First of all, THANKS for making this. Now, if you had interviewed me, I could have given you a lot more info. I'm impressed that you managed to find photos that are in an album in a box in my storage unit in New Orleans that I didn't know were even scanned, much less put online. I guess I did it and just forgot. I have a ton more I could have given you, including King Louie on a six foot unicycle. OK, so the first King Louie costume looked more like a muskrat than a lion or a king. The sunglasses broke and had to be sewn on in 1991. 1992 was the last year for that costume and the new one arrived in the winter for the 1993 season. The biggest difference apart from a brand new head and the other things you mentioned is that the old King Louie had a round belly and the new one had a flat belly and shoulder pads. It was designed to fit me at 6'3". With the crown, King Louie was quite tall. There were actually two identical costumes and two of us performing. We would take turns as the escort and performer as well as taking turns performing in the stage show. Thank God those songs are lost to history because we hated singing the same ones year after year. The versions of the costume with the Hawaiin skirt, hat, and swim trunks were exclusively for employee parties at Hurricane Bay. It was a mix of the old fur suit (trimmed down belly) and the new head. I pieced it together without my boss knowing and he was quite surprised. Yes, the crown was removable and I replaced it with the palm leaf hats. Hawaiian Louie was never seen in public, just my photos from the employee parties. In the Six Flags era when Seth stealthly obtained the costume, that's all he was able to recover: the old fur suit with the new head, not the new jacket or the feet (which is why the Save My Park version of Louie had a cape and clown shoes) and gave it to me as a birthday gift. I kept the head as a trophy everywhere I lived from the late 90's to 2013. I wore it in public twice, once for Mardi Gras Louisville, a parade after Hurricane Katrina and to a Halloween party at Fourth St. Live. At the time, Kentucky Kingdom was a Six Flags park and King Louie was history. You are right about the meeting at the pizza restaurant. As we gathered and discussed strategy, I quietly announced that I had King Louie, at least most of him. We used the presence of King Louie at the parade, at the rally, and when Ed Hart came to tour the park (the suit coat - King Louie was applying to get his old job back. We even printed up resumes and gave them to the press and Mr. Hart). When the park reopened in 2014, Seth and I were both hired back, along with Rob and John. I performed as King Louie at all the opening weekend and press events, and trained new performers. We had sent the head off to a mascot costume company out of town and they rebuilt a body for it, but made it for short people. That's why we had to reretrofit it for me. I can't believe you found the specs we submitted to management for the work on the costume. I know I didn't put those on facebook. Anyway, the new costume with the old, original 1993 head looked great in 2014. That's the one that was in all the news clips from the park reopening. I contacted the UofL cardinal bird, also named Louie, through a cheerleader friend and we took a tour of the park together, including a ride on the Giant Ferris Wheel. I was only around for the spring and first part of the summer after training new, younger performers. So the new head with the bad haircut and eyes opened up wider - I don't know anything about that. I suspect some mascot costume shop was tasked with re-creating the head and did a lousy job. I miss King Louie. He was literally a part of me during two different times in my life. I still have dreams sometimes of performing.
Here’s why the roadrunner costume is dangerous. So mascots are costumes people wear to look like a character and looney tunes are no exception but once a person dresses up they need to be hidden but not too hidden so they can see so there are some areas with some netting that prevent people from seeing a person in the costume but allows the person inside to see. So the roadrunner has a weird body shape you can’t just make the costume with the proportions of a human but roadrunners neck is super skinny and tall so you can’t person can’t fit inside it so they put the performer in the tail but that beings a few issues. First the view is hard to look out since roadrunners head is in front of the performers view so it’s hard to get a look around the are since of limited visibility and the roadrunners head it’s kinda easy to make mistakes like tripping and bumping into people in addition to that if you fall you can not get up and I’m not making that up you can’t pick your self up because the design makes you arms in the tail not the wings so it’s impossible to get up on your own. I got this information from pair of koopa who is a chuck e Cheese TH-camr but in a looney tunes costume training video he mentioned working at 6 flags as a costume character and one he preformed as was the roadrunner and he didn’t like it due to the issues I mentioned
14:32 I used to be a character at six flags méxico … road runner was the most unconfortable of all the mascots… because you can not move your arms and the sight was too little and in front of your eyes you have the road runner’s head …
The Halloween character with the corncob pipe and jug: that was meant to be a moonshiner from the mountains of eastern Kentucky thus tying in with the story behind the park’s Thunder Run rollercoaster. Also, the ghost with glasses was named, George, and meant to slightly resemble the famous comic, George Burns. At one time there was another ghost, Gracie, that resembled his comic partner back in the 1940s and 50’s.
