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PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - It’s the epic conclusion to a trilogy 30 years in the making.
“Don’t Stand Up” (The sign on the Racer rollercoaster) is the third installment of WQED Producer Rick Sebak's trip to Kennywood in 1988.
It all started with his most popular documentary, “Kennywood Memories” and now over 30 years later Sebak thought it would be fun to go back and look at the footage once again and that turned into a second program, “That Kennywood Summer” (released earlier this year).
Sebak tells KDKA Radio’s Larry and John they had to digitize almost 40 hours of old tapes and figured since “That Kennywood Summer” did so well they’d make one more program.
“While all that is digitized and in the computer system, let’s do another half hour because I knew there was at least another half hour.”
He lovingly calls it the “unexpected trilogy”.
After the release of “That Kennywood Summer” Sebak says multiple people contacted him saying they saw themselves or a deceased loved one during the show and that one story stood out.
“I did a little montage of ride operators, college kids talking about working at Kennywood and one of them was a guy at the train his name is Paul Kuszaj, he said something like ‘I look on it as an educational experience because you have to learn how to deal with all kinds of people in all kinds of situations’ and I thought that was kind of fun so I put that in that little montage,” said Sebak. “His family, actually I think it’s his niece, contacted me and she said our family exploded last night because uncle Paul died seven years ago . . . and she said we were just so excited, is there more? And I said yes I have a whole interview with him and there are some good things in it and that really gave me the 'oomph' to say let’s do another and I’ll do a whole little story with Paul.”
The program also features “historian Charles J. Jacques Jr. on the Racer and the Auto Ride, along with familiar characters like Beth Snodgrass at the Wave Swinger, and maintenance men Bryan Bartley and Geno Chamboredon at the old shuttle-loop coaster called the Laser Loop.”
Sebak says his next project will focus on an interview he did with Fred Rogers 30 years ago.
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