Why Bud Hurlbutt Matters

Kelly 0:14

Hello and welcome to The Lowdown on the Plus Up, a podcast where we look at everyone's favorite theme park attractions, lands, textures, and novelties. We talk in, over, about, and through our week's topic, and then, with literally no concern for practicality, safety, or economic viability, we come up with ways to make them better. My name is Kelly McCubbin, columnist for the theme park website Boardwalk Times, and with me as always is Peter Overstreet, University Professor of Animation and Film History in Northern California. Hey Pete! Yeah. What are we talking about today?

Pete 0:54

Well, today, well, actually, our last episode of for those of our regular listeners, we went on a cave train ride. That's right, we did. We're down in Santa Cruz, California. Yes, sir. We're gonna travel a little further south from where we are in Berkeley, California. We're gonna go all the way down to Buenaporte, California to ride another mine train. Yeah. And this is the Calico Mine train at Knottsbury Farm. Potentially the granddaddy of all mine trains. Absolutely. But um as we research this episode, Kelly and I ran into a little bit of a problem. Usually we like to try and I mean, and and I do emphasize the word try, we try to keep our episodes within like an hour and 20 minutes. And for those who of our regular listeners know that sometimes we go on for three hours, uh, we suddenly realize that this isn't just the story of any mind train. And it's not just the story of any dense carousel or log flume. This is actually about the creator of them all. So today's episode, we're actually gonna focus on the contributions mostly to Knott's Berry Farm at the hands of Wendell Bud Hurlbutt. Wendell Bud Hurlbutt. Yep. We decided we're gonna dedicate this whole episode to Wendell. Yep. I'm sorry, Bud, because I'm sure he didn't want to be nicknamed Wendell. Yep. And it sounds western enough. Yeah, yeah. We're gonna focus on the Rye Designer Extraordinaire Wendell Bud Hurlbutt. Yeah. And those within the industry, I'm sure, know who he is.

Kelly 2:18

Yeah.

Pete 2:18

Big time imagineers, and Garner Holt is a big fan, we we know. And I'm sure because uh Roley Crump used to work at Knottsbury Farm, um working on Knottsbury Tales, I'm I'm sure he ran into Bud once or twice and certainly knew of him. Walt Disney certainly knew him. Well, Walt he and Walt were reasonably close.

Kelly 2:37

Yeah. They knew each other on a first name basis and liked each other very much.

Pete 2:40

Yeah, and and Bud seemed like a really likable guy, but the general public doesn't quite know his story. And we wanted to tell it because the more we learned about him, the more we learn about this creative, industrious, really hard work, and hard sacrificing guy. And he manages pretty much to pull it off, but he never really gets the type of fame and fortune that a lot of mostly fame, that a lot of imagineers get.

Kelly 3:08

Yeah, he did okay on the fortune uh front.

Listener Updates And A Roadside Rescue

Pete 3:10

Oh, yes, he did. We'll talk about that. But not a lot of people in the general public. A lot of general public people go, oh yeah, Rolly Crump. Oh yeah, Bob Gurr. Yeah. But nobody goes, oh boy, Bud Hurlbutt.

Kelly 3:20

So before we jump into this, yeah, a couple of housekeeping things.

Pete 3:25

Yes.

Kelly 3:26

Uh one is we've actually had a bunch of really nice people reach out to us recently. I heard from some historians over at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Oh, wow. Uh I I had reached out before we did our cave train episode, and they didn't get back to me before we had actually uh dropped that. But there's uh some really nice folks uh over there kind of reached out and and gave me some more information about the cave train. Most of it we had covered, but one thing I did discover is that there's a slight discrepancy in Rick Bastrop's version of the redoing of the cave train and maybe the what we will loosely call truth. No, no, it doesn't surprise me at all. No, Bastrop's version, uh obviously he was in charge of that, and most of it is absolutely true. Sure. One thing he says in his book is that all of the music in the cave train was from old vintage 78s that they sampled and played in there. Okay. That is mostly true. However, the version of Beer Mrs. Dushane, which we referenced so many times, was newly recorded for the redo. That makes sense. And there's a Danny Elfman song in there, too.

Pete 4:44

Yes, from the short film Face Like a Frog. Yes.

Kelly 4:48

So just I was like, there's a couple things that we kind of found out along the way. Uh, we've also had some people uh reach out from the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad who were hold of Pete.

Pete 4:57

Yeah, my I uh the your your your trusty co-host here is now a part of history. Yes. Where people are actually calling me for fact checking. Yeah, that's a mistake. That's hey, wah. So it kind of is, because you know, I was 16 at the time. So I had mentioned in one of our episodes we had talked about the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad, and I was part of the the uh reconstruction and restoration of that particular carousel, but also my mother and I both painted panels for that. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, this lovely person who's working on a history project and they're gonna try and restore it again. Wow, has been you know, reaching out to me. I still need to reach out to her and and we'll have a conversation. We'll update our audience on that later. But yeah, it's it's it's a little weird where like all of a sudden I'm getting contacted as like a point of contact for a theme park news and history. It's very bizarre. Yeah. Where it's like, no, you're part of history now. You you fixed this horse and you did that panel when you were 16, and now you're 50 something. And it's like, oh yeah. Oh yeah, I did do that, didn't I?

Kelly 6:02

Also, I just heard today from uh the man who is the final pilot of the Kinney Rocket Belt. Oh, yeah.

Pete 6:12

Rocket Man.

Kelly 6:13

Yeah, he's he's still around and he's doing a whole bunch of stuff, and he reached out and said hi. So I thought that was great. Anyway, I went to mention that. I also wanted to mention, you know, if you listen to our Gravity Shacks episode, you know, we talked about a bunch of them. And uh one of the ones we mentioned was the Oregon Vortex, which I've been to, and me and my kid liked it a whole bunch. I got some paraphernalia. They're struggling right now, folks. They had a big flood about a year and a half ago, knocked out a whole bunch of the of their ticketing area and some of the stability of some of the structures. They're trying to get it repaired. They're a small family-owned business, so it's a real struggle. Uh, they have a GoFundMe. If you have, you know, a couple of bucks you can shoot their way. I think it would be a really great thing. This is the kind of small indie-owned attraction that we just love and appreciate.

Pete 7:09

We're gonna put the link onto uh social media and also our uh for this episode probably on YouTube, so that way you can check that out and and and support these people because roadside attractions are so unbelievably American. Yes. You know, that that to see them die off is kind of a shame. So we would love to see these things survive. Absolutely, absolutely.

Kelly 7:32

And good good people out there. Yeah. So that's all the housekeeping. Let's get into some hurlebutt action.

Pete 7:38

All right, let's go, bud.

Machine Skills Meet Creative Ambition

Pete 7:40

So our story begins actually in uh Watertown, South Dakota. Yes, sir. Bud was born June 13th, eight uh 1918. He was the only child of Ray and Emma Hurlbutt. Yep. Eventually the family moved to Whittier, California. And Ray Hurlbutt managed a successful oil tool company. Right. So mostly like machining drill bits. Now, this sort of background is really, really important to what's about to happen.

Kelly 8:10

Yeah, because one of the things that makes Bud Hurlbutt uh different from a lot of theme park and attraction designers is that he was trained to machine his own parts. Yeah. He he could actually make things from the ground up, and this came into play a lot.

Pete 8:32

So yeah, Bud started off, yeah, working with uh he worked at a printing company. He was very much an industrial guy. And here's the interesting thing about uh industrial people. A lot of people, and I'm I'm very guilty of this as an artist and as an illustrator, as a performer. Sometimes you look at people who are engineers and machinists, and you go, you know, they're all about numbers and they're all about the exact measurements of things and geometry and trigonometry, and they're not very creative people. Yeah. Oh no, over time my opinion has changed dramatically over this, where we know darn well, like people like Bob Gerr. Yeah. Um, and even my own dad, who was uh a uh supervisor of construction, uh, when he retired, he started doing sculptures and puppetry and all of it, and he never did that before. Right. But he's actually very creative and very, very industrious in his but he just does stuff with more precision. And unfortunately, that also leads to perfectionism. Yeah. So there you go. Uh well, I mean, you know, math math is a creative enterprise. It can be. Yeah, it can be. Absolutely, absolutely. Just ask any Hollywood executive who's working on the math of any any emotion picture. That's right. Anyway, once you know his origins, you uh that crossover with creativity and engineering actually makes you kind of a triple threat because not only can you dream something up, but you can actually make it happen. Right. And one of the things I love about the story, Bud, and we'll and we'll get into that in just a second here. The the preamble to all of this is that Bud is one of these unsung heroes of theme park design that I don't think gets enough credit or recognition. And he his is a story where he achieves. He achieves big time. Yeah. But he never really gets like the giant accolades that people like Rolly Crump and so forth get, even though he's actually a lot more responsible for a lot bigger innovations and achievements than a lot of these people included.

Kelly 10:31

Well, one of these things, and we'll run into this as we get further in his career, is that his work with Knott's Berry Farm, which is uh the most significant work, or at least the most well-known work he did, he was this he was not someone who was on hire for Knott's. He was a concessionaire. Knott's hired people to build concessions and they owned them.

Pete 10:57

Oh, not just concessions. Yeah. Concession. Because Walter had a rule about his concessioner. The one thing rule. One thing. You know, if to sound like sound a little bit like Jack Plance. One thing, just one thing, you city folks. Right. You know, you you had one thing, that's all he'd let you do. Right. You better run it well. Otherwise, Walter would come out of the woodwork and go, You're doing it wrong. You know, he'd yell at you.

Kelly 11:26

And and Bud was the one exception to that. Yes, he was. But he had to not he had to convince the knots that this whatever he wanted to do was a good idea. Yeah. And then build it on his own without their help. And then he owned it, which ends up making him a lot of money in the long run.

Pete 11:46

Yeah. Bud started off as working in a printing company. He worked as a pattern maker for Volte aircraft, doing so he's he's all about machine work. Yes. There's this great photograph of him on Wikipedia. You guys can probably listen and look this up. It's from 1969, and he's riding his log foom ride with Walter Knott, and he's waving his camera. Yeah. Look at Bud's hand. Uh-huh. He has engineer hands. Like he's got grease and they're stained and oily. I mean, his suit is immaculate, but his hands are just grotesque engineer hands. Yes. And he's as happy as a clam. Absolutely. And having grown up with a dad who was always like cutting his hands or grimy, greasy, you know, sawdust, whatever. It's like, no, that's that's a hard-working, he's a hard-working American kind of guy. He's got those hands. Yeah. And he was a mechanical engineer for FA Nemicombustion Engineers and Whittier. And then he got into working on a kitty park. Yeah. And he started making miniature trains.

