Main Collections Archives - Page 2 of 10

June 2, 2022January 24, 2023

River Country: The Hoot ‘n Holler History of Walt Disney World’s Original, Ole Time Swimmin’ Hole

Believe it or not, there was a Disney World before Lightning Lane. Before Genie+. Before FastPass, or Advanced Dining Reservations, or Park Hopping, or Animal Kingdom, or the Disney-MGM Studios, or EPCOT. Disney World existed without apps, or Wifi, or Mobile Orders, or Boarding Groups. In an era of increasing connectively and complexity, it’s almost difficult to imagine…

But long, long ago, Walt Disney World was a leisure resort; a destination defined not by pre-planning, waiting & reserving, and connecting with The Walt Disney Company’s stories, characters, and franchises, but by sunbathing! Sailing! Biking! Picnicking! Golfing! Year after year, glimpses of that simpler time are harder and harder to find… Like dreamy visions, original remnants of the Disney World of the 1970s fade out of existence, unremembered.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

July 30, 2021December 8, 2024

Once Upon a Bear-y Tale: The Story of Knott’s Berry Farm’s Californian Classic and Its Return to the Fair

“Welcome one and all! Y’all come have a ball! Things are very fine, riding on the ole’ Knott’s Bear-y line!” It’s not every day that an attraction manages to truly capture a generation. It’s even rarer that one of those good, old-fashioned family attractions becomes so legendary, its story outlives its lifetime. Yet today, we’re inducting just such a classic into Park Lore’s library of Lost Legends.

Original characters created by one of Disney’s most legendary designers? Check. A memorable and melodic singalong musical score? You bet. Iconic environments plucked right from a storybook? Uh huh. Enough nostalgic wallop to enchant millions of Southern Californians over a decade-long life? Yes indeed.

While those ingredients may sound like the making of the kind of fairytale dark ride you’d expected to find in Fantasyland, Knott’s Bear-y Tales wasn’t a Disney attraction at all. Instead, it could only be found at Knott’s Berry Farm – just a few blocks north of Disneyland in Buena Park, California. How did one of Disney’s most esteemed Imagineers create an attraction that became a Southern Californian treasure? And how has the concept made a miraculous return? Well, let’s just say… it’s kind of a cute story…

Pages: 1 2 3 4

July 27, 2021February 8, 2022

Rediscovering Noah’s Ark: Inside Kennywood’s Classic, Last-of-its-Kind Walkthrough Treasure

“In the beginning…!”

Though it may not be the prologue you’d expect from a trip down an amusement park’s memory lane, there’s no better (nor more biblical) a way to begin an exploration into one of the most unique and under-recognized attractions on Earth – a last-of-its-kind, historic whale of a walkthrough found only at Kennywood Park just outside of Pittsburgh…

A classic attraction that’s survived the Great Depression, a World War, fifteen Presidents, countless redesigns, and (imagine this) a real flood, Noah’s Ark at Kennywood has been shared between nearly 90 years of Yinzers. Like a story passed from generation to generation, this heart-warming walkthrough still floats on today, forever stranded atop a rocky plinth smack dab in the heart of “America’s Finest Traditional Amusement Park.”

There’s something hypnotic about Noah’s Ark, gently rocking to and fro, its bow and stern rising and falling in sequence, its whistle sounding across the midway – “Heeeeeeee… Hoooooooo….”

To step aboard this 1936 attraction is to travel through time and emerge in a simpler era when funhouses dominated midways and trolley parks were the talk of the town. Instantly charming, retro-cool, and delightfully disorienting, the single, remaining Ark may seem an oddly aged attraction to stand among our Modern Marvels collection, but like all the rides we chronicled there, it’s secret to success can only be told by setting sail through its story…

Pages: 1 2 3

July 2, 2021July 19, 2025

GEAUGA LAKE: The Legendary Life and Loss of The World’s Most Adventurous Amusement Park

Year after year, season after season, traces of amusement parks past flicker out of existence. From historic dark rides to classic coasters; beloved landmarks to entire parks, sometimes, no amount of history, nostalgia, legend, or love can save a classic. Though Park Lore’s collection of Lost Legends is stocked with the stories of beloved theme park favorites of yesteryear, there’s no story as staggering as that of Geauga Lake.

