In the last week, ripples went across the internet theme park/amusement park fan communities to Cedar Point announcing that it would be increasing its wages to $20 an hour, a virtually 100% increase over 3 years ago. This was shocking to many observers of the industry.... but not us at Parkscope. We here at Parkscope have been beating the drum for a while about the disastrous way in which many regional amusement and theme parks were opting to staff. There's an entire article written back in 2017 about this exact topic, and I assure you, very little has changed except for one key difference:
See, back in 2017, there was no pandemic, and without a pandemic, international travel could happen without any serious barriers. Visa workers could come to town, and in fact, Cedar Fair made it clear in their quarterly statements to shareholders that they would expect to rely on J-1 visa employees to staff the park. Those people do not exist in 2021. In spite of this clear and obvious issue for Cedar Fair's staffing, attention has primarily turned to Unemployment Insurance, a popular target of the Republican Party.
Let me first be clear: Is unemployment insurance a potential threat to getting people "back to work"? Yes. It is. Especially when it comes to people who might be waiting to get a higher paying, higher skill position like they used to have but feel compelled due to a lack of UI to do something in the meantime like work retail. But that's also largely theoretical. We at Parkscope prefer facts. Facts, I'm told rather consistently, don't care about feelings. So where do we find facts? We find them with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It’s tough to think of the regional theme park scene from any point in recent memory and not think of Dick Kinzel, former CEO of Cedar Fair and GM of Cedar Point. A giant in his prime, Kinzel managed to consume CBS/Paramount’s theme park division, beat back a well capitalized Six Flags, expand a single park in coastal Ohio into a major international theme park chain. Tim O’Brien, a former Ripley’s creative and writer for Amusement Today, began working on a series of biographies of theme park legends sometime ago and Kinzel was a natural choice. His rise from selling popcorn to running the parks was meteoric and proof of the American Dream to some. Others saw him as a villain responsible for damaging the charm of parks he consumed while being wildly out of touch as the years went on.
The book is not a total puff piece, though it clearly shows that it was likely approved by Dick himself, and extensive interviews were done with him regarding the development of not just his early career, but of the coasters he’s best known for building and transactions that he both took part in and those which ultimately fell through. I do think that in the end, reasonably objective readers can come to their own conclusions about his intent, his specialties, his ethos, etc.
DO I WANT THIS?
How Does It Read?: It’s a simple read consisting of 111 pages of real text. You don’t need to have an MBA or PhD to read it. Why should you? Neither did Dick Kinzel, who attended one year of college, dropped out, and achieved more than most of us could ever hope to. That being said, if you’re specifically looking to read about Disney or Universal, or if you are only interested in the parts dealing with Knotts, you’ll probably be underwhelmed by the book’s focus on things that aren’t those (though amused that Dick wasn’t considered good enough to get an interview with Walt Disney World). Will I Learn Anything?: At the very least, it will confirm countless stories told throughout the years from coaster enthusiasts - that Bandit at Yomiuriland was the inspiration for Magnum, that a board member pressured the decision to build Magnum at 200 ft, that Cedar Point discussed mergers with Six Flags and buyouts of tons of other parks, and so on. That’s a very surface level read.
For me, this also confirmed a lot of suspicions I had about why it was that certain beliefs were reinforced in the coaster community: Kinzel held a lot of sway and openly admits that he sought after advice from coaster enthusiasts for new attractions since they had the expertise of having been on many. That’s a two way street however: coaster enthusiasts also knew Kinzel was wildly successful and tended to take away from his understanding of the industry what the “right” and “wrong” things were to do. And that leads me to the last section of my reviews...
Did You Take Anything Away From This?: Oh did I ever. Let me be clear: Dick Kinzel was a very good CEO for Cedar Fair for a long time. And then criticisms of him later on in his career are also correct. What’s often totally lost on those “smart” enthusiasts is an understanding of just why he was a good CEO and why that was a bad fit for him later on when Cedar Fair was, for several years, the largest domestic US regional park operator. Kinzel understood how to cut costs and how to produce large margins when taking existing infrastructure. He intimately grasped the ways in which one could find synergies both at a micro and macro level to extend the profitability of Cedar Point and Valleyfair when in charge of both, as well as to find methods by which he could extend stays and increase per capita spending. In turn, discussion of theme park business by enthusiasts has almost always concerned increasing per capita spending above all else. This was revisited in the brief Mark Shapiro era of Six Flags too.
What is not grasped is that while Kinzel was absolutely great at doing this, he lacked the acumen to understand how this positioned Cedar Fair. By being cash rich, Cedar Fair nearly wound up consumed by private capital in the early 1980s and had to be privately bought out and turned into a limited partnership, a decision that has made it exceedingly difficult from a taxation perspective for Cedar Fair to merge with any other theme park operators in the present day. Without that push from fellow large shareholders and Kinzel himself throwing in his money, he’d have been out of a job and the business model the parks operated under at that point tossed away in order to mine the company for liquidity.
Still cash rich afterward, Cedar Fair began the process of buying independent parks, and later acquiring Paramount’s chain as well as Six Flags Ohio. This showed another concern with Kinzel: while he had been outstanding in terms of obtaining return on investment with his coasters early on and was doing this capital investment using basically nothing more than cash on hand, building up debt even on a sure thing like the Paramount parks was outside his knowledge base. Rather than learn how they worked, Kinzel instead tried to force them to operate like his own facilities. Remember what I said about how discussion of business in theme park fandom circles is related to per capital spending: those parks lost 10% of their attendance their first year of ownership in order to try and move them from passholder-heavy to single day ticket usage. That strategy was ultimately tossed out entirely by Kinzel’s successors who understood the suburban locations of the parks were naturally fits for pass usage unlike what Kinzel had become accustomed to in Sandusky.
Kinzel’s bag of tricks had diminishing returns, as big coasters in parks full of them failed to bring in returns and group sales as a business began to wither. One fascinating aspect of the book to me is an often repeated mistake by people even today with Cedar Fair: market research consistently showed that the parks were perceived not as inclusive vacation destinations that appealed to everyone, but primarily coaster parks for younger people. Still, as the skyline of Cedar Fair fills up more and more with giant thrill rides, the idea of marketing Cedar Point as a beach first and coaster park second in much of the advertising was a repeating theme in 2018 and 2019 as though the market saturated with Cedar Point knowledge was somehow unaware of what the park was.
CHAPTERS: Part One: The Man and His Climb To The Top Part Two: The King’s Creations Part Three: Rounding Out The Package Part Four: Dick’s $2 Billion Dollar Spending Spree Part Five: After The Spending Spree
Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania make up the traditional amusement park strongholds of the United States, and it's Pennsylvania which has wound up with the greatest variation and the best preserved attractions. The state is even home to the birth place of what is often seen as the predecessor to all American roller coasters. Trying to parse out the "known" from the "unknown" is more or less a product of someone's background, as the PA parks are about as well known as any nationally.