Kelly 12:42

Yeah. Now this was his signature. Yeah. These were these mini steam trains. Yep. He made them for a lot of different places, a lot of different parks. This was this was the thing that even if he wasn't working on something else, he was always making these trains and shipping them out to people. And when we say miniature steam trains, it's not like toy trains. These are trains you can ride on. They're just very small.

Pete 13:04

Right, right, right. I think one of them may actually be reside. I'll have to double check this, but if my memory serves, one of them may actually be residing up here in the Oakland Hills at the miniature trains. I'll have to look up. Oh, is that true? I will look that up right now.

Kelly 13:18

There is one I know at the Santa Ana Zoo still that used to be in Santa's village. I know he built one for the pike. He certainly built one for knots. Yep. He he built the he th this was kind of the main thing his company did was build these trains. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He starts getting interested in a few other kinds of small rides. You know, the sort of roundabout rides that you see in small parks for kids. Um and he starts he starts building little variants of them, little boats that go in a circle or little cars that go in a circle. And he starts selling those. Yeah. And and doing okay. He ends up uh

Knott’s Says No To The Carousel

Kelly 14:05

doing something where he opens a whole bunch of small kitty rides in one place outside the El Monte market. And then comes his first major encounter with Mr. Walter Knott. So this is the early 1950s. Okay. And Bud go finds out that Hershey Park is selling an 1896 merry-go-round. Oh. So vintage merry-go-round. It's a densel, isn't it? It is a densel, exactly. Yep. And so Bud is going to take the merry-go-round, refurbish it, which he can do, and try and sell it to Walter Knott. Oh, wow. So at this point, you know, think about what Knott's Berry Farm is. You know, it goes back to the 40s, a little bit, maybe even a little bit earlier.

Pete 14:55

Yeah.

Kelly 14:55

He, by the way, here's weird aside, 1915. Do you know what Walter and Cordelia Knott were doing? No. Okay. Walter and Cordelia Knott lived in the real calico. Oh, wow. The real one, the one that was going to become the ghost town. Right. And they built cyanide tanks. Oh my God. What? Yeah, I know, right? So the reason for that is that you can use cyanide to shake up mines. Sure. The cyanide gas can shake up mines to release more of whatever you're trying to mine. And the mines in Calico, and this is why they became a ghost town, had seemingly kind of dried up.

Pete 15:39

Right.

Kelly 15:39

They were silver mines. And the price of silver had dropped. Sure. So this company came in and started trying to resuscitate the silver mines in 1915. And Walter and Cordelia lived in Calico and worked on the giant cyanide tanks. Oh my God. Okay. And this is this is where his connection to Calico comes from. Sure. We live there. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But yeah, so at this point, they have moved to Buena Park. Walter's wife Cordelia has opened up her famous chicken restaurant. Still there today.

Pete 16:10

Oh, the the the chicken is amazing. Her recipe for chicken is legendary for a reason. Yes.

Kelly 16:17

Yep. And you know, so that has happened. Walter has met Mr. Boysen. Yep. And they have developed the Boysenberry. Yep. And the restaurant's doing very well. And Walter has started to put attractions to keep people busy while they're waiting to get in the chicken restaurant.

Pete 16:34

Yeah, because the line, yeah, you drive a long way to get there. Right. Got something to do while you're waiting for chicken.

Kelly 16:40

But if there's anything we have learned about Walter Knott along the way, it is that he is a stubborn man.

Pete 16:49

Yes, he is.

Kelly 16:51

So his idea was that he was going to put historical pieces for people to walk through or experience that would be a learning experience. Right. He was not putting any damn amusement park rides in.

Pete 17:08

Yeah, no, no, no kitty rides. He didn't want no merry-go-rounds, no fun ride, no nothing.

Kelly 17:13

So he put in uh the panning for gold thing, which is also still there.

Pete 17:17

Right. And he would actually import the gold test himself and put it in the slew. And put it in the slewist and set it all up so by himself. Like that was his job. Right. Every day. Time to put the gold in. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Go ahead, Walter.

Kelly 17:32

Yeah. And he had built a sort of walkthrough mining cave thing that was there. That you would actually you'd walk through the fake mine and end up where you would do the panning for gold.

Pete 17:44

Yeah, you're getting you're getting, you know, it's it's exit through the gift shop. Yes. Right, where you're getting the feeling of like, oh boy, that's what miners are all about. Right. You know, today that means something completely different. Right. But yeah. Yeah.

Kelly 17:57

And so and they planted a bunch of trees and he was pretty obsessive about his trees. Oh, yeah. And so he he was making this nice park, and Bud Hart Harlobut, early 1950s, shows up and says, Mr. Knott, I have this carousel from the late 1800s.

Pete 18:14

Got it all fixed up for you, ready to go. Yep. Yep.

Kelly 18:17

And Mr. Knott said no.

Pete 18:21

Which apparently was a thing. Yeah. Like, nope. Which we talked about this with the not scary farm thing, like to have him go out of his way and unilaterally go, I want Halloween in this park. It's like, wait, what? He said, What? Walter Knott said yes to this? Because like usually his first answer to almost anything was nope. Nope. Yeah. Walter Knott always struck me as the guy you had to pro put the proof in the pudding for. Yes. He's he's the guy that you like at first you go, no, but I'm open for you to convince me later. Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of important for Bud. He was stubborn. Oh yeah.

Kelly 19:02

But he was not stupid. Oh yeah. So the Merry Round doesn't go there. Nope. And uh Bud goes off and starts working on some other stuff. Yeah. He starts working on an entirely different theme park somewhere that he's trying to get off the ground.

Pete 19:23

He was trying this over and over and over again. This became like the theme park that never happened. Yeah. You know, Hurl Hurl Butland. Hutterbuttstadt. You know, I don't know what we would call it. But yeah, welcome to Hurlbuttland. You know, like that's we could just call it Bud Land, but like today that you know Anheuser Busch would probably have a problem, or at least Ichich and Chong would. It's like, yeah, it's not gonna work out. But yeah, it's interesting. He keeps trying to make his own park. He does, and he accomplishes it in the 70s. He does. He uh he made he got like 30 acres or something like that in Whittier, and like he started tinkering around with all these different park notions that he was gonna do.

Kelly 20:07

Yeah, and oh yeah, and when he does make his own party park, he makes it mostly out of stuff that's left over from the things he was making for nuts. This is true. He's got like parts and cars and stuff, and he just starts using them.

Pete 20:22

You know, there's something to be said for that. He's recycling. Yeah. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna I'm not gonna uh fault him for that.

Kelly 20:29

No.

Disneyland Forces A Rethink In Buena Park

Kelly 20:30

So we get we get up to about 1955. Yes. And a day that will live in infamy. And Russell Knott is now the is now managing the park. Walter's still there. Oh yeah. And he certainly has veto power, but Russell is managing the park. Yeah, and something has happened, oh, about an hour away.

Pete 20:51

Oh yeah. Just a little thing. One of Bud's buddies, yeah. Another Walt. Mr. Walt Disney has opened up his own theme park. Yeah. And now everybody's going, oh, theme parks. You know, it it the thing today we assume that a theme park is going to aspire to be Disneyland. Yeah. And that didn't really happen until 1955. And the reason because everybody aspires to that is that level to detail, that attention to cleanliness, the approach to as much perfection as possible. For a long time, theme parks are like, it's like Disneyland, only $50,000 cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we're going to try to be like that with the budget we have. But it really Disneyland really did change how theme parks operate all across the nation and the world.

Kelly 21:44

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it it it is totally fair to say that it invented a new art form.

Pete 21:49

Mm-hmm. Well, that's the thing. It took the theme park away from the pleasure palaces. Yeah. Reminding I mean, I'm reading this great book about the birth of Coney Island. Mm-hmm. And it has this great statement about it that uh it's like the wonder child of Coney Island or something like that. I forget the name of it. Yeah. But it talks about the founder of it and it's about his origins. And he started off as a stage designer for a uh Broadway production of an adaptation of Little Nemo in Slumberland. Oh wow. And like all the over the top. I mean, this was a big road show. This was the wicked of its day. Sure. Where, like, yeah, there's some substance, but you gotta see the stage sets and the costume changes. Yeah. So, because it looks just like the cartoon that Windsor McKay put together. Right. But he got the idea for Coney Island partly because of people's reaction to the Little Nemo in Slumberland play. And the the thing that he wanted to do was to give adults a moment where they could play again.

Kelly 22:52

Yeah.

Pete 22:52

Because this was, you know, the 1880s. We're right in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. Yeah. And people are working really, really hard. And you want to give adults the freedom to play. Yes. But you can't put them in the kitty world. So what do you do? Yeah. You let them do whatever the hell they want. If they want booze, they got it. You want girls, we got little Egypt. Right. You want this, you want that, you want thrills, you want rides that'll break your neck if you're looking backwards, you got it. We got it for you.

Kelly 23:20

So see our episode on Playland at the beach.

Pete 23:22

Absolutely. And and and it it's it's interesting how Disneyland kind of yanks that completely off the table.

Kelly 23:31

Yeah.

Pete 23:32

And it it puts the proof in the pudding for everybody. And I'm see how I'm bringing this back? Right back to Walter Knott, who sees the proof in the pudding. Yeah. And is probably visiting, going, Whoa, the other Walt's doing pretty good over there. Maybe we better listen to Mr. Disney.

Kelly 23:47

Well, and and I think it helps. There's two things that help. One is that Russell is starting to run the business side. Yeah. And Walter and Walter respect each other.

Pete 23:58

Yeah.

Kelly 23:58

And so if Walter Knott sees Walt Disney doing something that you know he would have been that that Knott would have been hesitant to do previous, he goes, Well, maybe this is okay if Mr. Disney's doing it. Whatever happened behind the scenes there, Russell Knott showed up at Bud Hurlebutt's office at some point and said, We actually do want that carousel. Right.

