TY  - JOUR
A1  - Carlà-Uhink, Filippo
A1  - Freitag, Florian
T1  - Theme Park Imitations
BT  - the Case of Happy World (Happy Valley Beijing)
JF  - Cultural History
N2  - Theme parks frequently draw not only on historical themes, from antiquity to the roaring twenties, but also on their own history – that is, the history of the medium of the theme park itself. This article uses the example of the Happy World ride at Happy Valley Beijing (China) to discuss theme park imitations, that is, the fact that theme parks frequently borrow individual elements (themes, technologies, visuals, layouts, names) and/or entire units (rides, restaurants, themed areas) from each other. Opened in 2014 in the Greek-themed Aegean Harbour section of Happy Valley Beijing, Happy World may upon first sight look like an almost exact copy of Disney’s ‘it’s a small world’ (opened at Disneyland in California in 1966) but turns out to be, upon closer examination, a complex refunctionalization of central elements of ‘it’s a small world’ that establishes meaningful connections between (ancient) Greece and the city of Beijing via the theme of the Olympic Games: drawing on the origins of ‘it’s a small world’ in the 1964–5 New York World’s Fair and the latter’s motto of ‘Peace through Understanding’, Happy World takes visitors on a journey from the ancient Olympiad to contemporary Beijing (the site of the 2008 Summer and the 2022 Winter Olympic Games) to offer a theme park rendition of the 2008 Olympic torch relay as an homage to ‘the spirit [of peace, respect, and friendship] in the people’s [sic] of the world’.
KW  - China
KW  - Disney
KW  - Happy Valley
KW  - ‘it’s a small world’
KW  - imitation
KW  - Olympic Games
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3366/cult.2022.0267
SN  - 2045-290X
SN  - 2045-2918
VL  - 11
IS  - 2
SP  - 181
EP  - 198
PB  - Edinburgh University Press
CY  - Edinburgh
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Cromwell, Jennifer
A1  - Brück, Alexander
A1  - Unceta Gómez, Luis
A1  - Carlà-Uhink, Filippo
A1  - Freitag, Florian
A1  - Hanisch, Xenia
A1  - Dix, Sophie
A1  - Klohr, Silvia
A1  - Brilke, Clara
A1  - Klooster, Jacqueline
A1  - Fischer, Jens
A1  - Loconte, Riccardo
A1  - Weiß, Adrian
A1  - Vitello, Eugenia
ED  - Ambühl, Annemarie
ED  - Carlà-Uhink, Filippo
ED  - Rollinger, Christian
ED  - Walde, Christine
T1  - Spring Issue
T2  - thersites
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.34679/thersites.vol14
SN  - 2364-7612
VL  - 2022
IS  - 14
ER  - 
TY  - BOOK
A1  - Carlà-Uhink, Filippo
A1  - Freitag, Florian
A1  - Anton Clavé, Salvador
A1  - Böger, Astrid
A1  - Clément, Thibaut
A1  - Lukas, Scott
A1  - Mittermeier, Sabrina
A1  - Molter, Céline
A1  - Paine, Crispin
A1  - Schwarz, Ariane
A1  - Staszak, Jean-Francois
A1  - Steinkrüger, Jan-Erik
A1  - Widmann, Torsten
T1  - Key concepts in theme park studies
BT  - understanding tourism and leisure spaces
N2  - This book offers a comprehensive, multidisciplinary introduction to theme parks and the field of theme park studies. It identifies and discusses relevant economic, social, and cultural as well as medial, historical, and geographical aspects of theme parks worldwide, from the big international theme park chains to smaller, regional, family-operated parks. The book also describes the theories and methods that have been used to study theme parks in various academic disciplines and reviews the major contexts in which theme parks have been studied. By providing the necessary backgrounds, theories, and methods to analyze and understand theme parks both as a business field and as a socio-cultural phenomenon, this book will be a great resource to students, academics from all disciplines interested in theme parks, and professionals and policy-makers in the leisure and entertainment as well as the urban planning sector.
Y1  - 2023
SN  - 978-3-031-11131-0
SN  - 978-3-031-11132-7
SN  - 978-3-031-11134-1
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11132-7
PB  - Springer
CY  - Cham
ER  -