Stubby News: 3/11

Posted by on March 11, 2009 | Add a Comment

Let’s take a little look at some of the big and not so big news happening in and around amusement park-dom this week!

Six Flags–Six Flags unveils their 2008 financial report showing that they’ve tripled their operating income, netting $144 million. According to Six Flags CEO Mark Shapiro, “I am proud and grateful that the efforts and commitment of our workforce — some 30,000 strong — resulted in our best year ever, putting our operations back on solid footing.”

-In other Six Flags news, the chain has expanded beyond theme parks apparently opening up a childrens hair salon called Rollercoaster Cuts. The salon boasts what they call a “multi-sensory haircutting experience for kids of all ages.” No everyone, I’m not making this stuff up. I wonder what this will be like? I mean, they’re not going to simulate getting your hair cut on a roller coaster are they? That wouldn’t be fun at all! Here’s the official site…

-Coney Island, NY: The Coney Island saga continues as NYC officials may need to resort to eminent domain to acquire beachfront property after negotiations stalled out. Developer Joe Sitt is willing to part with the land for $200 to $250 million, double what Sitt paid for it. According to the Post, the city is only willing to pay $110 million.

Vote Rev Billy-In other Coney Island news, the animated Reverend Billy has announced his run for mayor of New York City. Recently, Rev Billy made city news by stopping WalMart from moving into Union Square in NYC and has made it one of his election platforms saying, “Come on, Wal-Mart in New York City? DEVIL GET THEE BEHIND ME! As Mayor, I will take that company to the LAKE OF HELLFIRE!” After that statement, I’m now convinced that Billy needs to be mayor of NYC!

And to round up some small ride additions…

-San Diego, CA: Belmont Park adds two new attractions, the “Magical Mystery Mirror Maze” and “The Vault Laser Maze Challenge.” I remember visiting Belmont Park back in July; it was a nice little park but needed some more attractions, I guess these fit the bill somewhat.

-Tipton, PA: DelGrosso’s park are adding in three rides this season: a Yoyo, a Pharaoh’s Fury, and Dizzy Dragon. Yay.

-Coney Island, NY: The New York Aquarium is adding in a 4D ride theater attraction called Planet Earth: Shallow Seas 4:D Experience.

Last week, during Crapstravaganza 17: Magic Kingdom 1998, I mentioned that fact that Animal Kingdom was brand new, having opened in 1998. Well, I think that’s a perfect segueway into this week’s Crapstravaganza! This week is actually going to be a twofor with a 1998 map plus a 2003 map. The reason being is that the only 1998 Animal Kingdom map that I could find was a Spanish language one that I mistakenly picked up 11 years ago. With that aside, let’s hit them hard!

Animal Kingdom 98 1
Yeah, I don’t know why I said “hit them hard” either. Anyway, here’s the cover and back of the 1998 guia en Espanol por Reino de Animales (hey, not bad for failing Spanish in high school!) It features many animals, plus Rafiki, carved into the bark of a tree. This image is based off of the Tree of Life that stands in the middle of the park which has 325 animals carved (or sculpted) into it. The Tree of Life actually houses a 3D show called It’s Tough to Be a Bug. On the left page is, surprise surprise, a Kodak ad!

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Let’s just jump right to the map. There really isn’t much to see on the other pages and the text that’s there is in Spanish. Animal Kingdom in 1998 was a bit different from how it is today. The biggest change was that AK had barely any shade in 1998, despite what the map may display. The place was sweltering when I first visited in June of 1998. To make things worse, the park had no real water ride to cool visitors off. The other major difference was Asia…it basically wasn’t there in 1998! I actually like how the map shows the Asia section as a giant field of dirt with construction vehicles; a shocking exposé of Disney Magic!A ride that was there in 1998 that isn’t now are the Discovery River Boats that circled Discovery Island. I vividly remember waiting in the giant, un-shaded line for the boats with my family in 1998. We, along with many others, ended up leaving the line after finding out that it was some 2 hours long. We probably didn’t miss much…

Animal Kingdom 03 1
Fast forward to 2003. The cover features an image of a parade with Mickey playing the role of that annoying person who waves at the camera when you’re trying to take a photo. The shot is a little misrepresentative of Animal Kingdom as a whole, but the Tree of Life does make a bit of a cameo. The word ‘Nahtazu’ also grazes the cover. Is it Swahilli? Hausa maybe? Nope, it’s Disney-speak; pronounce it out loud and you’ll see what Disney was trying to say about Animal Kingdom!

