Behind The Scenes Of Frontier Village: The Day I Got Shot!

The History:

Frontier Village Amusement Park operated from 1961 to 1980 in San Jose, California. Joseph Zukin, Jr. and his partners created the western themed park after an inspiring visit to Disneyland. 4 of my 15 seasons at FV, I was a part time gunfighter and stunt man. Beginning in 1972 until the park closed, the Entertainment Department was under my supervision. The Fall Guys Stuntmen and Gunfighters got their start at FV, and continue performing live shows to this very day. Twenty years after Frontier Village closed, Elliott Fong and Kim Pedersen, guests and fans of FV, visited the old site and created a memory website (www.frontiervillage.net). The popularity of the website grew, and eventually received 100,000 hits per month. That popularity prompted the establishment of a reunion picnic on the property of the former park. The event is held the last Saturday of every June. Many of the original Fall Guys perform live gunfights at the annual FV Reunion Picnic. We reminisce about events that occurred during our years at FV. One of our favorite tales is featured here.

The Day I Got Shot!

We called it the Gunk Gun! Other entertainers had another name for it,

the Rocket Gun. Mostly we called it the Gunk Gun. It was the first Frontier

Village-bought gun. It was purchased for Clyde Adamson when he first became the Marshal. After Clyde procured his own twin Single Action Army Colt .45s, the Gunk Gun became the spare deputy or outlaw gun. By 1967, Curt Daniels and I were actively scheduled to cover the days off for Marshal Clyde and Bill Kelsey, the FV outlaw. I would play the Deputy Marshal and Curt was the outlaw. The park did not have a bundle of excess cash to spend on weapons for relief gunfighters, so we used what was available in the gunroom. Clyde and Bill did not leave their personal weapons for us to use on their days off. That was a wise decision, for sure. The Gunk Gun was an 1893, five and a half inch barrel, black powder model Single Action Army Colt that, at one time, was chrome plated. By the time that we Relief Gunfighters stumbled upon it, the chrome was already flaking off its finish. This weapon was not a Colt that was finely tuned by a professional gunsmith. We used whatever spare parts we could muster to keep it in working order. It was not uncommon to use a thick paper clip to replace a broken sear and bolt spring, as needed. Some called it the Rocket Gun, because inside the walls of the cylinder there were some rust related pinholes, which caused the powder from one fired round/blank to flash over into one, many, or all of the cylinders at once; hence, flame coming out of all cylinders and the barrel all at once – The Rocket Gun! The only weapons available for use during the relief gunfights were: one old, not too dependable, Winchester Rifle that could only chamber and fire one round, and not eject the fired casing, one semi-dependable double-barreled rabbit ears shotgun, and the Gunk Gun. The shotgun or the Winchester rifle were usually assigned to the Deputy Marshal for his use. That left the Gunk gun for the outlaw to use. To prevent a premature flashover, the rocket gun effect, the blanks used in the Gunk Gun would be filled with a full load of black powder, then a cardboard wad was placed atop the powder, and then the ends of the blanks were capped off with melted wax. Curt always liked to add extra wax, "just to make sure..." In most cases it worked well enough, so one round could be fired at a time, without the rocket effect, and allow the gunfight to proceed as choreographed. On the day in question, Curt and I faced off in the High Noon show in front of the Marshal's Office, which required the outlaw to stand in front of the Marshal´s Office and call out the lawman to a fight. After some tense dialog the outlaw would act as if he was walking away and leaving town, but at the last moment, he would turn and fire at the lawman. The good guy would shoot the outlaw, then in a comic relief role; an Undertaker would appear from the crowd with a flat wheelbarrow and wisk the bad guy away. On this gunfight day, the shotgun was not available, as it was off-site at a local gunsmith for repairs on its wooden stock. So, I had the one shot Winchester rifle. Curt had the glamorous Gunk Gun. Toward the end of the gunfight script, Curt said the famous line, "I'll be back." He started to walk away, he took his three steps, and then he turned and fired before I blew him away with my one-shot Winchester. As Curt was going down, he fired three well-placed blanks at my chest. We always tried to avoid aiming at the other guy´s face; we did not want to blind our fellow actor. Even with blanks, debris could still come out of the barrel and cause injury; some blank primers sometimes had the anvil come loose from inside the primer and the blanks´ exploding force would spit this little metal projectile from the end of the gun. In my thinking, Curt was always the fastest among us gunfighters, in thumb-firing a Colt, without fanning. He had the habit of falling off to his right side and firing multiple shots under his raised left arm, which created a pretty fancy shooting effect. I plugged Curt with the Winchester and he went down on the one shot, not easy to do, as any decent outlaw will tell you. With only one shot fired at you, you cannot get any "acting" momentum falling backward, as much as you can when multiple rounds are fired at you. As I fired the wonderful one-shot Winchester, I felt a slight burning in my chest and belly area. Unknown to me at the time, Curt´s custom-thick wax wads did not melt when the blanks were fired, as normally expected. Those wax wads became soft bullets hitting my torso. We finished the gunfight, performed our short comic undertaker act so the kids would know the outlaw was not "really" dead, and the Undertaker hauled Curt away. As I start to head for the gunroom, a kid came up to me and said, "Marshal, you're smoking!" I looked down at my vest and shirt. There were three black holes in my clothing, diagonally across my chest and belly. The top hole in the vest was smoldering. Back at the gunroom, Curt and I inspected his handiwork. I was disappointed because my previously favorite vest and white Marshal shirt were now unfit for gunfighter duty. Following Curt's (as we look back on it) spectacular gun handling display, I had to go on the search for new costuming to use on my relief gunfighter days. After undressing, I observed three very red welts on my chest and stomach, which took about a month to subside, all due to those hot wax wads that Curt had created to make sure the Gunk Gun did not flash over when fired. After awhile, some of the gunfighters bought their own guns and the Gunk Gun became the Official Deputy Marshal gun. FV finally found the cash to buy a replacement cylinder that fit well in the Gunk Gun, had no holes in the cylinder walls, and fired consistently. By the mid-1970´s, FV owned four Single Action Colts that the gunfighters could use. Around that time, FV had converted to plastic preloaded Hollywood blanks. The park purchased 15,000 Hollywood blanks annually for gunfighters to use to blaze away and perform their shootouts. What became of the Gunk gun? The Weitzel family purchased the gun collection when FV closed and the Gunk Gun was retired. It is scheduled for a cowboy gun makeover, never to entertain again.

As you know in the art of story telling, it is always best to verify as many facts as you can. To close out this tale, I am including Curt´s review of this event. From Curt Daniels: "May 21, 2009. Hi Allen. This looks good to me. I must admit that I have not had a thought about this event in years. I can't recall it any differently. But, it's nice to remember that I was a pretty good shot in those days. - Curt"