The Lowdown on the Plus-up - A Theme Park Podcast
Kelly McCubbin and Peter Overstreet take on all aspects of theme parks - Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Six Flags - discussing them in historical context and then finding ways, to quote Walt Disney, to "plus them up!"
No considerations of safety, practicality or economic viability even remotely entertained!
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The Lowdown on the Plus-up - A Theme Park Podcast
Ray Bradbury's Theme Park - The Great Electric Time Maze!
Whether he was disappointed with how his work for EPCOT Center turned out or he was simply inspired to do it again, Ray Bradbury created his own vision of a theme park: The Great Electric Time Maze.
Impractical, economically unviable and centered around completely untethered Blue Sky concepts, this midwestern phantasia of a park is right up our alley!
Join us as we zoom through time, battle dinosaurs with our Electro-Guns, narrowly escape from the Mechanical Hounds and drown in the Sea of Eats in the park that only the greatest science fiction writer of the 20th century could have conceived.
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Time. Space. Reality. It's not a linear path. It's a prism of endless possibility where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know. From a low down to a plus up. Follow me and ponder the question. What?
SPEAKER_01:Here we go again.
SPEAKER_00:Hello and welcome to The Lowdown on the Plus Up, a podcast where we look at everyone's favorite theme park attractions, lands, textures, and novelties. We talk in, over, about, and through our week's topic, and then, with literally no concern for practicality, safety, or economic viability, we come up with ways to make them better. My name is Kelly McCubbin, columnist for the theme park website Boardwalk Times, and with me as always is Peter Overstreet, University Professor of Animation and Film History in Northern California.
SPEAKER_04:So Pete, what are we talking about today? Well, today we're gonna travel back in time for this one for a lost attraction. It was uh conceived by none other than Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury. A great science fiction writer, probably one of the greatest science fiction writers of the latter half of the 20th century.
SPEAKER_00:I totally agree. I would I would argue that if you're talking the latter half of the 20th century, that it is Bradbury and it is Le Guin, and then there is everybody else.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And so this attraction was actually built up near Chicago, Illinois. Yep. And it's called the Great Electric Time Maze.
SPEAKER_00:The Great Electric Time Maze.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, what I don't know what he was smoking, but this thing, I remember I I only got to see this thing from afar because I I never got a chance. Now you grew up in Chicago.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I did not. I I grew up in Texas. You grew up in Texas. I I lived in Chicago, but it was much, much later.
SPEAKER_04:Right. Yeah. So neither of us have actually been to this park.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_04:But it has fascinated us from afar. And and like a lot of the attractions, like when we talked about Dracula, we we've talked about like the stuff in New Jersey that we've never actually been to. Right. So we're gonna talk about the Great Electric Time Maze because it has fascinated us from afar. Yeah. And it like this is one of those attractions like we were probably not in the best of financial situations because we're both like either just in college or fresh out of college enough to go, I'm broke, and I can't make the trek out to Chicago to see this thing, and then it shut down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it's a very short window that this thing is open. Yeah. It is it is sort of a theme park, it is sort of a single attraction, it is sort of an escape room, and it is sort of a haunt, and it is sort of a simulator, and it is so it's so many things that were way too ambitious for 1989, 1990 when this thing opened. Absolutely. Um and it didn't last for long, made it about five years.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I mean, this was this was a time in which Silicon Valley uh here in California uh was going through an experimental phase when it came to theme, uh theme attraction. Yep um the exploration of uh infrared technologies for shooting galleries was suddenly on the rise. Right. Uh motion uh motion-based rides were actually becoming more and more commonplace because this is not long after Star Tours came out. Yes. And the technology to develop Star Tours was born in Palo Alto. Right. So uh it expanded out from there. There was actually a thing in Palo Alto that was a flight simulator. So there were there were flight simulators all over the place. And I forget the name of this place, but it was a flight simulator uh uh attraction where you would show up, they would they would brief you like you're in the military, yeah, and then you would be given flight suits, and then you would get inside these cockpits and you would dogfight each other like you were you're flying F-16s. And the ride only lasted for about 10 minutes. Yeah. And I think it was like$45 per round. It was like a very expensive video game. Right. And you could barrel roll, you could fly upside down, you could do a lot of different things with this. That's what it felt like. But actually, it was just a computer game attached to a motion controlled pod. Right. And everybody had their own pod. So I think there was five on one side, five on the other, and the two teams would fly against each other. Yeah. And you wore flight helmets, you had the headsets and the works, but you had this full surround dome built around you where you could look around and around you know, almost like 280 degrees and see if someone's flying above you and that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and we and we see a variant of that as part of the Great Electric Time Maze.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. And then this so this is that era. This is the era where people are saying, we've got this computer technology and and and and and the confluence of games and movies are here. Yeah, it's happening. But but it really wasn't because the technology wasn't ready for it yet.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was very, very close. Yeah. And um, you know, we even see this uh a few years later when we look at the Disney Quest's opening. Yes. Um, and even then it's not quite there yet. But uh we admire the ambition of it, and and some of this seemed to really work.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. Some of it's amazing. So where this really came out of, and and let's just talk about this is not a Disney thing. Nope. This is not Cedar Fair, this is you know, this is an independent thing, completely independent of all these investors that uh it was under a banner of a company called Fantaccini Limited, uh created by uh Ray Bradbury, who had put this all together with the help of Forrest J. Ackerman.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:These two guys were old buddies in LA. Long time. Long time, all the way back to the first world con.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uh so these two guys uh had a lot of connections. Yeah. And Ray Bradbury had a lot of clout, and um uh there were rumors, and I don't know if this is true, yeah, but there were rumors because okay, trivia question. Uh-huh. What high selling book is Forrest J. Ackerman associated with the selling of millions of copies of?
SPEAKER_00:Um uh I'm gonna take a guess because we're talking about Ray Bradbury the Martian Chronicles? No. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Although, you know, although he was his literary agent in in the good old days. Forrest J. Ackerman was responsible for helping Bradbury kind of get into magazines like Saturday Evening Post, which is where he published the The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Yes. Which got ripped off and turned into a movie without his knowledge, until his buddy, his other buddy, Ray Harryhausen, who was doing the animation, said, We need some help with the script, and they showed it to him, and he goes, Oh, this is really good, but incidentally, it reminds me a lot about a short story I wrote for the Saturday Evening Post. They went, uh, oops. Oopsie. Oopsie. No, uh, believe it or not, the book that he's responsible for selling millions of copies of is Dianetics.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, because they were all buddies with L. Ron Hubbard at that point.
SPEAKER_04:Right, back when he was just a science fiction author.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So there are rumors.
SPEAKER_04:Arguably he never was anything else. No, no, there are rumors, and this is gonna keep coming up. You're gonna you're gonna listen to this description of this park, folks, and you're gonna start kind of going, I can see why this rumor might be taken with some credence here. Yeah. Is that the rumor is that this park was funded with a lot of investors from the Church of Scientology. Oh wow. So we don't know, you know, like uh we cannot substantiate. I mean, John Travolta was one of the big celebs during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Yeah. Because he was, you know, fresh on the heels of pulp fiction during the opening of this film. So it's like maybe I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, you know, he would have been a big deal at that point.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. Yeah. He had been a rising star, a returning star at that point. Let's back up a little bit to it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about like kind of Bradbury as far as how he fits into the scheme of things with theme parks. Um, you know, it's a very famous story, and and uh you always have to preface stories that you get from Bradbury himself with the fact that he is a writer of fiction. He is a writer of fiction, and he is known to exaggerate sometimes. But he was friends with Walt Disney for a very long time. And uh Ray Ray was never asked to work on any of the theme park projects from Walt, ostensibly because Walt said to him, Ray, you're a genius and I'm a genius, and we would kill each other.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, I mean, that's that's it if that's very evocative. I mean, if you don't believe that, then read the accounts of White Whale Emerald Isle.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:With you know, in which Bradbury describes his experiences with John Houston, the making of Moby Dick.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:In which he almost he took a swing at John Houston over the uh Orson Wells' speech on the pulpit. Yeah. And then Houston popped him out. And then put his takeover as I go, I admire a man who wants to stand up for his art.
SPEAKER_00:I have to, I have to, I have to really admire anyone that would take a swing at John Houston because I'm not man enough.
SPEAKER_04:Well, again, this is Ray Bradbury, so we're not exactly sure if that is true. Yeah, it's true. Both ends to Mr. Bradbury, but there is a level of, you know, anyway.
SPEAKER_00:So uh Bradbury did do some work in the uh, and we always come back to it, the 1964 Notta World's Fair. Yep. Um he wrote the uh s sort of basic outline of what the United States Pavilion was supposed to do. Um so he he that was kind of his first foray as far as we know into theme parks. Then he was out of it for a while, but after Walt died, um Disney Imagineer started getting interested in Ray again. And as Epcot was coming uh they were they were sort of in a weird nether realm where they weren't sure if Epcot was gonna go forward. You know, it previously was supposed to be a city, they realized they were never gonna get that done without Walt being around. Right. Um they may maybe wouldn't have gotten it with him being around, but without him, they were never gonna be able to convince enough people to make that work. Sure. So they were trying to figure out what to do, and they brought a bunch of Disney executives and some imagineers together for a sort of come to Jesus meeting about Epcot. And who did they get to give an inspirational speech to get this thing kicked into gear again? But Ray Bradbury. Oh yeah. And um I watched the I I was lucky enough to have someone send this to me uh a few months back, the actual video of that speech. And it's I mean, it's wonderful. It's it is of its time. And and so you have to understand that that Ray Bradbury has some some old-fashioned traits that that might not ring so pleasant these days. Uh but but for the most part, he's smart, he's inspirational, he's excited, and from that point on, I don't know if it's exactly at that moment, but it certainly helped. From that point on, the Epcot project was back on. Um, he really sold it. And and he said, he says in the speech, I will um I'm here for you. Nice. Whatever you need me to do to make this happen, I'm I'm here to do. Right. Like I'm going to be around. And also there was a little bit of, and I'm also watching you. Because I was Walt's friend. Yeah. And and I'm gonna make sure this works out.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, those giant coke bottle glasses of his.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And he certainly was around for the creation of Epcot. And he he uh wrote the original narration for Spaceship Earth. That's right. He uh he does he designed a lot of what that was supposed to be conceptually. Um they didn't end up using all of his narration, but they used hunks of it, and the ideas were still pretty much there. The Orbitron at Euro Disney, that was his wow. That was like his design. Huh. So, you know, he he kind of he was in and out of theme park stuff. Of course, we we all know about the uh the Halloween tree at Disneyland dedicated to Ray. Yep. Uh when did that come in? That was 2003-ish? Is that about right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, there's a stately oak tree in Disneyland, and uh from 2007 onward, it has been designated as the Halloween tree, the official Halloween tree of Disneyland. What's interesting about that particular Halloween tree is that it is a paled, you know, uh imitation compared to the one we're about to tell you about inside the giant electric maze. You know, it's like anyway.
