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Niagara Falls, Ontario company Enter-Tech (formerly Waxattract) has been discussed in great detail on this site, even getting a rare special article which can be read here . They were by far one of, if not the most important companies in the development of the Canadian amusement industry as we know it today, and the worldwide industry in general. It's tragic then that most, if not all historians in the amusement history corner of the internet have never heard of them. In brief summary - I first dug the name out of the copyright archive around 5 years ago when researching Niagara's legendary Castle Dracula, and instantly got a feeling that this company was much, much bigger than just that. After years of research, browsing newspaper archives, and interviewing members of the sole family who ran the company, my suspicions were confirmed. They were hugely important to the industry - from designing and building scenes for the majority of Niagara's many wax museums, haunted attractions, and exhibits, to being innovators in early lightshow and projection technology, to pioneering the first electronically programmable animatronics outside of Disneyland for The House of Frankenstein in 1971. By 1980, the company had rebranded from Waxattract to Enter-Tech to reflect changes in the industry as the company's animatronic technology got more advanced, and animated shows became the forefront of the business. The company's Hillbilly Bear Jamboree show at Maple Leaf Village in Niagara Falls, early-80's. Credit: Dunham family archives. Even after learning so much about this company and their vast portfolio, I still can't shake the feeling the company was bigger and more influential than even those involved with it know. One thing that stood out to me when I interviewed members of the Dunham family (who ran business), was that their work didn't stay local to Niagara Falls - far from it. The company built displays and exhibits across Canada, and more importantly than that for today's topic, sold pre-built haunted walkthrough attractions, stage shows, displays and figures to attraction operators at trade shows in the States. That's the work that to this day, remains mostly lost to time. A 1980 newspaper article states that by that point the company was producing "around 60 figures a year", which would have made them one of the largest animation companies in the world at that time, certainly the largest in Canada. Where all those figures went, the ones that didn't end up in iconic Niagara Falls attractions at least, remains largely a mystery. There's tidbits of information buried out there - people remember a "Boris Karloff Wax Museum" in Wildwood, NJ that was likely one of their pre-built haunted attractions, a newspaper article mentions they built an animatronic W.C. Fields for a bar in the States, and they had some sort of work relationship with Creative Presentations out of Schaumburg, IL, possibly even doing early commissions for them until Creative Presentations began building their own shows. But several recently uncovered photos and anecdotes in corners of the internet may just shine some light onto where at least some of this work that has been sadly lost to time was located. Circus Time Pizza newspaper ad, 1983. Credit: Tumblr user smthngstrangehppnd. Exhibit A gives us Circus Time Pizza in Flint, Michigan, and actually connects back to a strange newspaper article covering the Hillbilly Bear Jamboree show. The article on the Hillbilly Bear Jamboree's construction in 1982 shows a photo of a panda bear in front of a circus backdrop, stating he is "Big John" who leads Enter-Tech's Hillbilly Bear Jamboree. However, what limited footage and photos of the Hillbilly Bear Jamboree exist show a different large bear leading the band, who is presumably Big John. The panda bear seems to be totally absent from the show, unless it was outfront the attraction in the hallways of the mall, or on a side stage, which the show doesn't seem to have had. It also doesn't seem the mysterious panda's outfit or circus backdrop match the woodland theme of the Hillbilly Bear Jamboree. What the panda does match however, both in style and theme, is an illustration of a bartender panda character in the above newspaper advertisement for Circus Time Pizza. Circus Time Pizza opened in 1983 and unfortunately only lasted until 1984. It's possible that upon visiting Enter-Tech's studio to report on the construction of the Hillbilly Bear Jamboree, the reporter also photographed other works in progress, which Circus Time Pizza's show would have been at that time. It's possible the newspaper's editors then used the incorrect photo assuming he was part of the