3:20 the chain on the pocket is designed to be connected to a pocket watch. And the chain is so if the owner accidentally drops / it slips out of the hand, it would dangle rather than hit the ground or worse.
Here's another interesting story for you: In 1995 the budget for the Entertainment department got slashed and there were no longer dedicated King Louie performers nor appearances in the park, except on stage; and he was performed by the YPAS singers and dancers. One of those was Nicole Scherzinger who went on to become the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls among other notable achievements. As she grew in celebrity status, buried in her resume was having performed as King Louie. In the fall of 2013 I was contacted by a talk show in England. She was in the UK as a judge on the British X Factor and being interviewed on their equivalent of The Tonight Show. They wanted to fly me and the costume to London to be on the show and surprise her. I couldn't make the trip, but I shipped the costume to the producers in London and they got some intern to wear it. Nicole was completely shocked and blown away to see old King Louie in the studio with her in London on national TV. A few years ago I ran into her at a Mardi Gras party in New Orleans. We reminisced about when we worked at the park together and I told her the story of shipping the costume to England, the Save My Park campaign and the reopening of Kentucky Kingdom in 2014.
14:51 That's because that's Keith Scott as Bugs Bunny in that show. He's a voice actor from Australia who is best known for voicing Bullwinkle; in fact, he not only voiced Bugs but all the characters in that show. He probably has to be my least favorite voice actor when it comes to voicing characters like Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, Tweety, etc. Most likely because he does a terrible job of hiding his accent when voicing said characters. When voicing Bullwinkle on the hand, is when I think he's at his best
Lemme just say one thing... I don't know where my slight obsession with mascot costumes comes from, but I can't tell you how much it brings me joy that there are channels like yours out here doing video essays on the history of mascot characters like Louie. My first video of yours was the Chuck E. Cheese one and it instantly drew me in because I am currently working at CEC and get to walk around as Chuck E.! (I've posted a few videos if you're interested in checkin' it out) Also, I'm not sure why, but I'm beginning to become attached to this version of the Bugs Bunny costume. 13:48 It's so smooth and simple... 🤩 Just had to throw in useless information about some random in the comments. Also, keep up the great work! 👌
Kentucky kingdom season holder here. I have been threw all of the parks stuff and was one of my first places I had my freedom. But this park means more to me then u think
One of those pictures of Sylvester the cat could have been my cousin. I’m glad I watched this took me back to a simpler time I miss when it was six flags
@@NathanSpies probably that and also vision issues, it looks like the performer's head would be in his back with the actual roadrunner head kinda blocking their face
@Pikachu Hutch no, I didn’t do Bowling Green yet I did Louisville. Mouse Jam! Should be out soon! And yes I’ve seen space jam 2 and I think it doesn’t deserve the hate
Six flags purchased great adventure in 1978 not 1984, also mariots great America, a park in Illinois got purchased by six flags in 1984, had the looney tunes incense, when six flags bought the park, it allowed them to use the looney tunes in there other parks, similarhow when cedar fair bought the park knots berry farm in 1997 it allowed them to use the peanuts in there other parks like cedar point and Dorsey park
Hey Nathan Spies, did you know that this show Animaniacs, had some of their characters at six flags from the 1990s until 2000. Credit to @The PrimeStone Amusements on one of his posts about it.