SPEAKER_00:And so that kind of brings us uh up to the the president. He worked on Epcot for a while. Some of his ideas were used, some of them were not. Um eventually he kind of faded into the background of that project. And then somewhere towards the end of the 80s, Ray gets an idea and decides, and I don't know if it's because he was unhappy about what had happened at Epcot or he was excited about what had happened at Epcot, but he decided he could do something better.
SPEAKER_04:You know, I have a feeling that Ray uh Ray is one of these people that will definitely get an idea, a spark, yeah, and just roll with it. Yeah. Probably has something to do with something that happened to him when he was 12 years old. The uh legend goes is that he was at a circus and he encountered a uh professor, uh uh professor. He was called Mr. Electrico. Yes. And Mr. Electrico, I mean, this was in 1932. Uh this guy did magic tricks with electricity, which at the time was still kind of scary. I mean, there's a reason that Frankenstein, 1931, features him being brought to life with electricity because people are still like afraid of the possibilities of an electric world. Yeah. Um, but in 1932, he uh this performer used electricity and he had uh electric chair. So I think what it is, it's it's an old carny gag in which you can be exposed to high amounts of electricity as long as the amperage is turned down. Yeah. Now, scientists, please correct me if I'm wrong. It's one of the it's either the volts or the amps, I think it's the amperage.
SPEAKER_00:So kids don't listen to us.
SPEAKER_04:Don't do this until you have confirmation from an actual trained scientist. But it's one or the other, and if you turn down one or the other, you can actually survive a huge amount of voltage as long as the amperage is is dampened. Okay. So, and this was a common thing where, you know, it was ladies who would sit in electric chairs and then they would put a light bulb in their mouth. And yeah. And okay, so anyway, Mr. Electrico apparently brought Ray up as as an assistant, and he touched his shoulder with this electric sword and said, Live forever. That's right. I've heard the story. And that literally became he always claimed that this was that moment where he suddenly realized, like, how am I gonna do that? Right. And that's why he pursued writing and he felt inspired to write daily, every single day he wrote.
SPEAKER_00:He did, yeah. Do you know have you heard the story about what he had on his desk written on his desk so he could see it all the time when he was writing? He had a little sign that he'd handwritten that said, Don't think. And and his his theory of writing was that you get up in the morning and you write, and you just write like the Dickens, and you try not to get in your own way. And um he he used to say, like, you you throw up in the morning, you clean it up in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_04:Wow, that is such a ray thing to say. Yes. Um, so I think what's interesting is that with this part, I think that's literally what he started out. Because there is actually a proposal that he wrote, and I think what is it, eight pages long? Yeah, it is. But it reads like a run-on sentence. So he obviously threw it up.
SPEAKER_00:Like we we know like Ray was pretty much like a teetotaler, but man, it feels like a coke-fueled night.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:If you get the wrong person to narrate this, yeah, you know, you've got you've got some issues here. But um, but it is a fascinating read. Kelly showed this to me, and this is what sparked this uh this episode is that we took a look at this, we're like, that was the proposal for this park. Yeah. Oh my god. And we went down the rabbit hole exploring photographs and video and old VHS, you know, uh captures of this thing. Right. And it is insane. And we just like the more and more we learned, the more and more we were bemoaning the fact we never actually got to see this in person.
SPEAKER_00:It sounds amazing. I've I've got the like the opening lines of this thing, the the proposal. It says, eat, live, shop, past, present, future, explore the pyramid, hunt the dinosaur, fall out beyond Andromeda, run from the dark ACDC hound, get lost and split in a thermonuclear lab. All in one place. Yes. The time maze. So he he had this kind of crazy idea, and he seemed to get funding from somewhere. Uh don't ask, don't tell, I don't know. But Church of Scientology. Yeah. And along the way, he seemed to he found someone that was able to kind of bring the stuff down from the heavens and turn it into something practical and buildable. And that was our old buddy Joe Roadie.
SPEAKER_04:Ah, Joe.
SPEAKER_00:Yay, Joe. For those of you who don't know about Joe Roadie, and if you've been listening to us for a while, I'd be surprised. But uh Joe Roadie is most famously known for the being the creator of Disney Animal Kingdom Park in in Florida, um, which is, and yes, I'm saying this out loud, which is my favorite of the Florida parks. It used to be Epcot, but things have changed. But yeah, that was his his design. He designed the Expedition Everest coaster there. He designed the uh Guardians of the Galaxy overlay that's now in California Adventure. He designed a lot of stuff. He designed most of the uh or a ton of stuff in Ohlone, their uh Hawaii resort. Um but one of the earliest big hits for him was a thing that he designed from the now long-gone Disney Pleasure Island, which was the Adventurers Club. This was Joe Rhody's baby.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it is one of the most magical experiences I've ever had in a themed environment ever. It was incredible. I only got to go there once, and I I wish I could have gone again. Uh just incredible. But this was a place where it was a 1930s club that was staffed with eccentric characters who were all like world adventurers. Um, you know, this this at the time they hadn't really defined the SEA thing, the Society for Explorers and Adventurers. But this was very much the root of that. Right. And they got r retconned into it later. Um, but it was it was magical. Animatronics on the wall, you know, secret shows in the parlor. You could, you know, go behind a fake wall and there'd be a ghost playing piano in the library.
SPEAKER_04:I always loved the talking uh Greek masks. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:They were filthy.
SPEAKER_00:They were so good, though. Oh, so good. It was just so much fun. And and so you know, you kind of he finished with that project. It was just about to go live. Um he was looking for his next thing to do, and here's Ray Bradbury. Right. And he's like, Well, let's see if we can put this together. And they start to kind of form a team and they start to get funding, and by God, they build the damn thing. Right. Let's talk about where it is. Yes. Was so it's outside of Ray Bradbury's hometown of Waukegan, Illinois. Yes. Also Jack Benny's hometown.
SPEAKER_04:That's wild.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And they came from the same place.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. Um that explains a very similar sense of humor between the two of them. It does.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, actually. Yeah. And um and and Bradbury worshipped Jack Benny.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Just loved him.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So for those who don't know where where Joaquegan is, it's right on the eastern coast of uh Lake Michigan, south southeastern shore of uh Lake Michigan, between Milwaukee and Chicago. Yeah. So if you were to travel up the coast of the lakes, you'd you'd find it right there. It's like I think one of the closer is Kenosha. You know, it's it's Evanston, Kenosha, Joaquegan, etc.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Anyway. Kenosha, Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. But it's a teeny little place.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So it so they uh initially they were talking about trying to build it there. That didn't quite work out for a lot of reasons. Joaquegan's right on the lake. And as someone who lived like half a block from Lake Michigan, um, I will tell you that is not a place that you want to build a tourist thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's very it's very stark in the winter. Yes. Very, very stark in the winter. Yeah, I mean, there was there was talk about putting it um out near the north shore, maybe out by the harbor, you know, trying to go for like a Coney Island of approach, but the real estate just didn't exist for it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You know, there's municipal beaches, there's, you know, and also they're too close to the nature preserves.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So they actually built it just a little bit further east, not too far actually, but just a little bit further east in a town called Gurney. Yeah. And uh it's it's right there, right next to the Lake Carina Forest Preserve. So you go through that and that created enough windbreak. And they found a spot of land. It's not huge, but it's big enough for this idea. Yeah. And it sits between th uh Washington Street and the 132. So there's a huge turnpike right near it. Yeah. Yeah, apparently right there, they built this theme park.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it's it's kind of shaped like a hexagon. Yes. The lands the landscape allowed it to actually have this kind of hexagon approach. Yeah. But the hexagon is merely the real estate. The entire park itself is just one giant series of circles. And we'll get to that for uh there's a reason for that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, most most everything you experience in this theme park is inside. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they definitely they they learned things from uh I would say primarily like from Pirates of the Caribbean.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like they learned how to make an indoor space seem like it's outdoors.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah. There's a lot of that going on here. Yeah. And and to great effect, actually. There was a lot of this. I mean, at the right about the same time, some of the same people who built a lot of these attractions worked in Vegas at the time. This is when Vegas was trying to be uh family friendly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So there was a lot of these design firms that worked on this. Uh there was one guy who is worked with Joe Roadie on this one. Yeah. He would later go on to work with Disney again as the main designer uh for uh the uh Mystic Manor in Shanghai. Uh-huh. His name is Joe Lanziero. Yeah. And he was more of one of the designers. He wasn't really in charge, but he was definitely one of the key designers. He designed tons of attractions for Disney later on. Toy Storylands, uh, a lot of stuff for the new Splash Mountain. He worked with Don Carson on that one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he's he's a neat guy. I've heard him interviewed, and he's he's real fascinating.
SPEAKER_04:I've had the honor of having lunch with him thanks to Don Carson. Have you? We went to lunch, the three of us in Pasadena, California. Yeah. And he was fascinating. He's a little quirky, but he's fascinating and he's got fabulous sensibilities about design. And you can see it in Mystic Manor. And actually, yeah, some of his attractions that he worked on uh in the time maze, you can definitely see the influence later on in Mystic Manor. Yeah. So we'll talk about that in a minute.
SPEAKER_00:And and you know, these are very rudimentary versions of these.
