Good Job, Brain! - 116: Your Love is Like a Rollercoaster, Baby, Baby

Episode Date: June 24, 2014

Keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle as we freefall into a bumpy ride of amusement park trivia. Rides, food, parks and more! Chris is back from the press preview event of the new addition to the Harry Potter theme park in Orlando, and tells us all about the tricks and technology in this new era of amusement parks. Karen shares her very extensive rollercoaster experience and how binaural sound almost made her pee. And it's time for a round of "ROLLERCOASTER? Or HEAVY METAL ALBUM?" And whet your appetite with the amusement park food invention quiz.  Also: Clam the clam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, rambunctious regal riddlers and rattlers. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 116. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. We are your quintessential Quixical Quartet of Qualified Quotable Questioners

I'm Colin I'm Dana and I'm Chris Okay so guys I have a I have a question Yes last time we had the World Cup We had Paul the Octopus Yeah That was the I don't know how you describe Psychic Octopus

Prognosticator That it predicted the World Cup victors Or of different matches How did it do it like they gave them two flags Or something he chose one Magic. Yeah, I think there was food in two boxes, and he would choose the two boxes. Was it?

Yeah, there were flags. He was motivated to open one of the boxes somehow. And one of them is assigned to a country. And he was uncannily accurate. For, like, a couple of matches straight. And Colin, you said he passed away. He did. Paul the octopus died.

I'm not sure what the lifespan of your average octopode is. When you're a psychic, though, that puts a lot of stress on your brain. It's true. Eating those little flowers. It's probably not good for that. Just, you know, the, yeah, just, you know, the joys of nations riding on your, on your many shoulders, on your eight shoulders. Yeah. It's a heavy burden.

Yeah, exactly. They had a, uh, it was just flag poisoning. Flag, it was just flag poisoning. I think they did a Google doodle for him, actually. Oh. They had a little octopus with a halo, like looking down from above. Eight halos? Yeah, it just won halo, yeah.

But don't fret, you guys, this year for the World Cup, we have another psychic animal. and it is a clam Sure His name is It's sorry, its name is clam Clam Clam the clam Clam the Clam the psychic clam It's pretty on the nose

I'm not sure How it predicts which country will win I think it comes out of Michelle I'm not sure But it already eerily predicted A couple of wins Yes And as of right as of this week

As we sit here recording It has predicted that the U.S. will beat Portugal. Oh, wow. So we shall see. Pardon me will I bet all my money on it. By the time the show airs, the clam will look pretty smart or pretty dumb. I still don't get how it's predicting, though.

It kind of like sticks out its claminess. Clam head? Clam tongue? Is it a tongue? Or a body? Is it a poed? Yeah. It sticks out sort of the, you know, the business end of the clam.

Yeah. The business end. Sure. And what? And then, like, yeah, it chooses between, like, two flags. Oh, really? So pretty soon they'll be the little clam with the halo on the Google. Oh, my God.

The flag poisoning. They're going to get on top of it. What a weird thing. I don't know. Why are people obsessed with, like, weird animals, psychic animals without bones? Anyways. All right. Without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment,

Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. Here I have a random trivial pursuit. hard, and you guys have your morning zoo radio buzzers. Here we go, let's answer some questions. Blue Wedge for Geography. What country is home to the dingo fence? Colin? Australia?

Correct. Oh, okay. Not a trick question. The note here says, the fence was built to protect sheep herds in the southeast from wild dogs. Or dingoes. Or dingoes. Dingo fess. It really is.

It's the fence for darts. Pink Wedge for pop culture. Who sang, lost in love, all out of love, the one that you love, and making love out of nothing at all? Chris. This was air supply. Correct. Air supply. Yellow Wedge.

What two Italian immigrants were executed in 1927 after a notoriously biased murder trial in Massachusetts? Oh, Dana. Sacco and Van Zetti? Yes! Good job. All right. Purple Wedge. What everyday object did Marcel Duchamp submit to a 1917 exhibition with the title, Fountain?

Colin. This was a urinal. Correct. All right. Green Wedge for Science. What word is both a shade of blue and a make of compact car? A make of compact car. You'll get there.

Yeah. I feel like we're going to feel like we're going to feel really dumb. It starts with a C. Oh, uh, cobalt. Oh, yes. You guys do, you guys know Sacco of Venzetti. Never heard of the word of it. All right.

