Going back to the 1970s, the next book reviewed is Gary Kyriazi’s tome, “The Great American Amusement Parks.” The 1970s were really the first period which sees multiple books on the industry published, and Kyriazi’s is an example of a book that isn’t particularly heavy on text. If you’ve read the first couple primers I’ve brought up in prior reviews, you know most of the background information that Kyriazi is going to reveal already. Anyways, Citadel Press put this book out in 1978, and it is nice and chunky, filled with glossy black and white shots of rides from bygone eras.
Parkscope YouTube is back! This week, we have FOURTEEN Travel Channel specials awaiting release, and we're going to do something a little different. Every night, for seven nights starting Sunday 8/25, we will be Premiering our videos on YouTube at 8 pm and 9 pm, Eastern Time! Join us as we revel in the latest batch of early-2000s travel special goodness! If you miss the theme park specials of 2001/2002, you will have an EPIC amount of fun over the next week, at a time when cable TV is really boring and unfulfilling! It's a win/win for you! Every night we will reveal the next night's two video releases, so check back every day here to Parkscope.net!
"What are the latest, greatest favorite roller coasters in the world? Last may Discovery.com asked viewers to e-mail their recommendations for the world's Top 10 Coasters. The Raven. Millenium Force. Nitro. Ghostrider. The Beast. Magnum. And what separates an ordinary coaster from the cream of the coaster crop? The drop? The G-Forces? Speed? Change of direction? Terror? Pacing? Re-rideability? Constant excitement. So what was the results of the online poll? To find what 5 wooden and 5 steel coasters rose to the top, jump in and hold on to your lap bar! We're going to give you an in-depth look, so hold on for a thrilling ride aboard each of our Top Ten Coasters!"
"Millions of people flock to amusement parks each year to experience the latest and greatest extreme thrill machines. They push the envelope of human creativity and imagination. Fuel in this industry is the human need to challenge our bodies and minds. They make you feel out of control. They're heart-stopping and heart-pounding. And you want to ride them over and over again! To quench the insatiable human thirst for extreme rides, parks and ride designers must devise novel ways to deliver the ultimate thrill. They continue to get bigger, faster, and more intense. Hold on tight as we take you over the edge to explore and experience the world's most thrilling extreme rides!"
Parkscope YouTube is back! This week, we have FOURTEEN Travel Channel specials awaiting release, and we're going to do something a little different. Every night, for seven nights starting Sunday 8/25, we will be Premiering our videos on YouTube at 8 pm and 9 pm, Eastern Time! Join us as we revel in the latest batch of early-2000s travel special goodness! If you miss the theme park specials of 2001/2002, you will have an EPIC amount of fun over the next week, at a time when cable TV is really boring and unfulfilling! It's a win/win for you! Every night we will reveal the next night's two video releases, so check back every day here to Parkscope.net!
"Take one part carnival, two parts sunshine, and a whole lot of water, and stir. That's the recipe for a great boardwalk, and this show is a guide to find the very best. From the classic style of Coney Island, to the west coast pleasures of Venice Beach and Santa Monica, we'll sample the southern charms of Myrtle Beach, grab a bite in Ocean City, and visit the home of Miss America in Atlantic City. The fun starts now and you've got a front row seat to America's favorite Boardwalks!"
"California: this land of dazzling sun is literally bursting at the seams with non-stop outdoor fun, including some of the world's most spectacular theme parks. It's also the king of the roller coaster hill, with more roller coasters than any other state in the USA. How did one of America's biggest states also become the thrill ride leader? Why are California's theme parks famous around the globe? And what gives them that special cutting edge? What's the real story behind these screaming metal dynamos that overwhelm us with pleasure, and terror, all at once? It's Coasters of the West: Terrifying Thrills!"
