Yogi's Home Up North

Here's (what appears to be) a promotional photo of the Hanna-Barbera gang outside of the Yogi's Cave attraction at Canada's Wonderland, a sister park to Kings Dominion. I swiped the picture from the amazing Flickr feed of user Mr. Flintstone. Canada's Wonderland opened in 1981 in Ontario and featured similar attractions to those found at KD and Kings Island. By the time I made it to Wonderland in 1986, Yogi's Cave had been transformed into Smurf Cave. Of course, at the time, that was OK with me! Here's the write up about the Smurf attraction from Wikipedia:

A funhouse-like cave building that featured scenes of Smurfs in their "natural" habitat. This attraction was actually converted from Yogi's Cave in Yogi's Forest (1981–1983) before the area was changed to Smurf Forest for the 1984 season. Also featured near the end of the cave was a section of Gargamel's house where Gargamel would be playing his organ. Gargamel's house was formerly the Ranger's Cabin during its use in Yogi's Cave. Smurf Village was removed and replaced by an arcade until 1998 where it housed Meet-and-Greets with the Rugrats. Currently it functions as a gift shop and mini-arcade in the Zoom Zone area.

More Vintage Kings Dominion

Oh, Ed! Will you ever stop scouring YouTube looking for old videos of your beloved Virginia amusement park Kings Dominion? The answer, my friends, is no! Feast your eyes on this spiffy 8mm film I dug up on the YouTube featuring tons of great old 70's style amusement park fun.

First off you'll see the Rebel Yell with some great shots of Lake Charles and the King Cobra roller coaster by it's side. The lake has since been filled in to make way for the water park and the King Cobra...it was at Jolly Roger in Ocean City, MD for a while. I'm not sure where it is now, I bet I could find out. (And will!) There's also some neat footage of the sky ride and the view of the park from said sky ride. You just don't see bucket-style sky rides like that anymore! And there are some gorgeous shots of the Lost Mountain as well as some footage of KD's Giant Slide. And it's a really big Giant Slide. Enjoy!

Fred and I `76

This picture is awesome for so many reasons! First, we've got little ol' me just shy of 4 years old hanging out with one of my best buddies, Fred Flintstone! This picture also gives us a look at how the walk around characters looked at Kings Dominion in 1976. Too bad there's not more of the park on display in this shot - over Fred's left shoulder you can just make out the giant rainbow entrance to Hanna-Barbera Land, so it's safe to assume this photograph was snapped inside the Happy Land of HB. Last but not least, the photo is dated on the back June 6, 1976. Why is someone standing in an amusement park in the summer wearing long pants and a tie? I'm not talking about Fred, because he doesn't wear pants, I'm talking about the fashionably dressed gentleman in the background.

Classic Commercial Sunday - #64

This first commercial plugs Kings Dominion's newest ride at the time, Sky Pilot. A girl got me to go on that ride one time and it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life! I would also like to mention that I stand by my theory that Peoples Drug is a way better name that CVS!




Now that's a jingle!

Smurfs Ahoy

It's been a little over a year since we last mentioned my all-time favorite amusement park ride, Smurf Mountain. You know, the super slow train ride though a mountain to visit the village of the Smurfs at Kings Dominion!? Well, as I'm sure we've mentioned before, Smurf Mountain had a sister ride at Kings Island in Ohio called Smurfs' Enchanted Voyage. It was basically the exact same ride except you traveled through the scenes in a boat. I was lucky enough to take a ride on the Smurfs boats back in 1988. Well, Smurfs Enchanted Voyage is no longer with us. It's joined the big mushroom in the sky along with Smurf Mountain and Smurf Island at Carowinds and Smurf Forest at Canada's Wonderland. Somebody recently posted a very smurfy video of a few minutes of the Ohio ride. It's awesome to see again...

Photo Quiz

Why am I running this photo today?

A) Because it features my little brother (in the stripped shirt) and his buddies on their 8th grade field trip back in 1990.

B) Because the one kid is wearing a Lowenbrau beer t-shirt at age 13 on a Catholic School field trip.

C) Because the picture features a glimpse of walk-around character Quick Draw McGraw circa 1990 Kings Dominion.

