3 classic carnival games (and their fascinating backstories)

Have you ever wondered how classic carnival games started? Join us as we trace the history of 3 favourites.

It's so easy to set up and play that we can imagine prehistoric humans playing something similar. Perhaps they used a sturdy branch and a few looped reeds to while away the hours between hunts. Who knows? We're guessing here.

This we do know for sure: a game resembling hoopla existed – or was at least imagined – in Ancient Greece.

According to Greek legend, the god Apollo was playing a version of hoopla with his companion, Hyacinthus, when a freak gust of wind blew the hoop off course. The out-of-control hoop hit Hyacinthus in the head and dispatched him in one blow. Ouch.

In the intervening centuries, our English ancestors played a kind of "poor man's hoopla" using discarded horseshoes. This version of the game – known as "horseshoe pitching" – is still played today.

In the old days, however, the game didn't have a stellar reputation. One expert account mentioned "numerous attempts to eradicate it from the pubs of England due to its apparently seedy character".

This had all changed by the 19th century. By then, the sport had become a popular garden game known as quoits – with a full set of rules finally seeing publication in 1881.

At some point, travelling fairgrounds adopted quoits as a prize game – and the rest, as they say, is history.

2. The coconut shy

If you were asked to picture a classic carnival, there's a good chance your mind's eye would conjure up the image of a coconut shy. For some, it is the quintessential carnival game.

In case you've been living under a coconut tree, the game goes like this. There are coconuts lined up on stands. You stand a short distance away and must dislodge a coconut with well-aimed balls or beanbags.

We don't know exactly when the game was first played. However, it probably has its roots in the once-popular English fairground game Aunt Sally, which dates back to the 17th century.

Aunt Sally was more or less a coconut-free version of the coconut shy. Instead of aiming for tough foodstuffs, revellers would throw objects at a wooden doll on a perch. This doll was the namesake Sally.

At some point in the 19th century, Sally was spared and coconuts started being used instead. References to this form of the game appear in H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man (1897) and E. Nesbit's The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899).

By the early 1900s, the coconut shy was well-established, earning itself an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1903.

Nowadays, if you knock off a coconut you'll probably win something soft and cuddly. But back in the 1800s, the coconut was the prize.

This is because the nut was seen as a prized exotic fruit. It would be a bit like if we competed to win jars of caviar or wheels of rare cheese.

And in case you're wondering, the "shy" in "coconut shy" is a verb. It means, "to throw". Makes sense, doesn't it?

3. The buzz-wire game

Even if you haven't played this one at a carnival, you probably know it from the many home versions that were sold from the 1950s onwards.

It's a simple but ingenious concept. The player has to guide a metal hoop across a twisting wire course. If the hoop and the wire make contact, a circuit is created and – bzzzz – you lose.

Unlike our other historical amusements, we can trace the origin of the buzz-wire game to a single moment in time.

It all started in Yorkshire in 1953.

John Waddington was already famous for his inventive board games, including Cluedo and the UK version of Monopoly. But when he needed a game for his upcoming garden party, he turned to his friend and fellow tinkerer Bob Scrimshaw.

Scrimshaw was a highly skilled electronic engineer, who honed his craft repairing planes during World War II. It was he who realised that a basic electronic circuit could become a tense game of skill, reflexes and concentration.

When the game debuted at Waddington's party, the guests couldn't put it down. It was a hit.

Recognising its commercial potential, Waddington soon patented the game and began selling it as a children's electronic toy. Before long, it also started appearing at fairgrounds, theme parks and science fairs around the world.

Bonus fact: the world's oldest goldfish

Some of our readers might remember winning real fish as carnival prizes.

That's right. If you triumphed at a game of skill, you'd often be given a little bag full of water – with one lonely fish bobbing inside.

The practice is quite rare in modern times. If you hook a duck or bonk a coconut nowadays, you're more likely to win a cuddly toy or a sweet treat.

Times have changed. But one lucky goldfish lived long enough to see many era-defining developments, including the first moon landing and the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall. (Though we're not sure what his little fishy brain made of it all.)

Tish the fish was 43 when he finally swam to the great fishbowl in the sky in 1999.

And – get this – he was won as a prize at a funfair in Doncaster way back in 1956. Talk about turning your life around. Go Tish!

Would you like to test your skills with some classic carnival games? Here at Southport Pleasureland, we've got hook-a-duck, a shooting gallery and many more – as well as dozens of rides and four exciting themed zones.

You'll find our theme park in the northwest of England, close to Liverpool and Blackpool. Up for an amazing day out? It's quick and easy to book tickets online.