Audios Maximus Media Network/Thrive Media Network Audios Maximus Media Network

It has been referred to as the “Home of American Music”, “America’s Musical Showpark” and promised “Great Shows, Great Rides and Great Times”. The park originally opened  with 120 acres of rides and attractions. It opened on June 30, 1972 and remained open until December 31, 1997. At the parks peak in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the park enjoyed the attendance over 2 million guests annually. Welcome to Opryland USA. Opryland USA, which was usually referred to as Opryland was born due to the popularity of its namesake The Grand Ole’ Opry and the move of the Opry from its long time location at the Ryman Auditorium to its current location at the Grand Ole Opry House. But before we tell the story of the park, we’ll tell the story of The Grand Ole Opry itself… Stepping back it in time we go back to the Roarin’ 20’s, 1925 to be exact. The Grand Ole Opry started out as the WSM Barn Dance. What was WSM you may ask? WSM was an AM radio station owned by the National Life & Accident Insurance Company. The radio studio was housed on the fifth floor of their building in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. In October of 1925 the station began a program featuring “Dr. Humphrey Bate and his string quartet of old-time musicians”. A couple of weeks after the program aired WSM hired what would become their long-time program director and announcer George D. “Judge” Hay. Hay wasted no time, after coming on board he quickly recruited the seasoned 77 year old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson and then on November 28, 1925 and re-launched the WSM Barn Dance, and although the phrase would not actually be mentioned on air for another 2 years, that date is credited for being the official birth date of The Grand Ole Opry. During the 1930’s the popularity of the program led to many artists, who would later become country music legends, performing on the Opry as well as the length of the Saturday night show being extended to 4 hours. Being broadcast at that time at 50,000 watts, the show became a staple in homes in 30 states eventually becoming a national show when it was picked up by NBC Radio in 1939. All the time this was happening, the live audience of the show grew quickly leading the show to being moved from its original studio to larger and larger venues to accommodate the audience size. Eventually the audience grew to such a size that measures were taken to control attendance by charging a 25 cent admission charge. That, having little effect to dissuade attendance, led to the show being moved to the Ryman Auditorium. It was during the Ryman years that music legends such as Hank Williams (who was eventually banned in 1952 due to his alcohol problems), Patsy Cline, Roy Acuff, The Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells, Minnie Pearl and many others came to be frequent performers on the Grand Ole Opry Stage. The Opry’s growing attendance numbers due to its popularity along with deterioration issues with the Ryman Auditorium led to the decision to find a new home for the show. It was decided by WSM, Inc., the operator of the Opry that it would be relocated nine miles east of downtown Nashville, on a tract of land that was owned by a sausage manufacturer (Rudy’s Farm) in the Pennington Bend area of Nashville, it was also decided to build a theme park and hotel/convention center with the new Grand Ole Opry House becoming the crown jewel of the grand entertainment complex. Ironically, the theme park would open on June 30, 1972 prior to the Grand Ole Opry House debuting there on March 16, 1974. The park would receive its original name from WSM disk jockey, Grant Turner’s early morning show, Opryland USA, with its own name honoring the stars of the Grand Ole Opry. Although the Grand Ole Opry had always dedicated itself to mostly featuring traditional, conservative Country Music (with only a couple of exceptions); Opryland USA’s overall theme was more of a generalized blend of American Music consistin