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Hey Nathan Spices do a chuck-e-cheese animatronic evolution and the chuck e cheese title
You’re welcome
Congrats anything for my inspiration
You're welcome 🎉 I'm definitely subscribing
The loony tonns! 12:14
First of all, THANKS for making this. Now, if you had interviewed me, I could have given you a lot more info. I'm impressed that you managed to find photos that are in an album in a box in my storage unit in New Orleans that I didn't know were even scanned, much less put online. I guess I did it and just forgot. I have a ton more I could have given you, including King Louie on a six foot unicycle.
OK, so the first King Louie costume looked more like a muskrat than a lion or a king. The sunglasses broke and had to be sewn on in 1991. 1992 was the last year for that costume and the new one arrived in the winter for the 1993 season. The biggest difference apart from a brand new head and the other things you mentioned is that the old King Louie had a round belly and the new one had a flat belly and shoulder pads. It was designed to fit me at 6'3". With the crown, King Louie was quite tall.
There were actually two identical costumes and two of us performing. We would take turns as the escort and performer as well as taking turns performing in the stage show. Thank God those songs are lost to history because we hated singing the same ones year after year.
The versions of the costume with the Hawaiin skirt, hat, and swim trunks were exclusively for employee parties at Hurricane Bay. It was a mix of the old fur suit (trimmed down belly) and the new head. I pieced it together without my boss knowing and he was quite surprised. Yes, the crown was removable and I replaced it with the palm leaf hats. Hawaiian Louie was never seen in public, just my photos from the employee parties.
In the Six Flags era when Seth stealthly obtained the costume, that's all he was able to recover: the old fur suit with the new head, not the new jacket or the feet (which is why the Save My Park version of Louie had a cape and clown shoes) and gave it to me as a birthday gift. I kept the head as a trophy everywhere I lived from the late 90's to 2013. I wore it in public twice, once for Mardi Gras Louisville, a parade after Hurricane Katrina and to a Halloween party at Fourth St. Live. At the time, Kentucky Kingdom was a Six Flags park and King Louie was history.
You are right about the meeting at the pizza restaurant. As we gathered and discussed strategy, I quietly announced that I had King Louie, at least most of him.
We used the presence of King Louie at the parade, at the rally, and when Ed Hart came to tour the park (the suit coat - King Louie was applying to get his old job back. We even printed up resumes and gave them to the press and Mr. Hart).
When the park reopened in 2014, Seth and I were both hired back, along with Rob and John. I performed as King Louie at all the opening weekend and press events, and trained new performers. We had sent the head off to a mascot costume company out of town and they rebuilt a body for it, but made it for short people. That's why we had to reretrofit it for me. I can't believe you found the specs we submitted to management for the work on the costume. I know I didn't put those on facebook. Anyway, the new costume with the old, original 1993 head looked great in 2014. That's the one that was in all the news clips from the park reopening.
I contacted the UofL cardinal bird, also named Louie, through a cheerleader friend and we took a tour of the park together, including a ride on the Giant Ferris Wheel. I was only around for the spring and first part of the summer after training new, younger performers.
So the new head with the bad haircut and eyes opened up wider - I don't know anything about that. I suspect some mascot costume shop was tasked with re-creating the head and did a lousy job.
I miss King Louie. He was literally a part of me during two different times in my life. I still have dreams sometimes of performing.
Here’s why the roadrunner costume is dangerous. So mascots are costumes people wear to look like a character and looney tunes are no exception but once a person dresses up they need to be hidden but not too hidden so they can see so there are some areas with some netting that prevent people from seeing a person in the costume but allows the person inside to see. So the roadrunner has a weird body shape you can’t just make the costume with the proportions of a human but roadrunners neck is super skinny and tall so you can’t person can’t fit inside it so they put the performer in the tail but that beings a few issues. First the view is hard to look out since roadrunners head is in front of the performers view so it’s hard to get a look around the are since of limited visibility and the roadrunners head it’s kinda easy to make mistakes like tripping and bumping into people in addition to that if you fall you can not get up and I’m not making that up you can’t pick your self up because the design makes you arms in the tail not the wings so it’s impossible to get up on your own. I got this information from pair of koopa who is a chuck e Cheese TH-camr but in a looney tunes costume training video he mentioned working at 6 flags as a costume character and one he preformed as was the roadrunner and he didn’t like it due to the issues I mentioned
14:32 I used to be a character at six flags méxico … road runner was the most unconfortable of all the mascots… because you can not move your arms and the sight was too little and in front of your eyes you have the road runner’s head …
The Halloween character with the corncob pipe and jug: that was meant to be a moonshiner from the mountains of eastern Kentucky thus tying in with the story behind the park’s Thunder Run rollercoaster. Also, the ghost with glasses was named, George, and meant to slightly resemble the famous comic, George Burns. At one time there was another ghost, Gracie, that resembled his comic partner back in the 1940s and 50’s.
