Parkscope: Cedar Point

#18: Scream Machines

#17: The Secret World of Amusement Parks

#16: Coastermania

#15: Billion Dollar Fun: Creating the Film-Based Attractions at Universal Studios

#14: Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun

#13: Extreme Rides 2000

#12: Thrill Rides: Designing Fear

#11: Inside Disneyland Paris

**Send Jeff a line at HamGamgee@gmail.com. We appreciate your feedback!

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

YouTube Tuesday #19: The Greatest...Thrill Rides

Now we’re getting serious. In week two of our three week roller coaster not-exactly-holiday-themed marathon, we present one of the classic roller coaster documentaries of all time. “The Greatest…” was a very popular (for TLC) series of “best of” documentaries at a time when people just loved them some cable documentaries. In this installment, we get to see the roller coaster installment of the series, since we knew for darn sure we were going to get one.

The Greatest Thrill Rides is an all-time classic coaster doc. It is very much the “thrill ride” version of the all-time classic Funhouse. Like its dark ride compatriot, this doc seeks to comprehensively take the viewer on a journey of discovery (…and awareness?...) though the past, present, and future of thrill rides. Like the best cable docs, watching a show like The Greatest Thrill Rides is like adventuring through a thrill ride museum, studying the best of the history and excitement of thrill rides the world over. It’s one of those features that you would show someone if you could only pick one thrill ride show, because it covers all the bases in the limited time it has to thrill you (blah blah blah!).

The past is covered through the occasional references to Russian ice slides and switchback railways. The present is explored through a whirlwind “best of” tour of the greatest thrill rides on the planet circa late-1990s. To be fair, the top of the lists are pretty bad (I won’t spoil them for you, but woof), but of course they cover all the late-1990s crazes, from inverted coasters to woodies to stand-up to hyper. Each one is given a quick feature and an obligatory post-ride interview with the Ric Turners of the world.

The next segment is focused on the creation of the coasters, and the construction. These features will be familiar with those of you who have been keeping up with our weekly YouTube output.

And then halfway through, the show does a complete 180. Because it’s not about roller coasters anymore. We’re going to the malls and arcades, and to the Vegas strip, and to Universal. Because we’re going to talk about the thrilling simulators which are just the bees knees these days (how many times do you think I can use the words “thrill” or “thrilling” in this article? I think at least a few more times). These, we are reminded, are called “immersive thrill rides.” Cue the Gary Goddard cameo appearance.

What’s cool about this segment is I have absolutely no idea what most of these rides are, or were. Were these simulators in malls or traveling exhibits? The narrator says there are more than 70 of these exhibits around the country…I don’t even remember this being a thing. Was this a feature at large malls like South Coast Plaza or the Irvine Spectrum back in the day? Did they have changing movies? If so, how often did they change? Did you get to choose your adventure like that enormous POS basement bench simulator at the Excalibur in Vegas? Over the course of a few seconds, we see simulator movies of: riding Revolution at SFMM, traveling through a collapsing mine, driving down a Mad Max-style desert road, a haunted cavern, a funhouse, a giant roller derby obstacle course thing (I don’t even know how to describe that one except to say it looks like a first-person view of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time sewer level), a trench, a large building, a pleasant Calabasas side road, a “street race,” a mountain, a pre-Spider-Man drop off a building, and Days of Thunder at Kings Island.

But when we get introduced to simulators, of course we have to explore the 1990s Vegas simulators! That’s right, for the first time on a theme park doc, we get an extended sequence featuring In Search of the Obelisk, Race for Atlantis, and Star Trek: The Experience! This has to be my favorite segment of the show, since I love love love me some Vegas simulators. My brother and I spent many a vacation visiting these rides constantly, since we weren’t yet old enough to gamble this was the next best thing. And we actually get to see some behind-the-scenes action! The IMAX camera for In Search of the Obelisk, some real 3D models and a feature for the HUGE 3D glasses for Atlantis (with an interview with Rhythm & Hues!), and a tour of the bridge and the simulator cabins for Star Trek! This makes me happy, since Star Trek: The Experience was one of the most mind-blowing attractions anywhere in the world when it opened in 1998, Disney or otherwise. I always wished they could have moved it to Universal after it closed. It’s that cool. And the Star Trek museum! Absolutely fantastic. The Transporter Room to this day is one of the greatest-ever pre-shows of all time.