For over two decades now it has at times not so quietly slumbered. The old, faded buildings now standing in silent vigil as if remembering a time when their colors were bright & fresh; when were surrounded in laughter and the smiling faces of adults and children alike. The grass grows tall here and the structures that remain are entangled with a variety of plants that now call them home. A place where the sounds of a merry go round, trains and other rides are replaced by the sounds of crickets at dusk, rain drops falling to the ground from tattered roofs and the occasional sounds of frogs & other creatures that now call the park home, But that my friends is not where the story begins or ends. No, this story starts with a man named Alfred G. Caplin...   Al Capp He was born September 28, 1909 in New Haven, Connecticut of Russian Jewish heritage, Al Capp, as he came to be known, was the eldest child of Latvian immigrants Otto Philip and Matilda (Davidson) Caplin whose families had migrated to New Haven in the 1880s. At the young age of nine, Al lost his left leg in a trolley accident. Although shaken by the loss of his leg, Al refused to let the accident stop him and continuously acknowledged the disability the rest of his life, although usually in a humorous way. At  23, Al had moved to New York and became what was possibly the youngest syndicated cartoonist up until that time.   On August 13, 1934 Al Capp launched what was to be by far his most well known creation, the comic strip Li'l Abner with eight newspapers and became an instant success. Amongst the contributions of the strip was the now traditional Sadie Hawkins Dances at schools and colleges across the nation, that are based off the strips Sadie Hawkins race where the girls chase the guys! While on the surface the strip was funny and amusing, it was Capp's underlying satiric messages on society, parodies of the corporate giants of the day, celebrities and fellow cartoonists that gave the strip its long lived popularity. Another popular creation of Capp’s was the creatures known as the shmoos. (By the way, if you are unaware of what a shmoo is, you probably aren’t alone as the real meaning of what a shmoo represents in the strip is still being debated to this day.) Superficially, the shmoo was a creature that lived to serve humanity to the point of self-sacrifice and was ever abundant. The creature showed if nothing else that we should accept what is given to us and just be happy. Yet it would be the Li'l Abner strip that featured characters from the fictional town of Dogpatch and whose lives centered on the adventures of the main character, Li'l Abner. A handsome and strong, if not very bright young man that was raised to be honest and brave except in the face of his girlfriend Daisy Mae, but it was the location that would bring the comic strip to life in a small community now called Marble Falls near Harrison, Arkansas on Highway 7.   The Location It should be noted though that it was the landscape of Dogpatch, not the characters that drew in a real estate broker named O.J. Snow, who had been considering opening a rustic themed amusement park in the Ozarks.      But the area that would become Dogpatch had quite a bit of history to it long before Mr. Snow came a knockin’. Let go back a bit to the 1830’s to when the Washington Monument was being planned. You see funds were short to build and complete the monument and a call went out to the States and Territories to donate commemorative stones that could be fitted into the interior walls. Arkansas was one of many places to answer the call.  Mr. Peter Beller moved to Arkansas from Alabama in 1833. In 1834 he and the three of the Harp Brothers dug a 4' X 3' X 2' block of marble out of the hillside across from Dogpatch to contribute to the Washington Monument. The stone was hauled on a sled by a team of twenty oxen for approximately sixty miles across the Ozark and Boston Mountains to the Arkansas River.

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} Mom, Dad are we there yet? I wanna ride the doll ride mommy, you know the one at the Pepsi Building. NO DAD we rode that last time cause sis wanted to. I wanna see the Dinosaurs and ride in the Mustang. All right children, quiet down now We’ll be there anytime now and your father will decide what we do first… How many times was this scenario played out in 1964 through 1965 if you happened to be in New York? On this episode of Echoes of Laughter both T. Mic and Bill Cotter will revisit the 1964 New York World’s Fair which was held in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, in the borough of Queens. They will discuss Bill’s personal experience of attending the fair as well as what was good and bad about how the fair came about, how it was operated, what made it a unique World’s Fair, it’s financial problems and what remains of the site today. The site had also hosted the1939/1940 New York World’s Fair. It ran during April 22 through October 18, 1964 and April 21 through October 17, 1965. The admission price for adults (13 and older) was $2.00 in 1964 but $2.50 in 1965, and $1.00 for children (2–12) both years. The theme of the fair was "Peace Through Understanding," and was dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe". The fair exhibits were unquestionably dominated by American Industry and third world countries that normally would not have a chance to participate in a World’s Fair. The reason for this was that the fair was unsanctioned by the BIE (Bureau International des Expositions) due to a variety of reasons including the fact that it was to be run for two 6 month seasons (The BIE only authorizes 1 – six month run). The fair site encompassed 1 square mile and was one of the largest fair sites ever hosted in the United States. Most of the corporate exhibits were geared towards space age technology. The theme was present in the architecture of many of the pavilions, such as the leaning wall of the GM pavilion, the IBM “Egg”, The Westinghouse and Ford Buildings were also futuristic in design. Though the fair was plagued with financial woe’s it still is remembered fondly by most of the public that attended it. In the variety of foods (such as the famous Bel-Gem Waffles), the wonder of people first seeing tomorrows technology in action and the hope of a utopian future as it was presented in abundance. Ah, the dreams of the past. And then there was the Disney influence… Walt Disney saw the fair as a great opportunity for his own company’s growth. Some of America’s top corporations benefited from Disney’s imagination and ingenuity in presenting their products to the public and Disney benefited in return by being able to use the financial backing from those very corporations to fund research and design for technologically advanced ride systems, shows, and (of course) Audio Animatronics… The rest shall we say is history. The 1964 New York World’s Fair significance is still very present some 48 years later and though there are very few physical landmarks that still survive on the site in Flushing Meadows Corona Park the gleaming stainless steel Unisphere still shines as brightly today for those who see it today as it does in the memories of those who still hold the experience of attending the fair in their mind and in their hearts from so many years ago…