Euclid Beach Park was a very popular amusement pier in Cleveland, OH. Built in 1895, Euclid Beach Park lasted until 1969 when it was torn down. Euclid Beach Park was one of the most famous amusement piers in the country in the 1950s and 60s, with original wooden Flying Turns coasters, wooden bobsled coasters, racing coasters, and the famous Euclid Beach popcorn balls. The memories of Euclid Beach Park is a haven for old amusement park fans. This video was created by an especially avid Euclid Beach fan in 1993, who had taken two decades of home movies and assembled them into this presentation, combining old footage with a documentary history of the park and several interviews from former employees and guests. It's certainly a treasure for those of you who are fans of the old amusement parks. Enjoy!
Top
10 lists are REALLY fickle. Especially when we’re focusing on the theme park
industry, which has a new “best thing” du jour every year and twice on Sundays.
This little gem comes to us from the far-off land of the Year 2000. These were
the coolest thrill rides (well, at least according to TLC) in the world at the
time.
It’s
interesting to see which ones would still make a Top 10 list today (I’m
thinking probably the top 2, maybe still #4 as well) now that we’ve been privy
to the flowing sands of time and a thousand new paint jobs. It’s also
interesting to play Joe’s favorite game with specials like this, “guess which
rides are still standing!” Or at the very least, which rides are still in their
original incarnations. Some rides have been taken down. Some have been moved to
other locations, some have new paint jobs, some kind of run backwards or
whatever. It’s another worthwhile nostalgic look at the past.
In
all seriousness, how would you structure a Top 10 thrill ride special? The
structure presented here is not bad: they try to have as much variety as
possible, so there’s one stand-up, one water coaster, two inverted (both very
different), one flyer, one hyper, one giga, one Woodie, one freefall, and one
reverse freefall. Besides being a Rollercoaster Tycoon fan’s wet dream, that’s
a good amount of variety for a Top 10 list.
Or,
would you stack your favorite rides on it, regardless of what kind? I’m sure
there would be more than one giga or Woodie, right? But then you have to push
out some quirky rides that might bear mentioning. Would you include themed
non-coasters like Spider-Man or Tower of Terror? Certainly they would qualify
as thrill rides, yes? And what’s the deal with having Buzzsaw Falls rather than
Atlantis? I guess Buzzsaw is more roller coaster-y, but it wasn’t really that
interesting of a ride.
This
special is also noteworthy for the whacked-out elements it has to try and keep
the material entertaining, as if the Top 10 thrill rides on the planet weren’t
interesting enough. Among the more bizarro elements are the insane desire to
have the feature riders be as random as humanly possible (we go from a team of
ACE-ers in the first segment to, I’m not kidding here, the American Superstars
female dance troupe. Aesthetics?) as well as the straight-out inexplicable tags
and adjectives they give to each ride (Volcano is dubbed the “ultimate hot
coaster.” Not sure how big the field is in that category). (Thinking more about
the feature riders, I have this hilarious image in my head where all the
feature riders come together at the end of the show and perform a finale
number, Country Bears style, with Ric Turner doing a chorus line with the
American Superstar dance girls). Also, take a shot every time the narrator
makes a terrible pun. Here’s the hit parade:
“The
Riddler STANDS for Revenge!”
“This
water ride delivers a helping of H2-WHOA”
“Volcano
is the hottest ride in Virginia”
“If
you don’t roll with this ride, you’ll come up snake eyes”
“This
is the coaster you’ll love the most-er”
It’s
unfortunate that TLC went through a cringing “hip and edgy” phase at the same
time that Disney decided to flog that horse. Seldom it works. But next time,
how about letting the “ultimate 10 thrill rides” speak for themselves, huh TLC?
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!
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Was
Euro Disney the most significant Disney Parks historical development post-1971?
It
very well could be. When looking at the history of Disney Attractions following
the creation of the Vacation Kingdom, could one find any other momentous
occasion that meant so much to the future of the theme park industry?
We
all know the story of what happened. An original budget of $1 billion quickly
ballooned into $4 billion. Disney had placed the resort right next to Paris,
which is practically ground zero for Europe’s entire transportation network,
and expected (or so some of their consultants said) to get as many as 30
million visitors by the time the second Disney MGM-Studios park would be built
next door.