Pete 24:21

Yeah. But didn't so they they put it right near the front of the of the park.

Kelly 24:26

Yeah.

Pete 24:27

And I, you know, location-wise, I'm not exactly sure where in the park, but it is close to the front more by the tickets, so that it's visible from the street and so forth. I mean, because you have to have that type of exposure. Yeah, and Walter and Cordelia had already imported most of Calico. They're a little ghost town in the market at this point.

Kelly 24:44

They had imported from a couple of different ghost towns, but they were trying to rebuild Calico, which they bought later.

Pete 24:49

Yeah, they did.

Kelly 24:50

They bought the actual town.

Pete 24:51

So let's talk about that actual town for just a second here. Because I've been to Calico. Oh, you've been to the ghost town. I've been to the actual town. Which is not really a ghost town. No, it's it's a tourist trap. Yeah. But that's okay because it's a hell of a tourist trap. Yeah. And it's a really long, hot, hot drive. Yeah. You know, through San Bernardino, all the way out into the desert. You you know, bring snacks, get a full tank of gas, make sure your car's got an air conditioner, bring lots of drinks. Yeah. You'll need it. And bring a hat and sunscreen. Yes. And you'll have the time of your life. I really want to go. I've never been. No, we we that we may have to do it. We may have to do one of our one of our uh live episodes out there and just pull people in and we'll broadcast from a from the actual mine. But it is a hoot because you're up in the hills out with the silver mining, all the real equipment is out there. Yeah. They've got a little saloon, they've got a gift shop, they've got some of the old buildings. It's a little, it's not quite as grody as Bodhi. Yeah. But I can't think of a rhyme that goes with calico, so it's pretty cool. So you know, it's it's a fun, it's a fun place to be. And it's like, you know, two or three hours worth of visit, but you ride a real mine train, one that really functioned through the mines. You actually go through a portion of the mine, you get to see, you know, I think there's even a walking tour of some of the mines. So you have to squat down and look down, you can see the old rails and and how tight and claustrophobic a mine really was. Yeah. And you get your photograph taken, you know, with your with your old clothes and you pay 20 bucks, you get a handlebar mustache for a minute and walk away. You know, and they've got all the usual, have your name printed on the front of a replica of a m of a newspaper, kid, you know, you know, Peter Overstreet, out shirts, wide herp, you know, whatever. But it's a hoot. But I really recommend that if we're to do a road trip, which I think Kelly and I are getting ready to do soon, yeah. Uh I think our uh my proposed road trip for anybody. Yeah. If you go to Knott's Berry Farm, plan to go to as many Western things as you can.

Kelly 26:57

Yeah.

Pete 26:57

Because Knottsbury Farm becomes the summation of that. So here's my recommendation. I was gonna just gonna say, yeah, I would go to the actual Calico first. Go out to the desert and just go zoop, take a look at it, zoom into the valley, yeah, check in your hotel, wake up in the morning, go to the Gene Autry Museum.

Kelly 27:18

Yeah, I've always heard great things about it.

Pete 27:20

Oh, it is incredible. Yeah, it was uh it's a collection of the the myth of the West and the reality of the West. Yeah. And that's what I love about it, is it balances it so beautifully. Some of it was designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, but go to the Gene Autry and then head on down to Buena Park and then enjoy, you know, start on a Thursday,

The Real Calico And The Western Blueprint

Pete 27:40

go to Calico, Friday, go to Gene Autry, make your way on down, you know, have dinner, go to Knott's Berry Farm and have a time of your life, and it will be a Wild West extravaganza. You'll love it. That's awesome. Love it. Awesome. It's a great road trip. But you can see how Calico, the real Calico, influences Knottsbury Farm and the Mind Train ride, which is you know, Bud's mind train ride. So much. Yeah, yeah. So much. The look, the feel, even the smells. You go, wait a minute, all that's missing is the bad, you know, big country music playing in the background. Right. You know.

Kelly 28:18

Well, and so, you know, Bud puts in the merry-go-round. Yeah. But this is where the one thing rule becomes an issue. Yes. Because Bud Hurlebus smart enough to know that if he puts this in and it's a success, this park is going to grow, and he wants to be the guy that that is is growing with it. Yep. And so he has to go face down, Walter Knott, which is something not many people were willing to do. No. But and he went in and told Walter Knott, he said, Hey, it's not worth it to me just to do one thing. And he said, if you want this done, uh I want to be able to do a some do another attraction. Yeah. Uh but we can hinge that on whether this is successful or not. Yeah. And Walter Knott sees the reasoning in that and says, okay, as long as whatever you make is successful and is making money, you can make another thing. And this was the case for his entire run at Knott's. Buds? Yeah. Okay. He had to prove that one thing made money before he could make the next thing.

Pete 29:32

Proof in the puddin. Yep. That's the thing. Walter Knott had with his boysenberry puddin. You had to put a proof in it. Put the proof in the boysenberry puddin, honey. Cooking chicken, you doof. Okay, sorry about that. We'll get more boysenberries.

unknown 29:53

Sorry.

Pete 29:55

That'll be the bloopers later.

Kelly 29:59

But yeah. And this starts a whole string of attractions that but Hurlebutt and his his company, which is mostly just him and like a couple of other guys, yeah. Start building for Knott's. They build an antique auto ride there. That was fun. Yeah, and it and it's not just an antique auto ride like you see elsewhere. No. He built scenes that you went through, tunnels. He had to work around Mr. Knott's trees because you were not allowed to move them. Nope.

Pete 30:31

Planted those himself. You better not.

Kelly 30:33

Don't touch it. Yep. He he he put in, I think, a little a little boat ride. He put in one of his mini steam trains. You know, he was he was doing a bunch of these, but he he had to put one in, start selling tickets to it. Wow. And show that it was profitable, and then he could start the next project.

Pete 30:52

Wow. Yeah. So didn't you know also that Hurlibutt's miniature train, one of his trains, was actually at the Nut Tree in Vacaville, California. Oh, is it still there? I don't know if it's still there, but it was one of the first trains that was there. Yeah, because they do still have a miniature train. They do. It used to be a lot more it like it aspired to be another Knott's berry farm, but Vacaville that was like, nah, this this sucks. Yeah, there's not much to it. My grandpa Jim used to fly up to it. He used to own a Cessna airplane and would fly us up for lunch and we go to the nut tree and then fly on back to San Jose for some reason.

One Thing Rule And Early Knott’s Rides

Pete 31:25

He's like flying. I need my hours, I guess. But there it is.

Kelly 31:30

So yeah, and in the meantime, over at over at the Disney Park, and actually Disney Park and Pacific Ocean Park, they're doing some interesting things. Yep. I don't think we've talked about Pacific Ocean Park here, but at some point we will because it's fascinating. But you know, it's 1957, Disney opens the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train, which obviously is going to influence what's about to come. Uh Pacific Ocean Park opens their banana train, which goes through a quote unquote tropical forest and a volcano. Banana.

Pete 32:08

Banana.

Kelly 32:09

Yeah, that's cool. And one thing I I did not know about this, but I learned about it just when researching this episode. Around this period, Bud Hurlibutt starts on this project for Knott's called like the South Sea Island Adventure. Yeah, this is wild. Yeah. I mean, obviously cashing in on the tiki phenomenon. For sure. And it's it's clearly designed kind of on the jungle cruise. He it's it's just it's adjacent to Knott's, but kind of on the other side of the 49. And working on I'm sorry, not Highway 49, Highway 39. Highway 39. There you go.

Pete 32:49

He does, you know, he he starts building like oh yeah, hardcore, building boats and everything. Yeah, they build a lake.

Kelly 32:58

Um he's kind of working on that. And Walter Knott, in the meantime, has built up this part of Knott's Berry Farm that is like equestrian shows. Right. So Walter Knott has has started building up this kind of arena for equestrian shows, which is more in his historic, you know, pro-west kind of thing.

Pete 33:20

And there was like a like an amphitheater or something like that, right, in this area. And they would do like sideshow routines and goofy dancing and stuff.

Kelly 33:28

At first he started with uh just horses and people just weren't coming. And then he kind of switched it over to where it was more this weird melange of small animal acts and sideshows and stuff like that, and people weren't buying it. You know what this price needs? A monkey.

Pete 33:45

And sure enough, there was one. Uh-uh. You think I'm you think I'm full of it, do you? Oh no, I've done my homework.

Kelly 33:52

So he starts to kind of panic because they've invested a lot of money in this and they're not making any. Sure. And he goes to Bud and he says, Can do you have anything? Can you figure out what we're gonna do with this arena space? And Bud says, No. But he comes back later and suggests the what is eventually going to become the mind train ride. Right, right. So he starts he starts working on the Calico Mine Train ride. Right. And it starts, his designs start to grow and grow and grow. And it just becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. In the meantime, the he's kind of trying to work on the South Sea Island thing at the same time, which is going to involve working with aero development, which we've talked about a lot. Aero development of Palo Alto, California. Yes, sir. Or Mountain View, I should say. Mountain View, yeah. And he's he's working with them to build a sort of monorail to get people from the original park across the highway to the South Sea Island. This thing's starting to balloon as well. Oh, yeah. Eventually, Russell Knott shows up and says, Pal, we gotta finish this mine train thing. Yeah. So he kind of puts puts down the South Sea Island and he focuses 100% on the thing that's going to become the Calico mine train ride. Nice. This thing is expensive. It's crazy expensive. So it's I mean, the mountain itself is like seven stories tall. He decides he's going to use these train engines that are different than the kinds he's used before because these are going to be all electric. Right. Um, which is remarkable when you think about it. Like you know, we're talking late 50s, all electric engines that can pull a bunch of cars up inclines. Well, I mean, they're they're being pulled up the incline, but still.

Pete 35:49

Which is a different story, which we'll get to in a second, but shows some of his mechanical genius. Yeah, it shows how he kind of changed the world. It does, big time.

Kelly 35:56

Yeah. And so he's they're building and building,

Betting Everything On The Mine Train

Kelly 36:00

the scenes are getting more elaborate and more elaborate, and Bud is going under financially.

