SUNDAY STORY

A ride on the bumper cars, a spin on the carousel and a chocolate-covered ice cream bar never seem to get old. Maybe that’s why the Balboa Fun Zone is still fun.

If you ignore the bungee jumping attraction and digital cameras, the fun zone could be from any time period in the last 60 years — kids begging their parents for candy or a ticket for a rides. Moms snapping pictures and waving as their little ones revolve on the carousel or chase each other in the bumper cars.

The old-timey rides and the seaside-holiday atmosphere are what make the fun zone, but part of that equation is about to change.

Three rides — the Drummer Boy, the bumper cars and the Scary Dark Ride — will close forever Sept. 17 to make room for the first phase of the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum, which is moving from its home on a riverboat replica.

Although the carousel will remain for the time being and the Ferris wheel is staying through at least 2030, the general reaction to the changes seems to be one of sadness.

“A lot of people are complaining about it,” said Max Moore, a nine-year veteran of the fun zone who manages the rides with his son, Patrick. “They’re disappointed. I think most people don’t have any real appreciation for what the museum is going to do.”

Nautical museum officials in August rolled out elaborate designs for an $8.5-million facility with a virtual sailing machine and other flashy interactive exhibits. But they’ll have to convince some people that by taking away some rides, they won’t ruin the fun zone’s charm.

“I like this place because it’s intact and it’s defying the trend to turn everything into boutiques and bistros,” said 45-year-old Todd Ramsay, who drove from Laguna Beach recently to ride the rides before their demise.

He took his first-ever trip on the Scary Dark Ride, which he pronounced not scary but “funky.”

“It’s like a low-budget cross between Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and Pirates of the Caribbean,” Ramsay said.

Cure for boredom

The Balboa Fun Zone was opened around 1936, but its modern history began in 1951, when 13-year-old Joe Tunstall got a job there picking up trash, papers and cigarette butts. He paid 10 cents for the bus ride there from Costa Mesa, and he earned about $2 for an afternoon’s work.

He took other jobs, like retrieving the balls thrown at milk bottles in a game and eventually working the arcade. After high school, Tunstall joined the Navy and later ran a bicycle shop.

One day after he was semi-retired — and after he had bought some rides from a Pismo Beach amusement park and taken them to his 30-acre property near Temecula — he got a phone call.

“My mom called me up and said, ‘Guess what? They’re going to redo the fun zone.’ And I thought, ‘That’ll be fun. I’m bored,’ ” he said.

In 1985, Tunstall and his partner Bob Speth agreed to install and operate new rides at the fun zone, including the merry-go-round, the Ferris wheel, Drummer Boy, the bumper cars and the Scary Dark Ride. They’ve stayed, and so has the attraction for Tunstall and many others.

“Same old story,” he said. “It doesn’t change. It just gets to be new people.”

Riding along

But changes are coming soon. The Drummer Boy, where riders spin in snare-drum-shaped cars, may already have induced its last case of dizziness. The ride broke recently and won’t be fixed before it’s time to dismantle it for good, Moore said.

The bumper cars and the Scary Dark Ride are still attracting fun-seekers, including me. Not sure what to expect, I tried the Scary Dark Ride first.

It was built in 1988, which may explain its particular brand of scares. You’ll be quaking — if you find skeletons in pirate hats, a black light, pre-recorded shrieks and an occasional blast of air in the face menacing.

“This is so corny,” whispered my photographer, who rode along with me.

The ride takes about a minute, but it didn’t provoke a reaction anything like the one illustrated on the wall next to the bumper cars: A girl is clutching anxiously at her male companion and her hair is standing on end.

The bumper cars were better. They let you ride them a good long time, and I was inspired with a malicious glee at ramming other drivers.

That’s what people seem to like about the rides, and the fun zone itself: They’re authentic, and they can be fun the first time as well as 20 years later.

“I think it’s more nostalgic than anything else,” said Renee Vas, who was watching her husband, two sons and their grandpa ride the bumper cars.

Vas said the family, which lives in Yorba Linda, came for her husband’s birthday — he grew up in Newport.

Even the glut of ever-more fantastic rides dreamed up by theme parks hasn’t dulled kids’ enjoyment of the fun zone’s simple pleasures of twirling, bumping and winning prizes.

“I have kids ranging from 4 to 13, and they all get completely excited about it,” Gretchen Privett said as her kids played games in the arcade.

At the busiest times, there are long lines of kids waiting to ride, said 20-year-old Tony Duran, who was running the bumper cars one day last week. He’s worked at the fun zone off and on since he was a freshman in high school.

“There’s not a lot of things like that to do around here,” he said. “It’s going to feel weird when they’re not there anymore.”

Where go the customers?

Some of the business owners, who have leases of varying lengths, think the same thing. They’re worried that with some of the rides will go the customers.

Some stores, including the candy and ice cream shop, may not stay. After dipping an ice cream bar in chocolate and rolling it in sprinkles, employee Rey Merino, 16, said shop owners will be waiting to see how business is when the museum comes.

He doesn’t like the changes to the old-fashioned fun zone.

“They’re practically taking a museum down to put up a museum,” he said.

Leap Hem, who was working at the Balboa Gift House, agreed that store owners are concerned about the future. She thinks the nautical museum will attract older people — and fewer kids means less business, she said.

Nautical museum director David Muller plans to win them over. He recently vowed to “keep the fun at the fun zone.”

Moore said he expects the museum to bring new activity and generate fresh interest in the fun zone, and Vas said her family will keep coming back.

To Tunstall, who will continue to operate the Ferris wheel and carousel, change is inevitable, and it isn’t new.

“The evolution of the fun zone has been going on since [the founder] Mr. Anderson put it in there back in 1936,” he said.