Great story. I could fill in some of the gaps for you. I was the GM of both locations for a period in the early 2000s. I refurbed the show and kept it running during my tenure. The problem is the show requires a lot of maintenance and was running on old technology (S-VHS tapes and an Apple 2E computer). The other problem was that the mfg Creative Engineering was basically out of business except for the originator. I was able to work out a deal with him to refabricate new masks for the characters. These are not cheap and over $1k each. They also do not last long - a few years and they develop rips and holes in them. It’s also a problem to get parts and we’d have to have a machine shop make them or pay the mfg tons to just go find them in his shop. Basically this show translated into tons of maintenance and costs to keep it going in a business that is slowly going out of style. The turntables never worked right. They were disconnected and locked in place because there was no mechanism to count how many times the turn table had spun before it would need to go the opposite way. Each character had 30 some cables and tubes going to them that have to move with the spins. Too much in one direction rips them all out of their sockets under the stage. We looked at upgrading the show at several points to a TiVo based system but again that was too cost prohibited. The next generations of management didn’t know how the show worked and didn’t bother keeping up on the routine maintenance. They finally decided to sell off both shows and the same guy bought both. The magic city show was slightly different then tinley park and napervilles. It was kept so a container in tinley park locations parking lot that we just used for parts to make the installed shows keep working.
And we have more our parts than o. The parts is a movie. It's a it's a tablet, theavy tubby's datting a bandy UK checks the inside. I'm gonna see what I'm looking for now. That poor.
1:08 I believe that this flag was bastardized by the modern media, and I know BLACK men who have this shit tattooed on their skin and stand behind it, and against prejudice all day long, but how bat shit crazy is it that this picture contains the flags of AMERICA, California, AND The confederate flag ALL in one of the most wholesome venues that everyone of us over 25 remembers fondly from our childhood. How quickly we have deteriorated into a nation of hate, chaos and division. So damn sad
