A history of history? The History of Dot Org.

Authors note: This blog almost didn't get posted, it is quite personal, as it tells my personal story in many ways, but also tells the story of the website you are now reading which is why I eventually decided to post it.  There will be a new blog post over the next one to two days that will review Winterfest, so watch for it soon.

So far, over the last two months we have looked at several Worlds of Fun anniversaries, Mamba’s announcement in September, Zinger’s last ride in October, and even the 15^th anniversary of Halloween Haunt.  But there is one anniversary we haven’t looked at, and it’s one that even as I write this I have qualms as to whether it really is even appropriate, and that’s the anniversary of the website you are reading from right now, worldsoffun.org, which as of November 2017 celebrates 20 years online.  I have decided however to write it, if for no one else but myself.  For as you will see worldsoffun.org is more than just a domain, or a history website, of a fan website it really is in many ways the story of my life too, and I feel that in many ways I am forgetting for me, the most important story, which is my own.

I don’t have an exact day for when the website that would become dot org came online, because quite frankly I really don’t remember.  At this point in my life I was a Freshman at Northwest Missouri State University, thanks to their “a computer in every room” for the first time in my life I had access to a computer and to the internet.  Of course, the internet wasn’t anything like it is today.  At that point my then boyfriend, Eric Steffens had been following a kcnet website, which was posting Mamba construction photos.  Both of us had worked at Worlds of Fun in 1997, and were planning on going back the next year.  So of course, this was exciting stuff.  Little did I know then that my boyfriend at the time had inadvertently introduced me to my future husband, who ran that kcnet website, Jeff Mast.   Eric had started his own personal Tripod website for the Bearcat Marching Band, which we were also both involved in,,  and persuaded me to start my own personal website.  Mind you, I had had three months online at this point, absolutely zero website experience, but sure seemed like a good idea.  So I did.  My Tripod ID I choose was “Padme” the name of the website?  “Jennifer’s Nexus”.  What was on the page?  Three subpage links for BMB, Star Trek Society and a little page with some stuff I had collected on Worlds of Fun history.  I called that page “26 Years the History of Worlds of Fun”. 

http://padme.tripod.com

Jeff always remarks to me how were one of the first amusement park fan website out there, and we were, RCDB I think had been online for a year, Ultimate Roller Coaster a few months, and it always makes me wonder what inclined those who run those sites to create their sites?  Was there a plan to create these ultimate guides?  One thing is certain, I certainly didn’t have one.  If you had told me back then, when I was barely 19 years old that twenty years later I would be doing the SAME thing, I would have thought you were out of your mind.

Here is the next funny thing, though I created a little page (that still exists!), for Worlds of Fun history, there really wasn’t a whole lot on it yet.  In 1994, I had worked in Ride Operations at the park and become fascinated with the “ride operations” binders at each ride that gave not only operating instructions, but also a short history of each ride too.  That interest became an obsession almost a year later when I searched pretty much every Mid-Continent Library branch Vertical File for information on Worlds of Fun and found virtually nothing (this was still when people used encyclopedias…).  When we went out to Worlds of Fun for my Senior Trip in 1996, I started recalling the sky ride I rode as a child and even asked, for some reason, The Icicle ambassador if they knew what happened to it, like they would know!  So became my goal for finding out IF that ride DID exist, and what it was called.  I didn’t find much until late summer of 1996 when my dad took me to the Missouri Valley Room at the Downtown Public Library in Kansas City.  I discovered they had a 1973 souvenir map, and there was the name of that ride, it not only HAD existed but had a name “Sky Hi”, I made a black and white photo copy of the map (actually 6-8 different copies that I taped together) and it hung on my door to my bedroom afterwards for many years.  Until I finally got my own version of the real thing of course.   I found finding the Sky Hi was only the tip of the iceberg, once I knew that I wanted to know even more… and so it began, the endless hours of searching through old Kansas City Star Archives, discovering attractions named Aerodrome and Bicentennial Square.

All of that is why I created the page I did, to put the little that I had found in one place.  Of course, like I said it wasn’t much.  And it would have stayed an insignificant little Tripod page if it wasn’t for people like me, people fascinated in the parks history just as much as myself, that found it, and I have no idea how they found it.  Google didn’t exist then. 

Jeff Merritt was one of the first, and I still have his e-mail printed off that he sent me all those years ago that had updates and corrections to my list of defunct rides, that proved such an absolute gold mine at the time to me.  I have found with re-discovering history you don’t discover history by following a trail of breadcrumbs, but by trudging through a desert of nothingness until you reach the next oasis of information. 