Hillbilly Bear Jamboree, or even possible that he shared the named "Big John" for the Circus Time show if it's a name Enter-Tech enjoyed using, adding to the paper's confusion. You can faintly make out the words "Bear Jamboree" on the panda's hat however, furthering this mystery. The dapper panda proclaimed to be "Big John" for the Hillbilly Bear Jamboree show by the Niagara Falls Review, however this may not be the case. The mysterious panda isn't the only piece of evidence here tying this show to Enter-Tech. The company frequently blended art styles even within the same show, usually creating a varied cast of characters instead of all the characters in a show being done in the same art style. Some characters would have sculpted latex masks, whereas characters right next to them would have foam sculpted heads done in a more plush style similar to the animatronics found at Chuck E. Cheese's. This is a distinct feature of Circus Time, which actually had multiple shows. The main stage consisted of the aforementioned panda bartender, a drumming rabbit, a tiger vocalist, a bear on guitar and a saxophone-playing elephant. The guitar-playing bearded circus performer who covered Kenny Rogers songs in a separate room from the main band. Credit: Tumblr user smthngstrangehppnd. Side lounge rooms contained side-shows (pun not intended), one being a circus performer who was a spoof of Kenny Rogers, and the other being a panther in a cage alongside a clown named Jell E. Bean, the restaurant's mascot. These characters, specifically the panther, match the contrasting character styles of Enter-Tech's shows. While no photos exist of the main stage, the circus-themed stage the mysterious Enter-Tech panda figure was photographed on appears to be larger than what's seen in the photo, alluding to him being part of a larger show. This is all speculation, but it's very possible this character was on the main stage at Circus Time Pizza. It's also possible, of course, that the panda was somehow part of Hillbilly Bear Jamboree after all or a different restaurant/stage show entirely, and that Enter-Tech was involved in Circus Time Pizza, but this panda figure was not. Finally, there's the possibility this is entirely coincidence, and they weren't involved in the restaurant at all, but with nobody online having a clue who produced the Circus Time Pizza shows, and Enter-Tech's work being as vast as it was, it's a strong possibility. Jell E. Bean and the panther next to the attraction's owner. Credit: Tumblr user smthngstrangehppnd. Next we have the ultra obscure Pizza Planet of Buffalo lore. Another spot just across the border, the only evidence of it's existence is a 1984 commercial that went viral for it's low-budget production and unsettling narration, as well as the nightmare-inducing Peppy Roni walk around costume. No other photos, videos, and only a handful of vague newspaper articles featuring the attraction exist, leaving little tangible record of it. Coupled with the fact that the fictional arcade restaurant in Toy Story shares the same name, this means any browser search for this place turns up completely empty, except that commercial. What that commercial does feature however is a brief clip of the restaurant's animatronic band in the background of a birthday party. The figures on this stage bear striking resemblance to Enter-Tech's work, specifically the mechanical shapes of their "All Star Mouse Review" show, the only show of Enter-Tech's that is *quite literally*, lost. As in, it was never installed and nobody knows where it went or what happened to it. You can read more about that fascinating story here . The art style on these panda characters is also extremely similar to the panda figure discussed above. The restaurant opened in 1983 and lasted until around 1985, so the timeline also lines up. You can watch the hallowed advertisement here, which apparently aired on Southern Ontario TV back in the 80's too. Exhibit C brings us to Paul E. Parrott in Pheonix, AZ. This is definitely the biggest speculation in this post, as the band featured at this F.E.C. is totally lost. No photos or video exist of this band or the interior of this restaurant at all. All we have to go off is detailed illustrations of the characters in a newspaper advertisement, and while they do look strikingly similar to Enter-Tech's art style, it's hard to say based off illustrations alone. The restaurant was also located on the opposite side of the U.S. from where the bulk of Waxattract/Enter-Tech's confirmed or suspected works abroad ended up. Their influence can be found mostly along the East Coast due to the company owning and operating attractions in Lake George, Myrtle Beach and Panama City Beach, with