You may never have even heard of the little amusement park nestled in the rural villages and towns southeast of Cleveland, Ohio. But its story is one that shocked the industry: a full-sized Six Flags and a full-sized SeaWorld, facing each other across a spring-fed lake that – literally overnight – merged into a single, gargantuan super-park. Mega-coasters, killer whales, dizzying flat rides, a Batman water ski show, dolphins, log flumes, waterslides, tigers, penguins, and motion simulators for one price, “Six Flags Worlds of Adventure” stood a chance at becoming the best amusement park on Earth… and more to the point, a fitting rival for Cedar Point just an hour and a half west…

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

March 25, 2021May 23, 2023

FANTASMIC! The Mysteries, Magic, and Visions Fantastic of Disneyland’s Dreamy Nighttime Spectacular

As the sun sets behind the horizon, a shimmering layer of Pixie dust settles across Disneyland. Torch-lit jungles underscored by the distant calls of unseen animals; wrought iron waterfronts alive with the smell of beignets and the sound of live jazz; frontier towns where lanterns signal refuge from the unknown of the uncharted wild West… Walt Disney would’ve been the first to admit: “a new kind of magic takes over in Disneyland after dark.”

That’s why we’ve launched a new limited series of in-depth stories that crisscross our Lost Legends, Modern Marvels, and Declassified Disaster collections: NIGHT MAGIC, the stories of the spectacles Imagineers have brought to life under cover of darkness at Disney Parks around the globe. Today, our Night Magic series continues to unfold with one of the most outrageous, extravagant, eccentric, hallucinatory, and downright wonder-full productions ever staged by Disney’s designers.

Each evening, Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios erupt into an abstract, larger-than-life, emotional, and epic battle between good and evil that’s loud, bright, and explosive enough to leave Las Vegas spectacles scrambling for more mortars. FANTASMIC! isn’t just a journey into Mickey’s imagination utilizing every tool in the Imagineering arsenal; it’s a generation-defining classic; a lasting testament to the grandeur of the “Ride the Movies” era; “the one to beat” for every nighttime spectacular to come after.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

March 7, 2021February 11, 2025

It’s Kind of a Sweet Story – The History of the Dole Whip From Polynesian Paradise to Disney’s Tropical Hideaways

Forget Space Mountain, “it’s a small world,” or Pirates of the Caribbean. Splash Mountain who? Jungle Cruise? Never heard of it. For generations of Disneyland and Magic Kingdom guests, it’s not any particular E-Ticket that makes a day at Disneyland or Magic Kingdom complete; it’s a Dole Whip. Today, this non-dairy, frozen, pineapple-flavored soft serve treat has ascended into an upper echelon of Disney Parks lifestyling, inspiring merchandise, media, and the Parks’ snack-obsessed culture.

The Dole Whip is an Instagram-ready icon; as “Disney” as Dumbo; the Zeus in Disneyland’s pantheon of must-try treats. And like the best Disney Parks classics, the story of this sweet snack is one wild ride. From Polynesian paradise to the mid-century Tiki Craze; Walt Disney’s tropical serenade to the citrus swirls of an Orange Bird and the expanded mythologies of the Tropical Hideaway, this widely-available-yet-distinctly-Disney frozen treat and its pan-Pacific story are just the in-depth explorations that our Special Features collection was made for!

