At Knott's, Snoopy Is Trying To Keep Pace With Mickey

ANAHEIM, Calif. - Also moving with the trend toward more participatory theme park attractions, Knott's Berry Farm is constructing four rides that will allow visitors to jump on air mattresses, climb on trucks and honk horns.

The rides, scheduled to be completed by May 1, will be in the north side of Camp Snoopy, where the "Tubs of Fun" ride was before closing this month.

The attractions will include a bus that swings 20 feet in the air, trucks that children can ride, a spinning ride called the Log Peeler, and Snoopy's Bounce, an inflated mattress 25 feet in diameter.

Overseeing it all will be a 38-foot-tall rendering of Snoopy himself.

In designing the new rides, Knott's attempted to make them attractive for children and their parents.

Other Camp Snoopy rides are geared solely for children.

Knott's also plans a summer-long celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the six-acre Camp Snoopy, which strives to replicate the High Sierra, with waterfalls, 15,000 trees and plants, a petting zoo and lodge.

Knott's declined to discuss the cost of the additions but said it was considerably less than the $5 million the park spent on Boomerang, a roller coaster that opened in 1990.

Last year, Knott's opened Indian Trails, a Native American Village and cultural center, and the Thomas Edison Inventors Workshop, which is in Camp Snoopy. Both allow visitors to interact with displays.

Theme parks have been trying to make their attractions more participatory, rather than merely providing traditional experiences where visitors sit in conveyances while things happen around them.