An Interview with Imagineer Tim Delaney
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LP: Fair enough. Given the history of seaside parks and all you had to chose from, how did you end up with these particular attractions?

TD: There were a couple of things. First of all, we knew that the backbone of the entire land, the whole district, was going to be the coaster. We designed that coaster. Pat Doyle and I sat down to design that coaster from scratch. We actually literally write a script of how we want the coaster to go. Where the high spots are, when the intensity is. We actually designed it so you actually can relax as you go to certain areas.

Then I have to say, regarding the wheel, the Sun Wheel, it’s the only thing I hate to say that I borrowed from New York, from Coney Island. I just said if we’re going to do a Ferris Wheel we've got to do something totally and completely unique. And I’m not a big lover of Ferris Wheels. I find them to be not very interesting. But I said, if I’m ever going to do one, this is the one we’re going to do and it took us a long time to try and find somebody to build one but we did and they did a great job.

The Golden Zephyr
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Then, like for example the Golden Zephyr, the Zephyr is a cable rocket swing ride from the beginning of the 20th century. There were 400 of those in the United States. This one we have here is the only one in North America right now. And what we wanted to do was bring back - a little bit like the Sun Wheel is from New York, that was built in 1927 and most of the rocket the swing cable rides were built like in the 20s. So I wanted to bring back some of those lost rides. More family oriented, just variety, just different.

The Maliboomer
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In terms of the Maliboomer, I just love that ride and it’s proven to be enormously popular. It’s incredibly popular. It is what it is. In both the case of the coaster and the Maliboomer, I’m very, very intrigued about putting our guests on stage, making them part of the show. So for the coaster launch we put it right so it flanks the Boardwalk. You can’t see it now because of all those [media] tents that are out there but usually people hang on that edge and they watch people’s faces. I insisted it must come to a stop, no rolling start. It must come to a dead stop. Sometimes people go, "hey," when it stops then as soon as it starts they’re like "hold on!" It’s funny to see their faces. And the same thing with the Maliboomer. We raised the platform up so you can watch people’s faces.

My feeling about Paradise Pier and all the attractions there is that I consider Paradise Pier one attraction. It’s got a number of rides. My concern with the attractions is everything about it - the music, the sound, the food, the Boardwalk. If you don’t even want to go on the rides you can be entertained because of the energy in that place. And if you want to go on the rides, it’s great fun and it’s great fun for everybody. It’s like it says - "fun under the sun for everyone."

I think the coaster is kind of typical of what we did. I wanted to create something that was a real family Disney thing. It was meant to be fun. It’s not the tallest, not the fastest, not any of those extremes. It’s 6,000 feet long. We want to create it so as soon as you get off you want to ride it again and that’s what we’ve done. I’ve had so many comments, literally hundreds of comments from people who even their little kids, six or seven years old, will ride the thing eight times because it’s so smooth. That’s what we wanted.

To answer your question specifically, I chose rides that I felt would be most appealing to all audiences. After 25 years here, I feel like I know our audience very well and I know what they like and what they want to do. So we tested a lot of things but those are the ones... I wish we had more rides.

LP: Have you been confident this whole time that this park would be able to please Disney guests?

TD: Absolutely, no question in my mind. Absolutely. The reason is because of the combination of the way it’s laid out and the art direction, everything about it. I am also confident because I’ve worked on other parks, other Disney parks, where when you think about the references here in California people reference Disneyland. I love Disneyland. I have pictures of myself here. I love it. It’s just great. But I also know because I worked on Epcot. I worked on all the other parks. There is another quality. It's a different subject but there is the same quality of Disney entertainment. I like Paradise Pier. I knew it would be challenging but I knew we could do it. I knew that there was something there so I had to fight. It’s a fight.

One of the things is when you see that place all lit up at night. I told everybody we’re going to make this place like the city of Oz almost. It has to be so with the rides around you, and it’s something so basically entertaining, fun and energetic about it, that I knew people would love it. They’re going to love it and this is how I felt about this entire California project from the very beginning. Barry [Braverman] and Rick [Rothschild], just the moment we started I was there. I said I want to do this because I knew it would have an impact on Anaheim.