call for reference

[egypturnash]

This is a long shot, here.

Does anyone have any photos of the "Wild Maus" rollercoaster that was in Pontchartrain Beach? We are thinking of using it in the climax of this cartoon I'm working on, as the persistent rumors that "yeah, man, it's always closed for repairs these days 'cause some kid went flying off it and broke his skull" fit all too well with the morbid tone of the song.

Photos of the Beach are rarer than I'd imagine online, despite its place in the hearts of anyone who grew up in New Orleans before it was torn down in the eighties. I just keep finding the same ten photos from the sixties via Google. I vaguely remember it had a dense, boxy shape and some weird graphics but the Internet is failing me.

Anyone got some faded photos kicking around in a shoebox or album? Let me know!

Comments

[neogeen.livejournal.com]

http://rcdb.com/pd216.htm - No photos on the coaster database.

I don't know if my local coaster version anyway resembles it? http://rcdb.com/ig455.htm

[neogeen.livejournal.com]

Okay, it is a long shot but I've passed the word to my good friend to send an email off to his mother. They lived down there at that time and she should have photos from the very area. We just have to cross our fingers and see if she has access to them (she just moved a month ago, so I don't know how much stuff is still packed away).

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Thanks for trying, even if they don't have anything.

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

Stock photo sites?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm assuming that my Googling would have turned that up. The coaster only ran from 1959 to 1975 or thereabouts, in a park that closed in 1983, so it predates the age of digital cameras by an eternity...

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

Not sure how soon you need this, but here's a lead on a photographer who photographed things at that park in that era:

http://www.pontchartrainbeach.com/pbzrc8.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.pontchartrainbeach.com/&usg=__tYI0nkhdufAfhKoCd3NJYNFq_-Y=&h=577&w=873&sz=54&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=FgYWxyTV5hjDDM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=146&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522wild%2Bmaus%2522%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN

Here's info on the companies who made and imported it. Perhaps they could be contacted for an image.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/v/a/vac3/wdm.html

Here's an internet discussion group on Ponchartrain Beach amusement park during the period you seek:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pontchartrain-Beach/summary

I'll forward your request to a friend who grew up on NOLA. He may have something....

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I have been to that first site a few times in my travels. There's one photo he took that's from the Wild Maus...

I'll have to check out that Yahoo group, that might be a good lead. Thanks!

[candiedmouth.livejournal.com]

It looks like it's just a standard 'Wild Mouse' style coaster (they're cookie-cutter, as I understand it) - there's one at Playland in Vancouver, Canada that's still in operation that should be easier to get photos of if you need the layout of the track and not the surrounding scenery :)

[kajarainbow.livejournal.com]

Tangential, but that's a very cute animated icon.

[candiedmouth.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I made it myself out of a sketch by http://www.furaffinity.net/user/savannahhorrocks that she did for me last Christmas n.n <3

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I've found a lot about that family of coasters; there's several varieties of the design that happened over the years. At this point I'm mostly looking for photos of the specific installation, to get the right graphics and other memory-cues; each of these seems to end up with different logos and suchlike, none of which fits my vague six-year-old-self's memory of the stuff around that coaster...

[candiedmouth.livejournal.com]

The person who owns this site mentions the Wild Maus briefly in their recollection, and their name at the end of the quote is a mailto - perhaps you could ask them? There are a lot of old photos on the site, they may have more or know where you could get more.

You can see the Maus in the left of this photo by John DeMajo, including the logo and a very spiffy light-up cat perched over the entrance. The full page I got it on is here. One or two of the photos on the page are credited to the New Orleans Public Library; I'm not sure on the Katrina damage as I wasn't following news or much of anything at the time it happened, but if it's still around or they saved some/enough of their resources, they might have something.

Also, for the layout - layout number 2 is the layout for the Wild Maus ride at Palisades, which was supposed to be an exact replica of the Pontchartrain ride.

Additionally, you may be able to glean more information from this page than I could - it also includes a piece on the company that built/imported the Wild Maus at Pontchartrain as well as a few others, and lists the other parks that have/had the same model as Pontchartrain.

Sorry I can't be more helpful @.@ that's just a couple minutes of digging, there...