Parkscope Unprofessional Podcast Hour #191 - Remembering Astroworld

We are back baby! With nearly every park in the world currently closed, Joe, Alan, and Alex decide to discuss another park that closed in 2005: the odd duck Astroworld. Opened in 1968 and designed by the same man who brought us Six Flags over Texas, Kings Island, and Hersheypark; Astroworld offered an assortment of prototype and innovative attractions to the Houston area for nearly 40 years. We talk about its opening, our experiences at the park, the reasons for its closure, and cover some of the noteworthy rides inside the park.

The Hidden Rides and Themed Attractions of....Quebec

It's huge! It speaks French! Did I mention that it is huge and full of people that speak French? Yes. French. It's a really foreign place but it shares a border with the United States and you can go there almost any time you want assuming you don't have a prior conviction. Disney's EPCOT features the Château Frontenac as its center piece from Quebec City, so it is exotic and fantastic enough to feature as theming elsewhere. The second largest territory/province in area, and the second largest in population (behind only Ontario), Quebec has some mountains, wilderness, giant cities with underground development, fjords, lakes, moose, roads to basically nowhere: there's a lot happening in, well, a lot of space. 595,391 square miles, to be precise. That's more area than every state in the US Eastern Seaboard, Vermont, Ohio, West Virginia, and Alabama combined.

For all that space, there's fundamentally only one major theme park for the area. La Ronde opened in 1967 as the attraction and amusement area of that year's World's Expo, and while little remains of the original rides, there are a few gems like the monorail and "Tchou Tchou" - it's a kiddie ride, but it's probably the most adorable thing here. Did I mention this is a bad theme park? It is a bad theme park. Possibly the worst. So bad that we here (OK, me alone) attempted to get in contact with the employee's union at La Ronde to get their take as to why people think La Ronde is generally considered the worst run theme park in North America. I've been. Twice. I only got in once when they closed unannounced on a national holiday because there was rain (the employees, still being paid, stayed and I swear to god continued ran rides in the not open amusement park). The second time I went rides never ran more than one train and it was a miserable, awful experience that I fled early from because, really now, I was in Montreal.

But I'm not going to talk that much about La Ronde, because Six Flags owns it and theoretically, it is "known" in a way that most other parks. No, we spend our time here on Parkscope with this series on things that are more interesting; more fun. More challenging. So instead, we're just going to point Google Maps at the same exact artificial island and look south.

If the Biosphere in Montreal looks like a Geodesic dome, that's because it was one until the skin burned off of it in the 1970s. It's part of a mix of active and dead fragments left from the World Expo, ranging from the good (how Habitat '67 are some of the most desired condos in the city) to the diminished (abandoned pavillions like Jamaica's and Tunisia). Still, it's the Montreal Biosphere that best lives up to the promises of futurists and educators with its incredible metal framework and important messaging.

Quebec is also home to some of the more quirky steel coasters on the planet. Mega Parc, located inside Quebec City's Galeries de la Capitale, is presently undergoing a "reimagining" of sorts, but it is hoped that Capitale Express, a junior coaster that encircles the ice rink, will reopen with the rest of the facility in late 2018. Still operating is the Python Panique, an adult sized L&T Systems steel coaster at Granby Zoo. Granby Zoo is a rarity in Canada as a AZA accredited facility, and often offers discounts to those with memberships to US zoos. There's several other rides present, mostly for kids, but an operational monorail and carousel also beckon beyond just the animal exhibits.

Small kids parks dot the landscape in Quebec: Pays des Merveilles is a classic storybook park with pretty much nothing for childless parents to do (so please, please don't go unless you have kids) a little bit north of Montreal. Village du Pere Noel in nearby Val-David fills the requirement for a Santa-themed park, equally bereft of anything for normal adults to do. But most aspirational of all is Parc Cavaland, a theme park of sorts based around horses. Every child can ride a pony. Or a carousel, if an artificial animal is preferred. Also they may paint ponies and watch an array of equestrian shows ranging from displays of horsemanship (is that a thing?) to jousting. It's like an expanded Medieval Times or something. It's...interesting.

