From Foam Mountains to Outer Space: Part III

Entrance to Bear Country. Mamba is in the background, Mama and Papa Bear greet guests. 

Pandamonium would reign as Worlds of Fun’s kid's area for a full decade from 1987 until 1997. Its undoing would come from a major shift that would affect the entire park. In June 1995 the announcement was made that Hunt Midwest, who had built and operated the park since its inception in 1973 was selling the park to Ohio-based park operator, Cedar Fair. Cedar Fair would almost immediately start making changes to the park, and one of those included a change to Pandamonium in 1996. Detonator an S&S space shot was added in place of Head over Wheels which was moved down by Wacky Worm. 1997 would continue the changes to Pandamonium, with its retirement and the introduction of a new set of characters and themed land taken from the pages of The Berenstain Bears, Mama, Papa, Sister, and Brother Bear.

In 1995, just prior to Detonator's addition, this area of Americana was still part of Pandamonium.

In 1996 Head over Wheels moved down by Wacky Worm.

At an expansion of one acre, Bear County would completely change the appearance of Pandamonium for the most full-immersive atmosphere the park had ever attempted for a kid's area. Panda Pavilion theater (originally Flying Circus Theater) would be massively modified, taken down to basic steel structure, and expanded in size massively to become the Bear County Museum, complete with interactive activities, computer lab, and reading room. Today, the same structure is used as part of Peanut’s Showplace and Snoopy Boutique.

The entrance to the Bear Country Museum.  Today the entrance to Snoopy Boutique is nearly identical.

Computer Cave. (remember this was added in 1997 when computers were still rather clunky and large)

The idea of the Bear Museum was a learning experience.  

Right next door to the Museum was the Spooky Old Tree slide, which was a basic spiral slide, enclosed in a creepy grey fiberglass tree with appropriately ominous glowing eyes. Like so many details, Spooky Old Tree was lifted from a specific Berenstain Bear’s book, in this case. Spooky Old Tree. From many recollections, Spooky Old Tree terrified its target audience quite well! Once Snoopy came to town, Spooky Old Tree would last on for another decade as the Kite Eating Tree.

The Spooky Old Tree slide.

Sister Bear telephone booth.

Various book stumps were spread throughout the area , and featured the books various attractions were based off of.

A lot of many guests' favorite memories are the small details, and there were a lot of them in Bear Country. The Bear Family characters could often be found roaming the land, large tree stump all-weather “books” were scattered through the area, and small “brother bear” and “sister bear” telephone booths were fun to play in. The Boys Club, which was a small hideout surrounded by a pond area, was themed after the book No Girls Allowed and not far from that was the Dinosaur Pit which was a large gravel play area with a balance beam, digging equipment, and a large dinosaur skeleton to play on (based off The Day of the Dinosaur). To a kid this was awesome, heck it was fun as an adult! The gravel play area would survive, sans skeleton until 2005 when it was replaced by Peanut’s Playhouse. Probably one of my favorite details was tiny and often overlooked, and that was Teeter Totter, a large human-sized teeter toter, instead of sitting you would stand though! One feature that was introduced with Bear Country that does still exist is the musical play pad, today in front of the Peanut’s 500, this tinkling treasure is one of the last holdovers from this short-lived area.

The Bear Country Tree, Woodstock Gliders is located in the same location today.

The kitchen area inside of the Bear Country Tree

Looking up to the various "floors" to the Bear Tree.

One major attraction that was also added, and of which no detail remains was the Bear Family Treehouse. Bear Country Treehouse did what Pandamonium never could, evicting Octopus from the area. And in fact, Octopus would leave the park entirely for the 1997 season, re-appearing only in 1998 in Scandinavia.  

The Boy's Clubhouse, which would become Woodstock's Nature Center in 2001.

  

Teeter Totter.  Both Teeter Totter and The Boy's Club were located about  where Peanut's Road Rally is today. 

A photo is worth a thousand words and I think a photo can explain this attraction better than any description. 

The Bear Treehouse was massive at nearly 30 feet tall, but it wasn’t a ride, but instead a walkthrough experience. It was incredibly detailed and along with much of the rest of Bear Country, it’s sad to think it only lasted such a short time. The Bear Treehouse would be replaced in 2001 by Snoopy Bounce and today Woodstock’s Gliders is located at its original location.

Dinosaur Pit, today this is about where the old Peanut's Playhouse is, which replaced the play area in 2005. 

So what about the rest of the rides? It’s easy enough to say that in regards to the rides not much changed, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. All the rides that were already there as part of Pandamonium remained relatively unchanged, the signage looked the same, the colors stayed the same. The exception is PandAm Airlines which became Kiddy Hawk Airlines (its THIRD name change if you're keeping score).

Beetle Bumps was relocated from the Orient to Kiddy Kingdom in  1998.

But this one didn't move at all once again.  Keeping in mind that it originally started its life in 1974 in Scandinavia and moved to the then Aerodrome in 1978.  In 1997 it was still in the same place, and it's still there today!  

