Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster Reopening [Dec 26, 2016]

[Louis.sayer3]

I must admit the refurb on the SDSC is one that was well needed! Although unpleasant, the park will generate big revenue out of this act. Even though we must admit the now gone themeing is bare and unsightly, the same can be said for  seeing seized up animatronics and scrapes of paint and lumps of styrofoam missing all throughout the place. I must say that this new refurb may give MW the chance to re-theme similar to the original 2000 and something movie, which in very early days surely is what would have been expected initially. I for one am keen as a bean to see the new refurb and as peak season draws a-close, we will be able to see this fresh attraction soon! 

[Brad2912]

Unless it's a complete retheme the park won't gain significant, if any, revenue when it opens. 

I doubt anyone is sitting at home thinking "oh hey, they just put the theming back up in Scooby, let's buy annual passes". That's only going to happen if the retheme makes it a completely new experience 

[MickeyD]

57 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

Unless it's a complete retheme the park won't gain significant, if any, revenue when it opens. 

I doubt anyone is sitting at home thinking "oh hey, they just put the theming back up in Scooby, let's buy annual passes". That's only going to happen if the retheme makes it a completely new experience 

Unless it makes it an entirely new experience.. 

"Scooby-Doo2" perhaps??

[Brad2912]

If it's just a name change it means nothing, but if the new name means updates and improved theming then yeah 

[webslave]

I'm partial to Scooby-Doo-Over, myself.

[downunder]

An animatronic Sarah Michelle Gellar is an addition I would view favorably.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

turn the trains around so you ride backwards and call it scooby doo 2.... it's been done before... 

[MickeyD]

^ there you go!! So the scenes would obviously have to be reconfigured to view in reverse and then the 1st big drop is done forwards yeah? A whole new experience with little effort. Nice one @AlexB

[Zanstabar]

Surprised no one has suggested "Scooby-Doo 2: Electric BOO!Galoo" yet

[MaxxTheMonster]

1 hour ago, AlexB said:

turn the trains around so you ride backwards and call it scooby doo 2.... it's been done before... 

Imagine that final drop before the final brake run though...

[Santa07]

1 minute ago, MaxxTheMonster said:

Imagine that final drop before the final brake run though...

Imagine the entire Wild Mouse section without knowing when to brace...

[Inverted]

If MW were to re-theme the ride,  as much as they don't need another DC ride,  

I recon it would suit a "Jokers Funhouse" kinda theme.  

Even the trains wouldn't look too out of place with a theme like that. 

[MickeyD]

58 minutes ago, Zanstabar said:

Surprised no one has suggested "Scooby-Doo 2: Electric BOO!Galoo" yet

Hahaha you're showing your age there?

2 minutes ago, Inverted said:

If MW were to re-theme the ride,  as much as they don't need another DC ride,  

I recon it would suit a "Jokers Funhouse" kinda theme.  

Even the trains wouldn't look too out of place with a theme like that. 

God no please no more DC stuff!!!

We need balance at MW and Scooby-Doo is still a very much alive and well franchise.

Still I have this unneasy feeling that is hovering in the back of my mind that this may indeed be on the cards. For now at least I am trying to block that thought out and hoping it doesn't happen. Mostly because it really doesn't need to

 

[Levithian]

You could turn it into a pretty cool haunted house/ghost train ride without needing to change the cars or the castle entrance.

[MickeyD]

Every good Theme Park needs a good Haunted House / Ghost Train?

[AllegroCrab]

12 hours ago, Levithian said:

You could turn it into a pretty cool haunted house/ghost train ride without needing to change the cars or the castle entrance.

Why wouldn't they just restore the scooby doo theme then? Beats wasting time designing a new theme when the old ride was fine.

I disagree with people who think the Scooby Doo brand is dead. It's just as alive, if not more alive, than the Looney Tunes branding that exists all over the park in different capacities. There's this terrible thing that older people do which is assume that generations below them don't know anything about the past. I'll probably be guilty of it in the future but for now I'll have a whinge about it.

It's like that terrible joke that public speakers do all the time, they showcase a floppy disc or a cassette tape or a record player and say, "Now, the younger people in the audience probably have no idea what this is," thinking they've just created an inside joke with the oldies when in fact they've just insulted half of the audience's intelligence. I've lost count of how many times I've heard this, but I haven't lost count of the amount of times I've found it funny: zero.

