Attractions Experts Q&A: John Hogg

by Kendall Wolf

An art director and production designer in themed entertainment for over 30 years, John Hogg was an assistant art director on Universal’s Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Japan and a principal production designer for Disneyland Paris.

He also consulted for American Scenic Design for the “Escape From Gringotts” ride for Diagon Alley at Universal Studios Orlando and did preliminary work on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter lands for Universal Studios Japan, Universal Studios Hollywood, and Universal Studios Beijing.

What theme park souvenir might we be surprised to find on your shelf? What’s the story behind it?

Well, it’s not exactly a theme park souvenir, but something related to a traveling exhibit: a prototype Quaffle ball we made at Lexington Design and Fabrication for the “Harry Potter, The Tour” traveling exhibition.

It’s quite realistic, looking like dyed and stitched leather (similar to a soccer ball or football) but made as a soft plastic cast using a rotomold process.

What theme park have you always wanted to visit but have never been to?

Europa Park, particularly to ride their free-running Swiss Bob Run ride. The park has quite a history, and the fact that it’s like a backyard catalog showroom for Mack Rides is great. I’d love to see it in winter with some snow on the ground and sample their seasonal hospitality.

Was there a theme park, ride, or attraction that made you want to be in this industry, and how did it inspire you?

In the end, it was Disneyland Paris (at the time called Euro Disneyland) that really did it, though as a small child, my early park experiences/influences were San Francisco Playland, Disneyland, London’s Battersea Park Fun Fair, and later Rye Playland in New York.

In 1987-88, I was finishing up at UCLA’s Theater, Film, and Television department, and Euro Disneyland was being designed at WDI. I’d developed a “jones” for theme park attractions, and a good friend who’d been at school with me was hired by WDI for the project. Working in the industry sounded like it would be really cool, especially on a Paris park.

Admittedly – and especially since having lived in England for a couple of years as a kid – I initially felt that taking a U.S.-style park to Europe was an act of cultural heresy (remember “Cultural Chernobyl?”). But I got over that. After a stint on Pleasure Island for WDI (and a couple other short projects), I was hired as a consulting set designer on the Paris Big Thunder ride and parts of Frontierland – fun fact: Designated as “Westernland” during the design process – then later as a full-time employee working on the new Visionarium show in Discoveryland. The park was an artistic labor of love for the entire team, and I became hooked on the theme park business in the process.

What was your favorite ride or attraction as a child and why?

The Matterhorn at Disneyland – especially once I was old enough to ride it. It has that irresistible combination of a cool ride system clad with great scenery, and it seemed really exotic to me back then.

Being visible from the freeway, the call-out in the car when approaching Disneyland was always “first one to spot the Matterhorn gets a nickel!” Man, I’m dating myself here.

Was there a ride, attraction, or character that frightened you as a child?

If memory serves, it was an old mine walk-through attraction at the Monterey County Fair. I was about four at the time. After entering the mine, you were ushered into a rickety, old elevator for the noisy, shaky descent down the shaft. Being at that very impressionable age, I was convinced we were all going to die. Sometimes, you have to give cheap theatrics a big hand.

What was your oddest or coolest job in a theme park or your company?

Working on the original Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey attraction for Universal Studios Orlando was very exciting. We were doing an attraction with a never-before-utilized ride system with huge potential for a wild ride experience, not to mention the IP overlay was the Harry Potter series. What a combo platter!

In the years following, I did a lot more work on Harry Potter attractions – all very rewarding – but there was a particularly heightened level of anticipation and excitement with the original Forbidden Journey that I’ll never forget.

For me, The Hogwarts Express was more like a graduate research project. I had 150 photographs of the actual machine that were taken by the Harry Potter art department in England, but I also had to contact the British National Railway Museum and get a fundamental drawing of the original 1937 locomotive. There was a lot of figuring out the details from the photographs because the drawing only went so far. I think we did a really good job (and it got refined in Japan and Hollywood). When they did the connector train in Orlando between the two sides of the park, they really mastered it.