For those that there's little doubt about their recognition, Hersheypark and Hershey's Chocolate World lead the pack. With greater than 3 million visitors a year, Hershey, PA is home to the king of all factory tour rides, some of the baddest coasters on the planet, monorails, a zoo, and a waterpark. Dorney Park in Allentown isn't that far away; it's a historic facility that doesn't have a whole lot of historic rides thanks to fires and liability insurance costs. It does have Cedar Point's old Demon Drop, the 1924 wood coaster Thunderhawk, Steel Force (Morgan hyper), and a collection of above average flat rides and other attractions. History lives at Kennywood, with an Old Mill, three classic wood coasters, the last operating Noah's Ark funhouse, and tons of other "last of its kind" attractions spanning the last century. Finally, we mention SeaWorld Entertainment's Sesame Place, a water theme park facility that's expanding dry rides in 2018 with a new Gravity Group wood coaster.
From there, there's the slightly less known. Idlewild is Kennywood's sister park, and another historic facility that transitioned from trolley park to fairytale park during the 50s. Home to the Rollo Coaster and the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood attraction (still running with the same trolleys from when it was Mister Roger's), it's a great family park. Another top end family park is Dutch Wonderland, located on the main strip in Lancaster. It also has a wood coaster (Kingdom Coaster, formerly Sky Princess - CCI's first project) along with a couple boat rides, a monorail, sky ride, and a new suspended coaster that might open in 2018. Maybe.
Pennsylvania is full of traditional parks that cater to local business outings and smaller populations. Knoebels is the most well known of these; open for eons but only really built out as an amusement park in the 1980s forward, Knoebels Amusement Resort is effectively the brain child of Dick Knoebel and his late wife, who were huge amusement historians and fanatics. They acquired, restored, and rebuilt numerous classic ride types long thought to be lost to time - The Elitch Gardens Twister, the Flying Turns, the Golden Nugget Mine Ride from Wildwood, multiple carousels, a Herschell Looper, and of course the San Antonio Rocket, now known as the Phoenix. Think of it as a theme park where the theme is "the greatest traditional amusement park ever assembled." It might really be that.
Further west are a trio of small parks that used to be a quartet. Lakemont in Altoona closed after the 2016 season to be retooled as a smaller "family entertainment center" that retained its two historic coasters. As of now, it's still not reopened, and it looks like 2019 at earliest will be when the doors are unlocked. Home to the world's oldest roller coaster (Leap-The-Dips, also the last side friction), it would be a tragedy to lose it. Part of it's woes are the proximity to Delgrosso's Amusement Park, a small facility built and run by a local tomato sauce distributor. The pizza and spaghetti here are, as you'd expect, very good. There's also a decent collection of rides and water slides kept in great shape.
Another pairing of "struggle" with "success" is Waldameer Park in Erie and Conneaut Lake. Conneaut Lake has been bouncing in and out of bankruptcy since the mid 1990s, but has found a foothold at present and is dragging itself out slowly. Like the other long gone Pennsylvania/Ohio parks that died before it, there's a 20s era wood coaster full of airtime (Blue Streak), a mix of really old flat rides and kids rides, a nice water front, and a cute hotel that's been heavily renovated. Waldameer Park probably benefited the most from the death of Geauga Lake in Cleveland, drawing lots of people who used to go there to it's expanding offerings. There's a reasonably sized water park there now in addition to the classic rides (Bill Tracy-designed Whacky Shack and Pirates Cove, Comet wood coaster) and newer thrillers (ARM drop tower, Gravity Group's awesome wood coaster Ravine Flyer II).
The American history of the roller coaster goes back to Pennsylvania and a small town now known as Jim Thorpe. The Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway was a tourist railway with extremely steep drops and curves, and became famous throughout the US in the mid-late 19th century as the first and only word in terror. When early coasters were constructed both in the US and throughout the rest of the world, the term "Scenic Railway" was associated with the format, and like the real thing in rural Pennsylvania, there were no underwheels and speed was controlled by brakemen. Many scenic railways even had mountain facades and theming; you can see this still on the scenic railway in Wiener Prater in Austria. While scenic railways are dead in the US, mountain coasters still exist as a sort of throwback to that era. Camelback Ski Resort operates such a ride year round.
Speaking of Camelback, let's talk about water parks. Pennsylvania has a lot of people in it and is far north, which means that indoor water parks are very much viable here. Camelback has one - Camelbeach. And it has a monster indoor water coaster, along with several other slides and attractions. They've also got a substantial outdoor water park too during the summer months. But the largest indoor facility in the state is by far Kalahari. The Pennsylvania location of the water park chain is the largest single roof indoor water park in the country, exceeding 200,000 square feet. There's more slides inside here than most outdoor water parks in the nation, along with a wave pool and two lazy rivers.
There's several outdoor water parks in the state worth noting as well. Kennywood's water park is Sandcastle, which of course is several miles away because Kennywood is totally closed in by urban development. The space it occupies is on the Monongahela River in a tight footprint that leads most slides to face the river itself. Smaller water park facilities are found at WildRiver in Saxton and Carousel Water & Fun Park in the Poconos which cater primarily to kids.
Finally, we get to the oversized family entertainment center portion of the piece: Legoland Discovery Center goes here because it's new. That's really the only reason. Also, it has a unique dark ride for the chain rather than the usual Kingdom Quest rides seen in the US, so that's kinda cool. All the Legoland Discovery Centers have trackless shooting dark rides, but unless you have a kid under 12 years old, you'll need to scour the events section to learn when the next adult night is. Fun Fore All in Cranberry Township on the west side of the state has kiddie rides (including a coaster), a Triotech shooting simulator ride, go-karts, bumper boats, and all the ticket redemption games you can shake a stick at. There's also an independent mini golf place across the street for more hot putting action. And last, but not least; Bushkill. Bushkill is sorta kinda a defunct park that's been whacked by flooding multiple times. But in 2017, they reopened their roller rink. And they're intending to open rides along with it soon enough. Sadly their pretzel dark ride and fun house are long since lost, but any regrowth here would be wonderful.
Possessing nearly twice the population of its closest competition, and 50% more space than Texas, Ontario claims home to the nation's capital (Ottawa), Canada's biggest city (Toronto), the most used border crossings (Buffalo & Detroit), 40% of the country's GDP, and a connection to all but one Great Lake. Most people's experiences with the province will be limited to just Southern Ontario - the spit of land between the lakes where the major cities of the province all reside. Wind your way north and you'll eventually run out of road before you run out of Ontario. The Trans-Canada Highway, AKA ON-11, effectively establishes a boundary for traditional craft. To go past that requires high clearance vehicles and immense fuel tanks, along with the bravery required to travel for hundreds and hundreds of miles on logging roads into places where literal polar bears reside. There are huge tracts in which no man may have ever stepped foot. Ontario is that big.
As such, this is going to be an above average Hidden Rides segment. There's a lot to cover, after all. As always, I'll start by referencing the known thing: Canada's Wonderland, Cedar Fair's now second most popular seasonal park. Home to 15 roller coasters (one of which has dark ride elements), the best collection of flat rides in North America, and a Mountain centerpiece that is really really cool, Canada's Wonderland is an above average park that is also apparently getting a B&M Dive Coaster for the 2019 season. And we have to move on now, because there's other things to see.