What changed in regards to kid's rides was more so the REST of the park. Up until this point, there were still nearly half a dozen kids rides operating outside of the designated kid's area. Micro Moto Bahn in Scandinavia, Pony Promenade in Americana, Beetle Bumps in Orient, and Bounce a Roos in Europa. That would all change. Three of the four would be moved in 1997 and 1998 to the newly designated Kiddy Kingdom leaving their ride pads empty for the "necessary" popcorn and dippin’ dot carts that would occupy them, in some cases to this day. Beetle Bumps today is the Coca-Cola Refresh stand in The Orient (It’s the same pagoda structure and everything).

Micro Moto Bahn moved in 1997 to Kiddy Kingdom from Scandinavia (it was the last ride to hold out from Half Pint's Peak/Humpty's Haven area)

With history, it's hard to sometimes see the impact a change will have in the long term. With Cedar Fair's first few years of park operation at Worlds of Fun it was pretty obvious what direction they were headed towards.  Cedar Fair was taking Worlds of Fun and trying to mold it into the Cedar Point tradition. Kiddy Kingdom was the name of the kid's area at Cedar Point, which also, not surprisingly had a Bear Country too. Many of the changes instituted by Cedar Fair that occurred or would occur over the intervening years would drastically change the park, some in good ways, some in tragically depressing ways. Berenstain Bear Country, though technically a copy of the one at Cedar Point (though in my opinion it was an improvement) was not of the latter, it was a beautifully executed kids area, well themed, well laid out, and even to this day well-loved. For just the four seasons it had with us, it left an indelible mark.  

It's All About First Appearances: A look back at Worlds of Fun costuming in its early years.

 A few days ago a poster asked about all the old themed costumes. My original plan was to post a couple photos to Facebook but then I found SO many I thought to do a quick blog. So here we are.

For those unaware Worlds of Fun Ambassadors wore themed costumes until approximately 1992-1993 when they were slowly phased out. They were completely gone by the time I was a rides ambassador in 1994, at that point everyone wore the Americana ride shirt/bandana costume. For many though, including myself, the themed costumes are a vivid part of early Worlds of Fun memories. Not surprising many changed over the years, but some were relatively resilient and changed very little. 

I will use color photos when they are available, otherwise I will supplement with black and white when that's all I have.  Photos are supplied by Jeff Mast and Debbie Reasoner. For those wondering why there are not more, and are under 30, please remember that when ambassadors wore costumes cameras also ONLY used film. Meaning photos, especially color photos, are much more rare for this time period.

Thanks to Debbie Reasoner we have several color photos of the old gate costumes.  When guests arrived at the park this is how they were greeted, remembering that guests passed over the Henrietta upon arrival! 

Scattered through the park guests would find these lovely balloon girls...

The Orient would be the first stop of many outside of Americana and it's one section we know changed color drastically over the years.  The costumes started out orange, and became turquoise by the late 1980's

At the Oriental Octopus two male ambassadors load and unload the cars. An important detail to note is that until polo shirts took over all male ambassadors wore pants and women always wore shorts.  This was true even in 1994 when individually themed costumes had been phased out.

An early woman's costume from the Orient, standing in front of the original Rickshaw Richards.

A photo by Jeff Mast from the late 80's shows the newer woman's costume.  You can't tell in this photo but it's turquoise.  Another detail to easily tell age of a ambassador photo is by their name badge.  If you compare the name badge in this photo with the one proceeding it, the rectangular badges were from the 1980's while the smaller badges with the round logo on top were from the 1970's.

The men's version, also turquoise. 

Moving onto to Scandinavia, we have ride ambassadors for Viking Voyager lined up in front of the old Norseman's Nicities sign. There were different costumes not only for men and women, but for different departments too. 

A photo by Jeff Mast shows the actual colors of these costumes.  This photo is from Voyager unload.

I believe these were Scandinavian retail costumes.

And Scandinavian food service. Notice the 1970's name badges.  These last two photos are by Debbie Reasoner.

Moving onto Africa, and we find the panel operator not so busy in the Zinger station.  African ambassadors wore khaki safari costumes. I have also been told that when Fury of the Nile first opened the costume included a safari helmet too but it didn't last long as they were incredibly hot.

A close up look at the Africa men's costume.

And women's in front of Smor Bord. Notice again how women were always wearing shorts.

Moving up the hill to Europa, I don't have many photos of the Europa costume but I do have this one by Jeff Mast.  Notice the Europa scarf that was often used for completely unintended purposes...

The Aerodrome and Barnstormer had it's version of the aeronautical costume complete with captain bars on the shoulders. 

As areas of the park were expanded they too received their own costumes.  These were the Pandamonium costumes, which were quite plain but very colorful (the stripes were various bright colors).

EXT or Extremeroller probably had my absolute favorite ambassador costume, the "Buck Rogers" costume as I like to call it. It was updated in 1986 with the addition of Omegatron.  

This is only a small taste of the various costumes park ambassadors would wear over the first twenty years of the park's operation.  It's amazing to think that these polyester nightmares existed for not even half of the park's operational years, yet are still so memorable and integral to many's early memories of the park.  

No blog on park costuming would be complete without mentioning the group of dedicated seamstresses and costumers responsible for creating these multitude of outfits.  Let's not forget Worlds of Fun employees even to this day thousands of seasonal ambassadors every year! They then as now all need something to wear!  To this day, costuming at Worlds of Fun still is running full steam ahead and creates costumes not just for Worlds of Fun but many other Cedar Fair parks as well!