The answer is C, of course.

Behind the Dominion

How do I find these things on YouTube? Because I'm Awesome...that's how!? Here's a video a contractor working at Kings Dominion made a few years ago. He's driving around the "backstage" area of the park, and he's quite knowledgeable about the history of the park and shows off a few cool spots out of sight to the everyday visitor.

Joe Cool's Driving School

As Kings Dominion transforms Nickelodeon Central into Planet Snoopy, the most work so far has been on upgrading a unique kiddie car ride from Rugrats Toonpike to Joe Cool's Driving School. Here, kids get a chance to drive "real" cars on trackless city streets.

After taking a quick driving lesson kids are led out into a little cityscape where they pick a car and have a turn at driving through the little town. I suppose there are some sort of sensors in the car that prevent it from banging into other cars and driving through intersections without caution. However, Elias still managed to clip a curb on his journey.

The cars have all been given fresh paint jobs and each adorned with the likeness of a Peanuts character. When Tanner called out to Elias, "What car did you get?" Elias leaned over and checked out his hood and screamed back, "I've got Franklin!" I knew my work as a parent was done because no other kid in the park that summer will know who Franklin is.

Tanner behind the wheel of his Charlie Brown roadster.

Joe Cool's Driving School also features a faux gas station where kids can drive through. The graphic design of the station is reminiscent of an old Sinclair gas station.

There are big 3-D statues of most of the Peanuts gang throughout the attraction. The city that the kids drive around is so big that it was hard to get good pictures of some of the characters.

Here's Linus and his security blanket...

...and Lucy and her psychiatry booth (awesome!)...

...and good ol' Franklin!

Here's a shot of the attraction at night from the Eiffel Tower. It's a pretty impressive amount of land that they devoted to this ride.

Snoopy Comes to Kings Dominion

As I've mentioned, this year Snoopy and the Peanuts gang take over the duties as Kings Dominion's park mascot. The park has been promoting an all-new kids area called Planet Snoopy, which has also been introduced at several other parks owned by parent company Cedar Fair. From looking at other park's websites, it seems that Kings Dominion's Planet Snoopy hasn't quite got the same attention as Kings Island, Carowinds or any of the other Cedar Fair parks.

Planet Snoopy now covers the area formerly called Nickelodeon Central. Four attractions have been given an overhaul. Nickelodeon Space Surfer, a giant swing ride, has been given a new color scheme and rechristened Flying Ace. The water playground known as Green Slime Zone is now called Snoopy's Splashdance. A nice reference to a mid-80's Peanuts special, but just a new sign was added - nothing else. Paramount Showplace, which recently housed a live show featuring Nickelodeon characters and originally presented a dolphin show is now Peanuts Showplace where the show Camp Snoopy Day can be seen. (Except on Thursdays, which is when we were there.)

The most effort has been put into the Rugrats Turnpike which is now Joe Cool's Driving School. It's pretty neat...and we have enough pictures of it to share it with you tomorrow in it's own post.

This is Elias following Snoopy's footprints along a path leading to the Joe Cool's Driving School attraction.

An odd addition to Planet Snoopy is this giant moon bounce which isn't listed on the park's website or in the guide map at the park. It didn't look open when we passed by it, either.

One of my favorite spots in the original layout of the park was the old Hanna-Barbera toy store. Of course, that's gone now. But so is the lame-o Nickelodon store that was in the space for a while. Now the building is home to Snoopy Boutique, an awesome shop which I easily could have dropped $300 bucks in.

The outside of Snoopy Boutique is lined with these large comic strip frames. Great picture opportunities.

Among all the really cool stuff they have in the store, there are plush of all of Snoopy's brothers and sisters. Where else are you gonna be able to take home your own Marbles, Spike, Andy, Belle or Olaf? Well played Cedar Fair merchandising department...well played!
And look at this....Franklin and Pig Pen even get their own plush! How cool is that? Franklin never gets any love!

The strangest thing in Planet Snoopy is that instead of playing the jazzy Vince Guaraldi Peanuts music that everyone instantly associates with Charlie Brown cartoons, through out Planet Snoopy they were playing Hannah Montana songs. Schroeder would be mortified!

