Just Curious....

[Twisted]

Ever notice that so many are against the WB/Looney Tunes tie-ins at SFoT (I know some love them as well)? We're talking about beloved cartoon characters that we all grew up with, rides based on the company's movies, being innundated with their products in all the gift shops, etc. The characters are out in full force, shaking hands and posing for pictures. Some feel that it's over-commercialized and forcefeeding a brand name to us and our kids. Yet....Disney does the exact same thing with their parks and everyone loves it for the most part. Could it be that Disney was built around that same formula from the beginning and everyone is used to it? Or that SFoT wasnt' built around that and we hated the change? I just find it odd that there's a possible double-standard.

What are your opinions on why this is like this?

[PyThomas]

It doesn't bother me at all. Bugs Bunny and all them go back just as far as Disney does, and Warner had every right to throw them in the Six Flags parks back when they owned them outright. I chuckled when I first saw the "bunny ear" hats, an obvious answer to the mouse ears on sale at Disneyland/world. I understand how some people bemoan the loss of the Speelunkers, and I did see the cave before the Looney retooling... but I can also understand how they wanted to update one of their few family rides to cater to the kids of today.

[rct247]

That's exactly why I dont' see it as a problem. Almost every major theme park company is either based on character and/or movies.

Six Flags park have Looney Tunes, DC Comics, + Scooby Doo, some other Cartoon Network character, not to mention WB Movies.

Disney parks have Mickey & The Gange and ALL of the Disney movies plus others such as Star Wars.

Paramount Parks have the Paramount movie title and have many rides themed to their movies. They also have the Nickelodeon brand such as Spongbob, Rugrats, etc. They also have Star Trek (I think)

Universal IS a movie based park. They have Nickelodeon brand too as well as Hana-Barbara and the Universal Movies. Universal also has Shrek rights.

Cedar Fair has Snoopy and The Peanuts Gane. Their Mall of America property is entirely based off of them!

^Those are just the top 5 theme park companies there. They all have characters and movies tied into their parks.

Let's also not get started on sponsors. You may say that brand names have taken over such as Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, all of those giant companies that you say are kinda bad....that the parks need to make their own brands etc.

Disney sponser many of their attractions...etc. Test Track with GM. Spaceship Earth with Siemens.

Six Flags has its sponsors like Corn Nuts and Nestle Waters (Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Arrowhead, Poland Springs...they are all the same).

Its just part of parks these days.

[Twisted]

Originally Posted by PyThomas

but I can also understand how they wanted to update one of their few family rides to cater to the kids of today.

That's another difference between Disney and Six Flags. With SF, most rides are either geared towards smaller kids or older thrillseekers. There's not a lot of "in-between", with a few exceptions (Gold River Adventure, Log Flume, Train, etc.). Walt Disney's major goal was to create rides that were all immersive mini-adventures that the entire family could enjoy together. So in that regard, the cave renovation kept a popular family ride alive and I know my kids, who never got to see the older version of it, love it. To them, it's like being inside a cartoon and I enjoy seeing their smiles and laughter. I personally think that if SF had more rides of this nature, you'd see more families there having fun and spending money together instead of just the parents dropping off kids at the gate and picking them up at 10pm. The new flat rides are a step in the right direction, as most of them are of moderate thrill and not too wild for some smaller kids, with a couple of exceptions maybe.

[Twisted]

Originally Posted by rct247

Let's also not get started on sponsors. You may say that brand names have taken over such as Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, all of those giant companies that you say are kinda bad....that the parks need to make their own brands etc.

Disney sponser many of their attractions...etc. Test Track with GM. Spaceship Earth with Siemens.

Six Flags has its sponsors like Corn Nuts and Nestle Waters (Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Arrowhead, Poland Springs...they are all the same).

Its just part of parks these days.

Sponsorship has actually been a part of amusement parks for a long time. Many of Disney's rides were originally built for the World's Fair pavilions and paid for by sponsors like General Electric and many of these sponsorships continued after the rides became a permanent part of the theme parks. Rides such as It's a Small World, Carousel of Progress and a few others. Back when you had to use tickets to get onto most rides at Disney, the sponsored ones, including Carousel of Progress (GE) and If You Had Wings (Delta Airlines)
remained free.

Some of the sponsors of SFoT's attractions that I can remember:

Chevy (Chevy Show and Southern Palace)
Nestea (Log Flumes) "Take the Nestea Plunge!"
Rainbo Bread "SF Railroad"
Reebok (Shock Wave)
Decker (Runaway Mine Train)
And I"m sure there's a million more that I haven't listed. Sponsorships don't bother me in the parks as I know most parks have shorter seasons and more downtime these days due to school schedules starting earlier and they still have to pay their year-round bills.

Interesting note about Coca-Cola, and maybe some of the post-mix guys can let us know if it's like this at SF, but at Disney parks, Coke furnishes all syrup, fountain equipment and cups at no charget to them, just to keep Pepsi out of the park. Soda business is cutthroat indeed Of course the "free" Cokes turn into a $3.00 full profit for Disney after you buy them.

Note: This thread isn't just a "Disney vs. SF thread" necessarily, just easy to compare the two. Glad RCT piped in about the other chains as well!

[sfotadmin]

I think the problem that most "old school" types have with the Warner characters is that they were not part of the original park or theme. We never had a problem with the "Chevy Show" because it was always the Chevy Show. There have been many sponsors over the years and in that too, most don't have a problem with those.

The kicker...and we'll never forgive them for this... was to take an excellent family ride (the cave) and commercialize it beyond anything I think any park has done before. Honestly Disney does this to some extent but for the most part, the commercialization came after the ride was developed. Plus Disney doesn't do the "in -your-face" kiosks every so many feet with the very same merchandise you saw 100 feet back. For me, Disney seems to be better at hawking the wares a bit more unobtrusively and with theming. You'll notice some of the same crap in the next shop but it will be themed for that section of the park. Theming is everything to Disney. SF has pretty much lost the theming aspect of park design. It's a good argument nowadays that SF is nothing more than an Amusement park and no longer a Themepark.

[JStroop]

Exactly... the problem with the WB commercialization in many peoples' eyes is not the characters themselves, but that they were a material manifestation of the park going from a Texas Historical THEME park to a commercial AMUSEMENT park. It was the end of an era... an ear that the majority of park guests liked for what it was and didn't want to see it become a shopping mall with rides. So the WB characters were the focal point of the angst and anger. If the park had always been like that, or if it had been owned outright by WB from the beginning, I very much doubt that there would be the sentiment against WB that there is today.

[cleusk]

I think a lot of the furor over the Looney Tunes characters at Six Flags vs. the Disney characters at WDW etc. has to do with the title. When you go to WDW etc., you expect things related to Disney and when you go to a place called Six Flags Over Texas, you expect something related to Texas. Not cartoon characters. There was a time when I got irritated about this, but I've mellowed with age and just accepted the Looney Tunes theme for what it is. After all, it's the smiles on the kids' faces which matter most.