Remember Woodstock: The Peanuts Bird Is The Word

The Charles M. Schulz Peanuts comic strip debuted in 1950.  Snoopy's bird friend, Woodstock, was introduced in 1966 (though he was not named "Woodstock" until later---and yes, he was named after the famous music festival).  By the time Snoopy and Woodstock were a team, the focus of the Peanuts empire of merchandise shifted to the adventures of Snoopy and his little yellow friend.  Woodstock has always been a favorite of mine (I like his spiky hair, especially on this puppet that I've had since I was a kid).

Woodstock, like Snoopy, has been incredibly popular in plush toy form. (This particular vintage version, which is similar to my puppet, can stand up!).

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For many years, only the animal Peanuts stars were transformed into stuffed toys.

Aviva made lots of Woodstock (and Snoopy) toys in the 70s and 80s.

In addition to wind-up toys, Aviva sold Snoopy cars.  LOTS of cars.

Snoopy cars outnumber any other character.  But Woodstock is next in line.

These days, the Peanuts gang can be found in Cedar Fair amusement parks across the United States.  "Planet Snoopy" and "Camp Snoopy" sections of the parks feature rides, most of which are themed to Snoopy or Woodstock.

These cars are some of the rare toys from the time that feature Snoopy's human co-stars.

Merchandise gave the characters a life of their own.

Flying Trapeze toys used to be all the rage.

There is something hilarious to me about this Woodstock toy.

Trapeze Woodstock is kinda buff.

Woodstock: Now with Climbing String Action.

Woodstock toys that chirp and flap their wings was a thing for some time.

In addition to a hard plastic Flapping Woodstock, there was a feathered version.

This is hilarious.

One of the most interesting characters in Peanuts Merchandising History is Belle.  Belle is the "girl Snoopy".  Belle is Snoopy's sister, but many people probably thought she was Snoopy's girlfriend.  Snoopy and Belle were kind of the Donny and Marie Osmond of Peanuts toys.  Belle was a very minor character, but toy companies latched on to her, turning Belle into a superstar of toys.

Snoopy and Belle took on Barbie and Ken, entering the world of fashion dolls in a 1980s toy line called "Snoopy & Belle".  The dogs were given new, clothing-friendly proportions and an extensive wardrobe.

Look out, Barbie.  There's a new b*tch in town.  A literal b*tch.  And her name is Belle.

Before Toy Story 2: Knott's Berry Farm in California

The Prospector!  He'll wanna meet ya!

Yodel-ay-hee-hoo!

Oh, that's funny, Bullseye!

What the Pixar?!?

Before Stinky Pete, Jessie and Bullseye, there was Knott's Berry Farm.

Knott's Berry Farm is an amusement park in Buena Park, California.  It started out as a farm selling----yep, berries, in 1920.

The stinky Prospector here is named Whittles.

So how did a berry farm become a theme park?  Why did the chicken cross the road?  It was running for its life to get away from Knott's Berry Farm.

By 1934, Knott's was selling chicken dinners on property.  The dinners were extremely popular.

More diversions were built to give diners something else to do.

In 1952, a replica of a Ghost Town was created to entertain people waiting for the restaurant.

The Ghost Town turned into a Boom Town.  The park also started adding rides.  The Calico Mine Ride opened in 1960 (and still operates today).

Knott's added shops and more attractions over the years.

Would you like a hand-made souvenir to remember your visit?  I would!

Legend has it that these wooden toys were actually made at The Woodcraft Shop at Knott's Berry Farm in the 1940s.

These are amazing!

Playing with these toys will make you think about Knott's Berry Farm or the old Purina Chuck Wagon dog food commercials.

By the 1969, Knott's Berry Farm had become a much bigger destination experience.

This plate has an error, so maybe it is a big collector's item.  It identifies the Timber Mountain Log Ride (from 1969) as the Calico Mine Ride (which opened in 1960).  Oops!

It is souvenir mash-up time!!!  Universal Studios, Knott's Berry Farm, and Magic Mountain together at last!

...AND Busch Gardens!

Things were looking good for Whittles.  Until something big happened.  Something that starts with "S" and is associated with a flying dog.

Sputnik?  No.  Snoopy!

The Beagle had landed.  In 1983, Snoopy and the Peanuts gang set up Camp Snoopy at Knott's Berry Farm.