Anyway, even if the brand was dead, I don't think that's grounds to retheme the ride, kids are still going to enjoy it even if they don't know who the characters are. I know pretty much nothing of Justice League, but that doesn't ruin the theming experience for me. The same could be said for Wild West Falls, where the characters (afaik) are only on that ride.

[Brad2912]

I don't necessarily think it should be re-themed away from Scooby, but if they are going to expense of replacing the everything, I'd like them to take the chance while they have a basically blank canvas to work with, to give us a new experience. If it re-opens with no differences at all, I'd call it a massively missed opportunity. 

If they can't find enough inspiration or creativity to deliver a new Scooby experience, that's when I'd say - well let's move on to a totally new theme 

[Levithian]

It's gutted, maybe even more to come if they only opened it in the holidays to ease congestion on other rides. So anything that is changed and revamped will probably need a new agreement with whoever has the rights to the property.

I wasn't suggesting it because scooby is dead, I was suggesting it as a way that you could use a lot of the existing theme work, update the ride to something new AND avoid having to pay licencing fees. Money saved could be used in the retheme to create an even better experience.

Honestly, even if scooby brand isn't dead, a revamped attraction is going to be a bigger draw card and more incentive for the park to spend the money. The problem is, I can't really think of any other franchise that's as well known that could translate to the coaster. So I started thinking what if you drop the franchise and just stick with a well known theme, a haunted house/ghost train.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Levithian

[Brad2912]

Scooby (movie based) is a WB property. Whilst I'm not privy to the licensing arrangements between VTP & WB now that WB basically has no financial involvement in the park, I would take a stab that there would be some kind of perpetual licensing arrangement in place for the IPs used in the existing attractions (looney tunes, scooby). There would no doubt be some form of approval through WB for changes to theming & new uses of those IPs.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Brad2912

[rappa]

I actually really like that backwards idea. 

Just put another turntable in the jungle room so the whole wild mouse can be done forwards. In fact you're just relocating the turntable from its current location cause you still only need one. 

 

Put magnetic brakes on the final drop so it's not jarring to take it backwards. 

 

What would be real cool is if the theming in the jungle room was done in a way so that it rotated with the car so you had no idea you were being turned backward again.

[red dragin]

My thought was have the turntable just around the first bend. Then take @djrappa idea, with themeing on both sides of the track being identical and fixed to the turntable, with perhaps a fog screen (like in Justice League) front and rear to disguise the movement. 

That way the wild mouse and final drop are still done forwards. 

Edited January 15, 2017 by red dragin

[Levithian]

7 hours ago, Brad2912 said:

Scooby (movie based) is a WB property. Whilst I'm not privy to the licensing arrangements between VTP & WB now that WB basically has no financial involvement in the park, I would take a stab that there would be some kind of perpetual licensing arrangement in place for the IPs used in the existing attractions (looney tunes, scooby). There would no doubt be some form of approval through WB for changes to theming & new uses of those IPs.

I don't think it works that way. For starters, any agreement is based off the original concept, so if you go ahead and make changes, it probably wouldn't be covered and a new one would probably need to be agreed upon. The ride has been around for quite some time now, so the original holders might not exist given all the mergers, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone wants another great chunk of money to see it reimaged.

Even if the same company did own the rights, everyone has to make money. If you don't think theme parks have to pay rights for image usage and merchandising, etc to production companies that may hold the rights to the product, even if they may come under the same group of companies, then I reckon you would be mistaken. Everyone would still have to get their share.

We have already seen that media publishing rights and property rights for usage in theme parks aren't mutually exclusive. So you can't assume that just because companies are linked together for distributorship rights, that they will be able to use their brand elsewhere outside of the production/distribution deal.

Merchandising especially is such a big deal, given the cost vs markup on the products. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you are talking millions of dollars per year for a deal when it comes to big name/big exposure property and nobody is going to hand that out for free.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Levithian

[Gold Coast Amusement Force]

Atleast their is flexibilty with what they could do with the current coaster they have. Wild West falls land edition confirmed

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 15/01/2017 at 6:11 AM, AllegroCrab said:

Why wouldn't they just restore the scooby doo theme then? Beats wasting time designing a new theme when the old ride was fine.

I disagree with people who think the Scooby Doo brand is dead. It's just as alive, if not more alive, than the Looney Tunes branding that exists all over the park in different capacities. There's this terrible thing that older people do which is assume that generations below them don't know anything about the past. I'll probably be guilty of it in the future but for now I'll have a whinge about it.

