Kennywood is bringing back the whale and the pink squishy tongue! The tongue is back! Woohoo!
What are you looking at me like that for?
Sigh... OK, yeah, I suppose that might sound a bit weird. You really need some context if you didn't grow up in Pittsburgh before the 90's:
Not to bore you with the complete history, but a long long time ago, a guy named Noah built an ark.
Fast forward to 1936, when Noah’s Ark was erected in Kennywood. The ride was completed a bit late because on St. Patrick’s Day in 1936, Pittsburgh flooded up to its brim.
A flood … delayed … the completion … of Noah’s Ark.
Fast forward to the late 1960s, when Kennywood renovated the attraction to keep things fresh — which called for “a structure resembling the head … of a huge whale.” A blue whale became the entrance to the ark, swallowing yinzer Jonahs whole. And the whale’s tongue became your favorite thing about it...
So Kennywood said, “People sure love that whale and its squishy tongue. TOO BAD!” They took out the whale and cut out his squishy tongue and replaced it with an elevator.
See, yinz guys have got to understand. Some of our most recognizable non-sport celebrities in the past decades have been (and still are) the city coroner, a woman who appeared in local grocery store commercials, a late-night horror movie host, PBS children's show actors, a personal injury lawyer, and a local weatherman.
Min your, I'm not talking about folks who would say "Oh, look, hon, it's so-and-so!" if they saw these people walking down the street. I'm talking "people stopping them for an autographed body part" level of fandom. Heck, I met the freaking SHOP N' SAVE LADY once! The lovely Mrs. Robb and I went out of our way to attend an event where we would get to meet her!
WE'RE WEIRD, OK?
The squishy tongue thing is, to us, totally important.
Later this year, there will be freaking incipient brawls over HillBern vs. DonCruz, or whatever happens politically speaking. Wise 'burghers will break it up by saying, "Hey, did yinz two hear about the Noah's Ark bein' fixed n'at? They put the tongue back!" At which point two men willing to defenestrate each other over political differences will fall into each other's arms, weeping in open joy and reminiscing about summer days spent at Kennywood park.
Of course, then they'll get into a knock-down, drag-out fight that makes the evening news because one jagoff insists that the Racer is the best roller coaster at Kennywood, when yinz guys all know that it's the Jackrabbit, right?
Like I said - we're weird :-)
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