Things Paramount got right/wrong

[SonofBaconator]

Paramount did some good things for KI as well as some bad things. Here's my own personal list

 

Things Paramount did right:

1. Flight of Fear
2. Delirium
3. Face Off and Drop Zone in the same year (Yes I'm giving them their original names for this list)
4. Fear Fest
5. Giving KI the World's Best Kids Area
6. Keeping Scooby Doo in the Park, even well after all the other Hannah Barbera characters left with the addition of the Nick Universe. (I miss Scooby)
7. Boomerang Bay (Sometimes I miss hearing Men at Work on the train)
8. Keeping The Racer backwards
9. Adding pay per rides like X-treme Skyflyer and Slingshot
10. Getting rid of the animal tours: though loved by many sometimes keeping animals for attractions is bad PR if standards aren't met- no animals, no bad PR

Things Paramount did wrong:

1. Removal of the antique cars and flying eagles to make room for a mediocre ride. 
2. Poor ride maintenance (as opposed to Cedar Fair's current standards anyway)
3. Removing Phantom Theater for a lazier tag ride (Paramount was great at theming so you can't tell me they couldn't have updated the ride to make it cooler)
4.  Paramount Everywhere!! I would have preferred Action Zone to be the main hub for Paramountness. They more or less threw rides themed after movies all around the park like Italian Job and Tomb Raider. Flight of Fear was a perfect example of a great ride that didn't have to be themed after a Paramount movie.
5. Not keeping up with park theming when they were in fact a movie company- I would have loved to see them theme Rivertown, Coney Mall, and even Oktoberfest back to their former glory.
6. Italian Job- though I was upset when they removed the antique cars and the flying eagles, I wouldn't have minded if they were replaced with an over the top ride; they didn't and therefore I mind.
7. Bubba Grump's Shrimp- this is just a personal opinion
8. More or less dull shows- taft had shows that made KI magical and fun, Paramount more or less focused more on action
9. Not taking any influence from Taft- It seems like when Taft left, there was a loss in KI magic that Cedar Fair is slowly starting to bring back. The train ride, for example, has since lost a huge chunk of its theming; thank godness they give the train the KD treatment. I felt like Paramount could have proven to be just as good if not better than Taft but they didn't, at least not in my eyes.
10. Son of Beast- I will not deny that Son of Beast was an iconic coaster, I will not deny that Paramount wanted to give the world something they never saw before, I will not deny that Son of Beast was a one of a kind ride that many still miss to this day. Here's why I said Paramount did Son of Beast wrong- it had all the potential and opportunity to be a great ride but it sorta fell short. The ride was the first of its kind and first of its kind rides don't usually do as well as hoped.  It was considered to be the roughest coaster in the world at the time and gave the park too much negative publicity. Cedar Fair did its best to keep up with SOB but in the end the cons outweighed the pros. This ride could have been a lot better than it was received if built better but that's a topic for another day. Bring on the pitch forks

Feel free to voice your own opinion

[purdude86]

Primary things I can think of for the Paramount era is

PRO: Great job theming new attractions and areas.

CON: Poor job maintaining said theming once it was put in place.

[KIghostguy]

Paramount did some good things for KI as well as some bad things. Here's my own personal list

 

 

1. Removing Phantom Theater for a lazier tag ride (Paramount was great at theming so you can't tell me they couldn't have updated the ride to make it cooler)

 

 

This.

[goettablitz]

This is an interesting topic.  

 

You have a good list started.  I would agree with most of what you have.  The biggest things Paramount got wrong in my opinion are:

 

- Installing new rides with themes that did not fit into the established theme of the area.  some examples are Top Gun in Adventure Village, Flight of Fear in Coney Mall and Tomb Raider in River Town.

 

- Adding themed attractions without the budget to maintain theme elements in future years.

 

- I feel like they primarily tried to go with more inexpensive coaster manufacturers such as Premier and Vecoma instead of investing in B&M or Intamin.  As a result I can say that all of the coasters Paramount installed are pretty mediocre with the exception of Flight of Fear.  The most notable coasters were either added before or after Paramount's ownership.  Between the years of 1992 and 2006 KI built Top Gun, Flight of Fear, Face Off, Son of Beast, Italian Job, Rugrats Runaway Reptar and Scoobys Ghoster Coaster.  Just to compare, during the same time period Cedar Point built Raptor, Mantis, Millennium Force, Wicked Twister, Woodstock Express and Top Thrill Dragster.

