Fierce Pancake

Busch Gardens Houston was over along the east side of I10 adjacent to the refinery. Mid to late 70s, they had some mild rides like a river ride. Lots of plants and animals. I've got some footage of the park I dumped from 8mm, it's hosted over on SixFlagsHouston.Com. Scroll down to about the 5th video listed.

Ya know, I think a golf course somewhere bought quite a few of the trees. But for the most part, its a shame the razed the place without any real plans.

Adventure Bay was not open in 2006.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070111/nyth086.html?.v=72 Six Flags has sold 7 parks including Splashtown in Spring TX to PARC 7F. Fate of the property not clear, seems like it will remain in operation for the short term.

When Texas Tornado/Thriller was removed from the German Fair circuit and located at Astroworld, Six Flags removed most of the flashy lighting the ride once had. The guy who put up this website has a lot of the original lighting in his garage, I've been over there and seen it.

Isn't the City of Houston Health & Human Services department moving in?

Kong at the end of River of No Return was always cool. Too bad he caught fire and had to be scrapped. That ride was ruined once they built XLR8 on top of it anyway. Only the singer in Erasure's gay, btw. But... pretty surprising that anyone could see him perform and not jump to that conclusion. He was dressed in a tutu during their Astroworld show for the Wild tour if I remember correctly.

No need to invest, Clark's did it for them. The A/V stuff is still there now for notsuoH version 2. First time I've been back to that place was to see Million Year Dance perform last week. Sound was good.

Paramount Parks no longer exist, the ink just dried on a deal where they were purchased by Cedar Fair. CF is in no position now to buy or build another park anytime soon. Busch is very unlikely, they already have a park in San Antonio and frankly when was the last time AB built a park? In fact, they SOLD their Ohio park a few years ago (to Six Flags!), if that's any indication how interested Busch Gardens is in expanding.

On the subject of the drain being pulled, looks like flooded Six Flags New Orleans is going down for good. http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/ind..._30.html#157149 So that's three parks in our southern region definitely wiped away this past six months: Astroworld, Adventure Bay, and now SFNO. Remains to be seen if Splashtown soon joins that list.

I expect few of these parks will end up being dismantled like Astroworld. Elitch Gardens in Denver seems to pose the most risk, being land-locked downtown on desireable land. Elitch was moved before only ten years ago. Splashtown will probably find a buyer, it does pretty good business and is far enough away from Schlitterbahn to still be viable. It's not a big money property on exceptionally valuable land. Darien Lake also already has a potential buyer lined up to keep it open as a park. Magic Mountain is interesting. It has a lot of problems. Company wide the new Six Flags management wants to take things in a more family friendly direction but there's no way Magic Mountain can compete with Disney, Knott's, and Legoland in this region. Magic Mountain was built up into a thrill park by the previous regime, the same guys who created the enormous company debt which is forcing Shapiro's hand to divest properties. Cedar Fair just finished buying the Paramount chain, and they have their own park just an hour or so away. I don't see CF buying MM or any other regional park operator for that matter. The place just doesn't fit with the image other operators like Silver Doller City or Anheiser Busch want. So things could go either way here, the park could remain open with a new owner or it could be stripped and sold for the land just like SFAW.

I've been to little carnivals in the Georgia Dome (IAAPA convention) and it's kind of nifty. And yeah, the operator of this thing is "Murphy Brothers Exposition". It's a funny URL though and legit to click on - be warned it plays some funky music. Still can't believe they registered that one. Anyway, here's a little more info: "World's Largest Indoor Amusement Park" Description: World's Largest Indoor Amusement Park. Rides include DropZone, Century Wheel, Bumper Cars, Spin Out and many more. June 22-July 4; Hours: Monday-Thursday; 6 p.m.-11 p.m. Friday; 6 p.m.-Midnight Saturday; 12 p.m.-Midnight Sunday; Noon-11 p.m. Tickets: $20 for all, children 2 years and older need a ticket toenter. Price includes entry and rides. Price does not includefood/beverage and games of chance. Tickets go on sale Friday, June 9 at10 a.m. at all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 713.629.3700, onlineat www.ticketmaster.com and Reliant Stadium South ticket windows.

http://www.murphybrothersexposition.com/ This is the carnival operator that will be in the dome for two weeks. I believe tickets are $20, since that's what they are listed for on Ticketmaster.

Interestingly, Kickerillo had apparently offered Six Flags $8m more than the $77m from Angel/McIver but Kickerillo wanted an extra month to close the deal. Six Flags dumped the land in a hurry instead. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3900739.html

That's the impression I got too. Six Flags had no serious bidders for what they expected, grew impatient, and then sold for whatever they could get to another realtor to get what cash they could now. Reminds me of how Six Flags put the company itself up for sale not too long ago and had no bidders either.