Animal Kingdom 03 2
POOF! Here’s a page featuring Disney’s FastPass. It’s not a bad system when you can snag a fast pass ticket. It’s all too often that one will attempt to get a fast pass only to find that they’re all gone! The photo with the promo features Dinosaur, a ride in the DinoLand USA section of Animal Kingdom. Dinosaur is a pretty wild ride by Disney standards; some actually say it was toned down when the name changed from Countdown to Extinction to Dinosaur. I remember it being pretty wild in 2003, but I can’t seem to remember much from my 1998 ride.

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Finally we have the 2003 Animal Kingdom map. Notice that Asia has been filled out nicely with Kali River Rapids and Maharajah Jungle Trek. Flights of Wonder was there since 1998…the lone representative of Asia since AK’s opening. At this point, Asia again had some major construction going on near the back, however it’s not shown on the map like Disney did with Asia in 1998. That construction project would open in 2006 as Expedition Everest.

Jimmy's Truth 2 Power package 1So I came home today only to find a small package in the mailbox. Now I wasn’t expecting any packages, so this seemed a bit fishy; was it junk mail? Was it a free sample? Was it a bomb?! I checked out the address and saw that it had come from none other than Jimmy Olson at Jimmy’s Truth 2 Power! For a second I felt like a kid getting something cool in the mail! But wait, it might be a mind control trap sent by Lex Luther, perhaps to turn all future postings on this site into vehicles for LexCorp! Hmm, let’s open it…

…LexCorp is the best company ever. They do great things for the community and for my chihuahua.

No, inside was a typed note from ‘Jimmy;’ a small news paper featuring stories on the coaster transformations; a small foam hard hat (with Clawshun Industries insignia); and a flash drive. A flash drive eh? Well let’s load that thing up! Inside were two videos, the same two videos from the Truth 2 Power website actually…well that was kind of a letdown!

Contents of the Package
Article
Clawshun Foam hat
The flash drive

The newspaper was also from the Daily Planet Special Editon website, featuring an article about the transformations of Six Flags Great Adventure’s  Medusa and Six Flags New England’s Superman: Ride of Steel. Also contained in the paper is a feature article about Lex Luther along with many fluff articles about Superman saving school children, how residents of Metropolis have the cleanest sidewalks, etc. It’s certainly a fun read!

The note from Jimmy Olson simply recaps what is going on at Six Flags and how Lex Luther is behind everything. For most hardcore theme park fans, this package doesn’t exactly add anything new to what’s already known. However a lot of season passholders (I assume that’s who the packages are going to) don’t know about what’s going on, so this will be a cool little surprise! Heck, even though I knew all about the transformation, it was still a cool surprise! (edit: not many people at all are getting this package apparently…) Personally, I’m very impressed with Six Flag’s marketing campaign for Medusa and Superman: Ride of Steel and cannot wait to see the end result!

So how many others have received this package?

Another week, another Crapstravaganza! That doesn’t sound too pleasing, does it? Well anyway, keeping with the Disney theme, our next destination is Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. It almost goes without saying that Magic Kingdom is the premiere park at WDW; actually, it’s the most visited park in the world! Today we’ll travel back to 1998 with a quick four page park map from the happiest place on Earth.

Magic Kingdom 1998 1
Magic Kingdom was the first of many parks to come at the Walt Disney World complex in Florida. The park opened in 1971 and was only supplemented by two hotels, the Contemporary Resort and Polynesian Resort. The now famous monorail system provided transportation from the hotels to the park. In 1982, the Monorail was extended to serve EPCOT Center as well. Fast forward to 1998, and the WDW complex had grown significantly to include four parks, including the brand new Animal Kingdom; three waterparks (currently down to two) and numerous hotels.