Knott's Berry Farm gained one of the most popular cartoon characters of all time, kicking the characters from Toy Story 2---I mean the early Knott's Western characters---to the curb.

Today, Snoopy is Top Dog at most Cedar Fair amusement parks (owners of Knott's Berry Farm).  Snoopy rules his own worlds at Planet Snoopy lands at parks like Kings Island, Kings Dominion, Carowinds. Cedar Point, Worlds of Fun, Canada's Wonderland, Dorney Park, Valleyfair, and California's Great America.

Aww, look, a cute Knott's Teddy bear.  Or is that a Teddy-berry?

Say, doesn't this look a bit like Duffy, the Disney Bear?

Snoopy And The Dogfight With The Red Baron: Peanuts Popmobiles At McDonald's

When I was younger, I used to visit a restaurant in Montevallo, Alabama called Barnstormer's Pizza.  Most of the customers there were probably unaware that the Snoopy's Doghouse Plane toy sitting on the cash register as a decoration was actually a McDonald's Happy Meal Toy from Canada.

Barnstormer's Pizza closed down years ago.  I think it is a safe bet that one of the employees gave Snoopy a good home.

Snoopy was part of a Peanuts Popmobiles Happy Meal promotion in Canada in 1989.  When you push down on the character, the vehicle races forward.

Choo-Choo Charlie is an engineer.

Charlie Brown was given rocks when he went Trick or Treating on Halloween.  Lucy probably gave him a lump of coal at Christmas at some point.  He can use it for his train.

Will Engineer Charlie Brown give The Little Red Haired Girl a Valentine that says "I Choo Choo Choose You"?

Can you get the train up that hill, Charlie Brown?  I think you can, I think you can.  Until Lucy switches the track and sends you rolling backwards.

Lucy drives the local Fire Truck.  I feel safe, don't you?

In Canada, Fire Trucks are Green.  Garbage Trucks are black and white.  School buses are red with white polka dots.

In 1983, the Knott's Berry Farm theme park in Buena Park, California opened a land with rides for kids called "Camp Snoopy."

In 1997, Cedar Fair (owners of the Cedar Point theme park in Ohio) bought Knott's Berry Farm.  Snoopy quickly became one the biggest theme park mascots ever.

Cedar Fair inherited the Peanuts characters, and they can now be found at "Planet Snoopy" in theme parks across North America.  This includes California's Great Adventure, Kings Island, Carowinds, Kings Dominion, Worlds of Fun, Canada's Wonderland, Cedar Point, Valleyfair, and Dorney Park.

Visitors to Universal Studios Japan (in Osaka) can visit Snoopy Studios, which opened in 2001.

The Peanuts characters can be found everywhere:  comics, TV shows, musical theater, and theatrical movies.

For many years, Snoopy was the mascot for Dolly Madison snack cakes (he really loved Zingers!).  That was not enough for Snoopy.  In 1985, he became the mascot for MetLife.  These days, Snoopy is allowing Charlie Brown and Lucy to participate in the commercials.

McDonald's used the Peanuts Popmobiles vehicles for other Happy Meal promotions.  In 1992, McDonald's in Japan had a McDonaldland "Headstarters" Happy Meal.  Birdie the Early Bird piloted a blue version of Snoopy's Doghouse Plane.  Grimace was the engineer in Charlie Brown's Train.  Ronald McDonald drove Lucy's Fire Truck.  The Hamburglar took Woodstock's car for a spin.

A modified version of Woodstock's car was also used in 1995's McTurbo Happy Meal.

You can decorate Grimace's Popmobile with the provided stickers.

The Peanuts characters have been featured in many different McDonald's promotions all over the world.  In 2000, McDonald's restaurants outside the United States celebrated 50 Years of the Peanuts Gang with plush Snoopy toys representing different decades.  Appropriately, Snoopy's "Joe Cool" character represents the 1950s.

Snoopy and the Peanuts gang were created by Charles M. Schulz back in 1950 and the characters are still going strong today.

Snoopy can do anything.  He can drive a car, ride a motorcycle, pilot a plane, chaperon kids on a trip to Europe, and wind up his ears and fly like a helicopter.  He can even sell you insurance.  Not many dogs can do that.

