The Idlewild Management Company also engaged the Philadelphia Toboggan Company to modify the track layout for the Rumpus and incorporate new stunts. Although PTC produced a set of plans for the ride – an odd request for a company that traditionally built fun houses, not dark rides – it is unknown whether those plans ever made it past the drawing board.xiii Idlewild did purchase $29.00 worth of new fun house stunts from the company in 1942.xiv







“Pretzel for Idlewild Park, Ligonier, PA
Plan Showing Changes in Track
for Installation of Stunts.”
Philadelphia Toboggan Company. November 26, 1941. Note future PTC president Herbert P. Schmeck’s initials on the proposed track plan for the Rumpus.

From the Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters Inc. Archives, courtesy of Tom Rebbie, President/CEO.




“You went in on a car, you got in a car, went in through the doors
and then it would be like a scary face came at you, just goofy stuff.”
– Connie Deemer xv
The late Connie Deemer rode the Rumpus all the time when she was a young girl and remembered the ride burning down when she was in her early teens. She grew up in the community of Millbank, right next to Idlewild. Her father, Earl Ritnour, worked as the park’s head of maintenance during the late 1930s and early 1940s, handling electrical work and fixing all of the penny arcade machines.

According to Deemer, ghosts and skeletons popped out of the ceiling and the ride had an airhole underneath the walkway called a “blow hole.” When ladies exited the ride and walked down the ramp past Laffing Sal, “It would blow that skirt up over your head,” said Deemer. No wonder Sal laughed! Deemer also recalled that folks used to call the mechanical hostess “Laffing Lena.”

The Rumpus enjoyed nearly a decade of success at Idlewild Park, lasting from the 1936 season through the 1946 season (the park was completely closed due to World War II for the 1943 and 1944 seasons and reopened on a limited basis in 1945). Starting with the 1946 season, the Idlewild Management Company launched a period of post-war improvements for the park. The 1947 season was poised to be even more successful, with almost 130 picnics scheduled, a new Allan Herschell Caterpillar and kiddie car ride, plus the debut of a new restaurant later that summer. The Rumpus fire threw a wrench into those plans, however.