Great Old Amusement Parks

The Making of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

1994

Kirk Cameron is our host for the 1994 TV Special, “The Making of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror” celebrating the opening of Walt Disney World's newest attraction. With interviews from Michael Eisner, then the Chairman, President, and CEO of the Walt Disney Company and Marty Sklar President of Walt Disney Imagineering we get a sense for what goes into creating an attraction like the Tower of Terror. Additional interviews include Michael Sprout, David Durand, Jack Blitch, Catherine Moulton, and Ken Gomes.

The Spider and the Fly

1938

Few amateur films with sound were produced in the 1930s and fewer remain extant. A charming artifact that demonstrates the expressive possibilities and technical limitations of amateur talkies, "The Spider and the Fly" includes a backyard Labor Day gathering, a trip to the Riverview Amusement Park, and a homemade Halloween parade of witches and ghouls.

Prater

2007

Vienna’s Prater is an amusement park and a desire machine. No mechanical invention, no novel idea or sensational innovation could escape incorporation into the Prater. The diverse story-telling in Ulrike Ottinger’s film “Prater” transforms this place of sensations into a modern cinema of attractions. The Prater’s history from the beginning to the present is told by its protagonists and those who have documented it, including contemporary cinematic images of the Prater, interviews with carnies, commentary by Austrians and visitors from abroad, film quotes, and photographic and written documentary materials. The meaning of the Prater, its status as a place of technological innovation, and its role as a cultural medium are reflected in texts by Elfriede Jelinek, Josef von Sternberg, Erich Kästner and Elias Canetti, as well as in music devoted to this amusement venue throughout the course of its history.

Puy du Fou : le génie des spectacles révélé

2023

Puy du Fou has won hearts in 45 years. Voted best park in the world in 2012 and 2014 in the United States, the famous Vendée park continues to attract more and more visitors each year, and to develop internationally, with a new park in Spain, shows in Holland and soon in the United States. If the stories developed by Puy du Fou seduce, it is thanks to the emotions they convey, but also to the engineering treasures deployed by the teams. The teams do not hesitate to call upon the best talents in the aeronautical or automobile industries to guarantee the reliability and robustness of the mechanisms that contribute to making the park a global flagship of innovation in the service of the show.

Europa-Park Rulantica : Plongeon dans le parc aquatique XXL

2025

Coney Island

1991

Before there was Disneyland, there was Coney Island. By the turn of the century, this tiny piece of New York real estate was internationally famous. On summer Sundays, three great pleasure domes--Steeplechase, Luna Park and Dreamland--competed for the patronage of a half-million people. By day it was the world's most amazing amusement park, by night, an electric "Eden".

Dwarves Kingdom

2015

Dwarves Kingdom is a documentary film about a theme park featuring performances by little people with dwarfism who live in a fantasy recreation of a magical empire. Built by a wealthy Chinese businessman, this other-worldly kingdom, officially called World Ecological Garden of Butterfly and Little People Kingdom, is located in the mountains surrounding the city of Kunming in Western China.

The Ocean - Five Years

An early morning phone call in 2017 changed the lives of two teenage brothers bonded by their love of percussion. One died tragically in a car accident while the other determined to make sense of his loss through music.