History does not exist in a vacuum. A fact that seems obvious but really isn’t – so many people like to pigeonhole history—the 70s and 80s, Kings Island and Worlds of Fun are separate topics, many say. However, the truth is that what happened at Kings Island impacts Worlds of Fun, and what happened in the 70s affects the 80s.
What does this have to do with Timber Wolf? Quite a bit. In the last ten years, I have written more editorials on Timber Wolf then any single attraction by far, which is why I never planned on writing an editorial specifically for Timber Wolf’s 30th anniversary. However, when I realized Beast turned 40 this year – and having already realized how many common factors both coasters shared (and how few realized it) – I felt Timber Wolf had room for one more story.
The Beast at Kings Island
As some know, Timber Wolf was designed by Curtis Summers and built by Charlie Dinn. It was the third coaster (but far from the last) built specifically by the team alone. Both, not surprisingly, came from Kings Island. Curtis Summers began his career working alongside John Allen, designer for Philadelphia Toboggan Company and designer of dozens of notable wooden coasters, many of which still operate, including the Kings Island Racer and the nearby Six Flags St. Louis Screamin’ Eagle. John Allen would retire after Screamin’ Eagle, and in 1978 when Kings Island (Kings Island Entertainment Company, or KECO) began the design for The Beast, Summers was involved with the structural engineering aspect of the project (specifically, the ride’s helix finale). Dinn was there too; as then-Kings Island’s Director of Construction, he oversaw the construction of what remains to this day the world’s longest wooden coaster. Dinn would leave the company in 1984, and until 1991, Curtis Summers and Charlie Dinn would work together on a variety of projects, including moving coasters, re-engineering existing coasters, and finally, in 1987, building brand new coasters. Until Summers’ retirement in 1991, the duo would build a total of 10 new coasters, and in many ways, launch the re-birth of the modern wooden coaster.
On November 10, 1988, Worlds of Fun announced the third of the 10 Summers/Dinn coasters, but that wasn’t the beginning of the story. For at least a year prior, members of the Hunt Midwest team visited parks across the country to ride many of the best coasters in the world. John Hudacek, General Manager of the park at the time, was quoted in the press release, stating, “This ride will be the culmination of years of research and study of the greatest roller coasters ever built.” Timber Wolf’s name was chosen in the same methodical fashion as it was designed, a “name the coaster” contest. The winning entry was submitted by Mark Pfefferkorn of Kansas City, Missouri, who won four round-trip airline tickets on Braniff Airlines and a 33-volume Encyclopedia Britannica set.
Timber Wolf heading into the station, notice the significant difference in restraints.
The description of the ride from the original press release presents very much like the coaster that opened on April 1, 1989 – a 95-foot first drop at 50 degrees, reaching speeds of 53 miles per hour, negative G-forces, and a double helix followed by hairpin curves. However, Timber Wolf, like almost every other coaster possibly ever built, wasn’t built exactly as it was designed as a short paragraph in the announcement press release attests.
“The train dives out of the helix, enduring a +2.48 G-force speeding into a series of hairpin curves before barreling through a dark tunnel that brings the train into the brake system before coasting into the station.”
It does seem odd now in retrospect that a headliner coaster built at a park where every other prior headliner coaster has a tunnel, and at least partially based on a coaster famous for its helix and tunnels (The Beast) and built by the same men that were involved in building said ride wouldn’t actually have a tunnel. Mamba, the first coaster that would follow Timber Wolf, would also have its tunnels cut, possibly for the same budgetary reasons.
John Hudacek, GM of the park at the time, speaks just prior to Timber Wolf's grand opening on April 1st, 1989.
Timber Wolf would open on schedule, and it remains to this day the earliest-opening coaster in Worlds of Fun history. It would open to the public on April 1, 1989, Worlds of Fun’s opening day for its 17th Season. However, the park had also opened the day before, March 31, for a promotional event in which 2,500 people were admitted at a ticket price of $10.00 each (regular park admission in 1989 was $17.95). It was sponsored by local radio stations KYYX-FM and WDAF-AM. Timber Wolf would open and run wild along with several other park rides (the Orient and Americana sections had select rides operating). A friend of mine was there for the event and went on to become one of Timber Wolf’s biggest fans and longest riders.
