Goodbye, my Coney Island

[YojimboMonkey]

they found his head over by the sno-cone concession

[Thermofusion]

I have to say, I'm a sucker for a good amusement park freak accident legend, that stuff is built into the teenage mythology of every town with a roller coaster nearby and it's pure Americana.  But if that shit actually happened, that's fucking wack.

[Maaik]

they found his head over by the sno-cone concession

"Hey everybody!  LOOK AT ME.  LOOK AT ME."

And Thermo, a kid was killed by the Batman rollercoaster at SFoG back in June.

And if you're all about freak amusement park accidents, Action Park was seemingly designed to cause them.

[davy]

yeah, the kid went over the fence to get his hat, i think. just happened a couple months ago. it was big news.

[Andrew_TSKS]

i've been to carrowinds, that place is great. it always amused me that instead of using looney tunes characters like six flags, they used much more obscure hannah-barbara characters.

Haha, yeah!  Back in the day they had an island in the middle of the park called Smurf Island (and this was a time when the Smurfs had already been off the air a good while) with a Smurf forest and Smurf village to explore, etc.  You had to take a Smurf boat to get there and there was a Smurf snack bar.  It was all Smurfed to the max.

Meanwhile they sported a Scooby Doo rollercoaster, which was a shrunken down wooden coaster.  There was an actual Hanna Barbara-land at one point with Fred Flintstone walking around and even as a kid I kinda knew in my heart that Carowinds was all "these are the best licensing opportunities we could afford, you little runts, we're not fucking Disneyworld."

Now the Hanna-Barbara stuff is all Nickelodeon themed, which is probably a minor step up toward relevance re: today's youngin's but it would be a lot more hilarious if there were still an extant Smurf Island where kids could wander around wondering "wtf is a Smurf"

Kings Dominion, which is about 20 mins north of Richmond, had all this stuff until the early 90s when Paramount bought it and brought in their own characters. I gotta wonder if Carrowinds just bought all that stuff off Kings Dominion when they stopped using it.

[Andrew_TSKS]

And if you're all about freak amusement park accidents, Action Park was seemingly designed to cause them.

Holy shit, that WeirdNJ article is freaking me out. I'm reading the description of some of these rides and immediately thinking, "That's just death waiting to happen." Like this one:

The Tidal Wave Pool was a huge freshwater pool––100 by 250 feet long and eight feet deep––that could hold 500 to 1,000 people. Four large fans forced air into the pool and created waves, which could reach a height of 40 inches. The waves were generated for 20 minutes at a time, with 10-minute breaks in between.

Seriously, 3.5 foot waves in an 8 feet deep pool full of amusement park goers? DEATH.

[Thermofusion]

And Thermo, a kid was killed by the Batman rollercoaster at SFoG back in June.

It was the second Batman ride-related death at the Cobb County park.

 

x-post to Andrew: Smurf Island and all the Hanna Barbera stuff dated back to the 80s I think.  Quick googling reveals there were multiple Smurf Islands at various parks, and that kinda blows my mind.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Hah, wow, I wouldn't have guessed that either.

[G.C.R]

I think we talked about this other threads, but I'm still a rollercoaster virgin and man, this is getting me super keen.

[crystalcakes]

the saturn 6 ride that i posted a photo of:  it's mainly a metal cage, spray painted bright green.  my friend dan rode it on his last visit to coney island and he was all "my lap bar isn't locking!" to the ride operator.  the ride operator then told him that the bars were broken so they installed old car seatbelts and to buckle that.  then it took off at top speeds.  he wanted his picture in front of it to prove he survived.  scary shit!

[jebreject]

i've never ridden on a rollercoaster 'cause i'm a scaredy

[Illest Waffle]

The employees of Astroland are the finest engineers money can buy. Don't ever talk shit about them.

edit: I bet you don't meet the 5 foot tall requirement.

[C of heartbreak]

Oh man, that Action Park website takes me back. My favorite was the ride where you'd jump off the Tarzan rope, because you had to recover from cold shock fast enough to swim away before the next person landed on top of you. Action Park was the greatest.

[davy]

Oh man, that Action Park website takes me back. My favorite was the ride where you'd jump off the Tarzan rope, because you had to recover from cold shock fast enough to swim away before the next person landed on top of you. Action Park was the greatest.

i'm totally fucking hypnotized by this website. i can't believe this shit!

a compeltely enclosed water slide with a fucking LOOP in it! whoa, what the hell!

[davy]

and what's with the abandoned jungle habitat?!? (it's in the list of videos)

NJ is crazy!

edit: and fairytale forest?!? and gingerbread castle!! yikes! i bet all sorts of unsavory characters visit those ruins at night and make sacrifices and whatnot.

[crystalcakes]

The employees of Astroland are the finest engineers money can buy. Don't ever talk shit about them.

edit: I bet you don't meet the 5 foot tall requirement.

i am not talking shit.  i'm amazed that people don't die there every day!  the fact that they don't is a testament.  also, i wanted it to stay open forever.

(however, the saturn ride isn't at astroland)