Movieland Wax Museum

Movieland Wax Museum

1962

Buena Park, CA

Donated by the City of Buena Park

Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, California, with over 300 wax figures, was the largest wax museum in the United States. It was founded by Allen Parkinson in 1962, sold to Six Flags in 1972, then to Fong & Paul Associates who also owned the Wax Museum in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. The business closed in 2005 while its monumental neon sign remained, too expensive to remove. The landmark Movieland sign was the tallest sign in Orange County and survived until 2018 when the City of Buena Park requested its removal due to lack of maintenance. It took a large crew five days and two cranes to take the sign apart, piece by piece. Once on the ground, measurements were taken of the sign’s once-rotating centerpiece which measured 45 feet by 17 feet and, alone, weighed 15 thousand pounds. It was broken into pieces which were donated to several local museums. MONA was thankful to receive “Museum” from the building’s fascia and some of the gorgeous mid-century diamonds dotted with incandescent bulbs.