Metro Toronto itself is home to a whole bunch of lesser known attractions; Centreville Amusement Park on Toronto Island is probably the most beloved, and has the coolest ride of the bunch with old school scary dark ride the Haunted Barrel Works, but also a brand new skyride, several car ride attractions, a junior coaster, and a log flume. Legoland Discovery Centre in Vaughan has a Kingdom Quest trackless shooting dark ride like many other facilities in the chain. Fantasy Fair at Woodbine Centre is an indoor family entertainment center in a mall with several kiddie rides and a small train. There's also some haphazard theming including animatronic dinosaurs and Main Street USA style store fronts.
But when it comes to wackiness, few places can ever match Niagara Falls. Much like Pigeon Forge or Orlando's old I-Drive, there's no shortage of off the wall amusements and attractions. An entire section of this blog could be dedicated to Niagara Falls, Ontario alone, but we're going to limit ourselves for now and just go through most of the highlights:
Marineland. Probably the most controversial theme park in North America, and it's tough to argue why. Are there interesting things here? Sure; Dragon Mountain is a gigantic Arrow looper who's theming took 25 years to construct (and only partially when done). There's a huge S&S tower complex overlooking the falls. It has some really crazy Huss rides from the 70s. It has performing animals and...OK, so that's part of the problem. "Part" because there's a preposterously high death rate. "Part" because the reaction by management to criticism has been far more boneheaded than SeaWorld's ever was. Google "John Holer". That's all you need to do.
Clifton Hill. This couple of blocks is where the not offensive stuff is at: There are two dark rides here, both shooting ones - Ghost Blasters in the Great Canadian Midway and Tour Bus SWAT Team Ride at Adventure City, located in a Sheraton. Ghost Blasters was constructed by Sally, the other by I.E. Park (and originally themed to Spiderman). There's also a Funhouse, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, an Upside Down House, three wax museums (Movieland, Louis Tussaud's, and Rock Legends), two haunted walkthroughs (Nightmare's Fear Factory, Castle Dracula), Rainforest Cafe, 4D Motion Simulators (mostly from Triotech like Zombie Attack), multiple mirror mazes, multi-level go-karts, indoor and outdoor mini golf, and the Niagara Skywheel.
Niagara's Fury. This is run by Canada National Parks, and it's actually pretty interesting - there's a preshow where cartoon characters learn about the creation of Niagara Falls before one dons their poncho and heads into the big room. It's a 360 degree theater not terribly unlike Disney's except for the floor's capacity to shake and the (sometimes soaking) water effects. It's actually very well done!
Head further towards the falls and it just won't stop. There's more haunted attractions, the Niagara Falls IMAX Theatre, Skylon Tower's wacky Greatest Possible Arcade circa 1996, more FECs, a Margaritaville, and towering hotel/casinos. Oh, go the opposite way and you'll hit the big Fallsview Indoor Waterpark and Bird Kingdom.
With all the glitz and cheesiness of Niagara Falls, one may wish to step back and find something more simple and perhaps "authentic." Guelph is a university town a decent drive out of Toronto, and Riverside Park there features a Spillman carousel and a diesel powered miniature train. Way out on the eastern edge of Ontario is North Bay Heritage Railroad and Carousel - they actually possess two carousels with work being done by local carvers. The town of Roseneath, located about halfway between Toronto and Kingston, also possesses a classic carousel. This one is a CW Parker of 1906 heritage that's been given a new building and lots of TLC. Older yet is Lakeside Park of St. Catharine's Looff from 1903, also meticulously kept up. And in the remote city of Thunder Bay lies Chippewa Park, a small community amusement park. It's carousel is being refurbished, and it's Spillman built coaster was torn down in 2011, but some kiddie rides remain for summer operation.
This may still be too devoid of natural surroundings for some, and Ontario tries to answer those criticisms as well. Blue Mountain Ski Resort has the safest option all around with their Mountain Coaster, one of the first constructed on the continent. Horseshoe has zip lining, a rock climbing wall, and scenic chair rides. There's also a few resorts in Ontario which feature exclusive water parks: Logos Land and Cedar Park Resorts both have substantive aquatics facilities with old school fiber glass slides.
Speaking of water parks: Yeah, there's a lot of them here. Calypso Water Park just outside Ottawa is the nation's largest, and has a huge selection of water slides and two impressively themed lazy river attractions too. Wet N' Wild Toronto is probably the second biggest stand alone facility, having reopened and rebranded to Wet N'Wild (the other Wet N'Wild chain; no really, there's two) in 2017 and with a new slate of slides. Bingeman's Big Splash in Kitchener, Lake Lisgar in Tillsonburg, Adventure Bay in Windsor, and East Park in London round out the list of significant aquatics facilities in the province.
Storybook parks also have a very real presence; Santa's Village in Bracebridge is probably the nicest of all of them, and has a jet boat ride down the Oshawa River, both a powered coaster and SBF kiddie spinner, and a really above average train ride. Storybook Gardens in London might have the highest attendance in this category because of its location near a large population of people. In spite of the location, there's fewer rides here to go with the common fairy tale dioramas and what not. Story Book Land in Owen Sound is much more remote, but has a cool home built walk through haunt and a decent collection of family friendly flat rides. Castle Village & The Enchanted Kingdom completes the group with fairy tale houses, walking trails, and medieval museum exhibits, but it doesn't actually have rides.
Like most places in the US, there are family entertainment centers with go karts, rides, bumper boats, and golf. Blue Mountain Go Karts is perhaps the most traditional of these, with a first generation Herschell kiddie coaster, older style go karts, and batting cages. Fun Haven in Ottawa is an indoor variation, and as an indoor facility there's an updated coaster (SBF Visa spinning coaster), updated bumper cars, and updated arcade games. Then things get interesting: Neb's FunWorld of Oshawa is also an indoors facility, but is sprawling and freeform thanks to the building being added onto over time from a bowling alley to a much more expansive set up. The largest building features an indoor Moser kiddie drop tower that's actually themed with synchronized lights, electric go-karts, and the Sparetime Express kiddie coaster, inside of a a steel cage above the go karts.
Ratcheting up the "weird" factor even further is an indoor FEC located in a large garden center. Colsanti's Tropical Gardens is, in fact, a great place to buy things like trees and flowers if you are Canadian. If you are not, you can still stop in and play arcade games and put your kids on rides like the Miner Mike coaster. And topping all contenders is Wild Water & Wheels of Peterborough. Why this facility? Is it the go karts? Nah. The water slides? No. The mini golf? Negatory. No, its about the coaster: the last Bailey Autosled in existence. The gauge of the track is based on the original material of PVC pipe (this particular one is steel), and the individual seat cars are akin to an alpine slide. It's quite possibly the oddest roller coaster in existence.