Last question, orange wedge. How many rolls yield a seven with a standard pair of dice? Oh, how many different roles? It just says how many rolls. Oh. Three? Incorrect. What?

They mean like every combination. So 1-6, 2, 5, 3, 4. Right. So is that then 4-3, 5, 2, 1-6? So it's 6. It depends on if they're counting 4-3 and 3-4. I think they're looking for 12. They're looking for 6.

6. Oh, okay. So they're looking for... 3-1-1-5, 3-4, 3-3, 5-2, yeah. Okay, 6-1. 6-1. The author... Well, good job, Brains.

Cool. I guess. Today's episode is solely based and designed around Chris's experience. Chris last week went to the press junket or the press opening of the new part of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter Park in Orlando, Florida. Yes. The Diagon Alley new edition. So this week we're going to talk about amusement part. attractions, roller coaster, food, culture, and of course, Chris's special report back from the new Harry Potter Park.

So everybody's strap in. Yeah, so I went to the Diagon Alley expansion of the Harry Potter, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. Now, Karen, you and I had gone to the original opening, and that was the original Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and now four years later they have opened a new expansion. It is in a different park. So if you're familiar with, like, Disneyland and California Adventure, how there's two separate parks, you have to buy a ticket, let you go back and forth. You have to do that, too, for this, because Hogsmead and Hogwarts are all in islands of adventure in Universal Studios. And then Universal Studios, Florida, the official name of the park, has the Diagon Alley part.

And they're far away from each other. And how do you ride from London to Hogwarts? Well, of course, you take the Hogwarts Express. And so they have built out this facade of real world London. So they've got Kings Cross Station. You go into Kings Cross Station, and it is just, it looks. like a London train station at first, and all the people working in there are just sort of playing the part of like, we work at a regular old train station.

And so then you kind of wander, you know, up the platforms in the train station. And then before you get to the Hogwarts Express, they have set up this whole thing where you get to walk through the platform, the nine and three quarters platform between nine and ten, you walk through the wall. You do? They've set. How do they do it? So they have set up a sort of mirror illusion.

so that the line sort of curves around and as you're curving around in line you see all the people in front of you and they're all walking through the wall as far as you can see because they've kind of set up the mirror so that you see the person and you see a wall

and they're sort of blending together. When you get up there, it's just a, it's a passageway. But someone's watching you and then of course you can take pictures of people, you can take picture of yourself walking through the wall. It looks really good. They've done a really good job

like creating that illusion for you and then you can ride the Hogwarts Express and that in and of itself is like an experience because you have your own private car they have like domed screens on the windows so they play a video because what you would be looking at is like

the back lot of universities sometimes there's nothing much happening on the video screen that's when on the other side they actually it looks like you have like frosted glass doors on your car, then what you will see is the shadows of Harry and Ron and Hermione people walking by and having conversations as if you're like really taking the Hogwarts Express

and other students are passing by. So that in itself is a ride pretty much, not just... Yep, absolutely an experience to take that. Clever. That would drop you off the other side of the park. Diagon Alley itself is, I mean, it's, you know, it's like more elaborate. The buildings are so tall that you can't see anything. other than Diagon Alley, so you're really in there.

So, Chris, I want you to pretend like I've never read the books. Oh, okay. Which would be easy for you. What is Diagon Alley in the books? Diagon Alley is a wizard's only shopping street that is hidden in London. Okay, okay. And so it's perfect for the amusement park because, of course, fundamentally,

they're trying to sell you things there, and that really is what Diagon Alley is for. It's like, it's where all the Hogwarts kids go to buy their school supplies. Got it. Wands for sale, and Hogwarts Roe's. And, of course, you can buy all this stuff in Quidditch gear. So it's already built around commerce. Oh, yes. Oh, very much so.

You can buy all of your Quidditch balls and Quidditch. You can actually buy Weasley sweaters, the looking like the hand-knit sweaters that Mrs. Weasley makes for Harry and Ron. Yes. You can go to Florian Fortiscus ice cream parlor and get butter beer ice cream. And, of course, you can get butter beer and you can get special, like, actual beer. Butter beer is non-alcoholic. But then you have actual alcoholic beers that they see. cell there that are specific to even to Diagon Alley.

