montezooma

^ WOW! that is one of the coolest websites I have been to. I have spent most of the day looking at all the great pictures and reading a bunch of interesting facts I never knew about. If you have a day to devote I highly recommend getting lost in this great website. Some very cool early stuff on Magic Mountain!

Yes, the articles come from Disney News. If you are a Disney fan there is some great stuff in those old mags.

Going back to the Killer Coaster article, here is a little more that I found on the Lightnin Loops accident.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad With the excitement of rides like Colossus, Gemini, Lock Ness Monster & the Beast opening, the announcement of Big Thunder Mountain, in my mind, was no big deal. I mean, come on... theme parks were opening these massive rides and Disney comes up with a mine train. I had ridden mine trains at Cedar Point and Magic Mountain and they were nothing to get excited about. Now remember at the time I really had no idea what a "themed" mine train was. Basically the element of theme really didn't extend beyond the station of a ride. Disney did offer up Space Mountain, but at the time Loops were the big thing and basically all Space Mountain really was was a Wild Cat or Galaxy in the dark. I basically overlooked Big Thunder Mountain, nothing really to get excited about. Boy was I wrong. I remember when I did finally get around to going to Disneyland to ride it I was blown away by what I saw. The Mountain, The Station, The Water, The Sounds and The Ride. In my mind this ride was the sleeper hit of the late 70's. To this day I still love this ride and not only the Disneyland version. Every version of this ride is a hit!!! So take a look back at Disney's version of the Runaway Mine Train and see what it took to make this Disney Masterpiece roar to life! Shane

Those links have some great stuff from the park. Here is the map. Gives you an idea of how "far out - groovy" this park was. Someone was really thinking "outside of the box" when they came up with this concept. Notice the loveable Witchie-Poo in the top right corner map from the Steven Wilson collection

"wacky?????? that is an understatement. But I must admit that Charles Nelson Riley in Lidsville was sheer BRILLIANCE!

Why does the sign still say Gift Shop? I don't think that little store at the base of the sign has been opened since 1974

^ Scott, the Texas Cyclone originally run with the PTC 4 bench trains, I didn't know that it went to a 3 bench... It was a great ride back then. Then the horrid Coffin-Morgans made their debut and that was the end of the Top Ten reign for the Texas Cyclone, it dropped faster than Lindsey Lohan on New Years Eve!

^ Isn't that Elissa in the front seat of the Mind Bender?

So many great quotes in this article... -Lagoon's Fire Dragon compared to a sassy Joan Rivers. -Magic Mountain's Colossus as massive as Arnold Schwarzenegger -Texas Cyclone as rough as Tom Selleck's stubble or like riding a bucking bull on crack. But the one I don't get is the comparison of the Riverside Cyclone to the New York Cyclone... They always say that the Riverside Cyclone was patterned after the famous New York Cyclone. The only similarity I see between the two is the name. PS- any of you out there remember who Mr. Magoo is? If so don't forget to take your Geratol with a nice glass of warm milk.

Isn't it the CNN building now?

The World of Sid & Marty Krofft A lot of you have asked my if I had any information on this relatively unknown park. Here is an article I found from an old publication called Amusement Park Journal. The article gives a great description of the park, attractions at the park, how it was set up, and how it failed. This must have been quite an interesting park...boring...but interesting. Sid & Marty Krofft were responsible for a lot crazy stuff from the 70's including H.R. Pufinstuf, Lidsville, the Donny & Marie show and the craptacular "Brady Bunch Variety Hour". The later, probably one of the worst TV shows ever produced, is strangely and surprisingly very entertaining to watch today! Anyways the point I am trying to make is that they did their own thing, several have suggested that hallucenagenics played a huge part in production development. They completely strayed from the successful theme park formula and went for a something completely different...needless to say, other than Wild West World, this park had one of the shortest runs in history. Since it was only opened a short time I never had the chance to visit the park. I bet not many other people had the opportunity either. Enjoy the article it is a small footnote in the history of theme parks and contains some great bits of amusement park trivia. Shane

I hope that the park is able to find a suitable location for this GREAT ride and if not, hopefully they will put it back on the market rather than just let it rust in some field. As a tribute to this awesome Schwarzkopf ride I present this youtube video of when I was a ride operator on Greezed Lightnin. I was able to get some great angle and shots of the ride from areas that others were not allowed to access. Hopefully this ride will be up and running again soon!

