Tilt-A-Whirl.

May 08, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

After so many posts of field observations, I wanted to take a break and just showcase some theme park images without any annotation. Tilt-shift photography, along with high-dynamic-range (HDR) trickery has indeed become a digital cliche during the past decade or so. You see this stuff everywhere online. Disney even got into the act at one point, producing a series of park videos using a tilt-shift effect.

To Shrink Is to Own

I’m reminded of a great passage in Richard V. Francaviglia’s Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America (1996). It’s something of an aside in the closing pages of the book; almost an afterthought. Throughout the text, Francaviglia presents and elaborates upon sixteen axioms of the design and development of the American small town Main Street. The sixteenth is: “The miniaturization of Main Street signifies its acceptance as an integral part of American life and leisure.” He then goes on:

By assuming a place in the home, Main Street joins the ranks of dollhouses and miniature trains as an endearing symbol of America’s past. Miniaturization is, in a sense, the ultimate act in commodification…

That last line sort of blew my mind. What Francaviglia is saying, basically, is that by making something small, we dominate it, we control it, we remake it in our own image; we own it.

Model of the park on display at Disneyland, 2007.

Walt Disney’s fascination with miniaturization is well documented, and the best example is his obsession with model trains. The construction of a small train ride in the backyard of his Holmby Hills home lead directly to the Disneyland project. Walt considered the park a toy at human scale, much like a model railroad. Through Francaviglia’s suggestion, then, when we inhabit the thematic design of Disneyland and places like it, we exert control in the inhabitation, we own the experience. In this way, perhaps, we make the built environment manageable; we make it ours.

Tilt-shift photography has the effect of making large structures appear as miniatures. For cityscapes and the like, it’s sort of a neat trick. But for the thematic environment, it’s uncannily appropriate. These spaces, designed as they are to feel like a toyscape to be inhabited, look rather remarkable as actual miniatures. In a sense, the tilt-shift effect reveals thematic design for what it really is.

Cedar Point

The best way I’ve found to make this kind of digital technique work in thematic environments is to shoot most photos from a very high place. By digital, I mean that I’m manipulating my images in post production, and I am not creating this effect in-camera with my lens. Thus far, three parks I’ve visited—Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Six Flags Great America—have offered an appropriate vantage. Curiously, in order, those vantages ascend in height. So my lowest shots are from the gondola Cedar Point, and my highest are from the observation tower at Great America.

At Cedar Point, the highest you can get today and take numerous quality photos of the park is from the Sky Ride gondola which spans the Main Midway. I wish I would have had the Von Roll gyro tower Space Spiral to snap even more pics from, but it was removed in 2012.

So here is Cedar Point in tilt-shift. Let’s begin with a ride down the Main Midway.

Now let’s head back in the opposite direction, returning to the park entrance.

Some shot from the ground also turned out pretty well in the tilt-shift look.

Kings Island

At Kings Island, I was able to get even higher. The observation deck on the park’s Eiffel Tower replica is some 264 feet in the air.

Like at Cedar Point, some shots also worked well from the ground.

Six Flags Great America

Finally at Great America, I had the entire park at my disposal via their Sky Trek gyro tower. From this height (nearly 300 feet) and panoramic views of the horizon, the tilt-shift effect gets truly magical.

I wish I was able to photograph the Disney parks in the same way, but not one of them has a remaining gondola ride or observation tower. But at least with Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Great America I have captured—or in Francaviglia’s words, ultimately “commodified”—these parks by miniaturizing them.

Thematic design, pocket-sized.

Six Flags Great America - Part 3: The Great Southwest (in the Midwest).

May 04, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

It surprised me that Six Flags actually decided to make investment in theming beyond Marriott’s design of the park. The company is known for dropping serious money on the latest megacoaster, sure. But adding an entire land complete with elaborately designed buildings and themed attractions? Not very likely. Yet that’s exactly what Six Flags did at Great America in the mid-nineties.

Concept painting of the Great Southwest area.

Go (South)West, Young Man

A land called the Great Southwest was actually on the drawing board as part of the original Great America park masterplan. The expansion was planned to open in 1979, but never did. It’s quite possible that Randall Duell named the land in tribute to the Great Southwest Corporation, Angus G. Wynne’s company for which Duell designed Six Flags Over Texas.

The Southern Cross skyride intersecting with Delta Flyer / Eagle’s Flight.

The best evidence that Marriott was serious about this expansion was the addition of the Southern Cross skyride which opened in 1977 for the the park’s second season. Like so many other gondola-type rides built at parks across the United States, this was a product of Swiss firm Von Roll. But there were two ways in which this gondola was unique—its height and its route.

1979 park guide map with intersecting skyride routes.

The Southern Cross was one of the tallest and longest gondola skyrides Voll Roll ever built for a theme or amusement park. Really high—guests traveled some 125 feet in the air. And the reason for this lofty stature was that Southern Cross intersected perpendicular with—and passed completely over—the Delta Flyer / Eagle’s Flight skyride. Which made the name for the ride quite appropriate. “Southern Cross” is an astronomical term for a kite-like arrangement of stars (also called a “crux”), which is the shape that the two skyride lines formed. The Southern Cross route also ran northeast to the southwest.

The Southern Cross skyride heading towards its dead-end turnaround.

The gondola was only round trip ride as the Great Southwest area was awaiting the start of construction. There was nothing at the end of the line but a pile of dirt. But it never came. By the end of the 1982 season it was determined that since there was literally no destination keeping Southern Cross viable, it was removed. Two seasons later the Delta Flyer / Eagle’s Flight was also removed from the Gurnee park. The skyride at the Santa Clara park continues operation to this day.

Southwest Territory area, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google. — *Southwest Territory* area, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Phase One, 1995: The Viper Strikes

After years of planning by Six Flags, the Southwest Territory area of Great America opened in three phases. Phase One began when Viper debuted just outside the park berm for the 1995 season—the first major wooden coaster added since the American Eagle in 1981.

Six Flags has a habit of using coaster names multiple times on different rides at various parks throughout the chain. As it turns out, “Viper” is quite common. The earliest use I could find is the Viper at Darien Lake in New York, an Arrow steel looper which opened in 1982 and is still running today. Curiously that park came to be managed by Six Flags in 2017. There was also a Viper which operated at Six Flags AstroWorld from 1989 until that park’s closing in 2005.

Original Viper logo as developed for Magic Mountain in 1990.

