Treasures From The Bottom of the Dresser

I've had this button since before I can remember...

I'm pretty sure my parents bought this on a very early visit to the park when I was maybe just an infant. I can remember this hanging on a cork board outside our basement playroom when I was very little. I haven't seen the pin in years and then just this week it turned up in an envelope of stuff from my childhood home. Pretty cool button, no doubt, but the back of the button gives us s little piece of Amusement Park Obscura that I love...

Check out the original price tag sticker from a very early 70's Kings Dominion gift shop. Super cool! 

I also unearthed this sweet pressed penny...

In case you're not a connoisseur of fine tourist attraction souvenirs such as myself, a pressed penny 

Is created by dropping two quarters and a penny into a machine, turning a crank and smashing and imprinting a picture onto your authentic U.S. one cent piece.

  Now, the mystery here is figuring out which park this came from. The design of Fred is from a mid-90's make over of Fred, with the bigger nose and playful pose. Most of the Hanna-Barbera elements were removed from Kings Dominion during the 90's which leaves that the coin could also be from Universal Studios Florida. Universal hosted their own Hanna-Barbera attraction in the 90's, so it's possible it could be from there. I don't remember getting it anywhere...so who knows where it came from. It's cool and looks great buried under my socks in my dresser. 

He-Man Live at Universal

Continuing a theme from Wednesday, here's an old commercial for an appearance by He-Man and the Masters of the Universe at Universal Studios. For you He-Man aficionados: the voice over on this commercial sounds like Prince Adam.

Still The Greatest Ride Ever

If you want to hear me drone on for endless hours about something then just bring up the old Hanna-Barbera ride at Universal Studios in Orlando. In fact, I went into great detail about the ride a couple of years ago in a rather lenghty post here on WWoB. For those of you not in the know, the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera ride was a motion-simulator style ride where guests boarded little spaceships to help Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo find Elroy Jetson while traveling through the worlds of The Flintsones, Scooby-Doo, and The Jetsons. I swear, I've never smiled harder than when I was on that ride.

Universal Studios decided to replace this awesome ride with some lame attraction staring Jimmy Neutron. (Let me just point out that Jimmy Neutron is already done and over with while the Hanna-Barbera characters remain treasured icons of American pop culture). However, now thanks to the wonders of YouTube we can all experience the complete awesomeness of this ride. I found this video of the film used in the attraction. This isn't someone's home video recording, this is a copy of the actual film. Enjoy and feel free to move your chair around while watching this film...

Let's Not Forget Universal

We talk alot about Walt Disney World here at WWoB, but Disney's neighbor, Universal Studios, is also a resort filled with great experiences. News today from the Orlando Sentinel announces that The Simpsons will be joining the Universal family sometime next year. The new ride will be a motion simulator ride and will replace their 15 year old Back to the Future ride. The new Simpsons ride will use the same movie screen and ride vehicles as the Back to the Future ride did, but new technology will be used to control the ride. The ride will take guests (along with the Simpsons) to the grand opening of "Krusty Land Amusement Park". Sounds like it's going to be a fun ride!

Universal Studios Florida is made up of two parks: Universal Studios Orlando and Islands of Adventure. Both parks pretty much take non-Disney owned properties and build Disney-style rides based on them. Some of their other great rides that I love are The Cat in the Hat, where you ride a sofa through the original Dr. Seuss story; Popeye's BilgeRats, the best white-water-rafting ride at any park and Jaws, a boat ride where you come face to face with the great white. They also have an Amazing Spider-Man ride which is simply the coolest ride operating at any theme park (sorry, Disney!)