SPEAKER_04:Right. Because remember, this is 1987-88 when they're developing this. Yeah. Because it opens in 1989. Yeah. So they've got two years to put this all together. So the design process is going off of what's available in the late 80s to us. Yeah. What's high tech in the late 80s? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We've got we've got projectors, we've got we've got simulators. We've got lasers. We've got lasers. We don't have super, super high definition stuff, but we kind of fudge it. Just turn up the lumens, it'll be fine. And and we have design. Yep. And this is what sells this.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And it's amazing how many Disney people actually wound up working on this. Yeah. Uh we'll talk about a few other surprises. Yeah. Some that saw it all the way through, some that didn't. Yeah. So it's interesting, like who like got brought on board for a little bit, but didn't quite see it all the way through. Yeah. You know, but still, but Lanziero and Rhody are two, like these two powerhouses were really responsible for giving it the whimsy that it needed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about like what it is. Yes. The way that Bradbury kind of defined it in his writing, and this is sort of how it plays out, is that there's three separate things that he calls time mazes. Yeah. It's a weird way that he puts it, because really only the second one is well, uh no, let me take that back. Um they they are sort of time mazes, but the the meat of it is in the second one.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean the the other way to think about it is when he says maze, he's actually talking about what Disneyland would say is a land. Yes. Because there are different sections, because he actually writes about this in the proposal where he says, You can't get there from here, or if you're not careful, arriving's a bore. Yeah. Being on a journey is the way and the life, and being lost is the best of all. And that was the point, is he wanted you to get lost in this place. Yeah. So that way you would have that element of discovery every time you would turn a corner, you would go, Wow, look at that. Oh, I gotta do this. And I wonder what's over here. Yeah. Like he definitely understood the power of the Disney weenie. Yes. You know, having that object that draws you to the next spot where you want the audience to go in imagineering terms. But he he wanted you to experience the mystery of exploration. Right. Which is very, very forward-thinking for him because uh much later, I mean, by today's standards, you have attractions like Meowwolf. Yeah, that's all that it's about is get lost, find your way around, and the story develops, you know, these where it's like there may not be a fully fleshed out narrative in every single part of this, but that's the point.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and it's interesting to me the points at which he says this has a fairly strict narrative, and the points at which he says this does not. Yeah. Like I you are on your own here. Right. And and I it and also very forward thinking, because this is this is something that you see, um, you know, we've talked about interactivity a lot, and and you see it in like, you know, Disney's uh uh attempts at Star Wars themed lands and and Universalist attempts at Harry Potter themed lands, and trying to figure out how much you can force someone into a plot um before it either becomes too clunky or they decide they don't want to be in that plot. Got it. Um and so he you know, he he tries he tries to have his cake and eat it too here. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Exactly. And this this may be what's so fascinating about it and partially why it ultimately didn't work. No. But let's let's talk about so the the the first time maze.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, time maze one, which if you were looking down on this park, um you have to you kind of have to picture um a classic style of medieval labyrinth. Yes. But within that labyrinth, there are actually three even smaller labyrinths embedded within it. Yeah. So it's almost like a triangle. So if you're looking down on imagine a big circle with a uh a big central circle in the middle, like a like a bullseye target. Right. And on Outside of that, there are three other smaller labyrinths built around that. And so it kind of forms like a triangle on the inside of a circle. Yeah. Um with the with the point pointing downwards. So in the south, southern part of the park, that's the tip of the triangle. And I'm I'm pointing like crazy head, kind of going, yeah, I see it. Whatever.
SPEAKER_00:It's okay, the pointing doesn't help.
SPEAKER_04:So it's these three mazes, but then the rest of the park is encircled and ensnared by all these other smaller things that take you to these different mazes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and I will say this about everything I've looked at, everything I've read about this park, it is I think this is part of the brilliance of it. I cannot figure where out where things are. Like I'm like, I I get that they're kind of talking about this area, but how do you get from this area to I don't understand it?
SPEAKER_04:Again, because a lot of its interior. So all you really saw this. I mean, yes, there were park maps, but the park maps are even done with this highly designy style. Yeah. Almost on purpose just to mess with you. Yeah. Like the whole point was like that we don't want you to have a map. We want you to get lost. Like that's you know, get lost and be found. What yeah, that's the point. Yeah. We want you to explore. We want you to have this sense of like, I don't know where this is going. Let's find out. Right. So, like, it's the first theme park that did that, like intentionally.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Not telling you where stuff was. Yeah, it's uh so it is truly a proto-meowolf.
SPEAKER_04:So, yeah, let's talk about the first maze here. Yes. So the first maze uh is insane. When you read about it, in it like he writes like this massive description of it in the proposal. Yes. One thing that Bradbury, in as far as imagineering terms, uh huh, is he was a master at Blue Sky. Yes. He's Brad like as far as like he wins the Academy Award of Blue Sky. And for those who don't know what that means, the the the the three of you who don't know Papua New Guinea, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably know what Blue Sky means. But Blue Sky, the term is basically it's at the very beginning of a project, usually at Imagineering, which is where it really came from. Yeah. And it's the let's just throw stuff at the wall and see what happens. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a big idea. Let's just start with that. Yeah. And you cannot say no to anything during a blue sky session. That's right. You say yes and. Yeah. You can say yes, but, yes. You can't even say yes, but. Yeah, it's yes and. Yes, and we can do this. Yes, and we can do that. We'll get to the logistics, right? We'll get to the feasibility later.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_04:But let's just blue sky and see what happens. Yeah. Having gone through this process with Don Carson and Joe Lanziero on a project, um that was just during lunch. We would blue sky at each other. Yeah. It's a fun game to do. Totally. But I actually did work with Don Carson on a project. It was meant to be a parade. Uh-huh. And the Blue Sky project, he was very strict. You cannot say no. Yeah. Because I would say, well, we can't do that because nope. It's blue sky, Pete. You can't say no. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_00:You're right. It's a hard habit. Once you learn how to do it, it's really useful. Oh, yeah. It's it's vomit in the morning and clean up later.
SPEAKER_04:That's why Bradbury was amazing at it. And you can see it in this proposal. Because I'm looking at the paragraph now, it's the longest one in the whole dang thing, in which he mostly just talks about the food you're going to eat. Yes. Because I think his expectation is oh, well, you're going to wake up and then you're going to pack up the family in the station wagon. I don't know because I don't drive. Yeah. And then he didn't. He didn't drive. He never did.
SPEAKER_00:He never never drove a car. He rode a bicycle all the time. Yeah. And he lived in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_04:I know. It's like, I gotta go to Clifton's. Yeah. Well, and actually I'll talk about that in just a second. Yeah, that'll come up. But I dropped that name, but it's very important. Um, yeah. So this whole thing, his expectation, I guess, was at some point, you're gonna have to eat. Yeah. So might as well get it over with. So in this proposal, it's like start with a big meal.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know, yeah, there yeah, there seems to be a sense of you're about to have a huge adventure, you'd better be well fed before you start. Right.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Right. And this and this description is, you know, all of these like it's a multiplicity, a plethora, a maze of restaurants, large and small and foreign and domestic, where the hot dog blends with the pizza, which blends with the falafel, which wanders over to the strudel and the cream bun and the coffee and the apetatif outdoor cafe. What? Right, and it goes on and on, but actually, what it really just turned out to be a food court with a serpentine. Yes. Which is a shame. Yeah. But there were some great features to it. So it was like an international eatery in the center. So that's that center circle in the main maze. Because there was one long avenue that took you straight up through the middle of the circle. Yeah. And there was actually a trolley that went along that route. It kind of went up, it's like a lollipop. It goes up, it circles the main center area, it circumnavigates the the central circle and takes you back out to the front again. Yeah. And that was the tea trolley. Yes. And the tea trolley is adorable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it because it is both a sort of Disneyland's main street kind of attraction and a place where you can actually eat and get tea.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and there were three of them. Yeah. There were all three of them. And um, and they were all named after their respective wives. Yes. Bradbury, um, Ackerman, and Harryhausen. They were all named after the first names of all their wives. So sweet. You know, like how Lily Bell is like one of the same thing. So it's, you know, the the tr the three T trolleys. Yeah. And one was dark green, one was kind of like this nice rustic red, and one was black with gold, you know, stuff all over them. Right. And they all had like their own personalities. And they were, they were not, when you think of trolley in a streetcar, we're not talking San Francisco.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:We're talking Los Angeles. So very 1930s, streamlined, beautiful amber lit on the inside, the really nice polished metal everywhere. These fun little I I remember seeing a picture of the inside of one of these things. It was it was a dining car.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And one side had regular benches. So like if you were just going to go into the park, you could sit on the benches. But if you wanted to keep riding this thing and actually have some tea, service was on the left side. Yeah. Because the service, you would get into the tea trolley, apparently, and you would start riding and you wouldn't be served tea until it arrived at the first uh station. Yeah. So you had this whole long way of going into the park to look at the menu, which only had five items. Yeah, right. You know, like if Bradbury had any limited space. It was limited space. You get a slice of cheese and a schlitz beer, right? Yeah. If it was Bradbury's choice. Yeah, of course. But you know, you get you get uh you pick which cookie you want and you pick what type of tea you want. Yeah. You know, and then a glass of water or something like that. So they know you're only gonna be on this thing for 15 minutes. Yeah. And it was it was the most people actually opted to just grab the tea and leave. Yeah. But there were some diehards who would just like, nope, I'm gonna stay here. It was it was pretty great. So you'd be served through the window. Yeah, yeah, which is amazing, so clever. Yeah, there's no waiters. You you put the order in and then you would clip your order on the outside of the window and you pull up to the station, the people go click, click, click, and then off you go. And they would they would call it in. Yeah. They would say seat number 14 has two tea, you know, two darjeelings with a oatmeal cookie. Yeah. This person just wants an iced tea. And they just gave it you paper cups. You didn't have like porcelain or anything. Yeah. During the opening, they had you know, they they show people it's all fancy and everybody's in fake costumes, but you get your tea and you could sit there and eat it. Yeah. But once you were done, you were expected to leave. Yeah, get off.