[Outdoor Man]

Most of the ride additions were good.  But it didn't seem that they had an overall plan in mind as to how each new addition "fit" into it's area.  Action Zone was actually as close to congruent theming that Paramount had... in that there was no theming to fit in to.

 

But lets be honest; other than being iconic to the skyline of the park- Son of Beast was a terrible coaster.  A terrible ride experience in addition to a thoughtless approach to design.  The roughest part of a wooden coaster are curves; for the most part that was all the coaster was.  Curves are rough at 35 mph... SOB was 70+ (wasn't it?).

 

Being a movie production company with access to thousands of theming titles- they could have really had an iconic park but didn't seem like they wanted to dive into it.  

[teenageninja]

This is an interesting topic.  

 

You have a good list started.  I would agree with most of what you have.  The biggest things Paramount got wrong in my opinion are:

 

- Installing new rides with themes that did not fit into the established theme of the area.  some examples are Top Gun in Adventure Village, Flight of Fear in Coney Mall and Tomb Raider in River Town.

 

- Adding themed attractions without the budget to maintain theme elements in future years.

 

- I feel like they primarily tried to go with more inexpensive coaster manufacturers such as Premier and Vecoma instead of investing in B&M or Intamin.  As a result I can say that all of the coasters Paramount installed are pretty mediocre with the exception of Flight of Fear.  The most notable coasters were either added before or after Paramount's ownership.  Between the years of 1992 and 2006 KI built Top Gun, Flight of Fear, Face Off, Son of Beast, Italian Job, Rugrats Runaway Reptar and Scoobys Ghoster Coaster.  Just to compare, during the same time period Cedar Point built Raptor, Mantis, Millennium Force, Wicked Twister, Woodstock Express and Top Thrill Dragster.

 

Top Gun was purchased by Taft's group and was originally going to be called Thunder Run or something along those lines.  Paramount took the opportunity and changed it to be Top Gun, which was on one of their properties.

 

Paramount bought a lot of cheaper rides that mostly panned out, however, most of them had pretty poor reliability and/or capacity.  Let's be honest, Flight of Fear was a disaster and got a second life when they removed the OTSR.

[silver2005]

I know Kings Island under Paramount was hindered a bit by Cedar Fair limiting them from using certain designers, but I still think there were other reliable designers out there, but Paramount chose to rely too much on prototype rides.  Son of Beast and Tomb Raider are both gone, Delirium still has problems each season (though less so than its early life).  Sure we got Firehawk under CF, but that was only due to GL biting the dust.  We've been lucky with our WindSeeker as well in that it's been nowhere near as problematic as, say, Knott's or CP's versions.  Diamondback and Banshee have been great from a reliability standpoint, the Planet Snoopy additions have been solid, and Mystic Timbers should have minor problems in its first year and should be fine after that.  

 

Paramount did offer better staffing/training, theming, and got their act together better when it came to promotions and things to aid guests.  I thought a lot of the benefits they gave to gold pass holders were done very well.  Overall, they were kind of the grey area between how SIX and FUN ran their parks.  

[NewDay420]

What they got right was not being afraid to go big.

I think a good portion of Kings Island's success today is a residual effect of the grand Paramount's Kings Island days.

[BB1]

Paramount did some good things for KI as well as some bad things. Here's my own personal list

 

Things Paramount did right:

 

1. Boomerang Bay (Sometimes I miss hearing Men at Work on the train)

You see guys, I told you I wasn't the only one who thought this was true!

 

Right:

 

-Boomerang Bay (duh)

-Flight of Fear

-Top Gun

-Gold Passes

 

Wrong:

 

-Lack of keeping up with their products.

-Destruction of the Hanna Barberra section. (I mean come on, keep the Ghoster Coaster!)

-Demolition of Phantom Theater

-The ultimate demise and inadequate operation of Winterfest.

[goettablitz]

 

 

 

 

This is an interesting topic.  

 

You have a good list started.  I would agree with most of what you have.  The biggest things Paramount got wrong in my opinion are:

 

- Installing new rides with themes that did not fit into the established theme of the area.  some examples are Top Gun in Adventure Village, Flight of Fear in Coney Mall and Tomb Raider in River Town.

 

- Adding themed attractions without the budget to maintain theme elements in future years.

 

- I feel like they primarily tried to go with more inexpensive coaster manufacturers such as Premier and Vecoma instead of investing in B&M or Intamin.  As a result I can say that all of the coasters Paramount installed are pretty mediocre with the exception of Flight of Fear.  The most notable coasters were either added before or after Paramount's ownership.  Between the years of 1992 and 2006 KI built Top Gun, Flight of Fear, Face Off, Son of Beast, Italian Job, Rugrats Runaway Reptar and Scoobys Ghoster Coaster.  Just to compare, during the same time period Cedar Point built Raptor, Mantis, Millennium Force, Wicked Twister, Woodstock Express and Top Thrill Dragster.