Pete 36:08

Big time. Yeah. Because remember, folks, not Walter Knott is not paying for this. No, he's not. Bud is. Yeah. And Bud's paying rent to Knott at the while he's building it. Yes. This is this is not just like Walter Knott going, I've got a bunch of money, you build this. Like, this is not Disneyland talking to one, you know, Walt Disney talking to one of his imagineers, going, Rolly, go build me this. Go build me a tiki room. This is somebody going, I would like to do something on your land. Great, I'll charge you rent and you build whatever you want as long as it makes money. And I'll get a cut. Right. So, oh okay. So, what does Bud do, Kelly?

Kelly 36:49

Bud sells his home, his car. Brand new Cadillac. Brand new Cadillac. Moves into a trailer. He and his wife move into a trailer on Knott's Berry Farm, where they're sleeping in cots. Yeah. And there's a there's a story that Bud Hurlibutt told later where Walter Knott started seeing what was happening here and went up to him and he said, Bud, do you know what you're doing? Absolutely. And yes, that's what he said. He was like, Yes, I do. In later years, he said it was the only time he ever lied to Walter Knott.

Pete 37:29

So

Marshall Owen And The Sound Of The Cave

Pete 37:30

I want to take a pause here on the construction. Yes. Okay. So when I I'm fortunate enough to be acquaintances with two very talented Disney artists, Kevin Kidney and Jodie Daly. Some of you may know know them from some of their promotional work that they've done.

Kelly 37:48

They've done a lot of work on parades and shows the redo of the carousel of progress right now.

Pete 37:54

Yes, they are. They are part of that. So they I I just as we've been recording, you might have heard me sound a little distracted because I've actually been texting with Kevin as we've been recording. So thank you very much, Kevin, for letting me interrupt you at work, working probably on the carousel of progress. Yeah, right. Keep up the good work. But anyhow, long time ago, uh Kevin and Jody invited me over to their beautiful home in near downtown Anaheim. They live in the original house where two little girls named Kate and Ella used to live in. Yeah. Which is where we get the name Catella Avenue. Yes. So they they the at some point the city moved that house. They moved it to the current location where it is at, and these two gentlemen have fixed it up. They have their little art studio in the back. At first, it looks like a little Victorian country home. And then they've got a grungy old barn. But when you get into the grungy old barn, it's Disney imagineering the good old days in there. There's tiki birds and there's art and there's pictures of Bob Gurr everywhere. And you know, it's amazing. They're they're the sweetest dudes in the world. Yes. And in their dining room, they have a painting. And we were over, a friend of mine and I were over there for a party, and we're having food and they're serving cocktails. We're having a grand old time. And I look at this painting, and it's a black light painting of a cavern. Yeah. And at first I asked him, I said, Is this a is this like a Yale Gracie or something like that of the mine train at Disneyland? He goes, Oh no, that's for the Calico Mine Train at Knott's Berry Farm. They had just acquired this piece. And, you know, sure enough, he they've got a black light, they turn it on, and it was painted, it's painted with black light art. And it's of one of the caverns. So there's this fabulous moment on the ride where the train slows down a minute, and you hear this amazing pipe organ music playing. Yeah. And it's it gives me chills every time I go on this ride. Absolutely. And it this is that chamber. Kevin literally just wrote to me like five minutes into this broadcast here. And he says, Yes, I remember that piece. Thanks for writing. That piece was done by an artist by the name of Marshall Owen. Okay. So Marshall Owen, who has a remarkable Abe Lincoln beard, he was an auto race driver. He was an artist. He was a promoter. He was a creator of illusions. Yeah. He made models and he was an organ enthusiast. So he did the organ music for that moment.

Kelly 40:28

Oh, wait, hang on, hang on. He must have done the organ music for the moment when it was redone. Yes. Because the original organ music was done by Gaylord Carter.

Pete 40:40

Yes.

Kelly 40:40

The famous silent film organist and organist for Amos and Andy and the Whistler and Suspense. Okay. Also the guy who did the crazy organ for Grim Grinning Ghost.

Pete 40:51

Oh, yeah. Okay, so I've got a little I've got a little thing about Marshall here. So this is this is from a an article from 1968. Yeah. And and it's an article about pipe organs. Neat. And it focuses on Marshall Owen here. Uh-huh. So let's see here. Um when we first heard of Marshall Owen and his scheme to conjure a veritable showpiece to the stars in the heart of Hollywood last year, we gave it small notice and no more. It seemed too fantastic, but the fact that the plan included a theater organ maintained our interest. In the interim, we've had a chance to look into previous endeavors of Mr. Owen, the mine ride at Dnotts Berry Farm. For example, the Anaheim, California amusement park boasts a ride through an animated full-scale old-time mine. The figures, lighting, interior, sound effects, and thrills of the cavern are the work of Marshall Owen. He even supervised the music score by hiring Bill Thompson to compose and play on a Mighty Wurlitzer, the recorded soundtrack. And at Disneyland, Owen constructed the set for the black-lighted Peter Pan ride, during which one soars through the night skies above the delicately illuminated London of Wendy and Peter. As for the Grand Prix aspects of Owen's life, he has the scars to prove them. He was very nearly done in twice, although one smash occurred on a freeway and therefore doesn't count. So how about the dreamer promoter and model making areas of Lower Owen's life? Well, we contacted the office of his crescendo enterprises in Alhambra only to find him more deeply involved than ever. He is busy lining up more financial backing needed to make such a gigantic undertaking come off, and he is concurrently negotiating for the purchase of a suitable organ, a mighty Wurlitzer, naturally. Frankly, he hasn't much time for interviews, but he asked one of his assistants to prepare a statement for the bombard. That's the name of this magazine. And he also provided photos of his own painting of one of the buildings and also a piece of a scale model that he has constructed. Then he was off at the Moulin Rouge building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, the one-time home of Earl Carroll shows to take some measurements. So yeah, I mean, so there's pictures of some of his art in here. Wow. So yeah, that's Marshall Owen. So he did that painting. That's amazing. And so he was like he was part of the Peter Panride design, the original 55 Peter Panride. Wow. I've never heard of him before. Right. Like this is this is what I like about this episode. It's like, ooh, unsung heroes of all the parks. And who knew all there was so many people in LA that were into pipe organs? Yeah. Like this is like a thing.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

So hi everybody, Kelly here.

Kelly 43:54

This would normally be a point where we'd take a break and do an interstitial bit anyway, but. I wanted to step in because this last bit was a little bit confusing as we were talking about Marshall Owen and Gaylord Carter and how they interacted with Bud Hurlbutt. It turns out that both Pete and I, we were both right about what was going on here, but I wanted to kind of clear this up because it's a puzzling history, and maybe ask if anyone else knows anything about Marshall Owen, if they might be willing to step in and let us know. Marshall Owen indeed was part of the early work on the Calico Mountain Mine Train and was a friend of Bud Hurlbut's. There is some indication that he did all of Bud's sound work through the years, mostly his special effects work. As Pete pointed out, he was a big pipe organ aficionado. He seemed to be fairly relevant in the pipe organ community, if that's a thing. In Los Angeles at the time. He was obviously a painter. He had many talents and seemed to have his fingers in a lot of pies. He probably did not build the entirety of the Peter Penn track, but it is very likely that he painted a good hunk of it. He's mysterious. Marshall Owen, it turns out, was a friend of Gaylord Carter, who was also a pipe organist and had done work with silent films and a whole bunch of other stuff. And what seems to be the case, and we don't like to say stuff like this until we've really, really verified it, but this is the best we can give you right now. What seemed to be the case is that Marshall Owen designed what the sound in the cave, which they call the heaven cave, on the mind trained ride was going to be, and asked Gaylord Carter to improvise it. So Gaylord Carter came in on Marshall Owen's instructions and improvised the theme that went in that cave, which is why there's no written music or really any other recordings of it. So anyway, I wanted to drop that in because there were sort of some conflicting timelines and we like to keep uh things as accurate as possible. Alright, guys, now more bud hurlbud.

Chain Lifts And Other Industry Firsts

Kelly 46:12

They they finish the ride. Yes. They get it started up. There's there's a couple of things about the ride that are completely new. One of which has to do with the lift.

Pete 46:26

Yep. The incline. 20 degrees. Yes. And it's like 17 feet or something like that.

Kelly 46:32

Something like that. Yeah. And it's a heavy train. Yes, it is. And uh Bud Hurlebutt couldn't get any engineering firms to take it on.

Pete 46:41

They would yeah, they wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot or a 17-foot pole. Yeah. Yeah. Like, no, no, thank you.

Kelly 46:48

So so Bud had to do it himself. And the innovation that came from this is that prior lifts of this sort were done from the bottom. Right. Pushers. Yeah, pushers. So there's there's a mechanism at the bottom that's basically pushing the chain upward. Yeah. This causes some inefficiency. It's a little easier to maintain because you don't have to climb anything. But it's a lot more wear and tear. Pushing is always harder than pulling. Yeah. So Bud Hurlebutt invents the first version of a chain pull for a car, which is going to be used in roller coasters forever, that's pulls from the top.

Pete 47:30

And apparently this design was so good that the chain didn't have to be like taken out and replaced for like 20 years. Like 27 years. 27 years.

Kelly 47:40

Yeah, it was incredible. Wow. The attraction has like animatronics all over the place. Oh, yeah. It has weird little vignette scenes and and giant scenes.

Pete 47:52

Well, I mean, let's let's just get right into it. The first time when you enter the the main chamber, yeah, and you look around and you realize you're in this gigantic cavern with all these miners running around. I mean, they must be like, you know, 10, 12 years old. And they're they're sorry.

Kelly 48:14

Ankle chained.

Pete 48:15

Yeah. It's a small world after all. So they no, they but I mean it's huge and it's full scale. It is not forced perspective. Oh, I know. It is a full-scale mine. And because you are going to go around and around that chamber.

Kelly 48:32

And the ride experience, it's been up updated twice since it was originally opened in 1960. But basically the scenes are the same. Yes. They have they have not changed that much. If we if we kind of go through it, what what we see is some similarities to the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train and the Mind Train Through Nature's Wonderland and some big differences. Sure. Dark tunnel stuff. We have like mud pots and uh, you know, some some geysers, right? And and I guess evidently Bud went to Yellowstone specifically to see like how do these mud pots work.

Pete 49:10

He did well, this is one of the things I love about Bud's precision. Yeah. Because he does a lot of that kind of stuff for this specific ride. Right. He does that. He goes out to a lot of you know, out in gold country and he buys up mining materials, yes, pickaxes. So a lot of the stuff that you see on that ride is authentic antique mining equipment that he acquired to put around this ride. Yeah. And it's amazing. It just totally lends the verisimilitude of the mining world in there.

