Carousel Carnival Fairground Lights For Sale , Plastic Fantatsic

Plastics fantastic: These retro lights are at RetroChalet

Let's Go to the Carnival! 

We don't often think of the little things that plastics do for us.  Mostly we just hear of the bad, such as pollution or problems to the environment.  However, whether we like it or not, plastics are part of our daily lives, and history.  In this case, I'd like to think that carnival and carousel lights make children smile. I can hardly forget as a kid in the 1970's going to the local carnival, which for me was only a short walk away at the local Fullerton Elementary School.  If I was extra good in my studies, I was able to go to a bunch of them around the area, since one happens usually, right after the other. 

Those were the days, when you were a pre-Covidpandemic kid, that's all you wanted to do!   Ride on rides, play games, and get prizes.  You might have wanted to go for some cotton candy or carnival pizza or candy apples.  Maybe you just wanted to go to see if that cute boy or pretty girl in your class was there and try to impress them.  It was young fun back then, and the game prizes in the 70's were well made.  Some of them included a ROCK N ROLL glass mirror with a rock band on it, a long-elongated Coca-Cola bottle that you could fill with sand, or even metal jewelry.  Back then, the world was different. 

Decommissioned 1972 Carnival Trailer Up in Lights! Pic: RetroChalet

Even today, we associate carnivals with loud noises of rides and games, and bright blinking lights like these and smiles on people's faces. It's a great place to take the kids and have some fun. Maybe your husband or wife loves the Ferris wheel.  You'll still see these lights on the concession trailers, like the pizza or funnel cakes, on the rides, carousels, games and sometimes even advertising signs. What would a carnival be without lights?  Maybe just not the same. 

Minimum of 5 pieces of plastic make the Carnival Lights (Pic: RetroChalet)  in some models 6!

In case you were wondering, how they were made, most were 5-6 pieces just to form the unit.  It started with the light housing being 2 pieces - a screw top plastic cap and housing. These would be in bright colors but of course, see through.  Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Purple, you name it.   Then, the actual lighting components which fit up, protected by a gasket and screw up inside.  So the colored housing unit had threads on it as well. Very nice design.  

The light housing area were made of a serious of plastic components which consisted of the housing for the bulb, a rubber gasket which fit over that housing and held it inside and protected from rain when inserting into the brightly colored base and an end cap which protected the base.  

So you have 5 pieces and in some of the lights they had another plastic ring which would be 6 pieces.  Most lights took minimum of 5 pieces of plastic (and a glass bulb) to make the light shine ! That's a lot of plastic.  

What's your favorite Carnival memory?  Tell me below.  The TE-40 compatible lights are for sale at RetroChalet Etsy shop.