20 Years Ago: Mamba Poised to Strike

September 11, 2017: As I am writing this I am in Orlando, FL awaiting a visit from my great-aunt Irma, (and realizing about half of the original photos I am going to share with you are somewhere in storage facility in Orlando too…) , for the last few months actually I have been thinking of this day and what I would say.  Today, or more importantly, 20 years ago, one of Worlds of Fun’s greatest coasters, and one of its current seven operating coasters was announced, Mamba.

General Manager, Daniel Keller at the Media Announcement

Besides its importance to history, both to the park and the coaster world as a whole, Mamba also holds uncountable numbers of personal stories.  In April of next year, I will write its official “historical” editorial, today though I thought I would share a few more personal stories with you, as I was once told those are the more interesting stories.

Jan Kiser, President of ACE at the announcement.  If you go here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Worlds-of-Fun-dot-org-88851807796/photos/?tab=album&album_id=381621747796

You can see Jan Kiser speaking at the 10th anniversary of Orient Express a decade earlier.

Also, over the next eight months we will be doing a historical account of Mamba’s construction on this blog, Jeff took many of the official Mamba construction photos and I thought it would be fascinating to post them, individually, 20 years after they were initially taken.  Unfortunately, since all the photos were shot using film, I only have the development date, not the actually date they were shot, so they will be posted on their approximate shooting date, and I think that will sufficient to be interesting.   It will certainly be fun for me to re-live the memories myself.

Leslie Slaughter, Public Relations Director at Worlds of Fun.  Also, notice the Mamba logo in the background, the current Mamba logo we know today wouldn't be finalized until a few months prior to Mamba's opening.   Jeff tells the story of how he was asked whether he preferred grass or no grass in the background.  

For many, the construction of Mamba became the catalyst to become Worlds of Fun fans, or for those of us already so, become much more involved and buy season passes. Mamba had a massive impact on the park.  Jeff Mast's website (kcnet) was started to cover Mamba’s construction, and many fans, including myself, visited the website frequently for updated coverage.  In fact, it was about midway through construction of Mamba that I started my own personal website on Tripod too.  Fascinatingly enough, Jeff Mast had been asked by the park’s head of Public Relations, Leslie Slaughter, to monitor various fan sites for “unauthorized” coverage as not only was Mamba being built at the time but Zinger was being removed too.  Of course, this meant Jeff Mast started not only watching my site but several others.  Though we wouldn’t actually meet until eight months later, Jeff Mast and I would eventually become friends, merge our websites and then as if it was the natural conclusion to such a meeting… get married in 2002.  All thanks to a 205-foot steel coaster.

Artistic rendering, I apologize for how small this image is, the original image is buried in a storage shed right now.  (the vast majority of the construction photos are in a binder in our apartment)

Though Jeff vividly remembers the construction of Orient Express, and I also remember the mass advertising of Timber Wolf,  Mamba was probably the most vividly remembered new coaster events in my personal experience.  I was in college at the time, at Northwest Missouri State, and I remember driving down on the weekend, and seeing the silver pylons seemingly rising out the foggy darkness as if it they were some supernatural beings.  On opening day, cars were literally parked down Worlds of Fun avenue, people gazed, gawking out their car windows, no one had ever seen a coaster quite as tall as Mamba was.   The line for Mamba, snaked all the way down past the entrance to Nile, it seemed massive, and though I didn’t realize it at the time, it was for good reason.  Mamba was literally an eleventh-hour finish, with gates not even being added until after media day, on opening day there were no queue rails in the lines themselves, and of course only one train as Morgan (Mamba’s manufacturer) was even surprised by the fact that Mamba had opened on time.

Another artistic rendering.

Mamba opened for the very first time to the public on April 28, 1998, but today we celebrate its announcement, and celebrate one of the tallest, longest and fastest introductions to Worlds of Fun’s attraction headliners.  Continue to watch over the next several months as once again, like twenty years ago, Mamba is about the strike.

Dan Keller climbing into earth moving equipment for the breaking ground ceremony.  Supposedly, it was quite an experience, in that the tractor almost tipped over.

Kansas City Star Article Announcing Mamba 

Drop and Roll: New Coaster Planned for Worlds of Fun

Save it All vs. Tear it all out, is there a middle ground?

Almost twenty years ago an early dot org poster wrote an editorial entitled "Parks Change Get Over it", as pretty much an alternative view to the then "Save It All" view point many, including my (much younger) self were preaching at the time.  Keep in mind the year was 1999, in the previous five years we had lost an almost incalculable number of Worlds of Fun attractions, so the collective call to "save what was left" wasn't without a logical reasoning.  It prompted good discussion, but unfortunately did very little to change anything at the park itself, except get us pretty much disliked by every member of the permanent staff there.