And lastly of course, we get the future. And the future is not only Universal Studios but video games. And I’m not just talking about Sega Rally Championship or another one of those you’ve seen a million times. Ladies and gentlemen, I present….Vertical Reality. That’s right. Vertical Reality. At 43:12.

How many of you remember this one? It’s a 25 foot-tall freefall tower in front of a giant shooter game. When you shoot someone else, you go up. When you get shot, you drop. WHERE HAS THIS BEEN?! What happened to this idea besides the predictable number of lawsuits?

We end the show with an exploration of what this show considers the “ultimate thrill ride.” I don’t know what TLC’s obsession is of going out into the real world and saying the “future of thrill rides” is something we’ve been able to do for decades (like bungee-jumping and sky-diving). But anyway, this particular show’s idea of the ultimate thrill ride is Air Combat USA, a really for-real Top Gun simulation where participants actually get to shoot at each other. In real planes. Driven by Air Force pilots. That’s cool. I wonder if it’s still around? *Does a quick Google search* Hey it’s still around! And it’s in FULLERTON??!! How did I not know this when I was living in Anaheim? And it’s only…$1,700! And you save $50 when you book two people! That’s so cool!

And FYI, Alan Schilke (the guy who always interviews with Arrow D) just wants to throw out there at 51:30 that the “ultimate thrill ride” or roller coaster is one that can turn you independently in the car in any position at any time along the track. Direct quote: “if you can change the rider’s position relative to the car, it’s almost like a fourth dimension.” These words are actually said. In 1997. Isn’t that spooky? Nay, isn’t that…thrilling? (ha! I did it!)

Tune in next week for the conclusion of our three-week roller coaster fest, and one of my favorite all-time thrill ride specials!

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)

Our Last Ten YouTube Tuesday Features:

#17: The Secret World of Amusement Parks

#16: Coastermania

#15: Billion Dollar Fun: Creating the Film-Based Attractions at Universal Studios

#14: Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun

#13: Extreme Rides 2000

#12: Thrill Rides: Designing Fear

#11: Inside Disneyland Paris

**Send Jeff a line at HamGamgee@gmail.com. We appreciate your feedback!

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

YouTube Tuesday #18: Scream Machines

Arrow-Batic sighting! Arrow-Batic sighting at 57:20! Thought I had to mention that for all you pre-2000 coaster fans.

But first, a quick special announcement: starting this week, we have a three-week roller coaster theme for YouTube Tuesday. Scream Machines will be the first of three of TLC’s most popular roller coaster specials from the late 90s. Won’t that be fun! That is all.

This is when TLC really started to get serious about talking roller coasters. Once they got a few coaster notches on their docu-belt, they started really letting it fly (the next two weeks will feature the two coaster specials that really made TLC a must-watch destination for coaster fans).

Much like our Coastermania feature, this special is geared to talk about the craziness of roller coasters. We follow (again) some ACE members around and talk to them about why they like coasters and why we like coasters and why we like to ride them.

The late 90s was right at the tail end of the epic decade-long coaster wars (which never really end, but the 1990s were extra intense). The big blockbuster coasters of the late 90s are featured here, such as Millennium Force (though technically 2000), Goliath (ditto), Superman, and Stealth. This special can be hilariously dated because the narrator claims that amusement parks have to fill the seats because “it’s hard to convince folks to visit when admission prices are starting to climb above $40!”

We get some good coaster psychology and lingo here. We of course start by talking about how coasters are an adrenaline rush, that thrill rides are like a drug, etc. We follow around the ubiquitous ACE-er Ric Turner (who I guess is contractually obligated to be in every 1990s coaster special) and explain why amusement parks give ACE and coaster enthusiasts some ERT: because they are the “super-users” and influencers who will (theoretically) say such great things about the new ride as it opens.

Then we get into a surprising amount of coaster lingo. We learn about protein spills and code yellows. We learn how similar a launched coaster effect is to an F14 carrier landing, and what happens to the body during a blackout/greyout. We also get a cool side-by-side comparison of a Space Shot and the ejector seat training tower for the Navy.

The narrator then brings in a couple of behavioral psychologists (one of them has an eye patch! Seriously! If I were his patient I would BEG him to start our therapy sessions with “How ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR you feeling? I would lose it!”). They explain how coasters are designed to keep your brain in constant sensory overload, and that these surprises lead to euphoria when the coaster is successfully conquered. They also discuss the different types of screams (there’s 4 of them!) people use while riding coasters and how it relates to real life communication.