Here is where things get foggy, I know at some point I created a forum, and I know that there were several “regulars” that posted there, even one or two that are still around today!  I also know that at some point I went asking for help for the website and I found Matt Laskowski, who would join up and work side by side with me for about ten years.  Matt was and is truly one of a kind and without him I don’t think I would still be doing dot org, or that dot org would have even happened at all.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990218183255/http://www.worldsoffun.org:80/

After Matt got involved the whole website took off, the forum, everything.   I am pretty sure by the time Matt came on the website was no longer “26 Years the History of Worlds of Fun!” but had changed to the Unofficial Worlds of Fun Website (this is why the blog to this day is UNWOF.blogspot.com).  I am also pretty sure Matt came online around the same time the website went from Tripod to its own domain www.worldsoffun.org.  I bought it in May 1998, for a cost of $80 (I can’t remember the most basic things but I can remember how much I spent on a domain twenty years ago?!). At this time I was still at Northwest Missouri State, still a Freshman, and spent HOURS, sometimes until sometimes 3 A.M. in the morning with Matt on ICQ building separate webpages for all the both current and past Worlds of Fun attractions.  I can still remember finding specific wallpapers and midi music for each attraction! Matt choose a MIDI Toto’s “Africa” for the African page, I will never forget that and every time I hear that song I think of that moment.

And Matt wasn’t alone, many people were involved with worldsoffun.org, all the posters on the forum, many of them I can still remember their names, the several that wrote editorials for the website, Thomas Atchity, Michael Parsons, the latter still has stuck around all these years later.  Of course I still welcome anyone that wants to write an editorial but at first it was simply because well I couldn’t write, and my grammar stunk.  Well actually, my grammar still stinks (than and then, were and we’re and where… I know…).

For a few years there was even an organization that I started called WOFFA (Worlds of Fun Fanatics Association) that had annual events called “Invasions” at Worlds of Fun, and operated from 1999 until about 2002, which was about the time I started becoming active with ACE or the American Coaster Enthusiasts.

It was probably about this time that Jeff actually became more involved.  Prior to this point he had “sorta” been involved, providing some additions and corrections to historical information I had posted but that’s about it.  His first thought was that we should make dot org more presentable, and not call ourselves “The Unofficial Worlds of Fun Website” saying that it sounded “unprofessional” and… also involved the name of “Worlds of Fun” which at this point we were trying to avoid.  (Worlds of Fun permanent staff weren’t our best buddies at the time…) Sometime around 2000 there was a  “group think” session with Jeff, myself, Matt and my dad.  It was at this meeting that the UNWOF website became known as “Around the World” and the old blue and white website not only became a black website, but also an access database website.  Unfortunately, I have to admit, the black background was my idea.  I still to this day have no idea what I was thinking at the time.  The “databasing” of the website was probably a better idea and served the website well for the over a decade that it operated.  It really allowed dot org to survive many years of minimal updates caused by a variety of different reasons, that usually still revolved around Worlds of Fun.

Here is the funny thing, I can remember the year almost every attraction at Worlds of Fun was added and removed, by memory alone.  It’s actually rather sad, but I have to LOOK UP on way back machine what year each re-design happened, because honestly…  I can’t remember otherwise. 

No story of dot org could be told without also telling about Theme Parks Online and Theme Parks Magazine, both of which were Jeff’s brain children, and while good ideas, they just involved a LOT more time than any of us had, and a lot more money in the case of the magazine.  Thanks to Jeff’s layoff from Burns and McDonnell and the valuable stocks that came with it we had more money then we had ever had and probably will EVER have again, but even then it wasn’t enough.  It was a failure, but one I am still, believe it or not, glad I did.

 http://web.archive.org/web/20040603194617/http://www.worldsoffun.org:80/

By 2005 we were back in good graces with Worlds of Fun again, and though not aware of it at the time about to enter a new time of our lives.  Chris Ozimeck, the new head of marketing at the park, who still is an all around great guy, began trying to talk us into being Screamsters in the new Halloweekends event at the park.  After coming off a “not so positive” experience with the park PR we weren’t really sure about making the jump back into being Worlds of Fun ambassadors, but figured being a Screamster really wasn’t being a typically WoF ambassador so it wasn’t too far off of a jump.  By 2006 though, we had had that thought, and both of us became Worlds of Fun Ambassadors again, myself at Voyager, Jeff at Spinning Dragons.  Turns out the five years I worked in ride operations, on Voyager, Mamba, Patriot, Depot and finally Engineer on ELI were one the best times I ever had, and I worked with some amazing folks, many are still friends.  In fact, I would have worked there probably several more seasons if I hadn’t been accepted into Penn Valley’s Nursing Program and that began to become my entire life outside of my other full-time job, and ACE, for the next three years.