Kelly 49:38

One of my favorite stories about this ride that I uh that I read recently was that, you know, so you you do this whole section of the ride that's kind of underground and it's smaller, like vignettes, and you got the weird mutt pot things, and then you kind of climb up, you go up that incline, and there's sort of this darkness, and then you turn a corner, and this is where you get the big organ music, yeah, and you're in this giant cave of stalactites and stalagmites. Now, again, Walter Knott was stubborn, and he did not want historically inaccurate things in his park.

Pete 50:13

Yeah.

Kelly 50:14

And he didn't believe this kind of thing happened. Yep. So what Bud Hurlibutt did was he literally went and found the guy that had discovered Carlsbad Caverns. Oh, yeah. And he flew him out to talk to Walter Knott. Put the proof in the pudding. Yeah.

Pete 50:33

Put the proof in the pudding, man. That's the way you do it. I think he was just not into flights of fancy. Like he's like, you really had to have it spell it out to him and say, this will work because of A, B, and C. And if you could do that, he'd go, All right, I'll give you a chance. Don't mess it up. Right. You know? Right. And and which apparently he was notorious for. Yeah. Do it, don't mess it up. My other favorite story on this one, at some point on the ride, just before you're leaving, you're supposed to, like, uh-oh, it looks like they've meshed up the fuse. Yeah, with the dynamite, yeah. Well, apparently they went out to Death Valley or something like that, and they blew up actual sticks of dynamite, so the explosion sound effect was authentic.

Kelly 51:12

That's right. Yeah, I read that too. Like they they literally just recorded blowing up dynamite that they did.

Pete 51:18

It's like we did it. They didn't just get stocked sound effects, they just did it.

Kelly 51:22

I know I kind of want to go, you're like, you know, 20 minutes from Hollywood, you could have just gotten a sound effect.

Pete 51:28

I mean, we've all heard that there's one, I forget the name of it. It's like the Wilhelm scream. Yeah. Like there's there are certain sound effects you hear everywhere. One is the Wilhelm scream. Yep. Two is the sound of somebody falling, yeah. And it's a very distinct you know, when they hit the ground. Yeah. And you almost and they use it a lot in whenever anybody falls in Charlie Brown cartoons. Yeah. It's that same sound effect over and over again. And it's in every Warner Brothers Western. Yeah. Anytime, like it's in Westworld, it's in the shootest, it's everywhere. Yeah. But then there is like one very distinct Hollywood explosion sound effect that everybody hears in every Western, every war movie, everywhere, and they did not want that.

Kelly 52:12

Yeah, which is so interesting because it's really hard to record an explosion. It is. There's a there's a few sounds that are really hard to capture so that the the listener can really understand it. Uh-huh. That's one of them. It just there's a depth to that sound that's very difficult. Yep. But they did it. They did it.

Pete 52:33

They managed. Yeah, like you imagine being out there, you're out there that okay, be really careful with that box of dynamite.

Kelly 52:38

Yeah.

Pete 52:39

Yeah. You know, they got a couple of cans of Schlitz beer and they're hooking up the the things, smoking cigarettes, you know, while they're hooking up the leads and it's okay, it's malt liquor, it's only three percent. Yeah. Don't get that aluminum pull tab close enough to the plunger, that'll set it off.

Kelly 52:57

But you know, then like before that, like after you get to the stalagtite room, you turn into the room that is just when I first experienced this, one of my favorite theme park experiences of all time. Yeah. And Pete, I have to confess something to you. Uh-oh, let's not tell anybody. Okay. This entire episode. You remember the movie Wings of Desire? Yes. Okay. Remember that scene where Nick Cave is standing backstage before he goes on going, This is not a song about a girl, this is not a song about a girl, this is not a song about a girl, and then he walks on stage and goes, This is a song about a girl. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I've been doing that this whole episode because going through my mind is this phrase. Okay. When you go into that cave, you're going into Hurlibutt's glory hole.

Pete 53:53

Hurlibut's glory hole. The glory, the infamous glory hole. I'm glad I finally I love the fact that it ends with a waterfall, too. That's the best. Like after you get past the glory hole, you go straight past the falls, you know. It's like somehow you might get wet on this ride.

Kelly 54:12

It is literally what they call it. It's like it is the it is the main mine chamber. Totally is. Yep. That is where they've struck gold, right? So it is it is the place where everyone's the most happy. And when boy howdy. Yeah. So when you turn that corner, you've gotten a glimpse of it earlier in the ride, but just a glimpse. When you turn that corner, I mean, this chamber is 65 feet high and 90 feet wide. Yes, it is. It's huge. Massive. It is huge. And it is filled with animatronics with miners doing stuff.

Pete 54:55

Clinking and clanking away with pickaxes, dynamite, and sluicing material. Yes. It's amazing.

Kelly 55:01

It is so breathtaking, and you do not expect it when you see it.

Pete 55:05

No. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at an aero aerial view of the mine train right now. And only half of the building is actually decorated to be a mountain. It's only the front half. Like the minute you're inside, you're inside a show building. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, it's totally fine. Yeah, you see all the vents and you see the HVAC system and the emergency exits and all that. Yeah. You know, and like a backdrop of, you know, some sort of western side, you know, on the on the side there. But the face that faces the Calico Railroad Depot. Yeah. And for those of you who are not scary farm fanatics where the they do the hanging every time, every night, you get to see the Calico Mine Train and you look at the size of this building, and it's it's huge. Yeah. But compared to the Flume ride, it's teeny. And we'll get to the Flume ride in a minute. But it's really interesting the scope and scale. One of my other favorite things about this ride is that one of the other innovations, along with the uh the pulling aspect of getting a train up for the incline, yeah, is when Walt Disney came to visit. Yeah. And he thought he was just gonna go, Oh, I'm friends with Bud, you know, I'll just get right on board and I'll you know I don't have the time to wait with all these people. Yeah, I don't have to time. I'm I'm Walt Disney. You know, he lit a cigarette and held his two fingers up and off he went. And he he went straight into the line, thinking he was just gonna go right past the opening door and then go straight onto the train. And then the trail makes you make an extreme right. Yeah. And all of a sudden he realized he was in a giant switchback.

Kelly 56:38

Right, which was the first time anyone had done this. The hidden cue. Yeah, the the hidden switchback cue. No one had done it before, and and everyone's probably going, Oh, I hate those things. Why are you talking about this? Well, because it changed things a lot.

Pete 56:56

Absolutely. Yeah. And in this particular one, they were still there there are switchback cues which are just bad switchback cues, where the biggest attraction is watching some kid swinging back and forth on the chain, and you're in your head going, $20 says he falls off and hurts his head. Yeah. Right, right. Everybody admit it. You all do it. Yeah, I I certainly do. And if not, you owe me 20 bucks.

Kelly 57:19

My wife got me a t-shirt with a crossword puzzle on the back so that when I was in cues, people would have something to do. That's awesome.

Pete 57:26

Yeah. Maybe we should do that for a road trip. That would be great. We'll do that. The low down of the plus of crossword puzzle for people in line. I love that. Yeah, put a couple of lanyards with uh with markers on the back. Right. Yeah, yeah, do do the crossword puzzle. Yeah. But this one was themed. Yeah. You've got cactus everywhere, you've got mining equipment, you've got water flowing. Yeah, you got water solutions. So it keeps you busy and it keeps you just close enough to the train where you go, there it is, there's our goal. There it is again. Oh, there's the train. Maybe we'll get on the next one. So when the line is particularly long, you feel like you're making progress, and you do feel like, okay, we're getting closer. Because you're moving at about fifty 45 to 50 people at a go. Yeah. It's a people eater.

Kelly 58:08

Yeah, and then initially there were five trains. Wow. Eventually they put in a sixth one, and the sixth one was called they nicknamed the Beast because it was so much heavier. Oh, geez. Than the rest of them. I mean, they're still all battery powered. They charge overnight and run all day. Right. Um, which is pretty great. One of the things about this ride, though, and I don't believe this is the case anymore, but yeah, at the time, and I think all the way up to maybe 2014, the the driver of the train is literally in control of the acceleration and the braking. And the braking is a big old brake lever. Oh, yeah. And so for the beast, when it was coming down, the driver had to get out of his chair and throw his body weight against the lever to stop it.

Pete 59:00

But you said he was going to Indiana Jones it and get in front of it and put his feet down on the tracks to try to.

Kelly 59:08

You know, when they would get to the dynamite section at the end, they would just let off the brake entirely.

Pete 59:15

Right, because it's all under weight and momentum. Right. And so it would speed up and everyone would get really excited. Yeah, and some and some fans of the park actually referred to that as as Knott's Berry Farm's first roller coaster. Yeah. Because of that fact.

Kelly 59:27

Yeah, I think that I think that's a stretch.

Pete 59:29

It is a stretch. It's cute. Yeah. It's a cute notion, but not quite.

Kelly 59:33

But it does do things that roller coasters now do.

Pete 59:36

Yes, it does. Absolutely.

Kelly 59:38

Yeah, so uh amazing ride. Supposedly after Disney got off the ride that first time, he went up to Hurla, but having experienced the switchback queue, and said, You devious SOB.

Pete 59:54

Of course, he's like, Yeah, we'll learn from the best. Walt and off he went and he started doing that and everything. Guess what I just saw.

Kelly 59:59

There's there's no ride at all at any Disney park that doesn't have one of those. Oh, yeah, totally. Some of them are hidden better than others.

Pete 1:00:06

It's true. True. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, so you've got you've got the the mine the mine train ride, which I just I love this thing. Yeah. So much. I mean, it's it is the wood splinter express. Yep. Because unlike Disney's Mine Train ride, and unlike the cave train in Santa Cruz, yeah, the cars that you're riding on are actually lined with real wood. Yeah. So you really, I mean, it makes it feel all the more authentic. They're made with iron and wood. Things are rusty. Yeah. You know, the Tetan Express, it's awesome. But you know, it works and and it just feels it's got that level of authenticity that I think kind of elevates it above Nature's Wonderland and of the cave train. As much as I love those rides, the notion of those rides, this one really delivers.

Kelly 1:00:56

Yeah.

