Hersheypark Fence-Removal Plan Draws Ire

Hersheypark has announced plans to remove an old wooden fence and replace it with a more modern steel fence. Upon hearing of the removal, several enthusiasts have written angry letters to the park and sparked many debates on internet message boards.

"I think it's disgraceful the way these parks are destroying the atmosphere of the classic amusement park. How many more fences will fall before the entire world is just full of fences with no character, no history? I know I will certainly be crying uncontrollably every time I pass by the fence's former site," said enthusiast Carl Tanner.

Other enthusiasts angrily posted on message boards from their easy chairs about the need to band together, and demand that the park maintain the old fence, rather than tear it out "for no apparent reason." The Wooden Fence Preservation Club has been formed in light of the incident.

When interviewed about the reaction, one Hersheypark official had this to say: "It's just a f***ing fence! We have ten coasters and someone's complaining about a fence?"Another park official mentioned that the fence was so old, the entire thing was falling down, and could have released a mudslide that would have blocked the entrance gate.

Tom Hough, who has never actually been to Hersheypark, has pledged to boycott the park until such time as two, or perhaps even three, fences of the same vintage are replaced at the park. "I just can't sit here and do nothing. I mean, really, is attendance going to be affected that much by having a steel fence instead of a wooden one? I have figures from seven different parks that put in wooden fences and saw bigger attendance jumps than those that put in steel." When it was pointed out that the "parks" were public parks and not amusement parks, Hough wet himself.

--BS

Rolucster Vare Good!

There are those who feel it isn't really nice when we make fun of children.

Our response? We aren't nice.

But, more importantly, when children create a website announcing such illuminating thoughts as "I MADE A ROLUCSTER IN CAMP" and "CAMP IS VARE GOOD I LIKE WEN WE DID THE ROLER COSTERE!" it's okay to make fun of children. Or, at the very least, the teachers who let them play with Borax and glue immediately before vainly attempting to write coherent sentences for a website (at least according to one writer on the webpage).

By the way, we're more than a little disturbed by one of the kids talking about how "I like the Fist Day." What the hell kind of camp is this, anyway?

Thus, our Site O' the Weak: BETR Kids Science Camp Newsletter.

--JCK

Geauga Lake Plans New Ride For 2005 Near "The Dominator"

Geauga Lake has given ARN&R a sneak peek at the plans for their new ride in 2005. Called "The Submissive," this underground ride is a combination dark and water ride, with guests inhabiting a flume-like boat. With a taboo-breaking, state of the art, restraint system and some of the most extensive theming in Ohio since the Tombraider ride at Paramount's Kings Island, "The Submissive" will be quite a challenge for the manufacturer, Sally Interactive.

One of the most interesting elements of this ride will be its location. In one of the most novel ride installations in memory, "The Submissive" will be laid underneath "The Dominator," and will be almost entirely underground, with various small sections rising up to intersect with the 200-foot B&M floorless. John Kinzle, ride engineer at Sally Interactive, spoke to ARN&R about how the 2 rides will interact.

"We hope for 'The Dominator' to enter 'The Submissive' as many times as physically possible. During its course, we'd like to make it so that 'The Dominator' enters 'The Submissive' in many different ways, including the rear (of the station) and the mouth (of the tunnel)."

"The Submissive's" plans also include being penetrated by other nearby rides, but mainly "The Submissive's" plans deal with multiple penetrations by "The Dominator."

Kinzel is also hopeful about the progress of construction. "We've broken ground on numerous other rides in Ohio without incident, so we feel it's going to be extremely quick and easy to break "The Submissive."

Stay tuned to ARN&R for more details on this fascinating new ride.

--MOS

SFOG Finds New Ways To Infuriate Guests, Cleverly Foiling "Stop Infuriating Park Guests" Corporate Memo

With the park season winding down, it's time at Six Flags corporate headquarters to reward those parks that have gone "above and beyond" in the pursuit of alienating customers. In this tight and competitive race, Six Flags Over Georgia makes their pitch in this verbatim transcript of a high-level meeting:

"Well, in a nutshell, it was tough to alienate people this year," reports SFOG's General Manager Tim Davis. "A corporate memo came out at the start of the season explicitly telling us not to infuriate or annoy our guests. Not only that, but it listed in the memo numerous practices long held dear at Six Flags parks that were now banned. Practices like employees spitting on guests, paying children to throw rocks at passing coasters, encouraging rampant line cutting, permitting metric tons of feces to collect in the bathrooms without cleaning them, and, of course, our favorite, running single train operation on coasters when the park is at 80% capacity or below. These were all now banned behaviors."

"With that memo specifically telling us not to run single train operation, a lot of us in the SFOG head office were quite concerned as to how to properly annoy our guests with our hands tied like this. Thank God, Jim Brewer in maintenance had a solution."

"What Jim pointed out, and I’m still awestruck by his brilliance, was that the memo demanded we run multi-train operation, but said nothing about the train having to be occupied."

"So, we immediately implemented a rule -– whenever a coaster was in danger of not having a line, operators should immediately begin dispatching one train empty. Ride operators should continue doing this until the park closes, reassuring our guests that at SFOG, you can always be guaranteed of a line that leaves the station."

"But wait! Here’s the kicker! We then gave our employees a list of reasons that were completely absurd as to why we do this. We ask the employee to choose his own favorite, or just switch 'em around as the day progresses. The reasons are completely different, but share one element in common -– they make absolutely no sense."

Reasons employees were instructed to give out included:

• "If we don’t do this, the ride won’t have a line."
• "I dunno."
• "I just do what my boss tells me."
• "They don’t want trains to stack."
• "It’s better for the coaster this way."

Davis concluded, "So, thanks to a last minute save, we were able to continue infuriating guests."

Asked what SFOG would do if their ingenious practice was included in the next "Stop Infuriating Park Guests" corporate memo, Davis replied, "I’ll be honest with you. I’m not sure. But rest assured we’ll figure out something. We have a creative team, and we’re dedicated to doing whatever it takes to annoy a substantial amount of our customers every year."

--MOS

Enthusiast Haiku
An ARN&R Exclusive

Robert Johnson, an avid coaster enthusiast who posts as GForcejin on CoasterBuzz, will be releasing a self-published book of haiku poems concerning being a roller coaster enthusiast. The book is to be available via the third or fourth pop-up ads on both CoasterBuzz and Screamscape at the end of this month.  Additionally, visitors to Ultimate Rollercoaster will, for their convenience, have the book automatically ordered for them and placed on their credit card via spyware.

Johnson has been kind enough to give ARN&R a preview of the work, titled Screaming in 5-7-5, the Ups and Downs of a Coaster Fanatic.  Johnson recently sat down with ARN&R and explained why this project is so special to him.  “What has made this project so magical is that it combines three of my greatest passions -- exhibiting the misery of my tortured soul, my love of complaining about amusement parks, and my mildly creepy obsession with everything Japanese.”

Here’s a preview of some selected haiku:

Six Flags Refreshment
Thirsty, so thirsty
Where are the water fountains?
Soda?  $4.50

Magic Mountain
Miles of concrete hell
Ride operators don’t care
If I live or die

Millenium Force
This slack rule be damned!
My kingdom for just an inch!
“No,” replies my gut.

--MOS

Paul Hogan Relieved of Duty at Boomerang Bay

Officials at Paramount’s Great America in Santa Clara, California announced today that Paul Hogan has been asked to leave the park. In addition the Australian theming from the waterpark was removed.

Public Relations Director Mark Gazziele was closed-mouthed about the issue, but did issue a press release to ARN&R. It read:

“We at Paramount’s Great America are sorry to let Mr. Paul Hogan go. While we appreciated his efforts we felt he did not quiet understand the concepts of 'sobriety' and 'clothing' well enough to keep him on staff. In addition, our repeated requests for him to stop playing Midnight Oil and Men at Work in the waterpark were ignored. We wish Mr. Hogan the best of luck in his future endeavors.”

As of this morning the park still had Mr. Hogan on its website but said that his image will be gone shortly and all of his feces will be dredged from the kiddie pool.

When reached this morning, Mr. Hogan said nothing as he was passed out in a pile of his own sick.

ARN&R has learned that the drunken Australian often went around the waterpark holding his man unit in front of women saying, “Now this is a knife.” Apparently most of the guests did not take kindly to a throbbing Hogan while trying to play in the wave pool.

An announcement of the new theme is expected soon. Currently Thrillride.com’s “Wild Rumors” section is abuzz with rumors that the waterpark will be themed to “Police Academy 5 - Assignment Miami Beach." Enthusiasts are already calling it another creative gem for Paramount Parks.

--FMB

Park Visitor Confused by Strange Blue Tint to Sky

Rye Playland visitor Reggie Harrison, 41, was extremely confused by what he described as a "weird blue discoloration" to the sky during his visit to the park Sunday.

"It was pretty creepy," he told ARN&R. "Instead of the natural dark grey or jet black colors that everyone knows the sky should be, it was this freaky blue color. Sky blue, even. And there was this nasty yellow-orange thing up there shining down on us. What the f*ck as that thing? It was totally messed up and just was really scaring me. I actually called the local news station and they said some other people had called in about the terrifying blue color of the sky, and they would look into it."

Harrison also noted that the "soothing horizontal moisture" that he was accustomed to experiencing every single day of the entire 2004 summer was notably absent on Sunday, leading to his concern that drought might be imminent in much of the country.

--JCK

Six Flags Magic Mountain Suspends Service of Fugu Two Days After Debut
Casualty Count Still Unavailable

Food Etc., a food stand in the "Colossus County Fair" section of Six Flags Magic Mountain, has suspended service of fugu just two days after the fish's debut at the sushi stand there. Though no casualty count is confirmed, it's suspected that at least two people are dead after ingesting the tasty new delicacy.

Magic Mountain General Manager Del Holland had this to say:

"Anyone who knows Magic Mountain's quality of ride operations, food standards, and employee training easily knows the that our park has no negligent role in this tragedy." Holland stated, "There appears, actually, to be a problem with the supplier. Apparently, while they were supposed to deliver the rare and exotic delicacy of fugu to be served at our Food Etc. stand for the low and competitive price of $400 a plate, they instead delivered us an incredibly poisonous blowfish of some nature. Rest assured that this will work its way out in litigation, and we at Six Flags offer our deepest sympathies to all the victims of this erroneously-served food."

When it was explained to the General Manager that fugu is, in fact, an incredibly poisonous blowfish that requires a specially trained and licensed chef to prepare or else causes the painful death of anyone that ingests it, Mr. Holland paused to digest the information, then emitted the careful reply of "Oh shit."

--MOS

SLC Was Just a Practical Joke, Says Former Designer

The Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster, a design cloned at scores of amusement parks worldwide, was just a pratical joke, says a former designer at the firm.

"Yeah, I was just horsing around with the boys," indicated Theodore van Bentheusen, 50, a former employee at Vekoma. "We were all trying to come up with a ride, and kept getting stuck without any useful concepts, and it was getting pretty grim and depressing after a few weeks of that. I figured I'd lighten the mood by cracking funny, so I threw together some plans for this ridiculous thing I called an 'SLC' in about five minutes and submitted it to the rest of the design team."

"It was really an amazingly funny prank I played," said van Bentheusen. "Simply the most idiotic coaster design ever. Anyone who rode one of those things would come off with cranial damage so severe they wouldn't remember their own name! I was snickering openly the whole time I was writing the proposal, so I was very proud of myself for keeping a straight face when I turned it in. I mean, it was hilarious seeing the rest of the guys wasting hours thoughtfully poring over the designs for something no one would ever possibly want to build!"

Sadly, none of the rest of the design team or management at Vekoma noticed that van Bentheusen's SLC, now known affectionally by coaster enthusiasts as a "Hang 'n' Bang," was actually a practical joke. Instead, the company rushed the model into production, and dozens of eager park owners fell all over each other trying to buy one or more of the contraptions for their establishments.

"A couple years ago, I had this other really great idea for a prank to play," said a wistful van Bentheusen. "I figured it would be hysterical to submit a design for this ride where the passengers bend over, and then this long barbed pole gets rammed deep into their anus, and then they go zooming around on a high-speed, rough coaster course filled with inversions while supported only by that barbed pole shoved up their ass. But then I remembered how everyone took my last prank seriously, and I didn't want to be responsible for unleashing more pain on the world."

--JCK

Busch Gardens Tampa to Offer New Midway Game

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay announced yesterday that it would be opening a new combination attraction and midway game. The game, called "Hit the Alligator in the Head with a Donut," will be located where the alligators currently reside near the front of the park, and is being sponsored by Krispy Kreme.

"Everyone knows the alligators are completely unattended," said Busch spokesman Bruce McCulloch. "And since kids spend all day throwing turtle food and other foreign objects on the alligators' heads anyway, we figured we may as well make some money off it."

For $5, guests will now be able to receive 3 donuts which they may throw at the gators. If the guests are able to successfully hit the gators all three times, they will receive a prize of choice of either a tooth taken from a living alligator or an actual piece of alligator skin.

McCulloch further boasted the game continued BGT's parkwide goal of "creating animal attractions that are completely unattended by staff during the park day that showcase depressed, sickly looking animals in a dilapidated, unnatural, and poorly maintained surroundings."

10% of all proceeds, McCulloch concluded, will be donated to local animal shelters.

--MOS