some more of their confirmed commission work found in the North half of the country. An animatronic toucan is seen in an early 80's Enter-Tech IAAPA brochure, and is the only figure seen in the brochure who's purpose hasn't been made clear, however the species of bird doesn't match. While it does prove they produced a bird mechanism, any relation stops there, and until photos surface of Paul E. Parrot and friends, we'll likely never know. When the short-lived Paul E. Parrot went into bankruptcy early on, this is the only trace it left behind, along with an auction listing. Finally, and most excitingly, we have the only find in this post that without a shred of doubt, proves the existence of a previously unknown and lost Enter-Tech show. Huckleberry Junction Playhouse Theater, also located just outside Flint, Michigan, needs no introduction when it comes to animatronic pizza restaurants. The attraction has been around since at least 1982 or '83, and is still going strong to this day. The attraction now features the popular mass-produced "Daniel and the Dixie Diggers" animatronic show built by the legendary Sally Corporation, which can be found at various amusement parks and restaurants across the world along with their side-stage counterpart, Jethro P. Hogg. However fans of the attraction's 80's glory days remember a different band there, that up until recently, we've had no photos of. These images were recently brought to my attention of the illusive "Animal Krackers" show, which operated at Huckleberry Junction from opening day until it was replaced in 1994. Apparently, fans of animatronic shows have been searching for the manufacturer of this show for as long as it's been mentioned on the internet, with theories ranging between everything from the band being created as a project by a local career skills college to being produced by Dave Thomas, former lead artist at Creative Engineering, who built the animatronics for the giant Showbiz Pizza chain. The truth however, is that this show was made right here in Canada by Enter-Tech. Let's take a deep-dive into why. One of the sole surviving images of the elusive band. Credit: Tumblr user dreamsdntcry. First of all, the art style is instantly familiar, but upon closer inspection, these characters seem to be direct retrofits of Enter-Tech's other confirmed works. The dog (or lion?) at the piano, the female singer sitting on the piano, the moose drummer, and the mouse railroad conductor all appear to be direct cosmetic makeovers of characters from the Mouse Revue, with the conductor even using the same face mask with different coloured fur surrounding it. The dog on guitar has a similar posture and art style to all of Enter-Tech's confirmed works, but the biggest tell is the panda bear on the stand up bass. He seems to be an almost exact copy of Beverly Bear, the seated fiddle player from the Hillbilly Bear Jamboree, his fiddle has just been swapped for a bass and his fur is a different colour. This incredibly unique and specific character design in particular, when put together with all the other evidence presented here, proves almost without a doubt that this show is the work of Enter-Tech. While most of the band seems to re-use the mechanical structures of Enter-Tech's other known works, two elements so far unique to this show are the singing moon on the wall in the lop-left corner and the singing face on the drum kick. There were allegedly two more characters over the pizza pickup window, presumably calling out orders ready for pickup, but no photos of them have surfaced. It's a shame the Animal Krackers have been largely lost to time, but at least another piece of Enter-Tech's history and the Dunham family's story has been preserved in at least some form. It's a great example of how this company was far bigger and far reaching than anyone realizes. Even with this find and these other leads, I still have that feeling that these will be far from the last pieces of this puzzle to fall into place. We will probably never know the true scope of their work, but I have a feeling we'll track down a lot more of it in the future. Huckleberry Junction newspaper ad from 1984 featuring the Animal Krackers. It appears the show had recently got new showtapes when this ad was run. Credit: Facebook user Pasq Notrook. Special Thanks to: The Dunham Family Animatronic Appreciation Blog on Tumblr Pasq Notrook on Facebook

