Ray Bradbury's Theme Park - The Great Electric Time Maze! - The Lowdown on the Plus-up - A Theme Park Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:06):
Time.
Space.
Reality.
It's not a linear path.
It's a prism of endlesspossibility where a single
choice can branch out intoinfinite realities, creating
alternate worlds from the onesyou know.

(00:28):
From a low down to a plus up.
Follow me and ponder thequestion.
What?

SPEAKER_01 (00:35):
Here we go again.

SPEAKER_00 (00:51):
Hello and welcome to The Lowdown on the Plus Up, a
podcast where we look ateveryone's favorite theme park
attractions, lands, textures,and novelties.
We talk in, over, about, andthrough our week's topic, and
then, with literally no concernfor practicality, safety, or
economic viability, we come upwith ways to make them better.

(01:11):
My name is Kelly McCubbin,columnist for the theme park
website Boardwalk Times, andwith me as always is Peter
Overstreet, University Professorof Animation and Film History in
Northern California.

SPEAKER_04 (01:33):
So Pete, what are we talking about today?
Well, today we're gonna travelback in time for this one for a
lost attraction.
It was uh conceived by noneother than Ray Bradbury.
Ray Bradbury.
A great science fiction writer,probably one of the greatest
science fiction writers of thelatter half of the 20th century.

SPEAKER_00 (01:55):
I totally agree.
I would I would argue that ifyou're talking the latter half
of the 20th century, that it isBradbury and it is Le Guin, and
then there is everybody else.

SPEAKER_04 (02:05):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And so this attraction wasactually built up near Chicago,
Illinois.
Yep.
And it's called the GreatElectric Time Maze.

SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
The Great Electric Time Maze.

SPEAKER_04 (02:16):
Yeah, what I don't know what he was smoking, but
this thing, I remember I I onlygot to see this thing from afar
because I I never got a chance.
Now you grew up in Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 (02:28):
No, I I did not.
I I grew up in Texas.
You grew up in Texas.
I I lived in Chicago, but it wasmuch, much later.

SPEAKER_04 (02:35):
Right.
Yeah.
So neither of us have actuallybeen to this park.

SPEAKER_00 (02:40):
No.

SPEAKER_04 (02:40):
But it has fascinated us from afar.
And and like a lot of theattractions, like when we talked
about Dracula, we we've talkedabout like the stuff in New
Jersey that we've never actuallybeen to.
Right.
So we're gonna talk about theGreat Electric Time Maze because
it has fascinated us from afar.
Yeah.
And it like this is one of thoseattractions like we were
probably not in the best offinancial situations because

(03:02):
we're both like either just incollege or fresh out of college
enough to go, I'm broke, and Ican't make the trek out to
Chicago to see this thing, andthen it shut down.

SPEAKER_00 (03:12):
Yeah, and it's a very short window that this
thing is open.
Yeah.
It is it is sort of a themepark, it is sort of a single
attraction, it is sort of anescape room, and it is sort of a
haunt, and it is sort of asimulator, and it is so it's so
many things that were way tooambitious for 1989, 1990 when

(03:36):
this thing opened.
Absolutely.
Um and it didn't last for long,made it about five years.

SPEAKER_04 (03:41):
Yeah.
I mean, this was this was a timein which Silicon Valley uh here
in California uh was goingthrough an experimental phase
when it came to theme, uh themeattraction.
Yep um the exploration of uhinfrared technologies for
shooting galleries was suddenlyon the rise.
Right.
Uh motion uh motion-based rideswere actually becoming more and

(04:04):
more commonplace because this isnot long after Star Tours came
out.
Yes.
And the technology to developStar Tours was born in Palo
Alto.
Right.
So uh it expanded out fromthere.
There was actually a thing inPalo Alto that was a flight
simulator.
So there were there were flightsimulators all over the place.
And I forget the name of thisplace, but it was a flight
simulator uh uh attraction whereyou would show up, they would

(04:28):
they would brief you like you'rein the military, yeah, and then
you would be given flight suits,and then you would get inside
these cockpits and you woulddogfight each other like you
were you're flying F-16s.
And the ride only lasted forabout 10 minutes.
Yeah.
And I think it was like$45 perround.
It was like a very expensivevideo game.

(04:48):
Right.
And you could barrel roll, youcould fly upside down, you could
do a lot of different thingswith this.
That's what it felt like.
But actually, it was just acomputer game attached to a
motion controlled pod.
Right.
And everybody had their own pod.
So I think there was five on oneside, five on the other, and the
two teams would fly against eachother.
Yeah.
And you wore flight helmets, youhad the headsets and the works,

(05:09):
but you had this full surrounddome built around you where you
could look around and around youknow, almost like 280 degrees
and see if someone's flyingabove you and that kind of
stuff.

SPEAKER_00 (05:19):
Yeah, and we and we see a variant of that as part of
the Great Electric Time Maze.

SPEAKER_04 (05:24):
Absolutely.
And then this so this is thatera.
This is the era where people aresaying, we've got this computer
technology and and and and andthe confluence of games and
movies are here.
Yeah, it's happening.
But but it really wasn't becausethe technology wasn't ready for
it yet.

SPEAKER_00 (05:42):
Yeah, it was very, very close.
Yeah.
And um, you know, we even seethis uh a few years later when
we look at the Disney Quest'sopening.
Yes.
Um, and even then it's not quitethere yet.
But uh we admire the ambition ofit, and and some of this seemed

(06:04):
to really work.

SPEAKER_04 (06:05):
Yes.
Some of it's amazing.
So where this really came outof, and and let's just talk
about this is not a Disneything.
Nope.
This is not Cedar Fair, this isyou know, this is an independent
thing, completely independent ofall these investors that uh it
was under a banner of a companycalled Fantaccini Limited, uh
created by uh Ray Bradbury, whohad put this all together with

(06:29):
the help of Forrest J.
Ackerman.

SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (06:31):
These two guys were old buddies in LA.
Long time.
Long time, all the way back tothe first world con.

SPEAKER_00 (06:38):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (06:38):
Uh so these two guys uh had a lot of connections.
Yeah.
And Ray Bradbury had a lot ofclout, and um uh there were
rumors, and I don't know if thisis true, yeah, but there were
rumors because okay, triviaquestion.
Uh-huh.
What high selling book isForrest J.
Ackerman associated with theselling of millions of copies

(07:02):
of?

SPEAKER_00 (07:03):
Um uh I'm gonna take a guess because we're talking
about Ray Bradbury the MartianChronicles?
No.
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (07:10):
Although, you know, although he was his literary
agent in in the good old days.
Forrest J.
Ackerman was responsible forhelping Bradbury kind of get
into magazines like SaturdayEvening Post, which is where he
published the The Beast from20,000 Fathoms.
Yes.
Which got ripped off and turnedinto a movie without his
knowledge, until his buddy, hisother buddy, Ray Harryhausen,

(07:32):
who was doing the animation,said, We need some help with the
script, and they showed it tohim, and he goes, Oh, this is
really good, but incidentally,it reminds me a lot about a
short story I wrote for theSaturday Evening Post.
They went, uh, oops.
Oopsie.
Oopsie.
No, uh, believe it or not, thebook that he's responsible for
selling millions of copies of isDianetics.

SPEAKER_00 (07:52):
Oh, because they were all buddies with L.
Ron Hubbard at that point.

SPEAKER_04 (07:56):
Right, back when he was just a science fiction
author.

SPEAKER_00 (07:58):
Right.
So there are rumors.

SPEAKER_04 (08:00):
Arguably he never was anything else.
No, no, there are rumors, andthis is gonna keep coming up.
You're gonna you're gonna listento this description of this
park, folks, and you're gonnastart kind of going, I can see
why this rumor might be takenwith some credence here.
Yeah.
Is that the rumor is that thispark was funded with a lot of
investors from the Church ofScientology.
Oh wow.

(08:21):
So we don't know, you know, likeuh we cannot substantiate.
I mean, John Travolta was one ofthe big celebs during the
ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Yeah.
Because he was, you know, freshon the heels of pulp fiction
during the opening of this film.
So it's like maybe I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 (08:39):
Yeah.
I mean, you know, he would havebeen a big deal at that point.

SPEAKER_04 (08:42):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
He had been a rising star, areturning star at that point.
Let's back up a little bit toit.

SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
Yeah.
So let's talk a little bit aboutlike kind of Bradbury as far as
how he fits into the scheme ofthings with theme parks.
Um, you know, it's a very famousstory, and and uh you always
have to preface stories that youget from Bradbury himself with
the fact that he is a writer offiction.
He is a writer of fiction, andhe is known to exaggerate

(09:09):
sometimes.
But he was friends with WaltDisney for a very long time.
And uh Ray Ray was never askedto work on any of the theme park
projects from Walt, ostensiblybecause Walt said to him, Ray,
you're a genius and I'm agenius, and we would kill each
other.

SPEAKER_04 (09:30):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's that's itif that's very evocative.
I mean, if you don't believethat, then read the accounts of
White Whale Emerald Isle.

SPEAKER_00 (09:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (09:39):
With you know, in which Bradbury describes his
experiences with John Houston,the making of Moby Dick.

SPEAKER_00 (09:45):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (09:45):
In which he almost he took a swing at John Houston
over the uh Orson Wells' speechon the pulpit.
Yeah.
And then Houston popped him out.
And then put his takeover as Igo, I admire a man who wants to
stand up for his art.

SPEAKER_00 (09:58):
I have to, I have to, I have to really admire
anyone that would take a swingat John Houston because I'm not
man enough.

SPEAKER_04 (10:06):
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 levelof, you know, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 (10:17):
So uh Bradbury did do some work in the uh, and we
always come back to it, the 1964Notta World's Fair.
Yep.
Um he wrote the uh s sort ofbasic outline of what the United
States Pavilion was supposed todo.
Um so he he that was kind of hisfirst foray as far as we know

(10:37):
into theme parks.
Then he was out of it for awhile, but after Walt died, um
Disney Imagineer started gettinginterested in Ray again.
And as Epcot was coming uh theywere they were sort of in a
weird nether realm where theyweren't sure if Epcot was gonna
go forward.

(10:58):
You know, it previously wassupposed to be a city, they
realized they were never gonnaget that done without Walt being
around.
Right.
Um they may maybe wouldn't havegotten it with him being around,
but without him, they were nevergonna be able to convince enough
people to make that work.
Sure.
So they were trying to figureout what to do, and they brought
a bunch of Disney executives andsome imagineers together for a

(11:22):
sort of come to Jesus meetingabout Epcot.
And who did they get to give aninspirational speech to get this
thing kicked into gear again?
But Ray Bradbury.
Oh yeah.
And um I watched the I I waslucky enough to have someone
send this to me uh a few monthsback, the actual video of that

(11:44):
speech.
And it's I mean, it's wonderful.
It's it is of its time.
And and so you have tounderstand that that Ray
Bradbury has some someold-fashioned traits that that
might not ring so pleasant thesedays.
Uh but but for the most part,he's smart, he's inspirational,

(12:07):
he's excited, and from thatpoint on, I don't know if it's
exactly at that moment, but itcertainly helped.
From that point on, the Epcotproject was back on.
Um, he really sold it.
And and he said, he says in thespeech, I will um I'm here for

(12:27):
you.
Nice.
Whatever you need me to do tomake this happen, I'm I'm here
to do.
Right.
Like I'm going to be around.
And also there was a little bitof, and I'm also watching you.
Because I was Walt's friend.
Yeah.
And and I'm gonna make sure thisworks out.

SPEAKER_04 (12:47):
Yeah, those giant coke bottle glasses of his.

