Frolic carnival menu includes rides, games, food, screams for all ages

The fun isn't free but the frolic benefits campus community children.\nBloomington's Annual Fun Frolic provides carnival-goers an entertainment spectacle of county-fair food, amusement park games and carnival rides. Paying patrons and gallivanting guests parade throughout the west parking lot of IU's Memorial Stadium among the carnival's flashing lights, stomach-churning rides and merrymaking shrieks of laughter.\n"Our Fun Frolic show has been playing in Bloomington since the mid-1980s. We come here every year because we love it -- all proceeds go to the folks at the IU Campus Child Care and Big Brothers Big Sisters," said Joe Royal, Fun Frolic operations manager for Cumberland Valley, the company that runs the carnival. "I was born into this business. It's just like anything else -- you give back to the profession that loves you. County fairs -- showing cows, meeting friends -- are the mainstay of America, as American as apple pie and Indiana corn." \nRoyal said the Fun Frolic is an "amalgamation" of owner-operators, which subcontract food stands and game booths to vendors. He said the carnival is powered by about 4,500 kilowatts of electricity through more than a mile of cable from six mobile on-site generating plants -- "enough to run a hospital or half the town if need be."\nSimilar to the '80s dance song by "Dead or Alive," the Fun Frolic looked like it was lots of fun and patrons with opened, loving arms were spun right round like a record -- right round, round, round. Fun Frolic rides for most ages include the "Feuerball," "Starship Exodus," "Mega Loop," "Tilt-a-Whirl" and the "Cliffhanger."\nCliffhanger Operator Chris Breytenbach said about 80 percent of the ride operators and game vendors are young people from South Africa. He said a South African employment agency hooked up the workers with the Fun Frolic management company for a six-month tour of the U.S. Midwest, while others found employment at amusement parks like Disneyworld. \n"I came to the U.S. about a month ago, the first country I've been to other than my own anywhere on the planet. I've enjoyed it," Breytenbach said. "I used to run Toontown, but I like running this ride more. Working at the carnival is quite nice. The worst part is tearing the stuff down, getting on a bus to go to the next stop and putting up stuff straight away -- we don't have much time to sightsee." \nFun Frolic festivities include games such as "Skeeball," "Machine Gun Alley," "Crazy Ladder," "Fool the Guesser" and "Feed the Frogs." The loose talk heard around carnival game booths consisted of "we've got a winner," "kids win every time" and "fish until you win."\nBill Stewart, a "Guesser" who gets paid to be fooled, said he has worked at carnivals for about 60 years. Fun Frolic patrons can challenge Stewart to guess their age within two years, birth month within two months or weight within three pounds.\n"To win or lose this game really depends on the person, some people look their age while others don't. Guessing a person's weight is like a farmer guessing the weight of cattle going across a scale -- after a while you just know," Stewart said. "Children have a better chance to win and have fun if they let me guess their birth month, which is always just a guess." \nStewart guessed the weight of one of three Fun Frolic revelers during the interview, implicating one of "going to the bathroom beforehand" because he missed the mark by six pounds.\nSouth African Thereza Viljoen, a "Feed the Frogs" game operator, said the Bloomington residents and guests she has interacted with thus far at the carnival have treated her with kindness and friendliness. Her game consisted of casting a magnet toward a revolving pool of four-eyed fish in the hope of snagging a plastic blow-up baseball bat or other small furry prize.\n"The fun part of my job is watching the kids try to put the magnet in the frog mouths," she said. "The only skill they need is patience -- I help them put it in a mouth if they have trouble doing it. Children win a prize if they catch a frog or not." \nViljoen said the South African employment agency told the Fun Frolic workers to expect very little, but she said from what she's seen America is a beautiful country despite the lack of elephants, lions and baboons roaming the \ncountryside.\nFun Frolic patrons were also offered traditional carnival gut-busting foods like funnel cakes with the added choice of fruit topping, lemon shake-ups, corn dogs, Italian sausages and cotton candy.\nFood vendor Jeffrey Smith, a 13-year veteran of the carnival circuit from Tennessee, said children seem to seek out the cotton candy from his stand from the moment they arrive. He said he sells out of lemonade everyday and the caramel apples with nuts are also popular at his stand.\n"I pour pure granulated sugar into a machine called a tornado, I add food coloring powder and the heat mixes the two together to make cotton candy," Smith said. "Pink/blue cotton candy sells the best but red/blue is also popular -- we used to do purple, green and yellow. At our next stop we are going to introduce blue raspberry candy apples."\nRoyal said the Fun Frolic is headed to Valparaiso, the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville and the National Peanut Festival in Dothan, Ala. among other Midwest stops throughout the summer. He said he hopes Fun Frolic patrons continue to "have a ball" while their carnival is still in town by winning a prize, eating good food and riding the rides because agencies serving Bloomington campus and community children receive the bulk of the fruit from the carnival's labor.\n"In life, all work and no play makes you pretty dull," he said, "so you have to have a few breaks and laughter is the best medicine in the world." \nThe Fun Frolic tomfoolery continues today through June 24. Ride tickets cost $5 for 5, $20 for 25 and $50 for 72. Most rides cost two tickets or more.