by Jay Ducharme
(All text and images copyright Jay Ducharme 2022)

THE FINAL TWO BUILDINGS There were just two buildings remaining. The first was the Dinosaur Den, which began its life as a classic Pretzel Laff in the Dark ride in the 1950s, was transformed by Dominic Spadola and Eddie Leis into the jungle-themed Mystery Ride and then again in 1963 into the more familiar ride that would exist (with a few modifications) until the park closed. For that last transformation, there was a rather comical problem with the new name. Although the number of letters in "Mystery Ride" is the same as in "Dinosaur Den", the way they combine is not. The letters were attached to motors that were bolted onto the building's structure. Originally, the letters rocked back and forth. Rather than relocating one of the motors, they substituted the new letters in place of the existing ones. What they ended up with was "DINOSAU   RDEN". The ride used converted Pretzel cars (similar to what was in the Pirate's Den) with transmissions that were modified by Eddie Leis so that they could navigate the steep climb to the second level of the ride. Each of the car fronts was outfitted with an elaborate bas relief tribal mask. For 1963, they also added an overhang to the ride's second level, so the cars could travel out above the midway. The new ride proved so popular that they ended up adding another car. Dominic made a cast of one of the tribal masks and recreated it in fiberglass on the new car. The other remaining building, Out of This World, still ranks as one of the most elaborate walk-thru fun houses I've ever seen. The entrance was through a large flying saucer that appeared to have crashed into the side of a mountain. The corridors were filled with a mix of disturbing dayglo images that were part horror (a severed head on spider legs) and whimsy (cute little spacemen that looked more like Smurfs). The building housed the usual assortment of tilted rooms, air jets and moving platforms, plus a walkover that was similar to the overhang on the Dinosaur Den. It also had several small hidden rooms for staff who could peer into the ride passages and make sure no one was fooling around in there, since there occasionally were troublemakers who would hide out in the dark corridors and then attack people as they walked through. Eventually, it was just too much trouble to police the ride. In 1982, it was torn out and the building was used as an extension of the arcade next door. The only reminder of the ride was one of the walkovers that was populated with some of Dominic Spadola's figures, along with one of the robots (which Dominic modeled after the Marx Big Loo robot) on the building's right side. The other robot stood guard next to the Dodgem building. Out of This World was the first building I tackled, since I thought it would be the more difficult of the two. But the more I analyzed photos I had, the more I realized that the only complicated thing was the facade itself. The building was a generic box with a sloped roof. With so many separate sections protruding from the facade, it would never print properly if I built it upright. So instead, I built the building and created a separate piece for the facade, which I designed lying flat to be later glued onto the front of the building. It took a few days to get it right. I wanted to create the look of a rock surface, but I found that difficult to do in Blender with simple cubes. For the curved overhangs, I was able to layer on a torus that I could deform because it contained a lot of vertices. So I modified the cube on the facade (using the Loop Cut function) to split it up into multiple vertices. Then I was able to sculpt it. That worked pretty well. I was going to model the robot directly onto the building model, but at that scale it would have been difficult. So I created an entirely new Blender file just for Big Loo. I had to break up Dominic's original design into a series of simple shapes that I could stitch together. It took several hours of work, but I was pretty pleased with the result. I didn't need a lot of detail, since it would be so tiny on the actual model. After importing Big Loo into the building file, I realized I needed to make the triangular scenery panel that was attached to the "Walk in Space" platform. I made it a separate piece that I could print flat and then glue onto the front of the walkway. I also added two holes to the walkway for the support posts that went into the ground. I figured I would use bamboo skewers for the posts and just feed them through. Then I made the Color Game building separately. It was a small game booth attached to the right side of the main building. There was a game booth in the front, but the back of it was a workshop that was used in the off-season. There was also a little hallway with floor-to-ceiling storage bins that held big plastic letters used for the sign at the entrance to the park. The back of that building had a peculiar notch taken out of it, mainly because it was butting up pretty close to the roller coaster station. That notch held a key station that I used to have to visit each night when I was a watchman at the park. In the 1980 black-and-white photo of the area, there was a prominent awning over the game, and it looked as if the booth was set back a little bit from the main structure. I couldn't print the awning intact on the building if I printed it upright. So I designed the booth upright to get the scale correct and when it was done I tilted the whole thing on its side for printing. Then I could glue it onto the main building after it printed. And with that, the design of Out of This World was finished. Since the Dinosaur Den had much the same type of rock work on the outside (along with a very similar overhang), I knew I could use the same techniques I had just employed. Out of This World took about eight hours