SPEAKER_00 (12:50):
Yeah.
And he certainly was around forthe creation of Epcot.
And he he uh wrote the originalnarration for Spaceship Earth.
That's right.
He uh he does he designed a lotof what that was supposed to be
conceptually.
Um they didn't end up using allof his narration, but they used
hunks of it, and the ideas werestill pretty much there.
The Orbitron at Euro Disney,that was his wow.

(13:13):
That was like his design.
Huh.
So, you know, he he kind of hewas in and out of theme park
stuff.
Of course, we we all know aboutthe 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 (13:32):
Yeah, there's a stately oak tree in Disneyland,
and uh from 2007 onward, it hasbeen designated as the Halloween
tree, the official Halloweentree of Disneyland.
What's interesting about thatparticular Halloween tree is
that it is a paled, you know, uhimitation compared to the one
we're about to tell you aboutinside the giant electric maze.

(13:55):
You know, it's like anyway.

SPEAKER_00 (13:56):
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 fadedinto the background of that
project.
And then somewhere towards theend of the 80s, Ray gets an idea
and decides, and I don't know ifit's because he was unhappy

(14:18):
about what had happened at Epcotor he was excited about what had
happened at Epcot, but hedecided he could do something
better.

SPEAKER_04 (14:27):
You know, I have a feeling that Ray uh Ray is one
of these people that willdefinitely get an idea, a spark,
yeah, and just roll with it.
Yeah.
Probably has something to dowith something that happened to
him when he was 12 years old.
The uh legend goes is that hewas at a circus and he
encountered a uh professor, uhuh professor.
He was called Mr.

(14:48):
Electrico.
Yes.
And Mr.
Electrico, I mean, this was in1932.
Uh this guy did magic trickswith electricity, which at the
time was still kind of scary.
I mean, there's a reason thatFrankenstein, 1931, features him
being brought to life withelectricity because people are
still like afraid of thepossibilities of an electric

(15:08):
world.
Yeah.
Um, but in 1932, he uh thisperformer used electricity and
he had uh electric chair.
So I think what it is, it's it'san old carny gag in which you
can be exposed to high amountsof electricity as long as the
amperage is turned down.
Yeah.
Now, scientists, please correctme if I'm wrong.
It's one of the it's either thevolts or the amps, I think it's

(15:31):
the amperage.

SPEAKER_00 (15:31):
So kids don't listen to us.

SPEAKER_04 (15:34):
Don't do this until you have confirmation from an
actual trained scientist.
But it's one or the other, andif you turn down one or the
other, you can actually survivea huge amount of voltage as long
as the amperage is is dampened.
Okay.
So, and this was a common thingwhere, you know, it was ladies
who would sit in electric chairsand then they would put a light

(15:54):
bulb in their mouth.
And yeah.
And okay, so anyway, Mr.
Electrico apparently brought Rayup as as an assistant, and he
touched his shoulder with thiselectric sword and said, Live
forever.
That's right.
I've heard the story.
And that literally became healways claimed that this was
that moment where he suddenlyrealized, like, how am I gonna

(16:15):
do that?
Right.
And that's why he pursuedwriting and he felt inspired to
write daily, every single day hewrote.

SPEAKER_00 (16:21):
He did, yeah.
Do you know have you heard thestory about what he had on his
desk written on his desk so hecould see it all the time when
he was writing?
He had a little sign that he'dhandwritten that said, Don't
think.
And and his his theory ofwriting was that you get up in
the morning and you write, andyou just write like the Dickens,

(16:42):
and you try not to get in yourown way.
And um he he used to say, like,you you throw up in the morning,
you clean it up in theafternoon.

SPEAKER_04 (16:52):
Wow, that is such a ray thing to say.
Yes.
Um, so I think what'sinteresting is that with this
part, I think that's literallywhat he started out.
Because there is actually aproposal that he wrote, and I
think what is it, eight pageslong?
Yeah, it is.
But it reads like a run-onsentence.

(17:14):
So he obviously threw it up.

SPEAKER_00 (17:16):
Like we we know like Ray was pretty much like a
teetotaler, but man, it feelslike a coke-fueled night.

SPEAKER_02 (17:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (17:25):
If you get the wrong person to narrate this, yeah,
you know, you've got you've gotsome issues here.
But um, but it is a fascinatingread.
Kelly showed this to me, andthis is what sparked this uh
this episode is that we took alook at this, we're like, that
was the proposal for this park.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
And we went down the rabbit holeexploring photographs and video

(17:47):
and old VHS, you know, uhcaptures of this thing.
Right.
And it is insane.
And we just like the more andmore we learned, the more and
more we were bemoaning the factwe never actually got to see
this in person.

SPEAKER_00 (17:59):
It sounds amazing.
I've I've got the like theopening lines of this thing, the
the proposal.
It says, eat, live, shop, past,present, future, explore the
pyramid, hunt the dinosaur, fallout beyond Andromeda, run from
the dark ACDC hound, get lostand split in a thermonuclear

(18:23):
lab.
All in one place.
Yes.
The time maze.
So he he had this kind of crazyidea, and he seemed to get
funding from somewhere.
Uh don't ask, don't tell, Idon't know.
But Church of Scientology.
Yeah.

(18:44):
And along the way, he seemed tohe found someone that was able
to kind of bring the stuff downfrom the heavens and turn it
into something practical andbuildable.
And that was our old buddy JoeRoadie.

SPEAKER_04 (19:03):
Ah, Joe.

SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
Yay, Joe.
For those of you who don't knowabout Joe Roadie, and if you've
been listening to us for awhile, I'd be surprised.
But uh Joe Roadie is mostfamously known for the being the
creator of Disney Animal KingdomPark in in Florida, um, which
is, and yes, I'm saying this outloud, which is my favorite of

(19:26):
the Florida parks.
It used to be Epcot, but thingshave changed.
But yeah, that was his hisdesign.
He designed the ExpeditionEverest coaster there.
He designed the uh Guardians ofthe Galaxy overlay that's now in
California Adventure.
He designed a lot of stuff.

(19:48):
He designed most of the uh or aton of stuff in Ohlone, their uh
Hawaii resort.
Um but one of the earliest bighits for him was a thing that he
designed from the now long-goneDisney Pleasure Island, which
was the Adventurers Club.

(20:08):
This was Joe Rhody's baby.

SPEAKER_04 (20:10):
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (20:10):
And it is one of the most magical experiences I've
ever had in a themed environmentever.
It was incredible.
I only got to go there once, andI I wish I could have gone
again.
Uh just incredible.
But this was a place where itwas a 1930s club that was
staffed with eccentriccharacters who were all like

(20:33):
world adventurers.
Um, you know, this this at thetime they hadn't really defined
the SEA thing, the Society forExplorers and Adventurers.
But this was very much the rootof that.
Right.
And they got r retconned into itlater.
Um, but it was it was magical.
Animatronics on the wall, youknow, secret shows in the

(20:54):
parlor.
You could, you know, go behind afake wall and there'd be a ghost
playing piano in the library.

SPEAKER_04 (21:01):
I always loved the talking uh Greek masks.
Yes.

SPEAKER_00 (21:04):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (21:06):
They were filthy.

SPEAKER_00 (21:07):
They were so good, though.
Oh, so good.
It was just so much fun.
And and so you know, you kind ofhe finished with that project.
It was just about to go live.
Um he was looking for his nextthing to do, and here's Ray
Bradbury.
Right.
And he's like, Well, let's seeif we can put this together.
And they start to kind of form ateam and they start to get

(21:29):
funding, and by God, they buildthe damn thing.
Right.
Let's talk about where it is.
Yes.
Was so it's outside of RayBradbury's hometown of Waukegan,
Illinois.
Yes.
Also Jack Benny's hometown.

SPEAKER_04 (21:45):
That's wild.

SPEAKER_00 (21:46):
Yeah.
And they came from the sameplace.

SPEAKER_04 (21:47):
Okay.
Um that explains a very similarsense of humor between the two
of them.
It does.

SPEAKER_00 (21:52):
Yeah, actually.
Yeah.
And um and and Bradburyworshipped Jack Benny.

SPEAKER_04 (21:57):
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (21:58):
Just loved him.

SPEAKER_04 (21:59):
Yeah.
So for those who don't knowwhere where Joaquegan is, it's
right on the eastern coast of uhLake Michigan, south
southeastern shore of uh LakeMichigan, between Milwaukee and
Chicago.
Yeah.
So if you were to travel up thecoast of the lakes, you'd you'd
find it right there.
It's like I think one of thecloser is Kenosha.
You know, it's it's Evanston,Kenosha, Joaquegan, etc.

SPEAKER_00 (22:22):
Okay.
Anyway.
Kenosha, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_04 (22:24):
Yep.
But it's a teeny little place.

SPEAKER_00 (22:27):
Yeah.
So it so they uh initially theywere talking about trying to
build it there.
That didn't quite work out for alot of reasons.
Joaquegan's right on the lake.
And as someone who lived likehalf a block from Lake Michigan,
um, I will tell you that is nota place that you want to build a
tourist thing.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (22:47):
It's very it's very stark in the winter.
Yes.
Very, very stark in the winter.
Yeah, I mean, there was therewas talk about putting it um out
near the north shore, maybe outby the harbor, you know, trying
to go for like a Coney Island ofapproach, but the real estate
just didn't exist for it.

SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (23:02):
You know, there's municipal beaches, there's, you
know, and also they're too closeto the nature preserves.

SPEAKER_00 (23:08):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (23:08):
So they actually built it just a little bit
further east, not too faractually, but just a little bit
further east in a town calledGurney.
Yeah.
And uh it's it's right there,right next to the Lake Carina
Forest Preserve.
So you go through that and thatcreated enough windbreak.
And they found a spot of land.
It's not huge, but it's bigenough for this idea.

(23:31):
Yeah.
And it sits between th uhWashington Street and the 132.
So there's a huge turnpike rightnear it.
Yeah.
Yeah, apparently right there,they built this theme park.

SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (23:45):
And it's it's kind of shaped like a hexagon.
Yes.
The lands the landscape allowedit to actually have this kind of
hexagon approach.
Yeah.
But the hexagon is merely thereal estate.
The entire park itself is justone giant series of circles.
And we'll get to that for uhthere's a reason for that.

SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
Yeah, most most everything you experience in
this theme park is inside.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they definitely they theylearned things from uh I would
say primarily like from Piratesof the Caribbean.

SPEAKER_04 (24:13):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (24:13):
Like they learned how to make an indoor space seem
like it's outdoors.

SPEAKER_04 (24:17):
Oh, yeah.
There's a lot of that going onhere.
Yeah.
And and to great effect,actually.
There was a lot of this.
I mean, at the right about thesame time, some of the same
people who built a lot of theseattractions worked in Vegas at
the time.
This is when Vegas was trying tobe uh family friendly.

SPEAKER_00 (24:32):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (24:32):
So there was a lot of these design firms that
worked on this.
Uh there was one guy who isworked with Joe Roadie on this
one.
Yeah.
He would later go on to workwith Disney again as the main
designer uh for uh the uh MysticManor in Shanghai.
Uh-huh.
His name is Joe Lanziero.

(24:52):
Yeah.
And he was more of one of thedesigners.
He wasn't really in charge, buthe was definitely one of the key
designers.
He designed tons of attractionsfor Disney later on.
Toy Storylands, uh, a lot ofstuff for the new Splash
Mountain.
He worked with Don Carson onthat one.