For many years, I heard a common refrain from industry folks and those on the internet who felt they had been sufficiently smartened up. They claimed that a core reason behind the bankruptcy of Six Flags (SIX) in the late 2000s was that they had "given away the gate": in effect, they had allowed admission at a loss to try and pick up revenue from food and drink sales only to come up desperately short. They fundamentally misunderstood how the theme park industry worked, unlike Cedar Fair (FUN) and others. Considering the number of people who told me this and my respect for them, I generally mimicked it. Why wouldn't it? It made all the sense in the world. But I've gotten older, and gained a lot of real world experience. I've started to come to distrust those in positions of authority. As I worked on my piece related to the theme park labor market, "giving away the gate" came into my mind. Is that true, or just more BS?
So I did what any rational almost-35 year old should presented with such a question: I sought out FEC 10-K filings. 10-K filings are the annual report corporations are to present the Feds to prove that they aren't up to any malfeasance. First up - Six Flags. Low and behold, what appeared to be truth to the claims, as only 54.2% of their revenue in FY 2016 came from admission. But I've been in academia around scientists: you have to repeat that experiment to prove it. So off to Cedar Fair's 10-K to see what they were doing. The answer? 55.6%. A whopping 1.4% difference as a percentage of revenue. The gross admission revenue at Cedar Fair was almost equal to that of Six Flags: it was about a tenth of a percentage short. Neither chain is anywhere near having admission revenue cover operating expenses. I looked at SeaWorld (SEAS) too: 60% of revenue is admission, and they're in the same situation as far as operating expenses. Maybe that's the way things are now. What about in 2001 when Six Flags was steaming full speed towards collapse?
In FY 2004, as SIX had entered its death spiral, they still beat FUN's percentage of revenue derived from admission as a percentage of their overall revenue. Even with notes about discount tickets being distributed in the annual reports, that didn't explain the split being what it was. I was convinced then that the truth was much more obvious: they had abused their clientele until they stopped coming. With the cost of capital expenditures and park purchases being their customer acquisition costs, they had failed to retain anywhere near enough of them cover the interest on the money SIX had borrowed. In 2004, SIX's operations at the park level actually made $149 million dollars. The problem was that they owed $191 million in just loan interest - by the time everything else they owed got added up, SIX's losses totaled almost a half billion dollars, or -$5.23 a share in 2004. What's really amazing is that after all these years and a bankruptcy, the percentages have barely changed. It was time to put down what was real and stop repeating other's feels.
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.
If
this doesn’t get you excited about going to amusement parks, nothing will.
This
is my favorite of the Discovery Channel’s Extreme Rides/Wild Rides series. It’s
the one I always come back to when I want to get excited about the upcoming
summer season. Back in the late-1990s/early-2000s, Discovery Channel (and its
Travel Channel and TLC counterparts) became obsessed with amusement parks and
roller coasters. Every Memorial Day there would be a “Thrills, Chills, and
Spills” marathon, where there would be several new roller coaster and amusement
parks shows. There was always a new “Top 10 Coasters” type show, which would
mostly be touting the newer coasters that debuted the previous year (funny how
the list of Top 10 coasters seemed to move around every year. I remember The
Beast would jump in and out of the Top 10 on an alternate basis…was turnover
for Discovery Channel writers really that high?). There would also be a new
highlighted theme or amusement park. You’ve already seen our entries (listed on
the bottom of this column) for Disneyland Paris, Magic Mountain, and Busch
Gardens, but there are quite a few more that will be upcoming.
But
my favorite ongoing series was always the Extreme Rides series. This series
would feature the most cutting-edge rides from the past year, with interviews
with the ride designers and the ride’s biggest fans. This would of course
follow (most of the time) with an on-ride POV. There would be stories of the
park the ride’s featured in and the background of how the introduction of the
ride came to be. And of course, at the end of the show, there would be a
preview of the extreme rides of the upcoming year.
Extreme
Rides 2000 is the “Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan” of the series. The features are
fun, the interviews are great (with some special guest stars), it runs the
gamut from coasters to amusement rides to themed rides. If the Discovery Channel
just made an Extreme Rides show every year, that’s all I would ask of them. I
wouldn’t need anything else.
And
Extreme Rides 2000 came at such an interesting time in the amusement park
timeline. B&M had just exhausted its creativity throughout the 1990s with
inverted and stand-up coasters, eventually culminating with the debut of Alpengeist
and Riddler’s Revenge, respectively. So, they decided to branch out again and
start innovating with floorless coasters (Medusa, featured) and hyper coasters (Raging
Bull and Apollo’s Chariot). And as B&M and others began to go into the
hyper-space, Magic Mountain and Cedar Point decided to test the limits of how
high coasters can go with Goliath and Millennium Force, respectively. What we
forget that’s mind-blowing is Goliath and Millennium Force both set coaster height records, and they opened within three months of each other.
Along
with B&M’s forays, there were other coaster design companies that decided
to really test how extreme coaster
vehicles can get. Featured in the coming attractions portion of the video is
the dawn of the flying coaster (which, we must remember, in the era of the
Vekoma models, were originally called “lay-down coasters”), which is so new the
preview is shown in CGI, and Stan Checketts’ bat-crazy
what-the-hell-just-happened Thrust Air 2000, which in a few years would become
Hypersonic XLC at Kings Dominion, and then a few years later, nothing. In this
era, coasters were becoming bigger, faster, and stranger every year (those were
the days).
This
was when wooden coasters were suddenly making a comeback. After the Dinn
Corporation made a few behemoths in the early-1990s (Texas Giant, Mean Streak,
etc.), wooden coasters became smaller and more unique, thanks to Great Coasters
(GCI) and Custom Coasters (CCI). When CCI designed The Raven for Holiday World
in 1995, they sent a clear message that not only were wooden coasters on their
way back, but they didn’t have to be 200 feet tall to pack a real punch. A real
renaissance for wooden coasters ensued, and featured in this video is one of
the weirdest of the bunch (and that’s an understatement): the ultra
out-and-back that is Shivering Timbers at Michigan’s Adventure. At the time it
was built, it opened a lot of eyes as to just how weird wooden coasters can
get.
As
I stated in my last article feature, the launched coaster really changed the
game in the theme park world. No longer restricted by space constraints (the
bigger the lift hill, the more land is needed), now coasters could go 70+ miles
an hour without the need of a single lift hill. Space Mountain at Disneyland
Paris begat Flight of Fear here in the U.S., which begat the incredible 100
mph/400 foot tall Superman: The Escape (hard to believe something like that was
created as far back as 1996. Remember when they had to literally rewrite the
coaster height record rules so Superman would be its own separate category, and
not included in the “continuous” coaster records?). Superman begat Batman and
Robin: The Chiller, which eventually begat Volcano: the world’s first inverted launched coaster. And its
weirdness, in my opinion, has never been matched. With two distinct launches,
and the second sending you upwards through a fiery volcano? That takes some
creativity.