SPEAKER_00:Get off. Get out of here. And there there was it, it's it's true that uh, you know, Bradbury's kind of dreams of these um uh sort of idealized different kinds of cuisines through the maze didn't quite pan out. No. Um and and and and you can again see his like attachment to like Angelino culture with that. Like it this is very much what like going through heavily restaurante areas. The Lowdown on the Plus Up is a Boardwalk Times podcast. At Boardwalk Times.net, you'll find some of the most well-considered and insightful writing about the Walt Disney Company, Disney history, and the universe of theme parks available anywhere. Come join us at BoardwalkTimes.net. It doesn't quite work. The logistics of making food doesn't quite hold together um with that. But he did have one large formal restaurant in this section that is pretty much exactly as he described it. And this was a restaurant on on the giant locomotive car.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yes. Oh yes. That's that circles the sea of eats, as it calls it.
SPEAKER_00:And really, it doesn't move at all. No, but no. And and so there's uh there's a Disney tie here. Like uh late in his career, the great the great Roger Brogy, who designed much of the trains in Disneyland, designed a ton of stuff for Disneyland. Oh yeah. Yeah, and uh in many ways was as responsible for the beginning of animatronics as anybody else. Oh yeah. But uh Bro Brogy designed this car. Um probably more as a favor than anything. And what happened was so it it was this was a meal that you had to have reservations for. So this was not something you This is their blue bayou. Yes, very much so. Yeah. Um a couple of seatings a day. Every meal was a different cuisine. And what would happen is you would show up for your seating, you'd you'd get in your dining car seating, and the train would ostensibly take off.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:And it you know, it would rock a little and there was steam coming out of the the front of it, and they would show uh projections through on the sides of the windows. Yep. He writes about this in his proposal. And and they they link up to whatever the cuisine is. So if if it's if it's uh uh Chinese cuisine, you're traveling on a train through China. Uh-huh. And if it's Italian cuisine, you're traveling through, you know, wh whatever, like Puglesi or whatever. And and so it's it's a multi-course experience, it's expensive, but really fascinating.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, I I mean, can you imagine like you're you're you're handed your uh you're handed your uh plate of spaghetti. Yeah. You know, and it's all Italiano cuisine, and you're like traveling along the train, and you you're just like chuk chok chuk chok chuk chug, and out you outside the window you see the Venice. Uh-huh. Yeah. And like, wow, this is amazing. And you go the second day, and then all of a sudden it's like, nope, it's now it's Paris. Yeah, right. All this kind of stuff. It's like, yeah, wow, this is amazing. Yeah. And what's interesting is that even though the technology at the time was was touted, oh, yeah, this is state of the art. The technology is very similar to the Terousel of Progress. It's not actually a train. That's the secret of this. It's a moving, rotating building, very much like some of the rotating restaurants that are all over America.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But instead of building one giant circle, they build an even bigger track, but only have a portion of the building moving at one time. So it looks like a train, but it's actually a moving building. Yeah. With a huge centrifuge powering the whole thing in the middle, with different kitchen stations. So if you put in an order and you're like you made a mistake, you got to wait until that building comes around to the next portion so they can call ahead of him. Make sure he's got some tea at table five. Yeah. You know, so it's like, okay, you know, but it gives you time. So basically it was like three rotations per meal. Yeah. So you get on and it's moving so slow, it's you know, chugging along. But it was it was that chugging along that gave you the motion. Right. But it's the monitors that make it feel faster than what it actually is. Yeah. So it feels like you're going on this long journey. Right. But in fact, it's only like 45 minutes. You know, it takes 15 minutes to go around the whole park that way. Yeah. Or that section of the park, because it's not the whole park. Yeah. So because it's too b that'd be too big. Yeah. So, but yet that technology and that notion, what I love about this, yeah, is you you read about this and you kind of go, wait a minute, isn't that the Hogwarts Express?
SPEAKER_00:It is exactly the Hogwarts.
SPEAKER_04:And that's it. It's just it's the Hogwarts Express, only Hogwarts Express now actually has better technology. But this was kind of like the inspiration for the Hogwarts Express.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I mean universal. It's crazy. There's a there's a lot of stuff that that we run across here in this park that is uh we see in full fruition later.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah. Uh this is a park that the blue sky exceeded the capabilities of almost everything that everybody was was able to do at the time. What the the the problem with this particular tract, and as wonderful as it looked, yeah, um, is that once you've done it, you've done it. It's like, yeah. I don't know if I mean there were some diehards, yeah. But the majority of people who went to this park, it's like, okay, you gotta do it at least once. Yeah, that's all you can afford.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, you're you're right. You kind of do it once and you've you've done it. And that's true about this and especially Time Maze 2.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. But uh, I do want to mention one last thing is the influence of this Sea of Eats, as he loved to call it, yeah. Uh was one of his favorite eateries in Los Angeles. Yeah. And it's actually where he met Forrest J. Ackerman and Ray Bradbury, which is a uh uh place called Clifton's Cafeteria, yes, downtown Los Angeles. Recently reopened, right? Uh yes, it's not an eatery right now. It is still mostly just a bar because uh it got shut down during the pandemic. Yeah. And then it reopened, but for a while it was still a full-on eatery. Wow. Um in its heyday in the 30s when it opened, it was serving up to 50,000 people a day. Yeah. A day. Yeah. And Clifford Clinton, who opened it, uh ran it with the golden rule, which was uh he wanted to serve the community because this was built during the depression. Yeah. So he's like, if you can pay for it, pay for it. And if you can't, we'll work something else out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Come back when you can.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You know, when you can pay for it, come back and settle up. Yeah. I won't bug you about it. You know, I want to make sure everybody's fed. And people like Walt Disney, Jack Kerouac, all these people would go to it. And if you've never seen this thing, Google it. It's insane. Yeah. It's like three or four stories tall. There are there's tons of crazy taxidermy. There was a river running through a little swish of village. It even had a tiny little chapel with a neon cross over the top of it. Yeah. I mean, you see the influence of Disneyland from Cliftons, because Walt went there a lot. Yeah. But Bradbury apparently went there almost once a week. Wow. To his dying day. He loved Clinton. Uh uh, I'm sorry, Cliftons. Yeah. It's crazy. We'll we'll do a whole episode about that place at some point because it is nuts. Yeah. But Google it. It's it's there's a Huhl Hauser episode where they talk about it, and it's worth watch.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but that was one of the influences for the Sea of Eats. So that takes us to our next maze. Time Maze II. Time Maze Two, otherwise known as it's the maze that is across an abyss of stars, separated from the first maze straight down and seemingly straight up by a billion light years of stars in all directions. In order to cross over the abyss, there are a number of game stations where the head of any party of two or three or four or more would play a laser beam game, which, if won, totaling up to some particular sum, would cause a bridge to jut out across from one side of the first maze to the second maze.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. So that's the proposal. Um didn't quite work out though. No, but we got we got some of it. It's pretty close, though. Time maze two is in many ways what people would consider the the attraction of this. Yeah. Of of the the whole thing. Right. And um to do Time Maze 2, there's a narrative that you hop on with a group of people. Yes. There was a a sort of scheduled, well, it wasn't scheduled, but there was kind of a partitioned entry to get to Time Maze 2. So there wasn't so much a game or a thing you did with lasers shooting stuff to score points. But you did collect in front of what looked like a kind of long bridge over an abyss. Of course it wasn't an abyss. Uh it was it was more like it was more like um, you know, London in the Peter Pan ride.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. It's actually a very old trick and it involves uh two-way mirrors. Yeah. Um, that are facing each other. And so it's called an infinity. It's an infinity mirror. And so it it gave you that impression of that.
SPEAKER_00:Now the way that that Bradbury describes the entrance to Time Maze 2 is that it is sort of like two pyramids kind of in on top of each other. One one's right side up and one's upside down, they're on top of each other. And they're spinning in space, and there's like hieroglyphs, and there's pictures like of scientific symbols, and there's j- I mean, it's just basically if you've ever bought a Sun Ra album, it's that. You're not wrong. So uh you know, in in reality, what they had was still pretty interesting. They had kind of had a how do I say this word, Trump Louel? Trump Trump Lloy. Trumploy, thank you.
SPEAKER_04:Trump Lloyd.
SPEAKER_00:They had a kind of Trump Lloyd of these sort of two pyramids. And they were a little bit far away and they were lit cleverly. And um there was some projections that were kind of giving a sense of motion and some neon on there that was sort of looking like, oh, this is an arcane symbol and this is an arcane symbol. It wasn't bad. You know who they got to draw the to to paint the Trump law? No. They got this is gonna blow your mind. They got Marta Beckett to do it. Because as you know, she was an actual talented painter. Wow. And it was one of the few times that she actually left Amargosa to work on anything.
SPEAKER_04:I was about to say, like her theater was like without a performance for a couple of nights.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and she did this every once in a while. Like she would go to New York and and like see friends and stuff, but it didn't happen very often. Wow. Um now Bradbury and Beckett, they were friends. Really? Yeah, Bradbury deeply admired her. Huh. Um there's a there's a great documentary. I should probably back up and explain who Marta Beckett is. So uh there's a documentary called called Ambergosa, and Bradbury's in it a lot. He just thinks of her as one of the United States' greatest eccentrics. And and she is, uh, was she she passed away ten years ago? Something like that, yeah. Marta Beckett is this woman, she was a dancer. She was traveling cross-country with her husband, I believe, at the time. They were driving through Death Valley Junction in the Nevada Desert, and they found this old kind of abandoned theater. It wasn't being used for much, and Marta just never left. She somehow bought the theater, she renovated it. Okay. She she basically painted an audience. Oh, yeah. Renovated the stage, and started doing dance performances for a long time to nobody. Just to the fake audience. And this was how how she became sort of famous was that so someone got wind of this, and I think they sent someone from like Life or Time Magazine to see what was going on. And true, it sure was.
SPEAKER_04:Always have her audience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so and then they there was a little hotel that was attached to it, and she so she had done all of the paintings of the audience. She went through the hotel, and I've been there, I've seen this. She did these uh Trump Lloy, is that right? Trump Lloyd. Trump Lloyd, thank you. It means to fool the eye. Yeah, like Myrna Loy. Okay, right, there you go.