SPEAKER_00 (25:08):
Yeah, he's he's a neat guy.
I've heard him interviewed, andhe's he's real fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 (25:12):
I've had the honor of having lunch with him thanks
to Don Carson.
Have you?
We went to lunch, the three ofus in Pasadena, California.
Yeah.
And he was fascinating.
He's a little quirky, but he'sfascinating and he's got
fabulous sensibilities aboutdesign.
And you can see it in MysticManor.
And actually, yeah, some of hisattractions that he worked on uh

(25:34):
in the time maze, you candefinitely see the influence
later on in Mystic Manor.
Yeah.
So we'll talk about that in aminute.

SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
And and you know, these are very rudimentary
versions of these.

SPEAKER_04 (25:45):
Right.
Because remember, this is1987-88 when they're developing
this.
Yeah.
Because it opens in 1989.
Yeah.
So they've got two years to putthis all together.
So the design process is goingoff of what's available in the
late 80s to us.
Yeah.
What's high tech in the late80s?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (26:01):
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 highdefinition stuff, but we kind of
fudge it.
Just turn up the lumens, it'llbe fine.
And and we have design.
Yep.
And this is what sells this.

SPEAKER_04 (26:20):
Yeah.
And it's amazing how many Disneypeople actually wound up working
on this.
Yeah.
Uh we'll talk about a few othersurprises.
Yeah.
Some that saw it all the waythrough, some that didn't.
Yeah.
So it's interesting, like wholike got brought on board for a
little bit, but didn't quite seeit all the way through.
Yeah.
You know, but still, butLanziero and Rhody are two, like

(26:41):
these two powerhouses werereally responsible for giving it
the whimsy that it needed.

SPEAKER_00 (26:45):
Yeah.
So let's talk a little bit aboutlike what it is.
Yes.
The way that Bradbury kind ofdefined it in his writing, and
this is sort of how it playsout, is that there's three
separate things that he callstime mazes.
Yeah.
It's a weird way that he putsit, because really only the
second one is well, uh no, letme take that back.

(27:07):
Um they they are sort of timemazes, but the the meat of it is
in the second one.

SPEAKER_04 (27:11):
Yeah, I mean the the other way to think about it is
when he says maze, he's actuallytalking about what Disneyland
would say is a land.
Yes.
Because there are differentsections, because he actually
writes about this in theproposal where he says, You
can't get there from here, or ifyou're not careful, arriving's a
bore.
Yeah.
Being on a journey is the wayand the life, and being lost is

(27:31):
the best of all.
And that was the point, is hewanted you to get lost in this
place.
Yeah.
So that way you would have thatelement of discovery every time
you would turn a corner, youwould go, Wow, look at that.
Oh, I gotta do this.
And I wonder what's over here.
Yeah.
Like he definitely understoodthe power of the Disney weenie.
Yes.

(27:52):
You know, having that objectthat draws you to the next spot
where you want the audience togo in imagineering terms.
But he he wanted you toexperience the mystery of
exploration.
Right.
Which is very, veryforward-thinking for him because
uh much later, I mean, bytoday's standards, you have
attractions like Meowwolf.
Yeah, that's all that it's aboutis get lost, find your way

(28:14):
around, and the story develops,you know, these where it's like
there may not be a fully fleshedout narrative in every single
part of this, but that's thepoint.

SPEAKER_00 (28:23):
Yeah, and and it's interesting to me the points at
which he says this has a fairlystrict 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 veryforward thinking, because this
is this is something that yousee, um, you know, we've talked

(28:43):
about interactivity a lot, andand you see it in like, you
know, Disney's uh uh attempts atStar Wars themed lands and and
Universalist attempts at HarryPotter themed lands, and trying
to figure out how much you canforce someone into a plot um

(29:04):
before it either becomes tooclunky or they decide they don't
want to be in that plot.
Got it.
Um and so he you know, he hetries he tries to have his cake
and eat it too here.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Exactly.
And this this may be what's sofascinating about it and
partially why it ultimatelydidn't work.
No.
But let's let's talk about sothe the the first time maze.

SPEAKER_04 (29:28):
Yes, time maze one, which if you were looking down
on this park, um you have to youkind of have to picture um a
classic style of medievallabyrinth.
Yes.
But within that labyrinth, thereare actually three even smaller
labyrinths embedded within it.

(29:49):
Yeah.
So it's almost like a triangle.
So if you're looking down onimagine a big circle with a uh a
big central circle in themiddle, like a like a bullseye
target.
Right.
And on Outside of that, thereare three other smaller
labyrinths built around that.
And so it kind of forms like atriangle on the inside of a

(30:09):
circle.
Yeah.
Um with the with the pointpointing downwards.
So in the south, southern partof the park, that's the tip of
the triangle.
And I'm I'm pointing like crazyhead, kind of going, yeah, I see
it.
Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 (30:20):
It's okay, the pointing doesn't help.

SPEAKER_04 (30:25):
So it's these three mazes, but then the rest of the
park is encircled and ensnaredby all these other smaller
things that take you to thesedifferent mazes.

SPEAKER_00 (30:33):
Yeah, and and I will say this about everything I've
looked at, everything I've readabout this park, it is I think
this is part of the brillianceof it.
I cannot figure where out wherethings are.
Like I'm like, I I get thatthey're kind of talking about
this area, but how do you getfrom this area to I don't
understand it?

SPEAKER_04 (30:53):
Again, because a lot of its interior.
So all you really saw this.
I mean, yes, there were parkmaps, but the park maps are even
done with this highly designystyle.
Yeah.
Almost on purpose just to messwith you.
Yeah.
Like the whole point was likethat we don't want you to have a
map.
We want you to get lost.
Like that's you know, get lostand be found.

(31:14):
What yeah, that's the point.
Yeah.
We want you to explore.
We want you to have this senseof like, I don't know where this
is going.
Let's find out.
Right.
So, like, it's the first themepark that did that, like
intentionally.

SPEAKER_00 (31:26):
Yeah.
Not telling you where stuff was.
Yeah, it's uh so it is truly aproto-meowolf.

SPEAKER_04 (31:32):
So, yeah, let's talk about the first maze here.
Yes.
So the first maze uh is insane.
When you read about it, in itlike he writes like this massive
description of it in theproposal.
Yes.
One thing that Bradbury, in asfar as imagineering terms, uh
huh, is he was a master at BlueSky.

(31:53):
Yes.
He's Brad like as far as like hewins the Academy Award of Blue
Sky.
And for those who don't knowwhat that means, the the the the
three of you who don't knowPapua New Guinea, if you're
listening to this podcast, youprobably know what Blue Sky
means.
But Blue Sky, the term isbasically it's at the very
beginning of a project, usuallyat Imagineering, which is where
it really came from.

(32:13):
Yeah.
And it's the let's just throwstuff 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 toanything 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?

(32:35):
We'll get to the feasibilitylater.

SPEAKER_00 (32:37):
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (32:37):
But let's just blue sky and see what happens.
Yeah.
Having gone through this processwith Don Carson and Joe Lanziero
on a project, um that was justduring lunch.
We would blue sky at each other.
Yeah.
It's a fun game to do.
Totally.
But I actually did work with DonCarson on a project.
It was meant to be a parade.
Uh-huh.
And the Blue Sky project, he wasvery strict.

(32:59):
You cannot say no.
Yeah.
Because I would say, well, wecan't do that because nope.
It's blue sky, Pete.
You can't say no.
Right.
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (33:06):
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 morningand clean up later.

SPEAKER_04 (33:12):
That's why Bradbury was amazing at it.
And you can see it in thisproposal.
Because I'm looking at theparagraph now, it's the longest
one in the whole dang thing, inwhich he mostly just talks about
the food you're going to eat.
Yes.
Because I think his expectationis oh, well, you're going to
wake up and then you're going topack up the family in the
station wagon.
I don't know because I don'tdrive.

(33:33):
Yeah.
And then he didn't.
He didn't drive.
He never did.

SPEAKER_00 (33:36):
He never never drove a car.
He rode a bicycle all the time.
Yeah.
And he lived in Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_04 (33:41):
I know.
It's like, I gotta go toClifton's.
Yeah.
Well, and actually I'll talkabout that in just a second.
Yeah, that'll come up.
But I dropped that name, butit's very important.
Um, yeah.
So this whole thing, hisexpectation, I guess, was at
some point, you're gonna have toeat.
Yeah.
So might as well get it overwith.
So in this proposal, it's likestart with a big meal.

SPEAKER_00 (34:01):
Yeah.
You know, yeah, there yeah,there seems to be a sense of
you're about to have a hugeadventure, you'd better be well
fed before you start.
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (34:09):
Yeah.
Right.
And this and this descriptionis, 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 thefalafel, which wanders over to
the strudel and the cream bunand the coffee and the apetatif
outdoor cafe.

(34:29):
What?
Right, and it goes on and on,but actually, what it really
just turned out to be a foodcourt with a serpentine.
Yes.
Which is a shame.
Yeah.
But there were some greatfeatures to it.
So it was like an internationaleatery in the center.
So that's that center circle inthe main maze.
Because there was one longavenue that took you straight up

(34:51):
through the middle of thecircle.
Yeah.
And there was actually a trolleythat went along that route.
It kind of went up, it's like alollipop.
It goes up, it circles the maincenter area, it circumnavigates
the the central circle and takesyou back out to the front again.
Yeah.
And that was the tea trolley.
Yes.
And the tea trolley is adorable.

SPEAKER_00 (35:10):
Yeah, it's it because it is both a sort of
Disneyland's main street kind ofattraction and a place where you
can actually eat and get tea.

SPEAKER_04 (35:18):
Yeah, and there were three of them.
Yeah.
There were all three of them.
And um, and they were all namedafter their respective wives.
Yes.
Bradbury, um, Ackerman, andHarryhausen.
They were all named after thefirst names of all their wives.
So sweet.
You know, like how Lily Bell islike one of the same thing.
So it's, you know, the the trthe three T trolleys.

(35:40):
Yeah.
And one was dark green, one waskind of like this nice rustic
red, and one was black withgold, you know, stuff all over
them.
Right.
And they all had like their ownpersonalities.
And they were, they were not,when you think of trolley in a
streetcar, we're not talking SanFrancisco.

SPEAKER_00 (35:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (35:55):
We're talking Los Angeles.
So very 1930s, streamlined,beautiful amber lit on the
inside, the really nice polishedmetal everywhere.
These fun little I I rememberseeing a picture of the inside
of one of these things.
It was it was a dining car.

SPEAKER_00 (36:12):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (36:12):
And one side had regular benches.
So like if you were just goingto go into the park, you could
sit on the benches.
But if you wanted to keep ridingthis thing and actually have
some tea, service was on theleft side.
Yeah.
Because the service, you wouldget into the tea trolley,
apparently, and you would startriding and you wouldn't be
served tea until it arrived atthe first uh station.

(36:35):
Yeah.
So you had this whole long wayof going into the park to look
at the menu, which only had fiveitems.
Yeah, right.
You know, like if Bradbury hadany limited space.
It was limited space.
You get a slice of cheese and aschlitz beer, right?
Yeah.
If it was Bradbury's choice.
Yeah, of course.
But you know, you get you get uhyou pick which cookie you want
and you pick what type of teayou want.

(36:56):
Yeah.
You know, and then a glass ofwater or something like that.
So they know you're only gonnabe on this thing for 15 minutes.
Yeah.
And it was it was the mostpeople actually opted to just
grab the tea and leave.
Yeah.
But there were some diehards whowould just like, nope, I'm gonna
stay here.
It was it was pretty great.

(37:17):
So you'd be served through thewindow.
Yeah, yeah, which is amazing, soclever.
Yeah, there's no waiters.
You you put the order in andthen you would clip your order
on the outside of the window andyou pull up to the station, the
people go click, click, click,and then off you go.
And they would they would callit in.
Yeah.
They would say seat number 14has two tea, you know, two
darjeelings with a oatmealcookie.

