Tales of Flintstones, Bradys, Partridges, and Clooneys with Mr. Theme Park

Kings Island legend DENNIS SPIEGEL talks about his role in the creation of Kings Island, as well as songwriting, sailing, and cooking with Bill Hanna.

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Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we love Hanna
Barbera. Welcome to the fantastic world
of Hanna and Barbera, a celebration of Bill, Hannah, Joe

(00:32):
Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition and now
your host, Gray Garbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony.
Welcome to the fantastic world of Hanna and Barbera and the and
is in there because the and means and everybody else,
thousands of people who have made Hanna Barbera a very rich

(00:55):
legacy. We're going to talk about a
fantastic world with someone whois a major force in the theme
park industry. His name is Dennis Spiegel and
currently he is the founder and owner of International Theme
Park Services in Incorporated, which is responsible for theme
parks consulting best practices as we've benchmarking all kinds

(01:19):
of things, which he'll tell us more about work for Universal
and Disney and theme parks all around the world.
But we're going to talk about one of the most wonderful
aspects of his career, which wasthe friendship he had for many
years with Bill Hannah. But first, I'd like to welcome
to our show Mr. Dennis Spiegel. Hi, Greg, How are you?
Thank you for having me today. Very happy to be here with you

(01:41):
talk about this. Oh, I am too.
And by the way, there's a fascinating book called Kings
Island, A Ride Through Time by Evan Ponstengel.
I do salute him. I know how hard it is to put
together a book like this and how to be balanced with every
chapter and every year and no matter whether you've been to

(02:03):
King's Island or King's Dominion, Australia's Wonderland
Park, any of those places. This is a fascinating account
because the art of the theme park and the highs and the lows,
it's very honest about things. It doesn't sugarcoat some of the
some of the mishaps as well as the tremendous successes and I

(02:25):
really enjoyed reading it. It was a page Turner.
This took Evan a couple of yearsto write and he really contacted
the people who were very involved with Kings Island Still
Living and carried it through today.
The accuracy is unbelievable so.It's got some cool photos in
there and breathtaking. I don't know that I could handle

(02:47):
some of these roller coasters now, but when you see the scope
and size and then the idea of riding them through, and I want
to talk about this too, riding the roller coasters through
these natural settings and the ideas of theming.
A lot of things that Kings Island did overlapped with
Disney. And some of you may know I was
with Disney for 30 years and I also still consult and write for

(03:10):
them. And there are certain skills and
things that I admired seeing with a lot of the people in this
book. In fact, there are some
executives that worked for CedarFair and the various things and
the phases it went through. It's a fascinating thing.
I would like to tell that story,especially focusing on the
Hannah Barbara angle, because they were there for so many
years and and you were there forthat.

(03:32):
That's what's so cool. A lot of people at Disney
started in their formative yearsand worked their way up, which
is a remarkable thing. And I'd like to begin with how
you began there. Well, I started out at Coney
Island in Cincinnati, which was known as America's Finest
amusement park. And in the 50s it was one of the

(03:56):
few parks that Walt Disney came to to look at, study and get
ideas for Disneyland. And he became good friends with
the owners of the park, the shotfamily and the walks family.
I was 13 years old. I was the admissions gate ticket
taker, if you will, one of them,and stood there at the gate for

(04:17):
12 hours a day, taking 10 and 15cents for the people who would
come in and charge them their parking.
And I worked from junior high through high school through
college at that front gate at Coney Island and really got to
know and understand the businessbecause we always said the front
gate was the nerve center of thepark.

(04:39):
Anybody coming into the park hadto tell me what they were doing,
unless it was a guest, you know,just paying.
So if it was a celebrity or the meeting with somebody for a
special occasion or whatever, they tell me.
And I got to know and understandthe business.
And I liked it very much. I happened to be at the right
place at the right time and as Iwas graduating from college,

(05:02):
management had been watching me and they liked me and they came
to me. I was going to be in education
and they said would you like to be a full time employee?
We're going to be expanding our theme park in the future and the
company that has bought us, thatwe've merged with has just
recently purchased Hanna BarberaStudios.

(05:24):
So of course that was a huge interest to me.
I had grown up with the HP characters and knew him.
So that was kind of my getting started.
And I was actually assistant manager the last two years of
Coney Island, then assistant manager of Kings Island the
first two years before they sentme to build Kings Dominion.
But during that early period, right, I got to meet Bill,

(05:46):
Hannah and Joe Barbera and the others from the studio.
They came to Coney Island because we hadn't started Kings
Island yet. Bill and I struck up Friendship
and it would have been probably 1969 or 70, and I liked that
aspect of it as well. The entertainment, particularly

(06:07):
the cartoon portion, was a lot of fun and Bill and I just hit
it off really well. And as the company's meshed
Coney Island, Taft and Hanna Barbera, we were moving into the
growth part of our development with building Kings Island and

(06:27):
planning it. We didn't even have a name for
it at that point in time. And I became liaison for the
parks with Hanna Barbera Studiosbecause somebody had to be
constant communication with themon what was happening on the
design and the product development.
Hanna Barbera land at Kings Island.

(06:48):
I went out to California in 1970and had my first meeting at the
Hanna Barbera Studios in Hollywood.
It was a family out there and they were all my friends and I
knew them all. Bo Takamoto, Lars Born, all the
people that you talked about. But everybody was warm and

(07:08):
genuine. And that was a company that was
still growing at that, getting into some of their first folding
feature cartoons for the theaters and things.
And Bill took me under his wing.That friendship developed and
fostered personally and from a business standpoint to the point
where Bill set me up with an office at the studio.