It's like that terrible joke that public speakers do all the time, they showcase a floppy disc or a cassette tape or a record player and say, "Now, the younger people in the audience probably have no idea what this is," thinking they've just created an inside joke with the oldies when in fact they've just insulted half of the audience's intelligence. I've lost count of how many times I've heard this, but I haven't lost count of the amount of times I've found it funny: zero.

Anyway, even if the brand was dead, I don't think that's grounds to retheme the ride, kids are still going to enjoy it even if they don't know who the characters are. I know pretty much nothing of Justice League, but that doesn't ruin the theming experience for me. The same could be said for Wild West Falls, where the characters (afaik) are only on that ride.

I take your point, and older generations do generalise about certain aspects of the younger - but it's not without merit. You understand the joke or the punchline, but not everyone your age does.

I'm the youngest in my family, and my wife is the oldest - despite there only being two years between us, I've got a much 'older' interest in things like music for example - because my eldest brother is 10 years older than me, and I tended to follow what my brothers did (like most younger siblings). With my wife being the oldest - she didn't have someone to 'follow' and so her interests tended to be a little more modern than mine.

Its a very generalistic approach, and clearly not applicable to you personally, but there are many in 'younger generations' that are clueless about these things that people my age grew up with. TO hazard a guess - are you the eldest child in your family?

13 hours ago, Levithian said:

I don't think it works that way. For starters, any agreement is based off the original concept, so if you go ahead and make changes, it probably wouldn't be covered and a new one would probably need to be agreed upon. The ride has been around for quite some time now, so the original holders might not exist given all the mergers, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone wants another great chunk of money to see it reimaged.

Even if the same company did own the rights, everyone has to make money. If you don't think theme parks have to pay rights for image usage and merchandising, etc to production companies that may hold the rights to the product, even if they may come under the same group of companies, then I reckon you would be mistaken. Everyone would still have to get their share.

We have already seen that media publishing rights and property rights for usage in theme parks aren't mutually exclusive. So you can't assume that just because companies are linked together for distributorship rights, that they will be able to use their brand elsewhere outside of the production/distribution deal.

Merchandising especially is such a big deal, given the cost vs markup on the products. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you are talking millions of dollars per year for a deal when it comes to big name/big exposure property and nobody is going to hand that out for free.

It can depend on how the agreement went when WB exited the market. VR bought them out. Clearly at the time they were very reliant on the WB franchises for what was in the park, so retaining the license for those properties would have been a key factor in negotiations, as it ultimately would determine the ability for the park to continue in it's (then) current format. Since VR was paying - it could very easily have been written into the contract some sort of lifetime license - with the payment included in the purchase price. Depending on how desperate WB was to liquidate their share in the parks, they may have been willing to do something like that for existing properties - and similar to the Universal \ Marvel deal, they'd be permitted to refurb or refresh, provided certain standards were met. THis could be the case as we've seen several changes to the WB Kids area since WB exited the parks - pounce and bounce is a new addition entirely utilising the same characters, and I doubt this would have required a separate license negotiation - but at the end of the day we don't know what we don't know.

I would like to join those calling for the park to make SOME sort of change to the ride for when it returns. Reversing the cars, whilst cool, does obviously require physical changes to the ride itself and that is probably outside of the scope of what they have embarked on - so we're likely not going to see that, at least this time around...

So then, what we need to see is a revamped and updated attraction - let's see some new effects in the animatronics (we have the technology), let's see some better lighting to hide the next element, add more surprise, add more 'spooky' whilst still being kid friendly.

Above all else though, let's bring in the guys responsible for the original laser show, let's set up the lasers so that they once again utilise the mirrors mounted around the disco room. let's get the right balance of fog so the room really pops, and lets update the sound system so it pumps no matter where in the room you are. Let's redo the ropelights in the lift well so it emphasises the speed and tilt of the lift. Maybe we can put more interactivity in the queueline, maybe we can do something else besides the same tired 'making of' video. Look - i enjoy the video but theres only so many times you want to hear it \ see it whilst queueing for a couple hours... and while we're in there - let's do a little realignment of the queue chains so each lane isn't 5 miles wide - people don't use all available space in the lanes, which makes the line long and quickly ends in people queueing in the overflow outside - make the lanes a little narrower so more people can fit in the airconditioning.

All of this would likely cost less than another MACK turntable - but it is just a bit of a wishlist without much in the way of direction or cohesion - just my ramble.

[AllegroCrab]

2 hours ago, AlexB said:

TO hazard a guess - are you the eldest child in your family?

*deletes account* *moves house* *changes name*