to print, and I forgot how truly tiny everything was going to be. The Big Loo robots were little more than small blobs of plastic. I couldn't imagine how I was going to paint them. But outside of that, everything seemed to print fine. I then turned my attention to the Dinosaur Den. I began by simply duplicating Out of This World, since the buildings were similar. And I'd use the same technique: create a box for the building and then add the facade. I needed two separate game booths, one on either side. The Kentucky Derby was on the left and the Chocolates game was on the right. Something I hadn't noticed before is that the front of the Dinosaur Den was angled; the top protruded farther than the bottom. That was a common practice at amusement parks so that the "ballyhoo" (the visuals that draw you to the ride) were able to be seen when standing in front of the building. Otherwise, you'd have to stand far back to get the whole picture. That architectural detail would create a whole set of problems though, because I would then have to compensate for the angle on the overhang in order to keep it level. Since the angle wouldn't really be visible on the model, I saved myself the trouble and kept it vertical. I began by deleting all of the sections specific to OOTW (the spaceship, etc.). Then I enlarged the top of the "Walk in Space" section and centered it, duplicated it and used the duplicate as the bottom section. I measured the model footprint for the building complex. Each of the game buildings was 30 mm across; the Dinosaur Den was 65 mm across. I duplicated the Color Game building and then modified it, and did the same for the Kentucky Derby. When I created the runner at the top of the Dinosaur Den facade that held the letters, I angled that outward to recreate at least some of the angled facade look. Within a short time, that part of the facade was complete (including the spacing mistake in the words). I had made several iterations of the conical stone support that held up the front of the overhang. The one I settled on was a simple cone rimmed with bricks to give it a stone-like texture. I also created three hourglass-shaped supports that would fit between the top and bottom of the overhang. The dinosaurs that flanked the overhang were a challenge. I knew I didn't have enough skill to design them in Blender from the ground up. So I spent a few weeks hunting online for dinosaur models that I could modify. It was difficult because most of the models online were based on the beefy style of Tyrannosaurus Rex that was popularized by Jurassic Park. At Mountain Park, though, Dominic's dinos were sleek and tall. The one on the left also had its right leg raised as if it were about to stop anyone under it. Eventually I found a model that was acceptable. It had very little detail, which was okay because it was going to be so tiny that detail wouldn't print anyway. I tweaked it, raising the leg on the left one. I tried stretching them, but there were so many hidden vertices that the dino kept breaking apart. I wasn't able to turn their heads much either for the same reason. But again, with them being so tiny on the model, I didn't think it would be a big problem. I scaled them and positioned them on the building facade. And with that, the Dinosaur Den building was finished. I was concerned that the left dino's leg wasn't going to print, so I added a support post that I could clip off later. It was a long print (14 hours) but the only way I'd know if it was going to work was by trying it. I reused the Pirate's Den cars for the Dinosaur Den, modifying them only slightly. Since the cars were going to be really tiny and under an overhang, there was no reason to attempt to recreate the tribal mask detail. The front of the building had two alcoves where the track zigzagged back and forth from one side to the other, slamming through doors as it went. The very back alcove originally held an animatronic of a stereotypical savage dunking to people into cauldrons. In later years it was replaced by an incongruous animatronic of Frankenstein that would pop up from behind a curved stone wall. That whole sequence was one of the most enjoyable parts of the ride, getting a glimpse of the midway before the ride ended. I was going to rely on painting the building to try to convey that section of the ride. The first print attempt exploded. I forgot I had left the wheels on the cars, and they weren't able to stick to the print bed. So I remodeled them just for the printer and that worked out fine. I was really surprised that the dinosaurs printed pretty accurately. The one on the left (with the leg support) didn't start off too well; the tail and most of the leg didn't print. But enough of it was intact to be acceptable. I belatedly noticed that I hadn't put anything inside the Chocolates building nor the Kentucky Derby. The former was fine because the awning would prevent anyone from seeing inside it. But the Derby building was in full view. So I created a simple set of angled blocks for the mechanical race layout and reprinted that section. I also created graphics of the game signs that I could glue onto them. The Chocolates game was simple because I had a decent photo of its exterior. But I only had photos of small sections of the Kentucky Derby game. So I recreated that one from scratch, using sections that I was able to pull from various photos. Once I had all the buildings printed, I turned my attention back to the mini-golf course. There were a lot of "stunts", or obstacles, along the layout. Some were the usual objects like lighthouses and windmills. But there were a few unique ones, like a hand-made covered bridge. I had only a few pictures of the course, and I had to refer to all of them to get a better idea of what the stunts were since my memory of it had faded considerably. One object that I recalled after being jogged