Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/16/hold-on-to-your-boysenberries-knotts-festival-is-on.html
…
1 Like
I recently learned on “Behind the Bastards” that old man Knott was a big sugar daddy (fructose daddy?) for Orange County’s far-right in the 1960s. It’s one of the tidbits a particularly good two-parter, with a twist ending.
5 Likes
I’m a Citizens For Boysenberry Jam fan.
5 Likes
Yeah, whenever we visited my dad’s relatives in LA County, he’d put his foot down and wouldn’t let us go to Knotts Berry Farm. It was about 10 miles away (closer than Disneyland), but he was adamant about not enriching the Knott family and their John Birch Society ties.
8 Likes
Seems like all the fun amusement parks had founders with icky ties to right wing politics. The Knott family had the John Birch society. Walt Disney was sexist, racist (though not remarkably so for his time) and anti-labor. And one of the “Six Flags” in that park’s name (now a national chain) referred to the Confederate Battle Flag.
7 Likes
But Dolly Parton is still ok, right?
9 Likes
Not quite, but he was the first one to successfully cultivate them commercially. Not surprisingly, the berry is named after its creater, Rudolph Boysen.
2 Likes
2 Likes
Celebrate deez Knott’s!
2 Likes
I happen to be at Knott’s right now, and they’ve got a pretty good museum display and meet-and-greet focused on the Peanuts character Franklin. Probably safe to say that old man Knott would not have approved?
4 Likes
a rather cynical review of the new AppleTV offering for Black History Month. Possibly a tie-in of some sort.
4 Likes
I don’t plan on watching the Apple TV show so it might be as bad as they say, and I understand why many people are so cynical about the character Franklin. Schulz himself was aware of his own limitations in doing justice to such a character and was reluctant to do it until he has received several encouraging letters from black fans, not just that one white teacher.
What was clear in the exhibit, which included videos interviewing a number of different prominent people who were fans of the character, was that the simple fact that the most popular comic strip of the time was now showing a black kid casually playing together with white kids meant a lot to them in the 1960s. Particularly so for the young artist Robb Armstrong, who credited Schulz’ influence and later mentorship for his own successful career as a comic artist and creator of Jumpstart.
6 Likes
I don’t really get the low-key hostility against…a fruit. Sour berries? Has the author even tasted boysenberries? Are people not allowed to like something because it has an unexpected ingredient in it? Weird tone. That said, I plan to attend Knott’s at some point during the festival. It’s fun.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