SPEAKER_04:So she didn't fool the eye a lot.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh boy, did she? Um, so she did these these Trump Lloyd paintings all through the the Amargosa Hotel, which is attached to the Amargosa Opera House. Wow. So you could go stay at the hotel, and what would happen, and I did this, is at night, people would go out and wander through the halls with like flashlights, um, just looking for the paintings and listening for ghosts because people believed that the hotel was haunted. Well, we have to go on the road for that one. It was it's super cool, but she was a talented Trump Lloyd painter.
SPEAKER_04:I'm looking at a photograph of it now. There's all these Tromp Lloyd paintings of of the of the uh theater here. Yeah. And what I love is that right smack dab in the front row, there's a wood stove. Yeah, yeah. Like a functioning wood stove. Because this is a you know, turn of the century little adobe style building on the exterior, but the interior has this very like Baroque, almost Rococo style painting. Yeah. It's there's like suits of armor and jugglers and wrestlers and people in suits of armor and all these eccentric people up in the box seat. It's like the Muppet Show. Yeah. It's so, and then there's like this crappy wooden floor and like these well-worn velvet seats. But the paintings are amazing. Yeah, so she did the Trump Lloyd in in the first maze, huh?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so the one that's the entrance, the two the two giant pyramids. And I suspect it was just Bradbury trying to give her a job to make her a little money to keep her going. Oh, yeah, gotta get to get new beds in the hotel. Yeah. They could use them. So anyway, in interesting. And so you would kind of walk across this fake bridge and enter into what was just essentially a doorway in the uh wall under the giant paintings. But it was still kind of a neat effect.
SPEAKER_04:Of course. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty it's pretty great. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So there's a there's a story to it that is loose but enough to keep you moving. And and there was there was a way, like you could you could experience some of the attractions in Maze 2 independently.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:But that really wasn't the way to do it. The way to do it was to participate in the story. You know, you'd you'd come in and you're in this like kind of crazy um science lab, but it's it's like a science lab from so many different eras in history. You know, it's it's it's Frankenstein and it's, you know, Tobor the Great, and it's just every science lab you can imagine. And in the center of it is this big circular thing that they call the time centrifuge.
SPEAKER_04:It's pretty wild. Uh this area, I should make a note on the designer of this inner area. Yeah. So this gentleman actually contributed to the design of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Uh I love that aquarium. Uh it's pretty great. Yeah. It's a guy named Jeff Hoke. Okay. And in around 1997, Jeff Hoke started working on a book. Uh excuse me, a book called The Museum of Lost Wonder. Okay. And if you've never read this, you need to get your hands on this. Okay, I do. It you do. It is I I thought I had actually given you a copy, but apparently I have to put this one. This thing actually explores it it it opens your brain up to limal thought. Okay. And that's what Bradbury really admired about this guy's designs. And so some of the designs that were in Bradbury's time maze actually wound up in this book. Yeah. So he started thinking about this. He was just coming on board just to design the space. Yeah. But actually, it actually the the mind-expanding phil philosophy of spatial design, inspiration, and exploration really came out of uh his work with Bradbury on this. Yeah. And so it actually wound up in his book. And guys, if you've not gotten your hands on this book, it actually has like pop-out, you build the museum. Oh. It has pop-out paper things where you build this particular branch of the museum, that branch of the museum. Yeah. And he actually has a couple of other things, and it's all about mapping the mind and inspiring you. Because Hulk's approach to it was you have to be, you have to understand the museum is a hall of inspiration. It's not just a cabinet of curiosities, come look at my stuff. Right. The term museum means a room of the muse. Oh, huh. Okay. That's where it that's where we get it. So, like the premise of the Museum of Lost Wonder is that it is a hall for you to find inspiration. And sometimes when you first start on your journey, it doesn't make any sense. Right. But when you come out of it, it makes sense in your mind because you have your journey builds a whole map, which again became Bradbury's, you know, for the time maze became the inspiration for a map that doesn't have anything actually on it. Right. So, yeah. So, anyway, that's that's one of the designers of this particular section in Maze 2 was Jeff Hoke.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So, yeah, definitely check out the book. It's worth it.
SPEAKER_00:And there's there's a lot about this uh section. This is kind of the introduction to the adventures you're about to go on. Yes, which is great, because in the proposal he actually refers to guests as the adventurers. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So you you go in, there's this giant centrifuge thing in the center. They there's um you sort of have guides that work there, and you're in a group of 30-ish people, and some you they choose someone in in your group.
SPEAKER_04:I love how Bradbury writes it. A boy or a girl, preferably.
SPEAKER_00:For some reason.
SPEAKER_04:I think he was trying to be progressive, but it just comes off as creepy. But that's okay. Well, yeah, so this is in the yesterrow centrifuge. That's the name of the attraction. The yes tomorrow centrifuge.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yep. And they so the the someone is like going to try the time centrifuge. They're gonna do they're gonna um do do uh a sample of it. And you know, so they choose someone, they send them in the centrifuge, everyone gets to vote on which of a series of time places they want to go to. Bad idea. They fire the thing up, kill Hitler. And much like the uh extraterrestrial alien encounter ride in Florida, things go horribly wrong.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:You lose the person that has been pulled out of your group. Uh, you know, uh ostensibly it's obviously it's an actor or something. Right. And where do you think they get the meat for the train ride?
SPEAKER_04:Ah no, I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking.
SPEAKER_00:And so you then they're like, we have to go find the lost one. We have to go find the lost. And we're going to all have to get in the centrifuge. Right. And so you all go in the centrifuge and try and and figure and you start having adventures through time.
SPEAKER_04:And what it is, guys, is I've seen a fo some photos and designs of this thing. It is a room that accommodates up to 30 people with all these seats, but all the seats are sitting in a circle. There's two rows, and those two rows all face into the center. Yeah. But the whole top of it, all the seats are leaned back like an old classic planetarium. Yeah. So you're actually looking at a dome. So it's a dome projection system that required eight projectors, all synchronized to make it work. Neat. So when it moves, yes, you are actually moving. Uh because it moves kind of like the Star Tours ride, because you got to move stuff around. Yeah. But what you're watching, you're not just watching a flat screen because they went, ah, flat screen. They did that in Star Tours. Let's make it a dome. Yeah. Right? So that's that's where it took off from there.
SPEAKER_00:And so somehow, like, they've got you in there. You're heading through time. Uh, I'm not entirely sure how they decide which time you're going to first. Like maybe I assume the guide tells you like this is where we think they are.
SPEAKER_04:It's probably, I think what they might have done, at least what I would do, is they probably had like kind of like how they had they do with Star Tours now, where they have randomly selected planets and giant finger quotes. Yeah. But actually they only have three to pick from. So there are some choices that do not exist. Right. Like, like I can imagine they would go like, here's the most important times that we we survey people. This is when they want to go back in time. And a lot of people went, kill Hitler. But like, like I think I think it would be funny. I think it's I think if I remember correctly, I excuse me. I think there's like a burn mark on the wall next to the kill Hitler switch. So it's not an option. Like we're not going to go back to World War II. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. So, all right, let's kill let's we got these other ones. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know. And so you're, you're go, you're taking off, you're going to go try and find the one person that you just lost. And you, you know, as an example, you get you land somewhere and you're in prehistoric times and there's dinosaurs. The thunder lizards. The thunder lizards. Yep.
SPEAKER_04:Just don't step on any butterflies.
SPEAKER_00:And they, you know, they give you these Bradbury referred to them as electro guns. Uh-huh. But they're guns. I mean, this has basically become a shooter attraction. Oh, yeah. And you're wandering through this uh area with like animatronic dinosaurs popping out and you're shooting at them. That's great. Yeah. And it's it's super cool.
SPEAKER_04:And it's the sound of thunder, but in in shooting gallery form. Absolutely. Yep. I mean, Bradbury was not afraid or ashamed to pull from his past.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, and he does it a number of times.
SPEAKER_04:And what's interesting, what I love about this is that you physically get up and out of the centrifuge. Yes. There are portions in which you're like, okay, we're we're going through time. Oh, zap, zap, zap. All right, everybody, get out of the pod. And you get up off your butt. It's a very physically active attraction.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's actually really cool because then you're the centrifuge kind of becomes your home base. And so you go off and have this adventure, and then when the adventure is done, it's like, we've got to get back to the centrifuge. Go, go, go, go, go. And then it's does it spinny thing again and rocking thing again?
SPEAKER_04:War time and more complications, the lost ones, like, you know, whacking onto the view screen like it's a bug.
SPEAKER_00:One of the things I love is that in this um this prehistoric era, much, you know, much like we were talking about uh last time with the Star Trek Borg adventure, yeah. Like every once in a while a dinosaur would grab one of the guides and just pull them out.
SPEAKER_04:I love that. Yeah. I love that. It's so good. Yeah. It's like, oh, that's not good. Right. And then they then they move far into the future from there. Right? Or as Bradbury says, you arrive at the Statue of Liberty, by God.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. He has this weird idea that you're supposed to get in a rocket that launches off of the arm of the Statue of Liberty or something. It's like, what?
