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Kings Dominion is an amusement park located in Doswell, Virginia in Hanover County, 23 miles (37 km) north of Richmond and 83 miles (134 km) south of Washington, DC on Interstate 95.
The 400-acre (1.6 km2) park is currently owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, and was part of the former Paramount Parks chain that Cedar Fair acquired from CBS Corporation on June 30, 2006. The park was named after its sister park, Kings Island in Kings Mills, Ohio, which opened in 1972. Both parks were originally built and owned by Kings Entertainment Company aka KECO. While Kings Island was named as a combination of Kings Mills (its location) and Coney Island (the theme park that it was built to replace), Kings Dominion’s name was more than likely a reference to Virginia’s nickname as the “Old Dominion”.
Contents
1 History
1.1 Early history as Kings Dominion (1975-89)
1.2 Early 1990s/transition to Paramount ownership
1.3 Paramount’s Kings Dominion (1993-2006)
1.4 The Cedar Fair era (2006-present)
2 Current rides/attractions
2.1 International Street
2.2 Old Virginia
2.3 The Grove
2.4 Nick Central
2.5 KidzVille
2.6 Congo
2.7 WaterWorks
3 Kings Dominion’s Timeline
4 Retired rides and attractions
5 References
6 External links
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History
Early history as Kings Dominion (1975-89)
The park entrance as seen from the observation deck of the replica Eiffel Tower
Kings Dominion officially opened in 1975 with 15 rides. However, in 1974, the park had a “soft” (partial, low key) opening only for the now-defunct Lion Country Safari attraction and a junior roller coaster, now called Scooby Doo’s Ghoster Coaster. Also in 1974, the park had completed the Rebel Yell racing roller coaster (designed by John Allen of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company); however, it would not open until 1975 with the rest of the park. When the park debuted in the spring of 1975, it also included a log flume; antique cars; steam train; and a collection of flat rides. Another roller coaster, Galaxie, was located in the Grove next to the man-made Lake Charles, which took up 10 acres (40,000 m2) of the park’s property. In addition, Kings Dominion’s 1/3-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, which features an observation deck from which visitors could see the entire park, was open by the park’s first full operating season. In addition to the Lion Country Safari, the original themed areas of the park were called The Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera, Old Virginia, and Coney Island (renamed Candy Apple Grove prior to the next season).
Kings Dominion added their fourth roller coaster, a Schwarzkopf shuttle loop known as the King Kobra, in 1977. The King Kobra featured a 50-ton counter weight drop launch and was the park’s first launched roller coaster. It was in the park for nine seasons before being relocated to Jolly Roger Amusement Park in Ocean City, Maryland. After several more relocations, it continues to operate today as Katapul at Hopi Hari in Brazil. Also in 1977, Kings Dominion was one of several amusement parks used as sets for the film Rollercoaster.
In addition to the King Kobra, Kings Dominion opened a campground and its well-known Lost World mountain before the end of the 1970s. Originally, the Lost World featured three rides: a flume ride called Journey to Atlantis, a children’s attraction known as Land of the Dooz, and a rotor called Time Shaft. Journey to Atlantis was replaced by the Haunted River themed flume ride in 1980. Kings Dominion would add their second wooden roller coaster, the Grizzly, in the forests of the Old Virginia section of the park in 1982. Kings Dominion opened its rapids ride, White Water Canyon, in Old Virginia in 1983. Also in 1983, a 13 year old boy died while riding on the Galaxie roller coaster. A swinging, inverting pirate ship known as the Berserker was added on International Street the following year. In 1984, a Smurf ride, Smurf Mountain would replace the mine ride in the Lost World. From then on, the Lost World was known as Smurf Mountain. The mountain was rebuilt in 1997, and has been occupied solely by Volcano: The Blast Coaster since 1998.
The replica Eiffel Tower at Kings Dominion
After three seasons without a new roller coaster, Kings Dominion unveiled its TOGO stand-up roller coaster, Shockwave, in 1986, the same year that the park removed King Kobra. Shockwave, like King Cobra, has one loop but also has a helix. (The similarly-named King Cobra roller coaster at Kings Island, which was a stand-up coaster similar to Shockwave, closed in 2002.) The third and last roller coaster that Kings Dominion added during the 1980s was Avalanche, which remains the only Mack bobsled roller coaster in the United States. The trains of Avalanche are themed after the United States’, France’s, Germany’s, Canada’s and Switzerland’s bobsleds, so that riders in different trains can simulate being in a bobsled race in the Winter Olympics.
Although the Lion Country Safari attraction was the first portion of the park to open, it was phased out after Paramount bought the park. Much of the Lion Country Safari occupied the land behind the Anaconda roller coaster; Kings Dominion still owns the land but has used most of it primarily for storage rather than opening new attractions. Diamond Falls, another flume ride, premiered in 1985 until closing in 2002. Three sets of Racing Rivers slides water slides premiered in 1987 and stayed open through the early 1990s.
Early 1990s/transition to Paramount ownership
Kings Dominion continued adding new areas to its park in the early- to mid-1990s. In 1990, they expanded Hanna-Barbera Land to include more rides for children. The 1991 season saw the addition of their next large roller coaster, the Arrow looper Anaconda, which was also the world’s first coaster to feature an underwater tunnel. (Its tunnel went under part of Lake Charles.) Anaconda was also originally billed as having six loops and continues to be billed that way. However, unlike Drachen Fire, a six-inversion Arrow looper which was opened at Busch Gardens Williamsburg the following year, the Anaconda actually has only four inversions: a vertical loop, a sidewinder, and two consecutive corkscrews.
Kings Dominion opened its water park as Hurricane Reef in 1992. In its opening season, it first featured the Monsoon Chutes (two pairs of free-fall body slides, at 70 and 50 feet (15 m) high, respectively), the Torrential Twist (two enclosed body slides which wrapped around each other), the Pipeline (four open body slides), Cyclone (three enclosed body slides, the center of which was a free-fall), Tidal Wave (two open slides, which riders rode on inner tubes, Splash Island (an area for children with five water slides), and a lazy river. To build the water park, Kings Dominion filled in the two thirds of Lake Charles nearest the Candy Apple Grove region of the park; the Anaconda continued to pass over the remainder of the lake.
Paramount’s Kings Dominion (1993-2006)
The Kings Dominion Theatre (Named “The Paramount Theatre” during the Paramount Parks era)
Kings Dominion Logo Used from 1993 – 2002 During the Paramount Years (a revised one was used from 2003-06)
Kings Dominion continued its growth when it became part of Paramount Parks in 1993 and switched its name to Paramount’s Kings Dominion. New attractions and areas of the park themed to Paramount’s television shows and movies appeared at Paramount’s Kings Dominion almost every season that they were under Paramount’s ownership. In 1993, they added a motion simulator attraction, originally featuring the Days of Thunder movie, and Lion County Safari was removed at the end of the season. The 1994 season saw the addition of a new area of the park themed to the 1992 Paramount motion picture Wayne’s World, which featured their third full-size wooden roller coaster, The Hurler, a shop called the Rock Shop, and a Stan Mikita’s restaurant similar to the one featured in Wayne’s World. Since then, the Wayne’s World section has been merged into the Candy Apple Grove (since renamed the Grove); the Stan Mikita’s was converted to the Happy Days Cafe, and the Hurler no longer has Wayne’s World theming, except for a few spray painted “Wayne’s World” logos near the exit of the ride. In the next year, another children’s area, known as Nickelodeon Splat City, opened near the Shockwave roller coaster. This was later converted into Nick Central. Also Smurf Mountain was removed in 1995, leaving a dormant fiberglass mountain in the back of the park.
In 1996, Paramount’s Kings Dominion introduced its second launched roller coaster, and first LIM-launched roller coaster, The Outer Limits: Flight of Fear. The Outer Limits had a 56 miles (90 km) per hour launch, four inversions, and an identical “spaghetti bowl” layout to the ride of the same name at Kings Island. Almost as notable as the launch of The Outer Limits was the fact that the entire ride was in semi-darkness; the riders could not see where they were going. (Six Flags America, a nearby park in Maryland, features another “spaghetti bowl” roller coaster with the same layout as Flight of Fear, known as Joker’s Jinx. Joker’s Jinx, however, is an outdoor coaster.) Five years after The Outer Limits opened, Paramount Parks’ licensing agreement to use theming from the television show after which the ride was named expired; the Outer Limits-related theming in the ride and its queue was removed, and the ride was renamed Flight of Fear.
1997 featured the debut of Kidzville, a re-theming of the Hanna-Barbera section. Added was the new Taxi Jam roller coaster, and Scooby’s Playpark became a construction themed playpen called Kidz Construction Company. Yogi’s Cave was rethemed to Treasure Cave and filled with scrappy theming from other rides. Many rides in Kidzville, such as Scooby Doo’s Ghoster Coaster, George Jetson’s Spaceport, and Huck’s Hot Rods, continued to bear the names of Hanna-Barbera characters.
Paramount’s Kings Dominion continued what became a trend of adding launched roller coasters in 1998, when they opened Volcano, The Blast Coaster in the former Lost World mountain. The mountain’s previous rides had all been removed several years prior, and Volcano gave the mountain a major transformation. Volcano, which was manufactured by Intamin AG, was the world’s first LIM-launched inverted roller coaster. The ride featured two separate launch sections, an Immelman style loop out of the top of the mountain, and three heartline rolls on the way back down. (Huge explosions of fire are shot out the top of the mountain for added effect.) Volcano was themed to Paramount’s 1997 film Volcano; the other Paramount Parks added inverted or suspended roller coasters themed to Top Gun around the same time. During the next two seasons, Paramount’s Kings Dominion expanded Hurricane Reef behind the Rebel Yell and renamed it Waterworks. (Most of the original Hurricane Reef remains open as of 2006; the two areas are joined by a path under the Rebel Yell.) The new portion of Waterworks includes Pipeline Peak, a set of four enclosed water slides, one of which (the Night Slider) is the world’s tallest dark free-fall slide. In 2000, Nick Central opened on what was Nick Splat City and part of Kidzville.
The park added its third launched roller coaster, Hypersonic XLC, in 2001. Hypersonic XLC, a Thrust Air 2000 air-launched coaster made by S&S Power, launched riders from 0 to 80 miles (130 km) per hour in 1.5 seconds, taking them up a 87-degree incline and down a 87-degree drop. The entire ride takes about 25 seconds. Hypersonic XLC broke down frequently and was closed for the first three months of its second season; no other Paramount Parks installed a similar ride. Nevertheless, Hypersonic XLC helped establish Paramount’s Kings Dominion’s reputation as “the launched coaster capital of the world”. Hypersonic XLC was removed after the 2007 season.
The early 2000s saw Paramount’s Kings Dominion opening new rides similar to existing rides at other Paramount Parks. In 2002, the park opened its new wild mouse roller coaster, Ricochet. Carowinds also installed their Ricochet in 2002. Diamond Falls, the giant flume ride at Paramount’s Kings Dominion, also closed that season, leading to several seasons of speculation from park visitors over which ride would take its place. The 2003 season saw Kings Dominion become the final of several of the Paramount Parks to open a Drop Zone Stunt Tower. The Drop Zone at Paramount’s Kings Dominion, at 305 feet (93 m) high, was the tallest freefall ride in the world at the time it opened. In 2004, Paramount’s Kings Dominion added Scooby-Doo! and the Haunted Mansion; similar Scooby Doo-themed dark rides had opened at three other Paramount Parks during the three previous seasons. In the next season, Paramount’s Kings Dominion added an inverted top spin called Tomb Raider: Firefall, which was an outdoor version of a similar ride named Tomb Raider: The Ride at Paramount’s Kings Island. The differences between the two were that at Kings Dominion riders’ feet dangle freely and at Kings Island there is a floor. In the 2006 season, Paramount’s Kings Dominion opened the Italian Job Turbo Coaster, its fourth launched roller coaster. Unlike the previously-built launched coasters at Paramount’s Kings Dominion, each of which was faster than its predecessor, the Italian Job Turbo Coaster is designed more as a family ride and features several launches at 40 miles (64 km) per hour. Renamed the Backlot Stunt Coaster in 2008, the ride is similar to the Backlot Stunt Coaster rides at Kings Island and Canada’s Wonderland, which both opened in 2005.