Twenty years have passed, I have gotten older, it's a question mark on the wiser part.  There are one or two out there that are still around from those early years, and many more that continue to believe like I once did, that everything should be saved, that every removal that the park has made over the last two decades has been bad. On the flip side, there are those that are just wanting to know when the next big coaster is going to be added and could give less then a hoot about some forty-five year old derelict attraction. 

I have learned a few things along the way.  One is that never ever discount history and what has happened in the past.  The old saying "Those that don't know their own history are doomed to repeat it" is never more true than now.  Case in point, the removal of the Zambezi Zinger vs the Cotton Blossom.  People miss them both, at least those who were alive to remember them.  However, I would argue that removal of the Zinger has had a much more profound impact on the park then Cotton Blossom ever has.  People literally will not even visit the park because it was removed.  Cotton Blossom, while a sad loss, is at least vaguely understandable. What can we take away from that?  People are okay with SOME change, but if you try to change everything that they love they will rebel.

So what is my point?  My point is that there needs to be a middle ground.  We all need to strive for that, and this is true both with Worlds of Fun and the world at large. With Worlds of Fun it is important for ALL of us to realize that not everything can be saved, to realize that Worlds of Fun is a business first and foremost, but also to not forget what is truly important to what IS Worlds of Fun, what makes it our home park.

For current discussion I am going to use a few recent debatable points.  Octopus and Finnish Fling are a good starting point.  Fling is currently rumored to be removed at the end of this season.  Octopus was removed three years ago.  There was virtually no outcry over Octopus but there is over Fling.  Why?  They are both original rides correct?   Let's look at the facts, first, there is the reasoning that it is like Zinger and Express, you could argue that the park is removing to many rides to close together.  But I think its far more than that.  You could also argue that Octopus is much more of a common ride than Fling is, Monster rides are much more prolific in current years then Rotors right?  True, but I also don't think that's it either.  I personally think that the reason Fling is causing such an uproar is for the same reason that Zinger did.  The intangibles.  Look at Zinger, it wasn't the world's tallest, fastest anything, there was nothing special about it that you can put on a spreadsheet.  Yet, I dare anyone to argue that its removal did not have and does still not have negative repercussions on the park.

There are some things that will not fit on a balance sheet, and it is specifically THOSE things that should at least give one pause before one makes ANY decision.  That's true with life too, you know.  Those intangibles are usually the most important aspects of our lives when we look back on them, those things that WON'T fit on a balance or excel spreadsheet I mean.

Let's talk about another attraction at Worlds of Fun, Timberwolf.  I bet the folks at Worlds of Fun and even possibly in Ohio are grappling with that wooden terror.  It must look terrible on the budget, of that I am sure.  What do you do?  I for one do not think they would even spend one second in thought as to what anyone of us thinks about it.  I would however hope that they would consider how keeping it or removing it will effect the bottom line, and not just this year, but five, ten years from now too.  I would hope they would remember Zinger.  Now, with that being said I do think the status quo is unsustainable.  So where is the middle ground?  Keep it?  Termite dump it?  It is with Timberwolf that I think that the middle ground is as plain as the sun in the sky (except for yesterday...) RMC it.  Already two Dinn/Summers coasters have been RMC'd, Mean Streak and Texas Giant, take the old wooden track, and change it to steel rail, take an old coaster and make it new again, and I would even keep the name.  The park gets two for the price of one, saves face, and gets a new coaster to promote, because that is exactly what it would be. 

Seems easy right?  If there is one thing I have learned over the last twenty years its that there is never an easy answer.  I doubt when they were discussing removing Zinger that it was a quick, oh yep were removing it end of discussion, I am sure there was someone somewhere in that administrative building arguing to save it.  Sometimes, as the crazy Worlds of Fun fan that I am, I dream of winning the big powerball and buying the park and what I would do with if I did.  But then I stop to think that all of those decisions everyone critiques aren’t easy decisions, and no matter what I would do, or what decisions I would make someone would think it was the wrong one. So I get that.  Removing rides are not easy decisions.

With that being said, sometimes its important to NOT do the quick easy fix, or what is right today on the balance sheet.  Remember history, don't repeat it, and for goodness sake please remember who is lining those balance sheets because its not people from Ohio.  It’s people, REAL people from Kansas City... well and two from Orlando too.