 Paramount Parks logo (2003-2005)  Paramount Parks logo (1994-2003) |
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| Slogan | "Where Else?" "The Best of Hollywood Entertainment, Now Playing." |
|---|---|
| Fate | Sold |
| Successor | Cedar Fair Entertainment Company |
| Founded | unknown |
| Defunct | June 30, 2006 |
| Location | Charlotte, North Carolina |
| Industry | Theme Parks and Themed Attractions |
| Parent | Viacom |
Paramount Parks was an operator of theme parks and attractions, which annually attracted about 13 million patrons. Viacom had assumed control of the company as part of its acquisition of Paramount Pictures in 1994. The company once owned and operated five theme parks in North America and managed Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy, California. From late 2001 until late 2004, Paramount Parks also managed Terra Mítica, an amusement park in Benidorm, Valencia, Spain.
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History
Paramount Communications, previously known as Gulf and Western, in turn had acquired the parks from Nelson Schwab and his management group. Schwab and his KECO Entertainment acquired the group in a management-led LBO from the Taft Broadcasting Company, which had built Kings Island in Cincinnati using cast off rides from Cincinnati's Coney Island [1] and to this day there is a small area in the Cincinnati park called "Coney Island" (Named "Coney Mall" in later years) still featuring some of those original rides. The parks were part of Viacom's Blockbuster Entertainment division until 2002 when they were moved back to Paramount Pictures. After another Viacom corporate shuffle in 2004 the parks became part of Viacom Recreation, a division of Nickelodeon and MTV Networks. In early 2006, as Viacom went through a corporate split (creating a new version of Viacom and renaming the original company CBS Corporation), Paramount Parks was assigned to CBS Corporation. Each of the individual Paramount parks maintained their own individual names and identities until 1993, when they were each granted the "Paramount's" prefix (Paramount's Kings Island, Paramount's Great America, etc).
Sale to Cedar Fair
On January 27, 2006, the CBS Corporation announced its intent to sell Paramount Parks due to the fact that it didn't fit well within the company's core business (producing and distributing television content). A number of groups expressed interest in purchasing the company, several placed bids, and on May 22, 2006 it was announced that regional theme park operator Cedar Fair Entertainment Company had outbid competitors and intended to purchase all five parks in the Paramount chain, including Star Trek: The Experience at The Las Vegas Hilton and the management agreement of Bonfante Gardens. On June 30, 2006, Cedar Fair announced that it had completed its acquisition of Paramount Parks from CBS Corporation in a cash transaction valued at $1.24 billion. Shortly following the transfer of ownership, Cedar Fair began the process of integrating the two companies by eliminating the Paramount Parks corporate office in Charlotte, North Carolina and transferring all decision-making to Cedar Fair's offices in Sandusky, Ohio. The individual parks continued to operate under their Paramount names during the 2006 season, however Cedar Fair began removing the Paramount name and logo from the parks in January 2007. The names of the parks were changed back to their original pre-Paramount names with the Cedar Fair corporate logo added.
Former Properties
Amusement Parks
- Paramount Canada's Wonderland (Vaughan, Ontario)
- Paramount's Carowinds (Charlotte, North Carolina), (Fort Mill, South Carolina)
- Paramount's Great America (Santa Clara, California)
- Paramount's Kings Dominion (Doswell, Virginia)
- Paramount's Kings Island (Mason, Ohio)
- Bonfante Gardens (Gilroy, California); renamed Gilroy Gardens in February 2007
- Terra Mitica (Alicante, Spain) [2]
Water Parks
- Boomerang Bay (Carowinds, Kings Island, and Great America)
- Splash Works (Canada's Wonderland)
- WaterWorks (Kings Dominion)
- Raging Waters (San Jose, California); bought by Ogden Corporation in 1999 [3]
Other
Note: All Paramount Parks offered the water park free with park admission
Paramount Action FX Theater
A simulator ride in Paramount Parks with two sides - one is 3-dimensional the other shows films. In 1994, Paramount Parks opened a two-sided motion simulator called Days Of Thunder, based on the movie Days of Thunder. This ran from 1994 to 1997. In 1998, Days Of Thunder was replaced with . In 2001, the theme park presented The 7th Portal (based on the web comic by Stan Lee) as a three dimensional ride in which the riders help the Data Raiders fight the Nullifiers. In 2003, SpongeBob SquarePants 4-D made its debut at the theme park. In 2006, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera was presented. It had been in a four-year hiatus after its last run in 2002 at Universal Studios Florida.