The Cedar Fair era (2006-present)
Logo used briefly in 2007 after the switch from Paramount Parks. It is still currently used in signage and on the park’s website.
Control of the Paramount Parks had been transferred from Viacom to CBS Corporation at the start of the 2006 season; the parks had themselves been up for sale since the previous off season. CBS made several controversial moves with Paramount’s Kings Dominion during the 2006 season. First, a roller coaster based on The Italian Job had been advertised on television as being open at the start of the park’s 2006 season, whereas it did not actually open until late May, almost two months into the season. The placement of the ride was rather dubious; some enthusiasts ridiculed the park management for placing the entrance of The Italian Job, which was themed to a street chase, in the middle of the park’s African-themed Congo section near the Anaconda roller coaster. Second, visitors to the park during the 2006 season found that the trees in the queue of the Grizzly were cut down to make room for a new upcharge go-kart attraction called Thunder Raceway. Third, Paramount’s Kings Dominion closed Flight of Fear. Paramount’s Kings Dominion gave no indication in the previous season that Flight of Fear would be closed for 2006. Rumors had suggested that it would be relocated to another former Paramount Park; since Cedar Fair acquired Paramount’s Kings Dominion, the park worked to get the ride operable again. Flight of Fear reopened on August 18, ending speculation of the ride’s relocation and/or sale.
WaterWorks in 2007, showing the new Tornado.
On May 22, 2006, Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. announced that they were purchasing all five Paramount Parks. The sale was finalized on June 30, 2006. The park retained its Paramount’s Kings Dominion name through the end of the 2006 season and reverted to its original Kings Dominion name beginning in the 2007 season. For the 2007 season, the park lowered its single-day admission by $5 to $44.95, one year after Cedar Point had made the same change to their ticket prices. This was the first time that Kings Dominion has ever lowered their ticket prices for a full season. In addition, they brought back their Starlight discount, which allows admission to the park for $29.99 after 4pm. Kings Dominion expanded WaterWorks for the 2007 season, adding a second wave pool called Tidal Wave Bay, a four-person family raft slide called Zoom Flume, and a ProSlide Tornado.
In December 2006, Kings Dominion also put Hypersonic XLC up for sale. The park announced plans to keep it running until a buyer was found. As of the end of the 2009 season, it has not been sold. It remained in operation during the 2007 season and was closed and dismantled several weeks before the 2008 season started. Also during the 2007-2008 offseason, Cedar Fair renamed the park’s last two rides to open with Paramount theming. The Italian Job: Turbo Coaster became Backlot Stunt Coaster, and Tomb Raider: Firefall received the name The Crypt. The Paramount Theater also changed its name to Kings Dominion Theater.
The 2008 and 2009 seasons saw Kings Dominion receive three rides which had operated at Geauga Lake during its dry amusement park’s final season. On October 23, 2007, Kings Dominion announced that Dominator, a floorless roller coaster, would be moved to Kings Dominion and located in the International Street section. Dominator opened on May 24, 2008, becoming Kings Dominion’s first roller coaster with five inversions. For the 2009 season, two flat rides once located at Geauga Lake, like Dominator, opened in 2009. Located near Rebel Yell, Americana became Kings Dominion’s first Ferris wheel. El Dorado, a pendulum ride, opened in the former site of Hypersonic XLC next to the Xtreme Skyflyer.
For the 2010 season, Kings Dominion has installed Intimidator 305, a 305 ft (92.464 m) tall gigacoaster by Intamin AG. The ride will feature a cable lift hill, an 85 first drop and a maximum speed of at least 92 mph (145 kph). The ride, which is themed to the late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, was announced on August 20, 2009, and represents the park’s largest-ever capital investment. It is scheduled to open at the start of the 2010 season. Also for the 2010 season, the Kidzville and Nickelodeon Universe areas of the park are being rethemed to Planet Snoopy, as are the children’s areas at Canada’s Wonderland and Kings Island. The park has renamed the Hanna-Barbera themed rides in Kidzville to match the Planet Snoopy theme, ending the park’s 35-year run with Scooby Doo and other Hanna-Barbera characters.
Current rides/attractions
Dominator, a Bolliger & Mabillard floorless roller coaster formerly located at Geauga Lake, opened in 2008 along International Street.
International Street
International Street is the park’s main street area, which greets guests when they enter the park. Both sides of the street are lined with shops, including two park-related souvenir shops just inside the park’s front gate. International Street also has one flat ride, Berserker. Originally, only the street and its shops were considered part of the International Street area ; during the park’s Paramount years, the boundaries of International Street expanded to include the Action Theater.
Like Kings Island, the centerpiece of Kings Dominion is its 1/3 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, located just across the International Street fountain from the main entrance gate. This Tower was built by the late company Bristol Steel, which was located in Richmond, Virginia. An elevator regularly takes patrons up to the lookout tower, which provides a chance to see the entire park. The observation deck offered the best view of the nightly fireworks show (which no longer runs), and the Fourth of July fireworks, which are set off from behind the Anaconda roller coaster.
Grand Bandstand features live shows
Eiffel Tower (opened 1975) is a 1/3 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower; guests may ride elevators up to its observation deck at 275 feet (84 m).
Berserker (opened 1984) is a swinging Viking ship similar to a Looping Starship.
Action Theater motion simulator attraction has been open in the park since 1993. Dating back to 1975, the park had a country-western themed show in its same location called Hoedown, although it was considered part of the Old Virginia section. In the early 1990s, this became the Country Crossroads amphitheatre. The Country Crossroads Amphitheater closed after the park’s 1992 season and was replaced by Days of Thunder, a motion simulator; at this point, International Street’s borders expanded to include Days of Thunder. After five seasons with the Days of Thunder film, the Action Theater received its current name and has been playing a variety of films in its two motion simulator theaters, including James Bond 007. The Action Theater is currently showing Spongebob Squarepants 3-D, during the Halloween Haunt season its known to show Elvira’s Superstition.
Dominator (opened 2008) is a floorless roller coaster built by Bolliger & Mabillard. It has five inversions, the most of any of Kings Dominion’s roller coasters, and holds the records for largest vertical loop on a roller coaster (135 ft) and the world’s longest floorless coaster (4,210 ft). It originally operated at Geauga Lake.
Old Virginia
Along with International Street, Old Virginia is the only original section of Kings Dominion that has kept its same name throughout the park’s history; one of its current attractions, the Shenandoah Lumber Company (Log Flume), is one of the park’s longest-running rides. In the 1970s, Old Virginia had an Intamin Flying Dutchman flat ride called Jamestown Landing; behind it, Old Virginia had a steam train ride, the Old Dominion Line, which ran through the woods in the back of the park. Jamestown Landing closed by 1980; the Old Dominion Line stayed in the park until it closed in the 1990s. White Water Canyon, the park’s river rapids ride, opened in 1983. Since then, Old Virginia has added its current flat ride, Flying Eagles, which moved over from the park’s former Wayne’s World section.
The Grizzly’s lift hill
Kings Dominion Theater (opened 1975 as Mason Dixon Music Hall, operated through 2007 as Paramount Theatre) is the park’s largest indoor theatre and has hosted a wide variety of shows, including ice skating and musicals.
Flying Eagles, a set of Bisch-Rocco Flying Scooters, first opened with the park in 1975 and has had several location changes and name changes since it first opened. In the 1970s, the ride was called Parrot Troopers and was located in the Safari Village section, overlooking Lake Charles. Parrot Troopers closed in the 1980s and reopened in the park’s new Wayne’s World section as Scream Weaver in 1994. Scream Weaver was located on part of the former Hypersonic XLC site; to make room for the new roller coaster, Kings Dominion moved Scream Weaver to Old Virginia, across from the Kings Dominion Theatre, and renamed (and rethemed) it Flying Eagles to fit into the Old Virginia section.
Shenandoah Log Flume (opened 1975), one of the park’s original attractions, is a log flume with two hills and a course that travels through the woods of Old Virginia and past White Water Canyon’s queue.
White Water Canyon (opened 1983) is a rafting ride with six-person boats, waterfalls, and geysers. White Water Canyon also has an indoor portion toward the end of the ride. In recent years, the ride has often opened at noon (along with WaterWorks) rather than at the rest of the park’s opening time; the ride’s popularity also gives it some of the longest lines in the park.
Blue Ridge Tollway (opened 1975) is an antique cars ride, where riders ride gas-powered antique cars (guided by rails) around a track.
Grizzly (opened 1982), the park’s second full-size wooden roller coaster, has a Coney Island Wildcat design. California’s Great America’s Grizzly, which also has a Coney Island Wildcat Layout but is slightly taller and longer, opened four years later.
The Grove
The Grove, which opened with the park in 1975 as “Coney Island,” was renamed Candy Apple Grove, and is currently Kings Dominion’s largest section. The Candy Apple Grove first opened with an orchard theme, complete with singing mushrooms, and contained large candy apples and 3 apple-themed flat rides, an enterprise called Apple Turnover, a himalaya called Adam’s Apple and a Monster model known as Bad Apple. It lost much of this theming during the 1990s and changed its name to the Grove by 2001.
Today, The Grove is the location of the park’s main midway; the park’s largest arcade, which opened in the 1970s, continues to operate there. The Grove has grown several times since the early 1990s. From the 1980s to 1995, the park had a small Shady Grove section in the present-day location of Shockwave and the Showplace theater. When Nickelodeon Splat City opened in 1995, most of the Shady Grove section was demolished and the Slime Zone rose up in its place; Shockwave has since been part of the Grove. The park also operated a Wayne’s World-themed section for several years, beginning in 1994 with the opening of Hurler. Hurler (which travels over part of the former Old Dominion Line site in Old Virginia) are now part of The Grove. The Grove is also known for the Rebel Yell roller coaster, the park’s first full-size roller coaster; Drop Tower Scream Zone, the world’s tallest drop tower; and its carousel, which was first built in 1917. In 2009, El Dorado and Americana were added.
Carousel (opened 1975) was first built in 1917 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company; prior to opening at Kings Dominion in the park’s first season, it operated at Riverside Amusement Park in Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1917 to 1938, and at Roger Williams Park in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1938 to 1973. This all-wood carousel features 50 jumping horses, 16 standing horses, and two chariots, spread out over four rows.
Ricochet (opened 2002) is a Mack wild mouse roller coaster. Its compact layout contains a series of hairpin turns.
Triple Spin (opened 2002) is a Huss Troika.
Dodgem Bumper Cars opened with the park in 1975 and are located at the edge of the Grove section near the Backlot Stunt Coaster.
Drop Tower: Scream Zone (opened in 2003 as Drop Zone: Stunt Tower) is the world’s tallest drop tower at 305 feet (93 m) high. Drop Tower can take up to 56 riders at a time on its 272-foot (83 m) drop; they travel 72 miles (116 km) per hour before the ride’s magnetic braking slows them. Both this ride and its sister attration, Drop Tower: Scream Zone at Kings Island claim to be the tallest drop towers in the world. In fact, both rightly hold the title. Kings Island’s structure is 10-foot (3.0 m) taller than King’s Dominion’s. However, Kings Dominion’s tower’s breaks begin lower down on the structure, thus allowing riders to drop 8-foot (2.4 m) farther than riders on Kings Island’s.