SPEAKER_04:Dude, it's awesome. Are you kidding me? That's great. I think, I think, I think what the video actually was in order to compensate for that is that you wind up in the far future and you start seeing all these spaceships zooming around, you're like, whoa, but you suddenly realize like the pod is teetering and teetering. Yeah. And you suddenly realize, and you you as it teeters, you start to see, we're on the Statue of Liberty. Oh no. You do have to launch, but it's not like a launch pad. It's you're stuck on the torch. Yeah. So you have to burst off of it, and then you start flying through New York City of the future. Yeah. There's a secret to this though. Okay. There are actually three centrifuges. One centrifuge is where you start and it rotates to the exit. Yeah. And then it rotates back. So by the end of the sequence, it has rotated 45 to 90 degrees to the exit to the dinosaurs. After you leave, the centrifuge returns to its normal state. Okay. To let the next group in. Yeah. So it's like the elevators at Disneyland where there's one entrance in and one entrance out. Yeah. And so you're you're hunting dinosaurs, you turn in your guns, you z you put them into the side panel or whatever that's there. And then you zap forward into the future. And when you get out in the future, it has also turned 90 degrees. Right. And it spits you out into the walking and ride. You know, though this one has a moving platform feature to it. Yeah. That zaps you through the f the space, the space age future. Yeah. And then you get back into that the next centrifuge that spins you around. To the next thing. Right. So there are literally like three pods back to back off of each other, operating off of the same computer control panel. Yeah. That was in the middle of all three. So that way the people, the operators could monitor what was going on between the mazes and the centrifuges all from one central area. So fascinating. So complicated. Yeah. But it's really cool. Yeah. From what I've seen, there is a God, there was a high was it, it's not, was it high eight? It was a type of VHS team that was like much smaller. And was for like the smaller compact camcorders. Yeah. Somebody took a video of that. So it still has the time code, that really big, ugly time code at the bottom. And the light doesn't quite you can't see everything. Yeah. But what you do see of it, you're like, okay, I want to s that's cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because it sounds a little like the old um, you know, Rocket to the Moon, Mission to Mars thing uh that Disneyland had, which I always loved. Um, but a but more advanced, uh a little more motion. I r uh recall reading that, you know, that adventure you're going through space and uh you're being kind of pummeled by asteroids. Oh yeah. Yeah, and and you have sort of auxiliary screens where you're seeing the the lost one every once in a while. Like here's where I'll help.
SPEAKER_04:I'm falling into the sun, I'm going in to hit the moon, save me, I'm being carried away in an asteroid cluster. Help!
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And then so something happens. I don't quite understand this narratively, but something happens where the you the you decide that uh the lost has gone somewhere else. Right. And like it got sucked through a black hole or something. I don't know. A wormhole, yeah. But you've had this cool adventure and you get out. Here's where we really see Bradbury plumbing his old works. You get into a section uh that is basically a haunt. Yes, it is. And this is this is the mechanical hounds. These things are terrifying. Yeah, really.
SPEAKER_04:So the mechanical hounds are terrifying.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh my god. So Bradbury's initial version of this was that you were gonna be wearing these belts, and these hounds would actually kind of jump out and be able to follow you, and they'd pick one of you and then only follow that one while everyone else scattered. Right. That was beyond what they could do right there.
SPEAKER_04:Right. Yeah, no, it's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00:But they did do a lot with um things popping out, with the hound noises, with lighting, with like some rudimentary animatronics, uh, with a few jump scares. It was reverse laser tag.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, that's exactly the best part of this is the fact that you had these belts. You were you were fitted with these belts from the pod again. Yeah. This time you're in the mechanical hound maze, and this was post-apocalyptic crazy sauce. Yes, it really was. It was insane. Because this was this was very popular in the late 90s. This is Terminator kind of.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and the mechanical hounds, we should say, come directly from Fahrenheit 451.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yeah, yeah. And this is the black light section. So everything's black lit, lots of smoke, yeah, and these things could come out of the gloom and out of the fog. It's kind of a cheat, but it worked. Yeah. And the the object is to get into the heart of the maze. It's like touch the back wall and then come all the way back out again without getting hit. Yeah. But if you got hit a certain amount of times, you had to see how many people actually survived the run to go out, touch this thing, and come all the way back. Right. And your belt would reset once you touched it. So you'd hit the button, it would go, reset. Now go back to the pod. Yeah. And you'd and it's like it's all over the place. So this it's basically it's a laser maze. Yeah. Without getting hit with your belt. And it seems crazy fun. This is when the videotape stops. This thing that I've seen on YouTube is crazy. Because like the person's obviously gooey shaking the camera, so he's like, I don't want to run with this thing. But it's it's graze, it's crazy. He wanted to make these belts magnetic. Yes, I read that. And he hound catches you, yeah, he's gonna lift you up and out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and give you a mild shock, he wanted.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, he wanted the belts to actually electrocute you. Yeah. And he I love what he says. It's like, you know, not not too bad, just a little bit to hurt a little bit. So that way you know that you've you failed. You know, like, oh my god, Bray.
SPEAKER_00:Now there's there's uh so so the next thing that I ran into was uh after the the mechanical hounds maze. Yeah. That you basically are going at the last maze, which is the Sphinx maze. Right. I also read that there were some other mazes either in development or they got made just at the end of the run. Like there was the um October country maze, which pretty self-explanatory.
SPEAKER_04:Well, they didn't do that as a maze, they did that actually as a whole world, but only seasonal. Oh, okay, so it was like an overlay. It was an overlay. It was not it was not actually yes, it was planned as a maze, but yes, like you said, yeah feasibility. Yes. But in order to capitalize, because every theme park that's worth their salt these days makes a lot of their money with Halloween and Christmas. Yeah. And Knott's Berry Farm kind of setting the standard for that. Yep. So they decided to learn from that. And October Country becomes this massive overlay.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, makes sense. That was why I couldn't quite figure it out from what I was reading, because I never saw any footage of that as a maze. No. But I was like, but they were developing something.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you you exit like the the f the big finale is a ride in the pod. And when you when you finally arrive, you're actually you're not spat out in the original centrifug area. You're spat out in this Egyptian tomb with the Sphinx and the stars over. It's like, where are we now?
SPEAKER_00:Right. And that's what that I was definitely heading that way. And I it was just like, I know there were some other things in development. I don't know if they were ever implemented, but the big finish is the Sphinx maze.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_00:And this this is I this is hard to describe. It it on Boardwalk Times, we're talking about Andor and the rumors of a new Muppet Show. Also, check out my article about Disney's bizarre long-term obsession with the Alien franchise and the troubling way it reached fruition in Alien Earth. Check it all out this month on BoardwalkTimes.net. This this is um I this is hard to describe. It it is a giant-themed maze. You s you start off between the paws of a sphinx. Yep. And you have to do something to get the door to open, kind of, I guess, in the chest of the sphinx. And it's supposed to take you to the pyramid you see you know in the in the background. Right. Um, which is obviously just a scenic painting, but you know, it's gonna take you downstairs to Suite.
SPEAKER_04:You have to play a giant pipe organ, and the dominion of Sutek arrives. Kneel before Sutek. I am death. Yes. I am I bring Sutec's gift of death.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, so you go in and you're suddenly in an Egyptian tomb. And this is kind of a combination of special effects and a a little bit haunty, but not that that scary. Um, I saw the like there's effects that very much are like straight out of something wicked this way comes, where you look at a mirror and you see yourself grow old. There's a a point where your group is trying to go somewhere and you have to stop because you see like priests and courtiers carrying an Egyptian pharaoh to their final rests.
SPEAKER_04:This was kind of Bradbury's exploration of mortality.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's almost like each one is like a four stages of man. Yeah. It's like, okay, got it. And and what's interesting, you know who designed the Egyptian part? No. Initially. He did the initial designs, but again, they were so far out that people were like, Rohie, you know, being the head, was like, mmm, I get it, but I don't know how we're gonna do it. Yeah. But that the you still see inklings of it. It's like this poor guy just can't catch you. It was Raleigh Crump. He came out of retirement after leaving Disney in '96 to work on. He worked with Disney for a while.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And they were like, You want to do one more?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And so he got, hey, as long as I get to be as weird as possible. Yeah. So he kind of revived a lot of his Museum of the Weird stuff. Yeah. Which is again why you have the mirrors that change things. Yeah. All those ideas that he didn't get to do in the Museum of the Weird. It's like, here's your chance. Right. And he still didn't get to do it because the ideas were too damn weird. And so it's like, I love Rolly. I love his designs. Yes. And they're crazy, but they're they're kind of they're antiquated by that point. Yeah. His style just doesn't quite suit the ride itself. But some of the ideas did live on with some jiggering by the two Joes. Yeah. Yeah. The two Joes kind of like put it all together and go, all right, we made this effect work, now leave us alone. Right. Yeah. That's for the Egyptian part.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because he's a he's a little too pop art for what they're trying to go for here. They're they're really trying to go for hammer here.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah. Yeah. This was too big. But like he he definitely lent himself. I mean, again, he's he's already in like his late 60s, early 70s. He's like, I don't know. Yeah, okay, I'll give it another try. No problem. Give me some more marijuana. We're good.
unknown:You know.
SPEAKER_04:Have a hit. Oh, God love him. Yeah, got you gotta love. It's so great.
SPEAKER_00:And so yeah, you go through all these like little effects things, secret doors, some sort of stage illusion-y things, a couple of acting bits. And eventually you get to the center, ostensibly, of the pyramid. Yep. And there's a big sarcophagus, and you solve some sort of puzzle. I don't know. It's probably not that hard. But you know, proto-escape room stuff. Yeah. And the sarcophagus opens and you find the lost. You find the person that you lost at the beginning. Hooray!
SPEAKER_04:Hooray. Which I really feel bad for the lost because it was supposed to be a volunteer.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You know, it's like I missed the whole ride.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Just sit in a coffin. I think they figured out pretty quickly that it was like, that's not gonna work. Yeah, it had to be a plant. Yeah. This is kind of appropriate to the way that Bradbury himself saw theme parks. Like his, he really his suspension of disbelief was amazing because he he would go on something like Rocket to the Moon and he'd just be like, I went to space. You know, he just he was committed. And and to an extent, we were all a little more innocent. Uh, you know, back then, like the 70s, the 80s, still. We we were all a little more willing to just kind of overlook the flaws. Sure. Absolutely. Um, this I mean, the the electric time maze as a whole had tons of flaws. Oh, yeah. But boy, it had a lot of charm.