(37:39):
Yeah.
This person just wants an icedtea.
And they just gave it you papercups.
You didn't have like porcelainor anything.
Yeah.
During the opening, they had youknow, they they show people it's
all fancy and everybody's infake costumes, but you get your
tea and you could sit there andeat it.
Yeah.
But once you were done, you wereexpected to leave.
Yeah, get off.

SPEAKER_00 (37:56):
Get off.
Get out of here.
And there there was it, it'sit's true that uh, you know,
Bradbury's kind of dreams ofthese um uh sort of idealized
different kinds of cuisinesthrough the maze didn't quite
pan out.
No.
Um and and and and you can againsee his like attachment to like
Angelino culture with that.

(38:18):
Like it this is very much whatlike going through heavily
restaurante areas.
The Lowdown on the Plus Up is aBoardwalk Times podcast.
At Boardwalk Times.net, you'llfind some of the most

(38:40):
well-considered and insightfulwriting about the Walt Disney
Company, Disney history, and theuniverse of theme parks
available anywhere.
Come join us atBoardwalkTimes.net.

(39:09):
It doesn't quite work.
The logistics of making fooddoesn't quite hold together um
with that.
But he did have one large formalrestaurant in this section that
is pretty much exactly as hedescribed it.
And this was a restaurant on onthe giant locomotive car.

SPEAKER_04 (39:30):
Oh yes.
Oh yes.
That's that circles the sea ofeats, as it calls it.

SPEAKER_00 (39:35):
And really, it doesn't move at all.
No, but no.
And and so there's uh there's aDisney tie here.
Like uh late in his career, thegreat the great Roger Brogy, who
designed much of the trains inDisneyland, designed a ton of
stuff for Disneyland.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, and uh in many ways was asresponsible for the beginning of
animatronics as anybody else.

(39:56):
Oh yeah.
But uh Bro Brogy designed thiscar.
Um probably more as a favor thananything.
And what happened was so it itwas this was a meal that you had
to have reservations for.
So this was not something youThis is their blue bayou.
Yes, very much so.
Yeah.
Um a couple of seatings a day.
Every meal was a differentcuisine.

(40:20):
And what would happen is youwould show up for your seating,
you'd you'd get in your diningcar seating, and the train would
ostensibly take off.

SPEAKER_04 (40:29):
Yep.

SPEAKER_00 (40:30):
And it you know, it would rock a little and there
was steam coming out of the thefront of it, and they would show
uh projections through on thesides of the windows.
Yep.
He writes about this in hisproposal.
And and they they link up towhatever the cuisine is.
So if if it's if it's uh uhChinese cuisine, you're

(40:53):
traveling on a train throughChina.
Uh-huh.
And if it's Italian cuisine,you're traveling through, you
know, wh whatever, like Puglesior whatever.
And and so it's it's amulti-course experience, it's
expensive, but reallyfascinating.

SPEAKER_04 (41:08):
I mean, I I mean, can you imagine like you're
you're you're handed your uhyou're handed your uh plate of
spaghetti.
Yeah.
You know, and it's all Italianocuisine, and you're like
traveling along the train, andyou you're just like chuk chok
chuk chok chuk chug, and out yououtside the window you see the
Venice.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.

(41:28):
And like, wow, this is amazing.
And you go the second day, andthen 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 isamazing.
Yeah.
And what's interesting is thateven though the technology at
the time was was touted, oh,yeah, this is state of the art.

(41:50):
The technology is very similarto the Terousel of Progress.
It's not actually a train.
That's the secret of this.
It's a moving, rotatingbuilding, very much like some of
the rotating restaurants thatare all over America.

SPEAKER_00 (42:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (42:07):
But instead of building one giant circle, they
build an even bigger track, butonly have a portion of the
building moving at one time.
So it looks like a train, butit's actually a moving building.
Yeah.
With a huge centrifuge poweringthe whole thing in the middle,
with different kitchen stations.
So if you put in an order andyou're like you made a mistake,

(42:29):
you got to wait until thatbuilding comes around to the
next portion so they can callahead of him.
Make sure he's got some tea attable five.
Yeah.
You know, so it's like, okay,you know, but it gives you time.
So basically it was like threerotations per meal.
Yeah.
So you get on and it's moving soslow, it's you know, chugging
along.
But it was it was that chuggingalong that gave you the motion.

(42:51):
Right.
But it's the monitors that makeit feel faster than what it
actually is.
Yeah.
So it feels like you're going onthis long journey.
Right.
But in fact, it's only like 45minutes.
You know, it takes 15 minutes togo 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 betoo big.
Yeah.
So, but yet that technology andthat notion, what I love about

(43:14):
this, yeah, is you you readabout this and you kind of go,
wait a minute, isn't that theHogwarts Express?

SPEAKER_00 (43:19):
It is exactly the Hogwarts.

SPEAKER_04 (43:20):
And that's it.
It's just it's the HogwartsExpress, only Hogwarts Express
now actually has bettertechnology.
But this was kind of like theinspiration for the Hogwarts
Express.

SPEAKER_00 (43:29):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean universal.
It's crazy.
There's a there's a lot of stuffthat that we run across here in
this park that is uh we see infull fruition later.

SPEAKER_04 (43:40):
Oh yeah.
Uh this is a park that the bluesky exceeded the capabilities of
almost everything that everybodywas was able to do at the time.
What the the the problem withthis particular tract, and as
wonderful as it looked, yeah,um, is that once you've done it,
you've done it.

(44:00):
It's like, yeah.
I don't know if I mean therewere some diehards, yeah.
But the majority of people whowent to this park, it's like,
okay, you gotta do it at leastonce.
Yeah, that's all you can afford.

SPEAKER_00 (44:13):
So yeah, you're you're right.
You kind of do it once andyou've you've done it.
And that's true about this andespecially Time Maze 2.

SPEAKER_04 (44:22):
Yeah.
But uh, I do want to mention onelast thing is the influence of
this Sea of Eats, as he loved tocall it, yeah.
Uh was one of his favoriteeateries in Los Angeles.
Yeah.
And it's actually where he metForrest J.
Ackerman and Ray Bradbury, whichis a uh uh place called
Clifton's Cafeteria, yes,downtown Los Angeles.
Recently reopened, right?

(44:43):
Uh yes, it's not an eatery rightnow.
It is still mostly just a barbecause uh it got shut down
during the pandemic.
Yeah.
And then it reopened, but for awhile it was still a full-on
eatery.
Wow.
Um in its heyday in the 30s whenit opened, it was serving up to
50,000 people a day.

(45:04):
Yeah.
A day.
Yeah.
And Clifford Clinton, who openedit, uh ran it with the golden
rule, which was uh he wanted toserve the community because this
was built during the depression.
Yeah.
So he's like, if you can pay forit, pay for it.
And if you can't, we'll worksomething else out.

SPEAKER_00 (45:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (45:19):
Come back when you can.

SPEAKER_00 (45:20):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (45:21):
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 sureeverybody's fed.
And people like Walt Disney,Jack Kerouac, all these people
would go to it.
And if you've never seen thisthing, Google it.
It's insane.
Yeah.
It's like three or four storiestall.
There are there's tons of crazytaxidermy.
There was a river runningthrough a little swish of

(45:41):
village.
It even had a tiny little chapelwith a neon cross over the top
of it.
Yeah.
I mean, you see the influence ofDisneyland from Cliftons,
because Walt went there a lot.
Yeah.
But Bradbury apparently wentthere 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 episodeabout that place at some point

(46:03):
because it is nuts.
Yeah.
But Google it.
It's it's there's a Huhl Hauserepisode where they talk about
it, and it's worth watch.

SPEAKER_00 (46:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (46:10):
Um, but that was one of the influences for the Sea of
Eats.
So that takes us to our nextmaze.
Time Maze II.
Time Maze Two, otherwise knownas it's the maze that is across
an abyss of stars, separatedfrom the first maze straight
down and seemingly straight upby a billion light years of
stars in all directions.

(46:31):
In order to cross over theabyss, there are a number of
game stations where the head ofany party of two or three or
four or more would play a laserbeam game, which, if won,
totaling up to some particularsum, would cause a bridge to jut
out across from one side of thefirst maze to the second maze.

SPEAKER_00 (46:50):
Wow.
So that's the proposal.
Um didn't quite work out though.
No, but we got we got some ofit.
It's pretty close, though.
Time maze two is in many wayswhat 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

(47:11):
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 partitionedentry to get to Time Maze 2.
So there wasn't so much a gameor a thing you did with lasers
shooting stuff to score points.
But you did collect in front ofwhat looked like a kind of long

(47:33):
bridge over an abyss.
Of course it wasn't an abyss.
Uh it was it was more like itwas more like um, you know,
London in the Peter Pan ride.

SPEAKER_04 (47:42):
Yes.
It's actually a very old trickand 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 thatimpression of that.

SPEAKER_00 (47:56):
Now the way that that Bradbury describes the
entrance to Time Maze 2 is thatit is sort of like two pyramids
kind of in on top of each other.
One one's right side up andone's upside down, they're on
top of each other.
And they're spinning in space,and there's like hieroglyphs,

(48:19):
and there's pictures like ofscientific symbols, and there's
j- I mean, it's just basicallyif 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 Isay this word, Trump Louel?

(48:41):
Trump Trump Lloy.
Trumploy, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 (48:43):
Trump Lloyd.

SPEAKER_00 (48:44):
They had a kind of Trump Lloyd of these sort of two
pyramids.
And they were a little bit faraway and they were lit cleverly.
And um there was someprojections that were kind of
giving a sense of motion andsome neon on there that was sort
of looking like, oh, this is anarcane symbol and this is an
arcane symbol.
It wasn't bad.

(49:04):
You know who they got to drawthe to to paint the Trump law?
No.
They got this is gonna blow yourmind.
They got Marta Beckett to do it.
Because as you know, she was anactual talented painter.
Wow.
And it was one of the few timesthat she actually left Amargosa

(49:25):
to work on anything.

SPEAKER_04 (49:26):
I was about to say, like her theater was like
without a performance for acouple of nights.

SPEAKER_00 (49:31):
Yeah, and and she did this every once in a while.
Like she would go to New Yorkand and like see friends and
stuff, but it didn't happen veryoften.
Wow.
Um now Bradbury and Beckett,they were friends.
Really?
Yeah, Bradbury deeply admiredher.
Huh.
Um there's a there's a greatdocumentary.
I should probably back up andexplain who Marta Beckett is.
So uh there's a documentarycalled called Ambergosa, and

(49:54):
Bradbury's in it a lot.
He just thinks of her as one ofthe United States' greatest
eccentrics.
And and she is, uh, was she shepassed away ten years ago?
Something like that, yeah.
Marta Beckett is this woman, shewas a dancer.
She was traveling cross-countrywith her husband, I believe, at

(50:16):
the time.
They were driving through DeathValley Junction in the Nevada
Desert, and they found this oldkind of abandoned theater.
It wasn't being used for much,and Marta just never left.
She somehow bought the theater,she renovated it.

(50:38):
Okay.
She she basically painted anaudience.
Oh, yeah.
Renovated the stage, and starteddoing dance performances for a
long time to nobody.
Just to the fake audience.
And this was how how she becamesort of famous was that so
someone got wind of this, and Ithink they sent someone from
like Life or Time Magazine tosee what was going on.

(51:00):
And true, it sure was.

SPEAKER_04 (51:03):
Always have her audience.

SPEAKER_00 (51:04):
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, andI've been there, I've seen this.
She did these uh Trump Lloy, isthat right?
Trump Lloyd.
Trump Lloyd, thank you.
It means to fool the eye.
Yeah, like Myrna Loy.
Okay, right, there you go.