When I rarely have a few minutes of downtime every few months, I'll check YouTube for any recently uploads of under-the-radar vacation footage of Canada's various amusement areas (Niagara, Wasaga Beach, Yonge Street) in hopes to find footage of some obscure long-lost attraction, or even better, something I've been after for years. Yesterday, this paid off big time. This incredible video was uploaded to YouTube recently, showcasing the Niagara region in 1994. After a brief shot of the abandoned bridal path, turned miniature go-kart track, turned walking path, at the 10:04 mark the cameraman enters the Skylon Tower's legendary amusement park, of which very little is actually known. This is despite it being one of the most popular amusement attractions in The Falls from the 1970's to 1990's, and although limited photos exist, establishing the layout of the vast indoor park has been next to impossible until now. This clearly shows the location of the Shooting Gallery, Miniature Golf Course, Bumper Cars, Go Karts, Carousel, the famous Bavarian Nut Shop, and most importantly, where all this was located in relation to what's there today. The cameraman enters the doors on the West side of the building just off of Murray Street, near where the bridge across the street to Fallsview Casino is today. This entrance to the complex remains, and while the amusement park has been gone for nearly 25 years now, the extensive arcade that filled every other square inch of the basement is still there, although massively downsized. One cool thing in this footage is seeing the original facade of the Adventure Into the Unknown dark ride that was designed by legendary Italian artist Armando Tamignini for manufacturer Bertazzon, imported to Canada, and re-assembled by park staff. The facade would be opened up a very short time after this to include a load station and 2nd floor balcony visible from the outside, however originally it looks to have been contained within the walls of the attraction, adding to the "Unknown" theme. A coffin scene outside the attraction looks to be a static prop, but may have been Tamignini's Dracula in a coffin figure he used in many of his attraction, just shut off. The Dracula figure was definitely a part of this attraction as it's in the auction listing after it closed, but where it was located in the attraction is fittingly, unknown. Mural along the front of "Adventure Into the Unknown" that was removed a short time later. There's some great footage here of the shops on the second floor during better days, but sadly the cameraman doesn't visit the Skylon's undocumented and unfortunately now-abandoned third floor which contained the roller rink and potentially the ever-mysterious World a Million Years Ago attraction. There was a Star Trek Exhibit which opened in the Skylon around this time, however if replaced World a Million Years Ago, the Potvin Miniatures Museum (theorized to have been in the basement next to the amusement park), or neither, is unknown. On the escalator back down into the amusement park, a small shooting gallery-type attraction immediately to the left of the escalators near the Capcom bowling lanes can be seen that appears non-functional, however looks to be the same manufacturer as Dazzleland 's mysterious "Fire Department 911" water gun shooting gallery game. The mystery game in question can be seen at the bottom of this screenshot. At 42:22 there's some brief but cool Clifton Hill footage showing the exteriors of several attractions including Dazzleland, Castle Dracula , Dinosaur Park, and Movieland , however the footage isn't anything groundbreaking at this point compared to some of the more-depth videos of The Hill that have surfaced in recent years. What is groundbreaking however comes at 48:40 when the cameraman enters the Minolta Tower . After a journey to the Pinnacle Restaurant, observation deck, and top of the tower gift shop, the cameraman journeys to the basement. Now if you know the tower's history you know the basement was home to one of Niagara's previously "lost" attractions - one that had next to no documentation. A legendary arcade operated here from the 1970's to sometime in the early 2000's. Here it is in all it's glory, complete with footage of an attempt on it's 90's crown jewel that makes documentation of this arcade so sought after in the classic arcade community - Galaxian 3. If you know what that is, you probably just got goosebumps, if you don't, let me give you them. Galaxian 3 is the 5th title in Namco's popular Galaxian/Galaga series (don't ask why it's called Galaxian 3, the series' naming order has always been beyond confusing). This game completely overhauled the gameplay style of the classic vertical shooting games in the series that came before it however, and introduced a 3D, first-person rail shooter style that would end up setting the precedent for the genre later popularized by games like Star Fox and Time Crisis. The game was originally developed as an interactive theme park attraction in Japan that held 