Entertainment

Step right up

CONEY ISLAND has come to Union Square — minus the Cyclone, but with cocktail waitresses in a dunk tank, bottle service at the dance floor and, best of all, a covered roof for year-round carousing.

Welcome to Carnival, so far the most amusing 21st-century fun zone to open in the Big Apple. By day, it’s a playground for kids of all ages. After the sun sets, it morphs into a new nightclub as unique as The Box was when it opened in early 2007.

“One afternoon, you’ll have a bar mitzvah going on, and then that same night Carnival will transform into an adult fantasy land,” says Tom Shannon, the CEO of Strike Holdings.

Strike owns Bowlmor Lanes on University Place, one of the oldest (since 1938) and highest-grossing bowling alleys in the nation. The’ve opened Carnival upstairs on the roof, under a massive pressurized dome that used to house tennis courts. Coney Island-style games like the pingpong toss and dunk tank are lined up against one wall. There’s even a towering “test your strength” game for the gents to impress their dates with the swing of a hammer.

Prizes include the familiar fare of children’s toys and stuffed animals. At night, those adorable plush creatures are swapped out for toys of a different kind — think mini-vibrators.

Pingpong tossing pros can still win that goldfish at night, but party people too preoccupied to worry about carrying the poor creature home can get a coupon instead, good for one fish at Petco.

Across from the games and through the mouth of a smiling clown is a dance floor, ringed by VIP tables and a deejay booth. A full bar includes carni-themed cocktails like a Blue Cotton Candy martini and the club’s signature Dunk Tank. More a death wish than a libation, the Dunk Tank is a $70, 220-ounce fishbowl of booze and juice, meant to be shared (we hope!).

With a crowd loaded on Dunk Tanks, waitresses splashing around in an actual dunk tank, clowns and jugglers spinning across the massive room and confetti flying through the air, the debauchery stands to be epic.

This is the kind of place that could easily turn psychedelic without the need to actually ingest illegal substances.

“It’s the nostalgia of Coney Island meeting the style and sophistication of Manhattan,” says Shannon.

“There is no staff here. Everyone who works here is a performer.”

Sure enough, the bartenders do mixing tricks and the corn dog vendor tells jokes.

Even Carnival’s entertainment director, Dan Berkley, plans to spend his nights personally juggling and clowning. There’s also no telling what stripe of entertaining freak he will bring on in the future. This is one show where the casting call never closes.

Carnival is planning a soft opening this weekend, and a private grand opening next week hosted by one of the biggest clowns in town — Paris Hilton. Next Saturday, Real Housewife Alex McCord inaugurates Carnival Kids Day in a benefit for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Details about Carnival, and an application to join the merrymaking staff, is at carnivalnyc.com.

jsilverman@nypost.com