Palace Playland in the mid-fifties. For about a decade there was one classic dark ride at the very tail end of the pavilion facing outside. This was a new Pretzel installation featuring the recently introduced spinning cars. Pretzel had sold many of these rides in the northeast and I had the
extraordinary good fortune to ride several of them. As explained in our article on the Pretzel Amusement Ride Co., the ride systems were composed of a fleet of cars that rotated on their bases as they followed the track, and a more or less standard package of stunts to go with these cars. Because the cars rotated alternately in either direction and faced the stunts at random, all stunts were built to be lit and in continuous motion. I rode other almost identical installations
at Canobie Lake Park in NH and at Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, NY. At the time of my first visit to Old Orchard, the Palace ride was called Devil's Den. I must have ridden it a half-dozen times, to the increasing dismay of the ride operator every time I flung myself into the car. The postcard above and enlarged inset offer a glimpse of the ride. Similar to their repositioning of their outdoor rides at that time, Palace frequently rethemed the frontage of  their dark ride and funhouse to keep them looking like new rides every year. The interiors saw much less in the way of change. The next time we visited, I found Devil's Den had become VooDoo Hut. The time after that, it was reworked as Red Web, reminiscent of a Spider-Man theme. The VooDoo Hut phase did involve upgrades to the interior
as well as the facade, which was given a thatch and bamboo jungle appearance. At the top was a machete-waving native standing by a black cauldron on which was written: "A Trip To Hell And Back". Inside, in addition to the original Pretzel stunts, several others of the African native variety were added, purchased from Animated Display Creators of Miami, FL. In subsequent visits, I saw the usual facade revamps but very little new inside.

George recalls his experiences with this ride in 1961 when it was VooDoo Hut:
"I recall the facade as rather plain with fake bamboo paneling and some cryptic sketches of cannibals cooking people in pots. The interior still had some original Pretzel boxes such as the Bull but there were mostly ADC jungle dioramas. There was one that could have been custom made -- it was a cannibal or voodoo swinging a machete and the lights went off just as the car got close to it. That was one of the few scenes not pre-lit. One scene of cannibals with people in pots was lit by standard flashers or maybe strobe lights. I wasn't sure what strobes were back then. The ending actually had the car go over some slight bump rails along the track as stagnant warriors readied to throw their spears on both sides. I guess it was supposed to be their trap to keep you from escaping. I know it made quite the racket if you were sitting on a bench near the exit. My grandparents, in trying to convince me not to ride, told me the the noise was from patrons pounding on the wall to get out. Even at age 7,  I'd ridden one too many dark rides to believe that one."
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