SPEAKER_04:It had a lot of heart. I mean, can we talk about October Country for just a minute? This is their Halloween overlay that they would do for the whole park. Yeah. They they had eventually some of these attractions, they would start adding things here and there. Yeah. And one of my favorite things, there there are several things. Um, first off, they had their version of the Halloween tree. Oh, huh. And their version of the Hollow Tree Halloween tree was this giant sculpture that would pop up. Yeah. And you basically had an adopt a pumpkin scheme. In order to pay for it, you paid to have your face engraved on a pumpkin so they would do a caricature of your face. Yeah. You know, or like screaming or whatever. And so you were part of that Halloween tree from that point on. Big ones, little ones, you pay like$150, you get a little teeny weeny pumpkin. You pay a thousand dollars, you get a giant one, you know, that kind of stuff. And you had your name put on it. Wow. So you could always it's kind of like the bricks out in front of Disneyland, right? It's like, ah, there it is. Yeah. That's how they paid for it. Yeah. And it's huge. And they would have this big light ceremony. And basically the whole thing is built around Bradbury's two books, Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Halloween Tree, which is one of my absolute faves uh for Halloween.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_04:And they would have some master of ceremonies dressed up as Mr. Mound Shroud. Yeah. And you have other actors dressed up as the various kids, like Jack Skellington, you know. Yeah. Jack Skelton, you know, that kind of Tom Skelton. Not Jack, Tom Skelton is the name of the character. Yeah. And uh, you know, and Pipkin and all the other characters, right? And the the premise is is that you were on the journey of the Halloween tree by circumnavigating the park. And they would have these different vignettes set up, and one of which was a carousel that they would take the horses off of when it wasn't running normal. Uh-huh. So they would have a normal horses. And what was great about the Bradbury carousel? Let's talk about because I'm a big carousel fan. Yeah. The Bradbury carousel was so charming because it it was very much like one of the classic carousels from the World's Fair Chicago.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Classic carved carousels, but the horses were all themed off of his stories.
SPEAKER_03:Oh.
SPEAKER_04:So there was a there was a horse of the there was the librarian horse that has its armor was made of books that were flying around it. Yeah. There was a fire horse that actually had the number 451 put on the front chest. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. It was great. That's neat. The Martian Chronicles was, you know, they would have the big upper panels up around the huge canopy. Yeah. They would have Martians and that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, just tons and tons of stuff. They even had one of my favorites, which was kind of creepier, you know, these these parents looking out of this African velt, you just see this lion crouching. Oh my god. Staring at you. It's like, oh God. So yeah, they had a velt lion, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Could you ride on the back of Uncle Einar?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, that's kind of you know, so it was all the paintings were all done in this kind of beautiful 1960s, 1970s science fiction style. Yeah. So it was beautiful. But they had designed it so they could take the horses off, yeah, and they put new horses on that were all skeletal or ghostly, and it was like, oh, those were fantastic. Yeah. You know, uh, there's one that's just the sowen horse, and it's looks like it's made of wicker and like this, you know, death horse, and one that's made of bugs, and they would put paintings all, you know, they would just kind of you know, velcro them onto the carousel. Right. They were illustrations of the Halloween tree. Yeah. And like the whole inner portion was literally made the way that the kite is made in the book, in which they rip up circus posters and they put it all together. Yeah. It was all these mouths of lions and gorillas and stuff. And it was kind of threatening it, and they lit it differently. Yeah. And they ran it backwards. Oh. Just like in something wicked this way comes. So smart. And what's wild is I honestly think this was Bradbury's fuck you to Disney over something wicked this way comes. Which has a complicated history of him being involved in the production.
SPEAKER_00:It does. You know, um it'd be it'd be interesting. Like at that point, Bradbury had kind of re-owned something wicked because he believed that he had stepped in and saved it.
unknown:Yes, he did.
SPEAKER_00:And again, Bradbury. Yeah, right. Yeah. But um, but yeah, I it's super interesting. I mean, I know where I want to be on Halloween, it's the Bradbury theme part. Oh my god. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I wanted to be in October. Like the more I saw about October Country, I'm like, Yeah, oh my god, I want I mean, I love the t-shirts, the logo of October Country was just so swirly with leaves and you've seen the movie, the Disney movie, where the logo is actually made out of sand and then it blows into existence. Yeah. So it kind of almost looks like blood or matter, but it's just the sand that gets blown away and then printed in reverse. Right. That's what the logo looks like for October Country. It's beautiful swirly sand designs. Yeah. And what was great is the voice of Mr. Mound Shroud for some of the October Country um um presentations, like the nighttime shows, was voiced by none other than Ken Nordeen. Whoa, word jazz Ken Nordeen. That's awesome. Lending that massive, like he was Bradbury's thrill Ravenscroft, right? He was just sassoprofundo. Yeah. And Google him, folks. Ken Nordeen is amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Ken Nordeen's awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Little fun little fact from my my parents' past is that I almost had potential to be Ken Nordeen's grandson because my dad briefly like took out a girl on a date and it turned out to be Ken Nordeen's daughter. But it didn't work out. So, oh well. Right. But you know, that's a fun little past, you know, from Los Angeles. You know, but that's the way it was, because but I what I love about the people that this that the time maze brings together, yeah. These are all the people that have kind of gone, I don't like the aesthetics that Disney's trying to do. I don't want cute, fuzzy animals. Yeah. I want to explore stuff that's deeper. So you have all these people, like even Roadie. Joe Roadie is a Disney worker. Yes. But his designs go beyond the normal Disney aesthetic.
SPEAKER_00:That's absolutely true.
SPEAKER_04:And same thing with Lanziero. Joe, Joe, Joe Lanziero's uh design approaches are much different. Yeah. And then you've got Ken Nordeen, and you have um all these people involved. And I like that aesthetic. Like it's so different. And I think that's part of the park's downfall.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I agree with you, is is that there's something that uh there's there's a point at which parents are reticent to bring kids to something that is serious.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um and there's of obviously fun and laughs and stuff in here too. And challenging. Yeah, and challenging.
SPEAKER_04:Don't make it easy.
SPEAKER_00:Don't make me work for this. Right. And and there is some work here.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And um there's some legitimately scary things going on.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. So i I mean, the the third maze.
SPEAKER_00:The third maze.
SPEAKER_04:The third circle maze, unfortunately, is the least inspiring.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. There's the I mean, we should talk about the bookshop, but for the most part, this is an exit through the gift shop kind of. Pretty much, because it's all about shopping. Yeah, it's shopping.
SPEAKER_04:And yeah, the the the bookshop though, the Victorian bookshop.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh my god, I want to go there. Like multi, multi-floors, um, like weird things, like weird cubbies where kids could put their head through a hole and there'd be like a scene going on in there from a book.
SPEAKER_04:What's interesting about this is only a block or two away from Clifton's cafeteria, there is a bookstore very much like this. Oh, huh. It's the Lost Bookshop in downtown Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:The lower part is like a standard bookshop.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You go upstairs, these artists took over the science fiction, mystery, and history sections. Yeah. And they made it like a crazy maze, and it's loose. I would guarantee dollars to donuts. Yeah. It is loosely based off of this attraction. Yeah. Because you walk through into old bank vaults and there's like tunnels made out of books that are flying overhead. That's super cool. It's it's so charming. Yeah. It's so homegrown and so grassroots. Yeah. So it does not nearly have like they've got wood, they've got screws, they've got some steampunk junk that they picked up at a at a scrap store. Yeah. And they've got tons of books. Yeah. So let's use that for the building materials. But it's really charming. And they have a couple other areas where artists are have like little miniature galleries. Yeah. If I lived in LA, I would love to rent one of these spaces and run my own little gallery out. Totally. Because I would I'd love this place. It's so cool. Yeah. It really does exist. You should definitely check it out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but yeah, they go to Clifton's in the evening for some drinks after you go buy some books for the lost bookshop. Yeah. But it's really, really charming. But if you want to get a sense of what it felt like to be in the Victorian bookshop in the time mace, check out that bookshop in LA. It's worth it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there were there were in in the in the Victorian bookshop, there were like um occasionally you would run across a little animatronic head that was like an author or a character that would talk to you as you passed by.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the Dickens bust. Yeah. The Dickens bust. It was so great. Like and I have I have better expectations of you. One might almost say great expectations. Oh dear. Yeah. That's when like Twain and Poe are right behind him, going, oi.
SPEAKER_00:And there were and there are tons of little cubbies where you could take your book and just sni sneak off and read, and they didn't care. Right. Yeah. They were just like, just read.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, they wanted you to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:They wanted you to t to take your time in this place. And it was vast. Yeah. It was like that outer ring is where this is. Yeah. And the outer ring, this is like the bookshop alone is a quarter of that ring outside.
SPEAKER_00:Just uh amazing. Like definitely one of the great features of the whole uh park was this bookstore.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So Bradbury did, you know, I I while we've been talking, I looked it up. Apparently Bradley, uh Bradbury did not have any ties directly to Scientology. He admired L. Ron Hubbard. Yeah. He did write a letter of admiration, but for uh a a book of his that he found very inspirational in the 30s and 40s. But he was not a Scientologist, nor did he subscribe to the teachings of Scientology. It would seem not like him. No. The rumor makes awesome sense when you think about it. It's like, oh, this would be great, a whole theme park that's a recruitment for the you know. But it's not. It is not actually. Let's clear that up. It is not.
SPEAKER_00:No, that's Magic Mountain.
SPEAKER_04:Hey man, that phantom, the phantom of the park, you know, took on KISS for a reason. I know. So uh you're not getting enough of your you're not throwing enough, you know, Lord Zenu isn't throwing enough souls into this volcano. Um anyway, um, but in in this park only lasted nine years. Yeah. That's it. 1998, it closed. Yeah. Not without some quick efforts that really didn't work. Yeah. Because there were other parks all over the nation that were still, you know, dealing with an economic downturn at the time. Because we had gone through a recession at that point, and they were still recovering and trying to figure out how to attract people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, there was talk about maybe doing some sort of tie-in, some sort of uh uh take some sort of property and tie it in. Uh Hanna Barbera was actually on the list. It didn't quite work out. So it made the rounds, but it didn't quite work out. Um but then they tried to add roller coasters. Just straight up steel roller coasters with cool names. Yeah. But that was it. They were literally just brightly colored. And by this point, Bradbury, he's in his later years. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, he lived a little bit longer, but he was getting up there.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, he's getting up there. You know, he's just he's just kind of like, I don't really I designed the thing. This was my big idea.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And and I think I think at that point, you know, it it hadn't been there's a question as to whether it ever really made that much money. Um, but it certainly hadn't been for a while.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, they did have, when it did open, they kind of learned from Disney in the early years about using sponsorships. Yeah. So you had SunSweet uh uh and Levi's. Um great, great, I don't know why Levi's, but of all things Levi's. Can Nordine maybe, maybe that was a tie-in. But Sunsuite Prunes, yeah, for those who do not uh know what features actually a commercial with Ray Bradbury in it, yeah. Voiced by Stan Freeberg, who was a big fan and friend of Ray Bradbury's. Yeah. And it's really hilarious. You gotta look it up. It's it's really worth it. But because of that fun little tie-in, Sunsuite never forgot about it, and they became one of the sponsors of the food area. Yeah. Um, but yeah, the corporate sponsorships had dried up. Yeah. People are going, no one's flying out to middle of nowhere, Illinois, right, to go to this thing.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not far from Chicago, but you you know, if you're in Chicago, you tend not to leave Chicago.