There's like Wizards Brew, which is a stout, and Dragon Scale, which is a logger, and Amstel Light, which is Amstel Light. And Amstel Light. So the big question is, for me, not only is it a place of commerce, but they actually do have a ride there. There is a ride. And that's in the bank. It's in the bank. It's the escape from Gringot's, the bank of Harry Potter. Yep. Once you probably wait through the five-hour line of people outside of it, you know, once you get into the lobby, they've just got rows and rows as if you're in an old-timey bank with the bank tellers, but they're all animatronic goblins. And they don't interact with you. The one up at the front talks to people, and then the other ones just, they're just busy at their work, but they're super creepy because they're really lifelike and incredibly kind of realistic. You know, there's other line experiences and there's little story things, snippets of telling you, like, what you're doing. Because while you're trying to open an account

at Gringot's, that's when it's set at the very end of the books when Harry and Ron and Hermione are breaking into the bank to try to steal a certain magical object. But you're there by yourself. You're there on the premise of I'm opening an account. Exactly. It just so happens. It's the day that the kids show. And they're going to take you on a tour of the vaults, but it all goes wrong.

And it's not as, I mean, you went on the other Harry Potter. I would meet Harry Potter in the Forbidden Journey. Yeah. Which like flips you almost upside down. Not completely upside down, but it. Things come out of your pockets. Yeah, and it inverts you to the point that things can fall out of your pockets, for sure. So that's all that stuff is in Gringotts.

And this new ride does not do any, does not do very much sort of changing of your position. It sort of rotates you around a lot. But the height requirement is smaller, so more younger kids can go on Gringotts, but it's pretty thrilling. It is crazy in terms of what they're doing technology-wise, because, like, a lot of it is kind of like these massive, massive screens that just sort of enveloped, like, you know, and, like, and, circle you, and you're wearing 3D glasses, you're really feeling like all this stuff is kind of happening in front of your face, even though it's on these sort of like huge screens. We've all been on like motion simulation rides.

It's a big screen, and the cart's just moving a little bit in front of it. Like, this thing is on like a roller coaster type track, so it really is moving around. And there's one point at which it actually does drop you. And then the next time, and then the next time, when it's fake dropping you, when it's just sort of leaning the cart forward and, like, showing you a screen of. you falling with the ground rushing up at you, it's like you believe it more because they've already for real

dropped you. Yeah. So it's like, am I falling? What's going on? I'm not really sure. I love roller coasters. Yeah, this is not as dramatic as a roller coaster. But just seeing like, I think for me, I mean, we've all been on roller coasters

either wooden or steel. And then you know, for a while they changed it like, oh, you're sitting down or you're lying down. You're suspended. Yeah, they kind of change it up. But now this is like a new age of attractions where they're combining either 3D or screen technology with roller coaster, with swiveling, with animatronics. It's just all of this kind of combined together just blows my mind, the technology of it. Remember, this ride is very new.

It's lots of moving parts. And the park's not open yet. It's not opening until July 8th. We were almost at the end of it and it all shut down. There was a door that we had to go through that only opened partway. And if we had gone through, there would have been bad. So they had to shut the whole thing down and then sort of move the door back into place, then move it out of the way again and make sure everything was perfect before they started the ride up again.

And we were stuck in the dark because all the screens shut off 15 minutes. Oh, my God. With no real understanding of like what is the problem and what's going on and everybody was in back of us. But Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton were in the ride with us. So they, I don't think they were thrilled about getting stuck in there. Soft opening. That's right. That's right.

That's the preview. Yep. The scariest thing was when they started the ride again, they didn't like start it off slowly. Like when the ride starts again, it just starts again. Yes. So basically we were supposed to go through this tiny little door that we had not gone through. And there was just pure blackness back there. And they were like, attention.

The ride will begin imminently, you know? And it was just like went from zero to a million miles per hour in a second. on a broken ride, blasts, yes, into pitch blackness, and there's no lights and there's no projections in there. And, of course, the car whirls and spins around. So I'm like, I'm going to die. I'm going to get splattered all over the Harry Potter ride. I love you, Helen and a bottom carter.

I'm the rider who lived. For me, I love roller coasters. I love thrill rides. I love all of that stuff. I try to go out of my way to experience all the new coasters. So definitely Disney parks are my kind of mainstays, but I've also been to Great America in Jackson, New Jersey. There's the Batman ride, which was the first one I remember as a kid that I rode on

that was like the sitting down with their legs danglingling roller coaster. Oh, my God. When I was studying in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon, I would take the four-hour bus ride to Cedar Point, Ohio, which is the roller coaster capital. They have so many from old wooden ones to new ones. Millennium Force was a good one. There's also Kenny Wood.

