The old Wild Mouse and the Scamper

I was wondering why the original Wild Mouse had such a short life? It was added in 1959 but was gone by 1963 at the latest. Also was there any difference between the original mouse and the Scamper which was where the matterhorn stands today. Anyone been on these rides? When I was a kid my family describe the mouse as an horribly scary ride and they were sure someone had fallinjg off of it. It was interesting to family see a picture of it and how small it was compared to their stories.

Duane has a cvouple pictures of Scamper but none of the Wild mouse. I scanned him the third one from an old CP souviner booklet. The first pic makes it look like a fairly standard mouse. You get a real good picture of the car in the third picture.

http://www.rcdb.com/ig1782.htm?picture=1

The park going through many changes over the period between the 50's and the 60's. Most of what was added during the 50's seemed to disappear very quickly like the Monorail and many of the other rides. Most of what still exist into the 90s and even today is from the 60s or later. Not sure on the reason, but I'm guessing maybe crowd levels and maybe maintenance has something to do with it. Wasn't it 1965 when CP hit 1 million mark in attendance?

What alway's amazes me about CP, is despite all the changes that has taken place in the park since I was a kid, it still has that certain feel about it that I don't find at other parks.
*** Edited 10/27/2007 4:43:07 AM UTC by cpdad***

Tim - I remember having ridden on the Wild Mouse as a kid. The hills were about the caliber of the Wild Cat ride today, but smaller as I recall. The scary part were the switch backs with their hairpin turns that you would encounter just after the lift hill. In those days, there were only lap bars and the car had a relatively high center of mass, so it leaned thru the curves. To a kid, it seemed as though you were going to be thrown out or the car was going to fall off the track. This, of course, made it thrilling, and probably dangerous enough to force a modification.

There were two types of wooden structure Wild Mouse rides that were common in the US. One was manufactured by Mack (CP's Scamper) and one was Ben Schiff (CP's Wild Mouse). The concept was the same, but the layout and car design differed slightly between the two.

Wild Mouse was removed to build Mill Race, but Scamper lasted until that end of the midway was expanded in 1970. The Wildcat was introduced that season, and I'm sure CP felt it was a more modern, higher capacity ride. By that time Wild Mouse rides were starting to disappear everywhere and were considered an old fashioned thrill.

I rode Scamper many times, but for some reason never got on Wild Mouse. (I wasn't doing many "big" rides in 63) I thought Scamper was extremely scary, the hairpin turns were much more effective than those on newer versions today.

For fun, check out Broadway Trip, a Mack portable mouse-style ride that appeared at CP for one season only. RCDB lists it as 1964, but I know for sure I rode it the summer of 66. We spent a weekend that summer with family friends from Sandusky who had a boat at the CP Marina. They had a son my age and the two of us ran the park by ourselves and had a blast. It was also my first time on Scamper, Zugspitz, Earthquake, and, for our last ride at night, front seat on Blue Streak. That started it all!

http://www.rcdb.com/ig2362.htm?picture=1

I had never heard of the Broadway Trip, don't remember seeing it on any old CP map or brochure and I have a lot of them. Where was it? I can't tell from the photo. Maybe back on the beach? I remember the old electric go karts in the near beach part of the park. I actually thought I had dreamed that ride existed until I saw pictures on a link here.

From what I've been told, it was located at or near the current games area next to Maxair.

If I remember correctly, Broadway Trip was just behind Pagoda, between it and Cedar Links and I think Sky Slide came along the following year and took it's place. There's a photo of it in Town Hall, but it's not a picture of when it was at Cedar Point, so no telling there. The spiral lift was unique, the hills were ok, and the interior portion was nothing but switchbacks to the end. The facade made the ride seem glamorous with the starlets and all, but there was no scenery at all on the interior, and the walls were just tent canvas so lots of light leaked in. I remember thinking it was nothing more than a cheap carnival ride. Maybe it was better in there after dark.