 

Top Gun was purchased by Taft's group and was originally going to be called Thunder Run or something along those lines.  Paramount took the opportunity and changed it to be Top Gun, which was on one of their properties.

 

Paramount bought a lot of cheaper rides that mostly panned out, however, most of them had pretty poor reliability and/or capacity.  Let's be honest, Flight of Fear was a disaster and got a second life when they removed the OTSR.

 

 

Your right.  Top Gun was purchased before Paramount took over.  At the time Arrow Dynamics was the premier steel coaster manufacturer.  Also around this time say around 1991 / 1994 B&M de-throned Arrow and Intamin began making a big name for themselves sometime later.  But again Paramount never spent the capital to buy rides for KI from the notable coaster manufacturers (Arrow in the early 90s, then B&M then Intamin).  As a kid I remember being soooo jealous of Cedar Point, the Busch Parks and Six Flags getting these awesome new Beemers and then KI builds an inverted boomerang.... or a ill fated wooden coaster that spent more time during its first season closed rather than open.  I do understand that there may have been some "non compete" agreements that might have prevented KI from getting a B&M as well.

 

Again I agree with you about FOF.  In 1996 Flight of Fear was the talk of the theme park world.  After the newness of the magnetic launch wore off we were left with the worlds most technologically advanced concussion machine.  That is until the OTSR were replaced with lap bars.

[KingsMills79]

Things Paramount did wrong:

1.  
2.   Poor ride maintenance (as opposed to Cedar Fair's current standards anyway)

I would be curious to know why DB's seats are in such deplorable condition. I know it's not necessarily ride maintenance from a mechanical standpoint but it's what the public sees when waiting in que to load/unload the trains. I guess I would say to myself if the seats are in such bad condition, what else have they been neglecting....I dunno? ........thoughts!

[Tr0y]

Things Paramount did wrong:

•  
•   Poor ride maintenance (as opposed to Cedar Fair's current standards anyway)

I would be curious to know why DB's seats are in such deplorable condition. I know it's not necessarily ride maintenance from a mechanical standpoint but it's what the public sees when waiting in que to load/unload the trains. I guess I would say to myself if the seats are in such bad condition, what else have they been neglecting....I dunno? ........thoughts!

It is because they are not cleaned after use. It's a simple fix in my opinion. All they need is a bucket with wheels, soap and water with a couple long handled scrub brushes. At the end of each day once the last train with riders is dispatched. The next train ( once people disembark) gets sprayed and scrubbed down by two ride operators while being followed by the other 2 ride operators to Push the lapbars close so the train can depart, doing so that the train with riders can make it back to the station and the train that is now wet but cleaned can air dry. Every train will get its chance to be cleaned and dried because in order for the train to be put into storage for the night it must run the course to reach the transfer track. For a park that has difficulty fixing light bulbs, cleaning coaster trains after use probably won't happen. Unless there is a protein spill of course.

[KingsMills79]

^makes perfect sense Tr0y.

 I was waiting in line for Fury 325 last summer when all of a sudden we saw a few trains being dispatched with no riders. Once we got to the loading gates, we saw the crew spraying down the trains and subsequently releasing them for full circuit drying.  All this due to several protein spills in one afternoon...yikes!!

 

On topic of cleaning...was at Dollywood for "Christmas in the Smokies" last weekend getting on Wild Eagle. Once we got to the gate and all riders were seated and buckled, there was a brief wait and we couldn't figure out what the delay was since everyone on our side of the train was buckled in and ready to go. Well, during this brief wait, both ride ops on our side grabbed a spray bottle and immediately started wiping down the release gates ( the big metal steel gates that open when the train is released). At first, I thought,"really, seems like you guys could do this tonight after you close?",because at that point, I was ready to ride.   but... it turns out that on the opposite side of the platform, the ride ops over there were helping a handicapped person get seated which caused the brief delay. Then I said to myself, this is so AWESOME..taking advantage of a brief downtime to keep the area clean.  Once again, Dollywood did not disappoint and this is the very reason that they are TOP NOTCH in customer service across the industry.

Too bad ALL parks can't do this.

[NewDay420]

Things Paramount did wrong:

•  
•   Poor ride maintenance (as opposed to Cedar Fair's current standards anyway)

I would be curious to know why DB's seats are in such deplorable condition. I know it's not necessarily ride maintenance from a mechanical standpoint but it's what the public sees when waiting in que to load/unload the trains. I guess I would say to myself if the seats are in such bad condition, what else have they been neglecting....I dunno? ........thoughts!

