This post is really should have been done earlier, but school and work aside, there just wasn’t time until now. I am always on the lookout for new and exciting blogs to follow as well as interesting posts to share and without further adieu, here’s a few I came across this week.
Blogs
The blog of Dave Johnson, who provides regular updates on the goings on in animation with some personal commentary. One to follow.
Written by Pete Emslie, one of the old-school cartoonists of this world. it contains tons of awesome sketches and illustration among posts on old comics and animation. Worth reading for the pictures alone but Petes personal take on things makes it all the better.
Posts
Hanna-Barbera, the Missing Theme Park
Lisa K. Berton takes a look at Hanna-Barbera’s attempts to enter the lucrative themepark market and how their presence has been declining as of late.
Animazing Amation: The Secret of Kells
A review on the Late to the Theater blog, which focuses on films available through instant streaming that reinforces everything that has been said about this film and how excellent it is. Worth reading and serves as a great reminder that The Secret of Kells is available in Netflix.
Whear is hanna barbera land now? Is it gone?
The H-B theme park brand is gone although the physical park seems to still exist. According to the Wikipedia page, it was purchased by Six Flags who decided not to keep the Hanna-Barbera name.
I have lived in/around Houston since about ’82, excluding a stint in the Air Force in the ’90’s.
HB land was in Spring (a Houston ‘burb) but is now long gone. My family and I went there a lot in the 2 years that it was open (1984-1985) because the tickets were cheaper, the lines were shorter, and the attractions were better suited to my brothers’ and my ages than Astroworld (another bygone park). The site is now a water park called Splashtown, where I take my three kids at least once each summer.
Any amusement park in Texas that is not a water park or does not have a water park attached is doomed to fail (HB Land being one of many examples). The saying goes that the devil never comes to Texas because Texas is hotter than hell. Few climes can feel quite as oppressive as equatorial heat combined with Gulf Coast humidity. I still think it beats the tar out of snow and that is why I stay. That’s also why there are so few amusement parks in Texas. It’s just too blamed hot in the summer to be trudging around between rides and waiting in lines. I always pay the big bucks for line-jump passes when I go to them.
Wow, thanks for the first hand history! 🙂