For three years, though I often thought of worldsoffun.org and tried to visit Worlds of Fun whenever I could (which wasn’t all that often), it really just didn’t make it to the website. I kept most of the details up to date, the timeline, the operating calendar, things like that, but other that that natta.  It was during this time though that I fulfilled one of my long time Worlds of Fun visions, and that was to create a Worlds of Fun historical exhibit.  Really whenever I come up with project or ideas its primarily because they are things I would myself have geek’d out if someone else had done it before me.  I’ll be honest with you and with myself worldsoffun.org has never entirely ceased being my own personal website in which I do things really because I love to do them for myself first.

The first history exhibit was in 2009, but I also came back and both duplicated and improved the thought in 2010 and 2011, and 2013 for the park’s 40^th anniversary, we also were slightly involved with Randal Strong-Wallace’s Screams of the Past exhibit at Union Station.  My favorite, and my most difficult project to date was of course the 2015 “Worlds of Memories” Exhibit also as part of Randal Strong-Wallace’s endeavor the Model Roller Coaster Museum.  Proving that more than one crazy Worlds of Fun geek has followed their dreams of epic proportions that the bank account simply couldn’t afford.

My father who passed in 2011 had a massive impact on dot org, and no story of the website is complete without mentioning his assistance.  Besides taking me to the Downtown Library in 1996, he in multiple ways helped host the website at virtually no cost for many, many years.  Sadly, it was all that time that we took for granted NOT paying for a hosting service that came back and bit us HARD.  When my dad unexpectedly passed away in 2011 (he was only 55) he hadn’t left the login or password to the dot org server to anyone.  No one thought about it.  However, once that happened no one could login and change anything.  I should have realized this was going to be a big problem if we did nothing, but … we did nothing.  Here is the thing, it was free, we never received a bill so what was not to like?   In 2016 though, as the rest of my life seemed to be either falling apart or drastically changing all at once… (breast cancer… broken hip… moving to Florida…) the website went down one morning.  I had to dig up our old contact from my dad’s employer… turns out they were updating the hardware,  shut down the old hardware, and guess where we were? Just like that. 

In reality, it might have been a blessing in disguise.  For years I had grown sick of the black background and the restrictions and problems it created, got tired of the restrictions of the database system, and really wanted to redesign the website, but it had grown into a 25-ton problem, and was very daunting.  All the tons of free time I had when I was 19, I lacked almost twenty years later. We handled problems one at a time, found a hosting service that wasn’t too expensive, got the domain registration and renewal taken care of, and attempted to find someone to help me rebuild the website. 

At that time and even today I am stuck with me myself and I when it comes to rebuilding dot org.  I decided early on that I wanted to pay homage to my “original” (though it wasn’t really original), blue and white color scheme, I also knew that dot org was first and foremost an information depository which meant that being restricted to my incredible lack of website design skill wasn’t going to be a huge impediment.  I have tried to find someone to help, but if I had little free time, most people of my age can say the same…

For many years I have created new Worlds of Fun projects, editorials, blogs, YouTube videos, even history exhibits, I have even started recently laboring away on my ultimate goal, which is a book on park history.  However, recently I turned forty and I have begun reflecting on my life.  Dot org, and Worlds of Fun by default have been a MASSIVE part of my life for a long time.  It has 100% been a labor of love, there has been no time I have ever done something for any other reason other than I loved to do it.  If no one ever read a blog that I wrote, I probably would still write some of them.  It’s a fact I could post a link to my Blogger account and you would see probably about 40-50% of the posts I have written I have never posted. This one almost joined that list too. 

Often I have questioned myself why I do continue to do it.  Do I do it to make a difference, to help others with their memories, I don’t know.  The simplest answer is usually the right one though and for me it comes back to the fact that even though I live in Florida, and have for almost two years now I still love Worlds of Fun, I still fly back to Kansas City JUST to go to Worlds of Fun.  There is something special, something I can’t define, that keeps dragging me back to that place, and has been doing so for the last twenty years, and I don’t regret one moment of it.

2003-2017 a History of Haunt at Worlds of Fun

There are many who are reading this who simply can’t remember Halloweekends, or Haunt as it has been known now for years, not being an integral part of the Worlds of Fun season.  However, there was a time when Halloween was celebrated by the park with a few cornstalks a “Used Coffin Lot” and a kid's illusionist show (Spooktacular).   There was a time when the park didn’t even stay open until Halloween, and when Jeff and I, discussed on multiple occasions how great it would be if Worlds of Fun would only take a look at Six Flags St. Louis and how it celebrated the Halloween season.  It’s for these reasons, that I thought this would be a perfect time to look at not the current season of Halloween Haunt, but the history of how we got to 2017 and now 15 seasons of “not so Scare Free” Saturday Nights.  

