Happy New Year 2025! Every year for the past five years or so on New Year's Day we have looked at the anniversaries for the next season. This tradition was borrowed from CP Food Blog, which was running anniversary blogs too at the time. Though we don’t yet have an opening day for 2025 we are continuing this new tradition for this new year! Believe it or not, there are only three total rides that have anniversaries this year, with only two of them actually being existing rides. Several attractions celebrate anniversaries this year and we will look at those too.
1975 - 50th Anniversary - Sam Panda, Dan'l Coon and Grrrtrude Gorilla
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There weren't a whole lot of additions for the 1975 season, which would have been the park’s 3rd season; the massive ride additions and land expansions would start with the following season. However, one addition that many remember from the 1980s got started in 1975 and that was the introduction of the park’s second set of park mascots, Sam Panda, Dan’l Coon, and Grrrtrude Gorilla. They weren’t the original park mascots as many think, that title goes to a set of pretty terrifying seven-foot-tall characters, the French Germanderie and the Viking. Created by long-time Worlds of Fun costume designer Dawna Welborn Sam Panda, Grrrtrude Gorilla, and Dan’l Coon would flip the switch for the Country Club Plaza lights in November 1974 but would be nameless at the time, they would receive their names through a naming contest in 1974 and were named by Richard Rice of Independence, Mo. Sam, Dan’l, and Grrrtrude would greet guests throughout the season and in a variety of off-season events for the next two decades. They would be joined by a smaller, pint-sized brother, P.J. Panda in 1987.
1980 - 45th Anniversary - Orient Express
The seasons following 1975 saw a variety of new rides and coasters, the pinnacle of which was the addition for the 1980 season, the Orient Express. Orient Express was built by Arrow Development of Mountain View, CA, and designed by legendary Ron Toomer. Toomer and Arrow would go on to create a legacy of 1980’s steel, multi-looper thrillers but I like to think that Orient Express started all of that. One fact is indisputable, Orient Express introduced the world to the first upside-down element (inversion), outside of the vertical loop and corkscrew, which was known on Express as the Kamikaze Kurve. Today the element is known as either a boomerang or batwing and continues to appear on modern coasters to this day. Being the first to use such an element, Orient Express was a prototype and had the issues that went along with that. The forces exerted on the ride would lead to its downfall, and Orient Express would be retired in September 2003, and removed in November of the same year. To this day its site sits empty as neither Spinning Dragons nor Patriot occupy any of the land previously occupied by Orient Express. The station of Orient Express is used by Lore of the Vampire haunt.
1985 - 40th Anniversary - Haunted Theatre and Stax of Wax
1985 was very much a live entertainment year, though no new rides were introduced, two new shows would be. The first show introduced in 1985 was Haunted Theatre, at the Tivoli Music Hall. A creation of illusionist Mark Wilson, Haunted Theatre would be an overall $750,000 investment, and involved the renovation of the Tivoli stage and theater, along with a modification of the Tivoli live entertainment offerings which had to that point featured live band musical revue shows. Though only running for two seasons at Worlds of Fun, Haunted Theatre captured the imaginations of a variety of park guests and is remembered not only for its well-choreographed style and music but also its unique brand of 1980s-style macabre.
The second show lasted just a bit longer… becoming the park’s longest-running show in history and generating at least three different spin-offs. Stax of Wax, a tribute to 1950s and 1960s rock-n-roll would premier at Moulin Rouge, and play under that same name until 2002. For the 2003 and 2004 seasons, the names would be modified but the basis of the show would remain the same, giving a sort of “gray” period as far as history goes. Still, that means that even with the re-naming Stax of Wax had a historic 20-season run. It would create its first spin-off in 1999 with Stax of Trax, featuring a tribute to 1970s music, and in 2004 would spin-off in a haunted direction with Haunted Homecoming, a show that continues to play at the Moulin Rouge during Halloween Haunt. (and is on the cusp of taking over the title of the longest-running show from its progenitor). The backstory of Stax of Wax, a 1950s high school named Cleaver High also continues to be used by the Zombie High haunt.
1995 - 30th Anniversary - Cyclone Sam's and Captain Kidd's
Yes, 1995 was 30 years ago, crazy to think. 1995 was the last season of Hunt Midwest, and saw their last addition to the park, Cyclone Sam’s: Cloudpoofer 2000. It is also our first attraction on this list that still exists. I would like to think that Cyclone Sam’s was added as a tribute to the recently removed (at the time) Cyclone Sadies Funhouse and the also recently defunct (again at the time) Wobble Wheel. Wobble Wheel had been added as part of that massive 1976-1980 expansion period, in 1977 to be specific, and would be removed after the 1993 season. A Ford Motor Company exhibit was added to the empty ride pad in 1994, and then replaced by a new ride, Cyclone Sam’s in 1995. Wobble Wheel and Cyclone Sam’s were both manufactured by the same company, Chance Rides of Wichita KS, and the rides are so similar that many still think that Wobble Wheel and Sam’s were the same ride. Let me nip that urban legend in the bud right now, by saying they were/are different rides. Cyclone Sam’s was and still is Worlds of Fun’s only dark ride created with a well-developed back story, and still offers an amazingly thrilling ride 30 years later.