SPEAKER_04 (51:23):
So she didn't fool the eye a lot.

SPEAKER_00 (51:25):
Yeah.
Oh boy, did she?
Um, so she did these these TrumpLloyd paintings all through the
the Amargosa Hotel, which isattached to the Amargosa Opera
House.
Wow.
So you could go stay at thehotel, and what would happen,
and I did this, is at night,people would go out and wander

(51:46):
through the halls with likeflashlights, um, just looking
for the paintings and listeningfor ghosts because people
believed that the hotel washaunted.
Well, we have to go on the roadfor that one.
It was it's super cool, but shewas a talented Trump Lloyd
painter.

SPEAKER_04 (52:03):
I'm looking at a photograph of it now.
There's all these Tromp Lloydpaintings of of the of the uh
theater here.
Yeah.
And what I love is that rightsmack dab in the front row,
there's a wood stove.
Yeah, yeah.
Like a functioning wood stove.
Because this is a you know, turnof the century little adobe
style building on the exterior,but the interior has this very

(52:23):
like Baroque, almost Rococostyle painting.
Yeah.
It's there's like suits of armorand jugglers and wrestlers and
people in suits of armor and allthese eccentric people up in the
box seat.
It's like the Muppet Show.
Yeah.
It's so, and then there's likethis crappy wooden floor and
like these well-worn velvetseats.
But the paintings are amazing.

(52:45):
Yeah, so she did the Trump Lloydin in the first maze, huh?

SPEAKER_00 (52:49):
Yeah, so the one that's the entrance, the two the
two giant pyramids.
And I suspect it was justBradbury trying to give her a
job to make her a little moneyto keep her going.
Oh, yeah, gotta get to get newbeds in the hotel.
Yeah.
They could use them.
So anyway, in interesting.
And so you would kind of walkacross this fake bridge and
enter into what was justessentially a doorway in the uh

(53:13):
wall under the giant paintings.
But it was still kind of a neateffect.

SPEAKER_04 (53:17):
Of course.
Yeah.
I mean, that's pretty it'spretty great.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (53:22):
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 away, like you could you could
experience some of theattractions in Maze 2
independently.

SPEAKER_02 (53:39):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 (53:39):
But that really wasn't the way to do it.
The way to do it was toparticipate in the story.
You know, you'd you'd come inand you're in this like kind of
crazy um science lab, but it'sit's like a science lab from so
many different eras in history.
You know, it's it's it'sFrankenstein and it's, you know,
Tobor the Great, and it's justevery science lab you can

(54:03):
imagine.
And in the center of it is thisbig circular thing that they
call the time centrifuge.

SPEAKER_04 (54:13):
It's pretty wild.
Uh this area, I should make anote on the designer of this
inner area.
Yeah.
So this gentleman actuallycontributed 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 Hokestarted working on a book.

(54:35):
Uh excuse me, a book called TheMuseum 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 actuallygiven you a copy, but apparently
I have to put this one.
This thing actually explores itit it opens your brain up to
limal thought.

(54:55):
Okay.
And that's what Bradbury reallyadmired about this guy's
designs.
And so some of the designs thatwere in Bradbury's time maze
actually wound up in this book.
Yeah.
So he started thinking aboutthis.
He was just coming on board justto design the space.
Yeah.
But actually, it actually thethe mind-expanding phil
philosophy of spatial design,inspiration, and exploration

(55:18):
really came out of uh his workwith Bradbury on this.
Yeah.
And so it actually wound up inhis book.
And guys, if you've not gottenyour hands on this book, it
actually has like pop-out, youbuild the museum.
Oh.
It has pop-out paper thingswhere you build this particular
branch of the museum, thatbranch of the museum.
Yeah.
And he actually has a couple ofother things, and it's all about

(55:39):
mapping the mind and inspiringyou.
Because Hulk's approach to itwas you have to be, you have to
understand the museum is a hallof inspiration.
It's not just a cabinet ofcuriosities, come look at my
stuff.
Right.
The term museum means a room ofthe muse.
Oh, huh.
Okay.
That's where it that's where weget it.

(55:59):
So, like the premise of theMuseum of Lost Wonder is that it
is a hall for you to findinspiration.
And sometimes when you firststart on your journey, it
doesn't make any sense.
Right.
But when you come out of it, itmakes sense in your mind because
you have your journey builds awhole map, which again became
Bradbury's, you know, for thetime maze became the inspiration

(56:19):
for a map that doesn't haveanything actually on it.
Right.
So, yeah.
So, anyway, that's that's one ofthe designers of this particular
section in Maze 2 was Jeff Hoke.

SPEAKER_00 (56:29):
Oh, that's so interesting.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (56:31):
So, yeah, definitely check out the book.
It's worth it.

SPEAKER_00 (56:33):
And there's there's a lot about this uh section.
This is kind of the introductionto the adventures you're about
to go on.
Yes, which is great, because inthe proposal he actually refers
to guests as the adventurers.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you you go in, there's thisgiant centrifuge thing in the
center.
They there's um you sort of haveguides that work there, and

(56:55):
you're in a group of 30-ishpeople, and some you they choose
someone in in your group.

SPEAKER_04 (57:02):
I love how Bradbury writes it.
A boy or a girl, preferably.

SPEAKER_00 (57:08):
For some reason.

SPEAKER_04 (57:10):
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 theyesterrow centrifuge.
That's the name of theattraction.
The yes tomorrow centrifuge.

SPEAKER_00 (57:20):
Yeah.
Yep.
And they so the the someone islike going to try the time
centrifuge.
They're gonna do they're gonnaum do do uh a sample of it.
And you know, so they choosesomeone, they send them in the
centrifuge, everyone gets tovote on which of a series of
time places they want to go to.
Bad idea.

(57:40):
They fire the thing up, killHitler.
And much like the uhextraterrestrial alien encounter
ride in Florida, things gohorribly wrong.

SPEAKER_02 (57:51):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (57:54):
You lose the person that has been pulled out of your
group.
Uh, you know, uh ostensibly it'sobviously it's an actor or
something.
Right.
And where do you think they getthe meat for the train ride?

SPEAKER_04 (58:05):
Ah no, I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking.

SPEAKER_00 (58:10):
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 toget in the centrifuge.
Right.
And so you all go in thecentrifuge and try and and
figure and you start havingadventures through time.

SPEAKER_04 (58:29):
And what it is, guys, is I've seen a fo some
photos and designs of thisthing.
It is a room that accommodatesup to 30 people with all these
seats, but all the seats aresitting in a circle.
There's two rows, and those tworows all face into the center.
Yeah.
But the whole top of it, all theseats are leaned back like an
old classic planetarium.

(58:51):
Yeah.
So you're actually looking at adome.
So it's a dome projection systemthat required eight projectors,
all synchronized to make itwork.
Neat.
So when it moves, yes, you areactually moving.
Uh because it moves kind of likethe Star Tours ride, because you
got to move stuff around.
Yeah.
But what you're watching, you'renot just watching a flat screen
because they went, ah, flatscreen.

(59:11):
They did that in Star Tours.
Let's make it a dome.
Yeah.
Right?
So that's that's where it tookoff from there.

SPEAKER_00 (59:17):
And so somehow, like, they've got you in there.
You're heading through time.
Uh, I'm not entirely sure howthey decide which time you're
going to first.
Like maybe I assume the guidetells you like this is where we
think they are.

SPEAKER_04 (59:29):
It's probably, I think what they might have done,
at least what I would do, isthey probably had like kind of
like how they had they do withStar Tours now, where they have
randomly selected planets andgiant finger quotes.
Yeah.
But actually they only havethree to pick from.
So there are some choices thatdo not exist.
Right.
Like, like I can imagine theywould go like, here's the most
important times that we wesurvey people.

(59:49):
This is when they want to goback in time.
And a lot of people went, killHitler.
But like, like I think I thinkit would be funny.
I think it's I think if Iremember correctly, I excuse me.
I think there's like a burn markon the wall next to the kill
Hitler switch.
So it's not an option.
Like we're not going to go backto World War II.
Oh, that's so funny.

(01:00:10):
Yeah.
So, all right, let's kill let'swe got these other ones.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:13):
You know.
And so you're, you're go, you'retaking off, you're going to go
try and find the one person thatyou just lost.
And you, you know, as anexample, you get you land
somewhere and you're inprehistoric times and there's
dinosaurs.
The thunder lizards.
The thunder lizards.
Yep.

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:31):
Just don't step on any butterflies.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:35):
And they, you know, they give you these Bradbury
referred to them as electroguns.
Uh-huh.
But they're guns.
I mean, this has basicallybecome a shooter attraction.
Oh, yeah.
And you're wandering throughthis uh area with like
animatronic dinosaurs poppingout and you're shooting at them.
That's great.
Yeah.
And it's it's super cool.

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:54):
And it's the sound of thunder, but in in shooting
gallery form.
Absolutely.
Yep.
I mean, Bradbury was not afraidor ashamed to pull from his
past.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:04):
Oh, and he does it a number of times.

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:07):
And what's interesting, what I love about
this is that you physically getup and out of the centrifuge.
Yes.
There are portions in whichyou're like, okay, we're we're
going through time.
Oh, zap, zap, zap.
All right, everybody, get out ofthe pod.
And you get up off your butt.
It's a very physically activeattraction.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:23):
Yeah.
It's actually really coolbecause then you're the
centrifuge kind of becomes yourhome base.
And so you go off and have thisadventure, 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 spinnything again and rocking thing
again?

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:39):
War time and more complications, the lost ones,
like, you know, whacking ontothe view screen like it's a bug.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:45):
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 TrekBorg adventure, yeah.
Like every once in a while adinosaur would grab one of the
guides and just pull them out.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:00):
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 farinto the future from there.
Right?
Or as Bradbury says, you arriveat the Statue of Liberty, by
God.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
He has this weird idea thatyou're supposed to get in a
rocket that launches off of thearm of the Statue of Liberty or
something.
It's like, what?

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:27):
Dude, it's awesome.
Are you kidding me?
That's great.
I think, I think, I think whatthe video actually was in order
to compensate for that is thatyou wind up in the far future
and you start seeing all thesespaceships zooming around,
you're like, whoa, but yousuddenly realize like the pod is
teetering and teetering.
Yeah.
And you suddenly realize, andyou you as it teeters, you start

(01:02:47):
to see, we're on the Statue ofLiberty.
Oh no.
You do have to launch, but it'snot 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 thefuture.
Yeah.
There's a secret to this though.
Okay.
There are actually threecentrifuges.
One centrifuge is where youstart and it rotates to the

(01:03:10):
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 centrifugereturns to its normal state.
Okay.
To let the next group in.
Yeah.
So it's like the elevators atDisneyland where there's one
entrance in and one entranceout.
Yeah.
And so you're you're huntingdinosaurs, you turn in your

(01:03:32):
guns, you z you put them intothe side panel or whatever
that's there.
And then you zap forward intothe future.
And when you get out in thefuture, it has also turned 90
degrees.
Right.
And it spits you out into thewalking and ride.
You know, though this one has amoving platform feature to it.
Yeah.
That zaps you through the f thespace, the space age future.