Of course, with Timber Wolf it was really more than just the ride – it was the marketing that went along with it that was legendary in itself. As J. David Holt, corporate director for marketing in Hunt Corp. was quoted saying, “The marketing strategy was based very much on the same kind of attractiveness and interest that a horror movie holds for a lot of people.” (KC Star Magazine March 31, 1989, p. 16d).
Billboard from the "name the coaster" contest.
Billboards covered with ripped burlap appeared in mid-March and were uncovered the weekend of its opening to reveal a warning of a Timber Wolf loose in the vicinity. Then there were the commercials. Who can forget the snowy woods, the Timber Wolf running through the snow, the red glowing eyes? Ready for the rest of the story?
Promo Video for Timber Wolf, which starts with footage from the 1989 commercials.
The snowy woods belonged to a small state park in Wisconsin. The wolves? Real timberwolves “rented” for a tidy sum of $10,000 for two days to film. Production costs for the ads alone was $130,000, and that was in 1988. Was it cold? You bet. Was it worth it? Mr. Holt said, “What we ended up with was worth every dime.”
Yes, Mr. Holt, it was.
Five years later, Timber Wolf made another huge impact on Worlds of Fun history. During the 1994/95 off-season, Timber Wolf was re-tracked and re-profiled, so in the words of those that rode it during the early 1995 season, it truly ran like a wolf possessed. Fifty-five members from the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain visited the park on June 12th, 1995. One member of the club, Ian Mansfield, was quoted in the Kansas City star saying, “I’ve been riding roller coasters all of my life, and the Timber Wolf is definitely one of the great ones.” Timber Wolf wasn’t the only thing that was changing, either. Exactly one week later, on June 19, Hunt Midwest announced the sale of the park to Cedar Fair, L.P. At the time, Worlds of Fun was to become their fourth park, following Cedar Point, Valleyfair!, and Dorney Park.
The sale of the park would close on July 28, 1995. The moment Cedar Fair owned the park, trim brakes were added to Timber Wolf, restraints were changed, and Timber Wolf would be unquestionably altered forever. Timber Wolf would remain relatively unchanged over the next decade and a half. Starting in 2014, Cedar Fair and Great Coasters International have been systematically re-tracking and re-profiling much of the ride, and in 2018, they replaced the entire mid-ride helix, with a new, smoother banked turn. Work continues into the 2019 season, giving Timber Wolf a new lease on life, even at 30 years old.
Timber Wolf and it's new turn, replacing the old helix.
Today, Cedar Fair is a completely different organization than the one that bought Worlds of Fun in 1995. They now own 13 different parks, including Kings Island. Once again, the stories of Timber Wolf and The Beast are interconnected and part of the same unusual story. Some may say that The Beast and Timber Wolf have nothing in common, that they just happen to be two wooden coasters with a similar cast of characters that just so happen to now be owned by the same company. I disagree. No one can tell any full story of Timber Wolf without mentioning The Beast, and no one can tell the story of The Beast without mentioning Charlie Dunn or Curtis Summers. For that reason, I would like to think that we are not only celebrating two separate anniversaries for two separate parks, but two anniversaries for two different coasters tied together by history.
Happy 30th birthday to Timber Wolf, and Happy 40th birthday to The Beast!
Jeff and myself in the front car of The Beast for the first public ride of the day!
Special Thanks to Heith Carnahan for volunteering to proofread this story.
Since 1999 I have been to almost every Halloweekends/Haunt event, missing only one year, 2017, and at one point this last weekend I looked back and realized just how amazing of a ride it has been so far. With the park’s expansions to Grand Carnivale and Winterfest, it seems to only be getting better in some ways.
So it only made sense that we would come back for 2019, our 20th year covering haunt, and like the previous year, we decided to drive and make it a two-weekend event.
