Psycho Circus … er, Carnival

As you might know if you’ve been following along, Lindsey, Lindsay, and I made the trip to Liege this weekend.

Somehow, we got much more and much less than we bargained for.

The “much more” came in the form of the creepiest, longest, most crowded and inescapable carnival that any of us had ever seen—Liege’s “October Fair,” which for some unfathomable reason occurs in November.

Below is one of my favorite sights from the evening—a faux-Wendy’s burger trailer.  How do you say classic double with cheese in French?

Follow along after the jump for a photo tour of the rest of the weirdness.

The rest of the carnival shared the same wannabe-American theme–with random names of cities on the tops of attractions and improperly used English words and idioms plastered across everything from waffle stands to 40 foot tall rides.  This next little diddy proved to me that the operators of this carnival didn’t quite understand how Americans (and more specifically, American marketing campaigns) use the letter X.  You know, when your favorite beverage somehow becomes X-TREME cause they add more sugar or caffeine to it?

Well, here’s what happens when you take a complete misunderstanding of that principle and add to it a lack of knowledge of American social mores and vices.

That’s right, you end up with a ride that looks like it’s trying to sell porn on a highway in Missouri.

I wonder what the conversation that brought this about was like:

“Should we call it Booster Max?”
“Nah, not X-treme enough.”
“So an extra X, then?”
“Better make it two.  So X-treme.”
“Good call.  Triple X-treme.”

I wonder what everyone is looking at in that booth under the sign.

There also seemed to be a general lack of understanding of both American geography and history, as is evidenced by this booth.

I hadn’t been aware that Chicago was ever a part of the Confederacy.  Oh well, blame it on that American education system.

And what might a trailer with the word “CHICAGO” plastered across its face sell?  Hotdogs maybe?  Nope.  Something involving the throwing of baseballs at milk bottles?  Wrong again.
Better make it a game in which the object is to push a camel along a racetrack by shooting water through a hoop.

Our last bit of carnival culture was perhaps the most disturbing.  I kid you not, this haunted house was, even on the outside, one of the scarier things I’ve ever seen.  It put horror movies to shame.  Cause while horror movies often depict over-the-top gore and violence using CG effects, specialized makeup, and like-real monster costumes, this haunted house ride depicted them using 10 foot tall robots.  Let me tell you, a herking, jerking, dilapidated were-bat robot ripping the head off of an animatronic mad scientist is far more disturbing than it could ever be in CG.

No, really, that was a thing they used to entice you to come into the haunted house ride (in addition to death metal and a 15 foot tall robo-king kong).  I invite you all now to share in my horror.

So that’s how we got much more than we had bargained for in Liege.  The “much less” I referred to at the beginning of the post?  That would be pretty much the rest of Liege, which is apparently closed for construction.