(07:31):
And whenever I was in LA, I'd goto HBI, had my office there, I
could do my work with his team. Then when I'd come back to
Cincinnati, I, of course, that was my prime job at Kings
Island. I would have my my place there.
So I did that for well into the late 70s, continued that liaison

(07:55):
between the studios and that's how Bill and I developed this
great friendship and relationship.
I can see where there would be alot that would fascinate him
about the development of an entire theme park because his
background was in construction engineering with his father.
One of the things they worked onwas the Pantages Theatre in

(08:16):
Hollywood, and he loved not justthe construction but the people
involved in it. He was very loyal to the
workers, as much as he possibly could, tried to keep everybody
going. Both Bill and Joe were sort of
always trying to keep work coming in to the point where he,
at one time I heard he sat down in Bill's office and said we

(08:37):
need six or seven more concepts now.
Because I got to keep people working, got to keep them
employed when it was possible. So to see a theme park and
especially a land devoted to their work grow.
I mean, the building, Don Tuengo, he supervised that and
it was his pride and joy. That's right.
Bill was an amazing guy. I mean, he was one of those

(08:59):
people that you can count on both hands.
There's anyone who didn't like him.
He was just loved everywhere youwent.
I always got a kick as our friendship grew over those 2830
years. He and I'd be somewhere to at a
meeting or out of dinner or somea dinner or something and he'd
say stick with me and tell me who that is, give me their name

(09:21):
before we got there. And I'd say that's Greg Airbar.
He's coming. Hey, Greg, how are you?
That's Devin Spiegel, how are you?
He he was great with the faces, but he was wasn't the best with
the names, but he he remembered a lot of them.
It was an interesting relationship with he and Joe
Bill was, as you point out, he was an engineer, had that

(09:43):
technical side. So he was involved in the
creative, no question about it. Yeah, but also he was the one
who was responsible for working with the one of the head
designers, Iwo Takamoto, the timing and making sure
everything from a out standpointwas right and everything blended

(10:04):
together. It was interesting to be with
him and watch him work like thatand see how his portion meshed
with the design portion, the creative portion of whomever
that character show was, Hong Kong food or whoever it might
have been at the time. And Bill, he was a musician and
he was a Barber shopper, and he loved to sing.

(10:26):
Every time we'd have our annual management meeting, he'd get a
group together. I was not part of it because I
wasn't a singer, but they would sing their barbershop songs and
he belonged to a huge barbershopquartet group out in Hollywood
that they went around and performed.
He just loved that so much. He thought that was the best.
Yeah, I I've heard of that. And there's actually, I think he

(10:49):
had a, a couple of things on hiswall commemorating his
involvement in that. And there's also a record album
that came out in 66 called The Flintstones.
And I, I can't remember what it all stands for, but it was
something like a SAS Fat Pagob Squalt, which was a play on the
actual Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of

(11:13):
Barbershop quartets. And on the cover of the album,
because it's about Fred and Barney being in a barbershop
quartet and going to the Ed Sullivan Show and it's cute
album. And on the cover there's Fred
and Barney. And in the Barber chair there is
a guy with a great big mustache but the Gray hair and I'm
wondering if it was him maybe? Kind of a little.

(11:34):
Tribute to him, As many of us know who are listening, he wrote
the lyrics to most of the theme songs to the television shows
with people like Paul Decourt, who we'll mention in a moment,
and the great Hoyt Curtain, Ted Nichols and he and Barbara are
credited and I do think that Barbara had a influence in it in

(11:57):
that he was the concept guy and they did work together as far as
how does this work, where are we, what's the story, how did we
do this? He could just give the lyrics
over the phone to Hoyt Curtain and he'd come up with the
Huckleberry Hound theme and he put some of those lyrics in his
book. He was so proud of the fact that
he did that and. Then I'll tell you a little
story about some lyrics. I don't know if you want to get

(12:18):
into this now. The King's Island Dark Ride.
Yeah, I was out on one of my working visits and Bill said,
what are you doing this weekend?I said, well, not, not really
anything. He said, let's take the boat.
He had a beautiful boat that he had built up in Santa Barbara
called the Galatea God of Wind, his brother-in-law, myself,

(12:41):
maybe one or two other people, as I recall, he said, let's go
over to Catalina and just have anice weekend and we'll fish and
and Bill cook. Bill and I cooked constantly.
I had I'll tell you about his cookbook later, but and he said,
I want you to help me on this song.
He said, you know the park. And he said, we're writing this
song for the dark ride. And of course, I was working on

(13:03):
the dark ride and that's why I was out there.
And it was those friends in my TV.
And we sat down and he had on the boat, Greg, this beautiful
boat that he had built had a very wide beam on it.
I think it was about 50 feet long, 52 feet long.
And he had a about half again, as wide as a normal boat.