The simple introduction to any Worlds of Fun Halloweekends story starts in 2003, with the first real haunt, Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns at the old Beat Street (currently Patriot Plaza). One of my most important questions when it comes to history of anything is the  “why”, and quite frankly I don’t have an answer to it.  I can take an educated guess and assume that the head of Live Entertainment, then and now Brent Barr, (otherwise known as the mastermind behind Haunt at Worlds of Fun) had an inspirational moment to turn the then ramshackle remnants of Beat Street into a haunted house.  Maybe.  Well, Probably. 

Looking back it was a small spark, but even the tiniest flame can burst into a flaming inferno, and such was the case with Halloweekends in 2003.  There was no advertisement that I can recall, there was a “long” line of about 20 minutes, and there were two crazy guys running around with chainsaws terrorizing the people in line.  The haunt itself was very obviously not master planned but was creative in that it wasn’t.   “Dummy” Clowns and Screamsters dressed as clowns co-mingled, there was no way to really tell them apart until it was too late.  Crazy clowns banged on clear Plexiglas walls, and guests passed through a spinning drum at the end. 

Though unadvertised, Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns was almost an instant hit.  However, Worlds of Fun had never ventured into the serious haunt realm, so what happened next in 2004 was a surprise.  In 2004 Halloweekends began its slow climb from obscurity to at least local prominence.  Worlds of Fun introduced three new haunts, Camp Gonna Gitcha Witchahatchet, Lore of the Vampire, and Fright Zone as well as the often overlooked “Meat Cleaver High” at Moulin Rouge a show that still runs today in the same location.   Like Clowns, which also returned in 2004, Camp and Vampire used abandoned or vastly underused areas of the park. In the case of Vampires, it used the most recently abandoned Orient Express station, and Camp, the likewise abandoned Plunge queue line and plot.  Camp, which has now been gone for almost ten years, (having been displaced by Prowler), was an ingenious take on a Summer Camp "gone wrong", and not only employed the common strobe lights, fog, and netting, but also a variety of leftover props from park history. I still remember the old “Python Potions” menu sign, old Oceans of Fun kayaks and floats, and even old punching bags from Pandamonium.  Halloweekends would take several years to transition from using “old leftovers” to actually being worthy of new builds for itself only.  Personally, I think the creative approach to using what you had, made for a more home brew experience.

2004 also introduced the world of make-up artists, and most importantly a formal area to prep almost a hundred Screamsters.  So introduced the Creature Crypt, otherwise known as the basement of All-Stars Grill (Today Chickie and Petes).  Jeff who would join Camp Gonna Gitcha as “Pig Man”, in 2005 vividly remembers Creature Crypt as an eclectic and bit odd mix of makeup artists, potluck dinner and Halloween party showing old Halloween movies on television in the background.  As far as moving Monsters from Creature Crypt to Camp and Lore there was a rather creative answer to that too.  Monsters for Camp wouldn’t simply amble to their haunt, they were lead by thick rope like jailed convicts.  Vampires carried umbrellas to shade their pale visage from the overhead sun.  Don’t make the mistake, it wasn’t  a parade of anything like we would see today, that wouldn’t come until several years later, but it told a cohesive story.

For the first few years of Halloweekends one single year didn’t go by without some change that would have serious impact ripples for years to come.  At the time, 2005 didn’t seem like a major change, but it not only introduced another new haunt, and probably one of the only few that could be considered a “failure”, Dominion of Doom, but also introduced the concept of Friday night Fright Nights.  Prior to this point, Halloweekends was only Halloweekends, Saturday only, though Lore would operate on Sundays too.  In 2005, Worlds of Fun dipped their toe into operating Friday nights at first until 1 a.m.  Those first Friday nights were absolute ghost towns, you could count the rows of cars in C lot on your fingers.  However, it was a respectable “leap of faith” for Worlds of Fun to try Friday nights, and looking back it was a brilliant move.  Dominion of Doom as previously mentioned never quite worked as well as I am sure anyone hoped, but it was almost doomed from the beginning, offering an all-to-straight walk through down Forum Road.  Themed to a graveyard populated by the living dead, almost every single living dead “life form” was female, giving Dominion of Doom its makeshift moniker, Dominion of Dames.  Like the two previous haunts, Dominion had its own make up and costuming area, located in the caboose of Country Junction.  I can speak as a Dominion of Dames Screamster myself, it was cramped. 

