Funhouse

Originally starting in Coney Island in the early 1900s, the funhouse was initially a house or large building containing a number of amusement devices[1] (e.g. motorized versions of what can be found on a children's playground).

Some fun houses brought new arrivals through a short series of dark corridors or a mirror maze or door maze (many identical doors forming squares, only one of which opened in each square), often leading onto a small stage where they had to negotiate a series of rocking floors, air jets and other obstacles, while people already inside the funhouse could watch and laugh at them.

This type of fun house resembled a miniature version of Steeplechase Park at Coney Island, whose 'Pavilion of Fun'—a building resembling a huge airplane hangar—included, in addition to rides, a gigantic slide, a spinning disk probably 50 feet (15 m) across, and a lighted stage called the "Insanitarium" where patrons emerging from the Steeplechase ride were harassed by a clown carrying an electric wand, while women in skirts were at the mercy of air-jet bursts.

It was labor-intensive, needing an attendant at almost every device, and when people spent two hours in the fun house, they were not out on the midway buying tickets to other rides and attractions.

These preserved some of the traditional fun house features, including various kinds of moving floors, sometimes a revolving barrel, and a small slide.

Such fun houses are ubiquitous in Europe, but the falling value of the U.S. dollar and the high cost of fuel to transport multiple trailers over the long distances carnivals travel in the United States has made them expensive to buy and operate.