In one of the more interesting segments, the psychologists strap a woman with electrodes to monitor her heart rate and force her on Goliath. It’s a damn good thing she didn’t mind that much.

We have a few interviews with coaster designers who, in a departure from most coaster specials, actually talk about the tempo of the ride, and the psychological tricks they use to make the ride seem scarier. The anticipation of the first drop. Placing objects (or wooden infrastructures) near the track to make it seem like the ride’s going faster. The head choppers. The point is to straddle the line between terrifying people and getting them to come back. There’s also an interesting piece of rider narrative here that, though most coasters are un-themed, designers still approach coasters as a story, with the rider as protagonist, and every drop and loop a dramatic story element. It makes heroes out of everyone on the ride when the coaster is conquered. And that’s a nice lead-in to the IOA segment.

So I don’t know if they have this anymore, but apparently back in the day IOA had a “coaster stress management” course for coaster phobics. We follow some of their stories as they go through the class. And then the first coaster they go on is Hulk! Jeez, talk about a trial by fire! Some of them are predictably wetting themselves.

We then go into the Arrow Dynamics segment and the “FUTURE OF COASTERS!!!” segment now becoming all too familiar for these shows. We follow Arrow engineers as they help design the very strange Tennessee Tornado looper for Dollywood, then talk about the future of thrill rides which are, say it with me, CyberSpace Mountain, Universal, simulators, blah blah being successors to coasters. “But nothing will ever replace the real WHOOOOSH you get on a coaster!”

We talk about how “in the future, coasters will go 200 mph and will be 800 feet tall and yada yada” until we get to…ARROW-BATIC. It’s here! We finally found it!

Like the ThrustAir 2000 and the flying coaster, the Arrow-Batic was a ubiquitous “coming soon!” coaster through many coaster specials in 1999 and 2000. Arrow-Batic was, to paraphrase, sort of like an earlier version of Intamin ZacSpins like Green Lantern: First Flight. It featured two or three rows of overhanging cars that, because it was so compact, could perform many maneuvers that inverted coasters couldn’t, like diving down 90 degrees! Oh and flips and other stuff. It’s good that one of our specials finally turned up this old chestnut!

But wait, it gets better! Following Arrow-Batic we get even more ridiculous nonsense that never made it off the drawing board. Like Vekoma’s Cliff-Hanger Tilt, which stalled the coaster train on a platform and would tilt it straight down. Or how about Vekoma’s Hammerhead Stall (!), which…is basically an Intamin Impulse coaster except with standard above-the-rail trains and straight vertical towers and…trains shaped like airplanes. You can’t make this stuff up! Anyone ever heard of these? Now you have!

Tune in the next two weeks as we ramp up to the BEST TLC coaster specials!

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)

Our Last Ten YouTube Tuesday Features:

#16: Coastermania

#15: Billion Dollar Fun: Creating the Film-Based Attractions at Universal Studios

#14: Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun

#13: Extreme Rides 2000

#12: Thrill Rides: Designing Fear

#11: Inside Disneyland Paris

**Send Jeff a line at HamGamgee@gmail.com. We appreciate your feedback!

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

YouTube Tuesday #17: The Secret World of Amusement Parks

The Secret World of Amusement Parks is another 1997-era manifesto from TLC that seeks to explore the fascinating underpinnings of the silly fun park world (TLC and Discovery really loved talking about amusement parks around 1997). However, much like many of the pre-1998 shows (I’m not sure what happened in 1998 to suddenly turn these specials more enjoyable) the show is astonishingly shallow compared to what it promises. Instead of the “secret world of amusement parks,” we get “the secret world of Morgan Manufacturing, amusement park history, community college physics departments, and turning walkways into loops.”

The show suffers from a massive lack of cohesion. In fact, for a show that purports to be about amusement parks, over 40 minutes (two-thirds) of the show is instead about roller coasters. And the only “behind the scenes” we get at the amusement park (which, by the way, is promised in the opening) is a quick chat with a facilities manager and a couple of ride operators. Seriously. That’s it.

In fact, it is very odd (to me at least) that TLC would call this show The Secret World of Amusement Parks in the first place. It is very obviously a show about rides, and roller coasters specifically. Why not just admit the main purpose of the show is to showcase amusement park rides and coasters? Did they really think it would lose viewers?

