 Welcome to Five Minute Flashbacks. I'll be here on Fridays. Let's go. As coaster enthusiasts, we're often so focused on getting new coaster credits that we don't stop to appreciate the experience credits that we collect along the way. Today I want to talk about one of those experiences. FearFest. Now this one is a fun throwback for us 90s babies and an interesting piece of history for you youngins. I'm old. Back in the early 2000s, before Cedar Fair owned a certain group of theme parks, those parks were owned by a now defunct company called Paramount Parks, a sister company of Paramount Pictures, and both owned by another media company. Anyways, when Paramount did own these parks, they did things... differently. First of all, not all of the parks were treated equally. Some didn't get Halloween events at all, and others launched in different seasons. Kings Island in 2000, Kings Dominion in 2001. Canada's Wonderland didn't see a version of the event until 2005, which was the year before everything changed. Now I'm going to focus on Canada's Wonderland from here on out because it was my home park and the only version of FearFest that I got to experience in person. But if you have your own FearFest experience, please do share it in the comments below. I'd love to hear it. Wonderland's first FearFest was in the 2005 season, and the event opened with eight mazes and almost all rides in operation. ThunderRun even got a Halloween overlay to Haunted ThunderRun, which was basically just ThunderRun with spooky lightning. But hey, we were happy for it. It's funny, when I reminisced with friends about the first few years of FearFest before it became Halloween Haunt, all we remember is how dark and smoky it was. It was just no lights and all smoke machine. Looking back at old footage, there's no wonder why. I mean it wasn't exactly Hollywood quality costuming and makeup, which is kind of ironic given the owners of the park at the time. Anyways, in 2006 they did it all again. And if my memory serves me, since there isn't much of record online, so please do share your stories down below. The event was largely the same in 2006. They had three main areas, The Curse of Sleepy Hollow, MTV Rock and Scare, and Backlot Blood Bath, with eight mazes plus most rides and food opened. Oh, and two shows in the action theater. You know, in case you wanted to see gratuitous amounts of Elvira. And I'm not exaggerating. But as I mentioned earlier, 2006 was the season when it all changed. Cedar Fair bought out Paramount Parks and Coaster Enthusiasts rejoiced for seasons and seasons to come. But one of the largely underappreciated benefits that has come with Cedar Fair's ownership is, in my opinion, the improvements in events and theming. Yes, literally everyone can appreciate that Cedar Fair brought Wonderland rides like Behemoth, Leviathan, and Yukon Striker, compared to Paramount's editions of... You know, let's not even talk about those. Let's not go there. But my point is, the improvement on the rides front is like a slap in the face. But the theming, the quality of the events, Cedar Fair really leveled up Canada's Wonderland over the past several years. To the point where, I have to say, even in the middle of a panorama, they're truly killing it. Pun intended. I wrote that. I wrote the pun in there, just so you know. I wrote it. In my opinion, Panorama Halloween Haunt in 2021, with all of its concessions for health and safety, is a better quality event than FearFest in the Paramount days. I mean, I take this kind of quality entertainment over Elvira's cleavage in 3D any day. But that's the history that got Wonderland to where it's at today. And that's all for today's 5-Minute Flashback. So like I said, please make sure to share your FearFest experiences down below. And I will see you next Friday. Thanks for watching. Bye.