(13:24):
But he had this wonderful kitchen and he had an organ and
we'd go sit even and pick out a song on the organ and he said,
give me some thoughts here on this and help me with some of
the wording. And it was cartoon friends with
funny faces, Jinx in those little misi chases and he'll mob
and wacky races live in my TV. I'm friends with Fred who yells

(13:47):
out Yabba dabba dabba Doo bosom buddy Barney too and Scooby
Dooby. Where are you?
I love those mumbling bears. I laugh at them until it hurts.
And when it's banana splits, youdon't eat them for dessert.
Bristle Hound is not a stranger.Yogi Bear outsmarts the Ranger,

(14:13):
all in my TV, those wacky friends.
So he had holes and pieces. So we sat there for two days and
we worked on this song. And that was the genesis of the
song that lasted at Kings Islandprobably for eight or nine
years, through the dark ride. And of course, the gentleman you

(14:35):
mentioned, Paul Decor, who was agood friend at the studio.
He was the musical director. I would guess that was his
title. Now, it's been 50 years, but
Paul was a great guy. We went down to Glenn.
Glenn Studios had this wonderfulorchestra, and he and I worked
with the orchestra to get the right sound for those different

(14:55):
sections of the Kings Island Garden Ride.
Two friends are Barney faces Jinx and those little Niecy
chases and you'll find the WackyRaces live in my TV.
My friends with friends who yells at me ever, never, never
do. Who's somebody?
Barney too. And screw it everywhere are you?

(15:17):
I love that one live there. I love it in until I hurt.
And when it's banana splits, youdon't eat them for desserts.
Crystal Hound. Is out a stranger he's face lamb
to wherever danger. To me, that was just a very

(15:44):
special time and helping Bill write that song and watching him
to sit at the Oregon and change a word here.
So that was a lot of fun. That's a really cool story that
it's so hands on that he came upwith that and Enchanted Voyage.
There are some very nice YouTubevideos and photos on Google of
what it looked like and how it went if you want to sort of
relive it. But it was a gigantic television

(16:07):
set. You ride a boat like a small
world of Pirates of the Caribbean, ride a boat into the
TV screen. Can you kind of walk us or or
float us kind of through what people see in here?
Yeah, I can't. And I have to tell you, you
know, I was part of the design and development and really
planning Kings Island. So that was one of our rides

(16:30):
that we really took to heart. A fellow by the name of Gary
Walks, who was the really, we call him the father of Kings
Island. He's the one who planned and had
this idea to move Coney Island to a bigger spot at some point
in time because we would have been gobbled up by the
competition. We were spending our money very

(16:51):
judiciously, but the dark ride was actually the single largest
expensive of a ride. It was over a million and a half
dollars today. My gosh, you can't get the
popsicle stand for that, and that's no kidding.
Yeah. In today's money, it's billions,
Yeah. Right, so we had a fellow who

(17:11):
worked by the name of Dick Harsley and Dick was our art
director internally that Taft, Kings Island, Kings Productions,
whatever we were, we were growing at that time.
But Dick oversaw the developmentof that ride from a character
standpoint. It worked with the studio EWO

(17:33):
and those people we all did to get those chambers and those
those elements correct in there.And really what it was Greg, for
Kings Island got to remember, this is 52 years ago, it was
Small World. It was a small world of King's
Eye. The constant song continued to
play the same melody and everything as you went through,

(17:55):
as you say, little different wording and a little different
sound. But everybody who came to the
park, they did two things. They rode the Dark rise, the
enchanted Voyage, and they went up on the Eiffel Tower, which
was, you know, our our focal point of the park and we just
utilized all of the characters. I can't even remember.

(18:17):
Up to that point, there are quite a few.
And characters like the Hillbilly Bears, Yeah.
And Precious Pop and Gulliver. There's a show that isn't talked
about as much, but he was a major president to that
attraction. And.
Oh. Yeah, he was our largest
character. He was kind of sitting back,
leaned over and as you came through.
And, yeah, they used more than just the A Listers, the Scooby

(18:38):
Doo's, the Fred Flintstones, theYoung Bears.
They used the other characters. Yeah.
You mentioned Bristle Hound and they had the walk around
characters were of course you know, the Banana Splits and
Scooby and Fred and Barney. But you had Bristle Hound.
You had Lamsey, Hair, Bear Bunchand some of those characters
that only had a season of shows,but a lot of people still were

(18:59):
watching and liked and wanted todip their pictures with.
Well, you know, one of the interesting things and one of my
fun, what a great life I've had in this industry and, and the
fun things I've been able to do because I was in that role of
the liaison with between the parks and HPI was responsible
for having the character costumes manufactured for the

(19:21):
park. So the first ones I had done
were Fred and Barney, as you would expect, Yogi Scooby, the
Banana Splits, because they werehuge at that time.
You know, that was one of the first live action animated kind
of shows back at that time. So I was working with a company
out in California, fellow by thename of Jack Shafton, who's no

(19:45):
longer with us, but he made the costume characters for us.
And just as you have seen MickeyMouse evolve through the years
to what he can do today, blink and speak and everything else.
I mean, I look back on these Yogi Fred and Yogi and Barney
costumes. Talk about prehistoric.

(20:07):
They were prehistoric. Everybody loved them.
I want to tell you one quick, funny story, So.
For years people have asked me about the transition of Coney
Island, Cincinnati Yes, to KingsIsland.
OK, that was a huge transition. We went from 1,000,000 people at
Coney Island to 2 million at Kings Island the first year.
We went from $5,000,000 in revenue our last year at Coney

(20:31):
Island to $35 million in revenueat Kings Island.
We went from 4500 employees to 1500 employees, 155 acres to
2000 acres. So everything was exponential,
everything lined up. But I'm putting together this
presentation to give to somebody, the Rotarians or

(20:53):
whoever it might have been. And as I'm looking at our old
slides and photos of Coney Island, I see and these pictures
were taken about 194950 right inthere.
I see 2 paper mache characters on the mall holding hands clear
as a bell. I have this.

