Bunny Slope

Magic Mountain may be known for thrill rides, but when Hortensia Frias of Burbank came with her two young children recently, she planned to spend the whole day in the park’s tame preserve--Bugs Bunny World.

“I wouldn’t come here if they didn’t have the kids section,” Frias said.

While the new roller coaster Goliath is the big draw this spring at Magic Mountain, park officials are thrilled with the success of last year’s big debut. Instead of launching a new twisting, plunging, bone-chilling thrill ride, Magic Mountain rebuilt Bugs Bunny World from the ground up.

The result: a 19% increase in first-time visitors to the park, said Andy Gallardo, a spokesman for Magic Mountain, citing the results of company surveys taken at the main gate.

“We had a very strong year last year, which you can directly relate to the success of Bugs Bunny World,” Gallardo said. “The word of mouth really spread about it. It’s busy morning, noon and night.”

While the park does not release attendance figures, the trade magazine Amusement Business estimated Magic Mountain had a 4% jump in total attendance last year, to 3.2 million. The magazine also attributed the attendance rise--the first at the park since 1994--to the new Bugs Bunny World.

“It’s a big part of the attendance increase,” said Amusement Business editor Tim O’Brien. “Bugs Bunny is their Mickey Mouse and it works well for them.”

Before Bugs Bunny World, the park focused almost exclusively on thrill rides--great for bringing in the teenagers, but cutting the park off from the lucrative family market.

“It was a much-needed improvement,” Gallardo said of the new focus. “There wasn’t a lot parents could do with their kids together.”

The park will build on the Bugs Bunny base this year, adding special events like a kids festival in June that will feature shows and arts and crafts targeted at smaller children.

O’Brien tracks the shift to the 1998 acquisition of Magic Mountain by Oklahoma City-based Premier Parks, a company with a long history of strong attractions for younger children.

“The Magic Mountain marketing had been very teenage, very hip, very young adult,” O’Brien said. “The first thing Premier Parks did was change the marketing.”

Last year, the park pushed Bugs Bunny World hard.

“Families spend more money. Now a lot of families know this is a great place to bring kids,” O’Brien said. “When you advertise for a family, you’re going to get a mom and a dad and a brother and a sister.”

Bugs Bunny World takes up six acres of the park. The heart of the attraction is the Looney Tunes Lodge, which is filled with devices that shoot foam balls in all directions. Gallardo said children seem to have the most fun when they manage to surprise their parents by dropping a large number of foam balls on top of them all at once.

The kids can drive trucks at Taz’s Trucking Co., take a ride in an airplane at Yosemite Sam’s Flight School or go on a bus trip with Daffy Duck.

Bugs Bunny World also features smaller and gentler versions of the rides in the main park, including a 25-foot tall version of Superman and the Canyon Blaster, an extremely mild roller coaster.

The park rebuilt both its carousel and Tweety’s Escape, a longtime favorite at the park that features hanging bird cages.

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Still, Magic Mountain is known above all for its thrill rides--and for attracting teenagers. That is a concern to some parents, said Debbie Haig, a West Hills mother of two who made regular treks to the park as a teen herself.

In 1993, a park riot took more than 400 officers to stop. But the park stepped up security after that, and Haig said she feels safe.

“I think the park has been trying to calm everyone’s fears,” said Haig, who was at the park with her two children, ages 5 and 13.

Gallardo said security is Magic Mountain’s No. 1 priority.

“Our security is probably the most comprehensive and aggressive in the nation,” he said.

Among other measures, Magic Mountain hires off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies assigned to the department’s gang unit to work weekends in the park.

Lt. Carl Deeley of the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station said that considering the size of the park, it has a low incidence of crime. The most frequent arrests made at Magic Mountain are for shoplifting, he said.

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Still, he acknowledged that large numbers of teenagers--some of them gang members--visit the park, especially on weekends. Last year, a teenage boy was stabbed and seriously injured after getting into an argument while in line for a ride.

“On weekend nights there are going to be more young people,” Deeley said. “The big concern is if you have rival gang members showing up at the same time.”

By having the experienced gang officers on site, Deeley said the park has been able to identify gang members who might cause problems.

The park also has its own security team and hires deputies from the Santa Clarita station to patrol the parking lots. In addition, the park has built observation towers to watch for trouble and has installed metal detectors at the park gate.

“There is no tolerance for any nonsense or violence,” Deeley said.

Newhall Land & Farming Co., which built Magic Mountain in the early 1970s and still owns about 500 acres surrounding the park, announced last year that it was in preliminary talks with Premier Parks to develop some of the adjoining land with new attractions, retail shops, hotels and an entertainment complex.

“We’re in the planning stages now for what would be appropriate for us to do with that property,” Newhall Land spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said. “We’ve looked at restaurants, retail, themed entertainment, hospitality and office development.”

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Lauffer said Newhall Land is still doing marketing studies and probably will not announce any plans this year.

Gallardo acknowledged the expansion discussions, but would not go into details.

“There are very preliminary, informal discussions at this time,” he said.