Scooby Doo, Where Were You? Kings Island In Ohio!

Even though I grew up in the south, I am familiar with the Kings Island theme park in Ohio. I had neighbors with relatives in Cincinnati. I also have family in Indiana (home to many Kings Island visitors) so I have been to the park a couple of times.

In the summer of 1988, I got to visit Kings Island on a rainy day. We had a great time! I bought a gigantic park map in one of the gift shops. Somehow it survived the storm.

The park has changed dramatically since my 1988 visit. Like so many theme parks, Kings Island used to have a Safari ride (a monorail through the Wild Animal Habitat).

You don't have to go to France to see the Eiffel Tower. You can drive to Cincinnati to see it. Well, a smaller version of it.

The famous tower has been the icon of Kings Island since the park opened in 1972.

The park also had Hanna-Barbera Land, home to Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, The Jetsons and some characters you may not have heard of, like The Banana Splits.

I still remember that our car was parked at Astro, Row 4 (Astro is the family dog on Hanna Barbera's animated TV series, The Jetsons).

Judging from the souvenirs that were available at the time, Scooby Doo seemed to be the most popular Hanna Barbera character at Kings Island. Hanna Barbera even tried to copy themselves to top him.

Clue Club was one of many Hanna Barbera-created Scooby Doo clones in the 1970s.

In addition to the rides, Kings Island had a few shows. I'm guessing the mime could be found by the Eiffel Tower.

Were the dolphins relocated during the winter? I can't imagine them liking Ohio in December.

In addition to the awesome 80s performances, visitors could meet the Smurfs.

I regret not seeing Hanna Barbera's Hollywood, which was a marionette show of some kind.

I bought a small Scooby Doo plush at the Hanna Barbera Fun Shop.

Of all the Hanna Barbera character merchandise I could have picked up at Kings Island in 1988 (they had Grape Ape stuff!) I wound up concentrating on the one Hanna Barbera character that lasted the longest at Kings Island.

I also made sure to get a Scooby Doo plastic drink container souvenir at Kings Island. I can't remember what the beverage was.

They also had Fred Flintstone for sale.

I had bought this Scrappy Doo button before I finally found a Scooby Doo one before I left the park for the day.

For the 2002 live action Warner Brothers Scooby Doo movie, Scrappy was the unmasked villain. I thought that was pretty clever and funny.

These buttons cost 89 cents back then.

I'm pretty sure they had buttons with The Flintstones and Yogi Bear, too.

While in Hanna Barbera Land, I made sure to ride the Smurf's Enchanted Voyage Ride. In front of this boat ride, you could find a Scooby Doo statue. I decided to make myself and my two cousins cartoon ghosts for this story. I'm the green ghost in this picture.

When Kings Island first opened, this boat ride was called Enchanted Voyage, and featured all sorts of Hanna Barbera characters. The attraction was changed to a Smurf ride in 1982. For the 1992 season, the old ride was demolished and a new (dry) omnimover dark ride called Phantom Theater debuted here. In 2003, the attraction became an interactive ghost-blaster ride called Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle. For 2010, the Scooby Doo characters were dropped and the ride became Boo Blasters on Boo Hill.

For more of my Smurfs ride visit, check out It's a Smurfy World After All: Smurf's Enchanted Voyage Ride.

I also enjoyed the Ferris Wheel in the Oktoberfest section.

I think I found that Scooby Doo plastic drink container near this ride. I do remember that the beverage in the Scooby container was not beer.

I enjoyed Shake, Rattle and Roll, even in the rain.

I love roller coasters now, but I was too chicken to ride the Vortex back then.

Since it was raining already, it was a good time to ride White Water Canyon.

These orange ponchos were everywhere that day! We did not get one.

The newest ride at Kings Island was Amazon Falls, located near the Wild Animal Habitat.

This ride is a bit different from the similar Splashwater Falls attraction I grew up with at Six Flags Over Georgia.

Yes, Kings Island had penguins!

I bet these guys did not mind Ohio's winters.

Are we in the DreamWorks movie Madagascar? Nope, we are still at Kings Island.

This lemur has a tiny baby.

Don't be frightened child, they're only humans!

I'm guessing these animals had to be relocated in the cold winter months. Where did they go?

The snow leopards probably would have been alright.