(21:13):
I'll, I'll send you these breaksso you can see it.
It's just so interesting. It's Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
Mickey and Minnie were at Coney Island in Cincinnati five years
before Disney ever opened. Wow.
We used those at Coney Island, but long before I got to Coney.
Talk about our cake, I mean, butthere's no question it's Mickey

(21:34):
and Minnie. And I thought, my gosh, Mickey
and Minnie were actually in a theme park before Disneyland.
And to me, that's like one of the most amazing things I've
ever come across in the industry.
That actually could very well be.
I don't know how old the Ice Capade costumes are.
You can see them in Technicolor in the Cecil B De Mille's The

(21:56):
Greatest Show on Earth because there's a circus parade and
there they are and all they're like, wow, glory.
They may have toured around because before there was a
Disneyland, the characters wouldappear at premieres, probably
special events and in hospitals and things.
It's very likely this is not a situation where you've got, you
know, in Hollywood Blvd. at the Chinese Theatre, you've got, you

(22:18):
know, some guy being Spider Man,some guy being Mickey.
I would say Coney Island being avery, very respected,
prestigious park that they licensed them because there
wasn't a Disneyland. So they probably did license the
characters from the Ice Capades because it's very possible.
And Walt Disney, like you said, a lot of times people mentioned
Tivoli Gardens because it was sobeautiful and was so clean.

(22:41):
But Coney Island, to be sure. And I think Coney Island in New
York as cool as can be. And we've talked about Little
Fugitive and seeing it in that film and from 53 and it is a
fabled place. But the Coney Island in Ohio was
on the river and it was a spotless family oriented.
It had amusement park things, but it was done in a family

(23:03):
friendly, very neat and tidy kind of the employees were
courteous. It it was the kind of thing Walt
Disney wanted to do. That's why he was traveling
around. And it exemplified it was
recommended as that. And then later, I guess when
Taft was looking for a park to put the Hanna Barbera
characters, when they bought Hanna Barbera around 60, late

(23:25):
66, early 67, they were told by Roy Disney.
Take a good look at Coney Island.
It was Charlie Meacham, and the president, Bud Rogers, went out
to meet with Roy. Walt Disney had passed away a
year or two earlier, and they had bought HP.
It was around, like you said, 6768.

(23:46):
Somewhere in there. They wanted to know we bought
Hanna Barbera. How can we exploit our
characters like you've done in parts and things?
And Roy says to him, and I was told this by the chairman of the
board, he said interesting you'dcome to us.
Now when we wanted to get the business, we came to Cincinnati
and met with the Shot and Walks family at Coney Island, he said.

(24:09):
Go by the park and that's how the park kind of Coney was
looking for a way to grow and expand and needed money.
And then Taft came. Gary Walks, who I mentioned,
went and met with the senior management and boom, the thing
was done in six months. That's a fascinating story.
And oh, that was another interesting thing in the book.
One of the things that spurred the powers that be to go ahead

(24:32):
and move the park to the bigger location in Kings Mills was this
concern about if we don't do it,someone else will and they'll
have a bigger, better park and they'll be strong competition.
Fess Parker was going to build aBoonesboro park.
I never knew that. Yeah, Fess Parker, after his
success with Davy Crockett with Disney, and then he went on to

(24:53):
do Daniel Boone on television, he saw the success that Walt
Disney had had and his popularity.
I mean Davy Crockett, that television show part of Disney
was the biggest of all time at that that most viewers etcetera.
And he came to Greater Cincinnati will run across the
river to Boone County where Daniel came from.

(25:15):
And our board of directors for Coney Island had been hearing
from Gary walks about growth andexpansion.
Six Flags was starting to grow. Then in 61 they've done Texas
and Georgia and we knew we needed to grow, as I said, and
move. But they wouldn't do it until
best part announced over there and then it was immediate to

(25:39):
see. They unanimously voted to build
a new park to go north. Gary Dudley Taft, the son of Hub
Taft. They found this property 26
miles north of Cincinnati on Interstate 71.
Great access from Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis,

(25:59):
Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, you had that
confluence all coming that way and we bought and built the
park. Greg bought the land and built
Kings Island for $37,000,000 in 1972.
When Kings Island put the Orion and roller coaster in in 2020,

(26:23):
that one coaster was 35 million.Yeah, what a bargain King's
Island was back then. That's kind of how that all
happened. And Gary was the pro generator
who wanted to get that part. North and Dudley, they worked
exhaustively to get that property and put it all
together. We bought somewhere between 1500

(26:44):
and 2000 acres up there. There's another book from the
same publisher as my forthcomingbook called Hannah and Barbara
Conversations, and it's a seriesof interviews and essays and
articles all in one book that give a really strong portrait of
the various aspects of Hannah and Barbera and their people.
And there's a chapter I was dying to read I could not find.