They had given us some rather flimsy historical information about a related locomotive, but it turned out to be the wrong British class. If we had used that, it would’ve been similar but not spot on. And the fans would’ve known.

Is there anything that surprised you in your career?

Though there have been many surprises along the way, the most surprising falls into the category of “A Series of Odd Coincidences.” In the fall of 2001, I took the train from Paris to Dusseldorf for the Euro Amusements Show. Looking for something to read before the trip, I went to an English bookstore and was convinced by the salesperson to buy the first Harry Potter book, which I found utterly charming.

At EAS in Dusseldorf, I ended up meeting Gino De-Gol, the founder of Robocoaster, which was the company that harnessed the KUKA robotic arm for use in a stationary ride system. I told Gino he really needed to mount the arm on a tracked, moving chassis (though I’m sure they were already working on it), then gave him the phone number for a friend of mine, Steve Blum, the head of Show and Ride Engineering at Universal. A short while later, the first Harry Potter film was released, and of course, we all saw the attraction possibilities.

Back then, I never could have predicted the tracked Robocoaster would be used in the Forbidden Journey ride and that I’d be leading a team doing the design development package for the attraction. It was a curious, wonderful series of events, even though it took seven or eight years to play out.

What ride or attraction do you think everyone needs to experience and why?

The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Universal Orlando. Other attractions utilize that precise combination of 3D media with physical scenery, but Spider-Man did it with a particular style; a ‘je ne sais quoi’ that worked so well. It was groundbreaking, and it never lost its shine.

If you were tasked with creating a new theme park food, what would it be?

As kids, many of us relished having a grilled cheese sandwich with a bowl of tomato soup on the side, right?

My challenge to the theme park food science industry is to develop a calzone/hot pocket/handheld item combining a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup. The real trick would be to keep the grilled cheese portion separate from the soup portion, thereby allowing you to have a bite of one, then the other, or some of the two together. All this while preventing the soup from squirting all over the place and not burning your tongue.

Note: if this has already been invented, please tell me where I can find one.

You’re a walk-around character for a day; who do you choose?

It might have to be Scooby Doo because you get to ride around in the Mystery Machine while standing up in the sunroof or hanging your head and front paws out the window.

Otherwise, perhaps one of the Walkabout Aliens by Scarlett Entertainment. They look like a lot of fun and you don’t have to wear a big, hot, heavy character suit.

What types of attractions would you like to see more of and why?

Attractions that combine built environments and mechanical show elements, with digital media if necessary, but preferably without having to don some kind of headset, pair of goggles, or glasses to experience them.

Certain outstanding attractions shall be granted an exemption from these regulations, as the media and delivery systems are just so good these days, but I prefer rides and shows where you share a group experience with your family and friends without the separation caused by some large, head-borne appliance.

Can you talk about what you are working on these days?

After parting ways with Universal Studios last year, I’m currently considering new gigs and re-building the front suspension on a 1964 Jaguar sports car.

You are going to your favorite theme park or attraction; which industry people (dead or alive) are you taking with you?

The first participant would be Stephen Court, head of branding and marketing for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, who I met when he was working as an attraction development manager during the Euro Disneyland project years ago. Stephen has a very “Pythonseque” sense of humor and a critically interesting take on the entertainment business.

The other victim would be Joe Cornwell (RIP), an owner and senior Engineer at Setpoint, a robotics and attraction systems company. Our paths crossed on several projects, and we both had patents for roller coaster systems that had some similarities. Joe was very wise, had a wry sense of humor, and had intriguing opinions on our industry. I never got to spend much time with him, but I think he’d make a great addition to this party.

Writer Kendall Wolf is a long-time consultant in the themed entertainment industry. She has worked with designers, producers, and fabricators to help developers create unique and successful projects around the world. In 2017, she introduced Merlin Entertainments to a development group in Sichuan province for the first Legoland park in China. Kendall continues to consult for the developer to open more themed resorts in China.