I believe before this accident it was not customary for ride ops to check the restraints. After this happened it became policy for them to check each lap bar physically. Also Six Flags put all those big orange handles on their lap bars which made it impossible to sit back against a closed lap bar. I also thought that the girls was thrown from Lightnin Loops as the train went from the launch area down into the drop, ya know where you get the major airtime on those launched loops. I didn't know it occurred in the loop. I still find that picture of the Mindbender with the body on the ground very disturbing. What a horrific accident

Moose, I am hoping you know that I was joking about Walter and Claude using plywood cutouts to engineer their transitions...I think you did. Hoping we will see "Moose's Dungeon" soon!

It seems so primitive to use wooden models to check for clearances. I wonder if Walter and Claude cut a lift hill and a loop out of plywood to check clearances on Kumba. I am wondering if those trains were for the Chicago Loop at Old Chicago???

Thanks everyone for all your great comments and for adding pictures, information and your stories from memory and collections. I really enjoy sharing this stuff and hearing your comments about the parks as they used to be. I am really excited about my friend Scott, he has been inspired to go through his closet and get out all his good stuff and start up a thread also to share. So make sure you check out Scott's Amusement Attic

Yes Tatum, I do plan on doing other series like this. If you go to page one of this thread you can see the things that I have coming up. "Cedar Fair" did not exsit at the time, but Cedar Point's owner bought Valleyfair! in 1978, a year before that brochure. They added Rails, CP's old Wildcat coaster the year they bought the park. So yes, it was a "Cedar Fair" park at the time. An interesting fact about VF was that Dick Kinzel was the general manager there for 8 years in the 80's before he became CEO of the entire company. He was responsible for Corkscrew and partially responsible for Excalibur. Thanks for posting that, I did not know that about Dick Kinzel being at ValleyFair or when Cedar Point bought the park. Always good to hear interesting things like this. What is a sticky???

I LOVE IT! I see you are still in the closet!!!! Yes, I know Scott has some great stuff and I am really looking forward to seeing stuff that I don't have. I am sure that Scott's stuff will be even MORE retro than mine since he is YEARS older than I am...lol I think it is really great to read all the news about stuff that is going on in theme parks today, but I also love hearing stories of how things were. Also being able to see the transformation these parks have gone through is really cool. I am glad to see that my thread has inspired others to share some of their history. Shane PS...Love the logo!!!

Well that concludes my series on theme park brochures from the year 1979. If you missed any of them click on the links below to see each brochure. AstroWorld Busch Gardens The Dark Continent Busch Gardens The Old Country Carowinds Cedar Point Elitch Gardens Geauga Lake Hersheypark Kennywood Kings Dominion Kings Island Libertyland Magic Mountain Marriott's Great America, Gurnee Marriott's Great America, Santa Clara Opryland Six Flags Great Adventure Six Flags over Georgia Six Flags over Mid-America Six Flags over Texas Valleyfair! Worlds of Fun Now that you have seen them all, do you have a favorite? Which one and why? My favorite would have to go to: Kings Dominion. I really like the map of the park inside the brochure and I love that big fold out section of the Lost World. Plus Kings Dominion was such a GREAT park back in the 70's. The Kings Kobra, Apple Turnover, a red white & blue Rebel Yell, it was all good! I would also have to say that Six Flags over Georgia is also one of my favorites just because it is so 70's. It captures all those crazy images and feelings that the 70's were all about.

Worlds of Fun 1979 New in 1979: Zulu (enterprise), Le Carousel & Serpent kiddie coaster. Boy Enterprises were all the rage in 1979, several parks added them. Remember the days when parks could market a simple ride like an Enterprise and we would get excited about it....great times! Theme parks also used to be great concert venues to big stars. Worlds of Fun had the Forum, Carowinds had the Paladium and Magic Mountain had the Toyota Showcase theater. Big Stars would play these venues and I guess it really brought in the crowds.

That is strange that in 1967 or so they would put Space Mountain on the map. It looks like a really cool concept for Space Mountain. They must have really side stepped this project for several years since it didn't finally open until 1976.

DenDen- I usually agree with most of your posts but I have to challenge your last comment. Sure the rides may be same ol' same ol. But I think it is very exciting to have a new "from the ground up" theme park built and especially one with such an original theme. I think Hard Rock is a brand that is perfect for a theme park and one that relates perfectly for the target market of todays theme park goers. I think it is very refreshing to have a new theme rather than something based on the wild west, foreign lands or blockbuster movies! I for one am looking forward to everything about this park, except for its location (Myrtle Beach????) And I can't wait to take a legal Magic Mushroom ride!!!!

hmmmmm, I don't see the similarities at all

VALLEYFAIR! 1979 New in 1979 : Huss Enterprise