If you’ve been following our video postings for the last few months, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that there is a definite presentation pattern to these sorts of roller coaster specials (and make no mistake, this is a roller coaster special). I will give this one a pass, since it was created at the beginning of the amusement park documentary craze, and thus is probably one of the Cro-Magnon forerunners that was copied by uncountable number of specials since. But the same style and presentation format that you’ve seen countless times exists here.

There’s the ubiquitous mention of amusement park history, especially Coney Island in the 1920s and Disneyland. There’s the history of roller coasters, and that means mentioning Russian ice slides and switchback railways and the Flying Turns (not sure exactly why that one came up. One of the experts is really obsessed with that one). We see the standardized explanation of G-Forces and how engineers have to blah blah blah and interview the maintenance manager who says how they have to inspect the ride each day and yadda yadda yadda. And of course we get the whole thing about the coaster wars in the mid-1990s, and how cool hypers and inverted coasters and stand-up coasters are, and how coasters bring in money to the park, etc. You know how you can tell this show is really about roller coasters, and not amusement parks? The show talks more about the Matterhorn being the first tubular steel coaster than Disneyland itself.

The Matterhorn segment though leads to a semi-interesting section going behind-the-scenes with Morgan Manufacturing, who discuss and demonstrate the roller coaster design process in more detail than most other shows. For some reason they also seem to be obsessed with break zones. We also get a nice segment on the early days of S&S, when ol’ Mormon Grunkle Stan reveals the two loves of his life: the Space Shot and the Turbo Drop.

This is a legitimate historical find for theme park documentary aficionados. After this point, half of Stan’s interview time during his segments would be concerned with the upcoming Thrust Air 2000 (which of course became Hypersonic XLC). But here, we get a very interesting discussion as to what led Stan to create S&S in the first place (his love for bungee jumping and the desire to create a “reverse bungee jump” to catapult people into the air). This led to the creation of the Space Shot, which is discussed here in loving detail, and then later the Turbo Drop. The highlight of this segment for me is to see the ORIGINAL Turbo Drop rides in action, pre-Power Tower. For the first year or so of Turbo Drop’s existence, it had that funky kiddy carnival-style logo of a smiley face dropping downwards and the unique color scheme.

We then get some almost interesting discussions of how ride designers look to lure guests in the parks to the coasters (unfortunately, only the “it’s big and cool and loud” and “we try to place them over walkways” discussions are had, nothing new here) before we get into the “we’ve-seen-this-a-million-times” segment of some community college physics professor teaching his class how roller coaster physics work (you can get an idea how cringe-inducing it is when the phrase “that’s right kids, that’s called inertia!” is actually used here). We then get the standard trip to Magic Mountain to ride Superman and float things in the air. It was cool the first thousand times. (BUT, to be fair, the kid on this trip hilariously throws the orange up instead of letting it float and completely whiffs catching it, sending it on a 400-foot vertical death spiral. Probably the highlight of the show).

The only genuinely interesting segment for me starts at around 41:35, where we meet the minds behind the Duell Corporation, the spatial master planners of over 40 theme parks worldwide. In this all-too-short segment (which actually should have at least been the beginning of the program, if not the longest segment, since this is really what the show should be about), Randy Duell and his associates discuss the thought that goes into the spatial design of the benches, bathrooms, food stops, water fountains, etc. of the parks and why certain designs are the way they are. Duell is famous for the “Duell Loop” formation of park walkways, which encompasses a half mile to a mile of walkways and is usually covered in 6-8 hours, which also happens to be the average time for guests to spend at a park. There is also a short trip to Magic Mountain to show the effect of plazas, curves and bends in the walkways, and the specific placement of trees and foliage. Honestly, WAY more time should have been spent showcasing these folks.

And finally, since this is a park special, at the end that means we get a glimpse into THE FUTURE OF THEME PARKS. And of course, since this is the mid-1990s, the future of theme parks is VR, video games, arcades (RIP DQ), and simulators. What’s nice is we get to see some attractions not seen in other park specials, such as the giant XS New York arcade (a precursor to DQ) and the New York Skyride simulator at the Empire State Building. We can’t wait for the future of fun!

