Welcome aboard Pink Monorail. I'm your pilot, Michelle Viadolide, and this is my co-pilot, Noah Viadolid.

Hey, everybody.

Last time, we talked about two of CV Woods' sister parks to Disneyland. This time, we're going to talk about the other two.

Pleasure Island was a theme park in Wakefield, Massachusetts, called the Disneyland of the Northeast. It was open from 1959 to 1969, so I was alive when it was operating. It closed down when I was two, so I

never saw it. But when Jim Hill and I were dating, he took me to the office park where it stood

and showed me the lake where Moby Dick of the Whale would pop up and menace parkgoers. There

was just a stick showing, so we thought that was all there was. More on that later in this episode.

It went through several owners, but was founded by William Hawks,

publisher of Child Life magazine,

and was designed by one Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood,

who helped design Disneyland and Lake Havasu City in Arizona.

The park was 80 acres and featured many attractions and even miniature

golf from 67 to 69. The Old Smoky Railroad line was a two-foot gauge railroad using

equipment leased like at Freedom Land from the Eddaville Railroad. The park's Show Bowl featured

performers such as Rick Nelson, Michael Landon,

The Three Stooges, and Caesar Romero. Ahead of its time, the park featured product placement

in its rides, like Pepperidge Farm in the Gristmill and Pepsi in the Diamond Lill Theater.

Its mascot for a few years was popped by the Sailor Man. Oh, that's cool. Now, Disney also had sponsored attractions, but these were strictly at the door. Like, this attraction is sponsored by Monsato. This attraction is sponsored by General Electric. But this was different because they actually had the ads within the ride? Within the ride. Oh, wow. Within the attraction. Okay, that's one way to pay the bills. Yeah, and that was probably Zee Wewood's idea. I wouldn't put it past him. Today, the land is part of the Edgewater Office Park. The train is still running at the Wiskasset Waterville and Farmington Railway Museum in Alma, Maine. It's the number 10 there. It was the number five at Pleasure Island.

Friends of Pleasure Island.org has a wonderful website with all the attractions and history and

memories from people who worked there. I'm going to talk to you about some of the attractions that were

there. Animal land, a petting zoo featuring a big red barn and sheep, goats,

llamas, fons, tortoises, and more. It also featured bows of the clowns skyscraper slide.

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