The
exact reasons why the resort failed initially are far too complex for this
piece. But the resulting fallout would be almost the equivalent of an asteroid
impact within theme park circles.
Disney
had always been the bellwether for the theme park industry since Disneyland
opened in 1955. At its best, Disney has the financial and creative resources
necessary to move the ball downfield in the themed entertainment industry. It’s
no accident that the theme park industry seems to stagnate at the same time
that Disney’s fortitude diminishes.
Look
at the creative boom that happened within the parks industry during Disney’s
golden years of the 1960s and 1970s (with the opening of Walt Disney World in
Florida). To be fair, the Disneyland imitators of Freedomland and Pleasure
Island and Magic Mountain (the one in Colorado, NOT the one in California) all
went bust in the 1950s. But they all learned a very important lesson: don’t try
to be Disneyland. Only Disney can be Disneyland.
After
the failure of these initial parks came the big breakthrough: Angus Wynne’s Six
Flags concept. Here was a pleasant family park concept (or at least it was back
then) that did not provide themed areas per se, but did provide clean,
well-kept, wholesome entertainment for the whole family. And at a fraction of
the cost of a Disneyland presentation.
And
so the race was on. Practically every major amusement park concept we know of
today follows this model, and came to fruition in the 1960s and 1970s. The Six
Flags concept. The Marriott parks in Illinois and California. The Kings parks.
Carowinds. Busch Gardens. SeaWorld. Magic Mountain (the California one).
Astroworld. Marineland. Worlds of Fun. And the old parks all learned these
lessons and made themselves better. Cedar Point. Knotts. Kennywood. Hershey. Holiday
World. And all of this booming success was predicated on Disney’s popularity
and innovation. It’s true.
Let’s
even put aside the fact that Six Flags and their ilk were built trying to catch
the Disney conceptual wave that amusement parks could be fun, clean, friendly
places again. In the 1950s, Walt had a small company called Arrow Dynamics
manufacture and build the ride mechanisms for his attractions, from the
Fantasyland dark rides to the Mad Tea Party and many others. Arrow had become
quite adept at manufacturing these (very new) mechanical ride concepts, to the
point where they were the ones Walt called on when he wanted to create a new
kind of roller coaster to dive in and around his new Matterhorn mountain. And
so, Arrow created the first tubular steel roller coaster.
As
many of you know, the steel roller coaster is now the rock that amusement parks
build their churches on. One would be hard-pressed to find an amusement park of
any stripe without one today. And after Arrow success with the Matterhorn (and
later Space Mountain), they proliferated the steel coaster concept across the
amusement park landscape. First it was the form of the family-friendly mine
train coaster concept, which the Six Flags of the world were happy to utilize
in their family park concept. But later, Arrow would revolutionize the industry
again by creating the Corkscrew for Knotts Berry Farm, the first steel coaster
with inversions, in 1975 (the same year as Space Mountain opened). Amusement
parks again rode the dual waves of the steel coaster boom and the popularity of
the new Walt Disney World Resort.
A
similar boom happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While one could
certainly argue that the soon to be booming economy would have much to do with
the “coaster wars” and innovation wheelhouse that would commence, it’s also of
note that this came at a time when Disney began a second golden age of
innovation for its theme parks. As Disney began to build bigger and better
parks and attractions, other parks felt emboldened to loosen the purse strings
as well.
Look
at all of the 3-D movies that spread into the theme park world after the
success of Magic Journeys and Captain EO. Or the umpteen billion simulators after
Star Tours. Universal Studios and MGM Grand opened new studio-themed parks
after Disney opened theirs. The world of water parks was changed forever with
the opening of Typhoon Lagoon, as was the world of themed hotels after the Swan
& Dolphin and Grand Floridian made their debuts (it should be noted, 3 years
and 1 year, respectively, before The Mirage opened in Las Vegas and began that
revival). The expansions of Disneyland and Walt Disney World led to new
expansions at Club Med, Las Vegas, Branson Missouri, and Universal Orlando.
