VOICES

“When I was a kid living in Hollywood, we used to take a drive every Sunday, and often we’d end up at the Knott’s restaurant. What I recall was the homey-ness of the place, good food and the best biscuits. I didn’t have grandparents here, so going to Knott’s restaurant was a nice substitute for visiting grandparents in the country. There were dirt roads and lots of farms.”

--Animator Chuck Jones, 85, creator of such famous Warner Bros. cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, recalling childhood visits to Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant in the late 1930s

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“I grew up during the era of cowboys and Indians, not Tomorrowland, so [Knott’s] was my fantasy world as a small boy.”

--Orange County Supervisor William G. Steiner, who grew up in Los Angeles and visited Knott’s regularly as a child

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“Knott’s was a regular haunt for us when I was in high school. We’d go there on weekends to watch the girls. We’d eat at the chicken place or the berry stand. One of my favorite places was the mystery house [in Calico Ghost Town], where they had the water that ran uphill. . . . I dated Syril Shaw, whose father started the old MacDonald’s Farm at the park and trained the chicken that played piano for his food. And they had a real stagecoach there that was a lot of fun.”

--Santa Ana attorney Frank Barbaro, a Disneyland Jungle Cruise captain in the 1960s and former O.C. Democratic Party chairman

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“We used to go there when my kids were young, and I remember panning for gold with them, and we’d always buy their jam. It had good, homey characteristics. It’s a real part of Orange County’s history and a place where you could see some of what it was like here before all the people came. . . . I can understand why the family would sell, it takes millions and millions of dollars of investment, but I hope the new owners respect the legacy.”

--Ray Watson, former Irvine Co. vice chairman and a member of the Walt Disney Co. board of directors since 1974

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“When I was in junior high school in Costa Mesa [in 1980], the reward for being good citizen for the semester was a free trip to Knott’s. I won a lot of them and all the winners would go in a school bus. The log ride was the big thing and the goal was to go on it as many times as possible. I remember one trip when we’d ridden it about 30 times and it was almost time to go. We took one last ride and a waterspout malfunctioned and just soaked us all. The bus driver was mad when we all climbed on the bus dripping wet, but we thought it was great.”

--Sylvia Berry, associate marketing director, South Coast Repertory Theater, now presenting “Freedomland,” a play that takes its name from a long-since closed Bronx amusement park

--Compiled by Times staff writer John O’Dell and correspondent Mimi Ko Cruz