Overall, as I stated before I give this special a pass because it’s obviously one of the earlier examples in the canon, and a lot of the shows following can be accused of somewhat plagiarizing the material and the presentation format. But still, for a show that pretends to be about “the secret world of amusement parks,” it tells us a lot about coaster wars and very little about amusement parks. But still, some good stuff if you know where to look. I feel like this could have been a great multi-part miniseries if given the chance.

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)

Our Last Ten YouTube Tuesday Features:

#7: The Making of Disney-MGM Studios Florida (1989)

**Send Jeff a line at HamGamgee@gmail.com. We appreciate your feedback!

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

YouTube Tuesday #16: Coastermania

I’m not going to mince words: this is one of the most bizarre specials you’ll see. I don’t just mean roller coaster specials. I mean any special. Ever.

In a nutshell, Coastermania an hour of interviews with coaster fans/nuts/crazies, with musical interludes that are an inexplicable combination of Thus Spake Zarathustra from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Vangelis synthesizer soundtrack from Bladerunner, and feeling of cosmos-level expansiveness as we watch a train slow-mo through a cobra roll. There are interviews with priests and psychologists. There are interviews with people who got married on roller coasters. In case you couldn’t tell, there couldn’t possibly be more interviews.

One of the highlights of the show is the emphasis on Blackpool Pleasure Beach in the UK, a Cedar Point-level thrill park on par with the Cedar Fair parks and Magic Mountains of the world and is usually summarily ignored by the American-dominated cable media. This show must have been made in the 1997/1998 time period (perhaps 1996), so the Pepsi Max Big One is the real BIG NEW THING for this special. Another unsung relic from the mid-1990s coaster wars, a hyper on par with the Steel Phantoms and Desperados of the age.

I know we are all obsessed with roller coasters, but this special really gets you thinking why the living heck are we so obsessed with roller coasters? Believe me, you’ll meet plenty of people in this video who have your obsession licked. Well, at least the UK bus tourist group isn’t obsessed with Cedar Point’s Iron Dragon. They “boo” the ride on the bus on the way to CP.

Anyway, I could go on a bit about humanity’s quest for companionship and connect it to the forming of coaster clubs, or talk about the need to be challenged/need for danger/excitement/fear and adrenaline rush and everything else and how roller coasters are a form of safety valve for this desire. But, you know, filling up blog column inches with psychological analysis would somewhat legitimize this video, which is something that simply shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

So I present this video without further comment. Now enjoy Ron Toomer pontificate on the Desperado.

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)

Our Last Ten YouTube Tuesday Features:

#15: Billion Dollar Fun: Creating the Film-Based Attractions at Universal Studios

#14: Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun

#13: Extreme Rides 2000

#12: Thrill Rides: Designing Fear

#11: Inside Disneyland Paris

#7: The Making of Disney-MGM Studios Florida (1989)

#6: Walt Disney's EPCOT Film and Walt Disney World Announcement

**Send Jeff a line at HamGamgee@gmail.com. We appreciate your feedback!

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

YouTube Tuesday #14: Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun

I am very proud to present this week my all-time favorite amusement park special.

Yes, ever.

Discovery Channel started making these amusement park specials in the mid- to late-1990s, with each one upping the last in production values (and that certainly is not an exaggeration). Beginning in 1996 or so, these specials were very spotty in the beginning and looked like closed-circuit TV documentaries. The Discovery team eventually hit their stride in the 1999-2002 time period, which is far and away the “golden period” for these types of specials. But before 1999, we see the first specials, the ones that tread the new ground, like “Wild Rides,” or “Top Ten Coasters,” or “Billion Dollar Fun,” or “Funhouse.” These were the channel’s first attempt to explain the weird and wonderful science and art of the amusement park.

And in 1998, right as Discovery Channel was getting the hang of making these specials, there came a landmark catch-all show that perfectly summed up the complex thinking and exuberant enthusiasm written into the DNA of our favorite thrill places. This show was called Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun.