(01:03:53):
Yeah.
And then you get back into thatthe next centrifuge that spins
you around.
To the next thing.
Right.
So there are literally likethree pods back to back off of
each other, operating off of thesame computer control panel.
Yeah.
That was in the middle of allthree.
So that way the people, theoperators could monitor what was
going on between the mazes andthe centrifuges all from one

(01:04:13):
central area.
So fascinating.
So complicated.
Yeah.
But it's really cool.
Yeah.
From what I've seen, there is aGod, there was a high was it,
it's not, was it high eight?
It was a type of VHS team thatwas like much smaller.
And was for like the smallercompact camcorders.
Yeah.
Somebody took a video of that.
So it still has the time code,that really big, ugly time code

(01:04:36):
at the bottom.
And the light doesn't quite youcan't see everything.
Yeah.
But what you do see of it,you're like, okay, I want to s
that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:46):
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 alwaysloved.
Um, but a but more advanced, uha little more motion.
I r uh recall reading that, youknow, that adventure you're
going through space and uhyou're being kind of pummeled by
asteroids.

(01:05:06):
Oh yeah.
Yeah, and and you have sort ofauxiliary screens where you're
seeing the the lost one everyonce in a while.
Like here's where I'll help.

SPEAKER_04 (01:05:16):
I'm falling into the sun, I'm going in to hit the
moon, save me, I'm being carriedaway in an asteroid cluster.
Help!

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then so something happens.
I don't quite understand thisnarratively, but something
happens where the you the youdecide that uh the lost has gone
somewhere else.
Right.
And like it got sucked through ablack hole or something.
I don't know.
A wormhole, yeah.
But you've had this cooladventure and you get out.
Here's where we really seeBradbury plumbing his old works.

(01:05:45):
You get into a section uh thatis basically a haunt.
Yes, it is.
And this is this is themechanical hounds.
These things are terrifying.
Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_04 (01:05:57):
So the mechanical hounds are terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:00):
Yeah.
Oh my god.
So Bradbury's initial version ofthis was that you were gonna be
wearing these belts, and thesehounds would actually kind of
jump out and be able to followyou, and they'd pick one of you
and then only follow that onewhile everyone else scattered.
Right.
That was beyond what they coulddo right there.

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:18):
Right.
Yeah, no, it's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:20):
But they did do a lot with um things popping out,
with the hound noises, withlighting, with like some
rudimentary animatronics, uh,with a few jump scares.
It was reverse laser tag.

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:34):
Yes, that's exactly the best part of this is the
fact that you had these belts.
You were you were fitted withthese belts from the pod again.
Yeah.
This time you're in themechanical hound maze, and this
was post-apocalyptic crazysauce.
Yes, it really was.
It was insane.
Because this was this was verypopular in the late 90s.
This is Terminator kind of.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:53):
Yeah, and and the mechanical hounds, we should
say, come directly fromFahrenheit 451.

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:57):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
And this is the black lightsection.
So everything's black lit, lotsof smoke, yeah, and these things
could come out of the gloom andout of the fog.
It's kind of a cheat, but itworked.
Yeah.
And the the object is to getinto the heart of the maze.
It's like touch the back walland then come all the way back
out again without getting hit.
Yeah.
But if you got hit a certainamount of times, you had to see

(01:07:18):
how many people actuallysurvived the run to go out,
touch this thing, and come allthe way back.
Right.
And your belt would reset onceyou touched it.
So you'd hit the button, itwould go, reset.
Now go back to the pod.
Yeah.
And you'd and it's like it's allover the place.
So this it's basically it's alaser maze.
Yeah.
Without getting hit with yourbelt.
And it seems crazy fun.

(01:07:41):
This is when the videotapestops.
This thing that I've seen onYouTube is crazy.
Because like the person'sobviously gooey shaking the
camera, so he's like, I don'twant to run with this thing.
But it's it's graze, it's crazy.
He wanted to make these beltsmagnetic.
Yes, I read that.
And he hound catches you, yeah,he's gonna lift you up and out.

(01:08:03):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:04):
And and give you a mild shock, he wanted.

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:07):
Yeah, he wanted the belts to actually electrocute
you.
Yeah.
And he I love what he says.
It's like, you know, not not toobad, just a little bit to hurt a
little bit.
So that way you know that you'veyou failed.
You know, like, oh my god, Bray.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:20):
Now there's there's uh so so the next thing that I
ran into was uh after the themechanical hounds maze.
Yeah.
That you basically are going atthe last maze, which is the
Sphinx maze.
Right.
I also read that there were someother mazes either in
development or they got madejust at the end of the run.

(01:08:40):
Like there was the um Octobercountry maze, which pretty
self-explanatory.

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:46):
Well, they didn't do that as a maze, they did that
actually as a whole world, butonly seasonal.
Oh, okay, so it was like anoverlay.
It was an overlay.
It was not it was not actuallyyes, it was planned as a maze,
but yes, like you said, yeahfeasibility.
Yes.
But in order to capitalize,because every theme park that's
worth their salt these daysmakes a lot of their money with

(01:09:06):
Halloween and Christmas.
Yeah.
And Knott's Berry Farm kind ofsetting the standard for that.
Yep.
So they decided to learn fromthat.
And October Country becomes thismassive overlay.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:17):
Uh, makes sense.
That was why I couldn't quitefigure it out from what I was
reading, because I never saw anyfootage of that as a maze.
No.
But I was like, but they weredeveloping something.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:26):
Yeah, you you exit like the the f the big finale is
a ride in the pod.
And when you when you finallyarrive, you're actually you're
not spat out in the originalcentrifug area.
You're spat out in this Egyptiantomb with the Sphinx and the
stars over.
It's like, where are we now?

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:43):
Right.
And that's what that I wasdefinitely heading that way.
And I it was just like, I knowthere were some other things in
development.
I don't know if they were everimplemented, but the big finish
is the Sphinx maze.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:53):
Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:54):
And this this is I this is hard to describe.
It it on Boardwalk Times, we'retalking about Andor and the
rumors of a new Muppet Show.

(01:10:15):
Also, check out my article aboutDisney's bizarre long-term
obsession with the Alienfranchise and the troubling way
it reached fruition in AlienEarth.
Check it all out this month onBoardwalkTimes.net.

(01:10:36):
This this is um I this is hardto describe.
It it is a giant-themed maze.
You s you start off between thepaws of a sphinx.
Yep.
And you have to do something toget the door to open, kind of, I
guess, in the chest of thesphinx.

(01:10:57):
And it's supposed to take you tothe pyramid you see you know in
the in the background.
Right.
Um, which is obviously just ascenic painting, but you know,
it's gonna take you downstairsto Suite.

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:08):
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 ofdeath.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:24):
But yeah, so you go in and you're suddenly in an
Egyptian tomb.
And this is kind of acombination of special effects
and a a little bit haunty, butnot that that scary.
Um, I saw the like there'seffects that very much are like
straight out of something wickedthis way comes, where you look
at a mirror and you see yourselfgrow old.

(01:11:47):
There's a a point where yourgroup is trying to go somewhere
and you have to stop because yousee like priests and courtiers
carrying an Egyptian pharaoh totheir final rests.

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:59):
This was kind of Bradbury's exploration of
mortality.

SPEAKER_00 (01:12:03):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:04):
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, youknow who designed the Egyptian
part?
No.
Initially.
He did the initial designs, butagain, they were so far out that
people were like, Rohie, youknow, being the head, was like,
mmm, I get it, but I don't knowhow we're gonna do it.

(01:12:26):
Yeah.
But that the you still seeinklings of it.
It's like this poor guy justcan't catch you.
It was Raleigh Crump.
He came out of retirement afterleaving Disney in '96 to work
on.
He worked with Disney for awhile.

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:38):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:39):
And they were like, You want to do one more?

unknown (01:12:41):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:41):
And so he got, hey, as long as I get to be as weird
as possible.
Yeah.
So he kind of revived a lot ofhis Museum of the Weird stuff.
Yeah.
Which is again why you have themirrors that change things.
Yeah.
All those ideas that he didn'tget to do in the Museum of the
Weird.
It's like, here's your chance.
Right.
And he still didn't get to do itbecause the ideas were too damn
weird.
And so it's like, I love Rolly.

(01:13:03):
I love his designs.
Yes.
And they're crazy, but they'rethey're kind of they're
antiquated by that point.
Yeah.
His style just doesn't quitesuit the ride itself.
But some of the ideas did liveon with some jiggering by the
two Joes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The two Joes kind of like put itall together and go, all right,
we made this effect work, nowleave us alone.

(01:13:25):
Right.
Yeah.
That's for the Egyptian part.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:28):
Yeah, because he's a he's a little too pop art for
what they're trying to go forhere.
They're they're really trying togo for hammer here.

SPEAKER_04 (01:13:36):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
This was too big.
But like he he definitely lenthimself.
I mean, again, he's he's alreadyin like his late 60s, early 70s.
He's like, I don't know.
Yeah, okay, I'll give it anothertry.
No problem.
Give me some more marijuana.
We're good.

unknown (01:13:52):
You know.

SPEAKER_04 (01:13:52):
Have a hit.
Oh, God love him.
Yeah, got you gotta love.
It's so great.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:58):
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 thecenter, ostensibly, of the
pyramid.
Yep.
And there's a big sarcophagus,and you solve some sort of
puzzle.
I don't know.

(01:14:18):
It's probably not that hard.
But you know, proto-escape roomstuff.
Yeah.
And the sarcophagus opens andyou find the lost.
You find the person that youlost at the beginning.
Hooray!

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:31):
Hooray.
Which I really feel bad for thelost because it was supposed to
be a volunteer.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:36):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:37):
You know, it's like I missed the whole ride.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:38):
Yeah.
Just sit in a coffin.
I think they figured out prettyquickly that it was like, that's
not gonna work.
Yeah, it had to be a plant.
Yeah.
This is kind of appropriate tothe way that Bradbury himself
saw theme parks.
Like his, he really hissuspension of disbelief was
amazing because he he would goon something like Rocket to the

(01:15:01):
Moon and he'd just be like, Iwent to space.
You know, he just he wascommitted.
And and to an extent, we wereall a little more innocent.
Uh, you know, back then, likethe 70s, the 80s, still.
We we were all a little morewilling to just kind of overlook
the flaws.
Sure.
Absolutely.
Um, this I mean, the theelectric time maze as a whole

(01:15:24):
had tons of flaws.
Oh, yeah.
But boy, it had a lot of charm.

SPEAKER_04 (01:15:28):
It had a lot of heart.
I mean, can we talk aboutOctober Country for just a
minute?
This is their Halloween overlaythat they would do for the whole
park.
Yeah.
They they had eventually some ofthese attractions, they would
start adding things here andthere.
Yeah.
And one of my favorite things,there there are several things.
Um, first off, they had theirversion of the Halloween tree.
Oh, huh.

(01:15:48):
And their version of the HollowTree Halloween tree was this
giant sculpture that would popup.
Yeah.
And you basically had an adopt apumpkin scheme.
In order to pay for it, you paidto have your face engraved on a
pumpkin so they would do acaricature of your face.
Yeah.
You know, or like screaming orwhatever.

(01:16:10):
And so you were part of thatHalloween tree from that point
on.
Big ones, little ones, you paylike$150, you get a little teeny
weeny pumpkin.
You pay a thousand dollars, youget 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 oflike the bricks out in front of
Disneyland, right?
It's like, ah, there it is.
Yeah.
That's how they paid for it.