Jeff and I got “talked into” becoming Screamsters by Head of Marketing at the time Chris Ozimek, who seemed dead set on getting us involved.  Jeff and I joined up and worked as Screamsters at quite a turning point of Halloweekends from the third week of 2005, until 2008.  I learned the fine art of scaring, well sort of, misdirection and scare.  I will never forget the older lady I worked with in Haunt, she would slowly, hobble out towards our would-be victims.  Once they were appropriately distracted, I would jump out, scaring the heck out of some well-intentioned guests.  I ended up with a red smoothie unintentionally spilled all over me in one instance… It was so worth it. 

2005 was also the first year for the Tivoli “adult” show, Slash it would come back in 2006 too but well… Worlds of Fun Fans don’t talk about it much for a reason. 

Probably of all years of Haunt, 2006 was the year that it all started to change.  Halloweekends would go from small, end of season event, that’s cool to come out and see, to “let's plan the entire season around Haunt” type of event.  Two words changed it, Asylum Island.  Up until that point, the walk-through houses or mazes were good, the talent was good, and they were fun to do if you were already at Worlds of Fun.  When Asylum Island came around, it was a reason TO come to Worlds of Fun, it was I believe the only haunt up to that point, and possibly ever, that could actually stand on its own and function without the rest of the park.  It would run ten seasons, and provide a home for the mentally ill in the daytime, and at night time… the insane would come out to play.  It was populated by its own cast of doctors, nurses, and patients, during its initial year it even had a mad dog that ran around outside terrorizing guests (a Screamster in heavy costume). There was a demented doctor’s office, a green mile, a padded room, and of course… The Yard.  The Yard or what has forever been referred to as the room  “everyone will get lost or pass out because of the strobe lights”, both disorients and terrorizes.  To add to the mix what most people don’t know is that it has a door, completely un-distinguishable from the rest of the metal bars, that can open and close causing guests to go around and around in circles.  You had to be a special kind of demented to work there. 

I think one of the best, and arguably worst parts of Halloweekends Haunt at that point was that there really were no rules.  I mean yes, the whole “don’t touch the guests” has always applied, but you could chase them, all of them or any of them, and you might get a “don’t do that again” reprimand… but that really didn’t stop a whole lot.  I remember vividly a guest being so terrified he ran out of Asylum Island, towards the Monsoon exit bridge, followed by a Screamster, and abruptly was stopped by a rope that was strung across the road leading to the pond behind Asylum.  The technique was referred to being “clotheslining” It was seriously frowned upon.

It was wrong.  Very wrong.  

It could be argued that 2006 set the stage for 2007.  Guests who have never been to haunt prior to the current year wouldn’t recognize haunt in 2006, but they would by 2009 and it was because of 2007.   

In 2007, several major changes happened.  First, the sixth haunt, Bloodshed opened up the hill from the Heart of America Theater, it was the first haunt that would actually be a new structure built strictly for Haunt.  It would become the standard for new haunts in the future (today there are four haunts that have their own specially built structure).  The second change was when make-up and costuming was moved from haunt specific areas, or that each haunt had its own separate make-up area, to a single, unified make-up area near costumes and the administration building.  This area was otherwise referred to as “The Trailer”.   This also, more importantly, necessitated the need for a “Parade”.  As a simple Screamster minion I have no way of knowing if the Parade was the reason for combining all the make-up and costuming or the other way around but I am inclined to believe that the Parade was a fortunate side effect.  In 2007, the Parade was quite a bit different than it is today.  It wasn’t on the map, there was no set time (except somewhere near the time haunts opened), there was no Overlord, there were no cars or motorcycles and there wasn’t a whole lot of organization either.  There certainly were no rules.  I scared a few guests, including one who lost his whole bag of popcorn to the Scandinavian midway prior to a parade.  I also had a good time running through Front Street shops.  Good Times.  It would never happen today, and that probably isn’t entirely a bad thing.  The point is what started as a "need-basis", to move Screamsters from make-up to their specific haunts, turned into the major event that we all experience today.

The amazing thing is that it worked, a most likely unplanned, unscheduled, unadvertised event became an instant hit and has today become a central focal point of the entire Haunt celebration.  An interesting point I "re-discovered' a few days ago came when I posted a few photos of the 2008 Haunt parade which was not a whole lot different than 2007.  A reader pointed out Lore of the Vampire characters were not there.  They weren't, because Lore opened at 3pm at that point.  the Vampires had to walk to their haunt at a separate time, and wouldn't join the parade until the Overlord joined in 2009.