Hurler
Hurler opened in 1994 as part of Paramount’s Kings Dominion’s Wayne’s World section, which has since become part of the Grove. Hurler has a triple out-and-back layout.
Rebel Yell (opened 1975) is a racing wooden roller coaster with an out-and-back layout that travels along one side of Lake Charles. Beginning in the 1990s, one track featured rear-facing trains, and riders could choose to ride either forwards or backwards. This feature was removed in 2008, and both tracks now have trains going forward only.
Shockwave (opened 1986) is a TOGO stand-up roller coaster located in part of the park’s former Shady Grove section. It features a vertical loop and a helix.
Wave Swinger (opened 1975)
Xtreme SkyFlyer (opened in 1996) is a SkyCoaster bungee jump attraction
El Dorado (opened 2009) is a family-friendly swinging pendulum ride, themed to a 1950’s style El Dorado convertible car which can carry a total amount of 40 riders up 85 feet in the air.
Americana (opened 2009) is Kings Dominion’s first Ferris wheel. It is 110 feet tall, and is located at the former location of the Launch Pad, just next to the Rebel Yell’s exit.
Nick Central
Meet Blue is a meet and greet area where guests can meet the star of Blue’s Clues.
Nickelodeon Meet & Greet is another meet and greet area, this time featuring characters like Tommy, Chuckie and Angelica from Rugrats, SpongeBob and Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants, and Cosmo and Wanda from The Fairly Oddparents.
The Showplace is a theater with game shows and shows featuring Nickelodeon characters.
Slime Zone, a maze filled with pipes shooting water in all directions, was one of Kings Dominion’s original Nickelodeon Splat City attractions.
Rugrats Toonpike, is a ride where children can drive through a simulated Rugrats town on small cars in a confined track set up to resemble a miniature town.
Nickelodeon Space Surfer is a Chance Morgan Aviator where riders board kite-like vehicles and glide through the sky at up to a 90 degree angle. Riders travel over the surrounding trees and attain almost the same height as the nearby roller coaster, Shockwave. The cars seat 1-2 riders in seats resembling those from an inverted roller coaster.
KidzVille
KidzVille is a children’s area between International Street and Congo. It opened with the park in 1975 as Hanna-Barbera Land and became known as KidzVille beginning in the 1997 season. It, along with Nickelodeon Central, will be rethemed to Planet Snoopy in 2010.
Treasure Cave is a funhouse featuring gemstones in the walls and tilted floors. It has been renamed and rethemed twice; it was first called Yogi Bear’s Cave and has also had the name Pirate Cave.
Boo Blasters on Boo Hill (opened 2004 as Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Mansion) is a shooting dark ride themed to a large ghost. Passengers ride in a car and shoot at objects to earn points.
Kidz Construction Company is a large children’s play structure themed to a construction site, containing slides and ball pits similar to those found at Chuck E. Cheese.
Alleycat 500 is a small Topcat themed car ride. It has a cow that the riders pass.
Boo Boo’s Tree Swings is a small swing ride located next to Treasure Cave.
Boulder Bumpers is an indoor bumper cars ride for children.
Dick Dastardly’s Airfield is a junior flat ride with small airplanes that goes in a circle over a creek.
George Jetson’s Spaceport is a junior airplane ride themed to The Jetsons.
Huck’s Hot Rods, a driving ride featuring Huckleberry Hound, is located near Alleycat 500.
Ranger Smith’s Jeep Tours is a small jeep ride for little kids.
Topcat’s Turnpike is a junior car ride.
Touche Turtle’s Clipper is a ship ride similar to a scaled-down, tamer Berserker.
Taxi Jam Coaster is an 8-foot-high junior roller coaster.
Ghoster Coaster (opened 1974 as Scooby Doo, then as Scooby-Doo’s Ghoster Coaster), a junior roller coaster, is located near the front of the park next to the former site of the Racing Rivers waterslides. American Coaster Enthusiasts gave the ride an ACE Coaster Classics plaque but have since removed the ride from their list due to design changes.
KidZVille Gazebo is a venue for children’s shows.
Congo
Congo is Kings Dominion’s westernmost and predominantly African-themed section. It was inspired by one of the park’s original attractions, the Lion Country Safari. Containing a boat ride and a monorail train through a nature preserve, the section closed in the 1990s but the theme remains. The Congo section features some of the greatest rides like Volcano, Anaconda, The Crypt, or Intimidator 305
Avalanche (opened 1988) is, as of 2009, the only Mack bobsled roller coaster remaining in the United States; the cars in its trains are themed to Olympic bobsleds from five countries.
Scrambler (reopened 2003), one of the Congo’s two flat rides, is a classic amusement ride similar to a Huss Breakdance. It was originally located on International Street and was moved to Candy Apple Grove in 1993, near the location that the Drop Tower occupies today; it was moved to the Congo section in 2003.
Anaconda Roller Coaster, viewed from its queue
Anaconda (opened 1991) continues to be well-known for its tunnel, which travels under Lake Charles. The ride still traverses most of its layout over the lake. When Anaconda opened, its four inversions were the most of any roller coaster in the park.
Backlot Stunt Coaster (opened 2006 as The Italian Job: Turbo Coaster) was Kings Dominion’s third LIM-launched roller coaster. It is themed to a car chase and is a nearly exact replica of rides found at Kings Island and Canada’s Wonderland. Originally themed to The Italian Job, it was the last ride with Paramount theming to open at the park and was renamed in the 2007 offseason.
The Crypt (opened 2005 as Tomb Raider: Firefall) is a suspended Top Spin originally themed to the film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It still has the same physical theming but was renamed in the 2007 offseason after the park’s change in ownership.
Volcano, The Blast Coaster (opened 1998) was the second of Kings Dominion’s LIM-launched roller coasters, it is also the park’s fastest roller coaster (after the removal of Hypersonic XLC). The ride, occupying the former “Lost World” mountain, is notable for two launches, the first being 70 mph (110 km/h).
Flight of Fear (opened 1996 as The Outer Limits: Flight of Fear) is one of the first two LIM-launched roller coasters in the world, along with Flight of Fear at Kings Island, with which it shares the same theming and layout. It is an indoor coaster in complete darkness, themed to an Area 51-style military installation. It was renamed in 2001 when Paramount lost the right to Outer Limits. Also in 2001 the over-the-shoulder harnesses were replaced with lap bar restraints after 5 seasons from guests complaining of a rough ride experience.
Intimidator 305 (under construction; scheduled to open April 2010) is the second giga coaster in North America (third in the world), after Millennium Force at Cedar Point. The ride, named and themed after late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr., sits on land initially used for the Lion Country Safari that had gone unused since the Safari closed in the early 1990s. Utilizing a similar cable lift hill system to Millennium Force, Intimidator 305 takes riders 305 feet up before they descend an 85-degree, 300-foot first drop. Its height matches the overall height of Drop Tower: Scream Zone, and its first drop equals the first drop of Millennium Force. It will have the steepest drop to date on a giga coaster. The ride’s maximum speed of 92 miles per hour will be the fastest attained by any ride ever located at Kings Dominion, as well as the fifth fastest roller coaster in North America.
WaterWorks
WaterWorks, Kings Dominion’s water park, can be thought of in terms of its two sides, Northside which was formerly known as Hurricane Reef, and Southside which is the newer section of WaterWorks. The rides that WaterWorks had as Hurricane Reef in the mid-1990s are all located in front of the Rebel Yell roller coaster; the newer rides are behind the Rebel Yell and are accessible by walking under the Rebel Yell on a walkway between Baja Bends and Shoot the Curl. The original Hurricane Reef attractions received new names when Kings Dominion renamed the water park WaterWorks in 1999.
Lazy Rider (opened 1992 as Lazy River) is a lazy river which travels around the center of the water park. With the exception of FreeStylin’, all of the remaining slides that originally opened with Hurricane Reef travel over Lazy Rider, which allows the lazy river to have several short tunnels during its course. As of 2005, the Lazy Rider’s entrance and exit were located on different parts of the river, which kept riders from making more than one lap of it without having to exit.
Baja Bends (opened in 1992 as Pipeline) is a set of four green open water slides located behind the Lazy Rider and in front of Lake Charles. The Baja Bends slides travel over Lazy Rider and end in a splashdown pool.
Spiral Chute (opened in 1992 as Torrential Twist) is a pair of enclosed slides that wrap around each other in a spiral manner. The queue for Spiral Chute passes under Anaconda; the loading station for the slides was built over the lake. Spiral Chute was closed for part of 2005 because a construction road for the Backlot Stunt Coaster was cut through its queue, making the station inaccessible. The slides reopened in 2006, however Spiral Chute was not open for the 2009 season, due to structural deficiencies of the platform structure, and is now standing but not operating.
Shoot the Curl (opened in 1992 as Cyclone) is a set of three enclosed blue slides located in front of the Rebel Yell; the slides travel over the Lazy Rider. The center slide is a free-fall slide, though not as tall as Night Slider on Pipeline Peak. The other two slides mirror each other and feature 360-degree helixes.
FreeStylin’ (opened in 1992 as Tidal Wave) is a pair of white open slides, which riders ride on one-person inner tubes; the slides end in a splashdown pool. Because the riders each carry their own tubes, the ride has two separate loading stations on connected towers, and the queue, which starts as one queue, splits in two part of the way up.
Big Wave Bay (opened 1999), the park’s first wave pool, holds 650,000 gallons of water; its wave machines generate four-foot waves.
Surf City Splash House (opened 1999) is a multi-level water play structure with several smaller slides and an 800-gallon bucket which dumps all of its water on guests every several minutes.
Lil’ Barefoot Beach (opened 1999) is a smaller water play structure for young children.
Pipeline Peak (opened 2000), the park’s largest slide structure in 2006, is a set of four enclosed slides manufactured by ProSlide. The top level of the tower features two body flumes: Night Slider, which, at 77 feet (23 m) tall, is the world’s tallest free-falling dark water slide, and Power Plunge, a long, twisting slide which is 77 feet (23 m) high at its beginning. Turbo Twister and Rip Slide, which are at the tower’s 50-foot (15 m) lower level, are two-person raft slides which open in several places in the middle of their course to splash water on riders.
Tidal Wave Bay (opened 2007) is the park’s second wave pool. Several other Cedar Fair parks include multiple wave pools. Dorney Park opened a second wave pool in 2006; California’s Great America will also open their second wave pool in 2007, and Michigan’s Adventure has three wave pools of varying sizes and depths.
Tornado (opened 2007) is a 65-foot-tall slide which deposits riders into a large funnel. ProSlide Tornadoes have opened at many Six Flags parks and several other Cedar Fair parks in the early 2000s; Kings Dominion is the second former Paramount Park to receive a Tornado.
Zoom Flume (opened 2007) is a four-person family raft slide.
Kings Dominion’s Timeline
1974: Preview Center opened featuring a movie theater, a kiddie style wooden coaster (then called the Scooby Doo), and Lion Country Safari. (At that time, visitors had to drive their own vehicles through the Safari section, later to be replaced by a monorail system a few years later.) Rebel Yell wooden racing roller coaster had been completed at that time but did not open until spring of 1975 along with the rest of the park.
