Cartoon Destinations: Marriott's Great America

Our next destination takes us to two theme parks that opened the same year with the same brand, changing the world of amusement parks for the bicentennial of America, and giving Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes gang at last a true home....and those two parks are truly American as the name applies.....Marriott's Great America.

Bugs is breaking ground for the new theme parks

Marriott's is well known for the hotel chain, but they wanted to get into the theme park business with planning as early as the 1970's.  There were going to be three parks, one for the D.C. area, one for the Chicago area, and one for the San Francisco Bay area.  The D.C. area plan fell through due to politics, but the other two were set in stone.  Marriott's struck a deal with Warner Bros. to use the Looney Tunes characters as the mascots of the parks to compete with Disney's Mickey Mouse just as they did in the movie theaters years ago.  Bugs Bunny by 1973 was appearing at Warner Bros. Jungle Habitat, but it wasn't really a theme park.  He appeared at Magic Mountain when it opened in 1971, but that was a one year deal.  This deal would give him a permanent home.

After three years of hard work and dedication, Marriott's Great America opened to the public Spring 1976 in Gurnee, IL and Santa Clara, CA.  Both parks on opening year had the same attractions.

Guests would enter the Carousel Plaza where smiling Looney Tunes characters would greet guests entering.  The Dual Loop park contains lands based on different parts of the country such as New Orleans, Yankee Harbor, Yukon Territory, the County Fair, and Hometown Square.  The parks also had new original songs used in commercials and atmospheric music.  Some of them would be recorded by Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny himself.  The most popular song of them all is the carousel song.  This song became a favorite among park goers and would sometimes double as their "goodbye/the park's closed for the day" song.  It lasted for years and despite both parks now separate owners, it would occasionally still play to this day. Have a listen, as for some it may bring back memories.

Speaking of the carousel, let's talk about the rides and start with the carousel.  Known as the Columbia Carousel, both were double decker carousels using horses based on the classics horses used during the golden age of the carousels, and because of the elaborate design, they to this day hold the record as the tallest carousels in the world.  It's the first ride you see as you enter the park sitting behind the fountains.  Also at Carousel Plaza, the Sky Trek was the tallest ride at both parks giving guests areal views of the entire park.  A handful of rides would transport you from one land to another.  The street car took you to and from Hometown Square to and from New Orleans Square.  The Sky Buckets took you to and from New Orleans Square to and from the County Fair, and the Scenic Railway took guests around the park from the front to the back and vice versa.  Stops were Hometown Square and the County Fair.  A kiddie coaster called Gulf Coaster could be found in New Orleans built by the Allan Herchell company and were Little Dipper models.  Sadly, Chicago's only lasted one year due to a small fire.  Also found in New Orleans were the Antique Cars.  Going out on each other were the Yankee Bullet and the Logger's Run.  With Yankee Bullet at Yankee Harbor and Logger's Run in the Yukon, their big drops were built to go across from each other as if it were a civil war.  At the County Fair, that's where all the carnival games were as would some rides including Barney Oldfield Raceway, the Triple Armed Ferris Wheel called Sky Wheel, and the most popular roller coaster at the park, the Turn of the Century.  A Corkscrew type ride, they were remodeled in 1980 by adding more loops and renamed Demon.  The next popular coaster, The Whizzer, could be found in Hometown Square.  A kiddie section called Hometown Park featured classic kiddie rides

Exclusive Looney Tunes merchandise could be found at Marriott's

Hometown Square is where Bugs Bunny and the gang performed in the theater.  So many different stage shows were performed starring Bugs Bunny, giving Mel Blanc more work with the Looney Tunes characters since new cartoons were few and far between with them at that time.  Blanc even did an interview as Bugs for the opening day broadcast of Chicago's park.

A few major expansions would happen at Marriott's.  Tidal Wave was a Shuttle Loop coaster used at both parks.  Meanwhile the American Eagle racing roller coaster opened at Chicago in 1981.  It was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company who built other classic woodies such as Cedar Point Blue Streak and Kings Island's Racer.  For a couple of years, Marriott's would co-own Playland in Rye, NY.

