Dig in With Graver: Laffin’ with Sal
Kennywood’s Phantom Fall Fest starts this weekend, but, for many Pittsburghers, the giggling gal is the stuff of nightmares.
PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER
I always chuckle when I think about the first time my daughter ran screaming from Laffin’ Sal. It’s one of my favorite Kennywood memories.
Coming face to face with the cackling animatronic is a yinzer fright of passage.
Produced by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, the motorized mannequins have been yukkin’ it up at amusement parks across the country for nearly a century.
Laffin’ Sal’s sole purpose is to spread joy, but her hysterics have inadvertently terrified generations of Pittsburghers.
Perhaps human beings are the butt of some inside joke between an army of cyborg Sals. Let’s hope they don’t become self-aware and terminate us all.
While perusing historian Brian Butko’s Kennywood: Behind the Screams Facebook page (a thrill ride in its own right), I saw plenty of anti-Sal sentiments:
“She freaked me out.”
“Feels like a horror movie.”
“She gave me nightmares.”
“I refused to ride the train because I thought she’d get me.”
Years ago, when she was stationed in front of the Olde Kennywood Railroad, a historic marker next to her enclosure claimed she went into retirement in 1965, “but life began again in her 40s and she has been laughing ever since.”
Now that I’m in my 40s, I can totally relate to the old girl. Sal’s not insane; she’s perimenopausal! If we didn’t laugh at the state of the world, we’d cry.
During a 2018 visit to Kennywood, my daughter and I ducked into the arcade to avoid a downpour.
Unbeknownst to me, Sal had just taken up residence in the noisy building. When I saw her, she was eerily calm. Either she hadn’t been plugged in yet or she was bummed about being ousted from her cozy railroad nook.
Somehow, her silence was more unsettling than her maniacal laughter.
Kennywood’s annual Phantom Fall Fest runs through Nov. 1 with seven haunts, four scare zones and more than 30 rides. Laffin’ Sal will be there, too, perpetually heckling Cowboy Joe from her latest post in front of The Old Mill.
I’m sure he’ll be shaking in his boots.