1975: Park opened in spring of 1975 (one week after Busch Gardens “The Old Country” in nearby Williamsburg, Virginia)
1975: Apple Turnover (Enterprise style flat ride)
1977: King Kobra (steel coaster)
1978: Kings Dominion Campground opened
1979: Lost World themed area, featuring Journey to Atlantis, Land of Dooz, and Time Shaft (a Rotor ride)
1980: Haunted River replaced Journey to Atlantis
1982: Grizzly; Showplace Amphitheatre also opened
1983: White Water Canyon; Galaxie Closed
1984: Smurf Mountain replaced Land of the Dooz; Berserker
1985: Diamond Falls; Scooby’s Play Park
1986: Shockwave; King Kobra removed
1987: Racing Rivers
1988: Avalanche
1989: Sky Pilot (flat ride took the place of Apple Turnover)
1990: Hanna-Barbera Land expansion
1991: Anaconda
1992: Hurricane Reef water park
1993: Days of Thunder (motion simulator theater)
1994: Hurler; Old Dominion Line steam train removed
1995: Nickelodeon Splat City; Showplace Amphitheatre reopened as Kingswood Amphitheatre; Smurf Mountain is removed
1996: Flight of Fear; Xtreme SkyFlyer
1997: Taxi Jam Coaster; Hanna-Barbera Land renamed KidZville
1998: Volcano; Action Theater replaces Days of Thunder
1999: Expansion of Hurricane Reef water park to WaterWorks
2000: Nickelodeon Central; Pipeline Peak added to WaterWorks
2001: HyperSonic XLC (Xtreme Launch Coaster)
2002: Ricochet; Triple Spin; Diamond Falls closes
2003: Drop Tower; SpongeBob SquarePants 3-D in the Action Theater
2004: Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Mansion
2005: The Crypt; kids area of WaterWorks is removed
2006: Backlot Stunt Coaster; Flight of Fear shut down until mid-August, when it reopened; FearFest’s last year before stepping to a new level of fear, Halloween Haunt
2007: Tidal Wave Bay, Tornado, Zoom Flume added to WaterWorks; last year for Hypersonic XLC; Halloween HAUNT
2008: Dominator (B&M Floorless Coaster from Geauga Lake)
2009: El Dorado & Americana (Both relocated from Geauga Lake)
2010: Intimidator 305 (Intamin AG giga coaster) and Planet Snoopy (Retheme of Nickelodon Central.)
Retired rides and attractions
1975-1983: Galaxie (Galaxi) made by S.D.C.
1977-1986: King Kobra (Steel Coaster)
1979-1980: The Lost World Mountain: Journey to Atlantis, The Mine Train, and Timeshaft (located in the mountain of Volcano)
1980-1997: The Haunted River (located in the mountain of Volcano)
1984-1995: Smurf Mountain (located in the mountain of Volcano)
2001-2007: Hypersonic XLC compressed air-launched coaster made by S&S Power
References
^ “Roller Coaster Database”. King Kobra (Jolly Roger Amusement Park). http://www.rcdb.com/id638.htm. Retrieved 28 July 2006.
^ “Richmond.com”. Don let the heat and humidity of a Richmond summer keep you stuck to your vinyl car seats.. http://www.richmond.com/output.aspx?article_id=106. Retrieved 28 July 2006.
^ “Paramount’s Kings Dominion”. WaterWorks. http://www2.paramountparks.com/kingsdominion/attractions/category.cfm?ac_id=15. Retrieved 14 December 2006.
^ “Coaster-Net.com”. Hypersonic XLC. http://www.coaster-net.com/rg/hypersonicxlc.php. Retrieved 28 July 2006.
^ “Coaster-Net.com”. Ride Gallery > The Italian Job: Turbo Coaster. http://www.coaster-net.com/ridegallery.php?action=display&id=268. Retrieved 14 December 2006.
^ “Theme Park Critic”. Grizzly. http://www.themeparkcritic.com/scripts/ViewRide.asp?RideID=283. Retrieved 28 July 2006.
^ “CoasterBuzz”. PKDs Flight of Fear RE-OPENS. http://coasterbuzz.com/forum.aspx?mode=thread&TopicID=45601. Retrieved 14 December 2006.
^ a b “Cedar Fair”. Cedar Fair to Acquire Paramount Parks. http://www.cedarfair.com/ir/press_releases/index.cfm. Retrieved 14 December 2006.
^ a b c d e f g “Paramount’s Kings Dominion Press Room”. Kings Dominion To Lower Daily Admission Price For the First Time. http://www2.paramountparks.com/KingsDominion/news/detail.cfm?item_id=462. Retrieved 14 December 2006.
^ “Ital International LLC”. Launch Coaster: Reference Number 937. http://www.italintl.com/detail_page.php?record_id=937. Retrieved 14 December 2006.
^ “Kings Dominion: Virginia’s Premier Themed Amusement Park”. Thrill Rides. http://www2.cedarfair.com/kingsdominion/attractions/category.cfm?ac_id=13. Retrieved 13 December 2007.
^ Kings Dominion | Virginia’s Premier Themed Amusement Park (Richmond)
^ a b “Kings Dominion Announces Two New Rides for 2009″. http://www.kingsdominion.com/news/detail.cfm?item_id=802.
^ http://www.intimidator305.com/
^ a b c “PkdPlace”. 1980 Kings Dominion Map. http://www.pkdplace.com/images/map1980.jpg. Retrieved 3 January 2007.
^ “Webshots”. Candy Apple Grove 4. http://news.webshots.com/photo/1436980156070495517LxzSRv. Retrieved 4 January 2007.
^ “Webshots”. Candy Apple Grove 1. http://news.webshots.com/photo/1432227401070495517kuqtCz. Retrieved 4 January 2007.
^ a b “Coaster-Net”. Ride Gallery > Drop Zone Stunt Tower, Paramount’s Kings Dominion. http://www.coaster-net.com/ridegallery.php?action=display&id=49. Retrieved 3 January 2007.
^ a b “PkdPlace”. 2001 Kings Dominion Map. http://www.pkdplace.com/images/map2001detailed.jpg. Retrieved 3 January 2007.
^ a b “Thrill Network”. Carousel (Kings Dominion). http://database.thrillnetwork.com/ride_view.php/3699/carousel.html. Retrieved 4 January 2007.
^ “ThrillNetwork”. Nickelodeon Space Surfer. http://database.thrillnetwork.com/ride_view.php/3703. Retrieved 13 December 2007.
^ “PkdPlace”. Other Attractions: Scrambler. http://pkdplace.com/index.php?page=scrambler. Retrieved 18 December 2006.
^ “Coaster-Net”. http://www.coaster-net.com/pics/pkd/project06014_blastcoaster.jpg. Retrieved 18 December 2006.
^ a b “Ultimate Roller Coaster”. Kings Dominion’s WaterWorks Water Park Opens May 14. http://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/news/stories/20050511_01.shtml. Retrieved 18 December 2006.
^ “ProSlide”. Installations: ProSlide Tornadoes. http://www.proslide.com/installation.php?mainRideID=1. Retrieved 18 December 2006.
External links
Official website
Official website of Intimidator 305
Historical Kings Dominion Gallery
Photos of Kings Dominion c. 1981.
Kings Dominion to open section featuring five water attractions – 1992 article from Travel Weekly announcing the opening of Hurricane Reef (requires subscription)
Kings Dominion attraction timeline
The people’s park: Kings Dominion always takes you back – article in the Hook weekly
Kings Dominion Timeline: 1971-2005
Old Kings Dominion Photos: 1975-2004
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Star Trek: The Experience Knott’s Camp Snoopy (Nickelodeon Universe)
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Categories: Amusement parks in Virginia | Cedar Fair amusement parks | 1975 establishments | Eiffel Tower reproductions | Landmarks in Virginia | Hanover County, VirginiaHidden categories: Articles needing cleanup from August 2008 | All pages needing cleanup
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Train cars from the Serengeti Express in the foreground with the Skyride in the background.
The Serengeti Express (a replica steam train) runs along the back end of the park and makes stops at the Nairobi, Congo and Stanleyville themed areas. The train track was recently renovated, and its tracks have been changed.
The Skyride transports guests between Crown Colony and Stanleyville.
Morocco
The park’s main entrance is home to the Mystic Sheiks of Morocco brass and percussion ensemble. Treats can be purchased at the Sultan’s Sweets and the Zagora Cafe. The Moroccan Palace, a 1,200 seat indoor theatre, is located here as well as the outdoor Marrakesh Theater. Gwazi is the major ride in this area.
Gwazi, a 90-foot (27 m), 50 mph (80 km/h) dueling wooden roller coaster named after a mythological creature with the head of a tiger and the body of a lion.
Gwazi Gliders, a small hang glider flat ride relocated from the Congo section’s defunct Pygmy Village kids area.
Bird Gardens
The original section of the park that opened back in 1959. The area for the most part remains to be mostly gardens and animal exhibits/shows. A staple attraction that once stood in this section was the brewery. However, the brewery closed in 1995 and Gwazi now sits where the brewery was located. The traditional, educational bird show is currently being replaced with a newer, more entertainment-based show, including a number of mammals.
Sesame Street Safari of Fun
Former Land of the Dragons children’s section of the park. Land of the Dragons will be replaced in spring 2010 by Sesame Street Safari of Fun.
Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay welcomes families to an all-new, Sesame Street-themed, sunny, funny playland featuring Elmo, Big Bird and all their friends. Sesame Street Safari of Fun will be filled with rides, shows and adventures that celebrate the spirit of Africa. Sesame Street and Busch Gardens unite to create a signature attraction found nowhere else. In addition to the rides and play areas, families also will be able to watch their favorite characters on the big screen. esame Street presents Lights, Camera, Imagination! will run in the park 4-D theater, located in Timbuktu. And families can share breakfast and lunch with Elmo and the rest of the characters on select days at an outdoor dining facility adjacent to Sesame Street Safari of Fun.
Stanleyville
This section of the park is home to the park’s water rides and SheiKra, formerly the only Dive Coaster in the United States, prior to the addition of its sister coaster Griffon at Busch Gardens Europe. The section opened up in 1973 with the addition of the Stanley Falls Flume. The African Queen Boat Ride opened in 1977 as Busch’s version of Disney’s Jungle Cruise. In 1989, the African Queen Boat Ride was transformed into Tanganyika Tidal Wave with the addition of a 55-foot (17 m) drop that generates a giant splash. The section remained unchanged from then until 2005, when SheiKra opened, and the surrounding area was renovated.
SheiKra, a 200-foot (61 m) Bolliger & Mabillard floorless dive roller coaster with a 90-degree vertical drop.
Stanley Falls Flume, a log flume with a 43-foot (13 m) drop.
Tanganyika Tidal Wave, a 20 passenger shoot the chutes water ride with a 55-foot (17 m) drop.
Congo
Python, the park’s first roller coaster. It was also Florida’s first inverting roller coaster. It was removed in 2006.
This section contains two of the park’s more popular rides. In November 2006, Congo underwent major renovation, including the removal of the park’s classic Python roller coaster.
Kumba, meaning roar in Swahili, is a 143-foot (44 m) steel sit-down roller coaster with seven inversions. First built in 1993 by Bolliger & Mabillard, it still remains a popular ride today. The ride was repainted in 2006.
Congo River Rapids, a water ride that simulates raging whitewater rapids. The ride opened in 1982.
Ubanga Banga Bumper Cars, a bumper cars ride.
Jungala
Opened on April 5, 2008, Jungala is a 4-acre (16,000 m2) family attraction featuring up-close animal encounters, rope bridges to explore three stories of jungle life, and a water-play area for children. Also located in this area are two family attractions: Jungle Flyers, a zip line that offers three different flight patterns above the treetops of the new area, and Wild Surge, a shot tower that launches guests above a waterfall. Another attraction is Tiger Trail, which is a walkthrough with tigers where there is also a glass turret where you can look out right in the middle of the tiger enclosure.
Jungle Fliers, a zip line ride.
The Wild Surge, a Moser family launch tower ride.
