The Tidal Wave

The Tidal Wave was a Schwarzkopf shuttle loop roller coaster that debuted at both Great America parks in the 1977 and 1978 seasons for Santa Clara and Gurnee, respectively.

Tidal Wave was a new model roller coaster designed by Anton Schwarzkopf (designer of Willard's Whizzer) and was the first major roller coaster added by Marriott to the parks.

History
After a tremendous and extremely successful opening season, Marriott wanted to keep attracting the same number of guests to the park. To encourage them to continue visiting and as part of an expansion program, Marriott unveiled new rides for the 1977 season. The Tidal Wave was announced and was poised to open in the 1977 season.

Replacing Spinnaker, The Tidal Wave opened to great success mid way through the 1977 season. Gurnee's Tidal Wave opened the following year, in 1978, to equally as much success. The rides saw very little change after Marriott sold the parks. For the most part, they continued mirroring each other for many years.

In the early 1990s, Six Flags Great America general manager Jim Wintrode teamed up with Bolliger & Mabillard to design a new roller coaster. The new roller coaster, Batman: The Ride was unveiled, and would replaced The Tidal Wave in Yankee Harbor. The ride was removed and Batman: The Ride opened in 1992.

The Tidal Wave was relocated to Six Flags Over Georgia and renamed Viper (ironically, utilizing the same logo as Viper in Great America) and operated there from 1995 to 2001 before being renamed to Greezed Lightnin' and moved to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in 2003. It lived the rest of it's life there before being closed with the rest of Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom at the end of the 2009 season after Six Flags was unable to come to an agreement with the Kentucky State Fair Board to renew it's lease. It stood but did not operate until 2013 when it was torn down to make way for a new ride, Lightning Run.

Santa Clara's Tidal Wave was renamed to Greased Lightin' in 1998 and operated for a few more years before being closed in 2002. Afterwards, the Paramount corporation sold The Tidal Wave to Wieland Schwarzkopf (Anton Schwarzkopf's son) and planned for it to be shipped back to Germany. Six Flags bought The Tidal Wave from Wieland Schwarzkopf and then shipped it to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom where the parts resided for many years in the employee parking lot. In 2006, Santa Clara's Tidal Wave was shipped off to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom which operated Gurnee's Tidal Wave under the Greezed Lightnin' name. Many of the parts from Santa Clara's Tidal Wave ended up being used on Greezed Lightnin', which started off as Gurnee's Tidal Wave. This marked the last time the two sister roller coasters from both the Santa Clara and Gurnee park would ever reunite.