In 1990 Six Flags Magic Mountain opened their own Viper. As of 2019, it’s the last of the 7-looper roller coasters built by Arrow still operating. This is when the Six Flags “Viper” logo appears to have debuted.

The same logo was again repeated at Six Flags Over Georgia for their Viper, which opened in 1995 and operated until 2001. Ironically, this ride was the very same Schwarzkopf shuttle looper Tidal Wave which had opened at Gurnee in 1978. Yet another Viper operated from 1995 to 2004 at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, but it was a completely unrelated design and its logo was a bit similar—but not identical—to the other Six Flag “Vipers.”

And that very same season in which the park’s former Tidal Wave became a Viper down in Georgia, Great America opened their own (with that same pesky logo).

This massive wooden Viper in the Southwest Territory was built as a tribute to the famed Coney Island Cyclone. The layout is essentially a mirror-image of that classic, with some adjustments in scale.

Like other wooden roller coasters across the country carrying an Old West theme such as The Beast (Kings Island) and GhostRider (Knott’s Berry Farm), Viper is constructed of rough and bare dark wood, as opposed to being sanded and painted the more traditional boardwalk white.

As I’ve seen before, it’s common to use fictional proprietors and industrial concerns as foundation for backstory in thematic design, particularly in the Old West and Turn of the Century genres. In this case, the coaster station for Viper is presented as a “Snake Oil” elixir factory.

The details of the station and surrounding queue structures are surprisingly realized for a Six Flags project. Much like the rest of the Southwest Territory area, I was impressed. Authentic-looking aged and weathered planking, rope, rusted metal wire, and barn lighting factor in throughout.

You Flotsam, You Jetsam

In the coaster station for Viper there are several caged-off areas with tools, oil barrels, and other various industrial machinery and materials on display. I call these “prop cages” and I’ve seen them at thematic environments all over the world. Six Flags is sloppier about this than most—at a glance it’s just a bunch of junk that was gathered at a salvage yard and scattered about. You might say this suggests “story” or “theme” but it’s really the laziest pass possible.

Prop cage in queue for the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland, 2007.

Disney has been doing this kind of stuff in their attraction queues for years. But they’re more thoughtful about it—there is backstory embedded in each and every display. For example, in the queue for Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye, this prop cage is designed as an archaeologist’s field office. The crate planks are stamped with the names of famous universities from around the world.

Another design trope that I’ve found at nearly every theme park I’ve visited is what I call the “Flotsam / Jetsam” approached to a vaulted ceiling. Basically, if you’ve got a high open interior area in a structure, a solid shortcut to theming is to fill the rafters with a bunch of appropriate “stuff.”

My guess is that this treatment is linked to antique stores and other retail establishments in the tradition of “Grandma’s Attic.” The idea is that the more stuffed to the gills with junk a curiosity shop is, the more sweetened and heightened the discovery of a “hidden gem” is after a lengthy “treasure hunt.” Which is why antique malls and other kinds of vintage flea markets feel completely overwhelming (and intriguing).

I think the “Flotsam / Jetsam” ceiling, at least in thematic design, can be traced back to the mid-century tiki craze which began in the United States in California during the 1930s with Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s. Donn Beach realized the narrative value of decor in securing a restaurant’s aura and reputation, and decorated his Beachcomber with artifacts of his overseas travels as well as props from the movie business.

Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron took this practice to even greater heights and basically perfected the artform. Each new restaurant in his chain featured more and more elaborate decor. And every vaulted ceiling was crammed full of native canoes, paddles and spears. And fish netting and rope, plus Japanese glass fishing floats and lanterns made of both bamboo and taxidermied puffer fish.

Southwest Territory during the 2017 season. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google.

Phase Two, 1996: Ol’ West Town

For the 1996 season, the second phase of the Southwest Territory expansion in the form of an eleven-acre themed area opened adjacent to Viper. This Old West Town features retail stores, restaurants, and a saloon split across two sides of a single block.

There is nothing groundbreaking about the design, and there didn’t have to be. At this point the American public had been awash in westerns on television, in the movies, and at other theme parks for decades.

George Ladyman, Six Flags vice president of design/entertainment, commented to the press upon the opening of Phase Two of the Southwest Territory in May, 1996:

We developed it to the point where we've brought westerns to the 1990s. We've created a great family section to the park. The stunt show is for little kids, big kids and Moms and Dads. It worked well for us.

It was nice to see some actual hand painted signage leveraging historically-appropriate typography. Quality of this sort varies widely at the Six Flag parks, but here they’ve really nailed it.

Phase Three, 1997: A New (Old) Mission

Some five additional acres were added to the Southwest Territory with the opening of Phase Three for the 1997 season. Again, there continued to be great attention to detail in the design. As Great America park President Jim Wintrode said to the press in the spring of 1996 when Phase Two opened:

Theming is the one thing we concentrated on most with this new area. This is the best we've ever done. The buildings are all full-scale size, unlike Universal Studios and Disney, which utilize half-scale and three-fifths scale models. I'm not degrading what they do by any means, but the height coupled with the theming adds a lot to the realism effect.

The centerpiece of the second and third phases of the project is a massive California Mission-type structure. The front portion opened in 1996, and the building’s backside was completed in 1997.

I grew up very close to the Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California, so it was both familiar and disconcerting to see this. Call the feeling uncanny. Little did I know there was a direct connection. Upon the opening of Phase Two, park President Jim Wintrode noted: “The five mission bells also lend to the authenticity. They came from the same bell company that services San Juan Capistrano."

On the second day of my visit to Great America, I happened to catch this part of the park during part of the golden hour just after sunset. The throws of soft light in yellows and light oranges were perfectly cast onto the mission creating an idyllic atmosphere.

The courtyard on the opposite side of the mission was completed in 1997. There are little touches of broken stucco revealing brickwork underneath that are far superior to what you’d find at the Mexican area of Knott’s Berry Farm or at other Six Flags parks, and are actually on par with any Disney design.

Inside the mission is Chubasco. These spinning terra cotta bowls are basically a clone of the original Mad Tea Party attraction at Disneyland, which has since become an industry standard ride offering known as the “Tea Cups.”

Much like the routed wood, hand painted examples I found in Carousel Plaza, Chubasco features some nice signage (although the typographic choices are a bit dubious).

The Mexican /Southwestern theme spills out into other areas of the expanded land, such as this adobe “Fiesta Fries Cantina.” Here the signage is more tacky than other more authentic samples in the area.