Python, an Arrow Dynamics looping coaster patterned after the original Corkscrew at Knott’s Berry Farm, previously occupied the site occupied now by Jungala.
Timbuktu
A section themed after the malls and bazaars of Africa. This section opened up in May 1980. The Phoenix was built in 1984 and remains a popular ride to this day. The section was renovated in 2003. Important rides added during this facelift included the Timbuktu Theater, which replaced the park’s Dolphin Theater with an indoor 4-D movie theater. In 2004, Das Festhaus was transformed into the Desert Grill, and the park’s family-friendly Cheetah Chase wild mouse roller coaster opened, replacing the Crazy Camel flat ride.
Scorpion, a steel Schwarzkopf-designed sit-down roller coaster with one vertical loop.
Cheetah Chase, a steel wild mouse roller coaster.
Phoenix, a looping Egyptian cargo vessel.
Pirates 4D!, a “4-D” movie about pirates starring Leslie Nielsen. The show replaced the Haunted Lighthouse 4-D attraction written by R. L. Stine.
Sandstorm, an orbiter ride with three arms that spins riders around.
Nairobi
Alligators and crocodiles can be observed here up close. In Curiosity Cavern, guests can view mammal and reptile exhibits. Visitors to Nairobi can view injured or abandoned newborns at the Nairobi Field Station Animal Nursery. The areas also contains Myombe Reserve, a tropical rainforest that is home to Western Lowland Gorillas and Common Chimpanzees. The major ride here is Rhino Rally, an unpredictable off-road safari that ends spiraling its riders down a raging river. The main train station at Busch Gardens is located at Nairobi. Another popular attraction here is the Asian Elephant exhibit, which is also featured in the Rhino Rally ride.
Rhino Rally, a Vekoma River Adventure ride, Riders board inside modified Land Rovers through the park’s Serengeti Plain habitat, interacting with animals and a raging river.
Crown Colony
Crown Colony House
Crown Colony is the smallest section of the park. It features only 2 attractions and a restaurant. The Crown Colony House offers both casual and fine dining. The Budweiser Clydesdale Hamlet and posing area are located here along with a Skyride station. 2009 marks the 50th anniversary of Busch Gardens, so a museum is set up next to the Clydesdale hamlet featuring a timeline of pictures, costumes from previous shows, and old maps of the park. It also has a preserved Python roller coaster seat. The museum will be open for the rest of the year.
Egypt
Bedouin tents and authentic handicrafts and art create an Egyptian marketplace feel. Guests can visit a replica of King Tutankhamen’s tomb with the excavation in progress. The primary attraction of the Egypt themed area is Montu, an inverted steel coaster.
Montu, named after the Egyptian Falcon God of War, is a 150-foot (46 m) steel inverted Bolliger & Mabillard roller coaster with seven inversions.
Animal Exhibits
The Serengeti Plain
In 1965, the park opened its Serengeti Plain animal habitat, the first of its kind to offer animals in a free-roaming environment. Over the years, the habitat has expanded from 29-acre (120,000 m2) to its current size of 65-acre (260,000 m2) . It is home to the Grevy zebra, reticulated giraffe, bongo, addax, addra gazelle, eland, impala, ostrich, marabou stork, East African crowned crane and sacred ibis.
Myombe Reserve
Giraffes at the “Edge of Africa” attraction.
A 3-acre (12,000 m2) home for six lowland gorillas and nine chimpanzees located in Nairobi, opened in 1992.
Edge of Africa
Opened in 1997, Edge of Africa is a walk-through attraction where guests can observe African animals. Among the exhibits are meerkats, two prides of lions, a pack of hyenas, a few hippos, and a troop of lemurs.
Curiosity Caverns
This cavern attraction, formerly known as Nocturnal Mountain, contains animals such as bats, snakes, lizards, tamarins, and sugar gliders.
Golden Ticket Awards
The following is a list of roller coasters at Busch Gardens that have placed on Amusement Today’s Top 50 coasters, along with their highest ranking.
Roller Coaster
Highest Rank
Montu
3
Kumba
7
SheiKra
13
Gwazi
38
Annual events
Real Music Series
Main article: Real Music Series
From January – March, Busch Gardens hosts a weekly concert series which invites popular bands either in Big Bands or Pop to perform classic or contemporary songs.
Summer Nights
In the summer months, the park stays open later and includes concerts by performers like David Cassidy and Starship with Mickey Thomas. The park’s Independence Day festivities add fireworks to the entertainment lineup.
Howl-O-Scream
Main article: Howl-O-Scream
Every October, Busch Gardens is transformed into Howl-O-Scream. This event contains haunted houses, scare zones, and shows. Howl-O-Scream is one of the top rated Halloween events in the US. Howl-O-Scream has featured some attractions of the park turned into “horrified” attractions at night. This includes Serengeti Safari Tours, which was turned into Evening Serengeti Safari Tours, and Curiosity Caverns, which was turned into Dark Cavern, both in 2000. 2009 is Howl-O-Scream’s 10th anniversary.
Holidays
In November through December, theaters throughout the park are transformed into Christmas themed shows in celebration of the Holiday season.
See also
Adventure Island (water park)
Busch Gardens
Busch Gardens Europe
SeaWorld Orlando
Incidents at SeaWorld parks
Howl-O-Scream (Tampa Bay)
List of attractions in Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay
Notes
^ Kiplinger, Lisa (June 17, 1989). “Busch Gardens keeps on growing”. Wilmington Morning Star. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8eUVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UxQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6765,1157253&dq=busch+gardens+africa. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
^ RCPro :: Your Source for High Quality Amusement Information!
^ “Busch Gardens Tampa Bay Fact Sheet”, page 4. Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay. Retrieved January 31, 2010.
^ “There’s a lot more to Africa than animals.”. St. Petersburg Times. August 19, 1975. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=UDIMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Vl8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5479,2956141&dq=skyride+busch+gardens. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
^ Gershman, Rick (October 14, 2004). “Scare tactics”. St. Petersburg Times. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/14/Weekend/Scare_tactics.shtml. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Official site
History of Busch Gardens, Tampa
Busch Gardens pictures from the past
Roller Coaster Database entries for Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay
BGTGuide- Unofficial site with pictures and information
Park Timeline from the Tampa Tribune
Busch Gardens Information and Photos
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SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment
SeaWorld parks
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Hillsborough County, Florida points and events of interest
Galleries and museums
Cracker Country Glazer Children’s Museum Florida Museum of Photographic Arts Graphicstudio Henry B. Plant Museum Museum Of Science and Industry SS American Victory Tampa Bay History Center Tampa Firefighters Museum Tampa Museum of Art Ybor City Museum State Park
Zoological parks and aquariums
Busch Gardens Africa Florida Aquarium Lowry Park Zoo University of South Florida Botanical Gardens
Areas of interest
Channel District Downtown Tampa & Franklin Street Historic Hyde Park MacDill Air Force Base Plant City Downtown & Historic District Historic Seminole Heights & Hampton Terrace Soho Tampa Bay Tampa Heights West Tampa Ybor City
Other points of interest
Babe Zaharias Golf Course Bayshore Boulevard The Straz Center Ford Amphitheatre Egmont Key Hillsborough River & State Park Lettuce Lake Park Malibu Grand Prix Port of Tampa Raymond James Stadium Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Skatepark of Tampa St. Pete Times Forum Sulphur Springs Water Tower Sunshine Skyway Bridge Tampa Bay Downs Tampa Convention Center Tampa International Airport Tampa Theatre Tampa Union Station University of South Florida University of Tampa
Events
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Zoos of Florida
Aquaria
Dolphin Research Center Florida Aquarium Key West Aquarium Miami Seaquarium Mote Marine Laboratory SeaWorld Orlando The Seas with Nemo & Friends
Zoos
Brevard Zoo Busch Gardens Tampa Bay Butterfly World Center for Great Apes Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens Disney’s Animal Kingdom Flamingo Gardens Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory Lion Country Safari Lowry Park Zoo Miami MetroZoo Naples Zoo Palm Beach Zoo Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park The Zoo Northwest Florida Dade City’s Wild Things
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Zoos, aquaria, and aviaries
Types of zoos
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Conservation
Biodiversity Endangered species Extinction Ex-situ conservation In-situ conservation
Lists
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Animals
Amphibian Bird Fish Invertebrate Mammal Reptile
Other topics
Animals in captivity Animal training Behavioral enrichment Captive breeding Frozen zoo Immersion exhibit Nocturnal house Zookeeper Zoology
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Busch Gardens Tampa Bay Attractions
Morocco
Rock A Doo Wop Gwazi Gwazi Flyers Katonga Myombe Reserve Mystic Sheiks of Morocco
Bird Gardens
Critter Castaways Lory Landing Garden Aviary Sesame Street Safari of Fun (coming soon) Air Grover (coming soon) Garden Gate Cafe Entertainment
SkyRide Animal Connections…Now Starring You! Busch Gardens Now and Through the Years Museum
Serengeti Plain
Serengeti Safari Tours Edge of Africa
Egypt
Tut’s Tomb Montu
Categories: Amusement parks in Florida | 1959 establishments | Visitor attractions in the Tampa Bay Area | Landmarks in Tampa, Florida | Zoos in FloridaHidden categories: Articles to be merged from December 2007 | All articles to be merged | Articles needing additional references from June 2008 | All articles needing additional references
“Zuwarah-Travelers Song & Berber/Morocc/Gnawa Dance” Excerpted from “Songhai” Music/Dance Medley Female dancers and ensemble perform to entertain the Mulai in Marrakesh. Dancer: Danielle Flowers Dancer/Vocalist: Gabrielle Johnson-Chou www.imagesofthemotherland.com e-mail: imagesofthemotherland@yahoo.com
The X-Men claim to be super mutants; I think they are rip offs from Malcolm X’s movement. But some think such a derivative evolution is simply a “sport,” which can go off in any direction it pleases, finding new natural zones in which to perform its adaptations. And some other beings say that man always has an eternal soul, meant to go places, do new things, and become and create new people.
Lastly, some people say that if you are alone, heroic and isolated, you are Satanic and meant to die…
…and so I have changed the names in this story to protect the innocent – namely, me and everyone else – from libel and slander charges.
The story itself proceeds as follows:
In a time of vast opportunities and no splendor but the eternal ongoing murder of one’s family and friends by each other, the authorities, petty circumstances, poverty, guilt and unknown hideous romances, an overburdened tall man once tried to halt the violent spread of social injustice. His way was rife with political questions that were never truly answered. Due to many frustrating circumstances such as these, that young man was stabbed four times in the chest; touching his heart oh so deeply before he went home. His home was a nice, normal house at the time, not far away from the black section of Harlem in New York City. That area is still poverty stricken to this day.
He looked in the mirror, saw a tall, skinny but thick cheated bull looking exactly like Satan, and he reflected. He had turned in some other people to the authorities, and now he had to pay the price for his actions. This largely involved suicide by firing squad. He had wanted not to be killed, and to be murdered meant its own diabolical implications.
“I’m black finally,” he thought to himself, “and they still don’t love me. Gee, why is that?” Mur knew he was only having a hangover for half a split second. “I have spent year after unadulterated year trying to become black for them, after moving around enough to have run away from nearly everyone. I am the utmost coward that I have ever met, and I only want to kill all of you. I don’t even know who you are as yet, strangely enough. It is because we are forever at war with each other. I am standing here with four gaping open wounds slowly closing and unclosing, and I have no desire left to go hit up a hospital anymore for my dough. I have pulled stickups, heists and burglaries.
“What gives with that, Mur? What happened to you? Ah shit, all my old family is dead, every last relative, and I am the man in the middle. I now have a family through Bette and the kids, and they’re waiting for me to give the last speech. I have to go mount that podium, don’t I? And I’m unlikely to make it there before I fall down dead.”
