History Television Shoot
June 30, 2005

The following photos are captured from the video available from the Virtual Wonderland Page or by clicking here .

Things That Move is twelve fast-paced half-hour episodes focusing on unique machines which examine the struggles, triumphs, and sometimes failures of its history. One of the episodes is about Roller Coasters and the Reid family was approached by the episodes' director, Brenda Kovrig, to participate.

The host of the series is Jeff Douglas or maybe better known as the "I am Canadian" guy from the very popular Molson Canadian beer commercials a few years back.  This opening scene from this Roller Coaster episode was actually the last scene that the crew shoot at the Wonderland at the end of the day.  Even though we had finished our shooting earlier in the afternoon we returned to the park later that evening and ran into the crew in front of The Bat.

This is were you first see the Reids in the episode but is was not the first scene that we shoot. We actually did the Wonderland parking scene first but more on that later. This was about 9:30 AM and we had to close the blinds and re-set the alarm clock to an earlier time. Can you spot the blooper here?  Kevin does not go to bed with his eye glasses on. We re-shoot this scene with the eye glasses off but I guess this was the better take. I wonder why us brushing our teeth did not make the cut?

The Director, Brenda, really liked Adam's roller coaster themed room and made a special trip out to Newmarket to see the room. Brenda's interest was first peaked when she saw the themed room on the site.

Yes! Nolan does normally slide down the railing like this so Brenda wanted to keep this action in the scene. Donna never participates in the roller coaster/park t-shirts thing and refused to wear one for the shoot. But the Reid boys were quite willing to sport our Wonderland attire.

The idea here was to show how early we get to the park. Notice how empty the parking is? This can only be done if you get to the park as soon as the parking lot opens at 8:30 AM. Trust me we never get there that early. Park opens at 10:00 AM and we also never park on this side of the parking lot. Kevin didn't have time to clean the Chevy Equinox properly so we just ran it through a car wash the night before. Kevin Normally has our cars much cleaner than above.

Here we are doing are best impression of "National Lampoon's Vacation" Griswolds family. Running to the front gate at 8:30 AM even though it doesn't open until 10:00 AM. Unlike Wally World the park was open for the day and not closed for renovations.

I guess by the title here we really know who star of this segment was? They keep on asking Kevin if he felt he was "obsessed" with this roller coaster thing. You can also see that Donna kept to her strict "no roller coaster t-shirt policy for me".

Here we are legally line jumping to ride The Fly through the exit. Kevin should of left his camera and fanny pack in the Equinox because you can see this bump on his hump when coming on to ride The Fly. We rode about three times to enable the crew to get the right amount of footage.

Under great pressure and persuasion they finally got Kevin to admit that he was truly "obsessed".

Ready? Eyes straight ahead and don't look at the camera.

Almost at the top of the Fly's lift hill. Now remember those seat positions that is Adam and Donna closet to the camera.

At the crest of the Fly's 50ft first drop keep remembering those seating positions.

Through the magic of editing we switched sides. If you look real close you will see that The Fly's logo is a mirror image. I guess for television this reverse image was better. We didn't really notice this reversal but Nolan picked up on it the very first time he saw it in October 2005.

Of course this is how the Reids finish every coaster ride with a round of appreciating applause. Well wouldn't you? This is Canada's Wonderland one of the best seasonal theme parks in the world.

Because that is what we like to do!

http://www.historytelevision.ca