28 people, however Namco had the foresight to also market it as a 6-player sit down arcade machine inside a massive cabinet for arcades with the cash to buy one. The plot features you piloting guns on the ship "Dragoon" against an army of alien-bug attackers as per the series' theme, but this time the threat is much larger. The aliens have a superweapon named the "Cannon Seed" which threatens Earth, and you must fly your way in to the core of this weapon through a tunnel and destroy it's reactor. If this sounds a little familiar narratively speaking to a certain film franchise, that's actually deliberate. When Namco's Kazunori Sawano first designed the original Galaxian back in 1979, he wanted to make a Star Wars game, but licensing issues and technological limitations prevented this. The film's presence in the Galaxian series is felt heavily in everything from the ship in Galaxian resembling a Star Wars Y-Wing, the Galaga ship clearly being modeled after the iconic X-Wing, and the symphonic theme music introduced in Galaga and carried throughout the series. A Galaxian 3 cabinet as seen on KLOV (Museum of the Game). If you're a retro arcade fan and a Star Wars fan (those two things seem to go hand in hand), this game is a masterpiece. It's incredible music, technology, and thrilling narrative are a love letter to the previous games, the sci-fi genre, and the original vision of the series' creator years prior. This game has been deemed "lost" due to its obscurity, with several locations destroying them after they were decommissioned due to their high repair costs, easy conversion into other attractions, and the amount of arcade floor space they took up. While a small handful of these machines are owned by private collectors allowing it to be documented, and there's fairly decent documentation of the Japanese theme park ride version, this footage may very well be the only footage of the arcade machine on-location at an arcade. The game's climactic battle. The footage of the rest of this arcade doesn't disappoint, featuring a plethora of 90,s arcade staples including Konami's 8-player widescreen X-Men game, Final Lap 2, and more. Perhaps the coolest thing here is the giant blacklight mural on the ceiling resembling the Tron game grid. It also appears there was some sort of small non-mechanical zero gravity ride here that required an attendant to operate. Just a year after this footage in 1995, a section of the arcade was leased to Cybermind, a Canadian company that imported "Virtuality" VR arcade machines to Canada and started a short-lived chain of attractions in various major Canadian cities and tourist areas. It's unknown how much of the traditional arcade remained after this, but Galaxian 3 certainty lasted until the basement's closure. The arcade's awesome ceiling that looks straight out of the 1980's. The biggest highlight of this video to me however comes right after exiting the Minolta in the form of footage of Waltzing Waters , the dancing fountain lightshow that ran next to the Minolta Tower from 1962 to 2000. This attraction was one of the earliest amusement projects by Robert Dunham, who would go on to start the Waxattract company and work on some of Niagara's most iconic attractions like The House of Frankenstein , Movieland, Circus World, and the Boris Karloff Wax Museum. It was his first amusement attraction in Niagara Falls proper, with his only other attraction at the time being Fantasy Land at the nearby Crystal Beach Amusement Park. The impressive programmable computer technology that ran the fountain was lightyears ahead of its time, and foreshadowed the company's invention of early programmable animatronic figures for the House of Frankenstein less than a decade later. The lightshow concept would re-surface again with a horror theme in Dunham's beloved Castle Dracula chain of haunted attractions with locations in Niagara Falls, Myrtle Beach and Panama City Beach. The Myrtle Beach location even featured a Waltzing Waters style fountain in it's lightshow room, although if the Niagara location's lightshow had a water component is unknown. Waltzing Waters was expanded and updated in the 1970's, resulting in the version seen in this footage. The show used a switchboard so the operator could customize certain elements of each show, encouraging return customers and no two shows being exactly alike. Until now the only brief footage of Waltzing Waters in action has been on silent 8mm reels. This high-quality VHS footage complete with sound is an incredible window into an iconic gone but not forgotten attraction. Huge thank you to Bryce Barnett for taking, preserving, and uploading this footage to YouTube. Please support his channel and like this video.