Last, in 2007, Worlds of Fun made the not-so-aesthetics-only change in name.  Previously, the event had been called Halloweekends, in 2007 Worlds of Fun decided to keep the park open almost the entire week of Halloween (Halloween was a Wednesday).  It didn’t really work all that well but did necessitate, I guess, a change in names, from Halloweekends to Halloween Haunt (Because you can't call yourself HalloWEEKENDS if you are open on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday).  And like Screamroller becoming Extremeroller all those years ago, once a name changes for one reason, even if that reason may not exist any longer, the name still stays the same.  So, it was with Haunt.

For 2008, Worlds of Fun introduced two new haunts, Outlaw’s Revenge in Americana and Master McCarthy’s Dollhouse in Africa.  With Outlaws, unlike the previous several haunt additions this was a “scare zone” more than an actual haunt building.  Outlaws theme involved “old west style sliders” or Screamsters that were dressed up as Old West Outlaws who would startle by sliding, or falling to the ground and sliding over the pavement.  Jeff was a slider during the first season and there was a bit of a learning curve.  I specifically remember him going out and practicing in our cul-de-sac, as “coordinated falling” takes a lot of practice (seriously, you have to get over the natural tendency NOT to fall).  He also spent time replacing much of the park provided equipment and making DIY slider gloves with metal washers hot glued to them to create sparks.  The whole idea of “sliders” was pulled from another Cedar Fair park, Knott’s Berry Farm that had had, and still, continues to have one of the iconic haunt events in the country, Knott’s Scary Farm.  Amazingly enough, though as “iconic” Knott’s Scary Farm was and is, they sent several staff members to Worlds of Fun over the years to “borrow” ideas.  Worlds of Fun Halloween Haunt is, I believe, one of the hidden jewels of the Halloween season.

The second new Haunt of 2008 Master McCarthy’s Dollhouse used Zinger’s old queue house and supplemented with a second new structure.  The theme was a demented dollhouse and its one that, personal opinion, just never quite worked.  Don’t get me wrong it hit the “creepy” factor straight on the head, nothing says psychotic, like hundreds of Barbie doll legs stuck to a wall, with the music of “It’s a Small World” playing in the background (that song is enough to give anyone nightmares). However haunts can’t survive just by being “creepy” and Master McCarthy’s really could have benefited from a  sleek, perfect-edged, look that Worlds of Fun just couldn’t muster, because otherwise, it would seem to be a mastermind of an idea.   Master McCarthy’s would survive for five years though before finally being replaced by Miss Lizzie’s Chamber of Horrors in 2013.

As previously mentioned up until 2007, Halloween Haunt was quite “homebrew” if you will.  It was those changes over 2007 and 2008 that really took Halloweekends to Haunt, and from small local event to the largest haunt event in the Midwest.  The parade, which had started out of necessity, became in 2009 a purposeful event, with the addition of “Overlord’s Awakening”.  Prior to 2009, Asylum Island borrowed the park’s “ambulance” (golf cart), other than that it was pretty much a disorganized organization.  In 2009, the snowball started rolling downhill… First with one hearse, then came the motorcycles and the antique cars, multiple hearses and more.  Car collectors and bikers from the local area joined in and made for a maddening display of excessive, chaotic high-quality entertainment.  The fact that bystanders often wear earplugs because it’s just so dang loud, says all that needs to be said.

By 2009, all the pieces were there, and for the next six years, Haunt would continue to grow.  What is amazing to me, is the size of the crowds.  For some the masses that descend on Worlds of Fun, especially on Saturdays, is maddening.  For me, it’s gleeful, and personally, I love seeing so many coming back out to the park.  I will never forget the night in 2005 when we came out to Worlds of Fun with my father, and they were parking K lot.  Of course, then it was only a few rows.  By 2009 it was the whole lot, and by 2010 it was everywhere a car could feasibly be parked.  I also remember driving the train in 2010 (I was an engineer that year), and you could see the lights from Lot K and the cars parked all the way down the hill.  There are certain moments that remind me at Worlds of Fun of coming when I was a kid… this was one of those moments.  I loved it.

