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TombraiderTy

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Everything posted by TombraiderTy

  1. As Shaggy said, Stadium of Stars (sometimes referred to as Stadium of the Stars). It repurposed some of the bleachers the park had purchased for the Evel Knievel motorcycle jump and was used for visiting celebrities. It was added in 1977 and was last used in 1981. Festhaus sits in its spot now.
  2. The second video I shared in my above post is actually the footage you're talking about... although the YouTube video title is confusingly in Spanish. Here's the full video, now with an English title. Screamin' Demon starts around the 21:20 mark:
  3. I was just responding to the park maps - as you stated, they were inconsistent elsewhere and didn't stick with only The Demon after the change. For what it's worth, I've also always wondered if (and assumed that) the name change was to make The Demon consistent with The Beast and later The Bat. The ride definitely waned in terms of marketability... while looking through old brochures, it was slowly mentioned less and less. Interestingly, it seems Viking Fury took its place in a lot of the ride descriptions. Regarding the ride's logo, I believe @jandyb79 previously shared some early drafts of the demon character... including one with a full body. I cannot find them in his post history, but it was very interesting to see how the concept evolved into the logo they ultimately used.
  4. The 1981 park guide is the last time it was referred to as Screamin' Demon in a typical park map. From 1982 through its closure all references in the typical park maps were just The Demon... yet the park was weirdly inconsistent elsewhere. Like the poster maps - it was referred to as The Demon on the 1982 poster map onward, up until its final season when the 1987 poster map called it Screamin' Demon again. Weirdly the 1987 park map still listed it as The Demon though. And a 1984 brochure also lists Screamin' Demon in a description of the park's rides, whereas the 1984 park map used The Demon. I wonder what the actual entrance sign said during these years. There's no audio, but here's some wonderful footage of the ride in action from its first year (featuring that six car train). Lots of other vintage Kings Island in the video too: And some more great footage, now with the five car train, starting at 2:37 in this video:
  5. October 23, 2009 (how was that 10 years ago?!)
  6. Lots of other additions in 1977... Boulder Bumpers, International Showplace, Stadium of the Stars, North American animals to the safari, Fascination, Kings Island Inn expansion, Pinball Attic, Flintstones subsection in the children's area... The sixth car actually appears to have been dropped during the ride's first year of operation. There's an interesting article in the Cincinnati Enquirer from September 11, 1977 where Director of Ride Operations Bill Reed is quoted as saying "We were able to adapt the new ride to our needs. The ride was designed with a four-car train. We wanted it changed to five cars, for capacity. The engineers changed the structure on the ride, tested it in our location, and decided it was safe.” However, several photos and videos from the 1977 season show a six car train... including this small news article from less than two weeks earlier: I don't know if the above malfunction had anything to do with the six car train, but based off Reed's quote they may have changed the train length shortly after. At the latest, it was five cars by 1978 based off photos. I think you answered your own question there. The gradient was present its first couple seasons but gone by 1981. It was a dull brown up until its removal from Kings Island. For what it's worth, your recreation shouldn't have the yellow going as far up both hills and doesn't use enough orange. Here's a great shot of the whole ride from 1978, courtesy jade_41171 on flickr: Regarding Screamin' Demon versus Demon... they were used interchangeably at points, but 1982 is the first year the ride was referenced exclusively as "The Demon" in the park guides.
  7. Well in 1983 the building was used as the roller coaster station for The Bat. The Bat was still operating in 1983 1984 it was dormant alongside the coaster. The Bat was demolished April 1985 and the station then sat empty for the 1985 and 1986 seasons. A fence was put in front of the queue entrance and a sign was placed between Shake, Rattle & Roll and the station, instructing guests to watch the area for a new ride.
  8. That video is a little misleading - it mixes the poster maps the park sold with the typical park map guests were provided. The poster maps were beautiful, whereas the typical park map was sometimes a simplistic map composed of shapes and lines. Like the video's transition from 1987 to 1988 makes it look like the park completely overhauled the map, but in reality that was just 1988's poster map. The 1988 standard map was near-identical to 1987's.
  9. Is it possible that you saw the TV edit of the episode? A good chunk of the footage has been cut to allow for more ad time, like shots of Antique Cars and I think The Racer. The full episode is available on iTunes and for streaming on Hulu (although even the full episode is still substantially Kings Island Inn versus the park)
  10. If memory serves me right, I believe that the bulk of the files were originally shared with ACE on a DVD produced for the park's 30th anniversary... or something like that. Some quick web searches aren't turning anything up, but hopefully someone with more knowledge can correct/clarify that. They were originally posted on the old PKIAsylum, and KIExtreme hosted them after the former website died.
  11. I wasn't questioning whether it was real or not - both the Addams Family and the Boating School were real concepts and had real concept art attached to them. They were both included in surveys Paramount publicly sent out in the early 2000s, and I know I've seen the super pixelated pieces of art floating around online before. Here's a forum discussing one of the surveys, from 16 years ago: https://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Topic/new-paramount-parks-ride-survey. It includes the boating school (I guess it was officially titled SpongeBob Squarepants: Crash Course Boating School) and a few other ideas, like Mission: Impossible and Soundwave (which rumor was would be a retheme of Flight of Fear). Unfortunately none of the artwork was posted in that topic, but there's some descriptions and opinions of the concepts in the comments.
