The History of Knott's Berry Farm - "Roaring"

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After a string of early successes in the first several years after she took over Knott's Berry Farm for her aging father, Marion Knott found herself in a spot of trouble. The newest land she'd spearheaded development on flopped hard. It was obvious even within the first year that the area would need to be redeveloped.
That redevelopment would shift the park's theme from California of the 1800s, to California history in general. It also marked a bit of a renaissance for the Farm. But it wouldn't last forever. The following two decades brought some modern classics to Knott's, but it also saw the Farm become just another in a growing industry of theme parks.
We owe an enormous thanks to the Orange County Archives, holders of the Knott's Berry Farm historical collection. Without their generosity and friendly assistance, we would not have access to many of the incredible historic images and videos in this series. In particular, Chris Jepsen was of vital importance. He selected many of the images in this series based on our storytelling needs, and his keen eye for quality, yet-to-be-published images made this series infinitely better. All the images he selected - more than we could fit in these episodes - are freely available to the public on the OCA Flickr account. He also runs a delightful and insightful local history blog, which we highly recommend. Tell him Theme Parchive sent ya! You can find it here: ochistorical.blogspot.com/
If you like this video, please subscribe to the channel, to make sure RU-vid serves you the next one and you don't miss the next part of this fascinating park's story. Also, let us know you enjoyed it in the comments. Those things really do help us grow, especially as a fairly new channel, and that helps us make more videos like this one.
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Thumbnail image credit: Orange County Archives

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1 мар 2024

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Комментарии : 36

@eliassmeke3991 3 месяца назад

R.I.P. Walter Knott 😔😔😔

@stevechesney2498 4 месяца назад

Thanks for doing these videos. I grew up with Knotts Berry farm. They bring back so many memories! I use to work at Knotts from 87-94. I watched most of the transformations you showed in this video happen in person. I wish I could get on the Sky jump again and the XK1. I use to operate the old rides in Fiesta village. Wow so many memories! Keep these videos coming

@ThemeParchive 4 месяца назад

That’s so cool! It was definitely an interesting time for the Farm. That means you also got to see Mystery Lodge in its prime! I’m still hoping they’ll bring it back, though it’s hard to say what’ll happen. Sky Jump looks like such a fun ride. A lawyer’s nightmare, so I understand why they got rid of it. But I am a bit disappointed I’ll never get to ride it.

@rh5563 4 месяца назад

@@ThemeParchive, I took my kids back to Knott’s a few years back and was absolutely disgusted that they took out the Mystery Lodge. Sky jump was knarly. I remember crouching down and holding on to one of the bars on the cage as a kid. It was terrifying, and loved it. They could easily put a new mystery lodge in the park and completely redo the gold panning area. They stuck it back in the same area, but it needs to look and feel like it used to.

@eliassmeke3991 3 месяца назад

In 1986 Knott’s Bear-y Tales closed for good and was replaced by Kingdom of the Dinosaurs which opened the following year and also took over the space where Knott’s Bear-y Tales was

@TheHaloRed Месяц назад

I love how Knott's hired former Disney Imagineers/legends Rolly Crump, Eddie Sotto and Bob Gurr to design some of their most themed rides (Crump - Bear-y Tales, Sotto - Soap Box Racers, and Gurr - KOD after Bud Hurlbut had retired.

@princesskristan 4 месяца назад

I love Montezooma's Revenge! I grew up going to Knotts since my family could afford it more than Disneyland since we didn't have much money, so I have alot of memories of going and running around ending the day with a funnel cake or a trip to the chicken restaurant

@Becauseimme 3 месяца назад

Same here, my kid love Knott’s, and I’m sure they will eventually take their children in the future.

@hermanprez 4 месяца назад

All your Knott's videos have been brilliantly researched and produced. Thanks

@ThemeParchive 4 месяца назад

Glad this one kept up the quality. This particular time period was hard because for some reason there’s just not as much documentation.

@TheIntimacyGram 4 месяца назад

Loved this. I grew up with the park almost in my back yard.

@Gu3stish3r3 2 месяца назад

It’s kinda nice to see the Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park change over time in this video, I’ve seen a few of Knott’s lands change in a few ways, like how the ride Knott’s Beary Tales: Return to the Fair was a retrofit for the ocean themed ride, and seeing the new pizza place just across the street from the ride, and seeing the fiesta village change too.

@KnottsBear-yTalesPreserved 3 месяца назад

Thanks for covering the history of the Bear-y Tales ride! You'd be surprised at how much of the Bear-y Tales ride is still around. That and I have the Pteradon that sat atop the Gazebo building.

