The Pike - in Film

In Film

The Pike was frequently a location for filming television programs and movies.

• Sugar Daddies (1927) Laurel and Hardy see a girl about a funhouse.
• Fish Hooky (1933), Our Gang short in which a truant officer chases Wheezer, Dickie, Uh-huh, and Stymie through the amusement zone.
• Life Hesitates at 40 (1935) Watch for Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer as the Boy at Soda Fountain.
• Strike Me Pink (1936) The Pike doubles for an amusement park beset with mobsters.
• I Wake Up Screaming (1941)
• Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945) Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Lou rides the famous Cyclone Racer Roller Coaster for the films comic climax.
• Fun on a Weekend (1947) a motion picture starring Eddie Bracken was filmed at the Pike with scenes of The Walk of 1000 lights, arcades, marquees and various rides. The background shots of the Villa Riviera (still standing) and Pacific Coast Club (torn down in the late 1980s) shows the beach area as well which, in the movie is portrayed as a Seaside Resort Town somewhere in Florida.
• He Ran All the Way (1951)
• Half Angel (1951)
• The Sniper (1952) The Pike substitutes for San Francisco's Playland as Eddie Miller(Arthur Franz) nails the shooting gallery, then walks past Laff-in-the-Dark to dunk a touting blonde.
• The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) featured The Cyclone Racer in the climax, when the stop-motion beast destroys a model of the coaster in split-screen with live action intercut with live action scenes from the coaster parking lot, entrance ramp and loading platform. A "sequel" to King Kong by the same cinematographers, improvements in visual effects were stunning for 1953.
• Gorilla at Large (1954) the Pike doubles for the "Garden of Evil."
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) the Pike can be seen in the background as the climactic car chase through downtown Long Beach turns south on Pine from Ocean Bl. past the Ocean Center Building then around Rainbow Pier.
• Roustabout (1964), the Sky Wheel double Ferris wheel is seen in Elvis Presley's motorcycle movie.
• The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964) The Pike's best known appearance is in this cult film.
• Nightside (1973), The Pike was featured in this TV pilot.
• Three the Hard Way (1974) blaxploitation film.
• Emergency! (1975) Queens Park Kiddie-Land is documented in the Transition (#4.15) episode. Roy, John and Gill Robinson, a new Paramedic, assist Chuck, a child suffering a nosebleed from the Go-Karts - Giant Slide and Wheel of Fun, a kiddie Ferris wheel, can be seen after Squad 51 parks in front of the Carousel and kiddie-go-round. Then Squad 51 returns to "50 Ocean, intersection of Pacific" to rescue a heart attack victim and others stranded aboard Space-Capsule/Hi-Ride by a jammed cable - scenes include views of Octopus, Rotor, Laff-in-the-Dark, Sky-Ride, Round-Up, the double Ferris wheel Sky Wheel, all in motion, and the halted Hi-Ride in white Queen's Park paint.
• S.W.A.T. (1975) Queens Park - Walk of 1000 Lights is documented in Sole Survivor (#1.12) episode. The team is called to respond to a sniper on the roof of "Ocean and Magnolia." Scenes include views of the truck arriving south down the Cedar Ave. one-way incline from Ocean Bl. with city hall construction in Lincoln Park past Der-Wienerhausen and Penny Arcade to Bust-em-up in the Looff Hippodrome at 300 Walk of a Thousand Lights, Queenspitch, the carousel, kiddie-land rides and Giant Slide, views from the roof of the Skeeball Bowling to Shrimp Mile Long Dog 39¢ and West shopfronts on the North side of the Walk of 1000 Lights - Target Shooting Machine Guns, PIKE Room Seal Game and Penny Arcade, pedestrians scrambling east from Cat Rack (conversion from Shoot) to Rudy's, past the pink painted Target Shooting Machine Guns, Play Ball & Bust 'em Up Balloons. When the team enters 339 Windsor more views from the rooftops include Peppermint Pike Dancing, the newly constructed Shoreline Drive, Magnolia Bridge and RMS Queen Mary. Footage from this episode was recycled in Deadly Weapons (#2.19) creating continuity errors.
• The Six Million Dollar Man (1977) During the set-up to film the Carnival of Spies (#4.17) episode inside The Pike's "Laff in the Dark" dark ride in December 1976, when a stage hand moved the "hanging man" prop, a waxy finger broke off. The human bone inside revealed the mummy to be more than a mere prop - it was a real human corpse. Examination of the body by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office discovered that it was the arsenic embalmed human remains of Elmer McCurdy, an outlaw who had been killed in 1911 after a botched train robbery. His last words to his captors were "You'll never take me alive!". They obliged him.