He knew Bette cared about him, as she loved him deeply. She had only had children with him, but he also had a feeling she was always afraid for them. She didn’t look around at other guys, and she seemed to be very proud of him. But he wondered what she really thought.
He felt like such a miserable failure at life, sometimes. Who was going to provide for his family? And what if the people who killed him killed them as well? It wasn’t that unlikely. And so far as he knew, Bette was pregnant again, due to give birth in a few months.
He watched himself ooze, shooting his cuffs. Assuredly, he thought it would be best to change these clothes, but considering the lack of anyone caring about me at all, he decided, it would be better to mount that podium as my own red self. Red, red, nothing but red. I would say a green light would be a better chance for him, the devil in the mirror, he sighed. And altogether, I am a Moslem no longer tonight.
As he gazed upon himself in the mirror, he gasped. He pulled his rag doll self deep inside to him, for he really had to “be a man” now. He had to still be his old, familiar self to his own eyes – but everyone he met had seemed to see a good man in Satan. He was the biggest, tallest, most strapping Lucifer that he had ever seen, as a yellow man. He didn’t feel half as unique as he looked, being surrounded often by other black men. Scots, he dreamed, must lead the most arrogant existence as white males that the world had usually told of. Old Nordic civilizations ruled his universe, but he liked the Islamic ones.
He drew himself up in full pose, reflecting upon how much a mirror can bleed. The pain that tore through his right chest enormously suited this new perspective. He smoothed back his simple haircut, a fifties crew that felt easier to take care of – but pathetic.
“At last, at last. Well, I’ve told Bette off for the final time. Bad cat.” He smoothed down the walls of his contained within a roughly six foot four body thick chest. It throbbed. It was interesting to feel such a noise coming from deep within him. “Help me, Allah. No, don’t. Actually,” he chuckled, “As you must kill me at the theatre, I suppose you would not like to be me any further, would you? I think I should make a cutting fellow for a few bullet wounds that could insist on. Dad, would you mind if I f—-d up your speech?”
No, the chap in the mirror reflected as he frowned in supple manners. Black people, we don’t seem to go away, even when we’re ninety percent white. It is the heat of an African sun that lends us any such thing as mere superiority. A strong man who was laid in front of a moving street car with a bashed head should never have woken up. How could he – but if the streetcar had jarred as it cut into him, he could’ve felt it. Murdock was tired and getting dried out now. His Dad should’ve had his human rights somehow, and not simply been a human gravesite for good ideas.
I should be a Scot, as named “Sir Murdock,” he shyly whispered, smoothing down his newly bleeding white lapels. Africa suits me better, though, and I’m handling this death of mine well enough. He thought they would wince as inwardly as he did, chuckling. It felt good to be dying oh so slowly. Still, if he kept them waiting at the better theatre for his choice appearance…he raised his hand up to his mouth, lightly licking blood off his steak like fingers. They tasted awfully good. He drew his long tongue over each one in turn, relishing the taste of it.
Huh, he thought. I shall never impress my lady, but at least I already have her set up with her new husband. It shall not be more than a pain than (wince) to die slowly on stage, but my heart is stabbed through. As it opened, Murdock knew momentarily that he must die right now. The pain was telling him so, although the ache in his actual heart of a black and lonely selfless but fatherly soul began to override it. It pulled through him as it ripped wider within him. Needing to be saved from himself, he grabbed at his dresser drawer, staring above it at the vanity’s surface, which was slick and nut brown like him.
In the mirror of his paling, drawn features lurked a witless presence, peering through centuries of time and insane persecution. “Wander down to that Catholic Church on the street corner, and see what you saw before in the sidewalk, written in the anti Semitic letters of sand. Yourself, super stud, wanting to save the whole entire world through Satan. That is not the way, the truth or the guiding light. Who is an individual must reap the benefits of all human misery, and as a Black Scot, don’t you think? Would you rather be torn apart with knives – or with more bullets? What is the best performance?”
“Myself,” he freaked casually at the mirror, lips curling into a fair snarl. “Too much to take into infinity, and yet I have seen you before, whoever you are, and here I am as you. I am not your white, am I? I have never been allowed to be white under this set of circumstances which I think now I freely chose. Chuckle.” He decided he’d better set to straightening out his clothes and going, so he laid out a pair of shoes on his bed and began to shine them well. As he worked, which took all of five minutes, he thought about the audacity of a man who had been mostly shining shoes for white men. But having children in poverty meant to better their circumstances.
And he seemed to have a reflective crowd of black statues who pulled a fine spooky figure – for cowards. Actually, so many of them had helped him out so often, and had died bravely to serve the Cause. But were they his real friends? Or did they have nothing further to give him, now?
Completing the act of fixing his personal appearance, he combed his scrubby hair as his newly dying body throbbed. “How long I have is beyond me. Falling down on the way to the theater suits, but I must walk there now without panting. Hold on, bud, I really have to do this. It’s the last mile. I have murdered so many people through proxy, I must be akin to Hitler and surest will meet him where we all must go. I suppose I shall end up shining his shoes by making him eat them. Well, let’s be off.”
As his bloody hand pulled at the doorknob of his small bedroom, he looked back through time at the wall. He remembered when a chunk of it had flown over to him and landed at his feet, which were clad in bedroom slippers at the time. The noise of guns had been deafening, and he had reached for his, but once more, it had been spectacularly missing. “A cracker, a cracker, a kingdom for such sustenance from you, shadow weirdoes. I know I am hallucinating all this. Still, Bette’s safe, and so are the kids, so far. It must be the new family. I shall buy them tonight as my own personal future. It is best that way.”
A “cracker” was once an alliterative slur about white people in America. It has to do with them being shot full of little holes. However, such a being is improper sustenance.
Meanwhile, as he was dying, Mur began to wonder about the audacity of guns that were always placed conveniently out of his handsome reach. He also thought that Allah must be kind on one hand, as all his life he had never really wanted to shoot one. Too many people had been shooting at him personally for him to really want to kill them. On the other hand, he would have deeply relished the chance to slaughter them all back.
As a shadow slipped over the horizon, Murdock little peered around Harlem. Others waved at him, then flinched slowly as they moved away. Oh, I smell of iron, thought Mur to himself. Red blood is so full of lovely dark protein. Sustenance I suppose, but as the evening shades enveloped the wan smells of stores and people milling throughout the grey streets, he casually strolled towards his reckoning premise. On the way, he passed the filthy doors of that same Catholic Church, the small one for blacks that had inhabited Harlem since some time immemorial. It was never the same regal church twice, being frequently updated by its invisible black hierarchy. He turned right to brutally sigh, letting all the air out his huge chest, as the four wounds gainfully poured forth their fullest measure. How touching. It promised peace in heaven for the spiritual, such as his wife and children. They somehow seemed whiter than white to him.
“Well, this is as good a time for it as any, I would guess?” he stated aloud. The filthy door taunted him with its message of green paint peeling back the layers of the necessity of the thing called Death, which had been chasing him forever his short life, as he had noticed from when he was in crib and his mom had spilled talcum powder right into his mouth. The sound of multiple guns firing had come right through the door. This had over time put his mind into a useful state of grace, which he used to get around in traffic.
If I could quite recollect, I need to go down Cherry, take a right on oh here we go there’s the stoplight. Right, stay right there. Oh heart that is not made out of candy – be good. It is good. Yes, there’s the light. Murdock the Red walked against the light and then saw the theater and realized it was not where it ought to be. It had definitely been located between Alder and Bourbon with a little white people flower shop situated across from it. I believe that if I ever sliced into those white people I would see red blood, but I have never seen them at all in that form. My mother was whiter than I, and she ended up in many mental asylums over my dad. Meanwhile, I have never really killed anyone, he supposed.
For one second, he clutched his failing heart, feeling it thud…once.
He briefly harrumphed, pulling at his collar, which was quite wet with perspiration. As the finality of the thing called Death began to travel through his entire body, he jerked himself awake. He had a fantasy about having killed a hooker and also being a gay prostitute who pimped. It promised him a summer sun, deep in the heart of equatorial Africa. He loved this strange continent, which was merely a giant world in his mind. But it was full of communist countries. Mecca had been fun to contemplate, as long as he didn’t really want to go to heaven. As he frowned, he realized he was being told that a total fix of heroin like before was on the horizon, and all he had to do was not walk into the theater. If he simply went over to the Busted Denizens coffee shop across the street, he could avoid falling down. It was a sweet little coffee shop, one where he’d almost had a good time. It beckoned to him like a way out of dying now.
A voice in his head said if he called it off, life would be normal again. He had been busted so many times, it was a wonder his military crew cut was yet in place. To be busted means to be under arrest for impersonating a large, scary animal, he reflected. He coughed into his reddened hand, gazing upon it with undying affection for himself. He was martial and military without feeling it. Having a tiny military of his own was entirely out of the question now, and he had to keep aware that many people didn’t like him or his new family anymore. These people would be gunning for them in mysterious ways, all of which promoted supernatural feelings. He wanted to kill the supernatural and stop.
The voice in his head, so very like his own, told him it is easy to kill it. All you need to do is face it down fearlessly, and then you can tell it what to do. But if you do that, you will have to suffer the immediate consequences of your dire and violent actions.
He looked over at the theater door. There was the usual bright red neon glowing sign, reading Apollo Theater. It winked on and off up high in the air, floating above the stacks of the chimney factory area down the block away from the street. Murdock sighed. This was going to be tricky, because he suddenly felt like his wife and children were not there in a theatre he was about to enter. As pain wrenched his body, he mumbled, “Enough. I am a radio program but not a television one. I don’t carry this forward anymore.”
The theater had been the one thing he could count on to be normal. It was not. As he searched out the front of it, he knew it was not at all the same theater he knew.
As the undying pains of possibilities racked that young amateur lawyer who had determined that merely attempting to save his people was enough for his soul, he pulled himself into place. His whole body coldly told him to fall down and die. As his knees buckled, he pulled a buck and wing and stood sharply erect into place. It had been a good idea, to wage war with the United States, and then die fighting. It had been appropriate.
There. That was enough. Feeling cold all through him, he realized the wounds had quit oozing momentarily, perhaps for the next twenty-five seconds or so. Ah yeah, I can reach for that door – push – and there we go, now it’s time to enter the theater and meet Death or not. Say, the thought occurs that I am already Death myself. It is like being made half of hot summer air, like usual. Right now though, I wish I could rend another wound most deeply into my lonely immortal soul. My last female cousin whom I can remember fell to a house burglary recently, but at least I still have one or two relatives left alive. There is something wrong with leaving my entire older, almost dead family completely behind. Yet I have now to save a father headed family – of mine.
I read somewhere that I am only two percent solid matter, and the rest must be winging its way around in there like crazy. If I push through this door, what could happen? Bette and the kids – and those murderous assholes – might be waiting in there for me, but come to think of it, I’m going to have to follow my elaborate plan. I have a speech prepared, but I have no idea when the bullets are going to begin through the air at me. Or us. And she and the kids are right there in the audience. “Whoops, there goes my heart again,” he told himself, nearly falling down on his knees. He finally tried, and got back up again.
As he went through the open door and gently let it slide shut behind him, he walked down the steps. Each concrete bar shot through him, but he was trying to guide it back behind him. Ouch, he thought, now I have to do something other than stepping forward, I think. So he bounded down the last five steps and landed, going: now I do feel I’m a nightmare marine. Odds bodkins, I’m definitely service personnel here, aren’t I? I’m going to have to lure them away from Bette and her kids. I wonder how. They are not out to kill only me – so far as I am aware, although I have done my best to attract them like a dust magnet. If I am truly Satan here, the racially mixed Jewish black man, they should be out to kill only me, under Islamic rules. However, they view Bette and the kids as pagans and are equally out to kill them. If they want to get at me. Satan should be enough to get their attention, but is it? Am I real enough a performer to pull this off?
