Sunday, December 27, 2009

Last of the Astroworld Viewmasters!

Sorry for the slightly later post today folks! They only let me out of jail about an hour ago.

Anyway, I have been so busy watching my reality shows that I completely forgot to post the last of the Astroworld Viewmaster scans. (See the other posts here and maybe here too why don'tcha).

"Dragon 'startles' professor in Lost World Adventure". Yes, that goofy dragon would startle me too. He must be a relative of the silly sea serpent in Disneyland's old Submarine Voyage.


"The Mill Pond Ride". Floating bumper cars, just like the ones ("El Bumpo") at Magic Mountain!


"A twirling ride on the fabulous Black Dragon". They had one of these at Magic Mountain as well, I think they called it "The Octopus". Or something. It looks much more like an octopus than any dragon I've ever seen.


"River Boat approaching the Wrecked Ship". Hey, weren't we just here?


"Aerial vie of Mod Ville". Just look at all of that glorious Texas dirt! I wonder if any of those double Ferris Wheels have survived; there was one at Hershey Park (from my years in Pennsylvania), and there was the "Galaxy" at - yes - Magic Mountain.

7 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

I wonder if that Lost World boat ride was at the park up until the time it closed? I recently learned that their Alpine Sleighs attraction had been turned into queue for the Batman roller coaster. I'm fascinated by these kind of attractions that were obviously influenced by Disney.

Chris Merritt said...

Whoa! Check out the train in the water in the 'Lost World Adventure' - and compare with pics of the Banana Train conveyance from P.O.P. - I think we found ourselves one of the original locomotives from that attraction!

I do know that the entire Banana Train attraction was sold at the P.O.P. auction for $5250 (meaning the conveyance, and likely what ever props could be removed) to someone in Oklahoma. Could it have come from there?

Or Ed Morgan of Arrow Development stated that they made plugs and molds of the trains - so Arrow certainly could have made a copy for Astroworld as well...

Anyone else have ay more pics of this strange scene?

Major Pepperidge said...

Hmmm, that's very intriguing, Chris! The timing seems to work... that could very well be one of the actual banana trains. I looked at my one photo of a POP train up close, and there are some differences, but on the other hand, that Astroworld train is pretty beat up!

Good eye, I'd love to know if it is in fact one of the very same trains!

Chris Merritt said...

Dave - take another look at those viewmasters you scanned for me - there is a close up of the train in there. It belongs to another collector - so we'd need his permission to post it here - but take a look at it and see if it doesn't match up to you!

Nancy said...

these are very cool...esp like how the spider looks more "real" with the plants and trees all around.

i think that is one of the coolest Ferris wheels, very 70s in its look ;)

Jim said...

That's not dirt. It's the natural color of grass here in Houston. Thw entire Astroworld site had once been grazing pasture and/or rice fields.

Spicoli said...

Great America in Santa Clara, CA had one of those Ferris Wheels - however I don't know if it's still there.