Pacific Ocean Park!

At the risk of alienating some of my Disney-purist readers, I am going to post some POP stuff for awhile, but I will return to Disneyland before too long.

I first became aware of POP while going through boxes of "junk" in my grandmother's closet. Inside I found lots of travel brochures from my dad's trips to California and Las Vegas in the 50's and 60's. Along with the Disneyland stuff were some brochures from POP. One look, and I was hooked. That seaside design motif...the imaginative and themed rides...the slightly seedy beachside atmosphere. And, I've always been a sucker for well-produced knock-offs. In the world of Disneyland-inspired theme parks, POP was one of history's best.

Although I never visited the park (it was ripped into the sea when I was four-years old), I feel some kind of weird connection to it. Maybe it's the classic and tragic rise-and-fall history of the place. Maybe it's my fascination with urban archeology and forgotten places. All I know is this: I would rather stare at a photo of POP ruins than pretty much any other site on Earth. Including...dare I say...Disneyland.

Here is one of my very favorite pieces of POP memorabilia. I have over 35 different kinds of POP tickets, but this is the only ticket book in my collection, and the only one I've ever seen other than a quick glimpse of some in that old Route 66 episode where a kid is given a handfull of them.

These could not have been in circulation for long and were almost certainly an attempt to recreate the Disneyland experience for the park's early visitors. The only ticket left in the book is for the Sea Circus, but there are many empty spaces where tickets used to be, which is frustrating to say the least; so close and yet so far. And, no, the tickets were not printed by Globe.

Does anyone know of more of these ticket books out there? Has anyone ever seen a complete one?