Mind the Drop

The centerpiece thrill ride of this Phase Three 1997 expansion is the Giant Drop. It’s a standard drop tower model, but elaborately themed to be an “Ore Excavator” of the “Loco Diablo Mine.” This is some really good stuff, some of the best overall theming I saw at Great America.

In terms of outward mechanics, there’s nothing special going on. Giant Drop looks like any other similar drop tower at any other park. But the queue descends slightly down into a mine setting that partially obscures the base of the tower (and thus the loading procedure).

You can see rider loading from the other side of the attraction, but not from the queue as you descend into the mine. For a first time rider, this is likely to increase anticipation and maybe up the scare factor.

The wood typography here, all hand painted on weathered wood, is really terrific. This sign was probably the best example in the entire area, maybe even the whole park.

A Load of Bull

In 1999, after all three of the design phases of Southwest Territory were complete, the area received its most recent—and angry—resident. Raging Bull is a Bolliger & Mabillard hypercoaster and is quite similar to its sister Diamondback at Kings Island which opened ten years later. The Bull is something of a twister, whereas the snake is more of an out-and-back model. The coaster station is themed as the ruins of a southwestern mission, and was again designed by Bleck & Bleck Architects of Libertyville, Illinois.

Adding massive coasters like this to a thematic environment are always a mixed blessing. These rides are fun, and some of their queues and stations might be elaborately themed. But then end up towering over the landscape and distorting the scale of everything else, as I saw in Rivertown at Kings Island.

In this step panoramic you can see the attention to detail which was applied to one block of the Old West Town in Southwest Territory. But Raging Bull twists and turns overhead, intruding on the ambiance. It’s a shame, but something which is not going to change at Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks anytime soon. Their unique selling proposition as compared with the Disney parks is to draw an audience for these very thrill rides.

But the details are good. The Six Flags design team spent a month researching a variety of Western, mining, prairie, Mexican and Indian architectural environments across the Southwest to come up with inspiration for all the various elements of the town. And it shows. The “Groceries” façade above is nearly identical to one I saw in Deadwood, South Dakota.

As viewed from the Sky Trek tower, Raging Bull completely dominates the area, dwarfing the California Mission plaza and Old West Town below.

The integration of The Demon, by contrast, is much more organic. This Arrow corkscrew opened with both Great America parks in 1976 as the Turn of The Century. With the addition of two vertical loops and some tunnels and rockwork, both were transformed into The Demon in 1980. So the rockwork pictured and the tunnel the loop travels through were present when Southwest Territory was being developed. Notice the care taken to the color of the rock (which was repainted to a more desert tan) and the trees planted up and around the edge of the ride. Everything blends seamlessly with the new area.

Six Flags doesn’t always get the details right, of course. I found this prop barrel display of horse tack to be tacky indeed.

At Face Value

One last feature of the area which caught my eye were a series of façades on one half block of the Western Town. They are designed and presented as false fronts, just as this were a movie studio backlot set as opposed to immersive theming. Other parks like Universal do this (quite intentionally) and even Disney has attempted the approach at their movie-themed parks and lands (though I’d argue less successfully).

There are no buildings behind these fronts, and no glass in the windows. Which means you see the lift hill of The Demon roller coaster right behind.

For me, the effect is simply surreal. And I mean that in a good way. It’s like something out of The Twilight Zone; I thought it was cool. I commented on this same kind of design when I posted about my visit to Deadwood, South Dakota.

But it’s likely I was reading it the wrong way. According to Southwest Territory designers Sharon Hendrickson and Anthony Stark, there’s another, more intentional story at work here. As Stark elaborated to reporters in 1996:

We meshed all those together and came up with a new town built over time. It includes a little bit of everything. Each ride carries a specific story, like the town bank leveled by a tornado, which is signified by the Trailblazer. We wanted it to look like what would happen if a carnival came through an Old West town.

So, ok, the bank was hit by a tornado, and that’s why the window glass is all blown out, and there is nothing left standing behind the building fronts. I suppose that works. But I also suspect they were just trying to save on construction costs. This is Six Flags, after all.

All in all though Southwest Territory was impressive, especially for a Six Flags park. I realize I’m probably grading them on a curve. But after so many years of owning this former Marriott park, Six Flags managed to introduce—rather successfully—some of the DNA from their original Texas park. Call it a form of corporate self-love, or an extension of branding, but Great America is a more interesting and thematically varied park because of it.

Six Flags Great America - Part 2: The Original Lands.

April 22, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

Since I spent nearly two full days at Great America, I’ve got a lot of photography to parse of the three other original lands besides Carousel Plaza and Hometown Square—Orleans Place, Yukon Territory, and County Fair. I visited each area more than once during different times, so lighting shifts from all manner of daylight to dusk and then to twilight in these photographs.

(New) Orleans (Square) Place

It’s kind of charming when I come across thematic design that it so obviously derivative of other projects. In this case, I think it’s pretty obvious that Randall Duell and his design team took a cue from New Orleans Square at Disneyland.

Concept painting of the Orleans Place area.

Even the concept art by R. Duell & Associates for the land strongly resembles the many painted renderings which imagineer Herb Ryman and Dorothea Redmond executed for the New Orleans Square project. Note the park’s railroad in the lower right corner.

Leaving Hometown Square and passing back underneath the tracks of the Great America Scenic Railway and then weaving around the Columbia Carousel is the most direct way to access Orleans Place. Both Carousel Plaza and this area have matching brick and wrought iron entries.

Orleans Place lies entirely outside the railroad berm which circles the rest of Great America. Again, with the Duell Loop model, the only other way to get there would be to walk through all the other lands first in the opposite direction (counter-clockwise from the entrance). It seems most likely to me that because the way in which Hometown Square is staged, first-time visitors would proceed forward counter-clockwise, thus encountering Orleans Place only towards the end of their day.

For those familiar with the French Quarter, this is the architectural stereotype which comes to mind—the elaborate, rounded-corner ironwork balconies as at the intersection of Royal and St. Peter streets.

As I made my way through, I began to notice that Duell’s designers took a ‘piecemeal’ rather than a ‘holistic’ approach to Great America. This allows for a greater variety of structures with their own subtle motifs, but also creates sort of a collaged effect. The pieces are all from the same kit of parts, so to speak, but there’s no master picture on the Lego box which is being followed.

