Thanks for sharing these home movies! I was eight years old in 1970, and I remember making several trips to the Japanese Deer Park in my pre-teen years. I had forgotten all about the aviary with the doves until I saw your video. I still live in Orange County and wish there were still places like this here.
I lived in Whittier and my parents use to take me to the Japanese Deer Park ! Also there was the free side of Knott's berry farm with Philadelphia square and I also remember the Gator Farm across the street. Great magical times for me ~
I could not agree more with the previous poster who said this could easily have been their own home movie...Thank you for an intimate afternoon with your family, likely all around the same age as mine, who visited the park during that same era. A google of Movieland Wax Museum (next door at the time) brought me here. Two lasting memories... (for those who will bear with me). As an 8 year old boy I was traumatized in the restaurant..the waitress was wearing Japanese socks but I was convinced she only had two toes and was hiding a hoof. Also remember the deer chewing on my shirt.... Places like this can't last forever, but it was a monument to it's extreme kid/family-friendly theme park era. Thanks again SO MUCH.
Thank you so much for posting! Visited from Hawaii when I was 10. Loved it, but no one remembers it to talk w/ about anymore. We only took a few pictures to remember it so this video is great.
Somehow I ended up here in probably 1971 ... on a 4th grade field trip from Oxnard California... Most of my memory of it is a haze other than a Green field with some deer laying down and resting... Like a dream... Our teacher was really into it... I remember that
I went there in 1974 or 1975. It was great. The deer petting zoo, chocolate dipped frozen bananas, Oto Moto Flip Flop Izzy Motto. The hand made candy deer. I had the pennant for years and the memories for ever.
For two or three years I visited "Japanese Village and Deer Park" with a day camp during the summer. I vividly remember being thirsty and hot as hell, seeing gorgeous koi fish swimming around in ponds, and lots of people playing noisy pachinko machines (that subsequently may have been sold for a low price at The Akron).
I came here with my cousin as a kid he had just came back from Vietnam from the Army he took my cousin, younger brother and me here I loved it he drank a lot of beer and got a date with one of the Japanese girls she said she though he was Japanese too but he told her I am full blooded Mescalero Apache I remember him bringing her to a family B.Q.
I remember going there when I was about 6 or 7 years old with my mom and dad and two sisters, which would have been 1970 or 71, and I remember eating a box of sunmaid raisins in the deer enclosure and one of the deer came up to me and ate my empty raisin box. Good memories and feeling kind of sentimental. Nice video clip.
This park was featured in a 1974 episode of the NBC Saturday TV Series "RUN JOE RUN".Episode-"Six Seals,Two Whales and a Dog".This episode can be viewed here on RU-vid.[The video quality is very bad but you can make out most of the episode.]
The log ride was called the "Ya-hoo Flume Ride." It wasn't as good as the "Log Jammer" at Knotts Berry Farm which, I believe, was the first log ride in Southern California. I remember visiting Busch Gardens in Van Nuys before the amusement park was added... there was a beautiful (free) boat cruise with beautiful birds flying around, and free beer samples, and a (free) tram - high off the ground, from what I recall - that glided visitors throughout the beer factory.
Six Flags bought this place, closed it down & proceeded to euthanize over 200 faultless innocent deer before the public outcry ended the murdering. For this reason my family never went to ANY Six Flags parks after that. FT!
Does anybody know exactly where this place was? I went there as a kid but don't remember what streets it was on. I think they later changed the name to Enchanted Village too.
Near the corner of Knott and Artesia right next to the 5 fwy. Now it’s a business park but thereya little street there named Village Drive (because it was actually called Japanese Village).
The one and only time I went there with the Brownie's and a get head butted in the stomach by a deer. When you are skinny and little that kind of makes you not want to go back, so I never did.
This is awesome and I did not know about this park,,,,,really sad to see these small parks like this one, Frontier Villiage, Santa Villiage in Scotts Valley, and especially Marine World Africa USA where the folks that ran it really cared about entertaining other human beings with guess what? Human Beings!! I think Market Capitalism is great system but it continually cuts human beings down for the sake of profit. If you dont have human beings or want to pay them then how do you expect profits in the future without human beings in the labor market?
We went and saw this, my family and l, in 1970. To put it plainly, we were very disappointed. It was a park with no theme, no shade, and kinda dirty. Plus, the animals were not that well cared for. All in all, a big bust.
My mom would take me here in 1972 when I was 2. Back then there were tons of Daily Farms, strawberries, etc in Orange County. It's so disgusting now- full of illegal Mexicans, concrete and smog
