Children's Fairyland

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Children's Fairyland, U.S.A. was the first theme park created to cater to families with young children. Located in Oakland, California on the shore of Lake Merritt, Fairyland includes 10 acres (40,000 m²) of play sets, small rides, and animals. The park is also home to the Open Storybook Puppet Theater, the oldest continuously operating puppet theater in the United States.

Fairyland was built in 1950 by the Oakland Lake Merritt Breakfast Club. The sets were designed by artist and architect William Russell Everritt. The park was nationally recognized for its unique value, and during the City Beautiful movement of the 1950s it inspired numerous towns to create their own parks. Walt Disney even came to Fairyland often to get ideas for Disneyland.

Numerous artists have contributed exhibits, murals, puppetry, and sculptures to the park. Some of the more well known artists are Ruth Asawa and Frank Oz.

Its entertainment ranges from the spiderweb ferris wheel to the well-known plays put on by local kids from ages 8-10. The past 2005 shows were The Monkey King's Journey to the West, Brer Rabbit, and, the classic, The Wizard of Oz. The 2006 shows are Cuoi, the Boy in the Moon, Ohana Means Family, and Little Red Riding-Hood, and Lost in Fairyland.

In 2006 Children's Fairyland's Open Storybook Puppet Theater will celebrate its 50th Anniversary. The theater is the oldest continuously-operating professional puppet theater in the nation. The Theater is currently being renovated, and will re-open in Spring 2006.

[edit] Origins of the park

On a trip to the Detroit children's zoo in Belle Isle Park, Oakland nurseryman Arthur Navlet saw a collection of small nursery rhyme themed buildings, and wanted to create something similar in Oakland's Lake Merritt Park. His hope, though, was to create much larger sets that children could climb in and interact with. After getting the backing of the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club, a civic organization devoted to improving the park, he took his ideas to William Penn Mott Jr., then director of Oakland's parks department. Mott and the Breakfast Club were able to raise $50,000 from Oaklanders to create the park.

Navlet hired fantasy architect William Russell Everritt to design the original 17 sets. Everritt originally presented models which followed a standard fantasy architecture: straight-sided, "precious" buildings in gingerbread and candy. When told his models were too staid, he delightedly destroyed them and came back with buildings with no straight sides and outre colors and textures. It was exactly what Navlet was looking for.

[edit] The original park

The park opened on September 2, 1950. Admission was 9 to 14 cents, depending on age. The original guides to the park were a dwarfish married couple dressed in glamorous Munchkin-style costumes. The park was reported on nationally, with numerous newsreels shot in the park. The original sets included Pinocchio's Castle, Thumbelina, Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Merry Miller, The Three Little Pigs, Willie the Whale, and several others. The entrance to the park was the shoe from The Old Woman in the Shoe. The entrance through the shoe was sized for children so that adults had to bend over to go through.

The park continued to grow through the early years, adding the Open Storybook Puppet Theater, also designed by Everritt, in 1956, as well as other sets. Another important addition were the Fairyland Talking Storybooks and Magic Keys. Oakland television personality Bruce Sedley would often make appearances at the park to tell the stories of the sets. The constant strain of speaking threatened his voice, and he invented a system of talking books with recorded stories on tape. The boxes were activated by a plastic key. Sedley took the system he developed at Fairyland to zoos and children's parks across the country, where they are still used extensively.