The format of the show is brilliant. After exploring the excitement people have for amusement parks, and why people continue to visit in record numbers year after year, the show states that there are four major elements that make up a great park. The rest of the run time is given to exploring these four elements, with each section given its own explanation and tie-in with an existing amusement park, which gets the equivalent of a sort of mini-episode. The show features the very best of the old and new: Cedar Point, Kennywood, Knoebels, Busch Gardens, and Universal Orlando, each given its own segment tied into the show’s greater themes. It’s a tour-de-force of amusement park enthusiasm. It’s so hard for me to explain how perfect this 45 minutes is. All the major aspects of amusement parks are covered in a very limited time. Extended time is given to our favorite parks, almost like mini-specials. The whole thing is wrapped up in a very easy-to-follow package, and follows an exciting umbrella theme. And the amount of information presented here is mind-boggling. I would ask you, as an experiment, after you’ve seen the show in full, to just rewind to a random part of the show. Familiarize yourself with where you are, then skip ahead, say 30-45 seconds. Then just look at the time you skipped and realize how much information is packed into that 30 seconds. This is literally a show that forces you to watch every second! I wonder if the Discovery Channel team didn’t know how many more of these specials were to be made, and packed as much information into this one as possible. It certainly gives that impression. We see in-depth looks at Cedar Point’s coasters and midways, Kennywood’s groves and old-school rides, Knoebels’s carousels, coasters, and haunted house, Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s landscaping, and Universal’s new high-tech attractions. All in 45 minutes! It’s in some ways the Snow White or Toy Story for the Discovery Channel specials: a thesis statement and blueprint for all others to follow. And you won’t find an amusement park special better to emulate, that’s for sure.

The Pursuit of Fun perfectly sums up the reasons why we visit amusement parks year in, year out, and how the parks draw us in and entice us for more. Amusement parks are ostensively a place for us to enjoy ourselves, and to have fun with friends and family. The amusement park is designed to place us in situations for us to have “optimum fun.” Rides are built and designed with the question of “how can this be the most fun” in mind. These rides are placed apart at just the right distance so they are far enough away from other rides that we don’t get overwhelmed, but not far enough away to force us to walk a long distance, tiring us out. In between, there has strategically been placed areas for our comfort: benches, restaurants, shows, shops, fountains, boats. It’s all to provide the “optimum fun” for each guest. The choices have been laid out and given, it is now up to us to determine our own path to optimum fun.

And once we are out of the gentle walkways and onto the metal machines, how is our experience transformed? It is a great way to let off steam, first of all, and provide a momentary escape from the drudgeries of adult life. They’re certainly an adrenaline rush that cannot commonly be found in our day-to-day lives. But, as the show tells us, these rides also help us push our own boundaries, past what we felt we could experience before. Remember your first ride on a hyper-coaster? Or your first ride on a coaster with inversions? How did that ride feel? Every truly new ride we experience pushes our boundaries just a bit further. They meet our need to constantly be challenged, and to push ourselves into new territory. And best of all, we share this experience communally, with dozens of other screaming passengers on board. For amusement parks are, above all, a communal experience.

And how do these parks entice us to visit, and to ride? Walt’s weenie theory personally encapsulates this. For amusement parks, roller coasters act as a flashing neon sign, billboards towering over the horizon, advertising the fun to be had within, enticing us through the gates. They promise us bigger and better high-tech fun every year.

And why do we keep visiting, once we’ve spent a day? The main reason is certainly because we had so much fun we’d like to do it again. It also could be for nostalgia purposes, to experience the same rides we did back in the day with our kids. But the parks also entice us back with innovation. Whether bigger or better rides appear on the horizon every year, or there is a new technology available, parks invest in creativity and authenticity to bring us new and unique rides for our riding pleasure. These new technologies allow the parks to offer new and exotic rides every year to push our curiosity and entice us back.

The show’s excellent presentation structure delivers an encompassing amusement park experience in four major sections, presented as elements to the theme park experience: first, the hair-raising thrills, second, the wide midways with savory aromas and classic attractions, third, providing ways for us to cool down on a hot summer’s day, and fourth, providing a communal experience for us to share our fun with friends and meet new people. These four elements are an excellent starting place for those looking to understand the allure of amusement park fun. One could do worse than to stick to these simple ABCs when designing rides or entire parks.

The thrill rides portion is dominated by Cedar Point (Magnum and Raptor) and Kennywood (Steel Phantom and Thudnerbolt). In it, the show explains how and why the thrill rides are the main attraction in an amusement park visit, as well as the history of the thrill rides from the original Expos and World’s Fairs to Coney Island, then to Disneyland, then to the parks of today. The emphasis, of course, is not just on thrills but also on innovation. From the invention of the Ferris Wheel to the Magnum, innovation has always been a major part of the thrill landscape, a fact many designers somehow forget nowadays.

