Friday, September 06, 2002

Cedar Fair to Be Renamed "Seven Banners"; Denies Effort to be More Like Six Flags

Cedar Fair L.P. will be renamed "Seven Banners Theme Parks L.P." if a proposal made by its management is approved by its partnership shareholders. The press release announcing the change explained the genesis of the idea: "I was driving into the Cedar Point parking lot one day, when I happened to notice that there were seven banners identifying the different parking areas," said Dick Kinzel, who contemporaneously announced that he would change his name to "Greg Storied." "The name just came to me. And we were sort of tired of the Cedar Fair name already. This way, we can unify all of the parks under one name."

As alluded to by Kinzel/Storied, all of the parks will be renamed with a "Seven Banners" theme: Valleyfair! will become "Seven! Banners! Over! Minnesota!"; Knott's Camp Snoopy will become "Seven Banners Over Conspicuous Consumption"; Cedar Point will be "Seven Banners Over That Peninsula Thingie"; and so on.

Company officials denied that the name change was at all relevant to the ongoing competition with Six Flags. "As if," said Kinzel/Storied. "Until you asked, I hadn't even thought about the faint similarity between their name -- involving six, not seven, pieces of fabric. And ours are banners, with pictures of puppies and things on them; their fabric is flags -- you know, like a country's flags. To suggest a connection there is just ridiculous."

The press release also announced that every Seven Banners park will receive identical Intamin shuttle coasters themed after a newly-created comic book hero, "Excellent Man," and will be stripped of all individuality.
Jeeper's Park in Olathe, Kansas to Get Next B&M Flying Coaster

Jeeper's, a small, one-coaster indoor activity center in Olathe, Kansas, is said by knowledgeable insiders to be in line to receive the next B&M flying coaster. Details are still sketchy, but early word has it themed after the Faces of Death series of videos and reaching heights of twelve to thirteen feet.