Is a horse themed park with horse riding not enough weird for you? OK, fine. Because I've also got La Vallee Secrete in Saint-Raymond, not far from Quebec City. There's a forest filled with various booths you need to interact with to get clues from which you can solve some sort of mystery, and if you collect them all, you gain access to a building with an animatronic dwarf show because that is absolutely the thing you wanted.

Not enough wandering through the woods? Then there's Foresta Lumina, a night only experience filled with various projection mapping sequences, LED lights, and just overall amazing stuff that you have very likely never in your life heard about. Part themed attraction, part art installation, it's part of an increasingly DIY approach to themed design that has sprung up with the Meow Wolf's of the world.

Quebec is in Canada, which most Americans think is exceedingly cold. Of course they would have a tremendous amount of water parks then. Mont Saint Sauveur is the most famous of them, with a mix of old concrete and newer plastic/fiberglass slides. If there's one cornerstone attraction there, it would have to be Riviere Colorado, a 2+ minute long "rafting adventure" with two person rafts that seat face to face on a perilous journey. Ski Bromont also has a water park with some weird relics; Trompe d’éléphant spits riders out of a "elephant trunk" through the air and into a deep diving pool (complete with audience viewing seating), while Grand Canyon is a fine concrete slide full of random pools which exist for no clear or obvious reason. Even Super Aqua Club in Pointe-Calumet has a pair of concrete tube slides in addition to its primarily ProSlide based modern rides (which includes a really awesome looking ProSlide RocketBLAST/FlyingSAUCER water coaster).

Slide action doesn't end in Summer. No; Winter is really the dominant season in Quebec, and that means tobogganing. Since 1884, the Terrasse Dufferin Slides are seasonal icons. Their classic lighting scheme and appearance evokes a real feeling of yesteryear. And for about 6 months a year, you can enjoy them. Valcartier Vacation Village may not have the history, but it has size as the "largest snow park in the world." That distinction is related to their impressive collection of tubing runs, including some based off a tobogganing base and a few using what look like white water rafts.

Parkscope Unprofessional Podcast Hour - The Road Trip

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Alan and Joe spent a week on the road visiting tourist locations, amusement parks, and breweries in Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee. Catch up on their trips to BBQ places, Segways, beer, City Museum, Silver Dollar City, and Six Flags over Texas below.

Regional Theme Park Revenue: How The Industry Makes Money

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.

YouTube Tuesday #17: The Secret World of Amusement Parks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)

Our Last Ten YouTube Tuesday Features:

#16: Coastermania

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

#14: Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun

#13: Extreme Rides 2000

#12: Thrill Rides: Designing Fear

#11: Inside Disneyland Paris

#10: Scream Parks: Inside Six Flags Magic Mountain

#9: Busch Gardens Tampa Revealed

#8: Inside Universal's Hard Rock Orlando

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

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

The Hidden Rides and Themed Attractions of...New York

Home to what is probably the cultural capital of the world, New York City, and also somewhere there's a bunch of other urban areas you frequently forget about (Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and more!), New York is neither New England, the Rust Belt, nor the Mid-Atlantic. It's all of those things at once. Amusement and theme park culture in America was born here at Coney Island, a beach community in the borough of Brooklyn back in the later half of the 19th Century, and the area around it became home to many of America's major ride manufacturers. Coney Island is still there: the Cyclone and Wonder Wheel (on which Mickey's Fun Wheel is based) are National Historic Landmarks and still plugging away, surrounded by a ton of new rides from the folks at Zamperla who've helped revitalize the region and bring it to a glory it hasn't seen since the 1950s. 