(01:16:31):
Yeah.
And it's huge.
And they would have this biglight ceremony.
And basically the whole thing isbuilt around Bradbury's two
books, Something Wicked This WayComes and The Halloween Tree,
which is one of my absolutefaves uh for Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:44):
Yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 (01:16:45):
And they would have some master of ceremonies
dressed up as Mr.
Mound Shroud.
Yeah.
And you have other actorsdressed up as the various kids,
like Jack Skellington, you know.
Yeah.
Jack Skelton, you know, thatkind of Tom Skelton.
Not Jack, Tom Skelton is thename of the character.
Yeah.
And uh, you know, and Pipkin andall the other characters, right?
And the the premise is is thatyou were on the journey of the

(01:17:08):
Halloween tree bycircumnavigating the park.
And they would have thesedifferent vignettes set up, and
one of which was a carousel thatthey would take the horses off
of when it wasn't runningnormal.
Uh-huh.
So they would have a normalhorses.
And what was great about theBradbury carousel?
Let's talk about because I'm abig carousel fan.
Yeah.
The Bradbury carousel was socharming because it it was very

(01:17:33):
much like one of the classiccarousels from the World's Fair
Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:37):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:17:38):
Classic carved carousels, but the horses were
all themed off of his stories.

SPEAKER_03 (01:17:44):
Oh.

SPEAKER_04 (01:17:45):
So there was a there was a horse of the there was the
librarian horse that has itsarmor was made of books that
were flying around it.
Yeah.
There was a fire horse thatactually had the number 451 put
on the front chest.
Oh, wow.
Oh, yeah.
It was great.
That's neat.
The Martian Chronicles was, youknow, they would have the big
upper panels up around the hugecanopy.

(01:18:07):
Yeah.
They would have Martians andthat kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:18:10):
Um, just tons and tons of stuff.
They even had one of myfavorites, which was kind of
creepier, you know, these theseparents looking out of this
African velt, you just see thislion crouching.
Oh my god.
Staring at you.
It's like, oh God.
So yeah, they had a velt lion,you know.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:24):
Could you ride on the back of Uncle Einar?

SPEAKER_04 (01:18:29):
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of you know, so it was all
the paintings were all done inthis kind of beautiful 1960s,
1970s science fiction style.
Yeah.
So it was beautiful.
But they had designed it so theycould take the horses off, yeah,
and they put new horses on thatwere all skeletal or ghostly,
and it was like, oh, those werefantastic.

(01:18:52):
Yeah.
You know, uh, there's one that'sjust the sowen horse, and it's
looks like it's made of wickerand like this, you know, death
horse, and one that's made ofbugs, and they would put
paintings all, you know, theywould just kind of you know,
velcro them onto the carousel.
Right.
They were illustrations of theHalloween tree.
Yeah.
And like the whole inner portionwas literally made the way that

(01:19:14):
the kite is made in the book, inwhich they rip up circus posters
and they put it all together.
Yeah.
It was all these mouths of lionsand gorillas and stuff.
And it was kind of threateningit, and they lit it differently.
Yeah.
And they ran it backwards.
Oh.
Just like in something wickedthis way comes.
So smart.
And what's wild is I honestlythink this was Bradbury's fuck

(01:19:38):
you to Disney over somethingwicked this way comes.
Which has a complicated historyof him being involved in the
production.

SPEAKER_00 (01:19:47):
It does.
You know, um it'd be it'd beinteresting.
Like at that point, Bradbury hadkind of re-owned something
wicked because he believed thathe had stepped in and saved it.

unknown (01:19:59):
Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:00):
And again, Bradbury.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
But um, but yeah, I it's superinteresting.
I mean, I know where I want tobe on Halloween, it's the
Bradbury theme part.
Oh my god.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:20:11):
I wanted to be in October.
Like the more I saw aboutOctober Country, I'm like, Yeah,
oh my god, I want I mean, I lovethe t-shirts, the logo of
October Country was just soswirly with leaves and you've
seen the movie, the Disneymovie, where the logo is
actually made out of sand andthen it blows into existence.
Yeah.
So it kind of almost looks likeblood or matter, but it's just

(01:20:33):
the sand that gets blown awayand then printed in reverse.
Right.
That's what the logo looks likefor October Country.
It's beautiful swirly sanddesigns.
Yeah.
And what was great is the voiceof Mr.
Mound Shroud for some of theOctober Country um um
presentations, like thenighttime shows, was voiced by
none other than Ken Nordeen.

(01:20:55):
Whoa, word jazz Ken Nordeen.
That's awesome.
Lending that massive, like hewas Bradbury's thrill
Ravenscroft, right?
He was just sassoprofundo.
Yeah.
And Google him, folks.
Ken Nordeen is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:09):
Ken Nordeen's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 (01:21:11):
Little fun little fact from my my parents' past is
that I almost had potential tobe Ken Nordeen's grandson
because my dad briefly like tookout a girl on a date and it
turned out to be Ken Nordeen'sdaughter.
But it didn't work out.
So, oh well.
Right.
But you know, that's a funlittle past, you know, from Los

(01:21:33):
Angeles.
You know, but that's the way itwas, because but I what I love
about the people that this thatthe time maze brings together,
yeah.
These are all the people thathave kind of gone, I don't like
the aesthetics that Disney'strying to do.
I don't want cute, fuzzyanimals.
Yeah.
I want to explore stuff that'sdeeper.
So you have all these people,like even Roadie.

(01:21:56):
Joe Roadie is a Disney worker.
Yes.
But his designs go beyond thenormal Disney aesthetic.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:03):
That's absolutely true.

SPEAKER_04 (01:22:04):
And same thing with Lanziero.
Joe, Joe, Joe Lanziero's uhdesign 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 thepark's downfall.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:23):
Yeah, I agree with you, is is that there's
something that uh there'sthere's a point at which parents
are reticent to bring kids tosomething that is serious.

SPEAKER_04 (01:22:37):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:37):
Um and there's of obviously fun and laughs and
stuff in here too.
And challenging.
Yeah, and challenging.

SPEAKER_04 (01:22:43):
Don't make it easy.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:44):
Don't make me work for this.
Right.
And and there is some work here.

SPEAKER_04 (01:22:47):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:48):
And um there's some legitimately scary things going
on.

SPEAKER_04 (01:22:52):
Yep.
So i I mean, the the third maze.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:56):
The third maze.

SPEAKER_04 (01:22:56):
The third circle maze, unfortunately, is the
least inspiring.

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:00):
Yeah.
There's the I mean, we shouldtalk about the bookshop, but for
the most part, this is an exitthrough the gift shop kind of.
Pretty much, because it's allabout shopping.
Yeah, it's shopping.

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:09):
And yeah, the the the bookshop though, the
Victorian bookshop.

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:13):
Yeah.
Oh my god, I want to go there.
Like multi, multi-floors, um,like weird things, like weird
cubbies where kids could puttheir head through a hole and
there'd be like a scene going onin there from a book.

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:28):
What's interesting about this is only a block or
two away from Clifton'scafeteria, there is a bookstore
very much like this.
Oh, huh.
It's the Lost Bookshop indowntown Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:40):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:40):
The lower part is like a standard bookshop.

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:43):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:43):
You go upstairs, these artists took over the
science fiction, mystery, andhistory sections.
Yeah.
And they made it like a crazymaze, and it's loose.
I would guarantee dollars todonuts.
Yeah.
It is loosely based off of thisattraction.
Yeah.
Because you walk through intoold bank vaults and there's like

(01:24:03):
tunnels made out of books thatare flying overhead.
That's super cool.
It's it's so charming.
Yeah.
It's so homegrown and sograssroots.
Yeah.
So it does not nearly have likethey've got wood, they've got
screws, they've got somesteampunk 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 thebuilding materials.

(01:24:25):
But it's really charming.
And they have a couple otherareas where artists are have
like little miniature galleries.
Yeah.
If I lived in LA, I would loveto rent one of these spaces and
run my own little gallery out.
Totally.
Because I would I'd love thisplace.
It's so cool.
Yeah.
It really does exist.
You should definitely check itout.

SPEAKER_00 (01:24:40):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:24:40):
Um, but yeah, they go to Clifton's in the evening
for some drinks after you go buysome books for the lost
bookshop.
Yeah.
But it's really, reallycharming.
But if you want to get a senseof what it felt like to be in
the Victorian bookshop in thetime mace, check out that
bookshop in LA.
It's worth it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:24:55):
Yeah, there were there were in in the in the
Victorian bookshop, there werelike um occasionally you would
run across a little animatronichead that was like an author or
a character that would talk toyou as you passed by.

SPEAKER_04 (01:25:07):
Yeah, the Dickens bust.
Yeah.
The Dickens bust.
It was so great.
Like and I have I have betterexpectations of you.
One might almost say greatexpectations.
Oh dear.
Yeah.
That's when like Twain and Poeare right behind him, going, oi.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:21):
And there were and there are tons of little cubbies
where you could take your bookand just sni sneak off and read,
and they didn't care.
Right.
Yeah.
They were just like, just read.

SPEAKER_04 (01:25:29):
Yeah, they wanted you to.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:30):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:25:31):
They wanted you to t to take your time in this place.
And it was vast.
Yeah.
It was like that outer ring iswhere this is.
Yeah.
And the outer ring, this is likethe bookshop alone is a quarter
of that ring outside.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:44):
Just uh amazing.
Like definitely one of the greatfeatures of the whole uh park
was this bookstore.

SPEAKER_04 (01:25:52):
Yeah.
So Bradbury did, you know, I Iwhile we've been talking, I
looked it up.
Apparently Bradley, uh Bradburydid not have any ties directly
to Scientology.
He admired L.
Ron Hubbard.
Yeah.
He did write a letter ofadmiration, but for uh a a book
of his that he found veryinspirational in the 30s and

(01:26:13):
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 sensewhen you think about it.
It's like, oh, this would begreat, 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 (01:26:33):
No, that's Magic Mountain.

SPEAKER_04 (01:26:37):
Hey man, that phantom, the phantom of the
park, you know, took on KISS fora reason.
I know.
So uh you're not getting enoughof your you're not throwing
enough, you know, Lord Zenuisn't throwing enough souls into
this volcano.
Um anyway, um, but in in thispark only lasted nine years.

(01:27:00):
Yeah.
That's it.
1998, it closed.
Yeah.
Not without some quick effortsthat really didn't work.
Yeah.
Because there were other parksall over the nation that were
still, you know, dealing with aneconomic downturn at the time.
Because we had gone through arecession at that point, and
they were still recovering andtrying to figure out how to

(01:27:22):
attract people.

SPEAKER_00 (01:27:23):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:27:23):
Um, there was talk about maybe doing some sort of
tie-in, some sort of uh uh takesome sort of property and tie it
in.
Uh Hanna Barbera was actually onthe list.
It didn't quite work out.
So it made the rounds, but itdidn't quite work out.
Um but then they tried to addroller coasters.

(01:27:45):
Just straight up steel rollercoasters with cool names.
Yeah.
But that was it.
They were literally justbrightly colored.
And by this point, Bradbury,he's in his later years.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:27:58):
I mean, he lived a little bit longer, but he was
getting up there.

SPEAKER_04 (01:28:00):
Yeah, he's getting up there.
You know, he's just he's justkind of like, I don't really I
designed the thing.
This was my big idea.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:07):
Yeah.
And and I think I think at thatpoint, you know, it it hadn't
been there's a question as towhether it ever really made that
much money.
Um, but it certainly hadn't beenfor a while.

SPEAKER_04 (01:28:18):
I mean, they did have, when it did open, they
kind of learned from Disney inthe early years about using
sponsorships.
Yeah.
So you had SunSweet uh uh andLevi's.
Um great, great, I don't knowwhy Levi's, but of all things
Levi's.
Can Nordine maybe, maybe thatwas a tie-in.
But Sunsuite Prunes, yeah, forthose who do not uh know what

(01:28:39):
features actually a commercialwith Ray Bradbury in it, yeah.
Voiced by Stan Freeberg, who wasa 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 littletie-in, Sunsuite never forgot
about it, and they became one ofthe sponsors of the food area.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, the corporatesponsorships had dried up.