This first retail block on the left as you enter Orleans Place is a perfect example. The corner begins with the classic Quarter ironwork of a Creole townhouse; again, the most stereotyped visual identifier. This adjoins an American townhouse with stucco finish (painted in garish lavender), then a low shingle roof building which then terminates with more wrought iron and a traditional copper roof.

The individual elements are interesting, and inspired by the New Orleans theme, but just like the architectural amalgamations I found at Cedar Point, they feel off when taken as a single composition.

Now compare with this photo of New Orleans Square at Disneyland. Everything here is tightly integrated and composed. If we’re talking about spaces which tell stories (and I am) then I’d say this is well-plotted. There are actual “story beats” to each and every facade, and they are all interrelated.

New Orleans Square was the first new land to open at Disneyland. Walt himself dedicated the land on July 24, 1966 in what was to be his last public appearance at Disneyland before passing away in December of that year. As such he never saw its signature attraction, Pirates of the Caribbean, completed (it finally opened in March of 1967). The New Orleans Square expansion cost as much in mid-1960s dollars as the entire construction of Disneyland cost in 1955—some $17 million.

Obviously Duell and Marriott didn’t have that kind of money to spend on a single land. But, and perhaps this is unfair, I couldn’t help but compare Orleans Place with New Orleans Square at every turn.

One thing that I thought the Great America designers did effectively, given their budget constraints, was to consider the city of New Orleans beyond simply the French Quarter. Although Disney’s version is dripping with detail and verisimilitude, architecturally the experience is pretty much limited to the Quarter.

The world's largest bumper car floor, Rue Le Dodge, is fashioned as a country manor.

Other attraction queue areas have more of a Spanish flavor, which is authentic to Louisiana but not necessarily what the public would expect.

There are also more generic “cottage” type structures.

I’m not sure if this is a direct nod, an inside joke, or just a coincidence. This ride sign is rendered in a typeface called Rubens, a wood type cut by John F. Cumming released in the 1880s or 1890s. Notable in this context is that Rubens is used extensively at The Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland, which resides in New Orleans Square.

Rubens had undergone a revival in the mid-sixties, and the Mansion opened in the summer of 1969. Of the various digital font versions of the typeface, the two most popular—Ravenscroft and Mansion—are based on its Disney park usage.

Count on Six Flags, however, to muck up the original design intentions for any one of their parks. Usually by dropping a massive coaster named after a DC comics superhero right in the middle of things.

What used to be a French Quarter double-gallery house now serves as the entrance, storage lockers, and part of the ride queue for Superman: Ultimate Flight. I had to sneak around a corner to even get this view of it—the obnoxious signage for the ride blocks the entire front of the building.

Then right next door, you have The Dark Knight Coaster, which is in an indoor WIld Mouse style ride in the dark with various effects. Six Flags must have just bulldozed what was here prior, because this “Gotham City Transit” station is nestled right in with the original New Orleans buildings. No connection at all, other than Superman was already living next door.

And then next is a standalone themed cottage selling pizza.

I will say this about Great America. They might not always take the time to design their own themed graphics, signage, and other ephemera, but they do employ lovely historical examples, such as this wheat pasted large format advertisement for Tabasco Sauce.

Mardi Gras

In 2004, Six Flags tweaked the section of Orleans Place which connects with Yankee Harbor and christened it Mardi Gras. I’m not even sure that I’d call it a mini-land, as there are only two rides here among a variety of carnival games. More festive, I supposed? It doesn’t really work.

The architectural interactions are stronger than the original Duell designs from 1976, however. This block is unified almost on the level of Disney’s New Orleans Square, even along the rooflines.

One last Great America element which doesn’t factor in to the Disney Version of New Orleans are the vintage-style marquees in the Mardi Gras area which offer lovely ambience after nightfall. I would suspect the reason is twofold. First, Disneyland’s Crescent City is specifically set in the pre-industrial Antebellum South. The second is that Main Street U.S.A.—set at the dawn of twentieth century and the spread of electrical lighting—has this sort of flourish covered quite well already.

From Yankee to Yukon

Continuing along the Duell loop in a clockwise fashion, you come to the Yankee Harbor area which appears to be themed to a late 18th or early 19th century New England port reminiscent of the Maine coast or Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Concept painting of the Yankee Harbor area.

Although I enjoy looking at concept paintings for theme park projects, most are inevitably something of a dissapointment. Only perhaps half of the intention of the above rendering ended up being built.

Walking into Yankee Harbor from Mardi Gras, I encountered my first “theme bridge.” I remembered these from the Great America park in California. Apparently the design team felt that a reasonable shortcut to crafting transitions between the various themed lands was to just build a covered bridge and stick a sign with the name of the land on either side.

Yankee Harbor has many more smaller, stand-alone structures than Orleans Place. Many are deliberately domestic in orientation—as if these buildings house the ‘residents’ of this waterfront area.

The quality of signage at Six Flags parks certainly varies. Here the graphic and typographic style is somewhat correct, but tacky and anachronistic in presentation. Obviously no one warped text using Adobe Illustrator in pre-industrial New England.

Just as I drew comparisons between New Orleans Square and Orleans Place, Yankee Harbor reminded me strongly of the Cape Cod section of the American Waterfront area at Tokyo Disneysea. Naturally, Disney had more money to spend on their designs—in this case, actually quite more than usual. The Tokyo Disney Resort is wholly owned by The Oriental Land Company, and as such the Japanese invest their own funds, hiring out to Disney for design and operations consultation.

Tokyo Disneysea opened in 2001 at a cost of nearly three billion dollars. So naturally I couldn’t expect the same of Six Flags (née Marriott). But looking at vintage postcards from the park’s opening decade, it’s such a shame that much (if not most) of Randall Duell’s original designs have been altered, degraded, or simply neglected. I couldn’t even find the iconic lighthouse featured on both cards, so maybe it’s been removed?

This is the only connected block that I found in Yankee Harbor, and it demonstrates the same spatial ‘piecemeal’ approach which I saw in Orleans Place. However here the roofs appear to overlap and interlock in more organic ways.

I was surprised by the amount of blacktop and concrete in and around this “seaport.” There are pier pilings at the right edge of this shot, so why not wood plank decking? Based on the images on the vintage postcards I found, it’s possible this kind of detail was originally present, but removed due to wear and tear and never replaced.

Snacks are often found in “shacks,” whether at a Disney, Universal, Cedar Fair, or Six Flags park.

Here a Yankee “house” is joined with an industrial-looking shed, once again showing a ‘piecemeal’ design language (and here not very successfully).