A limited number of animals were on display for everyone. To see the rest of them, you could take an up-charge monorail ride through the Safari. Luckily, we got to do this! This was our last ride of the day.

Are we in Africa? No, we are in Ohio, without a doubt!

I really enjoyed this ride. I think it was air conditioned. And we got away from the rain.

This was a great shot!

The monorails got pretty close to many of the animals.

I remember being able to see a rhino from the queue line of the Racer roller coaster.

Did Hanna Barbera ever have a Rhino character? They should have.

The Wild Animal Habitat was rather large.

This land was later used to expand the park's collection of roller coasters.

Let's sing: "Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play."

"Then tear it down, and build a Top Gun roller coaster there."

In 1992, Kings Island, Great America, Carowinds, and Kings Dominion theme parks were bought by Paramount.

Paramount and Kings Island actually had a past. Kings Island was featured in a 1973 episode of Paramount's TV show, "The Brady Bunch." Jan caused an uproar when she switched Mike Brady's architectural theme park expansion plans for a Yogi Bear poster. Oh, Jan! Marcia would never have done something like that.

The Paramount switch meant some big changes for Kings Island and its sister parks. The biggest threat for Hanna Barbera was the arrival of Nickelodeon characters.

Hanna Barbera Land got some Nickelodeon subdivisions, and the entire park started seeing rides with movie themes.

I can remember hearing the slogan, "You're gonna be smilin' at Paramount's Kings Island!"

I thought the new name was a bit awkward. I'm glad we didn't see something like "Warner Brothers Presents Six Flags Over Georgia" in response.

By my visit in 1995, Hanna Barbera characters were tough to find at Paramount's Kings Island.

I did find this pin featuring A Pup Named Scooby Doo.

Mixed in with many of the existing Hanna Barbera Land components were Nickelodeon elements like a Green Slime fountain.

By 1995, it was clear that the Hanna Barbera characters were living on borrowed time at Kings Island.

A Pup Named Scooby Doo was a fun new twist on the characters.

This series parodied the Scooby Doo formula.

The Nickelodeon brand eventually took over Hanna Barbera Land, leaving only the Scooby Doo dark ride as a reminder of the past.

When Cedar Fair bought the Paramount Parks in 2006, everything changed.

In 2010, another cartoon canine emerged as the Top Dog of the theme park world. True to the expression "Dog Eat Dog," Snoopy took down Scooby Doo and the Nickelodeon characters and claimed the former Hanna Barbera Land at Kings Island as Planet Snoopy. The former King Mills Log Flume is now called Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown (based on the 1977 Peanuts film).

Snoopy first became a theme park mascot in 1983 at Knott's Berry Farm theme park in Buena Park, California (where he hosts his own land, Camp Snoopy). In 1992, Knott's opened a Camp Snoopy theme park in the Mall of America in Minnesota, which was ironically replaced by Nickelodeon Universe in 2008.

In 1997, the Cedar Fair theme park chain (owners of the popular Cedar Point theme park in Sandusky, Ohio) bought Knott's Berry Farm and inherited Snoopy as a mascot for their parks.

With Cedar Fair's purchase of the Paramount Parks, all of the Nickelodeon/Hanna Barbera sections were re-themed to the Peanuts characters.

Snoopy may now be in more theme parks than any other cartoon character.

The Peanuts gang can also be found at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, where they have their own section called Snoopy's Playland.

Snoopy even has a past with Walt Disney World in Florida! The MetLife-sponsored Wonders of Life Pavilion at Epcot featured the Peanuts characters in its 1989 opening promotional materials.

Inspired by the Kings Island story, I bring you (in time for Halloween) my idea for Snoopy Doo And The Great Pumpkin. Schroeder is now dating The Little Red Haired Girl. The Pumpkin Patch that Linus, Snoopy and the rest of the kids visit is being terrorized by The Great Pumpkin. Luckily, Marcie is around to help solve the mystery.

Charlie Brown and Lucy put their differences aside to form an alliance and split up the romance between Schroeder and the Little Red Haired Girl. As a bonus, Lucy got to terrorize her brother, and Charlie Brown got to scare his defiant dog. Charlie Brown and Lucy would have gotten way with it, if it had not been for those meddling kids and Snoopy-Dooby Doo!

Happy Halloween!