Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round

09/06/2026

🎠✨ DID YOU KNOW? The Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round Has a Walt Disney Connection! ✨🎠

Tucked away in the heart of Griffith Park is a beautiful piece of Los Angeles history—the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round, a beloved carousel that has been delighting families for generations.

Built in 1926 by the Spillman Engineering Corporation, the carousel originally operated in San Diego before being moved to Griffith Park in 1937. It features 68 hand-carved, jewel-adorned horses, two chariots, and an impressive Stinson 165 Military Band Organ capable of playing more than 1,500 selections. (Los Angeles Recreation and Parks⁠)

🎠 But here’s where the Disney connection gets REALLY special…

Long before Disneyland opened its gates, Walt Disney would bring his daughters to ride the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round. According to the City of Los Angeles and Disney, watching his daughters enjoy the carousel helped inspire Walt’s vision for a place where children and adults could have fun together—an idea that eventually became Disneyland. (Los Angeles Recreation and Parks⁠)

In fact, Disneyland’s King Arthur Carrousel is a tribute to that inspiration. Walt later purchased an antique carousel and had it transformed so that every horse would gallop, reflecting what he had envisioned while watching the carousel at Griffith Park.

💔 So why has the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round been closed?

The carousel temporarily closed in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened in May 2021. But it closed again in May 2022, this time because it needed significant mechanical repairs—and ownership issues made it difficult to move forward with those repairs. One of the owners, Julio Gosdinski, had died in 2020, leaving his ownership interest tied up in probate.

❤️ There is good news!

In 2025, the City of Los Angeles purchased the historic Merry-Go-Round for $1 million with plans to restore and preserve it. Restoration is being pursued with the goal of bringing this incredible piece of Los Angeles and Disney history back to life. Will it happen? We hope so!!!

Imagine standing here knowing that Walt Disney sat nearby watching his daughters ride—and dreaming about the place that would eventually become Disneyland. 🥹✨

🎠❤️ Have you ever ridden the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round? Would you visit when it reopens?
Share any photos with us if you have them!!!!

09/06/2026

HIPPOPROCTOPHILIA AND THE CAROUSEL OF LOVE.
In Griffith Park in Los Angeles stands a marvelous and functional 1920s-era merry-go-round, near the haunted ruins of the Old Zoo (a place of slithering, gibbering ghosts of the miserable sloths once therein contained). Sadly, a new and sinister evidence of sexual predators of a heretofore nearly unknown variety has been noted: the ripped holes in carousel-horse tail-regions characteristic of a supposedly obsolete disorder diagnosed by Sigmund Freud (a strong supporter of our Institute) which he named Hippoproctophilia, or erotic attachment to the anuses of (in this case artificial) horses. Hippoproctophilia was estimated in 1918 as affecting less than one six-thousandth of 1% of the human population. Its initial outbreak after the Great War was attributed by Freud to the close and special friendships between cavalrymen and horses. Its recurrence today is under intense investigation by an eight-member board at The Institute, whose upcoming article on hippoproctophilia in the Journal of the Institute for the Scientific Study of Human and Non-Human Phenomena is scheduled for a July release. Seven semen samples have been isolated and matches are being sought.

09/06/2026

Then & Now

Griffith Park carousel, 1950. It is one of the few remaining Spillman Engineering carousels left in California. A rare Stinson 165 military band organ fills the air with nostalgic marches, waltzes, and ragtime tunes. Source: Hollywood Historic Photos

The historic Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round is a classic 1926 wooden carousel that famously inspired Walt Disney to dream up Disneyland. Walt Disney sat on a park bench watching his daughters ride this carousel when he first imagined a clean, family-friendly amusement park.

The ride features 68 jumping and stationary wooden horses, complete with original real horsehair tails. It spins at a top speed of approximately 14 miles per hour, making it one of the fastest vintage carousels in the state.

After years of private operation and a temporary closure due to mechanical and probate delays, the City of Los Angeles purchased the historic ride to protect it as a public treasure. Restoration is planned ahead of the 2028 Olympics, though the carousel currently cannot even be moved by hand.

09/06/2026