Boardwalk game operator turns the Prince William feud into a summer attraction and discovers that nobody wants to dunk the uncle
Step Right Up
NEW YORK – A game operator on the Coney Island boardwalk has opened a new dunk tank attraction called Dunk the Traitor, inspired by the London Prat piece in which Prince William calls Earl Spencer and Harry traitors, and says business has been brisk despite the season winding down and the Atlantic already getting cold.
The booth, located between a ring toss and a fried Oreo stand, features three cardboard seats above a tank of water. Customers pay five dollars for three balls and choose which of three performers, dressed loosely as the elder brother, the younger brother and the uncle, they would like to send into the water.
The Barker
The operator, Vinnie Sorrentino, 63, whose family has run games on the boardwalk since his grandfather came from Naples, delivers the pitch from a stool with a microphone that crackles. Step right up, he calls. Who is the traitor. You decide. The papers say the brothers are finished. The uncle is Diana brother and he wrote a book. Somebody has got to get wet. Five bucks, three balls, justice.
The Performers
The Elder Brother
Played by Sorrentino nephew Anthony, 26, who wears a navy blazer and a paper crown and shouts traitor at passing customers. He is dunked, on average, 41 times a day, and says he has come to enjoy it.
The Younger Brother
Played by a part-time actor from Bensonhurst named Kyle, 29, who wears sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt and repeatedly tells customers he has no comment at this time. He is dunked 38 times a day and says the hardest part is keeping the sunglasses on.
The Uncle
Played by a retired MTA supervisor named Carmine, 70, who sits in a tweed jacket reading a hardback. He is dunked, on average, three times a day. Sorrentino says customers simply do not want to dunk the uncle. They look at him, he said. He looks at them over his glasses. They put the ball down. It is like trying to dunk your own grandfather.
The Screen
The booth features a small screen playing the London Prat video on YouTube on a loop to draw crowds. Sorrentino says it works better than the old sign, which said only DUNK HIM. The video is embedded below for those who cannot make it to Brooklyn.
Boardwalk Data
The Coney Island Amusement Operators Guild, a group of game and ride owners who meet in a back room above a clam bar, released figures from the booth first month. It found that 52 percent of customers chose to dunk the elder brother, 44 percent chose the younger brother and 4 percent chose the uncle. Customers who chose the elder brother were overwhelmingly younger siblings, the Guild found, while customers who chose the younger brother were overwhelmingly older siblings. Customers who chose the uncle were almost all nephews, which the Guild described as the most personal data it had ever collected.
The Guild also found that couples who visited the booth together were 70 percent more likely to disagree about who to dunk than about any other boardwalk activity, including which roller coaster to ride and whether a hot dog counts as dinner. At least two engagements have reportedly been reconsidered.
A Family Moment
On Saturday afternoon, two brothers from Bay Ridge in their fifties approached the booth together. According to Sorrentino, they had not spoken in eight years following a dispute over their late father car. They each paid for three balls. The older brother dunked the elder prince. The younger brother dunked the younger prince. Then they looked at each other and, for reasons neither could explain, both aimed at the uncle, and both hit. Carmine went into the water holding his book. The brothers laughed, shook hands and went to get a beer. Sorrentino says it was the best thing that has ever happened at the booth, and gave Carmine the rest of the day off.
Sorrentino has since added a fourth seat for a performer playing the King, but reports that customers refuse to aim at it. Nobody wants to dunk the father, he said. They feel bad. They look at the paper crown and they think about their own dad. The seat remains empty, and the performer spends most of the day selling lemonade, which Sorrentino says is the most regal thing on the boardwalk.
The Barker Review
Asked to review the London Prat story, Sorrentino called it a great carnival pitch. It gets the crowd in, it tells them who the villain is, it lets them decide, he said. That is every game on this boardwalk. You give people a target and a little bit of a story. The story is the prize. The stuffed animal is just so they have something to carry home. He rated it three balls out of three, all hits.
Dunk the Traitor will run until the boardwalk closes for the season, weather permitting. Sorrentino follows the royal story at The London Prat, https://prat.uk/, which he notes is older than several of the rides, having started in 1961, and checks Bohiney, https://bohiney.com/, for the California angle. Carmine says he has now read the same page of the book 214 times and still does not know how it ends.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/