Post by Robert on Apr 23, 2009 2:31:19 GMT -5
If Bill Tracy was alive today, he would be 93! His business would have closed sooner or later no matter what happened to him. What exactly is left of his business? It went from ODD in the early 60's to ADA in the late 60's to This Is, Inc. following his passing in Aug 1974, and at some point Jim Melonic got involved and called his company Fantasies and Dreams, now JMM Studios. There is also Eric Princz's Creative Design and Engineering in South NJ and Lou Nasti's company in NY. There were lots of other now-defunct dark ride prop makers besides Bill Tracy, there's articles about them on Laff in the Dark. There was also Fred Mahana in Wildwood, NJ who built Morey's Haunted House, Nickels' Castle Dracula, etc. He passed in 1999. Also, there's Jack and Wayne Seddon who worked for Tracy and did their own work. Are there former Tracy employees alive today? What about Eli Lashley who helped with Castle Dracula? Wildwood was like Disneyland in the early 80's with all it's dark rides, haunted attractions, every pier had 'em back then. There were like 15 or so different attractions in 1980. Now, there's 5. Morey's four, and Zombie World on the boardwalk. And Dorney Park, at least they do haunts now for October. Sort of keeps the Tracy spirit alive at Dorney Park. They have a Tracy skeleton horse that they display in a western-themed outdoor haunt. All the original Tracy attractions at Dorney are gone, the last one to go was the closed Gold Mine under the arcade in the old Dorney house, it closed 1985 and was torn down fall 2005. The Journey old mill razed 1992-1993 off season, and Iceberg/Meteorite after 1993. Does anyone know what the final attraction was built while Tracy was alive? The Rehoboth Haunted Mansion, was that inspired by Bill Tracy's ideas, Jim Melonic's company built it in 1977-1978.