montezooma

What a great trip!!! This ride was one "Fluffy Diva" with a wicked bumper! Jamaican Bobsled mahn!

So on with another update. This time I have an old ride catalog from Vekoma. It features the infamous tilt, or as they call it, "Thrill Lift" coaster. How could I not include the most successful ride in Vekoma's catalog...the BOOMERANG

Well I am back from exploring the Caribbean Seas with the TPR group and what a great time we had. I won't bore you with all my "salty sea tales" but rather let you read about them on the thread specifically dedicated to that trip...however here is one quick shot of me and Sage enjoying the Jamaican Bobsled...that ride is one "Fluffy Diva"

I believe it was in the early 90’s.

WOW! that is quite the compliment. Thanks. I am curious, did you just now come across the thread?

Gold Springs Country Season 5 seems to be turning out the "season that never was". Here is another exclusive to Shane's Amusement Attic: Gold Springs Country. San Diego once was a hot bed of theme park activity. Too bad none of them ever came to reality. It seems this area surely could have supported a major theme park. Perhaps the stars were never in alignment for this beautiful city to have a park...but I would guess it had more to do with money than stars. A few years after AeroWorld closed up shop another park came into play further east of Downtown on an Indian Reservation that is now know as Viejas. This park paled in comparison to the uniqueness of AeroWorld. Its themed lands were pretty much "off the shelf" themed lands...the typical western land, adventure land, storybook land and future land...yawn. However Landmark did a beautiful job in disguising those simple ideas into some pretty cool looking themed areas. I particularly like the idea for their water park based on surf songs (maybe this figured into conception of Cowabunga Bay...maybe not). Gold Springs Country was more than just a theme park it was a entertainment destination which included a shopping and dinning complex, waterpark and major amphitheater. It would have been a great addition to the area and with the giant success the Indians have seen with Viejas I am sure this park would have been a hit. Although the park never became to exist, one great thing came out of it. I was invited to a investor meeting for the park where I met one of the park designers who worked for Landmark at the time. His name was Anthony. Anthony later became the VP of design for Paramount Parks. He remembered meeting me at this meeting and thought I would be a great addition to the Paramount team. He offered me a job as the creative director for Carowinds...and the rest is history.

The hyper coaster was first proposed to the city and was shot down because it was too close to the property line. This is the coaster that was originally designed from Morgan and shown in the plans. After it was shot down the coaster was moved further from the property line, right on the midway of County Fair and within the Demon…it was shot down again and from their the project just lost steam. This shows the original site and layout of the coaster. This shows the second attempt of moving the coaster further from the property line. The design modifications were never developed by Morgan since the coaster was shot down again by the city.

The train was a typical Morgan Hyper Coaster train and like I said before this really was nothing more than a vertical transfer track and was used to save the space that a typical 200’ tall hyper coaster uses.

Of course with all prototype systems there are going to be problems to work out but all in all this really wasn’t any new sophisticated system, nothing more than a transfer track that moved vertically rather than horizontally.

Of course. They pay an expensive license fee for every intellectual property they use. After the newness of the attraction wears off the license fee can continue to be very expensive that is why some of the branding gets dropped after a few seasons such as "Outer Limits" Flight of Fear. Even in studio parks such as Universal I would imagine that even though the movie based attraction is a universal property thaw actual movie is owned by producers, writers and the stars themselves and license fees must be paid for them. You can bet that Universal Studios is paying huge license fees for most of their attractions ( Joey would be more the expert on this since he works for them). The one exception to this might be Disney with their movies. Anyone know how that works?

It was discussed for Stealth to be a Mission Impossible theme. As a matter of fact "Stealth" was the name given to the project while negotiating was done to get the license. Tom Cruise is a major partner in that franchise and he is the one that killed the deal not Paramount.

Hmmm...that's not the way I remember it. I was actually part of the paramount design team that worked in development if stealth. I flew to the factory several times during the development and actually was strapped into the prototype harness and put on a simulator that allowed us to test the restraints in any position the coasters movement would put you in. Yes there were problems with it but that is not the reason it was shipped off to carowinds. PGA strategically made the decision to not challenge marineworld in the thrill department and to go after family friendly attractions instead. The year that wild mouse opened was also the year that Thunder Raceway opened which was part of plan to offer family friendly rides. The go-karts were a concession that was owned by none other than me. So I was privy to their marketing plans and directions.