SPEAKER_04:Especially in the winter.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think they also had a problem of, you know, so you could kind of a la carte the experiences, but most people went in, they did the the narrative of of trying to find the lost person, and you know, they did it once or twice, and then they they had done it. Yeah, and you know, it was it was fun, but you know, how far out of your way are you gonna go for that?
SPEAKER_04:You see a lot of this in other attractions, like in Vegas, you have the Luxor experience that said the exact same thing. Yeah. Um, the Star Trek experience, which we talked about in a previous episode, yeah, did something similar, but they learned from others' experiences and faults, and they actually would change it up just to make sure oh, you thought you saw it before. Yeah, we've changed it, so come and see it again. Yes. There's a thing in San Francisco called the Metreon that actually had a a couple of experiences like that called like the airtight garage based on the where the wild things are thing. And where the wild things are based on Marie Sendak. And again, once you do it, you've seen it. Yeah. Yeah. Like even like even kids wouldn't want to like, yeah, I don't want to I don't want to have to go to where the wild things are anymore. Yeah. I mean the trick with the trick with theme parks is location and reusability.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You have to want to, you know, it like the narrative can't be too tight.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And audience members have to want to go to it over and over and over again to make it sustainable. And so yeah, 1998, in September of 1998, it sadly shut down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you know, for a long time, because Chicago used to have the US's biggest Doctor Who convention, Panopticon used to be there. Oh yeah. Not anymore. But used to be like the electric time maze would shoot through the roof when Panopticon was happening. All the people would come in for that.
SPEAKER_04:You see it in Doctor Who magazine. There are pictures, you know, like I half expected like Peter Capaldi be walking around with his Tom Baker's. Totally. The time maze.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, and eventually it just, you know, as a lot of like great ideas that were maybe before their time, it closed down.
SPEAKER_04:And uh and so we've lost we lost a very wild and interesting like just like Luxor, just like some of those other attractions, they're gone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And more's the pity. Bradbury talked about it very little in his later years.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, almost never.
SPEAKER_04:He almost never talked about it. He he was like, Yeah, I did it and then moved on. Yeah. Um he would talk endlessly about Disneyland, but he wouldn't talk about the time maze, which is weird because it's like, that's your brain child, dude. Like what so I suspect there were a lot of other things that happened behind the scenes that we're unaware of.
SPEAKER_00:I think so too. Yeah. And you know, there was a a point where like you had Joe Rhodey working on it, and he was kind of the person keeping things on track. And then Animal Kingdom got green lit for Disney, and he had to commit to that.
SPEAKER_04:I think it was kind of like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, where you have like people working behind the scenes like George Romero and Michael Keaton.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_04:Working behind the scenes at Mr. Rogers, and then going, I got this part, I gotta go do it. Yeah. You know, I gotta go off and do this now. I gotta go, gotta go do this. Sorry, Chef Brockett, I'm out of here. Like, I gotta go. So yeah, I I I really wished I could have actually seen this thing in person.
SPEAKER_00:Me too.
SPEAKER_04:And uh it's like some of the attractions we have talked about in the past, like Castle Dracula Universal, there's not a lot actually that survives video and photographs of this thing. Yeah. And more's the pity because like the legend of it live lives on. Yep. So and that's where we have to let you guys off the hook and tell you that what you've been listening to, speaking of fiction, you've been listening to another one of our what if episodes here. And this park does not actually exist. It has never existed. Never existed. However, the proposal does exist, and that actually was written up by Ray Bradbury.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, it's in a book called Called Yestermorrow. Um, the book came out in about uh 1990, which is when we why we set this around that time. Yep. And the essay was written concurrently with it. Uh it's it's a fun book. It's um it's a book that ha has Bradbury musing on what he thinks about architecture and architecture as a futurist and theme parks and uh a whole bunch of like urban design stuff. He's it's really fascinating.
SPEAKER_04:Can I drop just one last little trivia thing? Because I have to, because you just said architecture. Yeah. Okay. So not too far. No joke, Clifton's cafeteria is a real place. Oh, yes, yes, yes. So a lot of the things we talked about, the park itself does not exist, but a lot of the things that we referenced in here, like Clifton's cafeteria, the Luxor.
SPEAKER_00:Um Marta Beckett and Emmer Ghost is absolutely true. 100%. Bradbury is 100% a fan of hers and like really loved her.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. So what we try to do with these what if episodes is we try to like mix reality with our nonsense. Yeah. And it's a way for us to explore like these smaller concepts and these smaller things out there to introduce them to you through this fiction that we've created. Plus, it allows us to have some fun with some improv about gee, this park was really cool. But um the one of the things I wanted to mention is that uh not too far from the Lost Bookshop in in downtown LA and Clifton's, yeah, is a building that many of you might remember from Blade Runner. It's called it's called the Bradbury Hotel. Yeah. The Bradbury Building. I'm sorry. Bradbury Building. The Bradbury Building. It's not a hotel, it's an office building. That building, the architect for it was the father of Forrest J. Ackerman. No relation. I'm not sure where the term Bradbury came from, but that's not actually related to Ray Bradbury. It's just a coincidence that his best friend's dad actually designed an office building that has the same name. Yeah. Now wild? Yeah, it's really interesting. It has very cool elevators. You can visit it today. Yeah. You do not get to ride in the elevator. You get to watch people go up and down into it. But you can't. But you don't get to go into it because so many tourists go to look look at all those Blade Runner fans, like, oh, I want to see it, buddy. They don't let you up in it. But you can go and see it. It's worth a look.
SPEAKER_00:But uh, yeah. So it's and it and it's I I highly recommend to everybody. Bradbury wrote about theme parks a number of times. He did. He very famously wrote a rebuttal to uh an article that was critical of Disneyland in the 60s, I want to say. Yep. And he was he was a big fan, and he he very much loved Walt Disney. He truly did. I believe the day that Disney died, Ray went to the park because he said this is what Walt would have wanted. Yeah. They had a great friendship, it was fascinating. Ray stayed kind of connected to the company off and on. Everything we said about him and Epcot was true. Yep. Um, he did make that speech. Yes, he did. Uh it's really interesting to watch and see someone who is an absolutely pure futurist. And this is interesting because Bradbury was criticized early in his career for being anti-technology, which he kind of came around and said, No, no, no, I'm not. Um, but just as I just hate the future. Yeah. I'm not anti-technology, just you suck.
SPEAKER_04:What's not like you? Yeah. Hold it, hold it. What are these people trying to pull on me? Yeah. Like Ray Bradbury impersonation.
SPEAKER_00:What we're uh, I believe is about to uh happen. We reached out to uh Dr. Phil Nichols, who is a British PhD who uh may be the world's foremost Ray Bradbury scholar. Yeah. And uh he's agreed to come talk to us in a couple weeks and really kind of go deep into Ray Bradbury and Walt Disney and Ray Bradbury and Epcot Center and all things Bradbury. So I'm sure he's gonna listen to this and tell us all the things we got wrong.
SPEAKER_04:Sure of that. And that's okay, because that that will keep us on track. Yeah, it'll keep us on track. But normally, this is the part of the show where we would do a plus up. Yeah. But this whole episode is a plus up because this is us. Folks, we have to tell you, we literally made this up as we went. We only we based the whole thing off of that eight-page write-up that he did. Yeah. Like Kelly and I love to improv and bounce ideas, and so it's a whole game of yes and.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think, I don't think we've ever been more nervous about starting an episode than this one.
SPEAKER_04:I think we actually I I don't know about you, but I sweated a little bit during this one. Like Yeah, rotating restaurant. Yeah. Where is he going with this? I know.
SPEAKER_00:What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_04:This is what Ken Nordean, why?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But you can but go read the the you know eight, nine-page thing in in yestermoro and see how close we got to what he was looking for.
SPEAKER_04:It's interesting on how many ideas it actually conjured up into our mutual heads about this. So it is actually a theme park, I will admit, that I actually really do wish had happened and would have liked to have seen. Just like Fleischerland, our other what if episode. Yeah. I really do would love to see this. Yeah. But until then, we're we're stuck with this.
SPEAKER_00:And I will, I'll say this like my my entire plus up for this would be somebody, some theme park company, make an October country land. Oh.
SPEAKER_04:Just do it. I'm on it. Yeah. Let's raise some money now. I want to make October Country. Just a tiny little theme park, and that's all it is. We'll just do it in my bed. I'm in. All right, folks. That's the end of today's episode. I'm Peter Overstreet. And I'm Kelly McGubbin. And you've been listening to The Low Down on the Plus Up.
SPEAKER_00:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us. And if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at Boardwalk Times.net. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I at Lowdown on the Plus Up on Blue Sky, Mastodon, Instagram, and all the other socials. Or you can send us a message directly at comments at lowdown-plus-up.com. We really want to hear about how you'd plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at Incompitech.com. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we like you.
SPEAKER_05:And most incredible of all, his sun-sweet fitted prunes carried in tiny mini packs.
SPEAKER_06:Hold it. What's going on here? Uh, pardon me? I never mentioned prunes in any of my stories. Oh, you didn't? No, never. I'm sorry to be so candid.
SPEAKER_05:Uh no, they're not candid, but pretty sweet all the same. The prone of tomorrow, available now. They're still rather badly wrinkled, though. Sun sweet wrinkle technician. Well, what do they for that too?
SPEAKER_06:Sun sweet marches in any of my stories? What are these people trying to