Pete 1:00:57

It delivers on the promise of you're gonna be in a mine train. Oh boy, howdy, you're gonna be in a mind train.

Kelly 1:01:02

Yeah, and a lot of stuff has changed in in the ride, but but on the whole, you can still pretty much experience it as it was. Yeah. You know, the it was redone in 2014 by Garner Holt. Good old Garner Holt. Yeah. He he fixed a bunch of he replaced a bunch of the animatronics, he fixed a bunch of the lighting. They stopped having the actual engineer do the narration of the ride and had a recording. Yeah, I I'm pretty sure they took out that braking mechanism and made it automatic.

Pete 1:01:34

One would hope.

Kelly 1:01:35

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, there's you there's good things and bad things about it. But for the most part, you know, Garner Holt being a very big fan of this ride, yeah, didn't touch what was magic about it.

Pete 1:01:45

No, he really didn't. They they really maintained the flavor and the feel of it. So more

Details, Ownership, And The Liberty Bell Saga

Pete 1:01:50

power to Garner and his team for sure restoration of this.

Kelly 1:01:53

Yeah. Um But I will say this, and I know we still have a log flume to get to, but I was reading, it wasn't until the mid-80s or so that Hurlebut sold all of the concessions that he was running at knotts to Knott's. So up until then, he owned it. And he was making a pretty good chunk of money, but he sold them to Knott's, yeah. And which was a reasonable thing to do. And people started reporting after that that a lot of the detail work on the ride started to kind of slip away. You know, there's like a a sort of mad teacup ride with sombreros there. Oh, yeah. That was one of his. And people said, Oh, yeah, all of these really intricate murals and stuff are gone, and now it's just big splashes of color. That's too bad. And and I I get it, you get bigger, you get a lot more people, there's all there's only so much you can do. But it was clear that Bud cared about the details.

Pete 1:02:54

Yeah. And again, that's his meticulousness. I mean, you don't record dynamite if you're not concerned about details, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Kelly 1:03:00

You don't find the guy that discovered Carl's Bad Caverns.

Pete 1:03:04

Yeah. Like, oh, you want proof on the Putin? I'll show you proof of the Putin. You know? Well, this attention to detail led to his next endeavor. So in 1966, Walter Knott built a replica of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Yeah. Which you can still see today. It's actually kind of an interesting little tribute. Like, yeah. It's a little schmaltzy. It is for my taste. But you know what? When you're waiting for chicken, you're like, well, we got the buzz, those buzzers reach. Yeah. So you know what? Like, let's let's go. We got a half an hour. Let's go over to Independence Hall. Just take a quick walk. Yeah. And you and you work up an appetite walking around this thing, and it's beautiful. Yeah. But in it is a replica of the famous Liberty Bell. This was produced by Bud. Yeah. And here's what's wild. In order to make it authentic, Bud thought he'd be clever. And first off, he went to Philadelphia. Yeah. I don't know how he did it, but he finagled a shaving of metal off of the actual Liberty Bell to figure out metallurgically what mixtures of metals were used so that we'd be an authentic replica of the Liberty Bell. And then when he got back, he says, okay, so he made a special ridge in where the crack would be of the Liberty Bell. Yeah. So that way when it cooled, it would crack automatically. Well, you can replicate the metal, but you cannot replicate every single like this is the butterfly effect, right? You have to replicate every last to the second detail when working with metal to make a perfect replica. So what happened is that he made it, it didn't crack. So then he started whacking it with a sledgehammer. Uh-huh. Didn't crack. Then he lined it with like liquid nitrogen or something like that in order to weaken the metal. And then he like flash heated and flash-cooled it. Still didn't crack. You know, like the Founding Fathers did. Yeah. Exactly. It's an exact replica of how they ruined this bell. And so finally what he did is he wound up getting like, you know, a torch, a very high-powered plasma torch, and just forget it, I'll cut it. You know, and I'll add those ingots in there to patch it up. I don't dang it, this thing won't crack. I made it too good. You know, Paul Revere would be pleased, you know. But he did that, and while he was working on that, he went over to Walt and he goes, I got an idea for a ride. And while he's building a model for it, one of his buddies, his local guy, dropped in to see him, and it's none other than John Wayne. How are you doing, bud? What are you working on now? Well, I've got this idea for a log ride. It'd be a lot of fun. Like you're going down like the lumber mills and everything like that. That sounds like a great idea, Pilgrim. I'm radioactive from Genghis Co. Okay, John. Okay, John. Patrick's gonna be in a Sinbad movie in a couple years. Let me tell you, he'll be an Oscar-winning performer. So sorry. But he but apparently, you know, do I get to be the first one to write it? Yeah. This off-handed comment would later plague Bud during the production of the log flume.

Kelly 1:06:28

Yes, it would because this was before anyone had said that he could do it.

Pete 1:06:34

Yeah.

Kelly 1:06:35

No one no one said he could put it in.

Pete 1:06:37

Yeah, he was just doing it. And like Wayne made this assumption that he was really going to build it, and so did Bud. Yeah. And so you have to understand, here's the thing with the Calico Mine Train. Yeah. It was established at Knott's with a handshake. There were no contracts, there was no paperwork. It was

The Log Flume Fight And Six Flags Twist

Pete 1:06:55

literally just Walter go, okay.

Kelly 1:06:56

And and do you know how they divided the funds for that ride? No. So, you know, later it became kind of a strict percentage, but here's how they did it for the calico mine train, because you bought tickets for rides, much like you did at Disneyland at that time. It depended on where you bought the ticket. If you bought the ticket for the calico mine train near the entrance to the park, the Knotts got it. If you bought the ticket near the entrance to the ride, the her Hurlibut got it. Okay. And what's so interesting about this, first off, it's just a wacky way to do financing. But second, for people who collect stuff like this, like paper, there's two entirely different tickets you could get. That's so cool. Yeah, one is the Hurlibutt fund, one is the not fund.

Pete 1:07:42

Well, there's a there's a psycholog I forget what it's called. It's it's it's preferential uh displacement or something like that. It is a psychological phenomenon. Darren Brown uses this a lot as a magician's force in a lot of his mentalist routines. And sometimes you can just get people, certain people, to pick certain things just in their proximity. Yeah. So people will tend to go for the quickest thing possible. So which one do you want? That thing over here or this one here? And they usually go the one next to me. Yes. Yeah. And you can steer them to it through other means like temperature, color. There's so many different ways that you can influence people. Yeah. And I like the notion. I wonder who came up with that scheme. Something tells me Bud, because the notion of having two booths is insane. Yeah. Because Bud probably figured well when people are going to come into the park, they're going to say, We got a mine train. People are going to go, and then they get to the mine train, they go, Hey, I care. That looks good. Yeah, that's a big mountain. I think I kind of want to ride that. Yeah. Oh. I wish I bought tickets at the front. Well, look, there's a ticket booth over here. So again, proof in the puddin, right? It's like he's looking at it, kind of going, Oh, yeah, go ahead and sell tickets up front. Nobody's going to buy it. Yeah. Right. And boy, that became apparent when they started looking at the books. Yeah.

Kelly 1:08:54

It's true. And they started looking at the books while they were still negotiating the thing that we're about to talk about, which is the log ride.

Pete 1:09:02

Timber Mountain Log Ride.

Kelly 1:09:04

Yeah, originally the Calico log ride, but it was changed in a couple of years because people were getting the two rides confused.

Pete 1:09:11

There was original talk, one of his earliest designs actually had the log ride incorporated into the mine train. Oh, that'd be neat. It'd be neat, but it was just too much of an engineering feat, and it was just too much to do. So it's like, let's not do that. But it was like one of the early, early concept. It's very it's fairly reminiscent, actually, when Tony Baxter was designing the Indiana Jones ride, and they wanted to, we're going to mix the jungle cruise with the train, with this, and that. It's like, yeah, it looks great on paper. How much is that gonna cost? And also it's not gonna work. Yeah, just not gonna happen. So Hurlbutt started experimenting uh with this idea of a log ride.

Kelly 1:09:51

Yeah, now it's important to keep in mind that people weren't doing this. No. You know, now every theme park, every amusement park in the world has something like this. Oh, yeah. But at the time, you had a shoot the chutes, which was as close as you kind of got, which and shoot the shoots is basically a flat bottom boat.

Pete 1:10:10

You go to a top of a hill and it drops you down the hill, and you basically skim across the water as you grind to a halt in the water.

Kelly 1:10:17

Right. Yeah. So maybe fall out of the boat, which happens.

Pete 1:10:19

Which did happen. Did happen. Absolutely.

Kelly 1:10:21

And then you've got um like a scenic railway. Yeah. Um, and there was sort of water versions of the scenic railway as well.

Pete 1:10:27

The old mill rides that we talked about before.

Kelly 1:10:29

Yeah, and and but what uh Bud tried to do was put those two things together, was to have the scenic ride with the thrill. Yep. Now today we can name a zillion of those. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Um but at the time nobody had done it, and people thought he was insane. Absolutely. But his initial idea was I'm going to basically build a roller coaster, but I'm kind of going to put the track under water. Yeah. So it'll seem like it's a boat. And people immediately said, no, don't do that. Yeah. Um, there's so many problems with that. The main one being that water degrades everything.

Pete 1:11:10

That's a big thing. Water, as as you know, check out Kelly's amazing episode on the water work of Disneyland, and you'll you'll hear all about how water will destroy any theme park if it's not used properly. Here's the interesting thing the the early prototypes of the log rides were not tested in a theme park.

Kelly 1:11:31

Yeah, they were tested in like a parking lot up behind a drive-in, right?

Pete 1:11:35

Of a drive-in. Now, I want to take I want to take a quick little little side note here that drive-ins in America started in the late 20s. Yeah. I mean, really early. Yeah. And it was all about a cash-in. I believe it started in Texas, and it was all about licensing issues with theaters. Right. And capacity. And then it became a thing the more that people actually started buying automobiles. And a lot of things actually started at the drive-in. Right. First off, there was a lot of engineering as far as audio display. Yeah. Projectors had to be improved upon with their clarity. Yeah. And also their lumens. They had to become brighter because they had to travel through a lot more atmospherics. Yeah, much brighter. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They were one of my favorite drive-in innovations was this one thing that utilized a whole series of mirrors that split the image of a movie that was being projected directly into this prism. And then they would go through a series of mirrors and lenses being enlarged to individual screens that were put in front of every single parking lot. So it was almost like you were pulling up in front of a little flat screen TV in front of your car. That's so cool. It was a great idea that never really worked. Yeah. But it was a neat idea that sort of worked. It was like, okay, that's a kind of sort of neat innovation. Right. One of my other favorite innovations is takeout pizza. Yeah. Takeout pizza started off because of an Italian family running a drive-in, and people were buying tickets to see movies, but not staying to watch the movies. Yeah. They were buying the tickets to get in and get a slice of mama's pizza.