2010 was the year, that until a few weeks ago at least, was the worst storm during Halloween Haunt. Jeff and I were working on the steam train at the time, and Jeff himself made the call just before all HE*double hockey sticks* broke lose to take the train down, only minutes later the park was struck and lost power everywhere.  It was raining so hard “downpour” doesn’t really do it justice, it was hailing, and the wind was blowing hard so that I was getting wet in the middle of ELI’s shed.  When we finally made it to our vehicle, and “drove” out on 48th Street we found the intersection of Parvin Road and I-435 several feet deep in water, a small car had been stranded with water up to the passenger windows.  It was a scary night.  I was reminded of that night when I heard the news from a few weekends ago at Worlds of Fun.  Back to the story at hand, 2010 also introduced Cornstalkers replacing the previously moved Camp Gonna Gitcha at Fury of the Nile, and overall, I believe it works far better in that location than Camp Gonna Gitcha.  While not an entirely novel concept, when Cornstalkers works, it REALLY works.  Though since then the “Camp Gonna Gitcha” theme has been abandoned, I really do believe the time is ripe to rediscover that story idea within the Haunt framework.

Of course, it wasn’t just the houses either and no Haunt story would be complete without a mention of ALL the Screamsters.  With the expansion of haunt in 2007 and 2008 to include the park in its entirety, the park also introduced roaming haunt characters.  Though the characters themselves have changed over the years there is certainly no lack of creativity, and much of that is thanks to the actors and actresses that have played them over the years.  Many remember the “retired” characters such as the Rat Lady (who had really live rats that would crawl around her shoulders), Toxic Man with his eerie headlight and rolling trash can,  The walking lizard and cross-dressing lady (who as the name implies was a guy), and of course Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.  The last two I believe just happened to be characters that started at the same time and found they coordinated well.   Several other characters remain, especially the cymbal-crashing monkey, the Bird Lady, and the just plain creepy kid-catcher, which was added a few years later.

As we head towards the current decade and enter 2011, I want to pause and make a comment regarding history and the way both I and everyone else views it.  I have learned over the last many years reading, researching and writing about park history that it is almost impossible to get a firm understanding of the impact of any change within a decade of that change happening.  Case in point, when I first wrote a “historical” look that involved Mamba, I had to change the story of its impact approximately a half a dozen times over the first decade that it existed.  Because with history, no one really knows the true impact anything will have until seen through the glasses of time, and the more time that passes the easier the impact is to see.  So with that being said, as we venture within a half a decade of current times the history that you read and that I write will become more “opinion” and less true history, though as always I will attempt to be as unbiased as possible.

By 2011 the park was directly advertising “9 Extreme Haunts” and almost everything we know about today’s Haunt was virtually there, at least in some form, Haunt had reached its point of maximum impact and for all intensive purposes covered the entire park. There was no “safe spaces” and going forward many of the “new” additions would simply be replacements of old attractions.  A great example of this would be the addition of 2011, London Terror, which would replace Dominion of Doom.  Like many haunts, such as Master McCarthy’s, London Terror is a fabulous and subtly freakish idea.  London streets, at night, narrow passageways lorded over by some of the most terrifying characters of all fiction such as “Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde” and “Jack the Ripper” done in a modern “steam punk” take.  What’s not to love?  While a good idea, I believe London Terror sealed the fate of any haunt on Forum Road/Heart of America Blvd.  The street is too straight, too open to its surroundings and I don’t think works regardless of what is put there.  In 2015, Forum Road as a Haunt was put out of its misery, and thankfully, London Terror didn’t die with it, it was moved to Bicentennial Square and renamed London Terror Square.  I believe it works much better in its new environment.

Worlds of Fun with Haunt has had many home runs when it comes to haunt mazes, but has alternatively struggled when it comes to live entertainment shows.  There have been a couple of big hits, Meat Cleaver High which premiered in 2004, over 13 seasons ago, still hauls in the crowds for a great show, Overlord’s Awakening is another massive hit.  But for all the massive hits there are as many failures, Slash in 2005 and 2006, and Half Pint Brawlers in 2011 comes to mind too.   I know what the park’s staff mindset was; an oddity, like the 19th-century circus, the weirder the better.  But even in the Midwest, it was the 21st century, and while I am about as politically-incorrect as possible and proud of it, the idea of using midget wrestling, and advertising “do you want to see a midget bleed” just… well, it just weirds me out a little in the wrong direction.  Maybe that’s the five years being removed from it that does it, but even in 2011, I remember not being entirely enthralled by it either.

2012 saw another show at Country Junction, of an entirely different entertainment value “Blood Drums” which seemingly was following the trend of “percussion using everyday items”. It wasn’t that the show was boring, but the fact that it was too long with no storyline made it a show that didn't have everyone running to see.  Again, like some many entertainment ideas, it was a really good line of thought, and a great idea for a show but just didn’t work.  For those that think I am critical of the park for making “so many bad decisions” I’m not, even Edison had to fail 1,000 times before he found the secret to the filament for the electric light bulb, or as he said he found a 1,000 ways NOT to do it.  You have to fail a few times to become successful.

