smile, Sal brought smiles to her fans as her laughter echoed nonstop through Playland for four decades. Non- fans and traumatized small children are still in therapy.

But to collectors, Sal's imminent coming out is big news. Already, 20 suitors have inquired about Sal and four have offered formal bids, said Wickett museum spokeswoman Dana Marek. She asks that anyone who is interested just drop the museum a letter; she's too busy cataloging its 10,000 pieces to answer the door.

Hundreds of Sals were produced from the 1920s through the '40s, but only a dozen or so are still in captivity. That makes any Sal that comes on the market a prized commodity for devotees, who have been known to pay $200 for a shuttered amusement park's sign that is no bigger than a wad of cotton candy.

All Marek would say about where Sal and her Playland pals might end up is, "It would be (Wickett's) wish that the pieces could be in a place where the public could view them."

A second Sal?

Musee Mecanique owners are interested, but manager Dan Zelinsky said, "We can't afford it now." The Musee bought its Sal for $3,000 at a silent auction a dozen years ago and has rebuffed regular offers for her since.

As for whether the Musee has the first- or second-string Playland Sal, Zelinsky said, "All I know is that we've got one of them."

Charles Canfield, CEO of the company that owns the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, has already contacted Wickett representatives about Sal. He wants to display her in the park, said spokeswoman Jan Bollwinkel-Smith.

As for Tuck and his prospective $40,000 bid? "(Canfield) hasn't made a formal offer, but he said that sounds probably right for what it would cost," Bollwinkel-Smith said.

The bidding war for Sal is another twist in her wild life. There's been innuendo, like the tale about how one of Sal's creators coaxed that grating laugh -- or was it charming? -- from the woman who gave Sal her voice.

"The story, which I think is urban legend, is that they got her drunk and told her dirty jokes, and she just started laughing like that," said Rick Davis, a co-founder of Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts, a group of 200 amusement park aficionados.

Others say there was a nationwide talent search that ended with a male musician winning the gig. The Wickett Museum said the laugh was inspired when someone who worked at a Sal manufacturer visited a family member in an insane asylum and heard "a woman inmate on a laughing jag."

Will the real Sal please ...

Tom Rebbie has heard and dismissed many such Sal stories. The president of the Philadelphia Toboggan Co., which sold "a few hundred Sals" more than a half-century ago, produced paperwork showing that the woman who recorded Sal's voice, Tanya Garth, threatened to sue the company in 1941 for turning a "test record" she cut a year earlier into that ol' familiar yuk.

The company also has kept a 1940 document in which Garth acknowledged being paid -- which may be why her lawsuit never materialized. Garth is believed to have made $150 for her work.

Rebbie, whose 100-year-old company still manufactures roller-coaster equipment, remembers Sal as the matriarch of a wooden barker family that included lesser lights like Laffing Sam, Giggling Gertie and Laffing Charley. Or, as their ads said back in the day, "the greatest ballyhoo and attention- getters that have ever been developed for use in amusement resorts, carnivals or any other purpose where the attention of the public is desired."

Sal's asking price in 1940: $360.

The 2004 version of the ballyhoo over Sal is a bit surprising to Jim Futrell, historian for the 700-member National Amusement Park Historical Association. Tuck's envisioned offer of $40,000, he said, "sounds a bit on the high end. But if it's Playland Sal, I might be able to see it."

(True Salheads identify Sals by her home park: Ocean City Sal, Idora Park Sal, Playland Sal ... El Cerrito Sal?) "Amusement parks have always been a means of escape, and nostalgia can be a powerful emotion," Futrell said. "It's where you got your first kiss. My parents met at Riverview Park in Chicago.''

Futrell is hardly immune. He owns 300 amusement park signs. "I'm into signs," he said.

Good memories

It's that nostalgic charm that Tuck hopes to evoke at his museum. He plans the place to be admission-free, and not a moneymaker.

Tuck dreams big and decorates to match. He named his five-bedroom El Cerrito home "It Must Be Magic" and filled it with 490 clocks, 900 wizard figurines, a miniature Victorian village, 18,000 movies and a stage for performing magic shows. Thousands of miniaturists, wizard fans and other collectors tour the home annually for free.

Tuck is also a successful businessman whose Lander International executive search firm made Inc. magazine's 500 list of fastest-growing privately held companies four years ago.

With his business soaring, the firm moved to San Pablo Avenue in 1998, and Tuck decided to dedicate half the space to "fun." That's no problem for the collector and circus and roller-coaster enthusiast, a man who travels several weeks a year to tour amusement parks.

Gradually, as he started filling his budding museum with memorabilia from Playland and other defunct amusement parks, the Playland-Not-at-the-Beach concept began to take shape.

Already, thanks to a core of volunteers who show up on weekends, the museum is taking shape. And to Tuck, that's what's most important.

"The fun we're having here is not building an end product, but in creating something," he said.

While Tuck and other Sal suitors wait for Wickett's treasure to go up for sale, people who want to experience Laughing Sal can still drop by the Musee Mecanique. For those who crave the cackle on command, a Novato online outfit, the Railroad Press Co., sells a 30-minute CD of nonstop Sal laughter for $15.

Since October, owner John Vieira has sold 75 copies. Not that he could get through much of the laughfest himself.

"I could last about five minutes," Vierra said. "But for a lot of people it evokes memories of their childhood. A lot of this stuff does."