by a photo was a peculiar wood structure that was like a slatted window shutter. The golf ball would simply roll under it; I don't know what its purpose was other than being colorful and blocking your view of the hole. There were a couple of stunts with ramps. One was the covered bridge, which I was able to quickly model in Blender. Another stunt was a giant frog sitting on a rock. I was able to find a similar frog model online and added the rock beneath it. I also found a lighthouse and a windmill online. I had to modify them, but got them to work. Another interesting stunt was a sort of double hump (which is visible in the golf course photo). The most difficult stunt to model was a giant Humpty Dumpty that sat on a brick wall. I don't know whether the park bought it from a vendor or whether Dominic designed and built it. Within an hour or so, I had recreated it in Blender. Yet another peculiar stunt that I had forgotten about was a cylinder. It was basically like a trash barrel on its side and you rolled the ball under it. I can't remember the point to that. I think if you hit the ball too hard, it would collide with the barrel and come flying back at you. All in all I recreated 12 stunts, which was way more than I expected. The irony of all that work, though, is that the stunts were going to be absurdly tiny when printed, smaller than the dinosaurs. I didn't even know if they would be paintable, let alone whether any detail would be visible. But I figured I'd give it a shot. The first attempt was less than stellar, with many of the pieces being so small and delicate that they simply couldn't print. So I went back to my old practice of beefing everything up and eventually I got all the pieces to print reliably, though painting them was going to be another challenge in and of itself. There were still other little things I needed to fix, among them the train tunnels. I created those early on, when I was still figuring out how to design 3D models that I could print. I was never happy with the way they turned out. But now that I knew how to properly scale objects and how to beef up everything, I went back to the golf course tunnel and completely rebuilt it from scratch, making it a little higher and also adding handrails. I didn't bother trying to add stone texture to the sides. I was much happier with the result, and it printed accurately. It seemed a little large, about the size of one of the golf course area restroom buildings, but it fit perfectly into its footprint. I then went back and fixed the north tunnel walkover, removing the brick sections, beefing up the golf sign and adding handrails. It too came out much better. What I found amusing about that model was that since originally I didn't know how to create accurate scale measurements in Blender, all the pieces comprising that north tunnel measured smaller than 1 mm. It looked fine on the screen, but when sent to the slicing program (to prepare the model for printing), it was the size of a gnat. Fortunately, everything upscaled fine. I began painting the buildings. As I referred to my phone to check color accuracy against photos I had of the park, I found another photo of the golf course that I didn't know I had, taken from an angle looking across from the golf course ticket booth. Humpty Dumpty was clearly visible, as were two stunts I had forgotten about: a bridge over a small concrete pond and a sort of billiards pocket hole that also had a banked ramp. Running the length between the ramp and the pocket was a narrow garden lined with colorful bricks. I remembered that particular hole vividly because of one day when I was running both the golf course and the train. I was sitting in the golf course ticket booth when passengers lined up for the train. So I hurried out of the booth and sprinted across the golf course. But my foot got caught on that banked ramp and I went down hard, gashing open my left leg on the bricks. It was a pretty messy wound, but Dave Griffin at the park slapped a bandage on it and I went back to work. I still have a scar to this day. I completed Out of This World first. The robots had nothing more than dots of color, but from a distance hinted at their design. I glued the walkover graphic in place, which added another bit of color to the otherwise drab grey exterior. I had debated whether to add the "Out of This World" lettering to the building, but it would have been too small to read so I left it off. And the same with "Walk in Space". I ended up positioning the Color Game frontage a bit too far back. And I didn't add the Color Game sign, because that came after 1980. But overall, the building gave the impression of what was there. I also finished painting the two golf course tunnels, and they looked a lot better. A few weeks later I went back to work on the Dinosaur Den complex. I wasn't happy with the dino on the left that had lost its tail, so I went back to Blender and created a replacement tail. It printed fine (to my surprise), and looked great once it was glued in place and painted. I also decided to add that triangular light box on the side of the Chocolates game, since it was a really easy object to create. Then I painted the Dino Den cars and glued them in place, with one on the overhang. I added the sort of camoflage texture to the facade that was on the original building. And I glued on the support post under the overhang. Within a short time, the entire complex was complete. I glued the building down onto its footprint on the model base, and that marked a turning point: all the major structures were finished. There were just a few remaining details. I needed to finish painting the golf course obstacles and glue them in place. I had to paint and install the fencing. I had to install the rest of the trees and shrubs. And I had to fix the rough sections on the roller coaster. But finally, the end was in sight.