We arrived in Kansas City from our 19-hour drive (not non stop!) from Orlando on Saturday afternoon October 5th. With the park’s promo to add the all-season dining plan in 2019 and it would cover 2020 too, we paid and added that on upon arriving. At the time of leaving town back to Orlando, we have used it four times, a little more than halfway to making it pay for itself and we haven’t even made it to 2020 yet. We arrived at the Oceans of Fun parking lot around 6 pm, and headed towards International Plaza. Since we arrived only 30 minutes before the Overlord’s Awakening there was no “front-row seat” to be had, but we had a decent view.
The Overlord’s Awakening show was this year with new sets, new advanced lightning, new music, even new pyrotechnics, it makes the overall experience more polished. Another change is that the parade, instead of a straight line back towards Tivoli, it now wraps around International Plaza, much like the Grand Carnivale parade, which makes the experience much less congested and less chaotic. The actual show is about nine minutes long and doesn’t entirely end when the parade moves out. Several characters stick around for a quasi-dance party, offering photo opportunities with characters. Jeff was not exactly partial to the dance mix music version of 1980’s rock hits, however, I liked the overall vibe. The only commentary I might add is that I still miss the motorcycles that used to be part of the parade and were removed 7-8 years ago, which was a corporate decision I still disagree with.
Not surprising, lines for the haunts almost immediately grew to over an hour-long. Since our plan was to buy Fright Lane the next weekend we decided to skip most of the haunts except fright zones. The new haunt/fright zone for 2019 was Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater on Forum Road/Heart of America Blvd. After experiencing Pumpkin Eater several times over several visits I think the new haunt is a hit, lots of great theming, and great startles even in a very confined area. The only two changes I might make would first make the haunt one way one since it gets incredibly congested and two, close it off during non-haunt hours as some of the pumpkins and sets had been destroyed by unscrupulous guests.
Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater Walk Through
We ate at Cotton Blossom BBQ that evening, they were out of the rotisserie chicken so we went with the chicken fingers which were quite good. Our last experience of the evening was Haunted Homecoming at Moulin Rouge. Haunted Homecoming’s intro has been completely revamped this year and is more a tribute to the “Cleaver High School Beavers” theme. I wasn’t sure what I would think of the new intro when I first heard about it, but I think I enjoyed it better than the old “Thriller” intro which was getting a little old. The theatric effects, especially the lighting has taken has drastically improved over previous years as well. Other than that the show continues to the use of the popular “Cell Block Tango” from the musical Chicago that was introduced last year, as well as many of the other acts from previous years. Overall, we enjoyed the show, and I am once again impressed with the talent level at what is supposably a “small” park.
We were in town over the next week and visited the KC Zoo as well as drove to Branson for SDC’s Pumpkin Nights. We would come back to KC for Friday, as we planned on visiting WOF both Friday and Saturday. The first Friday Night Fright Night was in 2004, and it was a literal GHOST TOWN back then, you could count the rows of cars in C lot on one hand. The park stuck with it though, and even with the cold and it being a Friday, the park was still pretty busy. We arrived at the Worlds, a little after 6, and made it to International Plaza around 6:15, we were barely able to get a front-row view to Overlord and the parade. With a better view, I enjoyed the show a great deal more, we were able to check out the details of the roaming characters which were numerous, we both loved the new walking cornstalk character.
Overlord's Awakening from Saturday, Oct 11th
Our plan tonight was to see if we could still get through most of the haunts in one night, if it was even a possibility anymore without Fright Lane. We started with Khaos which is now located in the nearby Festhaus (near the Grand Carousel). Khaos was originally located at the Coco Palms pavilion over in Oceans of Fun and was moved this year. Khaos replaced Urgent Scare, which replaced Asylum Island in 2016. We were completely underwhelmed with it last year. This year it is distinctly improved, at least in the scare and startle arena, it had a few great rooms that were just plain fascinating. So not to spoil it, I will leave it there. It also includes the infamous “yard” scene from Asylum, which anyone who experienced Asylum Island is unlikely to forget. Think maze of steel bars, fog and LOTS of strobe lights. So that’s the good side with Khaos. It still entirely lacks in theme or story. I only mention this as a negative because every single other haunt at the park has a GREAT theme, and many tell a cohesive, interesting story even outside of the fact that they are also terrifying in many respects. Khaos doesn’t. If there IS a story there, it’s lost on me. Jeff also added his comments that the overall house was too bright and there wasn’t enough fog which I can also concede.