Not to be left out, Oceans of Fun would see an expansion for the kids with the addition of Captain Kidd's Pirate Ship play area.
2000 - 25th Anniversary - Boomerang
Probably the anniversary most Worlds of Fun fans would like to forget, and that’s Boomerang which celebrates its silver anniversary this year. Fans love to hate it, but overall many of the GP (General Public) love it, and I’ve heard more than a few times that many consider it their favorite coaster at the park. Many simply forget that for as oft duplicated the Vekoma Boomerang is (and man is it), there is a reason for the mass duplication… it's not a bad ride, and it can be ridden with a 48” height requirement as opposed to Patriot’s 54”. Boomerang’s manufacturer, Vekoma International grew to worldwide recognition as the international distributor for Arrow Development/Dynamics and built many of its coasters using the same mold of Orient Express. In an interesting twist, Boomerang, added exactly 20 years after Orient Express is now OLDER than Orient Express ever was, and is only the second full-size steel coaster in park history to hit its 25th anniversary operating at Worlds of Fun (the other being Mamba).
2005 - 20th Anniversary, Worlds of Fun Village and Peanut’s Playhouse
It might boggle the mind that 2005 was 20 years ago, but that’s a fact. When Worlds of Fun Village was first being built we were taken on a walk-through of the area, and I was surprised as to the quality of what was being built. This was happening right in the middle of what I call the “Coaster Decade” and had already seen the introduction of Mamba, Boomerang, and Spinning Dragons and would soon see the announcement of Patriot. Things weren’t perfect, but it's easy to overlook a few things when lots of new shiny coasters are being installed, along with the park’s first onsite lodging. Today, Worlds of Fun Village hasn’t changed a whole lot but I think like a lot of additions it tells a story about the time it was added.
So does the other 2005 addition, Peanut’s Playhouse, a foam ball playhouse located in the middle of the then Camp Snoopy, a lot of kids loved this attraction in much the same way that the kids of the 1980s loved the ball pit or kiddie-o-polis play areas. The Playhouse’s last season would be in 2018 before it would be closed, gutted, and used off and on as a petting zoo area.
2010 - 15th Anniversary Snoopy’s Hot Summer Lights and Cornstalkers
Some of Worlds of Fun’s more “interesting” and “memorable” attractions always seem to show up on the off years before and after a big coaster. Snoopy’s Hot Summer Lights would follow the 2009 introduction of Prowler and be one of those types of attractions. Added for a cost of one million dollars Hot Summer Lights lit up the Europa and Africa section of the park with colored lights, themed music, and for at least the first season, walk-around light-up characters. Though it would only last for a few seasons, Hot Summer Lights is still remembered by many as a favorite attraction.
2010 also saw the addition of a new haunt to Halloween Haunt, and it was directly connected to Prowler’s addition in 2009 as well. Before Prowler, the area it is situated was home to Camp Gonna Gitcha Haunt (and yes before that Python Plunge and The Safari), Prowler would kick Camp out and it would relocate to near the Fury of the Nile in 2008. Camp just didn’t make a successful transition though, and the area would be heavily re-themed to Cornstalkers in 2010.
2015 - Splash Island and Blood on the Bayou
The twenty-teens years do seem to be easy to overlook when it comes to Worlds of Fun history, probably for a variety of reasons. The years 2010-2020 did not see a single new coaster addition, and the biggest addition of that decade was Steelhawk (in 2014). Then there is the fact that the last few years before 2020 are rather overshadowed BY 2020. By 2015, Octopus had been removed, Oceans and Worlds had been combined and Winterfest hadn’t yet arrived. 2015 saw small additions including the addition of Splash Island (a toddler play area at Oceans of Fun), and one of the most popular haunted houses in Worlds of Fun’s Haunt history, Blood on the Bayou.
2020 - Covid shut down
And here it is. FIVE years ago fans celebrated the new year at Worlds of Fun during Winterfest on December 31, 2019. It would be more than six months before Worlds of Fun would open again, June 22, 2020, to be specific. By far the latest, and shortest of all park seasons, it was without a doubt the strangest of them all too and I don’t think Worlds of Fun has ever been the same. Five major rides wouldn’t operate at all during the 2020 season (Boomerang, Cyclone Sam’s, Steelhawk, Falcon’s Flight, and the Worlds of Fun Railroad), and many more would take months to re-open at all. Then there were the temperature checks, the Relax Zone areas, the bathroom attendants, the ride shutdowns for sanitation, and the six-foot “space” lines for queues. If I hadn’t experienced it first hand it would seem like a scene from a sci-fi dystopian novel. Today, things are mostly back to normal, we no longer have to keep a six-foot space between groups (though in some cases you can still tell where the lines were) but it makes that ten-year span between 2015 and today feel nearly just as long as the twenty or twenty-five-year span that precedes it.
The Worlds of Fun we know has changed, it changed like it did 26 years ago with the introduction of Mamba, a split I have often referred to as old/new Worlds of Fun. I think with five years of hindsight I might say that starting with 2020, we are all living in a new Worlds of Fun era, not an old or a new, but more a post-modern era, and it's anyone’s guess how history will play out.