And
finally, there are quite a few non-coaster features in this video. The first is
the Katanga Skyscraper in Orlando, the extreme amusement flat ride from the
makers of every bungee-jumping Sky Coaster and catapult-flinging monstrosity
you see in amusement parks these days. Themed rides are featured here too. Journey
to Atlantis from SeaWorld Orlando is here. It was inevitable that Splash Mountain’s
infamous double-dip would lead to the firing of a hundred imaginations about
what else a standard log flume track
could do. The next logical step was to combine the log flume with a coaster
track, giving the flume the ability to turn
and even rise back up in the middle
of a splashdown hill. And looking at the video, it’s admirable how SeaWorld was
able to theme this ride while Disney’s popularity was booming. SeaWorld (back
then) obviously was determined to try to bridge the gap between it and Disney
in any way it could.
And
speaking of bridging the gap, what ride encapsulated that concept better than
Spider-Man? That’s right, Spider-Man’s here too. IOA had just opened the year
before, and Discovery Channel wasn’t going to let that go without highlighting
the most mind-blowing ride at the park. And also, think about how commendable that
was. In a park with Dueling Dragons, Hulk, and Jurassic Park, on a show called
Extreme Rides 2000 Discovery Channel thought best to showcase the hell out of
Spider-Man. Damn good work, that. Jolly good show.
This
time in amusement park history was very similar to what we saw with Hollywood
movies also. Since Star Wars was
released in 1977, and then once Terminator
2 and Jurassic Park introduced CGI
to the masses, the race was on every year to make bigger, better, more
expensive, and more sophisticated movies every summer. It was expected that
each summer’s movies would be bigger than the last. That’s exactly what was
going on with amusement parks. Can we honestly say there was more innovation in
the amusement park space in any decade more than the 1990s? With the amount of
coasters created, with the creativity of each, and the ingenuity?
Certainly
the ride designers would tell you the 1990s were a golden age of amusement park
designer creativity. Luckily, Extreme Rides 2000 has an all-star lineup of
quality guest stars from all spokes of the park industry wheel. Starting with
the usual Discovery Channel rolodex interviews with Steve Urbanowicz, Allen
Ambrosini, and Paul Ruben, Extreme Rides 2000 also has quite a few white whales
as guest stars: at 5:10 Walter Bolliger (of B&M…yeah, that Bolliger)
discusses B&M’s thought process in transitioning from inverted to floorless
coasters, at 10:10 and 11:12 Peter Kockelman of Gravity Works (of Sky Coaster
fame) talks about creating the Katanga Skyscraper after their Ejection Seat
model, at 17:32 Denise Dinn-Larrick (President of CCI) discusses the impetus
behind Shivering Timbers, at 27:40 Sandor Kernacs (President of Intamin)
explains how difficult it was to translate the LSM technology to inverted
coasters, and at 31:42 Stan Checketts explains just how crazy he is. Oh, and
don’t forget the Spider-Man behind-the-scenes walkthrough with Scott Trowbridge
starting at 36:25.
So
I dare you to watch this and not immediately run to your car and drive to your
local park. In fact, I’ve been typing this whole article while driving at the
same time. Okay, not really. Also, I’m pretty sure the seasonal parks aren’t
open until Friday this week. But it’s
still exciting, darn it. By the end of the show, we’re also promised the
following future ideas:
1.An S&S that goes 100 mph and rises up 350
feet (this was 4 years before Dragster)
2.Log flumes that do loops
3.Wooden coasters that go underwater
More,
please. Now excuse me, I need to go to my car immediately. I love extreme rides!
We have a double header of a show for you this week! Joe and Nick are joined by distinguished blogger and podcaster Derek "They'll Always Be the San Diego Chargers To Me" Burgan. First up are the top six and bottom six rated attractions at Universal Orlando Resort as voted by the readers of TouringPlans.com and The Unofficial Guide. Afterwards they dive into the full Halloween Horror Nights 27 reveal. We cover the houses, scare zones, shows, and our thoughts on the farewell of Bill & Ted.
The second half Joe is joined by three time in a row guest Andrew Hyde to discuss all the announcements from Cedar Fair on August 16th, 2017.
Top Six Attractions at UOR (0:04:37)
Bottom Six Attractions at UOR (0:24:44)
HHN 27 News! (0:50:45)
Throw it to Joe & Andrew for Cedar Fair talk (1:17:14)
Joe and Lane talk about ALL THE HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS 27 NEWS. Or not really. Our bad. We talk about local parks additions with Cedar Fair, Six Flags Fiesta Texas' Wonder Woman Golden Lasso, and some Busch rumors. Then we talk about some Star Wars VR, more Harry Potter construction news, and then your questions! SWEEPSTAKES!
Few states can manage to embody so many of the contrasts of the American Midwest in the way that Missouri can. Geographically, it's larger than New York or Florida. There are the plains and wetlands of both the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. There's vast rolling farmland, as well as forests, mountains, and enormous lakes (many of which are man made). Around the rural beauty is also the unfortunate backstory of Missouri's slave state status and continuing racial turmoil in its urban areas. For outsiders, Missouri is a place anchored by two cities on opposite corners - Kansas City and St. Louis. Both cities have a pall of decay and despair about them with the ever changing global economy increasingly leaving them behind. Outside of those metropolitan strongholds are the capital (Jefferson City), college towns (Columbia, Rolla, Cape Giradeau), and a major resort destination (The Ozarks, anchored by Branson).
As always with the series, we start with that which is known:
-Six Flags St. Louis opened as the third of the original Six Flags parks under the moniker "Six Flags Mid-America". The name was changed during the Gary Story years after the chain expanded and took on new facilities in Chicago, Louisville, and Cleveland, but the name has stuck even since. Unlike Six Flags Over Texas and Six Flags Over Georgia, which saw ownership stakes retained by the Wynne family, Six Flags Over Georgia is a wholly owned by Six Flags Inc. facility and thus requires a certain amount of cultural anthropology to see much of what was original to the park remaining as it has crumbled away over time. Highlights of the current lineup include the John Allen out-and-back Screamin' Eagle, the GCI wood coaster American Thunder, the launched Premier coaster Mr. Freeze, an Arrow log flume, a train ride, (Six Flags Mid America logos still in cast iron), and a Sally Justice League dark ride.
-Worlds of Fun was, I hear, a really cool looking regional themer in the late 90s before Dick Kinzel and Cedar Fair went about tearing all the charm out of it in stages. The park that exists now has a GCI woodie that is generally well regarded (Prowler), a Morgan hypercoaster that is generally well regarded, and a train ride that actually went back to having staged robberies of late. The raft ride (Fury of the Nile) might actually be a top 3 attraction at this park which lacks really solid show facilities or a dark ride.
-Silver Dollar City is where the Herschend empire got started. Aesthetically similar to Dollywood, it has a number of really awesome aspects that Dollywood just can't match now: The Flooded Mine boat dark ride, the Grandfather's Mansion fun house, the fact that the first attraction here was a real life cave big enough to fit hot air balloons into, a top mine train coaster, a great custom S&S launched ride in Powder Keg, and oh so much more. SDC is one of my favorite parks in the world, no doubt about it.
-The St. Louis Arch and Museum of Westward Expansion are visited by several million people each year, and in addition to the one of a kind elevator system, the underground museum features an array of animatronic figures detailing the colonization of the Wild West.
...and from there, we go to that which is unknown....