By my timestamp on the photos I took, we entered Khaos queue line at about 7:20 pm and exited the house around 8 pm. It would not be the longest line of the night either. We walked next to Lore of the Vampire, but its line was almost to Patriot so we decided to skip it for now and head to Blood on the Bayou and Ripper Alley which ware right next to each other. By my timestamp, we entered Blood on the Bayou’s queue line at 8:15 pm and were next in line at about 9:07 pm. So right at an hour wait. Bayou premiered in 2015 and is my opinion still the best haunt at the park. It has an amazing theme inside and out and carries it off with both the characters and interior decor perfectly. On Friday night it started a bit slow in the scare category but picked up with a few good startles. I was also informed the other evening that many of the screamsters are based on characters from Voodoo tradition, Papa Legba and Marie Laveau to be specific. It’s the details that few will appreciate, but are still painstakingly re-created that speak volumes to me. Love it. Jeff also wanted to add that he loved the animatronic snake at the end.
Ripper Alley was next door, its queue line is also mostly in a covered old game building, surrounded by tarp, which offered some insulation from the cold. We got in line around 9:15 and were at the entrance at 9:40 pm, so about a 25-minute wait. Remember how I mentioned all the haunts had definitive themes except Khaos? Ripper is another great example of this, but this time themed to late 19th century England, with an emphasis on Jack the Ripper. The theme is carried throughout the attraction, with screamsters even using quasi-English accents. Coaster101 mentioned this point in their review to accentuate the theme of the attraction and I agree it adds a lot to the experience. Startles were minimal though the level of fog on Friday night was excellent. (fog was somewhat lacking on Saturday). Overall a top-notch themed attraction, definitely worth a little wait, and it always does seem to have a shorter line then it's neighbor Blood on the Bayou.
We exited Ripper Alley around 9:50 pm, It was about 38 degrees at this point. We decided to get something to eat since we had the dining plan and decided on Cotton Blossom BBQ again after we had determined that the heaters were on! We both had the macaroni and rotisserie chicken which was excellent. At this point it was 11, we had done only three haunts, and the cold was starting to make it miserable, which cemented our decision to buy Fright Lane and come back on Saturday to get through all the haunts. Overall opinion on trying to get through most of, or all the haunts without Fright Lane? You can’t. Even on a Friday night with not-so-perfect weather. At least not anymore.
Saturday would be our last day at the park during this visit since we would be spending time with family on Sunday. My first order of business was to go online and buy Fright Lane since I knew that it sometimes sold out. I bought online and paid with tax and fees for the two of us $152.01. It is $10 less per person on Friday nights. We also knew that the weather forecast for that evening would be warmer than the previous evening, and near-perfect for that time of year. This is what I like to call a “perfect storm” or the combination of a great event and great weather making for a really busy day at the park. We made it to Worlds of Fun and again parked at Oceans around 4 pm. My first goal was Pigpen’s Petting Zoo which I had yet to see in person. I have always loved the Cedar Point Petting zoo, and with WOF having the history with its original Alpine Village Petting Zoo, I thought it was a great addition.
Our next order of business was to get something to eat (dining plan!) We decided on Panda Express, but I took one look at that Panda line which snaked past the Spinning Dragons sign and I was thinking it would be an hour-long wait... Nonetheless, we decided to try it, and it only took about 15 minutes from when we entered the line until we had our food. Not bad at all for the crowd level!