The "known" of the state ties back to Six Flags: Darien Lake used to be part of the empire, but it has since been dispensed of and gone through a series of private equity owners interested in its unique combination of campground, hotel, concert venue, and amusement rides. Standouts include the world's first Intamin hyper coaster, Ride of Steel (Superman branding disappeared with the six flags) and the wacky cult favorite kids ride "Moose on The Loose." Still part of the corporation is Great Escape in Lake George: formerly a family run storybook park, Premier Parks bought it from the Wood family in 1996. There haven't been that many changes to it since, with the park still retaining a family park feel instead of a big thrill facility. The Schmeck Comet, formerly operational at Crystal Beach, runs here and is still lauded by many as one of the best classic wood coasters in the world. 

But there is more: so, so much more. With perhaps the exception of Pennsylvania, no state in the union has a better attachment to the history of amusements than New York. It then unsurprisingly contains many examples of classic rides, attractions, and even shows that are often otherwise lost to time. Lake George is home to one of these examples in another storybook park called Magic Forest. An accompaniment of fairly general kids rides, the "safari" train ride with its statues, and fairy tale displays with primitive animatronics are, in and of themselves, rarities. But then there's the diving horse. Yes. A diving horse: one that jumps off a ledge into a pool of water. West of Magic Forest is another storybook park with a strong aquatic retro feel, Enchanted Forest Water Safari in Old Forge. Rather than diving horses, it has an unmatched array of classic concrete water slides; most with heated water!

Western New York has plenty of history to celebrate too. The Herschell Carousel Factory Museum in North Tonawanda details the history of one of the most important ride manufacturers in American history featuring both fully restored and operational kiddie rides as well as a full size carousel. Midway State Park features a small amusement park operated by government this way too on the banks of Chautauqua Lake. Perhaps its most impressive feature is the roller rink/ballroom, a gorgeous facility that closed when the park transferred to public hands in the 2000s but is kept maintained for the time being. Amusement rides and games are still available. Another lake (Oneida) is the location on which Sylvan Beach runs. This complex is actually operated by multiple concessionaires, and there's a 100+ year old carousel, electromechanical games of chance such as Fascination, and a full size steel roller coaster. The park is probably most well known for its Pretzel dark ride, Laffland, mostly untouched in the many decades since its construction.

Two "full size" parks also celebrate the history of amusements in the region. Seabreeze outside of Rochester opened its gates back in 1879, and features all sorts of goodies. There's Bobsleds, a junior wood coaster that was converted to tubular steel in the late 1950s. There's the Jack Rabbit, a terrain wooden out-and-back from Miller and Baker. The train opened in 1974, but the rolling stock seems much, much older. The carousel also looks older than it actually is: the original burned down in a fire, and craftsmen meticulously went about recreating it. Today the building is much more fire resistant and that's good considering how many pieces of carousel music the owners store here. It's practically a museum to carousel and automatia. If you can believe it, the oldest mini golf in the US (Whispering Pines) is within walking distance of Seabreeze - and it is tough. Fantasy Island on Grand Island near Niagara Falls has undergone their fair share of name changes (at one point being "Two Flags Over Niagara") and ownership (now part of Apex), but still hasn't lost its identity as a family park with unique attractions like canoeing. The Silver Comet wood coaster is based roughly on the Crystal Beach Comet (yeah, like the same ride at Great Escape!) but focuses more on laterals than airtime. And it runs really well. 

In a superior fashion to most states, New York meets the needs of the smaller markets better than almost any other in the union. Eldridge Park in Elmira (just south of the Finger Lakes) doesn't have a lot, but it does have a carousel, really nice set of Flying Scooters, and several other kiddie rides that most small cities would adore having. Upstate in Albany, Huck Finn's Playland saved most of the rides from Hoffman's Playland (minus the Lusse Bumper Cars) and keep them up and running from Memorial Day into early October. Bigger than both combined is Adventureland in Long Island, which will be getting a new dark ride for the 2018 season and received a Gerstlauer spinning coaster in 2015. But all of these pale next to the County-owned Rye Playland. Filled with classic Art Deco architecture, a gorgeous beach, classic arcade games, and great old rides, Rye is a gorgeous throwback. There's three dark rides, a smooth and fast wood coaster (Dragon Coaster), and the best Derby Racer anywhere. If you've never gotten a chance to go, you can see video of it as a focal point in the film Big. Yeah, that amusement park on the beach? Big.

