DEFUNCT / EXTINCT SEASIDE PARKS & AMUSEMENT PIERS | Pacific Ocean Park CA | Long Gone Episode 4

[@roseannhirsch6784]

You are right that the Skyliner was the only wooden roller coaster in Florida for many years, but in 1978 the Hurricane wooden roller coaster was built at Circus World in Haines City. That was 21 years before Gwazi was built. The Hurricane continued to operate after Circus World became Boardwalk and Baseball in 1987 until that park closed in 1990. It was sold to Magic Springs in Hot Springs, Alabama where it still operates today. That makes only nine years between the Hurricane's closure and the building of Gwazi which, sadly, is no longer in its original form. Technically, the Starliner was not destroyed. It is in storage. The current owners hope to rebuild it sometime in the future, but at this point I don't think that will happen.

[@fuzzytabby4304]

Congratulations on this great collection of footage and the greatest collection of POP material I've seen.

[@laikapupkino1767]

It was always working when I went to Pacific Ocean Park as a kid, but if the "Deepest Deep" dark ride was always breaking down I can see why. It had very complicated cars that sat atop a wheeled base on a track on a fat threaded post and turned this way and that, and also rose and lowered from the base as much as 5 feet, to show you different deep ocean creatures, and make you feel like you were going to run into something before suddenly lowering. The ride was very jerky but I've never seen a dark ride quite like it since. The way the cars turn to face different things in Disney dark rides like the Haunted Mansion is similar, but their engineering isn't nearly so primitive and Rube Goldbergish. There was something a bit strange and Twilight Zoneish about POP and many of its rides. There was an indoor safari jeep ride where everything was painted like leopard spot, zebra stripe + foilage pattern camoflage in day-glo colors and all ran together in a crazy jumble under the uv black lights so you didn't mind that the scenery etc was just painted on 2-dimensional plywood cutouts. I loved the way their version of the Autopia took you out on a rickety causeway over the ocean and then wound around under the roller coaster while people screamed overhead and then plunged down and went zipping past you in your little toy car. Davey Jones Locker was a strange funhouse with a maze between walls made of old oil drums that seemed to go on forever without much point to it. The entryway to the park was very Disneyesque but after that it was slightly seedy (if less so than other seaside parks like the Long Beach Pike, all carneys and drunken sailors) and maybe that's why as a kid I loved POP a lot more than the oppressive sanitized wholesomeness of Disneyland.

[@RoadsideExplorers]

Great to hear from someone who went there! It was certainly a unique park with unique rides even if it seems like they were ripping off disney at first glance. I actually would have loved that it was more of traditional amusement pier vs what disneyland was like at the time (and is now). The large assortment of themed attractions did put it in a tier above traditional parks but they seemingly remained true to the classic dark ride aesthetics and werent trying too hard to not seem like a ripoff of the modern theme parks POP was competing with. This place would have been right up my alley!

[@bartonpercival2147]

@@RoadsideExplorers Just up the Coast in San Francisco, Playland at the Beach was very similar to POP and the Pike in Long Beach. Sadly it was demolished in 1972 for condo’s right on the Great Highway across from the Pacific Ocean

[@bustakitayancey7261]

What is the song that starts playing when they enter Neptune's kingdom. I really like this song.

[@bustakitayancey7261]

It starts at 44:15.

[@amusementnow4416]

Just finished. I enjoyed the old POP footage. Have you read Christopher Merritt's book on the place? Good job!

[@RoadsideExplorers]

No i haven't yet but doing the research on the park for the video made me wish i could travel back in time to visit. All those classic dark rides!

[@bartonpercival2147]

@@RoadsideExplorers OMG!!!!!! Speaking of dark rides, you would of loved “LIMBO” the dark ride at Playland at the Beach in San Francisco. To bad so much of that park was all destroyed by the demolition in 1972. Only the historic 1905 Looff Carousel And a few small items were saved by collectors purchased at the auction. Everything else was just scrapped. So sad

[@amusementnow4416]

Looks like just my cup of tea. Looking foward to watching it all later, but first off - that "airtime" on that slide in the Miracle Strip commercial looks unreal and unsafe!