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Shane's Amusement Attic


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"The Omni", which was a basketball arena there is gone I believe. My parents stopped there on one trip home from Florida so I could see ZZ Top there on the Afterburner tour. Kick ass concert, and lax security so I could leave my crappy seat behind the stage and just stand at one of the entrances and watch the whole show.

 

The Omni center, which was the building, is in fact the home to the Clinton News Network.

 

-R

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I remember seeing a E true Hollywood story on Sid and Marty Krofft several years ago and it show some film footage of the park, including the living island ride which showed a quick clip of an animatronic of one of the characters.

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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

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map from the Steven Wilson collection

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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

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I found an awesome website with brochures from the mountain while looking for pictures of Gold Rushers' original paint scheme. The Mountain looked way different then, here are the links:

 

vintagedisneylandtickets.blogspot.com/2007/12/magic-mountain-inaugural-guest-preview.html

 

vintagedisneylandtickets.blogspot.com/2008/01/magic-mountain-1975.html

 

vintagedisneylandtickets.blogspot.com/2008/02/one-price-buys-mountain-early-1970s.html

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Are you using a copy of the old, and now long gone, Disney News for the BTM pages, Shane?

 

Just curious.

 

I have a couple of boxfuls of the Disney News, and was a subscriber of them since the beginning of the 70's, until they ceased publication (as Disney Magazine) in 2005.

 

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I miss Disney Magazine. They had a lot of good stuff in there.

 

My first ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was in September 1979, not long after it opened. It's still just as good in my opinion, though I think the locomotives look pretty dumb without the second large wheel. Too bad they can't find a way to remount those.

 

Eric

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I noticed the indoor park article mentioned Old Chicago. Do you have part two of that article. Old Chicago was a neat park. It was nice to get a ride or two in during a cold Chicago winter. Great America was definately the nail in Old Chicago's coffin.

 

I was a bit bummed that I never got to check this place out--was always rather intrigued by that pinball ride.

 

Thanks for the article, Shane. The OMNI itself is also gone, I think.

 

Isn't it the CNN building now?

 

Yes it is now CNN Center. The amusement "structure" is now studio and office space for CNN. The Omni was replaced by Phillips Arena about 10 years ago. The huge escalator is still there. It is the starting point for the CNN tour.

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Hey "Reggie_Ray" thanks for the links to my blog, the more the better. I'm glad you liked the Magic Mt. stuff. I will be posting more this weekend. I hope to have my website (www.vintagedisneylandtickets.com) up and running in couple months and it will include and entire section for Magic Mt. Maps and goodies.

 

I love ThemeParkReview, I just now got setup to post comments, thanks all!

 

Be sure to visit my blog at:

 

http://www.vintagedisneylandtickets.blogspot.com

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^ 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!

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Most famous is the Mexico City Racer. Before CCI castrated it, that was a mean machine. Designed with "circles & straight lines," as a good friend and current woodie designer describes the ride's engineering, the Racer had THE most intense and violent airtime of any coaster I had EVER ridden. IAD obviously used the Racer as inspiration for Colossus.

 

I must agree here. I haven't been back to ride it since it was changed, and it sounds like I don't want to. There was brutal back-seat airtime at the crest of every hill and insane "ejector floaters" over the top of every camelback. The back seat air was so brutal, in fact, that they loaded the trains first-come-first-served (no queueing for individual seats) and even though I was about the 15th person through the gate, I got the back seat without a problem. NOBODY wanted to ride back there. I soon found out why. Thigh bruises for two days afterward!

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Yes, the Gunslinger Yo-Yo from Astroworld is at Wonderland in Amarillo, Texas (its still in storage along with The Mayan Mindbender Roller coaster).

 

Actually, AWorld's Mayan Mindbender is no longer in storage; it's up and almost ready to run at its new home. Check out: www.amusementtoday.com for pics -- there's an auto slide-show about half-way down.

 

I rode it in the dark as Nightmare @ Boblo Island. I look forward to seeing it run outside in the Texas sun.

 

-S

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