YouTube Tuesday #13: Extreme Rides 2000

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!

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)

Our Last 10 YouTube Tuesday Features:

#12: Thrill Rides: Designing Fear

#11: Inside Disneyland Paris

#10: Scream Parks: Inside Six Flags Magic Mountain

#9: Busch Gardens Tampa Revealed

#8: Inside Universal's Hard Rock Orlando

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

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

#5: Tony Baxter's Disneyland Construction Commentary

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

#3: DisneyQuest Chicago Opening Coverage (1999)

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

YouTube Tuesday #10: Scream Parks: Inside Six Flags Magic Mountain

Can you handle 200 Davids conquering Goliath? You’re about to find out!

Full disclosure: I grew up close to Cedar Point. It’s where my family and I liked to spend Memorial Day weekend since I can remember. We’d load up for 2 days/1 night at the Hotel Breakers (which, for the first 15 or so years of my life, was a complete piece of crap hotel. Thanks Dick Kinzel) and spend 2 VERY uncrowded days at the park (HERE’S A SECRET: Cedar Point is DEAD on Sunday/Monday Memorial weekend). Many, if not most, of my fondest amusement park memories come from the Queen of American Watering Places. And, since I grew up with Cedar Point, Six Flags Magic Mountain was evil.

It was. I (along with Joe and most likely anyone else in our tight age bracket and who didn’t live close to a SF park) first learned about Six Flags Magic Mountain (and SF in general) through an annual “Math and Science Day” math contest in the early 1990s. Every year during elementary/middle school, our classes would go into the library to watch the VHS introduction to the math contest, which took place from Six Flags Magic Mountain and featured the overly-hyped Michael Keaton Batman and Looney Tunes characters as they…talked about maths. And we’d all want to do better at math so we could win a trip to “Math and Science Day” at SFMM. And of course, though they were supposed to be talking about math, we got a glimpse of all the rides, coasters, and character encounters at SFMM. And we all thought, “cool, Six Flags is like Cedar Point but with Looney Tunes and Batman.”

Well played, Six Flags marketing team. Well played. But as we got older, we learned of the coaster war between CP and SFMM. And, since CP was in our backyard, we had nothing but disdain for SFMM. And in fact, we refused to visit Six Flags whenever we traveled to a nearby city just out of sheer spite. Six Flags was to Cedar Point as Universal was to Disney in the mid-1990s: an alien parasite that must be shunned and destroyed.

My first visit to a Six Flags came in 1999, when Geauga Lake became Six Flags Ohio. At that point I was old enough not to have a weird grudge against Six Flags any more (okay, I still did a little), but the fact that Geauga Lake would be getting a B&M Floorless, a CCI Woodie, and an Impulse (as well as a Vekoma Flyer the next year) I was absolutely over the moon. So I got a season pass RIGHT AWAY.

That leads us to just recently. I finally was able to visit Magic Mountain a few years ago, and the first time I went was with Joe (I think, I might have gone once before that). And it is legitimately an excellent thrill park. Though, the fact that the middle of the park is a literal mountain makes walking around annoying. But riding Superman, X2, Tatsu, Terminator (at the time), Riddler’s Revenge, etc. for the first time was going into a candy store. And I was impressed they still kept the pleasant central plaza area with the fountains, as well as all the green on the mountain. Those are memories I’m certain an uncountable number of SoCal residents have from their childhoods, just as Joe and I have memories of Cedar Point.

In 2000/2001, the Discovery Channel was on an absolute tear with theme park documentaries. I don’t know if there was an executive there who was obsessed with roller coasters, or if they got huge ratings on the initial shows they released in the late-1990s, but they seemed to be making them every five minutes. This particular show focused on Six Flags Magic Mountain, and was to my knowledge the first of a series they hoped to call “Scream Parks.”