(27:06):
And I'd seen snippets of information about the gentleman
who just before was having the same kind of situation.
He had to convince the people atTaft to buy Hannah Barbera.
His name was Lawrence H Rogers. The second.
Yeah, that was. Bud.
Rogers, Bud Rogers. It's fast fascinating because,
and this explains a little bit about their production

(27:27):
situations and limitations is that, like said Marty Croft with
their Puffin Stuff series, they were learning as they were going
and Puffin Stuff is way over budget.
They had to trim down the budgets to stay in business and
they lost a lot of money on the series.
The movie helped make it back and help them exist.
In the case of Hanna Barbera, their shows were very, very

(27:49):
expensive and the company wasn'texactly making a whole lot of
profits, so it was hard to convince Taft.
And actually, according to one of the executives at Screen Gems
that did have the partnership, they always felt like they
missed the boat by not paying anextra $2,000,000 to buy them
because scooby-doo was on the way and all of those other

(28:10):
things. But it's interesting to learn
that even the Taft buy was he had the vision and it always
takes that vision no matter how big a company gets to say take
the risk because there's potential, there's untapped
potential. Not we don't know what they're
going to do next. There's equity in those
characters. What a visionary thing to do and

(28:32):
look how successful it was. One thing I'll never forget,
Bill, I was out with him. You don't remember where we were
before we went to Australia and this is when computer CGI and
everything. I don't even think we knew that
term at that time. But he saw the future of
animation, getting away from painting 1 cell at a time.

(28:54):
He went to Cornell University and he met with the team up at
Cornell and worked with them in the early, early days.
And again, this 45 years ago nowof computerization and talking
about computerizing animation towhat it is today.
I mean, I would love for Bill and Joe to come back and see
today what's being done. Just light up the screen.

(29:15):
They wouldn't believe it if you show them what was happening.
But people weren't even in our company buying into that.
But talk about your visionary. Bill saw that and he told me,
Denny, this is coming. This is the way it's going to be
in the future. Animation is going to be done
like that. What I've mentioned several
times with the Hanna Barbera characters, especially when
Kings Island opened, was these were characters that were in

(29:38):
people's homes, sometimes daily and sometimes once a week.
When we opened Kings Island, people who came to our park, the
Hanna Barbera land was just overrun with families, kids,
children and everybody, Greg, everybody, adults and children

(29:59):
who came there wanted their picture taken with the
character. They were in Kings Mills.
OH, and there was Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear and
Snaggle Puss and all the other ones and they got their picture
taken. Kings Island, interestingly
enough, other than the two Disney parks, and there were at
that time three Six Flags parks when we opened Kings Island,

(30:21):
Saint Louis had opened. But Kings Island, other than
Disney, was the 1st theme park to ever break 2,000,000
attendance in its first year. So we were the third part.
It was Disneyland, Disney World,and then Kings Island.
We broke 2 million. And there's no question in my
mind that Hanna Barbera and the land, the characters and that IP

(30:43):
played so much a part in ratcheting those numbers up.
When the Brady Bunch, I think itwas the Partridge Family 1st and
then the Brady Bunch, yeah, wentto Kings Island. 50 years later,
whatever that was, 45 years later, I still don't have people
ask me every week about the Partridge Family, the Brady

(31:06):
Bunch. And I'll tell you a quick funny
story about that. I can't remember if it was the
Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family, but as you know, we own
television, radio stations. And here in Cincinnati, our news
anchor called one day and he said, hey, they're going to be
there. And I think it was the Partridge
Family. He said my son loves them.

(31:26):
He said, could he come out and would you mind if he watched
them film and do some things? He just loves it so much.
And I said, you bringing him outand then we'll get him around.
Well, this little guy was running around getting him
everything. He was behind here, over here,
back over there, back here, overthere.
And the newscaster was a great guy, still is, still with us.

(31:48):
His name was Nick Clooney. And the little boy who was
running around was George Clooney.
I said I want to run into him someday, which I will somewhere
and say, do you remember when you run around going crazy
during the park family? And I'm sure.
And he's a great guy. He comes back Cincinnati a lot

(32:09):
because his mom and dad are still very closer.
But that was a funny story. He was about, I think it was
about 11 years old when he was doing that.
Yeah, in that area, Nick Clooneywas renowned, and he was the AMC
movie host for many, many years,too.
Yeah, it used to be his. Sister was Rosemary.
Yeah, his sister was. That was George's aunt, and it

(32:31):
used to be when he was just starting.
Well, that's Rosemary Clooney's nephew, or that's Nick Clooney's
son. That's a great story.
Thanks for sharing that. Speaking of celebrities, among
the many performers that performed in the park that went
on to Broadway and other things,because they were all had to be
all around performance, Was it Carmen Electra, one of them

(32:52):
Carmen. Electra worked here, in fact she
and I I have the honor of being the 1st 2 inductees into the
Kings Island Hall of Fame. Wow.
If you have to go in with somebody, that's not bad.
And then the Bradys came and they made the park much more
integral to the story, which I thought was pretty clever
because the premise basically was business meeting.

(33:16):
Lord knows why the that there was an office building in the
park. He left.
We did have our, our administration marketing
buildings were not intrinsic, but they were right at the at
the gates. They were oh, so that could have
been, that could have been the. Building.
They were actually filming there.
That's where they are. That is so cool I wondered
about. Wow.