Roger. I’m a big strapping Black American. So patriotic. If I needed to be patriotic to get out of this one, that ended a long time ago. I can’t stand the attitudes of the country which I am born into, as it is full of shit. Still, I am good at blaming our and their womankind for my problems. Yeah, blame mom, which will get me out of this one. She’s long gone in my mind, he thought smiling to himself – as he approached the stage door back. He peered silently around it, whipping off his narrow black glasses to quickly wipe and put them back on. They were now obscure, relatively difficult to see through. Shrug. I’ve handled that before, he thought. But no, there was something wrong this time. Still, I have about five minutes to get on stage. Umm, no, these go off. So Mur took off the glasses, carefully placing them in a side pocket. Then he shook with laughter at himself. Why keep the glasses, when he was not going to go on living?
He took his prescription frames, which he had worn since a boy, back out of the pocket, saying, “L’chaim.” Now I’m summarily Jewish, he smiled to himself, crushing them under his left shoe succinctly. This will make a stronger Satan for them, but I do not like this. I fear much for my true family. Stomping them once, they were a clear mess in the shadows under the floor, seeming to disappear as they so blended in. At least it will be a life without glasses for five minutes, he wheezed, patting his chest down again. Something was strange, for it seemed to be rising and falling in an unusual rhythm for a change. Well, he figured, this is not it. The floor is weird and flesh colored. I had a deep cut on my hand after a knife fight that I let to go, and it healed all right. These cuts can never heal again under any circumstances, and I would relish their claiming me.
Why, this is not it, again. Walk through door. There they are. Walk forward, stand in front of – no – behind podium. There is the white podium, off in the near distance. It is a few meager steps away to my simple death. The lighting is great tonight here at the Apollo. I see a huge crowd of the vultures, gathering to feed on the upper sky lighting. Not on me, I suppose, but on Negroes. None of them seem to know there are Negroes – and I believe they have now all become demons, white or black.
They seem to be gabbling away at each other, a hubbub. I wonder what a hubbub is going to turn out to be in the next realm. Surely, something pitiful, circling the skies over my head as I pitch up my lunch. Nah, I’m walking toward this. There is the gravesite podium, two steps away.
So Brother Murdock Shabazz leapt up the final steps to the podium and grabbed it with one fine thin brown paw. He was standing on a wooden platform behind it, one of those short stepstool ones, and needed to get rid of it. So he jumped back, kicking it away to the right side with one foot. He had done this solely because it had seemed “right.”
Something again clicked in his head. As he did so, the upper lights all flew on. He was looking over the podium, the top of which hit about chest level under his stomach, and he felt a little too tall and moist for the podium. So he grabbed it bodily, shaking it back and forth as it swayed, letting it settle down, and began his final speech.
It had been supposed to be about the Marcus Garvey return to Africa movement, but in fact Murdock had finally decided that movement was the one the white men had kidded his father into believing was possible. It might be, he thought, in an actual world. This is however not the real world so far as I can tell, he reasoned out, and I am leaving it. So he had to begin his “speech” now, while unable to read off the paperwork.
“Ladies and gentleman, welcome. I am now the Wizard of Oz. Oh, and I have no such announcements to make. As the Mafia is now situated in the audience, can I see a show of hands? What, no hands? Hey, looka here. Hi there, how ya doing? Wait a minute, this podium is getting a little juicier than me.” Mur tipped his head to one side, thinking this was surely the Jesus Christ moment of reckoning. It could slip away there, but as he had to protect Bette and only Bette surely, the best way to do it was to crash the podium. So he grabbed it and pulled it away to the right, where it neatly bounced off the side wall of the entry area he had come through, landing within a curtain and pulling if off stage to one side. It nestled there, after having made a lot of loud noise, crashing resoundingly.
The distant echoes of this shut up the entire audience momentarily. As he grabbed the mike, he looked down and noticed the speech someone had prepared for him was held within his left hand. He frowned at it summarily, and ripped it into several bunches of white pieces of paper, the lofty ripping of which filled the entire anteroom. These then dribbled down, as he pitched forward a little. Then the strangest feeling enveloped him. Bette and the kids were over on the right wing side of the auditorium, and she was giving his oldest girl a sandwich, but she wasn’t looking at him. Checks, that’s Bette. She remains calm in these difficult situations, but tonight I have to show her something, he decided, involving what she should do to leave immediately. She’s the best…
My wife, he brutally cried to himself inside, spent a lot of time in her life noticing me, my accomplishments, and many of the things we did together; she helped me all along. She isn’t selfish; she’s oppressed, and that is what I always wanted to believe, thought Murdock X. But I have this all set up for her if I can ever survive this theater, which I cannot do. Meanwhile, I have to keep the audience as distracted as humanly possible. She has got to handle the kids in a few moments.
Frowning summarily, while clenching his teeth against the pain, he decided to make his final announcement anyway. He had been listened to before in the early days of his movement, but now he was apparently getting old and slow. “Okay, I always have been completely one with “Stan” – the Devil White Man. I sold my immortal soul to all of your white Christian enemies millennia ago. I am Satan, and it is time for my public execution, which should be in keeping within the heavy rules of Koran order. I hereby commit the unforgivable sin of evil pride and renounce all ties to Islam whatsoever. I am obviously supposed to go straight to Hell itself for you. Wonderful, because that’s exactly what I’m going to do here tonight for all of you wonderful…Godly folks.”
In the original version of this, the event was supposed to hit the newspapers and cause political changes to happen, several of which may or may not occur in anyone’s real lifetime. Some people think they may, and some people think it may never happen. But in this instance, something had to go in an entirely other direction.
“Unfortunately, the entire Jewish race is not dead in a major forest fire yet. That is what the Hell in the Koran is about, up in the frozen north. That’s what is in the book in the portion preceding my death. That is supposed to happen before the Devil here can hit such a town as Hell. I have an associate who has slipped me this impertinent information. Would one of you guys in the audience like to tell me who it is?” He crossed his mostly African feeling business suited arms across his massive chest, which was heaving inwardly with the sighs of a lost paradise that he’d never truly obtained. Everyone in the audience seemed to be having a lot of a good time at his expense – as true universal cold enveloped his entire body. It felt excruciatingly good. Still, as he looked the thing over, he could not see anything out there that looked ripe for a kill. He needed about ten men with guns, he figured, to show up. Ten, twenty, four, whatever was there.
“Hey, friends, where are you? Please show up, now. I’ve come to give you milk and honey and all the images and all that. You know, guys with the guns. You must have about ten of you ready now, like a Roman numeral ‘X,’ c’mon, lemma see those major firearms. I’ve been waiting for rifles all of my life – and you’ve all been keeping them out of reach. Please, pretty please, I beg you on the mercy of being a Negro, come show me your guns so I can see how pretty they are. There you go!”
As the paced out group of men in the middle section pulled out their handguns one at a time, they pointed summarily at his closed off chest, telling him to open up so they could begin the firing squad action they were set to do. He had already turned himself in for the petty crimes he had committed, and now it was time to be blasted away. He had fought with something like meager thousands of these before, and had suffered through some skirmishes, but as the coalescing group began to murmur about how long it was taking, the solution materialized in his own mind like an Egyptian pyramid.
Maybe it was time to unleash brute force upon you people, but you can’t dive into an audience like they’re a swimming pool. How do I keep these guys busy, when my family is not going to leave the theater without me? Bette is the least realistic person I have ever met in my life, though she guides me to paradise in her own lost fashion. Still, this must be done. Perhaps keeping these children of mine distracted enough to ascertain their own political purposes and not bring in the other beings with weapons would help. I can keep both groups at bay until something right comes of this situation – or something wrong.
“You know,” said Murdock as he unbuttoned his shirt collar, “It is getting so bloody hot in here, muggier than the deep south, and oh pardon me is that my ugly Mommy in the audience? Say, I am going now to open up my chest and front and get some air. It’s stuffy here at this A—–e Theater. You know, how about if I rip myself wide open, to make it easier for you? Maybe I can show you the right methodology of dying.”
He daydreamed about an earlier obscene group of white men, easier to keep track of, called the Ku Klux Klan, which had faded away into obscurity and become several black groups, all of which wanted the honor of disposing of his body in improper fashion. The Klan had been big on killing blacks, and so were all his present groups of people.
Brother Murdock then slowly pulled apart the sticky remains of his reddened shirt and undershirt, ripping it all open as he went, baring his black and hairy muscular chest ever so carefully until he pulled it all away as far as he could get it open. He exposed himself as much as possible to the wall of guns that were steadily pointed at around his chest walls and stomach, peeling himself like he was a kind of overripe tomato. As he peeled, a mysterious change started to overcome him. He had to pick off parts of his brown skin and white shirt, tearing a goodly shred of it over one of the stab wounds. Then he finally grabbed everything he could scratch at with large hands, and pulled it all away. Now he felt his reddened and raw chest expand appreciably. It felt so lousy to take in lots of stale cigarette smoke laden air, so he wrenched his dying chest outwards, inwardly cursing out loud. Heaving back a single sob, he thrust out what he could feel moving.
“Here am I, crowd of strange African wonders. I love you all with my entire being, with all of my heart and soul. Here – I am a strange voodoo object of merriment and good times remembered, in the last fifteen seconds anyway.” He bent his head back and said, “I wish you could all be here instead of me. It’s such an enjoyable experience.” Wilting inwardly, he began to realize he could croak before any of his persecutors bothered to fire. He thought: I must tell them exactly where to end this altogether, for it looks like the weather outside could tend to rain shortly, and there are those on foot who must leave this our major theater and walk home in the pounding rain. Therefore, I am going to have to sacrifice my family and friends. There is no other way out of the theater and into this movie. I honestly don’t know who is making a major production number out of this, but it’s for the media so far as I can tell. Perhaps the Mafia is here also. The cameras are steadily rolling over there, and every flash bulb is ready to be popped.
“Hey Rubes, would you believe I have a speech all prepared in your shaggy heads? It’s about how you need to shoot me right here, and aim at it really well. See the chest? It’s deep brown – for no apparent reason. It doesn’t light up that well, I guess. Please, lighting, go ahead and train the spotlights on it. Whoomph! There, that’s good. Now you can all see exactly where to aim. Wouldn’t want anyone in the audience to get hurt.”
Heaving harder, Mur stuck his manly breast out much further. The lights at the Apollo seemed to flicker momentarily, as though they would go out as he pushed himself open. “I’m crowing, world, I’ve done this before – and it is finally the time. Hey guys, how come none of you are human beings yet? I woke up and didn’t become one either. Here’s the blood, the meat and the wine and all that, here’s this strapping black animal and all, here’s what you have been coming to this theater to collect on an artificial altar and pray over and feast upon for hours. Where are the billions of gunshots? I’ve been waiting for this moment all of my life. Shoot Bette!” He had said this last thing to indicate to her she had better get her act in gear and soon. But he also truly meant it, down to the bottom of his black hearted soul. He shouted, “If you shoot my wife first, shoot me next!”
As the hubbub died down, one large portly lady in the audience said, “What, boy?” There was a loud crashing sound in the back of the auditorium. No one however was coming through the doors in back. It seemed to be a distraction of some kind. As Mur overlooked the crowd, he could finally see the faces of some of the unusual beings with the guns as they began looking over to their right at his wife, who seemed to be putting her hand over her face. No, this is not the right way to have done this. I should have simply read my prepared speech, been shot in the middle of it and my chest, and died.