With most Haunt attractions when we talk about removal, we don’t talk removal we talk replacement.  However, there are several Halloweekends attractions that were entirely removed in 2012, and like I mentioned above weren’t notable then, but rather missed, at least by us, five years later.  Diggers Used Coffin Lot, Witch Doctor’s Revenge and even the illusionist show "Spooktacular", all of which were holdovers from the pre-Haunt days, and were not major attractions, certainly not headliners, but were cute, and fun to watch, and were most importantly rather creative.  They ended their long run after the 2011 season, most likely never to return.

2012 and 2013 saw two new haunts.  One of which was completely brand new, 2012 introduced “Zombie High” a new haunt structure built next to Prowler, and playing on the current then and now interest in “Zombie” shows and movies (Zombieland, World War Z, Walking Dead).  2013, likewise, introduced another new haunt, though this one replacing Master McCarthy’s and that is the previously mentioned Miss Lizzie’s Chamber of Horrors, a perfect macabre fit in the lexicon of Worlds of Fun haunts.

2013, also saw a minor but definitely-noticed-change to the “Overlord’s Awakening” and following parade, the removal of the motorcycles.  It doesn’t seem like it would make a huge issue, but think 6-10 motorcycles, all revving their engines at the same time… so why?  CEO Matt Ouimet didn’t like them on his visit in Fall 2012.  So by 2013, out the door, they went.  

Live entertainment in Haunt had some failures but also some success, and in 2014 Live Entertainment finally broke its shackles and found Worlds of Fun another super hit,  Ed Alonzo’s Psycho Circus.  The first time I saw it I was laughing so hard I was crying but wasn’t sure how the not-so-subtle adult humor would go over to a decidedly Midwest audience.  Let me tell you, I have never seen Tivoli so packed, Every. Single. Show.  While it only ran for three seasons and has since moved on to Great American in California in 2017, I believe it is already greatly missed by park goers, and it will be a tough act for anyone to follow.

2014 also saw the introduction of The Boneyard, which like many haunts was not so much new as a replacement for the old Fright Zone.  Fright Zone was added in 2004 along with Camp Gonna Gitcha and Lore of the Vampire, but it was so inexplicably tied to Camp Gonna Gitcha that it became easy to overlook as a separate haunt itself.  For those that don’t remember, Camp Gonna Gitcha’s entrance was right outside of Zulu, and The Fright Zone was more of a “cocktail hour” as it were for Screamsters and guests preparing to enter Camp.  In 2008 when Camp left, I really feel that Fright Zone lost something, and maybe that was also why Camp never did as well in its new location either, they in a way had a symbiotic relationship.  I think though Bone Yard has many more props than Fright Zone ever had, it just always seems to suffer from a lack of direction.  Personal opinion?  I think Scare Zones are a good idea, I just think they do work better when coupled with an actual full out haunt, and if you are a guest waiting in line over an hour having someone entertain you (or terrify you) can only be a good thing.  Evil Laugh.

2015 was really Haunt’s most recent stand out year, with the addition of two major Haunt attractions.  After six years of the Overlords Awakening, with relatively little change, Worlds of Fun shook things up a bit and added side characters to the Overlord with “Hexed” featuring the “Bad Witches” of the East and West, taken directly from the Broadway hit “Wicked” (and you could say also directly from the Wizard of Oz).  Of course, 2015 saw the introduction of Worlds of Fun’s largest haunt addition since Asylum in 2006 with  “Blood on the Bayou”.  Bayou is easily the park’s most elaborately themed haunt when it's running in high gear, it has a perfect mix of theme, storyline, creepiness, and fear.  It is often regarded these days as one of Haunt’s best mazes, and with good reason.

Looking back and revisiting Haunt from its earliest days in 2003, it's truly amazing to see the progression one simple idea had.  Proving the power of One Person with One Unique idea can truly be powerful.   It still amazes me how one small haunted house, Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns turned into really what is one of the country's largest and best haunt attractions.  Some may ask why I don't talk about 2015 until 2017, and its for the same reason I gave the "historical warning" earlier, its really too early to tell the impact of recent changes such as Skeleton Key, or even the controversial change from Asylum Island to Urgent Scare will have on both Haunt's history and the history of the park as a whole.  Overall though, I think we all could learn something from Haunt's history and that is that we should never be afraid to do something completely different, to explore an uncharted path because we never know where it could lead.  Imagine what you could succeed if you knew you could not fail.  

More Photos of Halloweekends and Haunt through the years