This weekend, my friend Chris Nichols threw his annual costume bash — past years’ parties have been full of pirates, or hobos, but this year the theme was the Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the early ’70s with teens solving spooky mysteries when they’re not playing in groovy bands — Scooby Doo, Josie & the Pussycats, Captain Caveman, etc. The image above comes from an episode of Scooby Doo titled “A Tiki Scare is No Fair,” tikigap recently posted some keen screenshots of the episode. While this weekend’s event wasn’t tiki themed, it took place in Balboa (in Newport Beach), and there were a few tiki surprises lurking in the shadows.

Hanford and I had a great time getting dressed up as early-’70s teens (well, what Hanna-Barbera wanted little kids to think good teens were, at least). Hanford busted out his old glasses, and I went to work on the ol’ sewing machine. My normal dress isn’t really all that far off from a cartoon character as it is, so it took a little effort to make sure I didn’t just look like I was headed out to any old party. There were some really far out costumes once we got there – lots of wigs, lots of neck scarves, lots of bright color, and a heavy use of aloha wear.

Party guests had received dossiers with the lowdown on some scary happenings at the Balboa Fun Zone, an old amusement park in Balboa. A sea monster had been terrorizing the place, and it was up to us to make it stop. We met at the Balboa Saloon, and it was a little rough for the first folks who arrived — the locals didn’t quite know what to think. The Balboa Saloon has a couple touches of Hawaii, including a King Kamehameha point-of-interest marker, and a bamboo hut at the back complete with tapa cloth-covered tabletop. Seated at the hut was the first of several suspicious characters of the evening, a crusty old sea dog named Sharkee Waters. We then made our way nextdoor to the amusement park, where there were other suspicious characters — a grumpy janitor, a shady magician, there were even ghosts! (who turned out to be our friends Mary-Margaret & Cary Stratton). We went on a scary dark ride, the ferris wheel, and had a great time. (Hanford has a really cool video he took while we were on the ferris wheel, hopefully he’ll post it soon.)

There’s a ferry landing to go to Balboa Island from the amusement partk, and there was an interesting tiki-themed boat available for rental that was docked right next to the landing. We got a pretty good look at it as we boarded the ferry for a quick jaunt across the water as part of our crazy chase scene for the evening — it didn’t look as promising close-up. Here’s a view of how lovely the amusement park looks from the water at night:

At the end of our chase, we were getting closer to tracking down the sea monster — our host, Chris, organized us in one final effort to corner him. We all gathered in the bar of the Balboa Pavilion, right next to the Fun Zone, and he fell right into our trap. We had him now, and he was about to be revealed. Who could he be? Sharkee Waters? Nope, he was there in the room with us. The janitor? Nope, he was there, too. The magician? No, again. The ghosts? Nope, nope, nope. Who could it possibly be? WHO COULD IT BE????

The exciting conclusion comes after these periods…
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Yes, to the complete shock of everybody in the room, the sea monster was Barry Williams! It was fantastic — he muttered “And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”, and then said a few kind words about our wonderful host, and launched into a complete how-to on how to dance like a Brady, with the DJ blaring “Sunshine Day” and the rest of the room singing along.

Barry Williams was very gracious, and was all smiles and cheer as we took turns having our picture taken with him. It was a wack-nutty end to a wack-nutty party, a stupendous time overall. Many thanks (and Happy Birthday!) to our friend Chris for making it all happen, and including us!

• Scooby Doo – Tiki Scare is No Fair [Tiki Central]
• Chris’ Cartoon Caper [Humuhumu’s Life in Photos]