One would assume, for example, that calling the actual show “Scream Parks” would begin a continuing series. You would expect, too, that most likely Cedar Point would be next. But instead, the next year Cedar Point would get its own show, called “World’s Largest Amusement Park.” And to my knowledge, the Scream Parks series would never really get off the ground.

Which is a shame, because Discovery Channel seemed to have a good thing going here. The show is framed with the periodic storyline of “building a new coaster,” as the construction of Goliath in 1999/2000 is explored in full detail during some transition points of the show, from the conceptual stage, to design, to the construction of the load area, to the testing, and finally to 200 DAVIDS RIDING GOLIATH DURING THE OPENING CEREMONY. Which, let’s be real, is brilliant marketing. Well played again, Six Flags marketing team.

I think this kind of series could have really took off. Think of the potential of doing a show on each of the major “Scream Parks” around the world. They could have followed the construction of Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure, or Hypersonic XLC at King’s Dominion, or Lightning Racer at Hersheypark, or Powder Keg at Silver Dollar City, or Voyage at Holiday World, or Manta, or any one of 100 Supermans. The possibilities are endless.

And, as I said in last week's Busch Gardens article, even though these amusement park shows seem to take us through the same behind the scenes activities (“look how big our central kitchen/gift shop/maintenance sheds are!”), since these areas are different at every park, it always seems new. So, tethered to the storyline of Goliath rising, we get some behind the scenes roller coaster maintenance footage (safety inspections on Viper, sensor maintenance on Riddler, , as well as some great footage of the tool crib, the landscaping with the Facilities Manager, the vehicle maintenance on the Batman stunt show, the communications center, Bugs Bunny World, and the restaurant kitchens.

But my favorite part starts at 35:38, when we see the FrightFest segment, and the behind-the-scenes of how they do the monster make-up and some scary effects. As a HHN fan, this made me happy.

“Scream Parks are all about thrills. If you don’t have major roller coasters, you’re never going to be a Scream Park.” –Six Flags PR Guy

Oh, and one last thing. Since apparently I fell asleep or something while recording this, there’s an old-school Apple iMac “Think Different” commercial starting at 29:32. You’re welcome, internet.

--ParkScopeJeff (@ParkScopeJeff)


Other YouTube Tuesday Features:

#9: Busch Gardens Tampa Revealed

#8: Inside Universal's Hard Rock Orlando

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

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

#5: Tony Baxter's Disneyland Construction Commentary

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

#3: DisneyQuest Chicago Opening Coverage (1999)

#2: Disneyland Opening Day Special (Dateline: Disneyland, 1955)

#1: The Disneyland Story (Disneyland Episode #1, 1954)

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

Immersive Irony Experience Theme Park Podcast- Summer 2017 Memorial Episode (Pt 1)

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Alan is joined by Andrew Hyde and Ryan to discuss a whole host of summer trip reports to parks! Perfect podcast to listen to on road trips, rain delays, audits, or running a marathon. Come for the reports stay for Cool n Fresh.

• Lagoon Amusement Park (Ryan) 0:50
• Cedar Point (Alan and Andrew) 45:37
• Kings Island (Alan and Andrew) 56:59
• Clementon, Fun Plex, Six Flags Great Adventure (Andrew) 1:12:00
• Jersey Shore Parks (Andrew) 1:17:00
• Six Flags Great America, Santa’s Village, and Donley’s Wild West Town: 2:17:00

Parkscope Unprofessional Podcast Hour #131 - SWEEPSTAKES

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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!

Email us at parkscopeblog at gmail dot com or follow us at Parkscope, ParkscopeJoe, ParkscopeNick,  ParkscopeLane, and Sean.