The store's chase light adorned sign that also contains the last mentions of the sorely missed Rock Legends Wax Museum, which closed in 2019. December 1st will be a sad day for both heavy metal fans and the Niagara Falls tourism landscape. Rockworld, the souvenir and merchandise store that has sat on Centre Street half a block past where it becomes Clifton Hill for nearly half a century, will close permanently. The store has been a staple of the top of Clifton Hill since it opened in 1983, and is predeceased by the iconic Rock Legends Wax Museum which the same owners operated upstairs from 1997-2019. The wax museum's collection had been sculpted entirely by the owner, Pasquale Ramunno, who coincidentally wasn't even a rock music fan and allegedly had an ear for opera. Thankfully, he had an eye for art, and apparently for business as well, as Rockworld became a legendary pit stop for Ontario metalheads, punk rockers, and classic rock fans alike for generations. A section of the store named the "Niagara Souvenir Centre" offered more generic Canada and Niagara Falls themed items. When the wax museum was added upstairs in 1997, it greatly helped further the identity of the more thematically darker attractions in the up and coming "top of the Hill" area that was becoming popular with teenagers and young adults, joining Alien Encounter, The Criminals Hall of Fame, and the Screamers haunted attraction chain (Rockworld was actually neighbors with the short-lived 3rd Screamers location named "Horror Manor"). The museum's giant neon guitar and wall of musician's faces on the front of the building became a staple sight of the area. Rockworld, Rock Legends Wax Museum, and the iconic neon guitar. After years of success, the wax museum's visitor numbers unfortunately started slowing down in the mid-2010's as the Niagara Falls tourism landscape (and greater amusement industry as a whole) went through a turbulent period. By 2014, all the attractions I listed above that used to rub elbows with Rockworld were gone. With mounting pressure from record labels and their exorbitant licensing fees, the decision was made to close the museum in October 2019, allegedly (according to a conversation I had with the owners some years ago) due in part to YouTube's infamous copyright algorithm flagging vlogs of the museum for use of music, thus alerting media companies to the museum's existence. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic less than 4 months later essentially halting the entire tourism industry for two years, it appears the decision may have been the right one. The incredible and impressive Locomoland, a model train attraction that replaced the wax museum upstairs and was operated by a third party, also unfortunately closed down this past summer (stay tuned for more on that). This also decreased traffic through the store as the wax museum formerly let out into Rockworld, therefore Locomoland did as well after it. The store was carried on for years by Ramunno's children Nick and Maria, but they've decided it's finally time to retire. I was a regular at the store, not for the reasons I'm a regular at most Clifton Hill area attractions, but as a heavy metal fan. The store was well known in the metal scene (allegedly even "back in the day") as a place to get rare and imported merchandise, and as Ontario's other rock stores, headshops, and other headbanger hangouts closed throughout the 2000's and 2010's, the king of them all stood strong. Nowadays, you have essentially three options to buy music merchandise. If you're looking for merchandise from an A-list band (Metallica, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, etc.) you might be lucky enough to find something at a run of the mill mall store like Hot Topic or Spencer's, but don't expect them to be quality, or anything other than the most basic designs. If you're a fan of more obscure bands like me, you could order them online directly from the band or an online merchandise store, but as a Canadian, expect shipping costs as high as the price of the item you're buying. The third option is buying merchandise at a band's concert, if you're willing to pay an arm and a leg, and if you're willing to wait for the band to roll through a city near you, which is especially problematic if a band usually only tours Europe or even worse, no longer exists. Rockworld was the only place left you could buy an officially licensed Razor, Destruction, or Mercyful Fate shirt in person and for a decent price, examples I use because this is probably the only excuse I'm going to have to mention those names on this website. Not only that, they carried and variety of items you simply don't see anywhere anymore like patches, flags, pins, and a variety of spiked/studded accessories. The best part? The store didn't charge the city's infamous "tourist tax", and proudly displayed that above the door. It'll be sad to see the store go, but the owners definitely deserve a good rest after everything they've done for both the Niagara Falls and metal communities. The store is currently on massive discount and getting more and more picked over by the day, so if you were a regular here or even want to squeeze in your first visit before it's too late, I suggest you make the voyage as soon as you're able. For die-hard rock fans or attraction operators, the museum's impressive collection of over 70 figures hand sculpted by Pasquale Ramunno (including the ones that were relocated to the store after the museum's closure), are in storage and still up for grabs, but expect to pay what these works of art are worth. If you've ever wanted an identical replica of Alice Cooper in your living room, Gene Simmons in your basement, or Iron Maiden's mascot Eddie in your Halloween display, now is the time to act.