More houses…

…and more shacks.

Continuing clockwise along the Duell Loop, Yankee Harbor gives way to Yukon Territory. Although named for the Canadian region, also here is all the romance of the Klondike / Alaskan Gold Rush, interspersed with native Alaskan Iñupiat and Canadian Inuit iconography. Although in 1976 the designers likely called it “Eskimo” (a term which has since been deprecated by these peoples).

Concept painting of the Yukon Territory area.

The concept art features a snowy mountain in the background to the right, and what look like Russian onion domes in the striped style of Saint Basil's Cathedral to the left foreground.

“Theme bridge” number two, this time with carved totems and tacky timber sticks-as-lettering.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that these totems were probably carved by Midwestern white guys. I’ve been thinking about this kind of stuff quite a bit, but I’m not ready to address it just yet with my posts on Great America. So more on this later.

These Northern Native vibes really reminded me of some of the carvings and other designs at the Canada Pavilion at Epcot’s World Showcase, Walt Disney World, Florida. Disney at least had the good cultural sense (or budget) to commission the real thing—the wooden totem pictured here was carved by David A. Boxley, an American artist of the Tsimshian, an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast.

But this time, the scale is grander and more extensive here at Great America. And cheesier, as evidenced by this “Watering Hole” sign.

Compared to Yankee Harbor, where wood seemed lacking overall, here in the Yukon Territory there is lumber galore. And much of it is painted a reddish dark brown for some reason.

Some carved wood type lettering adds the proper Western Frontier trappings.

The same goes for hand painted signage, which is abundant at the DIsney parks, but rarer in the Six Flags or Cedar Fair realm.

Were the 1970s actually browner, or was it the cast of the photography? Even today, the Yukon Territory area is awfully brown. Sadly most of the props and much of the signage seen in the above postcard has been removed over the years.

And the propping which does remain—what are sometimes called “tertiary elements” in video game design—is rather thoughtlessly placed. Consider the pairs of skis tacked up on this Old West false front. Would skis ever appear like this in the actual Yukon? Just nailed to a storefront, out of reach?

Such haphazard design ‘decisions’ are decidedly very Six Flags. But this roof structure is a level of building detail which can only belong to Duell’s original designs for Marriott.

The Six Flags additions sometimes feel slapped onto the original structures like bumper stickers, like this “Cartoon Caravan” sign.

Yet by taking a closer look, original details can still be appreciated.

Lastly there are parts of the Yukon Territory area which feel lonely and abandoned. Was this once a retail establishment, or perhaps a crafts demonstration space? I saw more than one of these—a part of the park which was simply shuttered (apparently long ago). This is a lovely false front though, nearly identical to one I saw in Deadwood, South Dakota.

It’s Just Not Fair

At the far back of Great America from the entrance, halfway through the Duell Loop, is the County Fair area. I found this to be the most sparsely designed and generic land in the park. Part of this is probably because here we are in Illinois, in the Midwest, and the theme is, well, the Midwest. In fact, the original name for the area when Great America opened was The Great Midwest Livestock Exposition at County Fair.

Quite a mouthful; no wonder they shortened it.

Concept painting of the County Fair area.

Once again, the vision of the concept art exceeded the grasp of the designer’s actual budget. But here with County Fair I feel it’s actually the smaller details—things which would not have cost much to add, like the patriotic bunting and flags—which are lacking. Disney does more just during their seasonal Fourth of July overlays on Main Street U.S.A.

Here we go again…another “theme bridge.” Unlike the entry to the Yukon Territory, the sign here is well-designed and feels authentic for the setting.

Interestingly, the “theme bridges” are only employed as transitions between lands on the east side of the Duell Loop (clockwise from the entrance to the back of the park). On the west side, there are these arches / gateways.

The typography here is off, and reads more Renaissance Fair than County Fair.

Unlike the “theme bridges” on the east side, these gateways are generic and feature the same style of signage on either side, no matter which land you are facing.

When I say County Fair feels less considered, I mean that it’s as if the designers ran out of time (or money, or both) and started dropping in generic versions of structures which had already been drafted for other themed areas throughout the park. This shack seems to be from Yankee Harbor.

This house looks just like its cousins over in Orleans Place.

And this small eatery has the nondescript “amusement park-ness” of Carousel Plaza, complete with the expected Circus Wood Type look.

Other than a few thrill rides, County Fair is dominated by a food court and countless midway-style carnival games. I’m not sure why, but the area became more interesting as dusk gave way to twilight. I felt the same way at Kings Island—once the Coney Island area emptied out towards the end of the day, there was this beautiful, almost melancholic sense.

Here is the American Eagle, a dual track woodie which opened in 1981 and could be considered the anchor attraction of the entire County Fair area. With rows of popcorn lights moving in sequence, just like the rest of the land, it becomes more kinetic at night. It’s just a shame that the designers of Great America appear to have hastily completed this back part of the park and were never able to fully address its shortcomings in the years following.

Pirates of the Midwest?

If you follow the Duell Loop back from County Fair towards the entrance to the Southwest Territory area, you come across this, well, anachronism. But it’s not just out of time, it’s out of place. It’s out of everything. What do you call some thematic design that just feels like it appeared out of nowhere? I guess I’ll just go with incongruous.

Buccaneer Battle is a generic pirate boat ride featuring small scale effects and interactivity developed by a German company called Mack Rides. which was added to the park in 2009. The elaborate thematic design of the exteriors was executed by a firm called Bleck & Bleck Architects in Libertyville, Illinois. Visually, the attraction does not appear to belong to any one land, but the park guide map lists it as officially part of County Fair.

Unless that county happens to be within the Spanish Main during the 16th or 17th century, it doesn’t wash. I do have to commend Mack Rides here, though. The structural design and finishing touches are very high level, much more so than the typical Six Flags offering. Mack is owned by the same family which owns and operates Europa-Park (the second most popular theme park in Europe after Disneyland Paris), so I’m not surprised by the quality of the ride, along with the design elements that Bleck & Bleck added. Still, let’s be honest. It’s Pirates of the Caribbean on the cheap.

Now that I’ve explored the original lands of Great America, this Spanish Main setting is actually an appropriate segway to the most recent addition, Southwest Territory.

Continued in Part 3.

Six Flags Great America - Part 1: Marriott in the Midwest.