BEYOND THE GATEWAY
St. Louis is home to the state's largest metro population, and it shouldn't surprise people that it also has some of the more interesting attractions I'll be noting. The first of these is a modern creation: The City Museum. Not merely just a museum, but a sort of "fun house on steroids", City Museum was the brain child of Bob Cassilly, an artist who realized the potential in an abandoned shoe factory to create an interactive art installation unlike any other. Like other fun houses in the world, there barrels to roll in and slides to go down, but this "fun house" also has an array of interconnected tunnels, miniatures, pinball machines, a safe, opera posters, an airplane, and more jungle gym-esque equipment to climb on than can reasonably be imagined. When this series is over and done with, City Museum will be near the top of the list of awesome things to see.
St. Louis has other above average sights to see as well. The St. Louis Zoo is a free admission zoo (rare) which occupies part of the grounds of the 1904 World's Fair held here. A 4-D theater and Chance CP Huntington Train offer non-animal attractions. Union Station will soon be home to an aquarium and Chance 200-foot ferris wheel in addition to the impressive projection show already taking place in the main hall. Staying in the area and closer to Six Flags is the Endangered Wolf Center in Eureka, another AZA accredited institution.
Finally, we head to a county park to get a look back into living history. Faust Park in Chesterfield has two carousels; one an 1898 Armitage-Herschell, the other a 1921 Dentzel. The older of the two was converted to electric operation from steam, but the engine has been retained as a museum piece.
WALK IN WALT'S FOOTSTEPS
Walt Disney is probably the most iconic and important figures in the theme park industry, and much of what made Walt who he was occurred in Missouri. He grew up in the town of Marceline and later in Kansas City, where he established his first animation studio before moving to LA. As such, for the ardent Disney fan, Missouri offers an interesting glimpse unto better understanding Walt Disney: The Man.
Starting in Marceline, The Walt Disney Hometown Museum features a number of artifacts related to the man, his animation, and even the parks. In 1966, the Midget Autopia ride was donated to the city of Marceline along with an ampitheater, and though a spirited attempt to bring the ride back via Kickstarter was made in 2015, the effort fell short. In February 2016, the Marceline City Council voted to demolish the ampitheater and track where the Midget Autopia cars once ran. An Arrow Arrowflite Freeway Ride, Idlewild Park in Pennsylvania still operates a ride nearly identical to Midget Autopia to this day. Knoebel's Grove also operates what is likely a Arrowflite Freeway. As for the town itself, remember that this was the model for Main Street USA, Walt's tribute to small town America.
Over in Kansas City, the primary amusement park of Walt's childhood had closed by the mid-1920s. However, what does certainly still exist is Country Club Plaza. Opened in 1923, this was the first shopping mall/mixed use facility intended to be accessed primarily by automobile. It also appears on this list because the building exteriors have been heavily themed to resemble the Moorish architecture of Seville, Spain. This is also one of the early adopters of that now famous theme park tradition of garish Christmas lighting arrays and accompanying lighting ceremonies. While it's opening would have been significant, and the eventual effect of its innovations seemingly influential to an almost obvious degree, Country Club Plaza is not often mentioned in relation to Walt's development.
Kansas City also has another big mixed use development of note in what is known as Crown Center. Merlin operates both a Sea Life Aquarium and Legoland Discovery Center in the shopping complex. "Crown" is for the Hallmark logo, as this is abutting corporate headquarters and the Hallmark Visitor Center. Architecture and disaster buffs might also note that the Sheraton Crown Plaza here opened as the Hyatt Regency, and was the scene of a horrific disaster in 1981 where 114 people were crushed to death in an atrium walkway collapse.
FLANDERS' VERSION OF LAS VEGAS
Branson is not a boom town. The best days for this city were in the mid 90s, when musicians and entertainers from around the globe packed enormous theaters filled with Middle American tourists seeking escape. As the demographic who made Branson what it is died off, and was replaced with lower income people with less interest in bluegrass music or comedy bits about Soviet Russia, hotels stopped getting filled. Branson USA, a new build park in the 1990s, was purchased by Herschend to effectively close it (they left it standing and abandoned in clear view for many years) and cut competition. Theaters are empty with grass poking through the parking lots. Meanwhile, Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg has boomed, suggesting that there is only room for one such tourist draw.
In lieu of all this, two mountain coasters will be operating in Branson in 2017. The first, at Branson Mountain Adventure Park, actually opened last year. The second, currently under construction, replaces the Cool Off Water Chute, an early concrete water slide that predated Wet N' Wild and River Country. They join a bevy of existing attractions, such as the Professor Hacker's Lost Treasure Golf location and its train ride to the first hole and the Hollywood Wax Museum. The latter even has the throw-ins of the "5D" Castle of Chaos interactive theater attraction and Shoot for The Stars Mini-Golf (which may actually be slightly racist in its depiction of your manager, whom offers encouragement at each hole while describing your ascent in Hollywood).
Herschend operates White Water, a fairly compact water park near the main drag in town, and that competes primarily with a couple of indoor water parks as well as Big Surf (no relation to the Arizona park). With Cool Off Water Chute being dead, the most unique slide to the state is gone with it.
UNCHARTED MISSOURI
Outside the major cities, few bother to roam. I can't say I really blame them. But those who have came back with information about some weird parks. Bless them and their spending of money.
Hydro Adventures in Poplar Bluff isn't really near anything you'd go to, but since opening in 2003 has slowly obtained an audience. Since 2015, the dry ride options were added, and it is now home to the largest coaster in the state (an SDC built Galaxi) outside the big chain owned themers. There's a mix of cheaper Italian and American built rides otherwise. In the city of Osage Beach, halfway between Columbia and Springfield, is Miner Mike's Adventure Town. It is a classic, but large, family entertainment center. The rustic frontier theme is above average for the genre, but being honest, its primary function is children's birthday parties.
St. Joseph's is home to the Patee House, a museum complex that features a truly one-of-a-kind ride. The "Wild Thing" carousel, carved entirely by Bruce White, was taken in from the local mall. White is actually the guy responsible for the horses Applebee's restaurants use as flair/decor in the restaurants. That's not the only strange carousel in the state either. Perryville, a town located southeast of St. Louis, has a Herschell-Spillman carousel dating to 1905 which operates only for the 3 day run of the Annual Seminary Picnic the first weekend of August.
Minneapolis is the greatest secret in America. I say this often, but seriously, it is true. They have an airport with all sorts of international flights thanks to being a Delta hub. There's passable public transport with airport connections, which is incredibly rare even in cities with light rail. The most famous hospital in the world isn't that far away, and there's a great research university. All four major pro sports are represented. Minnesota was so well developed, peaceful, and frankly "socialist" (google the Minnesota Miracle) that the federal government made it the dumping ground for diaspora running from their homelands simply because it, more than any other city in the nation, was capable of accepting and integrating them. Don't believe me? Go look at the huge Hmong and Somali populations and tell me otherwise. The city consistently rates as one of the world's most livable.