  12. In my opinion, you've already been clear in the fact that you've heard of a concept but don't have physical proof. You're not misleading people by creating a rendering and passing it off as the actual unbuilt ride. I'm interested in hearing what the coaster is. Also does anyone remember that Paramount survey years ago that included the pixelated concept art for the Mrs. Puff's Boating School and the Addams Family Reunion Coaster? I would have loved to have seen either of those built, but I don't think their theming would have held up... especially after the IPs would have likely been removed.
  13. I'm gonna paste my comment from the last one of these "long lost proposed coasters", as I think it still applies... only swapping the Cincinnati Enquirer reference for some basic statistics... The way the whole article is skewed implies that this was the coaster Kings Island almost built. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but isn't it just a fan's theory of what that coaster could have been like?
  14. Looking between the two 1972 photos again, it looks like the restroom near Wheel of Fortune was also expanded. I believe that was an expansion to the women's section, and today that restroom is considered Planet Snoopy. Would that be it?
  15. I never realized that was added in 1972 - I've always assumed it was a 1972-73 off-season thing, but looking through photos it was definitely there by October 1972. Today I learned. Based off this October 1972 picture (from eBay user Momthrewitaway), looks like some seating was added for the show on the General Store's porch.
  16. I love the idea of being able to search through all the photos! It's great to see the gallery more accessible too. With searching though, is there a way to possibly crowdsource some search terms to make it more expansive? For example, "Shake" brings up Shake, Rattle & Roll, but it doesn't include some of the older historic pictures of the ride I've seen in the gallery (like this one). Likewise, Troika brings up that aforementioned photo's gallery, but none of the newer shots. Other search terms could include the contributor's names and years. And being able to search by manufacturer is really cool, but the list seems incomplete - "Von Roll" isn't showing Sky Ride, for example. It could also be nice to see the photos in a grid, versus having to scroll through them one-by-one. I understand it's a massive effort and I'm glad to see this area of the website getting attention.
  17. Tumble Bug is my best guess too, but it may be a challenge to find a photo of the ride with the sign in it. Alternatively, The Beast opened with 8-person cars. That sign doesn't look like the same style as other Beast signs though, and the fact there were individual queues for each row seems to negate the need for it. Enchanted Voyage boats could also fit that many people, but I'd assume the sign would say "boat" and not car... plus the boats had three rows, so 9 seems like a more logical number. If I had to bet, I'd still say it was Tumble Bug.
  18. Ah darn; worth a shot. Thank you again for scanning and sharing them though! I'm glad this topic got bumped so they could be seen again.
  19. I've heard that claim a lot too (and used to believe it), but recently learned the antenna was actually removed between 1993-1994... which pretty much debunks the "Drop Zone tallest thing in park" rumor.
  20. Ah good catch, I didn't notice one of the two s-curve pieces was missing in the 1987 photo. It seems that the ride may have been limited to two train operation until the second s-curve piece was installed. I wonder how early in the season the photos were taken, and how late in the season the second s-curve (and therefore third train) was installed. @Kenban, do you by chance have dates associated with the photos? Or just the 1987 and 1990 years?
  21. I was combing each photo for details, trying to narrow down the date range for each of them... and then realized @Kenban had said "The actual files have a year on them if anyone is interested" You're correct on the date range - all the photos are either 1987 or 1990 (each filename has a KingsIsland###_87 or KingsIsland###_90). Directly above Vortex's station... anyone know what the track is from? Perhaps the whole transfer table hadn't been installed yet and the pieces are from there?
  22. Ah, gotcha. To be fair though, Possessed would only be the second Geauga Lake coaster to be removed from its new home after being relocated from Geauga. There's a few rides that have already met that fate: Texas Twister (HUSS Top Spin) was relocated to California's Great America as Firefall and closed in 2016 El Dorado (Weber 1001 Nachts) was relocated to Kings Dominion and closed in 2010 or 2011 Shipwreck Falls (Hopkins shoot-the-chute) was relocated to Celebration City as Roaring Falls and closed with the park in 2008.
  23. Second? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Possessed is the only Geauga Lake ride to go to Dorney. Are you perhaps mistaking Stinger, which came from California's Great America, as another Geauga ride?
  24. Interestingly Kings Island actually already had the most wooden roller coaster track even before Son of Beast (15,539'). Son of Beast bumped it up a lot though (22,571'). Kings Island also kept the record even after Son of Beast was demolished. It wasn't until Six Flags Great America opened Goliath in 2014 that they allegedly had more (16,558'), though you could get into some philosophical debates on whether Goliath's topper track is "wooden" coaster track. But regardless, Mystic Timbers' opening in 2017 pushed Kings Island back into first place (18,804').
  25. I don’t think I’d consider either ride prototype/first-of-its-kind, like former additions such as Son of Beast, The Bat, King Cobra, etc. Both coaster models had proven true and tested before Kings Island added them. In terms of record breakers, Banshee has the title as the world’s longest inverted coaster, but what does Mystic have? Besides pushing the sum of all park (*wooden) track up to the highest in any park?
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