As with the 1998 Epcot map, Magic Kingdom also produced map on a weekly basis. Pictured is Cinderella Castle, the iconic structure of Magic Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom 1998 2
This is actually the back of the park map.The left page lists all of the daily events for that week such as the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks show, SpectroMagic, Magical Moments Parade. Also listed are various performance groups that take part in the parade or put on shows at Tomorrowland Stage.

On the right is the obligatory Kodak ad complete with even more obligatory kid hugging a character photo. In this case it’s Minnie Mouse whose featured, who seems to have her hand in a devil horns configuration. Rock on Minnie.

Magic Kingdom 1998 3
As if the ad page wasn’t expected enough, the next set of pages features images promoting the other Disney parks. On the left is MGM’s (now Disney Hollywood Studios) Tower of Terror pictured in one of Disney’s totally unrealistic photos; this particular one features an elevator car full of kids about to plow into the ground…well that’s nice! On the right is Epcot featuring…well I don’t know what, but it looks cool!

The bottom seemingly features helpful information, but is actually just Kodak ad. The top of the page features tips and information, you know, boring stuff that no one reads.

Magic Kingdom 1998 4

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And finally we have the map! Spare no expense with this map, the buildings and rides are rendered very nicely. Here’s some things of note:

  • Mike Fink Keel Boats, Alien Encounter, Timekeeper, Diamond Horseshoe Revue, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and the Skyway were all still around in 1998.
  • The lake where 20,000 Leagues once resided was still there.
  • The Enchanted Tiki Room was in its first year “Under New Management.”
  • The parade route mysteriously starts out of a bunch of trees and ends at a dead end…hmm.
  • The boat/log on Splash Mountain looks like it’s crashing headlong into the water! Well that’s no fun!
  • Did you see the (somewhat) Hidden Mickey? It’s near the entrance.

The 5 Most Insane Carnival Rides

Posted by on February 26, 2009 | 35 comments

Have you ever been to an amusement park or carnival and seen a ride that simply pushes every limit you thought couldn’t be pushed? A ride that looks so intense, nauseating, or just downright torturous that you cannot beleive anyone would actually ride them…and enjoy them? Maybe a seemingly normal ride that is run in a way that makes it horrifying? I know I have! Here are the five carnival rides that I think fit the bill of being the most ‘insane’ out there.

5. Storm (Wisdom)

StormI can do spinning rides quite well but our number five ride, Storm, is one that’s too much even for me. Storm is basically a modern version of the Hustler/Tempest ride. The movements of all three rides are nearly identical, with the Storm’s components being upgraded a bit; for instance, Storm allows riders to board all at once and has a better safety mechanism.

While the Hustler or Tempest have cars that can spin freely, Storm’s cars spin mechanically. They don’t spin too terribly fast, nor does the main platform, as a matter of fact, the arms that hold the cars only spin at a moderate rate as well! The thing is that all three spin in the same direction. These combined movements make the ride faster than hell.

The lone Storm ride I had was at the New Jersey State Fair in 2008. When the ride was up to full speed, all I could see were the people sitting across from myself with everything around the car as a giant blur. If the ride lasted for 30 seconds, slowed down for a bit and then sped up for another 30 seconds, the ride would have been fine. Instead we got a full two minutes of crushing G forces and spin cycle-like rotation; as an added bonus, the ride was in full sunlight on a 90+ degree day with high humidity! Needless to say, I felt like crap afterwards.

Another ride that can probably be lumped together with Storm is the Huss made Take Off, which spins in a similar fashion to Storm minus one axis. Take Off also has the ability to rise up to a pretty steep angle and spin in opposite directions and such. The large ride vehicles on Take Off can also spin at an incredible rate, much faster than Storm’s vehicles, providing some very high G forces.

To sum it up: Storm, and subsequently Take Off as well,  make it on the list for having prolonged periods of high G forces.

Below is an old, shitty video of Storm taken by myself.

… The 5 Most Insane Carnival Rides

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