Great America's long, lost Morgan Hyper Coaster I know a lot of you have heard the rumors about a elevator lift coaster that was to be built at Great America. Well those rumors were true. As the creative director for the park during the development phases of this ride I am thrilled to be able to share with you the concepts, ideas, and actual drawings of the ride. It was initially pitched with a generic theme and given the name "Speed Coaster"...I know, not to great of a name but the concept and theme of the story would have been awesome. It was then directed to us that it must tie to a Paramount property so the first concept was trashed. Keep in mind the properties that were big at the time were "War of the Worlds" a Brady Bunch sequal, Frasier and Beavis and Butthead. This post will give you an insight as to how concepts were created, pitched and eventually test marketed. In the end it came down to the city of Santa Clara and unfortunately they took the side of those pesky dot com neighbors. Here is the PGA Elevator Morgan Hyper Coaster that never was.

Well it has been a long waterpark season and I am taking a few days off to treat myself to Kings Island, HolidayWorld and Cedar Point this weekend, those of you that will be at any of those parks keep an eye out for me and say hi. See you at the parks or back here on Monday when we will take a look at the Morgan Hyper/Elevator coaster that was slated for PGA. Shane

It wasn’t necessarily a flop although there were many mechanical issues. The public liked it but capacity was horrible and it was a very expensive piece of equipment and it was decided that PGA just wasn’t a big enough park to justify the cost. The GP liked the ride but the return on the investment was not the same as going after the family market. PKI and PKD did not have a contract for two other coasters but Paramount did own the rights to the ride for an extended time. With all the problems of Stealth they decided not to continue with the exclusive contract and that is why Six Flags was able to buy the “off the shelf” rides and get them installed so quickly.

Only PGA.

^Viacom insisted that Paramount Parks brand all their rides to movie themes but at the same time made the parks pay for the licenses which made it very difficult to pull off a decently themed ride since all the money went to paying for the ride hardware and the IP (intellectual properties) license fees. A perfect example of this was Top Gun at Carowinds. It was originally supposed to be themed to the Godzilla movie that was coming out the same year the coaster debuted. Due to the astronomical fee that was associated with the “Godzilla” name, Carowinds could not afford to name the ride “Godzialla” and get a descent ride so, thankfully, the decision was made to go with the lower priced “Top Gun” theme and get a better ride.

Actually, the story I heard (and I tend to believe) was that Stealth was not the huge success they had thought it was going to be. When Paramount saw that such a big thrill ride didn’t bring the crowds in that they had hoped they put the brakes on thrill rides and decided to go in a completely different direction…the direction of the family market. Hypersonic was then shipped to PKD and Stealth was given it’s walking papers. Since the market they decided to go after was families instead of thrill seeking teens the land that Stealth once occupied was developed into a family friendly water park.

Chuck- Even though Paramount (Viacom) was the parent company, they made the parks division pay for all intellectual properties. The parks were directed from corporate to use the properties and then pay the license fees. There wasn’t a whole lot of cash left over after paying for the rights to the movie, the hardware and then the marketing. Viacom was also very protective of their prized properties such as Star Trek, Mission Impossible and Titanic and felt that those brands would be cheapened by being in regional theme parks. This is why you saw Star Trek developed into a stand alone attraction. Eventually they did allow the parks to use the Star Trek brand but only as secondary namesake such as Borg. You never would have seen “Star Trek: the ride” under the ownership of Viacom. You will see in an upcoming post that there was a lot of money spent developing a strong story line and theme for a Hyper Coaster at PGA which was then scrapped by Viacom and strict direction was given to brand it to a Paramount property. Shane

The entire park would not have been pay per ride. During the typical season the park would have continued to operate as usual but during the off seasson certain attractions would have operated on a pay per ride schedule such as the sky tower, IMAX, carousel and the "outer limits" attraction.

Yes it is true that at one point there was an outdoor version of Flight of Fear that was supposed to go on the Whizzer site. Hypersonic was also originally slated to go on that same site. I am not sure why it was canned and shipped to PKD at the last minute since that is the time that I left Paramount to work for Six Flags in Oklahoma City.

Paramount's Great America "Media Plex" Front Gate Project With all the news about California's Great America being sold it seems now is a good time to post some of the exclusive stuff I have on the park. Believe it or not, at one time Paramount had some big plans for Great America. Unfortunately none of them ever saw the light of day. While I was working as the creative director of the park we worked on some great concepts and ideas. This is one of my favorites...Ladies and Gentlemen I give you "Media Plex", a whole commercial/entertainment redevelopment of the front gate area. It had a real city walk vibe to it with all food, entertainment and retail themed around Paramount branded properties. Hopefully the new owners of the park will stumble across this thread and steal some of these great ideas. Shane

All things Arrow can be found here: Shane's Amusement Attic Arrow Info

Yes, that is the prototype Corksrew. It was originally set up at their Mountain View, CA plant and then relocated to Knott's Berry Farm.

In Memory!