“No, actually,” he cried, “I didn’t mean that. Say, look over here, why don’t you? I am here already. I just wanted to let you know that Satan makes a great shoot. Look, I’m ready to take down and all, meat on the table for you and everything. The cameras are sitting all around this beautiful goddamn auditorium training on my gorgeous existence and you all are here for the ride. Look, suckers, calm down. I’m ready for Hell here.”
Every move a serious politico makes is always questioned in great detail by the authorities, the petty ones or otherwise. Would this one work better for the cameras? Every cut hurts, every trait any man has is magnified if one is a bull well boy or something like that, every drop of blood screams for high pressure, every taunt is a welt, and every time someone must come up with something new, the question occurs.
He raised one eyebrow as the men with guns pulled away their attention from Bette, slowly spreading the guns out in a wave at the entire audience, as though they would begin to fire if there was so much as even another mild crashing sound. Then there were several little streaks of light filtering in from outside, cluttering up the windows. Murdock X knew there was an odd chance of other groups occurring on the premises, ones which also wanted to kill him. Still, it felt as though something was controlling the premises. Maybe the sixteen other groups with rifles, machine guns and bombs were busy.
Still, Murdock reflected, the “people” in this audience don’t seem to be getting any of my outer space messages. That’s pretty normal for them. I’m the leader of “us all” and that must be an influence on life, I guess. “So it would,” he roared at the top of his bull stomach, “be most kind of all you shits in the audience,” he smoothly squelched through his dying outthrust lungs, “to continue to point all them guns in my general direction, no, put them together a bit more, there you go. Are you almost there?” The fetching group of silver automatics, each with one or more potential rounds, waved like tentacles from the octopus like group of faces behind them. “Do you think you can tell us what to do, when you’ve condemned us?” said one of them, not materializing from the crowd at all. “We were hired to blast traitors who don’t believe in the Nation of Islam – to death.”
“Yes, I told them all about Black Nationalist Supremacy, but the problem is that I am now a Black Nationalist. So I decided to die at them, so sue me. No, don’t. Put the guns back in place and point them straight at me, here’s the target and everything, right here. I love you. I love you all. I am a huge undying wall of blue meat here, I am going to die incredibly slowly – and I am waiting to be slaughtered, fools! Seriously, fire right into these major holes, or I’ll kill you. I’m Satan, I’m burnt ready, and here I am. C’mon, what took you so long?” Murdock looked down at the unmoving guns and flinched inwardly. Now was the time of reckoning. All of this could go any way, or another.
If they would shoot him, he would not be there to make sure his family got safe home. Meanwhile, the theater ushers were starting to open the back doors as if to give him some air. This alone caused a great unutterable disappointment to rack his very being. He had tried, he figured, and now that he was about to faint dead on the floor he oh pardon Satan that’s it he decided – summarily pitched forward and pointed at the open doors.
“Those who stay in their seats get an expensive prize for inadequacy if they move at all. I have six open guns trained on all of you behind the stage doors on either side of this auditorium. If you so much as move, I will have them all fire at you. Say, bunnies with the guns, is you ready? I am determined to not be the only cuss to die in this theater tonight. When I give the signal, all of those guns are going to open fire.”
As the entire audience froze motionless, and the ushers alone rushed to shut the back doors, Murdock sagged down. This was getting to be a dismal meeting for a night at the good old Apollo, one where he had summarily enjoyed nights out with friends on rare occasions. He’d even circulated a depraved underground flyer claiming he needed someone to kill someone else for him, for once, maybe a blond kid. Circumstances had forbid it ever being anyone else but him. What was with Black America?
“Well, can you get back here with the guns? There you go.” Murdock now had a clear field to see them get ready. He asked them inwardly if they were really subhuman enough to fire at nearly the one exact spot that was hurting the most. Then he asked them repeatedly if they were really subhuman. The guns bobbed up and down with a kind of silent laughter, then pointed steadily at various parts of his anatomy.
“That’s more like it, blind fools. Can you listen to the sound of my voice? It’s a mighty timorous majesty now, one which you’ve seldom encountered. Listen, you need to take aim right all over my body, or even my head. It’s there, just don’t be nervous. I see you’re not nervous. There you go. All over myself. You’re my children at last.” Murdock waved over at Bette, trusting she was looking, and smiled. “Please plug this sucking crow right now, as soon as I give you the order to fire. We’re not going back to Africa except on vacation from now on, and for the entire consecutive future.” I wonder how these folks will afford such vacations, he had to realize. We could, or at least Bette could, as her family has some money.
Murdock heaved a sigh, knowing he was only himself and not Satan. He never had much thought as that stereotype, but it came together in a blinding flash that he would have to be one of the most Satanic caricatures for whites ever if he kept this up. He tightened himself, breathing slightly, and realized he was far, far away from his own dying process.
Coldly, he stood erect and eased back on the execution stage. He briefly recalled himself as a young man, but knew that everywhere he’d been, he had seen something unfamiliar at every turn. The supernatural could kick butt, he figured, but only if it was under my own particular command. I don’t want to do this, he suddenly decided.
He froze in a summary surprised gape. The guns were still trained on him, as though the beings behind him did not exist. And the beings in front of him began to pull him back to his human status. “I know I’ve been a bad daddy for all of you pukes who have been following me for so many years, for to have to live with this haunting imagery is the most pathetic attempt at a buck god of raw meat the world has usually seen. We have them on the run at last, I believe, those frozen stones of the north. Do we not? And now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. There. All of your guns are now aimed right at the center of my immortal soul.” He appreciated the fact. Here we go.
Ahhh, they are indeed. The strangely marinelike head of Murdock X, which had come up with one number as the digit signifying his death and the deaths of many others, centered over his manly body in a nearly perfect diametrical line. He froze up, thrusting his meaty white chest out, making sure to pull back the last of his shredded black clothes, which were oozing in porous layers every drop of life and banal men’s soul left in him. He looked over the huge audience, thinking he would have liked it if any of them had ever chanced to be real or human in any form. In a way, they were almost like his Bette.
They still weren’t doing anything in his direction. Not just yet. Somebody switched on the music from “Carmen” and it began playing sweetly and softly in the background.
“Red is for blood, black is for death, white is for all right, and pure yellow is for me. Meanwhile, are you ready? I doubt it. But you must take aim and fire. Point the guns now. Straight at me in perfect little lines. There. You are now ready.”
I mutter as I mumble, methinks himself ah yes I am surely this at last. I would rather go to the permanent hell as a boy than see Bette and my children ever get shot, leave their home again, or go anywhere else but the shopping mall and to all the wonderful places I have seen in a distant dream as we packed going from house to house to evade their awesomely boring enemy. They had come through the walls too many times. Yes, this is surely scientific reality, and I will not get my death – as I am an utmost raw fearless coward. I am made out of shit, excrement and pee, and that is where I must go.
Looking at the stage lights in their myriad crystalline colors, he begged God to let Allah there go to the best possible place where a girl could make up for a strange difficulty. To the pages of a book serene, or perhaps a small field and a polluted stream. He smiled, smirking to himself as one silver point crossed his mind. None of this was fun. It seemed like the setup for children that his life had streaked through, in a wonderful way.
He looked, feeling weirdly like himself one last time over at Bette and his children. She seemed to be staring at him with something like hatred but akin to respect lighting her features, as if at long last. He swung his head back to the beings awaiting his purple command in the audience. They still awaited it. I am a good little tin soldier, I am, he thought with the greatest swell of black pride he had ever felt in his life. It filled his whole being, overflowing into his soul as it finally dawned on him what was doing. He had figured the enemy was somewhat right about something, and this must be what it was. They had been evolving the form of the thing that opposes the sun, and he was still its primary victim, merely a man. His children were now on the proper path. Or were they? He fretted for them momentarily. Then he gazed up at the lighting, which was not the same way it had been before. Oh, my oath for a better Apollo. Take me, do not take my wife and kids, do what you will with me, but make it a better theater.
Stuff it up my rear later soon as can be for a better reality for all the below, he thought to himself. “Oh and you suckers in the crowd, now is the time. Here are the simple commands for you to never follow again, ever again, in the future.” You don’t know that I am genuinely thinking that for you, and you don’t even care. You don’t know how ready I was to flay my soul itself completely to Hell for you, to serve all mankind. For I am only a father now, Allah and Moses incarnate, and I am also the supper. I am the only level God incarnate in this entire room. It is all that I ever wanted out of life, save death, but you still know that I am only a bugger. That means I want to only bug you into shooting me as painfully as possible. Please take your time and fire each bullet slowly.”
“What?” smirked one of the white Mure denizens with the guns. Each of the ten or more guns was pointed straight to the center of his chest, which was throbbing with a kind of sexual ecstasy. He couldn’t get past an enormous feeling of infinite endless love for all human and otherwise mankind, and the mostly sexual part of it was dribbling away rapidly. As he spread his bleeding, growing and bursting arms wide, and as each brutal shot rang out summarily spaced apart by exactly one century or more of time, or as each shot spaced itself farther and farther out into space, the slowly dancing rag doll prayed the event would matter somehow – and also that the crowd would not descend and feed upon him later, or that they surely finally would. I must now keep this up, he figured out, to the last me. He also prayed that Bette and all of his real children would shortly vacate the theater, as they were getting nervous. He heard the doors of Hell open and close, and knew his wife was perhaps locked in there with him, but waited. Suddenly, the voice said they left summarily and were gone home. He breathed a sigh of relief – for awhile.
Still, the rag doll witlessly danced on the stage, absorbing each bullet and pushing it out his burst open back.
He spread his demonic white boned winged shoulders back as if he was one plunging black crow, a hunk of exploding feathers that were opening up to the center of his virile but exploding chest. A deep blue and black fissure was swiftly forming, exploding ever outward into an enormous blossom, the only flower of truest Scottish manhood. How erotic, smiled the once incredibly handsome black man – to only himself.
As he fell over backwards, on his knees forever at last, all the scarlet sap of a true Harlem sucker was oozing out of his sunken in chest – and it felt so weirdly cool. A round of applause came cascading over the rafters.
Could be the best draw for tickets the Apollo will never have again. And this one time, I got to tell off the crowd the right way, although I cannot do it ever again.
Murdock knew he was stuck in hell as he cocked his head to one side. He had shown too good of form to live. He stood up. Everything was wavy, nauseating, and increasingly painful, only set to go further along. He always had to tell them where to shoot him. Or for a change, he had to tell them where to shoot them.
They were on a hill. It was in Scotland, where they had to defend this overhanging hill while the enemy was coming. As several of them charged up the hill, several of the clan had to hold positions downwards. Using swords, bows and arrows, and shillelaghs, they swarmed fiercely. Guns weren’t involved – shields were too heavy to carry.
They were in the Battle of Dunkeld in 1689. It involved the Jacobite army. Dunkeld was the last battle in Scotland in the 17th century to restore the Stewarts to the throne. The men were all cowards, so slow and stupid – no, they were but worn out from battle, which had raged many days.
Out of nowhere, an impenetrable wall of sticks began arcing through the clear sky like straight birds. Mur heard them whistling as they raced down, sinking deeply into his side’s exposed chests, limbs and faces.
His men would all die, if he didn’t move. Shocked into the utmost living horror, he gave them his eternal orders:
Show Off Entertainment & Ace Cards Clothing Presents: ORGANIZED RHYME: Positive Expression in the form of Poetry, Spoken Word an Music. FRIDAY MAY 30 2008 Hosted by: Dj Ace Music by Minitone Sound w. Dj Ace & Dj Drew Showent@gmail.com ShowEnt.com Myspace.com/Showent @ The Afrikan Poetry Theater 176-03 Jamaica Ave. Jamaica Queens NY 11432 Starts 8:PM
