Children's Fairyland is a storybook theme park located in Oakland, CA, USA. It was founded in 1950 when Arthur Navlet, an Oakland businessman, brought his idea for a storybook theme park for small children to the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club, a group still in operation today who is dedicated to civic betterment. Then-Oakland superintendent William Penn Mott Jr. worked with the Breakfast Club, Arthur, and the citizens of Oakland to raise $50,000 USD to build it on the shores of Lake Merritt. Since then, it has achieved nonprofit status, and also holds the honor of being one of the parks that inspired Walt Disney when he traveled around the world in the 1950s in preparation for building Ride/Disneyland. For seventy years and some change, it has held fast to its mission to be a magical fantasy world where children can create, imagine, play, and learn. More information about the park can be found at http://www.fairyland.org/
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Children's Fairyland provides examples of:
- Alliterative Title: Pixie and Pepper (Fairyland's mini-horses), Willie the Whale, and Fairy Music Farm.
- Christmas Special: Fairy Winterland, a yearly Christmas tradiiton. Replete with Christmas lights, free hot cocoa for guests, and Black Santa!
- Fairy Tale Free-for-All: Lots of examples exist throughout the park: Anansi the Spider-Man is not too far away from Owl and the Pussycat and Peter Rabbit, Snow White and Crooked Man are roommates living next to Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland is right behind the Little Red Hen.
- Public Domain Character: Almost all the characters in the park are this, by virtue of it being storybook themed. The Three Little Pigs, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Johnny Appleseed... the list goes on.
- Rhyming Names: The Jolly Trolly.
- You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Most of Fairyland's rides and attractions are meant for everyone, but OSHA (Organization for Safety and Health Administration) has set down certain safety restrictions on the small rides. For example, the Ferris wheel, more commonly referred to as Anansi's Magic Web, is unsafe for babies who don't have the capability to sit up by themselves yet, as it's a kids-only ride with no grownups allowed. The Wonder-Go-Round requires children to be at least 36 inches tall before they can ride unaccompanied; smaller children need an adult to hold them on the animals. The most straightforward example of this trope is the Flecto Carousel, which is designated as kids-only and due to safety requirements, riders must be at least 38 inches tall, no exceptions. Interesting subversion, as it's more a case of "you must be this short to ride"; many of their small rides are not built for adults or even larger children and you must be under a certain height to ride them.