As a whole, the state has elected the likes of a pro wrestler (Jesse Ventura) and stand up comedian (Al Franken) to high office. Garrison Keillor is from here, and he's the most NPR thing in the world. So was Prince, who never left Minneapolis even at the peak of his fame. They're "different" in the way Vermonters are different, except by most criteria, they're also better than most everywhere in the United States at literally every aspect of civilization. And yet they get no credit. Funny how that works, right?
But this isn't just a blog for recitation of random factoids about places you, likely a US resident within 150 miles of an ocean, have thought beneath you. This is a blog specifically about amusement rides, theme parks, and all the things that fall under that umbrella. It is a big umbrella. If Minnesota is so livable and so good, clearly, it must have rides worth talking about. How could it not?
As always here, we start with the known quantities, and that means we're spending lots of time in the Twin Cities. Valleyfair is a Cedar Fair owned and constructed park that opened in 1976. Cedar Fair's corporate name stems from the combination of Cedar Point and Valleyfair. As a Cedar Fair park of the vintage, it certainly shows in the midway and building design. Some of the more unique rides in the park include the Renegade GCI wood coaster, Wild Thing (Morgan Hypercoaster), and Excaliber, a Arrow Mine Train with some serious kick. Not too far away is the Mall of America, home to Nickelodeon Universe and its unique collection of rides, ranging from a Zierer Hexentanz to a Gerstlauer Eurofighter coaster and a Sally shooting dark ride. Don't forget that the mall is also home to a Soarin' style ride (Flyover America), the huge Water Park of America, and a large aquarium, now operated by Merlin.
And now, the less known:
It might be a stretch to call the Minnesota State Fair "unknown". One of the nation's 3 most attended fairs, Minnesota and Texas have been the two pillars on which the increasing number of independent midways in America have been built. In addition to the unique rides that come to Minneapolis each August, there's a number of permanent rides here that operate only during the Fair. Among these: a 100+ year old Old Mill dark ride, a Von Roll skyride, a rotating observation tower, and a one-off Barr Engineering rapids ride. Staying in the metro area, Como Town and Zoo in St. Paul recently welcomed an Interpark Zyklon to join their collection of family rides and attractions.
Now, yes, more than half of the state's population lives within the confines of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area. But there's still a couple million people elsewhere, and they do stuff too. Some of it is kinda unique. Take for example the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion in Hawley. Located 3 1/2 hours northwest of Minneapolis itself, it might be the single largest collection of steam powered equipment in the world, and two of those pieces are ride-able. There are train rides (surprise!) but also a steam powered carousel, one of very few anywhere in the world. Back east a little ways in Brainerd is Paul Bunyan Land, which has two notable attractions: one is the home built haunted house that operates during its full season. The other is the last known permanent installation of Flying Cages anywhere in the the US. Wonder what these look like? Well, wonder no further:
Southeast of Minneapolis, in the city of Kellogg, is LARK Toys. Whomever it is that ranks toy stores finds this one to be among the tops in the nation, and they've got a unique new build wood carousel and mini golf as draws aside from the toys. Heading well north to Lake Superior, the city of Duluth has a ski resort (Spirit Mountain) which became one of the first in the nation to acquire a Wiegland Alpine Coaster in 2010. It's really the only such ride in this region of the nation (world if you count Western Ontario and Manitoba). The next closest one is a day's drive away in Branson, MO. If having underwheels is too risk adverse for your taste, Wild Mountain in Taylors Falls has an old fashioned concrete alpine slide, plus an airbag platform to jump off of. You climb a tower and jump off, no restraints, no assistance, into an airbag.
There are a ton of aquatics facilities in Minnesota: 15 or so qualify as full bore parks outside of the big one attached to Mall of America. Few of them have really defining and strange characteristics aside from Wild Mountain's Big Country slide (a long slide featuring 9 splashdown points and a ground hugging layout suggesting a past history of being concrete) and the Venetian Indoor Waterpark. The latter doesn't have anything colossal, just a comparatively unique theme.
LARK Toys is not the only retail location to have a themed attraction. Tom's Logging Camp outside Duluth features a Gravity House attraction in the classic 1950s tradition. But there's also some historical exhibits showing life for loggers from turn of the century-era frontier time too.
Ignoring, for a moment, the sometimes harsh winter, if someone were to ask me, "What are the negatives of living in Michigan?," I'd have two responses. One: Having to constantly explain to people that the entire state does not resemble post-industrial Flint in Roger & Me. Two: There aren't any really good amusement parks here. That is quantitatively a thing that matters primarily to me, as many people here have simply moved on to other things in the years since most of the state's significant facilities closed. But there are definitely still things. Some of them are even pretty big.
In the known category, two parks jump right out. Greenfield Village in Dearborn is likely the highest attended theme/amusement attraction in the state on an annual basis. Constructed starting in the 1930s by industrial magnate and inventor of the assembly line himself, Henry Ford, it is a loving tribute to America (with some England too). Ford believed in preservation, and he also believed in owning things, so he bought tons of historic homes and businesses, put them on trucks, and rebuilt them on his property. The Firestone Family Farm, the Wright Bros. Bicycle Shop, a replica of Edison's Menlo Park workshop, steam trains, a Herschell Carousel, and Model Ts are all present to experience both inside and out. For more traditional wares, there's also the Cedar Fair owned Michigan's Adventure, located near the beaches of Lake Michigan in the city of Muskegon. Famed in coaster circles for being home to Shivering Timbers, a massive wooden out and back coaster that once was so beloved it gave rise to the "Church of Shivering Timbers." Times have changed, and the ride, while still very good, is not nearly the universal top 5 pick it was. The park is also very often slammed with people, but being where it is, staffing is a real issue and capacity is kinda bad. Really bad. Not nearly as bad capacity wise, but being something you can't visit without a child, is Legoland Discovery Center in Auburn Hills. There's a trackless Kingdom Quest dark ride here.
Enough about those: let's talk about stuff that's more obscure. Maybe it'll even more interesting! Should we shoot our load immediately and go right to the death cult amusement park? Yes. Yes, I think the death cult amusement park is a great place to start. Not far from the Indiana border in the town of Benton Harbor is a miniature train surrounded by ruins. If you aren't aware that it's there, you probably would never stop in, but what remains of House of David's Eden Springs is actually really awesome. In it's prime, this was a "show park" - there were baseball games, concerts, and plays. The major rides were trains; there were several different lines traversing various parts of the grounds, with tall trestles built to navigate the trains over gaps in the terrain. There's just one running today, with plans to fix up one of the trestles and lengthen the line having been pushed back now for several years. The old House of David, a turn of the century "doomsday cult" that demanded celibacy and thus effectively died out in the mid-late 20th century, still exists and have their split compounds near the park grounds in huge mansions. For something a little more joyful, St. Joseph (a neighboring town) has a beautiful Carouselworks carousel on the site of what was Silver Beach Amusement Park. A small museum about that defunct park is also present at the carousel site.