They are off to a good start with Planet Snoopy, but they need to keep going with the rest of the kids section and bring it all together under one Snoop! Some of the other kiddie rides need a Peanuts makeover. Perhaps next year we'll see the rest of Kings Dominion's kiddie section get the same attention as other parks in the chain. Until then...Good Grief!

Trip Report: Kings Dominion 2010

We made it out to Kings Dominion this past week. Anybody who reads this blog with any regularity knows that it's one of my favorite amusement parks. It's the park I grew up going to and so many things that I love about the amusement park industry I first got a taste of at Kings Dominion. Nowadays, I live much closer to Hersheypark but every couple of years or so, we made the 3 1/2 hour journey out to Doswell, VA to visit KD. Every visit brings a different set of mixed emotions.


The most exciting news...for me, at least, on this trip was I was able to go on rides that I haven't been able to for many years. Around the mid-90's, my careless lifestyle had caught up with me as far as amusement park rides were concerned and my size prohibited me from fitting into the safety restraints on most thrill rides. After a few trips to various parks where I wasn't able to ride roller coasters I pretty much closed the roller coaster riding chapter of my life and settled for the merry-go-round instead.


After having a heart-attack in November, I severely curbed my eating habits and added exercise into my life for the first time. I've been able to drop 70 pounds in the past 8 months and one of the most exciting benefits is that I had no problem fitting into any of the rides at Kings Dominion. I was able to revisit old friends like the Rebel Yell and the Grizzly. (I estimate I haven't been on any of Kings Dominion's coasters since 1993.) In addition to the Anaconda and the Hurler I also got on the Backlot Stunt Coaster and the Ricochet. All of them - GREAT RIDES! But I have to say that in my older age, the twisting and looping of Anaconda left me a little queasy.


Of course, being the cartoon loving kid that I am/was, one of my favorite rides in the park had always been the kiddie coaster Scooby-Doo. It's now called Ghoster Coaster, but no matter what you call it - I was elated to be able to fit into the ride's smaller cars and ride it with both of my children. (It was Tanner's first "big" coaster and he absolutely loved it!)


Elias also added a few more "big boy" rides under his belt. He loved the Avalanche bobsled ride and the Backlot Stunt Coaster, which is a bit intense but he conquered it twice! I also really enjoyed the ride. It's a roller coater with a little story and show attached to it, something Kings Dominion doesn't typically do. The cars of the coaster actually look like little sports cars (They were originally designed to resemble the getaway vehicles from the movie The Italian Job.) The train of cars blasts off from the station and swirl around three levels of a parking garage before dodging through traffic and several police cars. The train then comes to a stop in some sort of warehouse setting, where a helicopter starts to shoot at you. You then blast off again, into a tunnel for some fairly extreme twists and turns in the dark before crashing through a billboard and landing in a drainage ditch. Pretty fun little ride!


They still have the crazy upside down ship ride at the front of the park called The Berserker, and they still have their stand-up roller coater Shockwave. Both - rides I've never been on and will probably never get on! There's two newer steel coasters that I also opted out of: Dominator and Intimidator 305 which is tall. I mean, really, really tall!


Kings Dominion is still home to one of the best white water rapids rides White Water Canyon. And they still have their original log flume ride, Shenandoah Lumber Company, which has not been altered since it debuted in the 1970's. Nice touch!

Unfortunately, there is alot of the park that has been changed too much over the years. When Paramount Pictures took control of the park in the early 90's, they started to make sweeping changes throughout the park. Most of the changes were to brand the park with Paramount owned franchises and also to promote new movies and TV shows. This is the time in the park's history when the Wayne's World section of the park was introduced. A well executed addition, but a ridiculous idea for something that is so permanent like an entire themed area of the park.

Some of the natural beauty of the park has been lost over time as well. In some spots of the park there are too many things shoehorned into a small amount of land. Rides are squeezed in between other rides and there are way too many Games of Chance and Dippin' Dots stands. (Really, how many Dippin' Dots stands does one park need. Is it really that popular!?!) The Grizzly is a great wooden coaster that was originally designed out in the woods. The queue for the ride took you way back into the woods and you couldn't really get a good look at the ride until you were on it. That is a major design element of the coaster. That illusion is lost today, as the wooded area around the ride was torn down to make way for a go-cart track, an arcade and a Dippin' Dots stand!

