Great Adventure had a first season that exceeded expectations. Despite all the successes Warner LeRoy was starting to see just how difficult designing and running a big amusement park could be. It was in this second season that he began to take a step back from the park and allow the investors to take more control of the parks direction. He remained the park's designer and creator, but the amount of hands on work he was doing had decreased in comparison to the 1974 season. Despite LeRoy taking a step back, 1975 would see incredible growth for the park as it added nine new rides (including one roller coaster....sort of...). Six new food locations would also open throughout the park (many of which still operate today). One attractions did not return for the 1975 season, that attraction was The Happening (acrobat show) and the originally planned for 1974 Boats attraction was officially scrapped.
The park itself continued to grow with a new area called Fun Fair!! This area hosted several of the park's new attractions and was located in the area that is now occupied by Movietown. Debuting in this area was a second, smaller, Ferris Wheel known as Panorama as well as multiple flat rides such as Enterprise (an enterprise style ride), Wild Flower (a Troika style ride), Super Cat (a music express style ride). Nearly all of the rides in thios new area were rentals and set up quickly. Despite not being anything special they all went a long way in increasing the park's capacity which due to it's increasing popularity, was super important at the time. Along with the rides Fun Fair!! offered two new food locations in the form of Hot Dogs! Hot Dogs! and Pizza Filling Station. Both of these restaurants operate today! Hot Dogs! Hot Dogs! is now under the name Mama Flora's Grill and Pizza Filling Station was Macho Nacho Express up until this season where it is now a quesadilla restaurant. Also new to the park was the Garden of Eaten which continues to operate today as the catering area.
Prior to Super Cat arriving, Great Adventure had one of it's first big mysteries unfold. When the park reopened in the spring of 1975 a roller coaster by the name of Jumbo Jet was constructed. The coaster, much like many of the other rides in Fun Fair!! were rentals with an option to buy should the park want to. Many Jumbo Jet rides continue to operate at fairs around the world to this day. For unknown reasons though Jumbo Jet did not open with the park in 1975. It sat idle for weeks and then was mysteriously removed halfway through the season and replaced with Super Cat. The reason the coaster never opened to the public is unknown, but some park maps for the season had Jumbo Jet in Fun Fair!! while others featured Super Cat. While I do not have any pictures of the ride to show, here is a video of the same ride in Coney Island, New York.
Another new area of the park debuted in this year. The area now encompasses the Boardwalk area, but back then it was smaller and known as Fortune Festival. This area featured games of chance that were cheap to maintain and raked in a lot of money for the park. The majority of the Boardwalk area of today sticks true to that theme as many games still line the pathway. The two food locations, Midway Treats and Fortune Festival Hot Dog continue to operate today under the names Boardwalk Steak and Fries and Garden State Grill respectively. With the additions of the new areas and attractions Great Adventure saw it's attendance for the season grow over 80%.
By the end of 1975 Warner LeRoy's involvement with the park largely came to an end. New management had taken over and 1976 would prove to be a big year of change. The largest of these changes was to the park layout itself. For the first two seasons the park entrance was located pretty much where the Boardwalk area of today is. Guests would enter the Dream Street area looking at the Carousel and Big Wheel behind it. Starting with the 1976, the park entrance was moved to it's present location. Guests would now enter into the new Liberty Court and Avenue of the States area that has the fountain as it's centerpiece.
Along with a new entrance a slew of new kiddie rides were brought in and others were moved to where the previous park entrance stood in a new area called Kiddie Kingdom. Paths throughout the park were rerouted and expanded to allow for better guest flow and park capacity. The overall shape of the park took on it's modern day appearance as well. Still more changes came to the park in 1976 as the park added enough rides to get the total ride count up to thirty four. Included in this was one additional roller coaster. Lost between the 1975 and 1976 seasons were two kiddie rides and the Antique Car Ride that sat pretty much where the current entrance area is.
Some rides, such as Flume, saw name changes for the season as well. The eventual Sawmill Log Flume would know be known as Log Flume. Several other rides would see name changes as well during this season. Two new flat rides were added to the park in the form of Sidewinder (the only SideWheeler style ride in any park) and Musik Express (a Himalaya style ride). The new coaster, Alpen Express was a small coaster whose track was in the shape of a figure eight. The ride would make multiple laps around it's track and it's maximum height was under eighteen feet. The ride was situated nearby where Cyborg Cyber Spin stands now, but not quite where it stands... More on that later...
1976 would also see more construction of gift and food locations. The gift shops that line the way to the fountain today were first opened in 1976. The gazebo located just past the fountain also made it's debut in this season and has stuck around ever since. Despite just adding a few new rides and attractions, Great Adventure continued to grow and in 1977 something happened that would change the course of the park's future forever.
The 1977 season only brought one new ride to the park. The ride known as Gondola was a one of a kind ride in the United States. Despite being new the ride was actually super old and had been around since around 1880. The ride was similar to that of a carousel and made for a very nice looking attraction (despite not being really popular) in the Fortune Festival area. During this season a new puppet show also debuted and some Marvel comic book characters would appear from time to time, but other than that the park was largely the same from the 1976 season. Behind the scenes though new ownership was taking over.
The regional theme park company known as Six Flags would purchase Great Adventure during the 1977 season. Six Flags had already built three of their own parks by this time, but their business model had changed. Rather than constructing their own parks, they would focus on purchasing other theme parks to cut out all the construction work. This strategy worked wonders in Houston, Texas where Six Flags basically pulled a theme park out of the gutter. Six Flags would look to work the same magic here to turn Great Adventure into one of the biggest theme parks in the country, if not the world. With thirty five attractions already built and operating taking the park and turning it into something great would take many years.
The Six Flags Great Adventure that we all know today would not exist had it not been for all of this early success. If it hadn't been for Warner LeRoy and his team blowing away all expectations of a theme park in the middle of the woods in New Jersey, this park would have probably failed. Many of LeRoy's ideas may have never come to fruition and Great Adventure may never had become the Dinseyland of the Northeast, but one of the most thrilling parks in the world had been born. As we continue on with this series we will see how Six Flags created a monster of a park that people both old and young have incredible feelings for. The next installment in this series will focus on the first couple years that Six Flags had control of the park.
I'm pretty much going to mention this at the end of each of these blogs. If you like what you are reading, please visit greatadventurehistory.com . They have so many more details on these early years as well as all kinds of pictures of rides like Gondola and Jumbo Jet. They do such an amazing job on that site and cover way more history of this park than I could ever hope to cover. So please, if you like what you see and read here, check them out. I promise you wont regret it! As always, thank you for reading and stay tuned for part 3: The Early Six Flags Years!
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