Staying on the Lake Michigan coast, heading north sends you to the city of Holland and the small park known as Nelis' Dutch Village. There are no roller coasters or dark rides present, but the theme of a dutch town with shops and wooden shoe adorned dancers is buoyed by doll collections, an ancient circle swing attraction, carousel, and Eli Wheel. Bringing slightly more excitement to the table are the Mac Woods' Dune Rides up on Silver Lake, north of Michigan's Adventure. There are real live dunes out here, and they're huge. For those seeking straight up thrills, rentals of dune buggies are available elsewhere in the area, and sand drag racing happens fairly frequently. For those with more pedestrian tastes, Mac Woods' runs heavily altered F-350s which end up doing a combination of ecotourism, Jungle Cruise (the puns! the props!), and middle eastern wadi bashing.
Heading east across the state, there's more failures then still existing properties. Battle Creek was home to Cereal City USA, Kellogg's attempt at spicing up the factory tour with animatronics. It lasted 10 seasons, and now is a school. Ramona Park in Grand Rapids closed in 1955: the local library has mementos on display in its historical archives room, and a painted mural on a parking structure reminds people of it's past location. Deer Forest in Coloma was sold, pieced out, turned into a wildlife rescue center and handed to a relative of the owner with a history of animal cruelty. It has stood abandoned for several years. Deer Acres in Pinconning closed nearly a decade ago, though the gates open once a year for a car show as they "work on the park." Lake Lansing closed in 1974, though its wood coaster had been shuttered long before that. All of this is pretty well gone and never coming back. But there is hope burgeoning in some unlikely places.
I'll start in the Irish Hills. Located roughly between the cities of Jackson and Detroit, this region has been a magnet for tourism since the late 1920s. Not much of the prime eras are left: the Irish Hills Towers are on the National Historic Registry but on the verge of demolition. Tourist traps like Frontier City, Fantasy Land, and Prehistoric Forest are all closed up. Cedar Point of Michigan was a thing that was designed and for which land was purchased, but never actually happened. What's left? Well, there's the Michigan International Speedway, but it isn't themed or a ride. Then there's the Stagecoach Stop and Cowboy Creek Lodge: once known as Stagecoach Stop USA, it was a small western themed town and amusement park that lay dormant between 2008 and 2014, reopening sans rides, but with the other western elements incorporated. And then there's Cell Block 7 in Jackson: a former wing of the Michigan State Penitentiary, it has become a museum detailing what life is really like behind bars. Just don't expect many pictures from me of it: photography is strictly forbidden. Finally, Mystery Hill, a Gravity House attraction much like the Mystery Shack of Knotts fame (and of a style somewhat immortalized in the cartoon Gravity Falls) still runs in Onsted.
There are a number of railway based attractions in the state which have expanded into much larger complexes beyond just the Eden Springs. Substantial tourist railways exist in Coldwater (Little River), Tecumseh (Southern Michigan), and Coopersville & Marne Railway (Coopersville), but they are generally somewhat limited in scope. Crossroads Village outside Flint has a 4-2-4 train and carriages, but also features a rare combination of CW Parker carousel and ferris wheel (one of 4), plus paddleboat rides and a historic village. Detroit Zoo has an set of incredible old trains fabricated by Chrysler (one-offs) along with an amazing penguin enclosure themed to Antarctica, 4D theater, motion simulator ride, and carousel. John Ball Zoo is not to be outdone, featuring a modern electric funicular. Binder Park in Battle Creek (a phenomenal zoo far beyond the expectations anyone should reasonably have for Battle Creek) also has a train ride along with a carousel and an incredibly well done Savannah section reached by lengthy tram ride.
Only recently have amusement park historians and enthusiasts started to uncover the attractions of Northern Michigan. St. Ignace, sitting in the shadow of the Mackinac Bridge, also features a gravity house (Mystery Spot) with a scenic overlook atop a cliff. Billboards and flyers are bountiful throughout the lower peninsula of Michigan, so this is fairly commonly known. Mackinac Island itself is host to a permanent haunted walk-through attraction, The Haunted Theater. These are easily the two most seen by tourists in and to the state. But there's more. Oh yes. Much more.
Going back south a bit in the lower Peninsula, several amusement parks and roller coasters have been "discovered" by hobbyists. The first of note is the area around Houghton and Higgins Lake, 3 hours north of Detroit. There's an outpost of Pirates Cove mini golf here along with two small amusement parks. The first of these, Funland, has operated since 1956, and is home to a mix of kiddie rides, an Eli Wheel, a Herschell kiddie coaster, $1 mini golf, and a water slide for the kids. Just up the street is Lakeland Recreation, an unassuming name for a substantive family entertainment center. There's the obscenity of gas power bumper cars, go karts, mini golf, and driving ranges, but most important is the existence of Haunted Mansion, a walk-through haunt attraction, self constructed in what was clearly a former private residence. No actors, just stunts and props. It's pretty awesome.
East of this on the Lake Huron coast are a few more family entertainment/small amusement park type spots. Kokomo's in Saginaw has the Americana/Lesourdesville Lake "Serpent", a Zyklon coaster which opened in its current location in 2009. Further north in Alpena is Arzo's, a small park with an old school 1950s era simulator attraction, Majestic scooters, a Dragon Wagon coaster, and Gravitron, among a few other things. They've all been joined in the last year by Cedar Valley's Wild Frontier Fun Park in Comins, which has a wild west theme and is composed of mostly vintage portable rides, with a roller coaster slated for installation in 2017. All the way up in Sault Ste. Marie, The Haunted Depot is not merely a Halloween store, but a year round haunt almost within view of the Canadian border.
One thing about the history of the United States is that our great industrialists were not often men of great wealth as kids, but self-made, establishing empires off their vision. In the theme park world, there are some men who are attributed with this kind of forethought, but that individualistic vision is seen even at the smaller scale. Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum is an example of that: built by the late Marvin Yagoda, this insane arcade located in the Detroit suburbs is not the largest by square footage in the area, nor does it have the newest games. It may even with the size constraints given to it, have the most attractions and games in the region, as it is simply stacked and packed with things to see. Marvin loved old arcade machines, Detroit, and the amusement industry as a whole, and it shows when you go in and see the pieces which he's collected from throughout the world for display. Yes; you could go to CJ Barrymore's in Clinton Township for their zipline and looping Zyklon coaster instead, and they run a nice clean operation out there, but you'd be missing out on a real gem by not coming here too.
Michigan's cultural exports in the realm of music are fairly diverse: Diana Ross, The White Stripes, and Derrick May just show faint glimmers of the spectrum. Part of that spectrum unquestionably is the strange devotion to the hip hop subgenre of "horrorcore," first with Esham (considered by some the progenitor of Eminem's style) and later with the much more popular Insane Clown Posse. That "Juggalos" and "The Dark Carnival" got its start here in Michigan begins to make a lot more sense when one admires the sheer number of large Halloween attractions in the state. Erebus in Pontiac held the world's record for the largest haunted attraction from 2005-2009, but there are many, many more. Starting in September, you can actually pick up publications that list some of the likely 3-figures of haunts ranging from massive carnival/hay ride/haunted house extravagazas to "haunted monster truck rides" to kid friendly corn mazes.