April 06, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

After a rather unengaging six hours spent at Michigan’s Adventure, I had only planned on assigning a single day to Six Flags Great America, just a ferry ride away across the waters of Lake Michigan located in the VIllage of Gurnee, Illinois. But the park surprised me with much more to take in than I anticipated, and I ended up spending two days instead.

Six Flags Great America, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

A Tale of Two Americas

Seeing the success of Disneyland clones like Six Flags Over Texas and its sequel Six Flags Over Georgia, in the early 1970s the Marriott Corporation sought to expand their core hospitality business and get in on the action. The company wisely took advantage of the coming American Bicentennial and planned two sister theme parks called “Great America” as a tribute to the history of the United States.

Both Great America parks—this one in Illinois between Chicago and Milwaukee, and the other in Northern California near the Bay Area—were liberally sprinkled with the Disney design approach to nostalgia: a narrow-gauge railroad circling the property, vernacular architecture rendered in forced perspective, individually themed lands—it’s all there.

Even a weenie! Rather than a castle at the end of a main street, drawing the public forward, at the Great America parks a double-decker carousel sits at the end of a long pool. In Illinois it’s known as the Columbia Carousel, and out in California it’s known—conversely—as the Carousel Columbia (where it still remains the world’s tallest carousel).

The California park opened on March 20, 1976 and its counterpart in Illinois followed on May 29. Yet just like Kings Island and Kings Dominion, the layout and design of the sister parks has diverged over the years. I guess it’s like two twins who are born identical, but then develop their own unique characteristics and personality—personhood—as they mature. And even more distinctly so if the twins grow up in different environments.

Six Flags Great America 1987 souvenir park map poster.

After Marriot divested of them to focus on its hotels, the Great America parks went through a series of various owners. Six Flags has owned the Illinois park—in one corporate guise or another—since 1984. The California park went much the way of Kings Island, being owned first by Paramount and then passing to Cedar Fair in 2006. Thus since the 1980s, the changes to each park have been unique, but the focus has been the same—an emphasis on roller coasters and more traditional amusement park rides.

California’s Great America (left) as compared with Six Flags Great America (right). Map data: Ⓒ Google.

In California, Great America has been hemmed in on all sides in the City of Santa Clara by housing developments, business parks, and even a sports stadium. Conversely, in Illinois the park was built well outside Chicago in the Village of Gurnee, which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere back in the 1970s, and still remains somewhat so today. Thus Six Flags America has had ample berth to widen beyond the original park boundaries; California’s Great America, much less so.

Both Great America parks feature an Intamin Gyro tower ride just to the right of Carousel Plaza. The Gurnee park’s version is called the Sky Trek Tower.

Up in the tower there are magnificent views from some 300 feet in the air. What struck me the most was how much more verdant this Great America park is compared with the one in California. There are dense trees surrounding each and every land, and it really adds significantly to the charm of the place.

Original organization of Great America, with “Duell Loop” and central service corridor. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google.

Thrown for a Loop

Both Great America parks were designed by Southern California firm R. Duell & Associates.

Like nearly every creative professional who came to practice thematic design, Randall Duell began his career as an architect but struggled to find work in that field during the Great Depression, so he took jobs for Hollywood movie studios as an art director. He had over 30 MGM titles to his credits, including The Wizard of Oz (1939) Singin’ in the Rain (1952), when he left the business in 1959.

Blue-line site plan dated October 30, 1974.

Duell first collaborated with C.V. Wood and Wade Rubottom on the failed Freedomland U.S.A. theme park in The Bronx, New York before founding R. Duell & Associates in the early 1960s. That park had featured many Disneyland-esque elements which would return in Duell’s subsequent park designs, the first of which was Six Flags Over Texas, which his company developed for Angus G. Wynne. It opened in 1961 and serves as the basis for the Six Flags chain we know today.

Service corridor as seen on a concept painting of the Gurnee park.

Characteristic of his Texas project was Wynne’s desire to ‘one-up’ Disneyland, and one way in which Duell and his design team did that was in proposing a loop instead of a hub-and-spoke model. Duell repeated this device so many times at the parks he designed that industry folks still refer to it as the Duell Loop. In the Great America model, there is a service corridor placed through the middle section which allows the various lands to be serviced without disrupting the flow of guests.

Great America under construction, winter of 1975–76.

The original themed areas or ‘lands’ within the design of both Great America parks on their respective opening days (clockwise from entry) were Carousel Plaza, Orleans Place, Yukon Territory, The Great Midwest Livestock Exposition at County Fair (now just County Fair), and Hometown Square. In 1996, Southwest Territory was finally added to the park, outside the railroad berm to the right of the square.

Another tradition borrowed from Disneyland are framed promotional posters on display throughout the park. Unlike Disney, however, here at Great America there is a poster for each land as opposed to individual attractions.

When Disneyland operated under the original A–E ticket system, such posters served to advertise the park’s offerings to guests—especially ones they might overlook. In the era of single-ticket admission, they only serve a commemorative, perhaps nostalgic purpose.

The illustration style for this poster series reminds me very much of those drawn for Knott’s Berry Farm in the early 1980s—it’s painterly but somewhat cartoonish at the same time.

The Orleans Place poster features the Arrow steel coaster ShockWave (1988–2002) and Yankee Harbor one sports Bolliger & Mabillard’s inverted prototype Batman: The Ride which was added in 1992. Country Fair shows the Sky Whirl prominently at front and center, which was removed in 2000. So I suspect these posters were commissioned for Great America’s 20th anniversary in 1996.

As you enter the park at Carousel Plaza, there isn’t much of a theme, other than “amusement park-ness.” The structures resemble traditional boardwalks and midways, like those found at Cedar Point or Coney Island. It’s not unlike the “Victorian Gingerbread” found at many theme parks. And to American eyes, at least, this is all that’s needed.

All signage is rendered in the expected Circus Wood Type look. It’s nice to see graphics like this actually routed in wood and hand-painted, as opposed to the plastic variety found at most other Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks.

There’s No Place Like Hometown

I’ve visited California’s Great America several times, and it only took the first twenty minutes or so inside the Six Flags version to judge it superior. More of the original thematic design from the Marriott era remains, the landscaping is thoughtful, and the changes and expansions over the years have been well considered and executed throughout.

Concept painting of the Hometown Square area.

All the areas of Great America were thoroughly rendered as concept paintings and illustrations by Duell’s design team, just as the Disney imagineers were accustomed to doing. And also like at Disney, what ended up being actually constructed was a scaled back version of the original vision.