That French hat that he used to wear is called a Beret, And I have to say this one looks pretty great on him.
3:20 the chain on the pocket is designed to be connected to a pocket watch. And the chain is so if the owner accidentally drops / it slips out of the hand, it would dangle rather than hit the ground or worse.
Here's another interesting story for you: In 1995 the budget for the Entertainment department got slashed and there were no longer dedicated King Louie performers nor appearances in the park, except on stage; and he was performed by the YPAS singers and dancers. One of those was Nicole Scherzinger who went on to become the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls among other notable achievements. As she grew in celebrity status, buried in her resume was having performed as King Louie.
In the fall of 2013 I was contacted by a talk show in England. She was in the UK as a judge on the British X Factor and being interviewed on their equivalent of The Tonight Show. They wanted to fly me and the costume to London to be on the show and surprise her. I couldn't make the trip, but I shipped the costume to the producers in London and they got some intern to wear it. Nicole was completely shocked and blown away to see old King Louie in the studio with her in London on national TV.
A few years ago I ran into her at a Mardi Gras party in New Orleans. We reminisced about when we worked at the park together and I told her the story of shipping the costume to England, the Save My Park campaign and the reopening of Kentucky Kingdom in 2014.
14:51 That's because that's Keith Scott as Bugs Bunny in that show. He's a voice actor from Australia who is best known for voicing Bullwinkle; in fact, he not only voiced Bugs but all the characters in that show. He probably has to be my least favorite voice actor when it comes to voicing characters like Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, Tweety, etc. Most likely because he does a terrible job of hiding his accent when voicing said characters. When voicing Bullwinkle on the hand, is when I think he's at his best
Lemme just say one thing...
I don't know where my slight obsession with mascot costumes comes from, but I can't tell you how much it brings me joy that there are channels like yours out here doing video essays on the history of mascot characters like Louie. My first video of yours was the Chuck E. Cheese one and it instantly drew me in because I am currently working at CEC and get to walk around as Chuck E.! (I've posted a few videos if you're interested in checkin' it out)
Also, I'm not sure why, but I'm beginning to become attached to this version of the Bugs Bunny costume. 13:48 It's so smooth and simple... 🤩
Just had to throw in useless information about some random in the comments. Also, keep up the great work! 👌
i'm interested in the Roadrunner suit and its potential dangers!
Since Six Flags Might Still Have The Rights Of Looney Tunes, They Should Have Did An Event For The New Looney Tunes Film, Space Jam: A New Legacy
They had the premiere at Magic Mountain, and they even put Space Jam branding on the basketball arcade hoops
Kentucky kingdom season holder here. I have been threw all of the parks stuff and was one of my first places I had my freedom. But this park means more to me then u think
I don’t know why you’re not a bigger channel! Your videos are super informative and interesting! Keep up the good work!
One of those pictures of Sylvester the cat could have been my cousin. I’m glad I watched this took me back to a simpler time I miss when it was six flags
Kentucky Kingdom even though it wasn’t my cup of tea I had a lot of memories of the place.
As someone who doesn't know anything about Kentucky, this is gonna be a banger (it was).
Yes I would love to see history videos on the Harlem globetrotters mascots and the Frisch's big boy mascot.