New Lobby Display In Spring 2024, I visited Clifton Hill and noticed almost instantly that the iconic Castle Dracula sign that stands high above the building had been brilliantly repainted. It's once again one of the most eye-catching features of the Hill, especially from the bottom of the Hill where it appears centered with the street due to the bend. Upon closer inspection, the lobby display, which had formerly been a hunchback and vampire bride relocated from inside the attraction, had been replaced with a brand new static zombie prop. If you've visited Castle Dracula in the last 25-odd years, you likely know it's been in a sort of undead state of disrepair, and no update (or seemingly maintenance) to the place had occurred since the 1997 signage update out front. The fact capital was being injected back into the attraction was a huge signal new owners had taken over, and after I inquired, I learned that is infact the case. Castle Dracula with the repainted sign above it. Filming inside is not allowed, but I detail some elements of the remodel here on the attraction's updated history page , as well as link a video by a third-party YouTube channel that somehow filmed inside. In summary, my personal feelings on the remodel are somewhat split, but overall I think it's for the best. It's a bit of an interesting case study, the remodel is gorgeous, the place looks like it could last another 50 years now, which definitely couldn't be said before (there were spots you could see through the roof to the daylight under the old ownership). On the other hand, 90% of the original 1974 props built by Waxattract that been decaying in the unlit and walled off scenes were completely removed, along with most of the scenery, props, and artwork. I go more into specifics on what remains and what's been majorly overhauled on the history page linked above, but it's currently unknown if the removed props were trashed or salvaged. While it would certainly be devastating if they were destroyed, to be fair, there wasn't much left of many of them to begin with. They were 50 years old and received seemingly no maintenance for roughly 35 of those. That being said, these were historically significant pieces regardless of their condition, and it's sad to see them go. It begs the question which is more important? An attraction itself, or the actual props that made it historically significant in the first place, all those years ago? I think the choice is a personal one. Old artwork outside the attraction (left) and the painting that replaced it (right). It's easy to see why the new owners opted to buy new animatronics and effects to replace the old ones. It would have been next to impossible to repair 50 year old technology that was totally unique and ahead of it's time, especially after 30 years of being essentially abandoned. It's unknown if the Menechella family who initially moved the attraction to Clifton Hill in 1977 upgraded the original Waxattract 8-Track control systems to standard cassette tape, but even if they had, certainly nothing had been updated since the family sold the attraction in the early 90's and the decline began. It's likely most of the behind-the-scenes equipment needed to operate the props wasn't even still in there. The new props fit the attraction perfectly, and are definitely in the spirit of the originals. The most impressive thing is how detailed and unique some of the new props are. While a handful of them are popular mass-produced props, the majority of them I haven't seen in another attraction or trade show, leading me to question if these were ordered from a specialty studio of some sort. Castle Dracula now matches the other attractions on the Hill in the sense that it's changed greatly from it's original form, however it also joins them in once again being as clean and professional as the day it opened. I touch on this briefly on the history page, but despite all these changes, I would say compared to it's sister attraction The House of Frankenstein up the Hill (another 70's Waxattract creation), Castle Dracula is more true to it's original spirit. The House of Frankenstein is still an amazing attraction, and while it at least contains two working original props (all the original props in Castle Dracula either always were or remain static), the attraction itself is nearly unrecognizable, and the majority of the newer props completely unfitting. Castle Dracula on the other hand retains just enough day one 70's goodness to walk the line effectively, and the new props seem to have been carefully selected it to fit in almost seamlessly. Personally, while I'm sad to see so much history disappear and I'm ever curious where the unaccounted for 90% of it went, I think it's for the best that Dracula was given the chance to rise again. Here's to another 50 years!

Welcome to Canadian Amusement History. This section will serve as a news blog about topics related to current and former attractions on this page, updates on changes to them/their former locations, new research discoveries, and more.