Talk:California's Great America

Name change and sale of park
Because Cedar Fair L.P. has purchaced Paramount Parks, this article will need to be renamed to just "Great America". Seeing that there is a page already called Great America, It will need to be Great America (California) or something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.175.130 (talk • contribs) 06:19, 1 July 2006‎ (UTC)


 * Maybe. Cedar Fair might also rent some of the names from Viacom, especially with rides and attractions named after film properties.  They might try to rent the Paramount name, too, to go with the movie theme. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.135.97.11 (talk • contribs) 02:00, 12 July 2006‎ (UTC)


 * As of today, Great America will continue to bear the name "Paramount" until at least through the end of the 2006 season. Therefore, naming the article "Paramount's Great America" is still current and up to date. The Cedar Fair website also lists PGA as its current name. --Deege515 11:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, the original names of the rides should be used for the accident section, e.g. the accident happened in the Top Gun (now flight deck) area...etc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.109.246.199 (talk) 01:23, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Apollo Management purchased Cedar Fair, and therefore Great America, earlier this month, so this article is going to need a big revamp. I guess it might be a good idea to wait until we know what they're going to call it or whether they might be demolishing it. Beckerbuns (talk) 02:27, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I've never actually heard anyone refer to the place as anything other than "Great America" (except in the 1970s & 80s, when people often referred to it as "Mariott's"), but their website does refer to it as "California's Great America," so apparently that is the name. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 00:44, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Landfill
Is it true it was built on a landfill? I know some of the surrounding area (like the golf courses) was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.135.97.11 (talk • contribs) 02:00, 12 July 2006‎ (UTC)


 * I don't have any definitive information, but it does not appear to be built on landfill. It seems to be at the same ground level as a very large amount of the surrounding area, while the golf course is quite obviously on top of an artificial hill.  I also don't believe that any of this area is "fill", as it is too far from the bay.  Shoreline Ampitheatre, on the other hand, is definitely built on a landfill, and it is reported that in its early days there were problems resulting from that. --Brouhaha 01:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It was built on a onion field. I saw a video of the history when I worked there in the mid 80's.  The whole area was fields before Great America existed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lorikay27 (talk • contribs) 02:52, 13 April 2007‎ (UTC)


 * The landfill area is close by, about a half mile north of the park, toward the southern edge of San Francisco Bay. That's probably where the confusion arises.  A golf course is on top of the landfill now.71.92.247.84 (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Name change is speculation, Knott's should not be in name
The park's name is Great America, according to a park administrator in Santa Clara whom I met with today. Any speculation about the Knott's name should be identified as such and needs proper attribution to reliable sources. The logo needs to be reverted back to the official logo, or at least moved to a new "name-change speculation" section, if proper attribution is found.

It is not unusual for name changes to take time due to their costs. For example, I was told that the park's Paramount Theatre, which we will be using, retains that name in the 2007 season.

KerryVeenstra 21:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Urrrrgh
This sentence hurts me to read: "However pages of the Great America web site continue to lack the Knott's name." Sheep81 11:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Numbers of rides
not sure about the numbers of roller coasters and water rides, list them all:


 * 9+ roller coasters:
 * 1) Vortex
 * 2) Top Gun: renamed Flight Deck
 * 3) Rugrat's Runaway Reptar
 * 4) Psycho Mouse
 * 5) The Grizzly
 * 6) The Demon
 * 7) Invertigo
 * 8) Orbit
 * 9) H.M.B. Endeavor

not sure about "SURVIVOR The Ride" and "Taxi Jam".


 * 3 water rides:
 * 1) Whitewater Falls
 * 2) Rip Roaring Rapids
 * 3) Logger's Run

--Kerry7374 08:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Great America 2007.PNG
Image:Great America 2007.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 23:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I added appropriate rationale. &mdash; KerryVeenstra 05:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Six Flags? Pgathrills.com? And a flag...
I visited this park in 1999, and at that time I seem to recall it being named "Six Flags Great America". And no, I'm not confusing it with the one in Chicago. Was this park ever part of the Six Flags chain?

I noticed that the official park web site is pgathrills.com. Say what? Golfing? I looked up the whois record, and discovered that the domain still belongs to Paramount Parks. Aha! "Paramount Great America Thrills". Curious that Cedar Fair hasn't gotten its own domain.

Near the entrance to the park is a circular plaza. In keeping with the Great America theme, the plaza is surrounded by all the historical national flags of the USA. The first one is supposed to be the US Union Flag. But when I was there, they were flying the British Union Flag. How unpatriotic! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.18.43.225 (talk) 15:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Accident in Santa Clara
If I recall correctly (I lived there at the time) the guy that was killed after climbing over the fence to retrieve a hat actually had false identification. His wife could not be located later on, and they never really did get an accurate ID. Also, the 12 year old kid that fell off of another ride was developmentally disabled and had wiggled free of the restraints. In 2007 (iirc) a child around 5yrs of age drowned at the wave pool after his mother left him in the care of his 11 year old sister.

A couple of links for historical purposes:

http://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/news/archives/1998/news_sep98.shtml

http://articles.sfgate.com/1998-09-08/news/17729987_1_roller-coaster-paramount-s-great-america-loading-station

About the drowning: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=5476441

(the lawsuit that happened after that was interesting too.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.35.35.35 (talk) 20:46, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Mascots
A section devoted to the park's mascots would be nice, though I don't have enough information to add it myself. I remember that Hanna Barbera cartoon characters were the original mascots, wandering around in costume. If I recall correctly, Yogi Bear was the main spokescharacter. At some point, Looney Toons replaced the Hanna Barbera characters. I believe There was a period in which Peanuts characters were also featured.Cellorelio (talk) 21:35, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Berserker?
It appears that on the park website, the ride berserker isn't there. Should I remove it?Wackyike (talk) 17:26, 27 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It's still there just for some reason not on the ride list.-- Dom497 ( talk ) 22:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Umm, is anyone going to add just before it was Paramount's it was Hanna-Barbera's?
I vividly remember it being Hanna-Barbera's Great America before it was Paramount's. I remember all the kiddy rides back then and all the mascots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RepoDraghon (talk • contribs) 08:26, 13 June 2019 (UTC)