Once you walk around the Columbia Carousel, there are two brick entry points, one for Hometown Square (to the right) and one for Orleans Place (to the left). They appear identical to their California counterparts, and their placement bothered me in the same way—the entrances are not laid out symmetrically, and they’re both outside the railroad berm. In fact, the entire Orleans Place area is outside the berm.

To the right as you enter the Hometown Square area is a page right out of the Disneyland Main Street U.S.A. playbook, although it seemed to my eyes at least that the forced perspective has been executed less skillfully. Paint schemes are both lively and authentic, however, and don’t suffer from a 1990s mall-like, garish genericization as seen on International Street at Kings Island.

I do wonder why Duell’s design team chose only a Town Square, as opposed to the more thematically traditional Main Street model.

One book I refer back to over and over again is historian Richard V. Francaviglia’s Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America (1996). The text explores the genealogy of the American Small Town throughout different regions of the country, and explores the illusions we have in our imagination of these places as filtered through film, television, and theme parks.

Hometown Square, satellite view. Map data: Google.

Francaviglia notes that the Town Square was imported from Europe and took root predominantly in New England. It was also established in the Southwest as a result of Spanish influence. But somewhere in the middle of the country (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) the Main Street model became more popular, and this extended through the Plains to the Rockies and eventually to the American West.

Disney’s Magic Kingdom-style parks do feature a Town Square at the entrance which then connects to the rest of Main Street U.S.A. and leads down to the castle.

Yet there’s an irony here at Great America: Walt Disney brought the Midwestern Main Street from his hometown memories of Marceline, Missouri to Southern California. And Randall Duell brought the Town Square from his design firm in Southern California (where the Spanish had built Zocalos, or Town Squares). to Gurnee, Illinois—the region where the Main Street model originated.

It could just be that doing a small town Main Street in cute Victorian trimmings would have been too direct of a lift from Disneyland, and Duell’s designers—whether creatively or legally—were reluctant to go there.

Which is why I found this particular structure, first on the right as you enter the square, supremely odd. There appears to be a small residence of some kind on the second floor. And even during the day, there is a single lamp illuminated inside.

To me this smacked directly of Walt Disney’s famous apartment above the Firehouse on Main Street U.S.A. As the story goes, Walt asked for this small residence to be incorporated into the park’s design so that he could stay overnight at Disneyland as the long hours of construction neared completion.

Walt stayed in the apartment frequently, often with family members, in the years after the park opened. Walt Disney passed away in December, 1966, and ever since, a single lamp remains lit during park hours day and night as a sort of ‘eternal flame’ tribute.

I don’t know if this similar presentation in Hometown Square at Great America is a coincidence or not, but there’s the lamp up in the window. I asked a couple park employees what was up on the second story and what the single light was all about, but neither had any idea. Mystery marked: unsolved.

Opposite the park entrance at the far end of Hometown Square is the Grand Music Hall, and it was closed during my visit. This did not surprise me, as live entertainment does not hold the same draw at theme parks that it had in decades past—comedy shows and musical revues used to play to packed houses like this one several times a day. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re in the age of the smartphones and streaming, but these shows simply don’t pull in the crowds anymore. Yet when Great America first opened, this venue was the hottest ticket in the park.

Despite the various restaurant rebranding and vendor turnover which has undoubtedly occurred over the years, most of the structures I saw at Great America were decently maintained and retained their original charm (and paint schemes).

There’s a single-room schoolhouse in the area of the square which appears to function as restroom facilities. At first I thought it might have been a historial relocation or re-creation, like at Knott’s Berry Farm, but I think it was simply designed thematically along with the rest of the park.

Everything in Hometown Square is a sly and subtle mixture of Victorian Gingerbread with Midwestern Small Town elements, and Old Country Ranch with some Generic Americana thrown in. Again, I was pleasantly surprised to find so much actual routed wood type. Although the lettering treatment here screams “Seventies Strip Mall Laundromat,” it’s at least real painted wood, not plastic.

This is the view of Hometown Square from the railroad station near the park entrance towards the Grand Music Hall. Forward and to the right lies the way to Midwest County Fair. Because of the central service corridor to the left, Orleans Place is accessed by going back towards Carousel Plaza and outside the railroad berm.

All Aboard the Great America Scenic Railway

The Hometown Square Railroad Station perhaps best illustrates the differences in design vision and attention to detail which set Disney apart from its many imitators and competitors. From the walls to the roofing to the interlocking cinder blocks and green railings, this feel more like a mobile home park in rural Illinois than a turn of the century train depot.

Even setting scale aside, the grandeur of Disneyland’s primary railroad depot is obvious. And it’s not just a matter of money—construction costs for both Great America parks was 72.75 million in 1976 dollars (by comparison, Disneyland cost some $17 million in mid-century money). Just like at other Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks, it’s a matter of priorities. And the priority is thrill rides.

And among all the thrilling roller coasters, it is nice that the attraction is here at all. The railroad and two train stations at California’s Great America were dismantled in 1999.

Rather than the custom themed graphics found at Disneyland, the train station features actual antique sign reproductions.

The Great America Scenic Railway is the same narrow gauge as the railroads at Disneyland, Cedar Point, Kings Island, and many other parks throughout the United States. In fact, one of Great America’s former locomotives (c. 1980) was traded to Disneyland, then later relocated to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, then sold to Cedar Fair, run at Knott’s Berry Farm, and finally returned to Cedar Point in 2010 and operates there today as the G.A. Boeckling.

The railroad ride around the park was relaxing and cool, a result of the lush landscaping throughout. It felt different than either Disneyland (which has varying amounts of foliage and views of backstage areas throughout) or Cedar Point (with the views of Lake Michigan). The ride felt close to Kings Island in terms of being lost in the woods, but the route was far longer.

The Midwest County Fair Railroad Station is of the same basic modest design as the one I left at Hometown Square, though I think it has a better paint scheme.

Unlike the antique reproductions I saw earlier, around this train station are stylized, themed graphics. “For good and reliable service to all Six Flags Theme Parks.”

Walt Disney’s design instincts have been proved right time and time again, and for certain, there’s just something about having a train circling a park. That’s probably why it’s the most oft-copied Disneyland feature found at parks across the country.

Continued in Part 2.

Michigan's Mis-Adventure.