We next went and picked up our pre-purchased Fright Lane passes from the booth at Ripcord, which was extremely easy and fast, At this point, it was about 6 pm. Our plan since we had seen Overlord twice already was to watch from the parade from another vantage point, we choose Americana, right at that new island near Cotton Blossom BBQ. The parade itself was great, I already covered my comments on it earlier, but just be aware if you see it in the area we saw it in two haunts had already split off (Khaos and Vampire).
Haunt Parade from Americana
After the parade, our first stop was Lore of the Vampire. Turns out it was also the haunt that almost everyone else with Fright Lane went to first. At Vampire we were told by other guests in line that the Fright Lane pass line was 45 mins to an hour, so we decided to skip it and headed towards Bloodshed instead. Along the way we went through Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, my photo timestamp is 7:47 pm.
Bloodshed had no wait for Fright Lane whats-so-ever, the stand by line wound down Forum, and even had a few switchbacks! Our timestamp for Bloodshed entrance was 8:06 pm. Bloodshed opened in 2007 and is one of the park’s oldest haunts, and still provides a good time. It appears to have had some updates (as in tons of chicken feathers added, and just some cosmetic updates, you know… more carnage). The startles were quite good here, and who doesn’t love a story of a butcher house that starts with animals and ends with humans? Great theme, great story, great scares! Soylent Green is PEOPLE!
Our next stop was Cornstalkers, this was the one haunt we did not get through last year, it has also been extensively updated this year. The old shed which was the Skeleton Key room is now part of the haunt, and the overall maze seems a great deal longer. Cornstalkers gets a high-grade, once again like almost all the haunts on story and theme. Added in 2010, Cornstalkers replaced Camp Gonna Gitcha. Camp had been moved over to the Nile location in 2008, but didn’t make the move well. Cornstalkers uses the forested location perfectly. It’s dark, you can’t see much of anything, and only hear the wind moving through the leaves above the cornstalks around you, creepiness perfected. We had been told this was one of the best haunts, but for our personal experience, it was rather… lackluster. Staffing in regards to Screamsters seems to have been a problem. Sheer numbers of guests was another I think, the line for stand-by stretched to Boomerang, the Fright Lane wait was the longest we experienced all night at almost 20 minutes! Usually, the park sends groups with spacing between them to allow Screamsters to reset, in our experience, it was almost non-stop guests. There was just no way the Screamsters could attempt to scare every single guest, with an already limited number anyway. Our time stamp on arrival to the line was 8:22 pm, actual entrance into the attraction was 8:39 pm.
Our next stop was Chamber of Horrors: Condemned, which uses part of the old Zambezi Zinger queue house. This haunt has one of the more interesting stories since it started as Master McCarthy’s Dollhouse in 2008, became Mizz Lizzie’s Chamber of Horrors in 2013 and Chamber of Horrors: Condemned in 2018. This haunt has in the past been rather lackluster, really struggling both with its story, theme, and scares. This night, in particular, was a good one for it. The timestamp for arrival was 9;04 pm. The theme here is a wax museum of various old Hollywood characters melted and mangled by a fire (hence the condemned part). We were given a flashlight since the haunt itself is very dark,, which was a nice change from the overall brightness in other haunts we had experienced. I could easily pick up on the storyline with screamsters and various mannequins dressed as you would expect from 1930’s old Hollywood, (and the trick is telling which one is real and which ones were not!) all with faces that appeared melted. With it being so dark, it allowed the screamsters full reign to scare, and there were several good startles. Lots of fun, and it didn’t appear to have as long as a stand by line as others.
Boneyard Walk Through
We next headed to Boneyard, which was originally Fright Zone and changed names in 2014. In 2016 I gave Boneyard a bad review since there were no screamsters at all during the few times we went through. This time, it was massively crowded with guests, but there were also several screamsters too, and we also ran into the Overlord!