(33:38):
So Jan buys a Yogi Bear poster and Oh, no, they got the two
confused. And Mike Brady goes to this
important serious meeting with all these, like, you know, guys
who go harumph, harumph. And there's the Yogi poster.
Yeah. And they have to get through the
park. And of course, Greg wants to
date. And let's see, this was the the

(34:00):
the young lovely lady that that Greg was interested in.
She played Veronica on the Archie pilot, Melody something
and it will come to me. And she ran the shooting gallery
and Greg was trying to date her.Anyway, there was one thing that
I was kind of surprised by. And in your interview, you were
talking just like at Disney, we want to preserve the integrity

(34:22):
of the characters. But there was a scene on the
Brady Bunch where Greg wanted tomeet her and they kept calling
them the animals. And I thought is that the
technical name can't be because,you know, we call them the
characters and to us they are absolutely real.
That is, you know, there is one Mickey.
This is not company line. They are Mickey and Minnie.

(34:43):
So why? What did Taft say when I think
it was Bingo had his head off and Greg's Karen.
Yeah, that was a surprise. I remember that.
And I thought it was the same way.
Like, did they really do that? Now?
I don't know if that happened inthe editing in the cutting room,
however, it was. I mean, we had a very strict

(35:03):
rule, as you said at the outset here.
When we opened Kings Island, we were unlike a lot of parks.
They didn't have a legacy like aConey Island like we did, and a
history and a foundation of operating and knowing what
worked and what didn't work. Six Flags, it didn't have any of
that. For example, when we opened

(35:25):
Kings Island 72, things like thewooden roller coaster and the
games in parks were looked at asCarney and taboo, and Disney
didn't have them. Six Flags didn't have them, but
we had those at Coney Island in Cincinnati.
They were well run. They weren't Carney types of
operations. The wooden roller coaster was a

(35:48):
enormous part of people's visit,and that's how the racing
coaster was developed. There wasn't a wooden roller
coaster built between 47 and 72.We developed and built the Racer
at Ki and I'll never forget someof the Disney people came in Six
Flags, people came in Tivoli Gardens, people came in all over

(36:10):
Europe. They came to see the park.
It was such a success. One of the president of Six
Flags, Gary Walks was taking himdown the mall and the line to
the Racer was about 1/4 of a mile up the mall, went over into
the Hanna Barbera land. He said, what in the world is
this lying to? He said, come on, I'm going to
show you now. They were very against roller

(36:33):
coasters. By the time he got up to the
head of the line, he'd listen topeople walking by and
everything. He said, we're put in a roller
coaster. And you know, after that came
Space Mountain and other coasters like that.
So things evolved and we all learn from one another, but
you've got to listen. And that's how our industry has
grown and is still growing in proportion with huge success

(36:58):
globally. I don't understand the concept
of a wooden roller coaster. How is it wooden?
What's wooden about it and how does that affect the experience?
Well, you have two types of coasters, the wooden, the metal.
The wood was a first. There wasn't any metal roller
coasters back in the day. We introduced the first double
racing coaster, all wooden, all the structure, the bends, the

(37:21):
tracks and everything. It's that coaster that gives you
that feeling when you go up the hill, click, click, click,
click, click, click, click, click, click, click, until you
go over the first drop and you know you experience that dip.
And they live and breathe. Each one has its own
personality. They have to be continually
fine-tuned, like a Stradivarius would be.
When we introduced that ride, asI say, the line was that long.

(37:44):
People hadn't seen a huge coaster like that, and he hadn't
seen a double coaster like that in decades.
As a result of that. That was really the Renaissance
of the roller coaster in parks. Then came the metal coasters,
which are smooth and quiet, and you can do loops with them in
corkscrews and inversions, because it's just easier to do

(38:06):
that with metal. So since the introduction of the
Kings of Island Racer, there probably been close to four or
5000 roller coasters built globally.
Yeah. There's another kind of coaster
that's mentioned. Is that something to do with the
G force or something? Well, you have positive and
negative G's, negative G's forceyou down, positive G's to lift

(38:27):
you up out of the seat. And that too has evolved and
changed from just a seat belt toa lot bar to over the shoulder
restraints. I mean we have the ability right
now. We have roller coasters in the
industry that are over 500 feet tall.
And I was telling somebody in the media the other day, we will

(38:48):
have 1000 foot drop roller coaster.
We have the capability from the design to do it.
You just need the property to spread it out in the budget to
buy it and pay for it. That will happen.
There's no question in my mind. And in our industry,
particularly the regional parks,coaster is key.
When there's a new coaster, people come out in droves to

(39:10):
ride. Oh, there are people who it's
their hobby. They go to the coaster parks
and. They were just here, 1000 of
them, here at Kings Island two weeks ago.
Ace American coaster enthusiastscame in from all over the world.
Yeah, Kings Island, Cedar Point or neck and neck with coasters.
But Cedar Point maybe has one ortwo more.
And Cedar Point is more of an old amusement park that came

(39:34):
into the the era of theme park where Kings Island was built as
the theme park with Rivertown and Hanna Barbera land, Coney
Island, Oktoberfest, things remained the Cincinnati in the
area. The Hanna Barbera land was the
family area, the cartoon area. The Enchanted Voyage became the
Smurf. Smurf Voyage.

(39:56):
The structure was rethamed in the Relentless Smurf theme, and
then the attraction was so big that it was converted into
several things because Andrea Canny who?
Was on our earlier podcast. She was just rehearsing in a
rehearsal hall that used to be part of that structure for the
Winter Fest. Didn't part of that also become

(40:18):
the Phantom Theatre? Yeah, it was Janet Boyd Smurf
Phantom Theatre. It would change to meet what was
happening in that decade. It actually went from a water
ride to a track ride, a rail ride.
And then the scooby-doo in the haunted castle.
Was that a from scratch attraction that rides?