A go-cart track in a world class theme park like Kings Dominion is a horrible idea! It was added under the reign of Paramount and I would hope the parks new owners, Cedar Fair, are considering removing it. First of all, it just cheapens up the park. Anybody can go 10 miles in any direction from their home and find a go-cart track. Second, the track just sits there unused because why would anybody shell over another $8.00 to go on a ride when they just spent $50.00 to get into your park and go on rides all day! I would really like to see Kings Dominion remove the go-cart track and add another ride or just plant some trees and leave the Grizzly back in the woods where it belongs.

This year also marks the first time in the park's history that the association with Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters has been completely eliminated. Paramount took over the park at a time when Hanna-Barbera was fading in popularity and Nickelodeon (a division of Paramount) was looking to further brand itself. Slowly the park lost the original Hanna-Barbera Land to Nickelodeon Central. Out went Scooby-Doo and Yogi Bear and in came Spongebob and the Rugrats. This year Kings Dominion removed the final elements of Hanna-Barbera and all the Nickelodeon and began to bring in Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the Peanuts characters to Planet Snoopy. For me, the Hanna-Barbera characters have always been as important to KD as Mickey and Co. are to Walt Disney World. If I had to choose another group of characters to move in and take over hosting duties from Yogi and the gang I can't think of a better property than Peanuts. It's timeless and has a universal appeal to children and adults. I'm going to save further discussion of Kings Dominion's new Planet Snoopy section for the next post...

Here's a few more things I'd like to see Kings Dominion take care of to spruce up the park: #1 Work on the outside of the park. The drive up to the parking lot booth is nothing - there is no show quality what-so-ever. Some flags, some landscaping and some repaving would go a long way. Currently the parking lot rows are numbered in colorless A1, B7, C13 signs. The original KD had all the parking lot sections named after Hanna-Barbera characters. Let's break out some new colorful signs so the next time I visit I can park in Pig Pen 4, Peppermint Patty 16 or even just Snoopy 1.

#2 - Get rid of all the chain restaurants. This actually goes for alot of parks because I know Hersheypark does the same thing. Who goes to an amusement park and gets Subway or Chick-Fil-A or Panda Express!? Why is there a Cinabon and a Starbucks on King Dominion's International Street. Same thing like the go-carts, it looks cheap and it's not out of the ordinary. I can toss a pebble of my porch and hit 3 Starbucks, they don't belong behind a $50 admission gate.

#3 - Bring Back Entertainment. Kings Dominion now has three shows, one of which is just people singing in the street. Little ol' Dutch Wonderland is a fraction the size of KD and they have 5 times the entertainment options. Where's the country music show? Every park should have a country music show!

#4 - Don't add another bazillion dollar roller coaster until you fix up some neglected areas of the park. The former Wayne's World section is just kind of there. It's a bit empty and needs alot of attention. Also, the kids area needs alot of work - mostly in themeing, but there is some awkward space where stuff used to be that they need to fix up.

#5 - Don't rush everybody out at closing time. They were directing foot traffic through the front gates at closing time quicker than a Zu-Zu Pet fueled stampede on Black Friday. We were not allowed the luxury to shop International Street (their Main Street) at our own leisure. They seriously wouldn't let me cross the street to shop the other side! Hey Kings Dominion, the only attraction on International Street is "spending money!" You really should let people stick around and spend as much as they want. Disney World wouldn't dream of even hinting at kicking a single soul out the front gate until every wallet has been sufficiently drained!

Those are just a few of my suggestions. Kings Dominion: still a great park, filled with many memories and still able to make new ones! Check back tomorrow for a look at Planet Snoopy...