The Hidden Rides and Themed Attractions of...New Jersey

We've done it. After 34 pieces, we've finally started to arrive to the Fatherland. Wait, you say - you already did Florida and California. Those are the two states most synonymous with the theme park industry in North America. And yet, in terms of raw numbers, the combination of population and infrastructure has and will always favor the likes of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York as being where what certainly seems like a disproportionate number of parks are located. This is where people were in the late 19th Century, where commerce and industry was centered, and thus also where urban railroads and trolley parks blossomed. It's also where America learned to love seaside amusements. These places are full - Full! - of stuff.

We first delve into the "known" quantities: Six Flags Great Adventure is the region's largest theme park. Intended to be only a small part of an overall Disney World-esque facility, the big dreams never totally came to fruition. There are two significant indoor attractions (Justice League and Houdini's) and a whole slate of big impressive coasters, including the world's tallest, Kingda Ka. Other exemplaries (is that a word?) are one of the longest log flumes, the tallest drop ride (strapped to Kingda Ka, in fact), and a Safari ride/experience that's somewhere around 45 minutes in length. Meanwhile, down at the far southern tip of the state, there's Wildwood and Morey's Piers. Jack Morey started with a large fair slide in the 50s and has turned it into an empire of three amusement piers and water park equipment spanning much of the Wildwood boardwalk. Wildwood is in fact one of my favorite seaside towns, in that there are tons of amazing arcades, great food, and of course an outstanding collection of roller coasters, flat rides, dark rides, walkthroughs (Ghost Ship is likely the best permanent one in North America), and more.

With all that out the way, onto the fresh stuff:

New Jersey has no shortage of boardwalks or seaside parks. There are 7 such places outside of Wildwood, with the biggest collections of rides being in the towns of Seaside Heights, Keansburg, and Ocean City, NJ. Two of the three (Keansburg and Seaside Heights) were heavily affected by the landing of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and their amusement zones have undergone extensive repairs and replacements. Keansburg wound up replacing its Wildcat coaster with a heavily travelled Looping Star Zyklon model that had previously run with Amusements of America, Beech Bend Park in Kentucky, and Sauble Beach in Ontario. The park's dark ride was basically wiped out as well as their walkthrough scare house, but the latter has been restored with the intent of the dark ride joining it at some point in the future.

Seaside Heights, on the other hand, was flat out devastated. Images of the Star Jet coaster falling into the sea became the symbol of the storm's fury and were plastered on every news service imaginable. The Star Jet, as well as multiple other coasters, had belonged to Casino Pier, one of two amusement parks on the boardwalk. The other, Funtown Pier, existed in a different township, and following its complete destruction at the hands of Sandy, was never replaced. Casino has a different story - while still struggling to get visitors back who recall a more vibrant area, they've managed to rebuild much of the pier and installed a number of new attractions. 2017 has seen the opening of Hydrus, a Gerstlauer Eurofighter coaster with a beyond vertical drop; this should go a longer way in bringing back interest to the community.

One of the more well known dry communities in the state, Ocean City is considered exceptionally family friendly and the existence of two big amusement piers only solidifies that further. Playland's Castaway Cove has seen the most activity in the last two years, replacing their entire adult coaster lineup with a trio of new rides. Whirlwind, a kiddie spinning coaster, and the presently still under construction Wild Waves, a Miler family coaster, act in the supporting/family ride role. Meanwhile, there's GaleForce, a much more thrilling multi inversion, multi launch coaster that's a first of it's kind from S&S. Delayed heavily due to construction issues and track fit problems, it wound up opening over a year behind schedule on Memorial Day Weekend of 2017. Just down the boardwalk is Gillian's Wonderland, home to an awesome grouping of rides - there's a rare L&T Systems mine train, a monorail, ARM Drop Tower (the best kind!), and the Haunted Dark Ride, a recently built in-house production filled with new variations on classic stunts and gags.