While the parks were popular, Marriott's found them unprofitable.  Getting out of the theme park business, they sold the two parks in 1984.  Six Flags bought the Chicago park while Kings Entertainment bought the Santa Clara park.  Marriott's came to an end, but its parks, under new managements, continued.  Just named Great America, Santa Clara's stripped off any reference to Looney Tunes and used the Hanna Barbera characters just like the other Kings Entertainment parks.  Coincidentally, corporate mergers brought Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera under one roof years later at Warner Bros.  In 1993, Paramount bought Kings Entertainment, now calling it Paramount's Great America and began building rides based off their movies such as Top Gun, a looping inverted roller coaster, and with Paramount's own merger with Viacom, it brought the Nickelodeon characters to the park.  Rides were built or rethemed based on Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Spongebob, and more.  This sale, however, caused its new owners to wreck the park.  The Whizzer was gone, the train was gone, the Yankee Bullet gone leaving Logger's Run by itself for a few years more before its demise, and rides like the Sky Wheel, because of their age, were gone and replaced.  Interestingly enough, the replacements for some of these classic rides proved unpopular and were gone too.  In 2006, Cedar Fair bought the Paramount Parks inheriting this one.  The first year under them it was just called Great America, but the following year it was renamed California's Great America.  Within a few year, the Nickelodeon characters would be gone and replaced with the Peanuts gang.  While more successful than Paramount's, Cedar Fair made it their own park instead of fixing what it once was.  As much as the original Marriott's was destroyed, one surprising ride remained unlike Six Flags...the Sky Buckets, and for what it is, it's still a beautiful park looking to expand.  However, its future is now over as in 2022, Cedar Fair sold the property to real estate.  Within a few years, the park will close for good.  The fate of the many rides there including the Columbia Carousel are unknown.

Meanwhile, the Six Flags purchase of the Chicago park made the obvious name change from Marriott's Great America to Six Flags Great America.  Interestingly, this deal also gave Six Flags the rights to use the Looney Tunes characters throughout all of their parks.  Six Flags was all about the rides, so any attractions that weren't popular or didn't age well would be replaced with big rides and roller coasters like the Iron Wolf, Rolling Thunder, and Shockwave.  What's more, Six Flags decided to expand the park rather than start from scratch which was what Paramount did.  This means that despite Six Flags' reputation of being "the discount park" and how they changed other parks they purchased, Great America, for the most part, was left alone.  Bugs Bunny Land opened up expanding the Looney Tunes even more.  They also invested in using the DC Comics characters.  Batman the Ride opened in 1992 as the first of its kind inverted roller coaster.   Other rides over the years include the Dark Knight, Joker, a Justice League Dark Ride, and Superman Ultimate Flight.  A waterpark opened, opening a water coaster in 2021 and is included with admission.  The big rides kept coming: Goliath, Maxx Force, Raging Bull, Vertical Velocity, and X-Flight.  Not all of their new rides were successful.  Deja Vu, replacing the Sky Wheel, closed and was sold to another park.  Shockwave and Iron Wolf showed their age and were replaced with better coasters.

Bugs would occasionally still dawn his "Marriott's" outfit
at Six Flags Great America

Family attractions still opened at the park.  Hometown Park was brought back to life and in its original location too.  Bugs Bunny Land became Bugs Bunny National Park, but would sadly close and was replaced with the relocated go-karts.  The merger with Turner and Time Warner brought the Hanna-Barbera characters over with a new land, Camp Cartoon Network.  However, it would just be renamed Camp Cartoon as Cartoon Network eased their way out of classic Hanna-Barbera with their own shows such as Powerpuff Girls, Ed Edd n Eddy, Billy and Mandy, Codename KND, and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.  Then in 2007, The Wiggles came to the park and opened Wiggles World and stayed until 2010 when it just became Kidzopolis.  In fact, all of the kiddie rides are now generic, but yet, somehow, the Looney Tunes and DC characters remain.  In 2010, Six Flags brought over a Little Dipper roller coaster from the recently closed Kiddieland Park nearby.  That area where it was moved to showcased the history of Kiddieland and operates the classic kiddie coaster, preserving the history of the defunct park.  A not so Six Flags thing to do as is keeping what made Marriott's what it was.  The carousel, Sky Tower, Whizzer, Railroad, BOTH Yankee Harbor (now called Aquaman Splashdown) and Logger's Run, Demon, and of course the Looney Tunes are STILL THERE.  It also ranks as one of Six Flags' most popular parks (Airtime Thrills claiming second best to Magic Mountain).  The trolley is no longer an attraction, but it's not really defunct either.  Instead, it's used as part of Six Flags' parades, so it's still in good working condition even though it's not a "ride" anymore.

So there you have it, the story of the two parks that Bugs Bunny built in 1976.  If you still want to have that feel of what it was like, I recommend a trip to Six Flags Great America, but because of the changes that were made at California's Great America, I'd also recommend checking that park out too as they're not cookie cutter anymore.  However, get to California's Great America quickly; it will be gone in a matter of years.  Most of the details of the parks' history can be found on other websites as this is just a brief synopsis of Bugs Bunny at Marriott's.  For more information such as lists of rides and attractions, operating hours, shows and entertainment, please visit their own websites.  Let us know in the comment section which of the two parks was better.  Until then, this has been your cartoon destination for today.