Deleted Scenes: Kings Dominion

Last week when I posted my unused pictures from Storybook Land, I got to thinking about all the pictures that I snap at amusement parks (and other various places that we visit) and never end up using. So I though I'd open up some of those old picture files and see what goodies await inside. For the most part, I don't think any of these pictures have made it to this blog, of Flickr or Facebook. They're nothing special! We're calling the new department "Deleted Scenes" and first up is one of my very favorite amusement parks to obsess over: Kings Dominion! These pictures are from a July 2007 visit.



The above photo is of a game building that has looked pretty much the same for as long as I can remember. So many things have changed at Kings Dominion that it's nice to see this old fashioned, Country Fair-style building still standing. Behind the building sits a huge arcade that's always been a favorite spot to be trapped in when it rains.



There was a time when landscaping was almost as big of an attraction as the rides and shows at an amusement park. Over time, space becomes more valuable and maintaining a piece of property just to look at becomes no longer cost effective. Why spend money grooming a nice flower garden when you could just tear it up and slap down another Dippin' Dots stand and make some money. This waterfall, located in whatever they were calling Hanna-Barbera Land that year, was just about the last bit of decoration squeezed in between all the kiddie rides.

Cave Kids was a very brief Flintstones spin-off from 1996 which featured the preschool aimed adventures of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm along with Dino. The show only lasted 8 episodes and aired on a handful of PBS stations. It's an odd choice for a reference in a theme park, but for a while the Infant Care Center at Kings Dominion was connected...in name only...to The Flintstones. (According to Kings Dominion's website, the name is still in effect!?)

When Paramount owned the park, they brought in alot of movie and television properties for almost no reason at all. They added the Happy Days Diner layover to an eatery originally built as Stan Mikita's from the Wayne's World movie. In fact, the park had a whole Wayne's World Land for a short while, but that was a silly idea that was dated from the moment in opened. The Happy Days Diner is now cleverly named The Juke Box Diner.

Here's another bizarre choice for a property to name a restaurant after: Tomb Raider Grill. They had a Tomb Raider ride which had nothing to do with the game or movie Tomb Raider, and it is now rethemed as well. The dining spot is now called Trail's End Grill. While it was Tomb Raider Grill you could dine on overpriced hamburgers and chicken strips while listening to the sound track of the Tomb Raider movies at very loud levels. Also, the fixins' bar had like lost treasures on top of it, or something like that. Whatever...it's all gone now!

In the original layout of Hanna-Barbera Land there were three Yogi Bear themed attractions grouped together in one spot. Yogi's Cave, Boo-Boo's Tree Swings, and Ranger Smith's Jeeps all sat together. Yogi's Cave closed a long time ago, but the swings and this jeep ride still hung on. I always loved the design of this jeep ride, which used Ranger Smith's Park Ranger uniform hat as it's inspiration. The Hanna-Barbera element has been completely removed from Kings Dominion this year and the kiddie section will be rechristened as Planet Snoopy. According to the website, this little ride will now be simply known as just Jeep Tours. I have a feeling the hat will remain.

Kings Dominion's 2010 season kicks off Friday, April 2.

We're Finally Going In!Vintage Kings Dominion Video

I'm not usually a big fan of any video on YouTube over 3 1/2 minutes long. But this video of Kings Dominion, which clocks in at near 10 minutes, is pretty darn awesome and I just had to share it.

The poster, KDFanPre91, took some old home video, slides and television commercials and edited them together into a tribute to the Virginia theme park pre-1991. There's several videos posted, each spotlighting a different section or two of the park. The video here is for International Street, Hanna-Barbera Land and Lion Country Safari. You'll see some great footage of the International Street fountains; the walk-around characters like Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear and even Hong Kong Phooey; and the old Monorail Safari ride...plus there's some great TV commercials sprinkled in (none of which I've found on YouTube before!)

If the video is too long for you, you can just scan through it and get the idea. There's a front seat POV of the Scooby-Doo Roller Coaster that's a bit long...it runs from 3:25 to 4:53 if ya wanna skip it. But make sure you don't skip past 5:59, for there you'll get almost one full minute of glorious footage inside my all-time favorite ride: Smurf Mountain! I've searched the internets high and low for some video of the interior of this attraction and this video gives you a good look inside the ride. It's pure Smurfy goodness! Enjoy...