Kelly 1:13:18

Because it was delicious.

Pete 1:13:19

It was delicious. So what they did is they had the drive-in and pizza drive-in takeout. So takeaway food became a thing because of drive-ins. Yeah. Drive-ins tried everything to get butts on seats and keep people in the park. They put playgrounds, boat rides, donkey rides. I mean, it's in one place had a monorail built around the entire thing. Yeah, it's insane. I mean, the drive-in to me is so much uh evocative of American entrepreneurship.

Kelly 1:13:51

Yeah.net, you'll find some of the most well-considered and insightful writing about the Walt Disney Company, Disney history, and the universe of theme parks available anywhere. Come join us at BoardwalkTimes.net. The Aero Development guys, particularly Carl Bacon, factor into this a lot. Oh, yeah. Because Bud didn't entirely know how to make this work. No. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to do something that had elements of his mind train. Yeah. But in water and to reflect the thrill that he knew about particularly Russian immigrants had come and were working to move logs down from, you know, Washington and such.

Pete 1:15:01

And actually, like, yeah, writing flumes and writing rivers in hollowed-out logs. Insane stuff. And sometimes like fatal. Yeah. Fatal accident. I mean, it was a very, very dangerous thing. It's like, I want that danger without the actual death. Right. I don't want any death or injury, but I want that danger flavor to it.

Kelly 1:15:20

And I know at first when they started building the mock-up, because Carl Bacon particularly thought this was all doable. And Hurlbud had a good relationship with them. Oh, sure. Because they had built the cars for the antique auto ride, which they had had a lot of trouble with, but Hurlibud had worked with them to kind of work out the kinks. So they trusted each other. Yeah. And Carl got very interested in making this work. And you know, he would watch this thing and he'd see the boat come down and sort of flop out of the channel. And then be like, okay, that's not it.

Pete 1:15:50

So yeah, and then he'd fix it and change it. Okay, let's do it again. Yeah. Let's do it again.

Kelly 1:15:54

Let's do it again. He did a he did a whole bunch of math by hand, like, okay, let's try this. And eventually they they got it working. But much like with the original Merry-Go-Round, Walter Knott said no. I don't see any pudding, let alone any fruit. So, you know, Bud was like, but we've, you know, we've we've got it. We've we've made this work. And Walter Knott did not want it. Yep.

Pete 1:16:23

No thanks.

Kelly 1:16:24

Yeah. Absolutely no thanks. And this went on for a long time. Yeah. Like Bud kept being, in some ways, he was kind of strung along, in some ways he was kind of being persistent. But he and Russell Knott were having these meetings over and over and over again. And for a while, Knott was saying no. And then Bud got him to come around, but at that point, the Knott family was having a tax audit that was about to cost them a ton of money. So family said no. Oops. And then they kind of went around again, and almost the exact same thing happened. Russell Knott was about to green light it, and they had another tax audit, like cost them about $600,000. Oh yeah. They said no again.

Pete 1:17:07

I love the fact that Bud was trying to make the case, and then Russell like showed in the books. Yeah. You're making more money than we are. You know?

Kelly 1:17:15

Well, so at that point, Bud leaned on his friendship with Walter. Even though Bud was closer in age to Russell. Oh yeah. But he leaned on his friendship with Walter. They both had the, you know, they kind of leaned right politically. They were both really conservative. They were both very patriotic. You can find pictures of Walter Knott and Bud Hurlebutt with Richard Nixon.

Pete 1:17:37

I love the fact you can always spot Bud because he's wearing that Colonel Sanders tie. Yeah. He looks like the KFC bolo. He has a little bolo, like little skinny little tie. Yeah. You know, bow tie. Very southern. I love it.

Kelly 1:17:50

And so eventually Walter just kind of off the cuff said to him, All right, we'll do it.

Pete 1:17:54

Yeah, I can imagine like there's in the middle of the night, there's what are you doing here, bud? I brought some pudding. Probably in the shape of the scale model that he built. Probably. There are photographs of him with Walter, and he's explaining how the, you know, probably showing him some more uh artwork by Marshall Owen. Yeah. And also this model that was probably built by Marshall because he was a model builder too. Yes. And just saying, hey, this is what it's going to look like. What do you think? Right. So yeah.

Kelly 1:18:25

And so eventually Walter, but more out of friendship than anything, which is unusual. You had to be pretty close to Walter to get him to do stuff like this. Yeah. Said, okay, we'll do it. I'm sure that conversation was pretty weird when it got back to Russell, who's like, what? Oh. Oh yeah. Then they start negotiating with Bud, and it becomes this problem because the Knots have figured out that Bud is making some money in their park. And they're struggling. Yes, they are. So as part of the negotiation, like you pointed out, you know, Bud wanted to own the log Flume for 10 years. That was that was the deal he wanted to make. And they didn't want to give him that. And so they pulled out the books and said, here's how much we make compared to what you make.

Pete 1:19:16

Yeah. Make this make sense for us, for us to do this. Right. Yeah.

Kelly 1:19:21

And ultimately he it he didn't. And they said, we're not going to make this deal with you. Which meant that they had to go up against Walter, which was a big deal.

Pete 1:19:32

Yeah.

Kelly 1:19:32

But and Aero Development, but mostly aero development, because they they ultimately owned the ride, really.

Pete 1:19:38

Yeah, because of the mechanics of it all.

Kelly 1:19:40

Yeah. They they went and met with the winds out in Texas. Six Flags. Six Flags Over Texas, the original Six Flags Park. And the winds were trying to expand, and they helped fund the finishing of it and the building of it. And so the world's first official log flume ride actually did not happen at Knott's Berry Farm. It happened at Six Flags Over Texas.

Pete 1:20:07

Thanks, Russell.

Kelly 1:20:08

Yeah. Well, and you know, thank you to my childhood because that's where I grew up. I rode those log rides. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And there's not much to them, but they're they're sweet.

Pete 1:20:20

Well, and now it's all part of the same Cedar Park family. Yeah.

Kelly 1:20:25

Yeah, knots and six legs, yeah. Yes, exactly. Anyway. Six Legs gets the new log ride. The tension kind of grew and grew with the with the knots and and hurlibutt about this thing. Yeah. But eventually the knots did come around. Of course.

Pete 1:20:40

Right. And so somewhere proof was found in the pudding.

Kelly 1:20:44

Yes. Yep, yep, yep, yep. And they they did finally agree to build the calico mountain log ride. To the tune of $3.5 million.

Timber Mountain Opens With Chaos Attached

Kelly 1:20:55

Yeah. Expensive. Very expensive ride. By contrast, the cave train was about $1.5 million. Yeah. Now it was a, you know, a decade before by the time they built this, but still. Footprint-wise, yeah.

Pete 1:21:10

Again, I'm looking at a top-down satellite view of the park. Yeah. Footprint-wise, it's twice the length of the mine train ride. Most of that is the drop, the final drop and recovery lake. And it moves, man. That thing goes real fast. Yeah. It's a lot of fun.

Kelly 1:21:29

It's it's one of these rides where you go through a bunch of scenes of logging. There was kind of limited motion, and I hesitate to even call them animatronics.

Pete 1:21:40

They're more like rockers.

Kelly 1:21:41

Yeah, they're mannequins with a moving arm.

Pete 1:21:43

Up and down. Yeah.

Kelly 1:21:44

And you know, you see some scenes, you see a bunch of like old logging equipment, some of which they found on the shore in California, and we're like, yeah, let's clean this up.

Pete 1:21:54

Yeah, absolutely. Grab it, throw it in there. Saw blade, who cares? Throw it in there. Yeah, you make that drop, and that drop is really great.

Kelly 1:22:02

The drop is amazing. And then you go into that weird underground lagoon area. Yeah. Which has kind of the bulk of the figures, but a lot of which are just taxidermied animals that they got. Evidently, Bud's uncle donated two of his taxidermied black bears that he himself had shot.

Pete 1:22:21

Oh, yeah. And during the premiere, you remember we were back earlier in this recording. Yeah. We talked about an off-handed remark that would that Bud would regret because during the process of this, John Wayne stopped by to come and take a look at what he was doing. Yeah. Well, how's it going on that log ride, Pilgrim? Yep. Yeah, and Bud's like, well, working on it. You know, it's going good going good. We'll tell you, am I still gonna be able to get on the first ride of this thing, partner? Yeah. Well, we're supposed to be able to premiere it in July of 1969. Well, that don't work for me. Why? I gotta work on a movie called True Grit. And he did. Like the schedule for True Grit conflicted with the opening of the ride. So there was a contrivance to finish the ride construction early. Yeah. By month. Yeah. So that way John Wayne himself and his little boy Ethan? Ethan.

Kelly 1:23:18

Yeah, which I find really weird because Ethan is the character in The Searchers. Yeah. And I'm like, did John Wayne understand what that was about?

Pete 1:23:29

I like that name. That's a good name, partner. It's like, you you're you're really a racist in that movie, John. What do you mean the movie? Well, I mean, we've all seen the Oscars, you know. Anyway. Anyway, anyway, you know, Great American Legacy aside, John Wayne got to be the first writer on the the log ride attsbury farm. It's great. He looks like he's having a grand time. To his credit, he and Etha look like they had a great time going through that though.

Kelly 1:24:01

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I I just you see these photos. So there's like kind of a 15-foot drop, and then you do the underground lagoon, and then they they whip out the dynamite gag again. Sure. When in doubt at dynamite. Yeah, and they're like, oh, you're gonna get hit by dynamite, and that's when you have the big drop, which is 42 feet. Oh, yeah. It's a big drop. It is huge. And so you see these pictures. Um, first you see Walter Knott and Bud Hurlibutt doing the last few runs before they're gonna put the Duke on. And Walter just is very stern faced.

