Sabrina's Brochure Spotlight: Joyland Amusement Park 2002

I always enjoy a good mystery. There's a certain sense of gratification that comes with solving them. But when it came to tracking down a year for this brochure, my gratification was incomplete! Ultimately I decided to go with the copyright date, but I have reason to believe that it is suspect. Let's investigate!

When I first laid eyes on this brochure cover, I thought for sure that it must have come straight out of an Adam Sandler movie. First they tell you to "wet your pants", then they follow it up by saying, "It's just cool!" Is Joyland in cahoots with Pampers?!

But a bit of research revealed that there is a logical explanation for all of these things. This particular brochure was the product of a partnership between Amusement Today and TL Creative Design. According to TL Creative Design's web site, the slogan "It's Just Cool" was developed to promote the "new" Wild River log flume (pictured here), which made its debut at Joyland in 2001.

Wait, 2001? The copyright on the back of the brochure clearly states 2002! That's the first half of the mystery. But in order to get a photo of a ride for a brochure cover, that ride needs to be open. And back in 2001, it was still under construction! So unless this photo is an imposter, it stands to reason that this brochure must have been printed no earlier than 2002.

I've never had the pleasure of visiting Joyland, but I'm a real sucker for quaint traditional parks so I'm sure I would love it! Not to be confused with the other park by the same name in Wichita, this Joyland is still very much alive and well in Lubbock, Texas and it features some great throwback rides. For instance, the Mad Mouse is a Herschell model that was relocated from Bell's Amusement Park back in the '70s. Heck, this park even has a Skyride and those have become rarities in recent years.

[*Note that there is yet another Wild River photo on this page--Score 2 for the 2002 theory!]

Here we see even more photos of Joyland's classic mix of rides, including the aforementioned Skyride. The Train, Big Splash, Whip, Rock-O-Plane, and Galaxi coaster round out this collection.

And of course, there's that notorious dated copyright notice at the bottom of the last page! What you may not be able to see, however, is that the operating calendar is a sticker which has been placed on top of the calendar that was actually printed on this brochure. Typically such measures are only taken when a park wishes to reuse an existing brochure from a previous year... HMMMMM... Could this actually be a 2003 brochure? Or even later? We may never know, because that calendar contains no actual dates! (In fact, it doesn't even make sense if you look at it closely. Each month has four rows instead of five!) This one is a tough nut to crack for sure.

I have yet to develop a system of applying dates to brochures when the same one is used multiple times, so I'm not going to think too hard about this one. But I'll tell you this much: If Joyland did in fact resurrect this brochure for multiple seasons, I have no doubt that it was due to the popularity of the "wet your pants" slogan!