Then
Euro Disney happened. And everything began to…slowly…stagnate again. Budgets
began to be cut, little by little, every subsequent year for Disney, until by
2001/2002 they would hit the literal bottom-basement of Disney’s California
Adventure, Dino-Rama, and Disney Studios Paris. And it seemed that, every year,
other parks also began to give up. It was like a themed entertainment ice age. After
a $1 billion-plus expansion at Universal Orlando (which should be pointed out
was approved in 1993), the jolly merry-go-round of Universal ownership decided
to hang it up for about a decade. Las Vegas slowly demolished its themed rides.
All the amusement parks seemed to ditch the simulators and dark rides and went
right back to steel coasters (though some very creative ones). Amusement park
owners seemed more interested on installing Fastpass systems and meal deals.
There’s
a controversial new theory (work with me here) in archeology that suggests that
a 1,200 year “instant ice age” in humanity’s past was caused by a comet impact.
Our climate history shows that, after thousands of years of gradual warming,
the earth was plunged very suddenly back into the teeth of the ice age
approximately 12,800 years ago. This began a period of intense cold called the
Younger Dryas that lasted for 1,200 years. This weather event literally
happened out of nowhere. New evidence suggests that a piece of an enormous
comet (or even several pieces) smashed into the earth and kicked up so much
dust and loess that the sun was blocked for years and caused a reverse
greenhouse effect, basically plunging humanity back into the ice age after it
had almost escaped. This comet is sometimes called the “Clovis Comet” because
it seems to have been the cause of the extinction of the proto-Native American
people called the Clovis culture.
Hot
take: Euro Disney is the Clovis Comet of the current ice age in the theme park
industry.
And
it always seemed like it. Even in this featured show, Inside Disneyland Paris, there seems to be an air of awakening from
a very long winter. Because realistically, Disneyland Paris was in a deep,
biting winter for years and years.
One
thing that always fascinated me about Inside
Disneyland Paris was that it was the first Disney-specific special to ever
air on a Discovery Channel, TLC, or Travel Channel-style show. This always made
me wonder. Though Disney attractions would be featured in specials like Funhouse, only through Buena Vista video
and the Disney Channel could one find Disney-specific documentaries, such as
with the Walt Disney World: Inside Out specials. Amusement parks like Cedar
Point and Magic Mountain were featured multiple times. Universal was featured
all the damn time (to our great consternation). But Disney never entered the
fray. Until this show.
We
were all giddy about this show, because it was the first Disney effort on the
Travel Channel. We awaited with great anticipation. And it makes total sense
now, looking back, that Disneyland Paris would be featured first. We can expect
that Disney didn’t allow Travel Channel to make these kinds of documentaries
for a variety of reasons, be it the hesitation of letting a third party into
Disney’s backstage areas or the idea that Disney “doesn’t need” someone else’s
help to advertise its own products. But Disneyland Paris needed all the help it
could get.
And
so we see Disney’s freshman effort at letting the Travel Channel world into the
backstage magic. And the final product is good, but not spectacular. We see a
lot of what we expect from park specials: the peak inside the food warehouse, the
construction of HISTA, the landscaping, etc. Some better highlights include the
challenge of swiveling Indy’s mine cars backward, the behind the scenes at
parade rehearsals, and the insiders look at the Space Mountain launch area.
Lowlights include every shot of Jay Rasulo.
My
personal favorite highlights are the extensive interviews with Tom K. Morris about the conception of
Fantasyland and the magnificent Sleeping Beauty Castle, as well as the sequence
at the end that reveals the behind the scenes of the Cheyenne’s wild west
dinner show (complete with real buffalo!)
So
enjoy Disney’s first Travel Channel effort. We promise there will be many, many
more to come ;)