The midways of the amusement parks have many purposes. They must be wide and inviting to keep people moving, but also be high energy, with bright lights, kinesthetic motion like a good swing ride, and the coasters abutting the midway and roaring overhead. The midway section is not only packed with the history of Kennywood and Knoebels, but also the explanations of just how many components can be packed onto a midway. There are train rides, swing rides, and coasters. There can be action shows in man-made lagoons, or roving marching bands. Fountains. Carnival games. Woods and trees. Savory aromas and classic foods and treats. Flowers. Bells. Fiber Optics and statues. Old rides can provide kinesthetic amusement, like Kennywood’s Turtle Ride or The Whip. New high-tech thrills can soar over the midway, like the Skycoaster, providing good people-watching. Or, the midway can also provide quiet leisure, a place where people can reconvene after a ride, and where old people can sit on a bench. But the beating heart of the midway arteries, we are told, is the carousel. Knoebels’s famous brass ring carousel provides the example. The sound of a carousel organ is an amusement park staple. People are unconsciously drawn to the carousel, and a park cannot survive without it. It’s telling that, on some amusement park surveys, carousels are more closely identified with amusement parks than the roller coasters.

There is no better place for Discovery Channel to explain the process of cooling people off than Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Amusement parks are open during the hottest times of the year, and they are behooved to allow their guests to cool themselves off for maximum comfort. How many different ways can you think of to cool off at a park? You can grab some ice cream. You could dip your hand in a fountain. There are plenty of rides that get you soaked: log flumes, rapids rides, shoot the chutes, and inevitably some water squirt-gun action in the kids area. But did you think of the experiences that get you out of the heat? How about the Sky Tower? Or the simulators and 3-D movies? There are rides like the swings, the parachute drop, or the skyway that cool you down. And at Busch Gardens, the amazing landscaping provides excellent shade, the gigantic air-conditioned restaurants provide great entertainment, and Escape from Pompeii provides not only air-conditioning but also a giant splashdown. (Too bad this show was created before Islands of Adventure opened. Be careful not to drown this time, kids!)

We sometimes forget one of the best traits of an amusement park is the opportunity to have fun with friends and meet new people. And yes, parks do try to communize the experience as much as possible. After all, it’s a very rare ride that allows only one passenger per car. A typical coaster usually has more than a dozen. And with this experience, parks also have certain ways to get people closer together. The classic example, of course, is the bumper cars. But there are also fun houses, carnival games, dark rides, and haunted houses. These experiences create memories real fast, and can introduce you to some new friends who share in your excitement or sheer terror.

Finally, as if the show hadn’t explored the amusement park world enough, it ties back to the original segment of innovation, surviving danger, and pushing our limits of trauma by diving into Universal Orlando and exploring the techno-rides available there, from T2 to Jurassic Park, and how they tie in all the elements that have been explained so far.

I hope you’ll agree that Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun is a perfect example of what the blueprint of what a good amusement park documentary should be. I usually watch this show every Memorial Day weekend, right as the coaster season begins. I’ve never seen any show that gets me more pumped to visit the parks than this one. Off to ride!

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)

Our Last Ten YouTube Tuesday Features:

#13: Extreme Rides 2000

#12: Thrill Rides: Designing Fear

#11: Inside Disneyland Paris

#7: The Making of Disney-MGM Studios Florida (1989)

#6: Walt Disney's EPCOT Film and Walt Disney World Announcement

#5: Tony Baxter's Disneyland Construction Commentary

#4: Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Special, Starring Tony Danza

**Send Jeff a line at HamGamgee@gmail.com. We appreciate your feedback!

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

YouTube Tuesday #12: Thrill Rides: Designing Fear

How extreme do you think roller coasters can get?

We’ve been grappling with that question since 1989. That was the year that Magnum XL-200 broke the hypercoaster 200-foot barrier. Up until then, when coasters got taller, they also gained more loops. That was pretty much a given for aspiring scream parks. Corkscrew changed the game when it debuted in 1975 at Knott’s Berry Farm by adding inversions to a roller coaster, something that hadn’t been seen since the circle-loops of the turn of the century. From 1975 to 1989, roller coasters getting “more extreme” meant they were taller or they had more inversions. Usually both.

Every other year, it seemed, some coaster somewhere in the country would either add another 10 feet to the height record, or just one more inversion than the previous record-holder. In fact, many of the new coaster designs took a back seat to the thrill of going higher, faster, and upside-down more often.