(40:38):
Yeah, scooby-doo was the baby racing coaster, if you will, on
one side at Coney Island. We had a small coaster for the
family and the children called the Teddy Bear.
We made that the Scooby-doo and that lasted until Nickelodeon
came in and and now it has to dowith the Snoopy IPI can't
remember the. Name.

(40:58):
Yeah, Camp Snoopy, I believe, which is also at the Knott's
Berry Farm here in Southern California.
Was there ever any discussion oftaking?
I think I was talking about the scooby-doo ride through.
That was kind of scary. Was that an original ride or was
that Phantom Theatre first? Fan theater was first.

(41:20):
Scooby was part of the original park.
We never really wanted to, nor did Hollywood make the Hanna
Barbera characters frightful. We want them wholesome family
entertainment, which they were. They all had their
personalities. As you know, that was the way HB

(41:41):
Land always kind of developed inand was operated restaurants in
the hand of our Barbara Lime became the Smurf ice cream cone.
We served blue ice cream and we couldn't make it fast enough at
that point. And I believe that they still
serve it. And the public made it, put it
back in. Didn't taste any.

(42:01):
Different, but there are people with a strong emotional
attachment to the pizza. Oh.
My gosh, let me get it. You know the pizza.
You know, Greg, when we put pizza in Kings Island 72, the
reason it's there was we ran outof money on International St.
We had three shops that were vacant, that hadn't been

(42:23):
sponsored yet, and we couldn't finish.
And we went back to the chairmanof the board and we said we need
some money. We weren't going to give us any
more money. So the project engineer, Charlie
Flat, went to his fraternity brother, Jack Pancero, who was
in the meat. This this never made a pizza in
his life. But he said, yeah, I'd like to
be in there. Maybe we could sell pizza.

(42:44):
So Kings Island was the first theme park ever to sell pizza
and it makes so much sense because it was a grab and go.
You can get it and the families locally at every place who came
lived in the area. They come out at night and get
their pizza and set and watch the fountain eat their pizza.
That was our number one restaurant and it was the

(43:05):
smallest restaurant in the park.Yeah, that's like the Dole
Whips, which have taken on a life of their own at the Disney
parks. But it's interesting that pizza
wasn't. You'd think that pizza was being
sold in the 1915 or something, but it it wasn't until 72.
No, that was the very first place.
Now, and keep in mind that the reason people go to theme parks

(43:26):
from Disney down to the smallestmom and pop amusement park are
for the rides. That's number one.
But #2 equally as important is the food and all of the snacks.
The caramel apples, the candy apples that you're the bananas,
the blue Smurf, all of that plays such an important part
because typically when people come to the park, and we've

(43:49):
heard this for decades, they kind of throw out their diet for
a couple of hours and they eat and enjoy it.
It's escapism at every level. That's true.
That's what it's about, yeah. You talk about people constantly
asking you about the Bradys and the Partridges, and the Bradys
have come back for commemorativeshows, which is pretty cool.

(44:11):
You know, there's an excellent podcast with two of the Brady
brothers, and then they have others.
Then they've talked about this episode.
It's been discussed and discussed, and in a way it's a
great way to preserve what was there.
You know, people know Kings Island just because they were
there. Right.
But to bring it back and hear from them and what they did,
that hasn't been that long ago when they did that.

(44:32):
You were one of the people quoted in the book as when the
Paramount company took over and they rethemed attractions,
mostly the live action movies, you thought it was a pretty cool
thing and then it worked. And that seems to be the trend
now with Parks, is to bring in all kinds of IP and acquire
companies. What was that like?
Well, I'll tell you. Let me give you 2 stories here.

(44:53):
We worked with Bob Pittman when he was heir apparent to Time
Warner and Bob had come out of MTV, as you may recall.
He was just really one of the brightest guys I've ever met and
been around. And he was working at taking
over Six Flags at that time. And what he did was he brought
in the DC characters, the Warnercharacters, all of those popular

(45:15):
characters to Six Flags. Six Flags had been flat in
attendance for years, 20 years, 15 years.
See, no rise. Just every year, same, same
thing until he came in and he did that.
All of a sudden they rose up to a level they'd never seen before
and it was amazing. Paramount did the same thing

(45:35):
when they came in and brought Italian Job and Top Gun and all
of these. People.
Yeah, I mean, they wanted to come face to face again with
these new characters and these new movies that they'd seen,
Days of Thunder or Tom Cruise, all of this Star Trek and things
like that. And that also allowed the

(45:55):
Paramount part to rise up to a level of importance because it
now brought you into that Hollywood scene, really heavy
movie Hollywood scene. And you know what?
It's still important today. Your classic and your new should
never be underestimated. Correct.
But I have to say we're a matureindustry now.
When I started in the industry, we were fledgling at Kings and

(46:19):
Cody. Look at us today domestically.
Look at us internationally. And when I started ITPS 41 years
ago, I was only one of three companies with the name
international and their brand. And I left Taft knowing I was
around 38 or so. And I said, you know, it's about
time to open my own. You got to do it before you're

(46:42):
40. What am I going to call my
company? There are companies out there
coming on board that need assistance.
I'm not going to call it Dennis Spiegel Associates.
I'm going to call it International Theme Park
Services. And we hit the ground running,
Greg, and we've been doing it ever since.
There are groups that come to usin the industry who are newer