Bugs' voice was Billy West for that show
You need to do a history video of the mascots at Kings Island or Coney Island
Can you do the history of the Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings in Kentucky/Long Island
imagine the position the road runner performer had to be in
Every six flags video dating back to the late 2000s mentions Mr six or shows the commercial
Fun fact. Jennifer Lawrence played one of the characters during the six flags era.
Who did she play
@@wrestlingandamusementparkl7789 tweety bird
@@jeremyandrews3567 interesting didn’t know that
Old timey train conductors had a pocket watch on a jewelry chain.
Maybe than gnome was a Kentucky Hillbilly.
The chain thing on Casey Jones is a watch, the chain is connected to his pocket
29:27 Bare feet?
14:55 Sounds Like Duncan
My favorite is the looney tunes characters mascots
What about Louie?
14:56 he does sound like Aventure chuck
12:23 um no, it was actually with the accusation of Great America Six flags got the Looney Tunes
King Louie Reminds Me Of The King From Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theatre
King Louis looks stoned! And Louisville is a really rough place these days
the cain on the bear mascot cain is a pocket watch
11:12 That announcer sounds a lot like Phil Hartman.
We need something on cardinal stadium
Please do history of the history from the haunted mansion amatronic
So much to unpack here...
the main mascot kinda looks like king kat from chuck e cheese
Are your videos made in imovie? Massive respect for making such high quality videos with just an app
My favorite is the lion king
Another great video as always!
You probably dont wanna respond lol, but whats the song in the begginig?
I honestly don’t know the name of the song, I just chose some royalty free carnival/amusement park music
@@NathanSpies okay, thank you
Kind of similar of avenger becoming Rockstar
My cousin was Sylvester the cat before they closed in 2007/2008
I have one question what happened to the looney tunes characters in Kentucky Kingdom
I believe they were sent to different Six Flags parks around the US
@@NathanSpies okay thanks
There’s one in California.
You forgot scooby doo and shaggy
I’m pretty sure kentucky kingdom never had those costumes
Scooby-Doo
Does king Louie ever open his eyes fully?
Can you do sonic the Sega mascot history
32:12 I would like for you to make a video of that I'm begging you
0:04 Song Name?
My favorite is king Louie and bugs bunny
I wanna see bugs bunny dance on stage of course
I love that King Louie!
I wonder why the Road Runner mascot was so dangerous? 14:14
Balancing issues
@@NathanSpies makes sence
My favorite mascot is King louie
Me too
I love the popular looney toons cast.
Never knew that
Why was the Roadrunner costumes so dangerous
Balancing issues
Oh
@@NathanSpies probably that and also vision issues, it looks like the performer's head would be in his back with the actual roadrunner head kinda blocking their face
do more chuck e cheese please
Such a amazing video!
So what history video will be next?
Chuck E. Cheese in Bowling Green Kentucky
@@NathanSpies You already did that. Also when is mouse jam coming? Also have you seen space jam: A new legacy?
@Pikachu Hutch no, I didn’t do Bowling Green yet I did Louisville. Mouse Jam! Should be out soon! And yes I’ve seen space jam 2 and I think it doesn’t deserve the hate
@@NathanSpies I agree!!!
@@NathanSpies Why though? I thought people like it.
Very nice video!
1:57 it looks like a garden/theme park hybrid
It’s KING LUOIS!!!!!!!
Six flags purchased great adventure in 1978 not 1984, also mariots great America, a park in Illinois got purchased by six flags in 1984, had the looney tunes incense, when six flags bought the park, it allowed them to use the looney tunes in there other parks, similarhow when cedar fair bought the park knots berry farm in 1997 it allowed them to use the peanuts in there other parks like cedar point and Dorsey park
That’s what happens when I read Wikipedia!
I love big boys there food is delicious
16:07
Nice
Hey Nathan Spies, did you know that this show Animaniacs, had some of their characters at six flags from the 1990s until 2000.
Credit to @The PrimeStone Amusements on one of his posts about it.
❤️💛🙏🏾🙏🏾.
Ooooooo
Nice