Good point. I was actually going to buy an on-ride photo from Diamondback once, but in the picture there was an open seat, and the head rest on that thing was ratchet.

[nhimes90]

My opinion: TR:TR was the best thing Paramount ever did. 

[MaestroJr]

Things that Paramount got right

-Good job with the theming 

-Great kids area

-Installing Top Gun, FACE/OFF, Drop Zone, and at the time Son of Beast

-For me personally great memories

Things they did wrong

-Removing most Hanna-Barbera themes

-Removing Phantom Theater despite it being still very popular among guest (including me) in 2002.

-Poor job of constructing and managing Son of Beast

-Made the park kind of  a gimmick

-Always doing what the other parks where doing in the Paramount chain

Overall though it was a good time at the park under Paramount.

[shark6495]

I feel it's good to mention that many of the things people are saying are good are from the early Paramount days.

The bad is mainly from the CBS days....

Also if there was a contract limit that B&M can't work with a park within X amount of miles, why is the blame on paramount for not using said company

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rivertown Rider]

Good: Flight of Fear, Days of Thunder, the idea of Son of Beast, Tomb Raider, the movie prop area walk thru behind Eiffel Tower, movie music around the park

Bad: the execution and design flaws of Son of Beast, taking out the Antiques/Eagles when Italian Job could of went elsewhere in the park, getting rid of Phantom Theater

[SonofBaconator]

I really missed the excess of foliage and scenery. When I was growing up, a lot of the park's interior was under developed and left untouched. Areas like swan lake and the mining building were nice because it was something to look at and it added to the charm of the park. Don't get me wrong, Diamondback is one of my favorite rides of all time but I miss the old mining company and the scenery it had. I love new rides and attractions but there are also times where I wish certain parts of the park were left untouched. Sometimes I like to feel like I'm not at a bustling amusement park, if that makes any sense 

 

http://kiextreme.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=79

[BlondyRidesOn]

Wow. That looks so different! Hard to imagine that that's the Diamondback entrance plaza now.

[beastfan11]

Man, oh man. How I miss Swan Lake/old Rivertown.

[silver2005]

Was it just B&M that Paramount couldn't work with, or was Intamin included in that clause as well, given all the Intamins CP installed in the 2000s?

[funpark]

2 hours ago, silver2005 said:

Was it just B&M that Paramount couldn't work with, or was Intamin included in that clause as well, given all the Intamins CP installed in the 2000s?

Paramount put in Drop Zone and I know that was done by Intamin. That's not a coaster though.

 

[CoastersRZ]

And Paramount did add some B&Ms.  They added what is now known as Afterburn at Carowinds (formerly Top Gun) in 1999.

[TOPGUN1993]

hmmmm

[MDMC01]

I remember Swan Lake. I also remember this small stage in Rivertown- did Diamondback replace said stage (I also believe this was where Cut-Throat Cove was for FearFest?)?

[purdude86]

YEa Cut Throat Cove was where Diamondback's entry plaza is now. Though it did relocate to the Biergarten for a little bit beofre retiring.

And I do really miss those buildings and theming around Diamondback's plaza, but do think it loosk good still with the station and gift shop, jsut wish Red's had a more WEstern-esque exterior to fit in with the other stuff more. As for Swan Lake, while it is more dynamic with the splashdowna nd not as calming I don't feel that the overall view has changed a ton. The biggest difference is jsut the lack of more larger trees on the edge of the bank nearer Diamondback's queue

[silver2005]

Just to clarify- my question regarding Intamin is in regards to CP's clause about CW and KI not being able to get a B&M at the time.

[KI Guy]

Although I still think it is worth it all things considered, it's a shame how Cedar Fair removed Swan Lake for the Diamondback splashdown. I don't see why the lake had to be drained and replaced with a small concrete pool.

If they wanted a splashdown why not just drain the lake, build the coaster over the lake, and refill it. What a missed opportunity!

[SonofBaconator]

The way I see it, I'm grateful Kings Island was the flagship Paramount park. I feel like Kings Island was way ahead of its sister parks like Kings Dominion, Canada's Wonderland, Carowinds, and CGA because it received a lot more love than it deserved. It is nice however that the two most neglected Paramount parks- Carowinds and CGA and finally getting the love they so desperately deserved.

I still don't understand why Carowinds and CGA didn't receive Italian Job Stunt Tract clones- does anyone know why?