(01:29:01):
Yeah.
People are going, no one'sflying out to middle of nowhere,
Illinois, right, to go to thisthing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:29:07):
And it's not far from Chicago, but you you know,
if you're in Chicago, you tendnot to leave Chicago.

SPEAKER_04 (01:29:14):
Especially in the winter.

SPEAKER_00 (01:29:15):
Yeah, I think they also had a problem of, you know,
so you could kind of a la cartethe experiences, but most people
went in, they did the thenarrative 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 itwas fun, but you know, how far

(01:29:35):
out of your way are you gonna gofor that?

SPEAKER_04 (01:29:37):
You see a lot of this in other attractions, like
in Vegas, you have the Luxorexperience that said the exact
same thing.
Yeah.
Um, the Star Trek experience,which we talked about in a
previous episode, yeah, didsomething similar, but they
learned from others' experiencesand faults, and they actually
would change it up just to makesure oh, you thought you saw it
before.
Yeah, we've changed it, so comeand see it again.

(01:29:58):
Yes.
There's a thing in San Franciscocalled the Metreon that actually
had a a couple of experienceslike that called like the
airtight garage based on thewhere the wild things are thing.
And where the wild things arebased on Marie Sendak.
And again, once you do it,you've seen it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like even like even kidswouldn't want to like, yeah, I
don't want to I don't want tohave to go to where the wild

(01:30:20):
things are anymore.
Yeah.
I mean the trick with the trickwith theme parks is location and
reusability.

SPEAKER_00 (01:30:26):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:30:27):
You have to want to, you know, it like the narrative
can't be too tight.

SPEAKER_00 (01:30:30):
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (01:30:31):
And audience members have to want to go to it over
and over and over again to makeit sustainable.
And so yeah, 1998, in Septemberof 1998, it sadly shut down.

SPEAKER_00 (01:30:41):
Yeah.
And you know, for a long time,because Chicago used to have the
US's biggest Doctor Whoconvention, Panopticon used to
be there.
Oh yeah.
Not anymore.
But used to be like the electrictime maze would shoot through
the roof when Panopticon washappening.
All the people would come in forthat.

SPEAKER_04 (01:30:58):
You see it in Doctor Who magazine.
There are pictures, you know,like I half expected like Peter
Capaldi be walking around withhis Tom Baker's.
Totally.
The time maze.

SPEAKER_00 (01:31:07):
So yeah, and eventually it just, you know, as
a lot of like great ideas thatwere maybe before their time, it
closed down.

SPEAKER_04 (01:31:15):
And uh and so we've lost we lost a very wild and
interesting like just likeLuxor, just like some of those
other attractions, they're gone.

SPEAKER_00 (01:31:23):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:31:23):
And more's the pity.
Bradbury talked about it verylittle in his later years.

SPEAKER_00 (01:31:28):
Yeah, almost never.

SPEAKER_04 (01:31:29):
He almost never talked about it.
He he was like, Yeah, I did itand then moved on.
Yeah.
Um he would talk endlessly aboutDisneyland, but he wouldn't talk
about the time maze, which isweird because it's like, that's
your brain child, dude.
Like what so I suspect therewere a lot of other things that
happened behind the scenes thatwe're unaware of.

SPEAKER_00 (01:31:45):
I think so too.
Yeah.
And you know, there was a apoint where like you had Joe
Rhodey working on it, and he waskind of the person keeping
things on track.
And then Animal Kingdom gotgreen lit for Disney, and he had
to commit to that.

SPEAKER_04 (01:32:00):
I think it was kind of like Mr.
Rogers' neighborhood, where youhave like people working behind
the scenes like George Romeroand Michael Keaton.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:09):
That's right.

SPEAKER_04 (01:32:09):
Working behind the scenes at Mr.
Rogers, and then going, I gotthis part, I gotta go do it.
Yeah.
You know, I gotta go off and dothis now.
I gotta go, gotta go do this.
Sorry, Chef Brockett, I'm out ofhere.
Like, I gotta go.
So yeah, I I I really wished Icould have actually seen this
thing in person.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:27):
Me too.

SPEAKER_04 (01:32:28):
And uh it's like some of the attractions we have
talked about in the past, likeCastle Dracula Universal,
there's not a lot actually thatsurvives video and photographs
of this thing.
Yeah.
And more's the pity because likethe legend of it live lives on.
Yep.
So and that's where we have tolet you guys off the hook and

(01:32:48):
tell you that what you've beenlistening to, speaking of
fiction, you've been listeningto another one of our what if
episodes here.
And this park does not actuallyexist.
It has never existed.
Never existed.
However, the proposal doesexist, and that actually was
written up by Ray Bradbury.

SPEAKER_00 (01:33:10):
Yep, it's in a book called Called Yestermorrow.
Um, the book came out in aboutuh 1990, which is when we why we
set this around that time.
Yep.
And the essay was writtenconcurrently with it.
Uh it's it's a fun book.
It's um it's a book that ha hasBradbury musing on what he
thinks about architecture andarchitecture as a futurist and

(01:33:33):
theme parks and uh a whole bunchof like urban design stuff.
He's it's really fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 (01:33:38):
Can I drop just one last little trivia thing?
Because I have to, because youjust said architecture.
Yeah.
Okay.
So not too far.
No joke, Clifton's cafeteria isa real place.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
So a lot of the things we talkedabout, the park itself does not
exist, but a lot of the thingsthat we referenced in here, like
Clifton's cafeteria, the Luxor.

SPEAKER_00 (01:33:58):
Um Marta Beckett and Emmer Ghost is absolutely true.
100%.
Bradbury is 100% a fan of hersand like really loved her.

SPEAKER_04 (01:34:07):
Yep.
So what we try to do with thesewhat if episodes is we try to
like mix reality with ournonsense.
Yeah.
And it's a way for us to explorelike these smaller concepts and
these smaller things out thereto introduce them to you through
this fiction that we've created.
Plus, it allows us to have somefun with some improv about gee,
this park was really cool.
But um the one of the things Iwanted to mention is that uh not

(01:34:31):
too far from the Lost Bookshopin in downtown LA and Clifton's,
yeah, is a building that many ofyou might remember from Blade
Runner.
It's called it's called theBradbury Hotel.
Yeah.
The Bradbury Building.
I'm sorry.
Bradbury Building.
The Bradbury Building.
It's not a hotel, it's an officebuilding.
That building, the architect forit was the father of Forrest J.

(01:34:55):
Ackerman.
No relation.
I'm not sure where the termBradbury came from, but that's
not actually related to RayBradbury.
It's just a coincidence that hisbest friend's dad actually
designed an office building thathas 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 theelevator.

(01:35:17):
You get to watch people go upand down into it.
But you can't.
But you don't get to go into itbecause so many tourists go to
look look at all those BladeRunner 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 (01:35:30):
But uh, yeah.
So it's and it and it's I Ihighly recommend to everybody.
Bradbury wrote about theme parksa number of times.
He did.
He very famously wrote arebuttal to uh an article that
was critical of Disneyland inthe 60s, I want to say.
Yep.
And he was he was a big fan, andhe he very much loved Walt

(01:35:56):
Disney.
He truly did.
I believe the day that Disneydied, Ray went to the park
because he said this is whatWalt would have wanted.
Yeah.
They had a great friendship, itwas fascinating.
Ray stayed kind of connected tothe company off and on.
Everything we said about him andEpcot was true.
Yep.
Um, he did make that speech.
Yes, he did.

(01:36:17):
Uh it's really interesting towatch and see someone who is an
absolutely pure futurist.
And this is interesting becauseBradbury was criticized early in
his career for beinganti-technology, which he kind
of came around and said, No, no,no, I'm not.
Um, but just as I just hate thefuture.
Yeah.

(01:36:38):
I'm not anti-technology, justyou suck.

SPEAKER_04 (01:36:41):
What's not like you?
Yeah.
Hold it, hold it.
What are these people trying topull on me?
Yeah.
Like Ray Bradbury impersonation.

SPEAKER_00 (01:36:55):
What we're uh, I believe is about to uh happen.
We reached out to uh Dr.
Phil Nichols, who is a BritishPhD who uh may be the world's
foremost Ray Bradbury scholar.
Yeah.
And uh he's agreed to come talkto us in a couple weeks and
really kind of go deep into RayBradbury and Walt Disney and Ray

(01:37:18):
Bradbury and Epcot Center andall things Bradbury.
So I'm sure he's gonna listen tothis and tell us all the things
we got wrong.

SPEAKER_04 (01:37:27):
Sure of that.
And that's okay, because thatthat will keep us on track.
Yeah, it'll keep us on track.
But normally, this is the partof the show where we would do a
plus up.
Yeah.
But this whole episode is a plusup because this is us.
Folks, we have to tell you, weliterally made this up as we
went.
We only we based the whole thingoff of that eight-page write-up

(01:37:48):
that he did.
Yeah.
Like Kelly and I love to improvand bounce ideas, and so it's a
whole game of yes and.

SPEAKER_00 (01:37:55):
I don't think, I don't think we've ever been more
nervous about starting anepisode than this one.

SPEAKER_04 (01:37:59):
I think we actually I I don't know about you, but I
sweated a little bit during thisone.
Like Yeah, rotating restaurant.
Yeah.
Where is he going with this?
I know.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:09):
What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_04 (01:38:10):
This is what Ken Nordean, why?

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:14):
Yeah.
But you can but go read the theyou know eight, nine-page thing
in in yestermoro and see howclose we got to what he was
looking for.

SPEAKER_04 (01:38:23):
It's interesting on how many ideas it actually
conjured up into our mutualheads about this.
So it is actually a theme park,I will admit, that I actually
really do wish had happened andwould have liked to have seen.
Just like Fleischerland, ourother what if episode.
Yeah.
I really do would love to seethis.
Yeah.
But until then, we're we'restuck with this.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:46):
And I will, I'll say this like my my entire plus up
for this would be somebody, sometheme park company, make an
October country land.
Oh.

SPEAKER_04 (01:38:56):
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'sepisode.
I'm Peter Overstreet.
And I'm Kelly McGubbin.
And you've been listening to TheLow Down on the Plus Up.

SPEAKER_00 (01:39:27):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The
Lowdown on the Plus Up.
If you have, please tell yourfriends where you found us.
And if you haven't, we canpretend this never happened and
need not speak of it again.
For a lot more thoughts on themeparks and related stuff, check
out my writing for BoardwalkTimes at Boardwalk Times.net.
Feel free to reach out to Peteand I at Lowdown on the Plus Up

(01:39:49):
on Blue Sky, Mastodon,Instagram, and all the other
socials.
Or you can send us a messagedirectly at comments at
lowdown-plus-up.com.
We really want to hear about howyou'd plus these attractions up
and read some of your ideas onthe show.
Our theme music is Goblin TinkerSoldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at

(01:40:11):
Incompitech.com.
We'll have a new episode outreal soon.
Why?
Because we like you.

SPEAKER_05 (01:41:03):
And most incredible of all, his sun-sweet fitted
prunes carried in tiny minipacks.

SPEAKER_06 (01:41:09):
Hold it.
What's going on here?
Uh, pardon me?
I never mentioned prunes in anyof my stories.
Oh, you didn't?
No, never.
I'm sorry to be so candid.

SPEAKER_05 (01:41:19):
Uh no, they're not candid, but pretty sweet all the
same.
The prone of tomorrow, availablenow.
They're still rather badlywrinkled, though.
Sun sweet wrinkle technician.
Well, what do they for that too?

SPEAKER_06 (01:41:32):
Sun sweet marches in any of my stories?
What are these people trying to

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Ray Bradbury's Theme Park - The Great Electric Time Maze!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ray Bradbury's Theme Park - The Great Electric Time Maze!