Here’s a story for you. It is of a young boy’s trip to Florida in 1979. The first real vacation his family ever took and was it one to remember and I’d like to share some of our story as well as the stories of three of the attractions that we visited that year that are no longer there to be enjoyed. Hi! This is T. Mic and this Echoes of Laughter will be a little different. It is a trip down memory lane and not just any trip but my own. To the 11 year old boy that I was in 1979, these places were wonders to me and my siblings at the time and they still hold a special place in my memory some 32 years later. My parents had taken our family to Florida that year on vacation. As a matter of fact, my family was a modest middle class family in the seventies and we had never really gone anywhere on a real vacation before except for a few overnight trips around our home state of Louisiana and a trip or two into Mississippi. This was our first real week long vacation and we were going to the Sunshine State for the first time! In this episode we’ll explore the Stars Hall Of Fame and The Mystery Funhouse. Both were once located in Orlando Florida. One we visited on our trip, the other we did not, but oh how I wish we had. We’ll talk about both attractions that succumbed to a ever more competitive tourist market and what these wonderful smaller attractions once encompassed.  Put on your old bell bottom jeans, comb that mustache, and sport that dusty old silk shirt in the back of your closet…Were going back to 1979 and talking about more wax than you can shake a match at!  

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} In this episode we will be exploring the origins and history of Chippewa Lake Park, once located in Medina County, Ohio on the shores of Ohio’s only natural lake; Chippewa Lake. From it’s early days in the late 1800’s through it’s 1978 closing and into it’s year’s of becoming a legendary urban ruin; you’ll hear all about this wonderful old park as we take a virtual tour of the park through time. The park had a long history of hosting famous musicians, dances, and park guests over it’s 100+ year history and despite it’s closing in 1978, it continued to draw visitors and explorers right up until it’s final demolition in 2009 through 2010. Join us on a journey of fun, laughter, nostalgia and discovery as we journey to and through Chippewa Lake Park. Please visit our Podcast show page for much more detail on this park at: http://audiosmaximus.com/wordpress/our-podcast-shows/echoes-of-laughter

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} This episode features an interview with Bill Cotter, published author of several books on World Fairs, Disney Television, and co-author on several other books. T. Mic (show host) & Bill discuss the 1984 Louisiana World’s Exposition at length. They will take you on an audio journey through the fair, area by area, they will discuss some of the individual attractions as well a the pavilions that were located in the 84 acre site on the Mississippi Riverfront in New Orleans Louisiana. They also discuss the origins of the fair, its challenges, highlights, and where you can still experience a few of the original attractions from the fair that are still in operation today. The will also discuss a little on some attractions that were planned for the fair but never came to be. The 1984 Louisiana World is probably one of the least documented World’s Fairs online yet most people that experienced the fair still retain fond memories of it some 26+ years later.