The subsidiary became a part of Viacom after the latter acquired Paramount Communications in 1994. When Viacom split in 2005, Paramount Parks was reorganized under CBS Corporation, and the following year, CBS Corporation sold all Paramount Parks' assets to Cedar Fair for $1.24 billion. Cedar Fair later merged with Six Flags in 2024.
Paramount Communications, previously known as Gulf+Western, entered discussions with KECO in April 1992 to purchase the company. The sale was completed by August 1992, which was part of a larger $400 million transaction that included the purchase of Kings Island from American Financial. Paramount, which did not have any prior amusement park experience, became the fourth-largest park operator in the country. KECO Chairman and CEO Nelson Schwab retained his roles following the acquisition. Paramount also bought out the remaining 80-percent ownership stake in Canada's Wonderland in 1993, raising their portfolio to five parks.
The parks were part of Viacom's Blockbuster Entertainment division until 2002 when they were moved back to Paramount Pictures. After another Viacom corporate shuffle in 2004 the parks became part of Viacom Recreation, a division of Nickelodeon and MTV Networks.
On December 31, 2005, as Viacom went through a corporate split (creating a new version of Viacom and renaming the original company CBS Corporation), Paramount Parks was assigned to CBS Corporation. CBS Corporation, in order to "toss overboard" any unnecessary company assets, sought to sell the parks during the 2006 season, planning to continue their operation until a buyer was found. Cedar Fair, owners of more well known Cedar Point and Knott's Berry Farm theme parks approached the company in 2006. Within the acquisition, there was a license for ten years of use of the Paramount prefix on the parks and Paramount properties at the former Paramount parks, and a four-year license for the use of Nickelodeon names and properties. Cedar Fair opted to remove all mentions of Paramount and Paramount intellectual properties by mid-2007. The only references to a Viacom property remaining were the characters and titles used in Nickelodeon Universe (Kings Island) and Nickelodeon Central (Kings Dominion, Carowinds, Great America, and Canada's Wonderland), all of which were rethemed to Peanuts for the 2010 season, to match the children's areas of Cedar Fair's other parks.
Properties
The following properties refer to all properties that operated upon Paramount Parks' dissolution on June 30, 2006.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Taft Broadcasting created a division called KECO Entertainment (King's Entertainment Company), which was formed in order to build theme parks nationwide.[citation needed] In 1972 and 1975, KECO built Kings Island and Kings Dominion respectively. In 1975, KECO led a forced purchase on the Carowinds Corporation, a bankrupt company, leaving them no choice but to sell Carowinds theme park in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1981, KECO opened Canada's Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada.
In 1984, hotel company Marriott, owner of two parks named Great America, was looking to divest itself of its parks. One of the parks was located in Silicon Valley in the exurbs of San Francisco and the other was located in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. The California park was purchased by KECO, while the Illinois Park became part of the Six Flags chain.
In 1992, after 22 years of international operations, KECO Entertainment sold five of their parks to Paramount Communications (which was later purchased by Viacom). The remaining property, Australia's Wonderland, was not fully owned by Kings Entertainment and the minor stake they owned was sold to various Australian investor groups as the stake was not opted to be purchased by Paramount. Subsequently, in 1993, the "Paramount's" prefix was added to the parks, excluding Canada's Wonderland, which was renamed to "Paramount Canada's Wonderland", to avoid the use of a double possessive noun. Thus, the first five parks of the Paramount Parks were established: Paramount's Kings Island, Paramount's Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, Paramount's Carowinds, and Paramount Canada's Wonderland.
In 2000, Paramount Parks purchased the majority of shares in Spanish theme park Terra Mitica (Land of Myth), branding it Terra Mitica: A Paramount Park. In 2004, Viacom dropped its shares in the park, and the name was reverted without the Paramount suffix.
In contrast to their predecessors, Paramount Parks introduced more elaborate theming to its rides and attractions, a practice typically associated with major theme parks like Walt Disney World. Rides such as Tomb Raider: The Ride and The Italian Job: Stunt Track at Kings Island were indoor, highly themed, immersive rides with synchronized musical scores and Hollywood special effects.
Following Cedar Fair's purchase of the Paramount Parks' properties, each park began removing Paramount branding from their rides and attractions. In many cases, this only required a name change, although heavily themed rides would need to undergo more significant changes to remove special effects, including musical scores that would play during the ride or in ride queues.
The Italian Job: Stunt Track at Canada's Wonderland, Kings Dominion, and Kings Island were all renamed Backlot Stunt Coaster.
Tomb Raider: The Ride at Kings Island and Tomb Raider: FireFall at Kings Dominion were both renamed The Crypt. Both were eventually removed altogether.
The roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland that was named Tomb Raider: The Ride was renamed Time Warp.
The go-kart rides named Days of Thunder were renamed Thunder Alley.
The Nickelodeon and Hanna-Barbera children's areas in all of the parks remained intact until after the 2009 season, when they were renamed Planet Snoopy, themed to Charles "Sparky" Schulz's Peanuts characters.
There were two Wayne's World themed lands at Kings Dominion and Carowinds. While Hurler continues to operate at Carowinds, its Kings Dominion counterpart was rebuilt by Rocky Mountain Construction and reopened in 2018 as Twisted Timbers.
One of the most notable changes happened to Kings Island's $20 million indoor Tomb Raider: The Ride, which needed to have its special effects removed, including its highly themed pre-show based on the film. In addition, its water effects, lasers, Hollywood lighting, musical score, artificial fog, and flame effects were all removed and not replaced. On the other hand, The Crypt at Kings Dominion, which was more lightly themed to the film, retained many of its effects including lighting, fog, and flames.