So where do we begin in our quest to uncover the story of this Adventureland anchor? Believe it or not, the Dole Whip was not an Opening Day offering at either Disneyland or Magic Kingdom… Nonetheless, the story of this tropical treat begins a long, long time before Walt Disney World… or even Walt Disney…

Pages: 1 2 3 4

October 31, 2020April 12, 2022

Non Omnis Moriar: The Heartbreaking Haunting of Disneyland Paris’ Phantom Manor

As the cool autumn breeze drifts across the misty Rivers of the Far West and the last streaks of sunlight strike the face of Big Thunder Mountain, a dense fog descends through the red rock hoodoos. One by one, the lanterns of Thunder Mesa’s porches spring to life, and up on Boot Hill, an unexplainable lamp sparks behind the frosted windows in the attic of the old Ravenswood Manor…

Today, we offer you this chilling challenge: forget everything you know about grim, grinning ghosts, happy haunts, and a Ghost Host. One of the most spectacular dark rides on the planet may sound like your local Haunted Mansion, but beneath the surface, Disneyland Paris’ Phantom Manor is something all its own… A landmark of ’90s Disney Weirdness, this reinterpretation of an untouchable classic often falters… but it does so remarkably.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

September 19, 2020February 21, 2023

NIGHT MAGIC: The Main Street Electrical Parade From Powering On to “Glowing Away” Forever

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… Disneyland proudly presents our spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-syntho-magnetic musical sounds… The Main Street Electrical Parade!”

For generations of Disney Parks guests, that triumphant, electronic, vocoded fanfare was far more than an announcement; it was a prelude to a dream. Dazzling sights set aglow in the darkness of Disneyland; infectious, joyful music bounding throughout Magic Kingdom; a dreamscape of hundreds of thousands of lightbulbs reflecting in the eyes of young and old… This was peak Disney.

For fifty years, the Main Street Electrical Parade was a synthesized, symphonic, mobile masterpiece, elevated to stand among classic attractions like very few entertainment offerings can. It was an icon of the era; a masterwork of engineering, audio production, design, and marketing… and then, it was gone. At least, for a while.

Today, we induct the Main Street Electrical Parade into our catalog of Lost Legends – the in-depth stories behind loved-and-lost theme park classics from around the globe. We’ll trace the development of this sensational cross-generational fan favorite, follow its many rebirths, and see how the concept has been often imitated (but never quite duplicated!) in an array of dance-along nighttime parades that have come since.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

July 17, 2020July 23, 2020

Disney’s Possibility Studios: A Tour Through The Action-Packed Movie Park That Never Was

Possibilityland. If you’ve been with us at Park Lore long enough, you may have traveled with us to this spectacular place where never-built attractions are alive once more. In fact, our Possibilityland series is packed with in-depth tales of never-built rides from around the globe. But once in a while, our trips to Possibilityland take a detour. From time to time, we like to step back and walkthrough entire parks as they could’ve been if one person said “yes” instead of “no.”

So far, our “What If?” Walkthroughs have taken us through the Magic Kingdom that almost was; an alternate reality Future World with its cancelled pavilions restored; and an epic journey through Disneyland’s could-be-classics. And today, our trip through Possibilityland brings us to the Pan-Pacific Gates of a park you may hardly recognize… Welcome to the Disney-MGM Studios that never was.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

July 5, 2020October 29, 2020

Possibilityland: A Walk Through The Disneyland That Never Was… But Could’ve Been

To all who come to this place of possibility: welcome. Possibilityland is your land. Or… It could’ve been!

Here at Park Lore, our Possibilitlyand series contains the stories of rides, attractions, lands, and even theme parks that almost were. With each entry, we’ve explored never-built, could-be classics from the Western River Expedition to Muppet Studios; Disney’s America to Westcot. But today, our trips into Possibilityland set their sights on an entire alternate-reality version of a park we think we know…

Today, we’ll walk through themed lands of Disneyland that look quite different from the ones we know and examine the attractions that were cut just before they came to life. In Possibilityland, we can find attractions, areas, and even full lands that simply never came to pass. Think about it: if someone had said “Yes!” instead of saying “No!” (or vice versa), this could be the Happiest Place on Earth!

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5