(47:03):
people because the other ones have aged out and they want some
wisdom and sage, if you will, brought to them.
And then you have newer people who have no idea what they're
doing and they need help. They come to us.
So. But there are also a lot more
Dennis Spiegel's than there everwas back then.
Because people have come throughthe system now at Disney, at

(47:27):
Universal, at Sea World, at Six Flags, and they have started
their own companies. So we do have competition, but
we have a good reputation and people know who we are.
I always tell people, you're notgoing to fire me because I lied
to you. You're going to fire me because
I tell you the truth. And that's pretty much what it

(47:48):
is. And I also tell them if it
didn't fun, guess what, we're not going to do it.
Ben and Jerry says that slogan too.
Our company Slugger was at ITPS Fund, is a serious business
that's been for 41 years. And we do take it seriously.
We want successes, we don't wantfailures.
And if we're going to be associated with it, our name's
going to be associated with it. And I've been in this industry

(48:11):
all my life and was president ofBIAPPA and, you know, in the
Hall of Fame and stuff like that.
So you don't want to go out on adowner, you want to go out on
the upper when you leave. Again, from your interview,
talking about various parks and enterprises that you've been
dealing with, when they listen to you, not that they have to
slavishly listen to any of us, but when they have a responsive

(48:33):
mind about like because no one person can know everything, but
there shouldn't be insecurity about experienced people who
have a lot to give. It's valuable and you don't go
into a business fresh knowing everything.
So I would think it would be common sense that they would
want to seek out consultants andpeople who can give us that.
And I can see from the evidence and and you know, we're talking

(48:54):
about some parks that wanted to go too quickly.
I'm sure you were there exactly like you're saying, not saying
what they wanted to hear, but saying what the truth and what
Walt Disney, I don't have the exact quote, but keep it clean,
be friendly, give people a valuefor their money.
A lot of the original things that were the principles of
Disneyland, if you don't follow those at the very core, you can

(49:17):
have all kinds of things might be fine, but people are going to
catch on. Well, he said, too, you know,
you can have all the bricks and mortar in the world, but it's
the people that bring it to life.
Yeah. And that's both from the guest
standpoint and from the host andHostess or cast members.
I mean, there's a symbiotic relationship there.

(49:37):
There's nothing more desolate than going to a close to
musical. It's just.
But when you go, when it's open,it's driving.
There's nothing more fun. It's like when the shopping mall
loses its anchor store and you're walking through there and
the lights aren't the same. And it's like, I feel like, you
know, where are Shaggy and Scooby?
This is very, this is so sad, but things are on the upswing

(50:01):
and you've got an incredible, incredible story.
And I thank you so much for sharing so much of that
incredible adventure that you had and continue to have all
over the world with these parks.They bring people a lot of joy.
I thank you for being on the show.
And I recommend this Kings Island book.
And how can people check out what you're working on and and

(50:23):
see what you're doing? Www.interthemepark.com Enter
with an I International www.interthemepark.com.
We talked about our new projectsand really we have published for
27 years. We do a daily publication called
the ITPS Daily News, all the funthat's fit to print.

(50:45):
It's free. It covers amusement parks, theme
parks, water parks, family entertainment centers, zoos and
aquariums, location based entertainment, everything that's
going on in the industry daily. And if somebody is interested in
receiving this, go to Sean Haas,SHAWNH AA S at

(51:08):
interthemepark.com and ask for asubscription.
And I mean, it's read by everybody.
I know Bob Iger has read it in the past and his predecessors,
everybody at Six Flags and everybody at SeaWorld, everybody
in the investment communities and the supply side read it.
So that's a great daily organ tokeep up with what's happening in

(51:30):
the industry at just about everylevel.
Wow that's good to know. And isn't there a podcast as
well? Well, I did a podcast.
I started it. I started actually during COVID.
And the reason I started it great was to continue the
communication in the industry because it didn't stop basically
everybody. Nobody wanted to talk about
anything. So I brought the operators and

(51:52):
the manufacturers and suppliers together, marketing, finance,
CapEx, everybody. And we talked in.
We did 100 shows or more. I finally said, I think we've
done enough of that for a while.There's a lot of podcasts now
that are out there coming online.
So we've kind of stopped that. But it's still sitting on like
iTunes and stuff. Right.
Yeah, it's in YouTube and iTunesthat and then I do my

(52:15):
editorials. If there's a topic that I think
needs addressing and I think is appropriate, I'll do an
editorial. And if you get the IPS Daily
News, you see that in our Daily News and it comes out as kind of
a blast of bulletin as well. Shawn Haas at Enter Theme Park.
At enterthemepark.com and also if you want to hear the previous

(52:38):
podcasts, it's called for fun isthat.
It's called I'm for Fun with Dennis Spiegel, the number for
fun. The number I'm for fun is.
That's been my license plate for52 years.
Well, thanks again. Thanks for joining us.
It's an extraordinary story and it's a cool job, so thank you.

(52:59):
Well, it's great. Thank you for being the great
historian and keeping up with the industry and bringing people
together like this. Somebody has to do it and you do
a great job. Thank you very much and thanks
to all of you for listening for all the nice comments that you
post. We have a webpage, the fantastic
World of Hannah and Barbara podcast page, and you can

(53:20):
subscribe and all kinds of stuff.
But most of all, we hope you'll join us next time for our next
podcast. Until then, bye bye.
We hope you enjoyed the fantastic world of Hannah and
Barbera with Greg Airborne. Please join us again and Many
thanks for listening.