What can you say about a Pretzel dark ride that's been running in the same place for fifty years, especially when that place is Coney Island, the legendary mecca of playtime and amusement for as long as rides have turned? Spook-A-Rama has always had a special place in our hearts and when we realized it was going to turn fifty years old this summer, we knew that this was the time to both celebrate its legacy and to present our Laff Achievement Award to the Vourderis family, who have owned, cared for and updated the ride since 1983.
     Spook-A-Rama was in a class by itself when it opened during that summer of 1955. Fred Garms and Paul Kleinstein, together with Bill Cassidy's Pretzel Amusement Company, put together a quarter-mile course for 30 cars in and out of two buildings filled with animated talking creatures. Competing with about a dozen dark rides then operating at Coney, Spook-A-Rama topped them all. In May of 1965, Garms acquired the Shangri-La Ha Ha ride from Jimmy Onorato at Steeplechase Park for $3600 and added its cars to the Spook fleet. More cars from New Hampshire's Canobie Lake later came aboard. Retiring in 1983, Garms turned Spook-A-Rama and the Wonder Wheel over to the late Denos Vourderis who transformed them and the surrounding properties into today's Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park.
     As the last permanently-installed dark ride in Coney Island, Spook-A-Rama has gone through many stages of evolution over its half-century reign on Jones Walk. It's shorter now, and confined to one building across from the Wonder Wheel. Yet it remains, as ever, the classic Coney Island spook ride experience. Sights, sounds, smells and perhaps even spirits from the golden days of Coney can still be encountered along its twisted track.