@SoCalSeaChaser 2 месяца назад

I’ve always liked Knotts over Disneyland since I was a kid. I’ve said to a couple of my friends that Knotts could expand over to the east parking lot and it wouldn’t be hard, costly probably. They could take down a couple storage buildings that are south of Ghostrider, build a wide “bridge” that would go over Grand Ave, the preferred lot, Beach Blvd, and drop back down into where Soak City would be demolish for a park extension. If the bridge is wide enough, they could build shops or whatever on top of it to make guest transition over to the new “land” nice and it could model after the Independence Hall theme. Knotts wouldn’t lose the preferred parking lot and the only oddity would be how guest traverse from both sides of the park. But if designed well, this would work and give Knotts ample opportunity for future expansion and then turn part or some of their lots into parking structures to gain back parking spaces lost. This would be something similar to what Disneyland is doing for Disney Forward, but a little bigger.

@hollywilliams1957 4 месяца назад

I was so excited to get the notification for this video. As usual it is awesome with such good content! Please keep them coming!!!

@gunslave99 4 месяца назад

Welcome back!

@ThemeParchive 4 месяца назад

Thanks!

@jimt9245 4 месяца назад

Thank you for another great video! It is great to hear about the transformation of this park. I do wish that the Airfield theming was preserved while making park improvements. The Boardwalk just seems more like any other Cedar Fair or Six Flags Park. Perhaps we can get a new version of the Wacky Soap Box Racers.

@ThemeParchive 4 месяца назад

With all respect to Robin Hall and the design team that worked on it, I agree. Boardwalk just didn’t feel like it fit with the rest of the park. Its connection to California history feels tenuous at best. I do think it’s improved since it first opened, with Xcelerator and HangTime giving the 50’s-60’s SoCal cars and surfing themes. If they came through with an update like they just did to Fiesta Village and really leaned into that midcentury Southern California teen culture vibe, it could fix a lot of the issues I have with the area. But it is a shame how little of the Airfield stuff has survived. And given what they’ve done with bringing back Beary Tales (spoilers for the final episode of the series), it’s entirely possible we’ll see a new, better version of WSBR in the future. 🤞

@jimt9245 4 месяца назад

@@ThemeParchive As you had previously pointed out - not all attractions were as well received as others. Walter Knott had his arena and Marion had her Gypsy Camp. (Walt Disney had his circus) So sometimes attractions do fail to take root. Theme Parks are not a perfect science. But this park has some great sightlines.

@jamesklatt 4 месяца назад

Planning to do one on the cedar fair years (1997 - present)

@ThemeParchive 4 месяца назад

That’s actually going to be two videos for our series, since there’s actually a good bit of changes to cover. That, and for “story” reasons, it felt more interesting to talk about it in terms of the Farm during the Kinzel era and Ouimet/Zimmerman era.

@rh5563 4 месяца назад

👍👍👍

@eliassmeke3991 4 месяца назад

Theme Parchive sorry 😞 I didn’t notice part 9 has arrived 10 days ago on RU-vid

@eliassmeke3991 3 месяца назад

You forgot to mention Knott’s Merry Farm debuted in 1985

@ThemeParchive 3 месяца назад

You're right! The Merry Farm Christmas overlay will get mentioned along with the newer Boysenberry Festival, Ghost Town Alive!, and those kinds of festivals the park introduced after 2020 in the final episode of the series. The park decorated for Christmas, put up Christmas trees, had carolers, and even a Santa Claus meet and greet back in the 1950's, but you're absolutely correct that this is the time period where the larger "Merry Farm" celebration started, along with a lot of the modern things they do for the holidays like the performance of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in the Birdcage Theatre.

@eliassmeke3991 3 месяца назад

Question 🙋‍♀️ please 🙏, when is part 10 coming? Do you know Theme Parchive?

@eliassmeke3991 4 месяца назад

Question 🙋‍♀️ please 🙏, so I think 🤔 during the late ⏰ 70s to early 80s Knott’s needed a children’s themed area which would later become Camp Snoopy and Camp Snoopy is themed to the Peanuts franchise, right?

@eliassmeke3991 4 месяца назад

Do you know Roaring 20’s was renamed and rethemed to The Boardwalk in 1996

@eliassmeke3991 3 месяца назад

In the upcoming videos don’t forget about the hotel 🏨 that later would become the Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel please 🙏

@ThemeParchive 3 месяца назад

Since they are not technically part of the park, we won't be covering the hotel or the Soak City waterpark. There's only so much we can cover and keep these episodes at a reasonable length. But the Knott's hotel is definitely a big part of the modern park property.

@eliassmeke3991 3 месяца назад

Can you at least talk about the hotel 🏨 and the Knott’s Soak City waterpark after the final episode of the series as they own their honorable mention video then includes the history of them as well please 🙏 Theme Parchive?

@TheHaloRed Месяц назад

@@eliassmeke3991 Much like Disneyland Hotel (which was owned by the Wrather Corp. until the early 1980's), Knott's originally didn't own the hotel. It stated as Buena Park Hotel, then renamed Radisson Resort Knott's Berry Farm in the 90's, then finally Cedar Fair /KBF finally bought the hotel.

@eliassmeke3991 Месяц назад

Then maybe 🤔 a history video of it which started out as Buena Park Hotel, then Radisson Resort and finally Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel as well as the history of Knott’s Soak City then

@Becauseimme 3 месяца назад

My head hurts when I think about Windjammer. Yuck.