What were they thinking? ...not my kids! no way!

Source: OC Register

Alligator rides for the kids!

by Tom Berg, Staff Writer

Honey, what should we do with the kids today?

I don’t know, how about letting them ride LIVE ALLIGATORS?

Ok, but make sure they dress appropriately.

Next time you think skateboarding is dangerous, check out these pictures of the Good Old Days.

Alligator riding gained popularity in these parts in 1907 when ”Alligator Joe” Campbell packed his reptilian belongings in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and headed West.

Twenty-five cents bought you admission to the Los Angeles Alligator Farm’s 20 ponds featuring gators from a few inches to 13 feet long. It eventually moved to Buena Park and featured more than 1,000 alligators, crocodiles, gharials and caimans.

The park’s reigning celebrity, however was Billy – possibly the most popular alligator of all time. He starred in the movies ”Trader Horn” (1931); “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man,” (1939); “Dr. Cyclops” (1940); ”Land of the Pharaohs” (1955); and several Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller

“Johnny Weissmuller personally wrestled him rather than a double,” says former farm owner Ken Earnest, 70, of Rapid Ctiy, South Dakota. “Billy was a very tame animal.” (That’s Ken riding on Billy in the picture below.)

Billy died in 1975 and the Alligator Farm closed a few years later. But Earnest, a third-generation alligator man whose father and grandfather both ran the farm before him, still works with gators at Black Hills Reptile Gardens in South Dakota.

Want to know the worst bite he ever had? The one that almost killed him? The answer, and more photos, are here.

And if you want to see small children petting a live alligator in 1941, check out this old home movie: