When Dinosaurs Were Pets

An article in last weekend’s New York Times provided an interesting springboard for this reporter and his column. After reading what crazy leftist Abby Goodnough said in her article about Kent Hovind’s “Dinosaur Adventure Land,” I knew I had to get the real word out on this hip Jesus theme park. Since evolution has been so badly misrepresented as fact by the liberal media it is good to see people like Mr. Hovind and George Bush himself backing the word of my homeboy, God.

Since the travel budget at AbsolutelyReliable Towers has been cut back for the summer season I decided to simply piggyback on Goodnough’s story and hopped on a Florida-bound Greyhound. After my bus broke down several times we pulled into the beautiful Orlando Bus station and I hitched a ride to Pensacola. You know what they say, “Ass, grass or gas.” Seeing as how I don’t smoke weed and had no cash on me I had to give a hummer to some guy named Jeb (he said he worked in government) for a ride.

With smiles on our faces he dropped me off at “Dinosaur Adventure Land.” Like a kid in a candy store I looked at the millions of dollars the park had spent on specialized rides. Exciting creations like the Vine Climb and Rubberband Shooting all demonstrate that guests can really tell when you give them mind-blowing rides to experience. Rumor Alert: I heard on Screamscape that the park is getting two board games for '05!

After getting my fill of excitement I sat down with Mr. Hovind for an exclusive ARN&R interview with this scientific genius. We talked about when we were each saved, how glad we are that the war against the infidels in Iraq is going so well and that finally we have an administration that looks to 1905 for inspiration instead of 2005. He was also kind enough to show me the park’s professional promotional video that his grandson made on his computer.

Hovind then took me to the new science center under construction. Here he hopes to assist others proving evolution wrong. We both laughed about the fact that so many people still believe that nature can evolve over millions of years. We are smart enough to know that, as many learned people have pointed out, evolution leads to a police state and killings. We concluded our session by praying for hours that God would strike down those wicked IRS agents for raiding the Reverend Hovind's home and business after discovering he had, in good Christian fashion, failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars of earnings.

I thanked Kent for his time and on my way out spoke with his general manager, Tim Berskin. Together we came up with some great Christ-centric amusement concepts we hope to see at IAAPA:

- Inflatable Cross Slide: Children can enjoy a fun ride while appreciating the mind-numbing pain Jesus went through to save their souls. If a kid is injured tell them they need to believe a little more before they give their fun to God.

- The Holy High-Striker: This utilizes the traditional High-Striker game. But, all you have to do is lightly tap the mallet on the lever. If God loves you he will ring the bell, but if not you’re going to hell.

- Passion of the Christ in 4-D: This will pick up where Universal Studios’ Shrek attraction left off. Having fake blood splatter on you, seeing a man writhe for hours only inches from your face and getting to spit on those pesky Jews will make you understand His suffering a little better.

- Hell Gate: Reviving an old attraction from Coney Island, this would allow families to ride together in a “Pirates of the Caribbean”-style attraction. Guests could see blasphemers like Charles Darwin, Helen Keller, Eugene Debbs and others writhe in eternal damnation. It promotes family time and lets kids see what God does when they upset Him.

--FMB

[Editor's Note: Shortly after our intrepid reporter's Christlike visit to Dinosaur Adventure Land, the park's website evolved into the ARN&R Site O' the Weak.

Six Flags Preemptively Blames 2004 Results on Weather at SFWoA

This morning, Six Flags Inc. held a hastily-scheduled conference call to provide guidance on its financial results for 2004. In addition to the usual rundown of capital expenditures and advertising plans, CEO Gary Story said that the anticipated massive losses were attributable primarily to inclement weather in the northeastern part of Ohio.

"We expect that the occasional rain and moderate wind will result in yet another year of our Worlds of Adventure property failing to achieve expectations," said Story. "Unfortunately, that means another year of massive losses for which we can accept no blame or responsibility whatsoever."

In a written statement, Six Flags also noted that the weather at its European parks division was expected to be unpleasant, and also noted that the presence of French and Swedish people on the European continent could materially affect earnings.

Enthusiast Distraught Over Tragedy At SFNE

Local enthusiast Daniel Mekas was described this evening as "severely distraught" over the tragic accident that took place on the Superman: Ride of Steel roller coaster at Six Flags New England. Friends of Mekas describe his emotions as ranging from shock, denial, anger, fear and sadness.

"I was going to that park in two weeks!" cried a distraught Mekas. There is no way Superman is going to be reopened 2 weeks from now. No way in hell! The investigation is probably going to take like, months and then when they finally do reopen the great finale I've read so much about is probably gonna be trim braked to hell. Man, I can't believe this happened to me! I have to be the unluckiest person on earth today!" exclaimed Mekas, apparently unaware that the man flung from the restraints on the ride in question might in fact be less lucky.

When questioned about the ride accident victim, Mekas responded with "Who?" before debating whether there was any way he would be able to get a refund on his Priceline purchased plane tickets.

--MOS

Enthusiast Complains About Single Train Operation On Six Flags New England Flashback

"I know everyone's been complaining about single train operation on Superman," wrote Coastaz4evah on the Coasterbuzz forums recently, "but what about Flashback? They were running single train operation on Flashback too! I had to wait almost 5-10 minutes for a ride that totally should have been a walk on yesterday!"

Coastaz4eveh continued, "this goes to show that Six Flags cares more about penny pinching then the guest's experience."

When asked to comment on this criticism, a distant gaze appeared in the eyes of Six Flags CEO Gary Story. "Yes, I remember we tried to run two train operation on a Vekoma Boomerang once. It was in 1998, opening day at Six Flags Over India. It was rumored the line for the Boomerang would be over eight hours long, so we tried to run a second train," Story stated. "The screams of the dead haunt me to this day."

As of this writing, the penny pinching Six Flags Corp. continues running all Vekoma Boomerangs with single train operation.

--MOS

Flyer in ACE Newsletter Raises Porn Sales

Steve Goldschmitt was excited when he went to the mailbox two weeks ago. This was because his newest edition of Front Seat Thrills, put out by Horse Creek Productions, was due to arrive. He had seen a flyer for the POV video in the latest copy of ACE News and was excited to gather the kids around the fireplace and watch some coaster footage. What he found instead shocked this Pentecostal minister from Dothan, Alabama.

"Apparently I got the name wrong," confided Goldschmitt, "because the people in this video were not coaster enthusiasts. They were, ugh, um, people who practiced very alternative lifestyles. Specifically, getting in some sort of harness and being, um, handled by a line of men." What the pasty Pentecostal had ordered was not Horse Creek Productions' "Front Seat Thrills," but rather, Horse C*ck Productions' latest release, "Front Meat Thrills Vol. 4: Ass Party."

Lance Rodman, C.E.O. of Horse C*ck Productions, spoke exclusively with ARN&R about the mix-up and his refusal to refund Goldschmitt. "Yeah, he bought that DVD from us. Some real freaky sh*t going on there. I don't see what the big deal is. It's the same as a roller coaster, you have to hold on to the bar, there's a lot of going up and down and some screaming is going on." When asked why he wouldn't provide a refund, Rodman said, "The man bought a tape with an ass party and he's going to live with it. What if every closeted religious fanatic wanted to return their porn? I would owe Pat Robertson for the entire thirty-tape series. At $24.95 per tape that's just no way to run a business."

Goldschmitt says he is still recovering from the shock of seeing the tape. "They were doing all of these things I never knew were possible," he lamented. "I have had sex missionary style and, you know, like the dogs do. Lydia, my wife, hates that one. But, I never knew candle wax, an object called the 'King Dong' or 25 people could be involved. That's a bit different than this God-fearing person is used to."

Goldschmitt assured his congregation and the IRS that the tape was burned. However, the preacher fell strangely silent when his mail carrier, a congregation member, asked why on Tuesday the Goldschmitt household received a DVD labeled "The Man Hole Vol. 21: Cleaning the Pipes." The pastor tried to tell churchgoers about Six Flags Over Georgia's new coaster, but this time they didn't appear to be listening.

--FMB

The Return of the Weird-Ass Search String

As usual, we've been getting some really messed-up freaks blundering across ARN&R while looking for highly disturbing- or just plain odd- crap on the web. Just have a gander at how the lunatics and wackos have located our website lately!

By the way, if you were one of the asylum escapees who typed in these searches, by all means welcome to our fun amusement park satire page! You'll find exactly what you were looking for here! Please don't rub your feces on our houses or sodomize our pets!

-Charlize Theron Backward Speech

While at least one member of the ARN&R staff believes the South African actress to be a filthy (and thoroughly untalented) minion of the Antichrist, his views have not gained widespread acceptance. And even he would never have thought you could hear Satanic lyrics when you play her backwards!

-Antonio Sabato Jr Gets Jumped

Well, on second thought, this one isn't all that weird. It's actually a thoroughly admirable thing to hope for, but we're afraid that ARN&R will not be much help in getting it to happen. Best of luck, though. Our prayers are with you in this noble enterprise.

-Pat Robertson tattoos piercings

Presumably because every jackass who hates gays and women needs to be able to locate a parlor willing to permanently carve the pasty, intolerant visage of his fearless leader into his bicep or staple it through his penis.

-Jessica Simpson Camel Toe Rumors

Um. Ew. Well, thankfully no one has found us while searching for "Josh Groban Male Camel Toe," at least. Yet.

--JCK

Work Is Your Nemesis

In what has to be one of the most bizarro website promotions ever designed for a theme park, Alton Towers has created a website, www.ihatework.co.uk, that encourages people to skip work and come to play there instead. Customers are invited to download a discount voucher and sneak out of the office, but not before emailing everyone they know to encourage them to also be lazy bastards.

If your theme park website promotion is tacky enough to be reported on by major media outlets, and also gets forwarded to us as a joke by two different friends of ours who care and know almost nothing about amusement parks, you probably just made the ARN&R Site O' the Weak.

--JCK

Stratosphere Just Starts Throwing People Off Their Tower

In a move designed to "give our guests the ultimate thrill experience," the Stratosphere hotel and casino began randomly throwing guests off the top of their tower this weekend.

"I was just thinking to myself, 'How can we push the bar further here at the Stratosphere? How can we really get on the map as a thrill ride capital?'" reminisced Stratosphere CEO Jim Knipfel. "It so happens I was snorting cocaine with Penn and Teller off a stripper's ass at the time, and Penn, he looks up from the powder on this Grade A perfect ass and says 'Hey Jim? Why not just start throwing the f**kers from the tower?'"

"I said 'Penn, I know you were joking, but that's a good f**king idea!'"

As of last Friday, all tower visitors to the Stratosphere are required to sign a legal document waiving all damages in the event "of random tower expulsion." Guests are chosen to be thrown off the tower at further randomly determined rates, though Knipfel assured ARN&R that the Stratosphere "will be ejecting at least 1-5 customers a day." Those guests who visit and are not murdered will receive a prize in the form of a 10% buffet discount.

--MOS

Halloween Horror Nights Mazes Revealed

One of the most popular of the many Halloween makeovers at the nation's amusement parks is Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Orlando. As has become a recent tradition, Universal has released some limited details about the expected attractions well in advance in order to whet the appetites of eager thrillseekers. Aside from the creepy night theming, scare zones, shows, and a substantial number of rides operating at both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios, the fall event always features a number of terrifying mazes. Here is the tentative listing of the mazes, provided by Universal rep Kevin Benjo Ikitai, for Halloween Horror Nights in 2004:

-TRON: Ultimate Terror will be what Benjo Ikitai claims "simple but terribly effective." According to Benjo Ikitai, "we're well aware of the utter horror experienced by unfortunate souls who have blundered across Jay Maynard's TRON Costume website, so we thought we could incorporate that terror into a frightening walk-through attraction. The maze will consist of a series of rooms, each of which pretty much just features a fat man wearing an obscenely tight white spandex bodysuit.

"We decided to make it a character from the TRON universe, but not a known character, since we couldn't find anyone in the same shape as Bruce Boxleitner," says Benjo Ikitai. "And, while one drawback of wearing spandex is that it does nothing to hide one's obesity, it will certainly inspire so much fear as to cause a great number of visitors to explosively fill their trousers with their own fecal material."

Although the Universal rep would not divulge this fact, ARN&R has it on good authority from another source that the final room in the maze will be pitch black, allowing the full glory of the glowing stripes on the TRON outfit to mesmerize and stupify the audience into weeping and begging for mercy.

-Jeff Goldblum is Watching You Poop: The Decimation is fully expected, says Benjo Ikitai, "to send just about every visitor home crying for Mommy." In each and every nightmarish room of this maze, Jeff Goldblum may or may not be staring in a menacing fashion at guests. "Particularly if they are pooping," says Benjo Ikitai. "Wouldn't it be amazingly scary if you were walking through a haunted house and you innocently sat down to take a dump, and then all of a sudden you noticed Jeff Goldblum staring at you?" The Universal rep also noted that fans of comprehensible spelling and grammar would be particularly revolted and disturbed by this particular maze, though he offered no specific information related to this fact.

-The World's Largest 40oz Collection: the Extreme Experience, described by Benjo Ikitai as "pretty f**king scary," sends visitors on a jaunt through various eye-popping rooms, including the Detailed Reviews of Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull, the 40oz Bitches, the 40oz Crew, and the terrifying monsters and nightmare creatures of the Drunk'n Public.

-My Little Pony: The Damnation will be "the last word in the realm of extreme thrills," according to Benjo Ikitai. According to the Universal rep, "the unearthly shrieks of the damned and the wails of unspeakable agony of tortured lost souls will emanate all night from within the My Little Pony attraction."

Designed by the webmaster of the violently cloying Melody's My Little Pony Site, My Little Pony: The Damnation will feature several frightening chambers where visitors witness teenage morons devoting endless hours to babbling about and making websites about their toy horses. The terror level is ramped up with the Gauntlet of Revulsion, where hell-beasts offer the guests "huggles." Then comes the agony of Lancer's Corner, where a particularly fiendish Minion of the Antichrist, Lancer the Pony, awaits. After the guests enter this chamber, the lights darken and Lancer appears; he then speaks, informing the newcomers that "my parents are very rich and we have a mansion. I'm here to show you the ten prettiest My Little Ponies." After the guests escape Lancer's tour of the Fiery Underworld of Satan, there comes the final "assault on the very sanity of the guests," according to Benjo Ikitai. Apparently, this final chamber will consist entirely of some lunatic giving exhaustively detailed instructions on how to give My Little Pony sausage curls in its hair.

Visitors to Halloween Horror Nights will be required to sign a waiver in order to witness My Little Pony: The Damnation; it is anticipated that the maze will make as many as half of all visitors "vomit so hard their eyes go bloodshot," according Benjo Ikitai.

Benjo Ikitai also added that there would be one more maze, but its theme was still being fine-tuned and would be announced soon. However, he denied that guests entering this final maze would either face the evil ministrations of The Subservient Chicken, or simply be tied down and forced to watch Reign of Fire in its entirely, saying that "both of those really might be a little too horrifying for most of our guests to endure."

--JCK

Paramount's Canada's Wonderland Announces New Footloose Coaster

At a press conference today, representatives of Paramount's Canada's Wonderland made the official announcement of a long-rumored ride to debut at the park early in the 2005 season. Footloose: The Ride, set to open in May of next year, will be a Bolliger & Mabillard-designed floorless coaster themed to the thrilling and critically-acclaimed Kevin Bacon dance film.

"Huh," said Screamscape webmaster Lance Hart. "I heard rumors of this ride ages ago, and I've had it listed at Screamscape for months, but I always was sort of thinking it was some sort of joke or something. Guess the joke's on me."

"Getting a B&M coaster themed to Footloose makes so much sense for Paramount's Canada's Wonderland," said park rep Willie O' Keefe. "Everything just fits together perfectly. For instance, think about this: We will have a ride called Footloose: The Ride here next season. B&M will build Footloose: The Ride for us. That company also built Medusa at Six Flags Great Adventure. Six Flags Great Adventure is of course run by Six Flags, Inc., which also runs Six Flags Magic Mountain. Six Flags Magic Mountain has a ride called the Revolution. Well, Revolution is a coaster that Kevin Bacon rode four years ago during a free weekend he had between filming Hollow Man and Novocaine. Just six degrees of separation! Isn't that incredible?"

"It is incredible," said another PCW rep, Ray Duquette. "I was just talking about it the other day with two of our managers, Valentine McKee and David Labraccio, and we came up with this astounding tidbit: We are building Footloose: The Ride. That ride will be located next to another ride called Top Gun. Top Gun was designed by Vekoma, and Vekoma also created the Rock 'N' Roller Coaster at Disney/MGM Studios. Disney/MGM is a theme park in the same large Disney World complex, where the Magic Kingdom also resides, and Kevin Bacon visited the Magic Kingdom with his family when he was twelve years old! Isn't that just jaw-dropping?"

When asked for comment, Kevin Bacon politely asked that people leave him alone.

--JCK