In a bit of late breaking news WFTV reports permits have been filed for demolition and construction for Super Nintendo World. Demolition of KidZone starts early 2018.
CONFIRMED: .@UniversalORL submitted plans for 8.8 acre Super Mario Land, called Prj 487, at USF in KidZone/Barney/Animal Actors area behind Simpsons land. Will have Donkey Kong and Mario Kart areas. Construction likely to start early 2018. pic.twitter.com/jWGhjEkSBm
The Mario Kart section of Super #Mario Land is 76,916 square feet; the Donkey Kong section, 204,993 square feet. With estimated 3 year construction time for Japan's #Nintendo expansion, USF land could be open in time for @WaltDisneyWorld 50th in 2021.
A few more #Nintendo Land plan details, including a map. The plans show Universal plans to have dining with a total seating capacity of 365 seats. Sorry we didn't have time to shade in the map, but you can see Simpsons and Fast Food corner to the left and ET to the bottom right. pic.twitter.com/xXqg52s9CX
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?
Alan, Lane, and Alex discuss Orlando trips, yet another Halloween Horror Nights 27 review, Volcano Bay, what happens when you have a billion dollars burning a hole in your pocket (aka Pandora), Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, Mine Blower impressions, the state of the Busch and SeaWorld parks, Alex visits the new Owa Park, Six Flags over Georgia is actually amazing, Lightning Rod, Lane’s Europe trip, Oktoberfest and Olympia Looping, Efteling and Symbolica, Stroopwafels, Diggerland, Fall Fun Fest, and MORE.
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!
Nick, Sean, and Joe break away from a busy week to discuss the news of Universal's new hotels, some small rumors, Sean's impressions on Pandora, Sean's thoughts on Volcano Bay, and Sean's wrap-up for HHN27. Then we answer your questions from Twitter!
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.
