Six Flags Magic Mountain is a theme park located in Santa Clarita, California north of Los Angeles. It opened on May 29, 1971 as Magic Mountain. In 1979, Six Flags purchased the park and added the name Six Flags to the park's title. In 2009, 2.5 million visitors visited the park.
When the park opened, there were 500 employees and 33 attractions, many of which were designed and built by Arrown Development Co. which designed and built many of the original attractions at Disneyland. The admission price in 1971 was $5 for adults, and $3.50 for children between the ages of 3 and 12.
In the 1971 season, Magic Mountain obtained permission from Warner Bros. to use the Looney Tunes cartoon characters. However, the park did not begin using these characters for nearly ten years. Instead, in 1972, they began using trolls as the park mascots. The trolls King Blop, also known as King Troll, Bleep, Bloop, and the Wizard became recognizable symbols of Magic Mountain. All King Productions, a contractor, provided the entertainers wearing the costumes until December 31, 1972, when Magic Mountain took on that role. The characters were used until 1985.
The opening drop on Goliath. Goliath featured the longest drop on a closed circuit roller coaster when it opened in February 2000. In 1979 the park was sold to Six Flags and became known as Six Flags Magic Mountain in 1980. In 1981, Six Flags Magic Mountain introduced a ride that was on the west coast for the first time called Roaring Rapids.
On June 22, 2006, Six Flags, Inc. announced that it was exploring options for six of its parks, including Magic Mountain. Though management said closing the park was unlikely, rumors still began that the park could be sold to real estate developers, with an intent to close the park and build housing developments in the area. Park officials cited dwindling attendance and rowdy behavior among some of the park-goers (notably teenagers and young adults, who account for a large percentage of the park's attendance) as reasons for wanting to sell the park while management was wanting to move Six Flags into more of a family park direction. The decrease in attendance may be due in part to the fact that the park raised its ticket prices by $10 to $60 for the 2006 season, as well as increasing the price of parking to $15. Throughout the Six Flags chain, attendance in the second quarter of 2006 was 14 percent lower than it was in the second quarter of 2005.
By the fall of 2006 Six Flags announced that Magic Mountain was still up for sale. They also stated, however, that it would be sold to a company that would continue to operate it as a park, and that closing Magic Mountain was not a possibility.
When Six Flags announced which parks it was selling in January 2007, Magic Mountain was no longer one of them. The company decided not to sell Magic Mountain and its adjacent water park. Spokeswoman Wendy Goldberg said that upon further evaluation, the company decided that the Los Angeles parks remained too valuable to relinquish, as sales were increasing, and that the park would not be sold. Other parks were sold as a package and remained open.
In a 2009 Interview with Six Flags President and CEO Mark Shapiro, the Los Angeles Times quoted Shapiro stating that Magic Mountain will be installing a new roller coaster for its 2010 season followed by Wiggles World in 2011. Shapiro also stated that the adjacent Hurricane Harbor would receive an expansion.
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