But wait: There's more! Point Pleasant Beach also has an amusement park of it's own with Jenkinson's Boardwalk, in continuous operation since 1928. While there isn't that much to be excited about in the dry or water ride department, there is a really cool Funhouse constructed by the park in 1998. Not a typical year to build a scratch funhouse, but they did it, and bless them for it. Beach Haven also has a park called Fantasy Island, which isn't anywhere near as classic (it opened in 1985), but does have a mammoth arcade as seemingly all of these places do. Speaking of arcades, Asbury Park, NJ has one of the best in Silverball, which allows you to play tons and tons of arcade games for one low entry fee. Gaming begets mention of Atlantic City and Steel Pier is what is left of its fine amusement history. There's not much here, though a new ferris wheel is being installed to replace the Reverchon Spinning Mouse removed at the start of 2017.

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The interior of New Jersey is not exactly beloved by most people. There's some pine scrub forests and touches of the Appalachian foothills at points, but it isn't exactly any kind of traditional outdoor paradise. However, that doesn't mean there aren't parks. Of course there's parks. Oh so many parks too. Since we're in 2017 and we flying towards its oblivion, Bowcraft Amusement Park in Northern New Jersey will start it off. This park is slated for sale and redevelopment after this season, making it obviously endangered. It has surprisingly nice grounds (concrete pavers!) and a punchy adult non-looping roller coaster from Zierer called Crossbow. But time is ticking to get there; who knows where the rides will turn up next?

New Jersey, like everywhere in America, had an array of kiddie parks spring up in the 1950s. Two have stuck around ever since: Hope, NJ's Land of Make Believe and Egg Harbor's Storybook Land. Land of Make Believe is water park-centric these days but still possesses some dry rides like the Miler kiddie coaster "Thriller" and a CP Huntington Train. There's also a walkthrough haunted house called inventively titled "Haunted Halloween House." Storybook Land is the more impressive of the two, sporting well-kept storybook theming pieces (many with push button story telling mechanisms and motion effects) and a train ride that is both adorable and surreal. Along with Idlewild and Enchanted Forest Water Safari, they're easily the region's (and maybe nation's) best examples of this disappearing breed of park.

New Jersey is home to the traditional and extremely non-traditional. When it comes to water parks, Funplex in East Hanover is fairly traditional, all things considered. Slides are primarily Whitewater West built, with the most "special" being a Constrictor tube slide. Mountain Creek, on the other hand? Traditional sorta - there's concrete slides here. Those are kinda traditional. Thing is, they're wild. They're so wild in fact that one of them requires helmets for riders. If you're thinking "that sounds crazy, like that Action Park I once heard of," guess what? This is Action Park. Yes. The same one with a wiki a mile long about all the accidents, injuries, and deaths that occurred on its plainly insane attractions. The same Action Park that once built a water slide with a vertical loop. It was closed, sold, and rebranded. There is just nothing else like it.

Again: Traditional, non-traditional. Clementon Park opened way back in 1907 as a trolley park, and at one point had the longest continuously operating roller coaster in the Americas - the 1919 Jackrabbit, which didn't even have upstops to prevent trains from flying off. Now home instead to the strange S&S Wood Coaster Hellcat and a collection of flat rides, it is run by the resurgent Premier Parks, a sort of band return for the ex-Six Flags executives that managed the takeover from Time Warner in the late 1990s.  In 2014, Diggerland USA opened in West Berlin. Diggerland is a theme park based around heavy construction equipment. People ride in seats attached to front end loaders and dig holes with small excavators. The idea was ported over from the UK, where 4 Diggerlands operate and do solid business.

Stanhope, NJ is home to Wild West City, a small kid-geared theme park that tries to simulate Dodge City in the late 1800s. There's not much for rides - a narrow gauge train runs there and that's about it. There are, however, gunfights. Of course there are, right? Also geared for kids:

-Soupy Island in New Jersey has a carousel as well as crazy slides,
-iPlay in North Laurel has some kids rides including a kiddie coaster
-Funplex in Mount Laurel has a knock-off of the Reverchon/Zamperla spinning mouse.

The Hidden Rides and Themed Attractions of...Missouri

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.