March 09, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

After spending several days at Cedar Point and Kings Island in Ohio, I continued my travels through the Midwest and made a quick, nearly half-day stop at what I discovered is the smallest park in the Cedar Fair portfolio—Michigan’s Adventure.

Michigan’s Adventure, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Peering down from a satellite view, the park looks quite larger than its actual 250 acres. This is because a substantial (5,383 feet, fourth longest in the world) out and back wooden coaster runs the entire length of the parking lot and then some (pictured here along the bottom right edge).

It wouldn’t be a Cedar Fair park without another hyperbolic park map, and scale and proportions are all out of whack as usual. I make it a point to limit my reconnaissance and online research before I visit a new thematic site, as I prefer my initial impressions to be fresh. As such, I wasn’t aware of how ridiculously small Michigan’s Adventure is. So glancing down at the park map as I entered for the day, I thought, ok, plenty enough to do here. How wrong I would be.

A Deer Destination

Like many parks which Cedar Fair has come to acquire, this property began as something quite different.

Deer Park opened on this site in 1956, and featured a petting zoo (with, you guessed it, deer being on display prominently).

There was also a storybook themed land (similar to Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, California and other such parks across the United States), some small rides for children, and a picnic area.

In 1968, during a decade-long, nationwide scramble to compete with Disneyland which brought forward the first Six Flags parks, the admission gating of Knott’s Berry Farm, and expansion at Cedar Point, a man named Roger Jourden bought the park with the intention of developing it into a larger local attraction.

Jourden dispensed with the deer and started adding more rides, renaming the place Deer Park Funland in 1972 to suggest an amusement atmosphere. He continued to add more rides each and every season. By 1979 the park had a standard Arrow model Corkscrew (the seventh) which is still in operation.

Shiver Me Timbers

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the park continued on in this manner, quietly adding a few new attractions from year to year. For the 1988 season Deer Park Funland was renamed Michigan’s Adventure and gained its first wooden roller coaster, Wolverine Wildcat.

Yet ten years later, for the first time the park landed on national roller coaster radar with the addition of Shivering Timbers. The ride broke records and brought in fans from all over the world. Michigan’s Adventure was finally, somewhat, famous.

The landscaping around the coaster is lush, with foliage suggesting a logging theme (though this is not made explicit by any theming or propping in the station ). Timbers = logging = trees seems to be the extent of the vision here.

Even after Cedar Fair purchased the park in 2001, no great efforts were taken to ‘theme-up’ Michigan’s Adventure. It doesn’t have ‘lands’ and never has, so design motifs are sporadic and not cohesive. In and around Shivering Timbers the retail and dining structures carry a generic “woodsman” frontier look, which scans decently as the Northwoods region of Wisconsin as well as Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

It’s woodsy, there are shingles on the roof…time to cut down a tree, start a fire, and cook some game! But again, I should go easy on the place. Michigan’s Adventure is not a theme park, has never been a theme park, and is not pretending to be one, either.

Here we have the kind of cheesy plastic-molded 19th century wood typography that is stock in trade for Six Flags parks and remains hopelessly stuck in the Jimmy Carter’s only term.

The park’s Timbertown Railway is a cute, scale train ride (smaller than narrow gauge). This is the depot near Shivering Timbers, and it feels much like the station I found at Cedar Point’s Frontier Town.

The typography on the signage here is a more authentic treatment than the “General Store” above, but certainly a contemporary interpretation—it’s from the Letterhead Fonts Foundry (LHF) which was founded in the late 1990s.

At first I assumed this was the same railroad as pictured in the vintage advertisement above, but actually it was only added to Michigan’s Adventure in 2002, just a year after Cedar Fair acquired the park. The track appears to be the same gauge, however.

Rapids All Around

After a relaxing journey out into the the surrounding woods—including a small lake and a tunnel—the train stops at its second depot, the Grand Rapids Junction. Once again, solid 19th century type, though the fonts themselves are of more recent vintage.

As I glanced back, I noticed that this station is even more rustic—less Victorian—than the one I departed from over in the wooded area surrounding Shivering Timbers (the first lift hill of which can be seen here in the distance).

During the 2006 season, Michigan’s Adventure celebrated its 50th anniversary, and for the occasion Cedar Fair added the Grand Rapids water ride. This was a previously undeveloped corner of the park, and probably contains its best-executed thematic design. The structures, rock work, and foliage all work to tell the same story with considered visual literacy.

Since acquiring Knott’s Berry Farm in 1997, Cedar Fair’s designers (or, more likely, their contractors) have been cribbing liberally from that Southern California park’s classic Old West theming as the company has augmented its other properties with renovations of existing attractions, new rides, and even new lands.

Whether it’s a new coaster, shop, quick service food stop, or even a sign, Cedar Fair seems to return to Knott’s for inspiration. This makes sense—it’s the only park, besides Cedar Point itself, which has a rich history to draw upon. I hadn’t noticed this until I visited Michigan’s Adventure, but looking back now, there are bits of Knott’s all over Cedar Point and Kings Island as well.

Case in point, this “RIP ROARIN’ FUN” sawblade is right from the Knott’s Berry Farm playbook. And the type, as before, is from the Letterhead Font Foundry. Again, a late-1800s industrial proprietorship becomes the most natural backstory for a ride conveyance, just like at Cedar Point and Kings Island.

The Grand Rapids ride itself also nods quite directly to BigFoot Rapids at Knott’s, which is actually currently undergoing renovation and retheming and will open in the summer of 2019 as Calico River Rapids (tying it more closely to other attractions in the Ghost Town portion of the park).

Although I didn’t ride it, I observed the “Old Faithful”-style water effects which were quite neat. The queue, load station, and surrounding props were all well designed. I will say though that the sweltering humidity of midsummer in Michigan worked against the visuals here, which smacked more of the Rockies region.

The Grand Rapids area aside, Michigan’s Adventure just didn’t deliver. I was glad to have ridden one of the more noted wooden roller coasters in the United States, but the park is lacking in scope. There just wasn’t enough to do. I planned on staying all day but barely lasted six hours (and this was with a lot of walking around and re-riding attractions multiple times).

I ended my stay with a pleasant lakeside view of the Wolverine Wildcat. Though the lake is artificial, the cool breezes blowing off its surface were certainly real (and welcome, given both the sun beating down and the heavy humidity).

I will say that Michigan’s Adventure did have this going for it—it was quiet, uncrowded, and relatively inexpensive. It just wasn’t the thematic destination I was hoping for.

Next stop: Six Flags Great America.