Pete 1:24:32

Yeah, I'm not sure what about this. I don't see any pudding.

Kelly 1:24:37

But then you see the Duke and his son Ethan, and they just seem overjoyed. Yeah, it says perfect.

Pete 1:24:43

Put me out of log and put me in a sluice.

Kelly 1:24:46

You know who else was there that day? Who? Tony Baxter.

Pete 1:24:49

Of course he was.

Kelly 1:24:50

And Tony Baxter appears, there was there was news people there taking pictures, and a young Tony Baxter, he's a kid. Wow. At this point, has climbed up over the rock work because he can't figure out how the vehicle goes up the hill, and he wants to figure it out. And he's like climbing up over the rock work, and there's a picture of it. Oh my God.

Pete 1:25:16

We're gonna take a look at this after we're done recording because that's amazing.

Kelly 1:25:19

And so you know, they have the opening day, people love it. It is not finished. No, because they had to open a month early. Yep. There was no water.

Pete 1:25:29

No, I'm joking.

Kelly 1:25:30

That's not basically you just sat in a log and they throw rocks at you.

Pete 1:25:34

Yeah, that's it. They put John Wade at the top of the hill and just let him scrape on down a slide.

unknown 1:25:39

Yay!

Kelly 1:25:40

You want a piece of cardboard?

unknown 1:25:41

Yeah.

Pete 1:25:43

That's the best cardboard hill I've ever ridden, Tilgram.

Kelly 1:25:47

But some of the interior scenes were unpopulated. You could still see scaffolding, stuff like that. So they had to kind of finish it on the fly after that. But after it had been running for about four hours that day, it broke down. And Bud panicked. He was freaking out because he'd been working on this for over a decade at this point.

Pete 1:26:08

Oh, yeah.

Kelly 1:26:09

And he's like, is my ride going to last one day? Right. And again, like he had to pay for this stuff. Right. So he's desperate. He's like, what's going on? Things aren't working. He's about to jump in the water to figure to go through the whole thing and figure it out. Right. He's so panicked until someone explains to him that a car has run into a transformer nearby. Oh. And so all the power went down in the area.

Pete 1:26:41

Oh, look at this. Somebody switched this ride to Broken. Yes. Turn it back on.

Kelly 1:26:47

A few hours later, they got the Transformer back up.

Pete 1:26:50

Everything was fine. Can you imagine? Oh my god, that you telling me that put my heart in my throat. Right. You know, it's interesting about, yeah, I mean, these became his

Castle Park, Scary Farm, And Lasting Influence

Pete 1:27:00

signature rides that he did. He designed his own amusement park after this. Yeah. Castle Park in Riverside, California. Yeah. And as you mentioned, Castle Park is built out of a lot of leftovers of Knott's Berry Farm.

Kelly 1:27:15

Yeah.

Pete 1:27:16

And apparently Castle Park was open from 1976 to 2001. Wow. It lasted a long time, apparently. It was 25 acres. Yeah. It had 21 attractions, mostly like a family entertainment center. It featured a castle themed building, large two-level video game arcade. It was basically like Chuck E. Cheese on crack. Yes, right. You know, and they had Ghost Blasters, an interactive dark ride designed by the Sally Corporation. Yes. A duplicate of which you can actually see at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk over by the Calico Mine. I mean, not the Calico, the Cave Train ride. Cave train, yeah. They also had a Dragonflyer, which is a spinning flat ride, screaming demon, all that kind of stuff. So he got to have his finally, after all of his work for Nottsbury Farm. He finally got to have his own theme park. More kudos to him. My and I I I I want to be the person who tells this factoid. Okay. Because I did a whole episode about we did a I did. We did a whole episode about not scary farm. Yeah. And this is a great little bit. Oh, yeah. Proof in the pudding trying to convince Walter not to do a haunted attraction, you know, uh Halloween party in his theme park in the 1970s. One of the big proponents for it was Bud. Yeah. And when Walter during that first year, everybody, and I mean everybody pitched in to make this happen. People were like the secretaries in the operation office were going to every Woolworth in the county to pick up, you know, paper skeletons and rubber bats and stuff like that to decorate the park with. Yeah.

Kelly 1:28:51

Yeah.

Pete 1:28:52

And Bud is one of the first haunt monsters. He is. He's the one of the first scare actors. On on the train. Yeah. He would pop out and attack the train as a gorilla.

Kelly 1:29:05

Which I think is great. It's so great. Like you know, he's he's he is so foundational to that park. Yeah. And it's just like, you know, you start with the the mind train, which turns that park into a full-fledged theme park. 100%. Then the the log ride, which uh, you know, expands it. And then he's at the beginning of the scary farm, which you know still goes on to this day and is a huge success for them.

Pete 1:29:31

The log ride during the scary farm, at least the times that I've been to it, yeah, that's fun because they they enhance some of the rides. Yeah, they they did like an Evil Dead theme one year. Oh, yeah. I I love how bold they are. I love the fact that he's there. And finally Bud passes away in 2011. Yes. And oddly enough, like one of the photographs when I was looking in the obituary, there's Tony Baxter and Kevin Kidney. Yes, the person I was just talking to on this text over this little thing. So he's there too with a picture of Bud on the and it's like obviously these people that grew up in LA that weren't just you know, like, yeah, we like Disney, but there's this other Walt Park that we like too. Right.

Kelly 1:30:18

Right. And these innovations are important across to theme parks everywhere, including the Disney parks. There's a lot of stuff that these things did that no one had ever done before, and people were like, this is how we should do this.

Pete 1:30:33

We would not have a splash mountain without Bud Hurlbud. No. We would not have roller coasters moving efficiently without Bud.

Kelly 1:30:42

It's hard to imagine something like Big Thunder Mountain.

Pete 1:30:45

Yeah. Most of Frontierland, frankly, without without Walter. I mean, because Frontierland is very heavily influenced by Calico, except Walt wanted print pristine and clean.

Kelly 1:30:54

Yeah, right. 2013, which was the year that Garner Holt company came in and upgraded both the log ride and then the next year the mine train. Yeah. But in 2013, Buenaparque declared May 30th Bud Hurlibut Day. He's got a holiday in Buenaparque.

Pete 1:31:13

That's awesome. So May when May 30th. We may have to make that our road trip.

Kelly 1:31:18

Yeah, go down. The Bud the Bud Hurlbutt road trip. So this leads us, and it's a little complicated here, but it leads us

The Plus Up: Giving Bud His Due

Kelly 1:31:25

to the part of the show. Yes. Where we um ignore all the uh considerations of safety and viability and economic feasibility and stuff. Time for the plus up. Plus it up. Yeah. But since we're talking about Bud Hurlwut, I think we should we we've got some space here. We could either plus up one of his rides or anything else that's related to Bud. You you got anything?

Pete 1:31:51

It this is tough. It is. I mean, a big plus up is to bring him back to life and have him build another ride. Sure. Joking aside, it's really tough. I think the only real plus up I think that I would do is for fans out there. This is something that we can actually achieve. Yeah. Is for fans to go ahead and immortalize Bob Gerr and Rolly Crump and Yale Gracie and Mark Davis and all the other great Disney Imagineers. Yeah. But don't forget people like Bud Hurl Butt. Yeah. You know, not just because he's got a funny last name. Right. Like he contributed a lot. And you know, I would love to see some sort of more acknowledgement besides just him having a specific holiday. Yeah. I I'd love to see something where he's truly acknowledged for this publicly by the fans out there. Yeah. So that way people understand what he really contributed, what he really brought to the theme park industry in general.

Kelly 1:32:49

Yeah. I my my plus-ups are exactly along the same lines. Like I was thinking, like, wouldn't it be neat if they maybe combined the log right and the mind train or whatever? But I would love to see either a theme park museum that had a large section devoted to Bud Hurlibutt or a Bud Hurlibutt museum somewhere like in Buena Park. Something along those lines. And you know what I would really love to see? I would love to see something like the Disney Company come out. You know, they do their Disney Legends thing every year, which is getting sillier and sillier. But I'd love to guys sold ice cream. I'd love to see them acknowledge some people that were foundational to the work that they did.

Pete 1:33:33

Yeah.

Kelly 1:33:34

You know, Walter Knott and Bud Hurlbutt and you know, who whoever that worked in this industry before and around and supported them.

Pete 1:33:44

I think you and I just need to make our own museum. Yeah, we just need to the Museum of Amusement down to Los Angeles. I already know somebody with a giant an you know automaton collection who's probably gonna need a place to house his collection soon. So we should call him up and go, illusion and amusement. You know, there's our there's our museum. But so for those of you listening, look them up. Yeah. Look up Bud and do a little bit more research. There's some great YouTube videos about the history of these attractions. Yep. Uh I do want to acknowledge one person who really, you know, like there's some great videos out there, but one that does a really good job is Expedition Theme Park on YouTube.

Kelly 1:34:21

Yeah, they do a great job. I know Christopher Merritt's involved with them. The e-ticket, one of the few times that they veered off of Disney stuff. Uh they did a big piece on the Mine Train. There's there's places you can find this stuff, and it's real well worth looking into. If you next time you're on the Calico Mount Mine Train or the the Timber Mountain log ride, just you know, give Bud a tip of the cap.

Pete 1:34:46

There you go.

Kelly 1:34:47

Yeah.

Pete 1:34:47

Oh, and special thanks once again to Kevin Kidney, who let me interrupt him while he was at work today. Sorry, Kevin. I really do appreciate the fact checking on that. That actually really helped out a lot. Yeah. So helped us authenticate who did the illustration that hangs on his wall. So anyway, well, I think that's it for today. I think so. All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. And I'm Peter Overstreet. I'm Kelly McGubbin. You've been listening to The Lowdown on the Plus Up.

Where To Learn More And How To Reach Us

Kelly 1:35:23

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us. And if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at Boardwalk Times.net. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I at Lowdown on the Plus Up on Blue Sky, Mastodon, Instagram, and all the other socials. Or you can send us a message directly at comments at lowdown-plus-up.com. We really want to hear about how you'd plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at Incompitech.com. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we like you. Say, Driver, how about a little bit more light? Would you look at that? You know, all it takes is one tiny drop of water, and about a million years to make all these stalagmites on the floor and stalactites on the ceiling.