My timestamp has us going through Boneyard around 9:23 pm, I took some photos of Zulu around 9:30 pm, and we arrived at Zombie High at 9:37 pm. It like most haunts had no wait for Fright Lane. One of my favorite little details with haunt is that Zombie High’s fictional high school is “Cleaver High” with the mascot being the beaver. This same fictional high school detail is shared by Haunted Homecoming and originated with the long-running Stax of Wax show at Moulin Rouge which premiered in 1985. Like a lot of the haunts I enjoyed Zombie High more than I have in the past, there weren’t a lot of startles or scares but I did feel in a way that I had stepped into a scene of “Zombieland”.
Our next stop was Khaos, which was probably one of the most confusing experiences we had. The signage on the Festhaus showed Fright Lane entrance on the left, with regular stand-by on the right. The problem was the line was way past the structure so Fright Lane and stand-by guest were mixed together, causing… Khaos. We only spent 5-10 minutes in the “line” before deciding it wasn’t worth it and bailing since we had done Khaos the night before.
We headed towards the Orient for Lore of the Vampire which had about a 5-minute line for Fright Lane, I know we entered the haunt around 10:47 pm. Lore is always dependable, the theming is very detailed and never disappoints. The top floor is relatively unchanged since the haunt opened in 2004. The basement level of Lore has been updated several times over the years, and I found it to be a very disorienting experience, it was also the location of the only startle I experienced in Lore this time around. A couple of comments, Lore of the Vampire is in the old Orient Express queue house and also incorporates the old 100-foot tunnel from Express which is always a fun feature and lends itself perfectly to being just plain terrifying. There is also a great cemetery on the walkway between the old queue house and tunnel which is usually a prime opportunity for scares, but during our visit severely lacked in fog, which is a key element in distraction and scares. The lack of fog really detracted from the experience. I do have to say the lack of fog did give me a good look at old tram road still located directly opposite the tunnel entrance.
We next headed to London Terror and Blood on the Bayou, which had no wait for either on Fright Lane, our timestamps for both of them were 11;26 for Bayou and 11:33 for Ripper. Since we had experienced both on Friday I won’t add much to our previous reviews except to say that Bayou had several more startles and scares in it than the previous evening. Great experience.
Afterward, it was nearing 11:45, and we knew to use the meal plan one more time we would have to get to a restaurant before Midnight since most close an hour before the park. We decided to head to Coasters, and on the way stopped at Outlaw’s Revenge, the last of the three fright zones. Jeff as readers may not know was one of the first Outlaws when this fright zone opened in 2008. I noticed there were far more sliders then I remember in the past (screamsters that slide on their hands and knees to startle/scare, NOT to be confused with little hamburgers). It is impressive and requires a great deal of skill, plus its just fun to watch. There was also a ton of fog which was awesome. We continued towards Africa via Europa. For those that don’t know the walkway between Europa and Forum Road has been open since the train is not operational.
We made it to Coasters right before Midnight and were able to find a table (though there weren’t many), the food was okay, palatable, but not anything to write home about. About this point, it was getting pretty chilly, and we were tired so we decided to head out towards the parking lot. One point Jeff and I talked about on the way out is the idea of making Haunt a separate gated admission, and then move all the haunts over to Oceans of Fun making Worlds easier to sweep of guests. It’s just a thought and probably will never happen, but like so many things at Worlds of Fun, we love to discuss possibilities.
Overall, we had a great time at Haunt this year. Yes, on Saturday it was crowded, but the Fright Lane made for an entirely enjoyable experience. I am the last person on earth that would ever condone paying for a “skip the line” option, we have never even considered buying Fast Lane at the park, and I am still relatively opposed to the concept of paying to cut in line on principle. With that being said… while expensive, Fright Lane REALLY works, and if you want to experience all the haunts on one night it’s the only way to do so. We were able to get through all 8 haunts in a little over 3 hours on a very busy night. The stand out haunts for me personally were Blood on the Bayou and Bloodshed, both really capture the perfect essence of theming, scare, and just plain creepiness. They are perfectly executed. Not to say the screamsters in the other haunts aren’t just as hard-working and talented, they are and there isn’t a single haunt I would not recommend experiencing if you have the time. Looking back it still amazes me how far the event has come and it doesn’t seem to show any signs of slowing down, we look forward to coming back next year!