Different extreme designs like the stand-up coaster, the suspended coaster, the bobsled coaster, and the heartline (Ultra-Twister) coaster were fun, but they often did not make top headlines. The allure of the stand-up King Kobra at Kings Island was soon forgotten when the park added the record-setting Vortex. The suspended Iron Dragon quickly gave way to Magnum at Cedar Point.

Then 1989/1990 gave us the dual whammy of Magnum and Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Viper opened as the second-tallest in the world (after Magnum), but pulled a ridiculous seven inversions out of its hat. At this point, it seemed that a pendulum began to swing the other way. Only once over the next decade would Magnum’s height record be topped: by the Desperado at Buffalo Bill’s casino (of all places, I know. It’s like Elton John performing live at the Katella Avenue Seven-Eleven). Though, it should be noted that Magnum’s drop height record would also be broken by Steel Phantom at Kennywood.

And Viper had nary a challenger over the next decade to its inversions record, being outpaced only by Dragon Kahn at Port Aventura in Spain.

Suddenly, starting in 1990, amusement parks seem to want something different, not just the same old “add ten feet for the height record and call it a day.” Throughout the 1990s, we certainly got our fair share of hypers and many, many inversion, but the 1990s was also when we started seeing a wooden coaster renaissance, and B&M’s stand-up, inverted, and even floorless designs. We started seeing flying coasters in 2000. And perhaps most important of all, we experienced the glory of Linear Induction Motors.

Launched coasters added an extra dimension to roller coasters. It was no longer even necessary to have a lift hill, yet still be among the most exciting coasters on the planet! One could be launched into giant inversions or straight up lift hills, with nary a chain in sight. And the launches could happen at any time!

When the launched coaster came to us in the form of Discovery Mountain/Space Mountain in 1995, and then to the states as Flight of Fear in 1996, it was dynamite for our imaginations. We knew roller coasters had pushed beyond their pre-defined limits, almost like they suddenly gained super-powers. You could launch tom 70 mph at any time! And this was something only 200-foot+ coasters were allowed to do!

This is where TLC’s Thrill Rides: Designing Fear picks up. It’s another in a long line of ubiquitous 2000-era roller coaster specials. But this is the only one, at least in my archive, that dives right into the consequences of roller coasters being too extreme. Yes, I have to admit, this show is very uncomfortable.

We’re releasing this show in deference to the 2017 Ohio State Fair Tragedy, when we all were reminded how dangerous amusement rides can be. These really are scary machines. One loose bolt or one failed brake can seriously injure passengers. It’s not a pleasant topic of discussion.

I do like that Designing Fear chooses to bring up a topic that nobody likes to talk about. In a way, it’s like an amusement park episode of 60 Minutes. However, Joe and I feel the presentation style of the show could have been handled better.

The topics of the show itself run the gamut, from how a coaster is designed, to the effects that g-forces have on the body, to the future of extreme rides. Even a biodynamics engineer is interviewed at multiple points to offer her take on the coaster’s effect on the spine and the brain. We talk to coaster fans, writers, designers, military engineers, and maintenance engineers. It jumps topics frequently, sometimes without any warning or buildup. But the worst is when the show randomly introduces tales of death and horror at the amusement park faster than a scare-actor at HHN. An interview with a coaster maintenance manager is followed by an upturned rapids vehicle incident. It doesn’t hang together. I think the big miscue in Designing Fear is that they were really making two shows: a show about thrills and g-forces and a show about maintenance and safety. One show plays on the excitement one gets for the amusement park, the other is a warning to be careful when playing at the park because disaster can happen at any time. The viewer gets emotionally frazzled when both are packed together.

But even with its flaws, in the wake of the Ohio State Fair tragedy, I believe this show is just as relevant as ever. Maintenance and safety continue to be main topics of concern today, even with ever-advancing technology. And as we continue to push the envelope in how extreme rides can be, we have to ask ourselves, what is the line we’re not willing to cross? How extreme does a ride have to be for us to hesitate and walk away? It’s an interesting topic of discussion, and I think one that speaks to our base desires and psychology. How extreme is too extreme for you? Answer the question honestly and you’ll find out a lot about yourself.

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)

Our Last 10 YouTube Tuesday Features:

#11: Inside Disneyland Paris