Knott's, 30 Years Ago - Part 1

Well, I went digging through my collection of Knott's memorabilia to try and find more info on the conversion of the Camp Snoopy Funhouse into the Beary Tales Playhouse, but I couldn't find the employee newsletter that I had mentioned in my last post. However, while looking through things, I did find some other cool stuff to post so hopefully nobody is tired of Knott's right now!

Thirty years ago, Disneyland was celebrating it's 25th anniversary and they started out the year with a special advertising supplement in the Los Angeles Times. But it just so happpened that Knott's was having an anniversary that year as well. Knott's was celebrating it's 60th anniversary, and six months after the Disneyland supplement came out in the L.A. Times, Knott's had a special supplement of their own. I remember wondering if this was just in response to Disneyland's year-long advertising campaign. Maybe Knott's felt like they had to do something too? After all, I don't remember Knott's doing anything special in the park that year (no parades, special merchandise, etc.) Anyway, here is that L.A. Times insert from 30 years ago!

Hey, John Wayne's "block" is loose! Oops, wrong tourst attraction......

Hey, whatever happened to Security Pacific....and Crocker Bank, and First Interstate, and American Savings, and Great Western? All swallowed up by the giants, I guess.

Knott's had given a nod to Disneyland in their supplement earlier that year ("The Place Next Door Has Mice!"), so Disney returned the favor.

WHERE IS THE ORIGINAL BERRY STAND??? Okay, okay...I accept the fact that the one that was torn down for Silver Bullet wasn't actually the ORIGINAL Berry Stand. But shouldn't the park have some sort of representation of it?

Note that the train station isn't next to the tracks yet. It would not be moved over until 1985.

At the "Knott's Preserved" event on Sunday, Eddie Soto showed us his artwork (including the sketch seen below) for the conversion of the Motorcycle Chase attraction into the Wacky Soapbox Racers.

I'm still looking for those 1970's Hoffy Hot Dog commercials filmed at Knott's with Pat Boone. I've only been able to find a couple references online that even mention him being the Hoffy spokesperson. I wonder why those commercials wouldn't be on YouTube? I thought EVERYTHING could be found on YouTube!

I'll post the second half of this supplement in my next post. In the meantime, if you would like to see the entire Disneyland L.A. Times supplement from that same year check out Vintage Disneyland Tickets' posting of it (HERE) and scroll to the bottom of the post for the link to the pdf file.