Universal, definitely. I mean, the Hogwarts Castle Ride is one of the best rides. Yeah. In terms of like, not like just roller coaster, but just overall. I love Radio Springs, which is the new cars. The cars ride. Tower of Terror in Disneyland, Disney World is my best. probably most favorite.

That's a free fall. That's a free fall. No, we went on Tower of Terror and like, I didn't know. I didn't know what it was. Yeah. I mean, I know something is going to happen. And it's just as there, I'm like, oh, okay, I think they're going to drop me, you know. But like, I really didn't know at the beginning.

Like, what was actually going to happen yet? You didn't see the people screaming at the top of the building. I heard him. I've been on free fall. I've been on like steel coasters upside. Oh, C-World Orlando had a really great one called the Manta, where you're lying down on the car and it goes through the tracks

and so you're pretty much your whole body is like flat and you're face down. Like Superman. Yes. But the scariest ride that I've ever been on it's defunct now. It was in Disney World

in Magic Kingdom in Tomorrowland and it was there in the 90s. It was the old mission to Mars and they changed it and what was called was Extra Terror Resterial, extra-terrestrial. And it's, yeah.

Alien encounter. And the premise of the ride is it's not a ride. You sit in a circular auditorium, basically. Every row is like a concentric circle. And when you sit down, you get strapped down with roller coaster-like safety things. You have like a seatbelt and you have like over-the-shoulder thing. And I'm, as a kid, I was like, oh, are we going to move? But there is no moving in this ride.

So the whole story is this company called Excess Tech is doing an open house because they perfected like some sort of teleportation technology. And in the middle of the auditorium is like this tube. And they teleported in an alien by accident. And the alien is kind of like an alien xenomorph. It's a dangerous alien. The alien escapes. The power goes on and off. And then you see shattered glass, like in the middle of the tube.

You're like, oh, no, the alien somewhere. It's all mood base. It's all sensory. It's kind of dark. In your seats, they have a very separated stereo speakers. And a lot of the audio is, it's called binaural sound, where they record using two microphones instead of one. So it gives you a 3D feeling when you're listening to sound. You actually can sense if people are close to you, walking around you.

It was done so well. Even really subtle heartbeats or subtle like aliens moving around, like the footsteps, you kind of can feel the vibrations through the ground. And there's kind of the climax is the alien is behind you, but you can't move. You're stuck in the seat and you can feel it breathing and drooling on your neck. And it was all done by the seats. Yeah. I've been on speed rides. I've been on falling rides.

I was crying and I wanted to leave. I know it's fake. But it was so scary. It's so realistic, so well done. It's not like some of the rides where you go watch it like a 3D movie. There's spritz water on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is, it was gross.

It was scary. The alien actually kills the electrician. And the electrician, like, screams like, ah, it's dark. They splutter water on your face to simulate blood. This sounds really a terrible for a Disney ride. This is why they after a couple years. Super intense. I think it really went against the grain that all Disney rides.

I mean, they kind of have like a G and PG rule. Yeah. Psychological horror. I still have nightmares about it. It's just so, especially the binaural. It's like sometimes when you get your haircut and you feel the scissors a little bit close and you hear it. It's like that. And we've talked about Disney and Lucas before.

This did have some sort of a Lucas tie-in too. So when they did a preview of it, it was a very tamed version. Michael Eisner, the then Disney CEO, was like, no, this is too tame, not intense enough, like, turn it up to 11, which they did. Lucas had his plan for it because they did ask Lucas to come in and maybe like a consultation or whatever. And he had his idea, which was even scarier in a way, kind of twilight zony. It just didn't really work because it was too complicated of a story to tell. in the waiting area that had like comical robots and they would joke and so yeah as a kid I was like oh ha ha I'm just going on a space ride and then like all of a sudden someone's killed in front of me and that's how I felt about the movie event horizon like I had no idea it was horror I was like oh it's gonna be space and then at the end I was like what it's so scary so there you go wow you have an extensive yeah I can tell we just sort of scratched the surface there I love it I'll go on any ride I have a challenge for you.

I'm sure you're going to be up to it. I have a quiz for you guys. It's called roller coaster or heavy metal album name. It's going to work like this. If you think this is a roller coaster, put your thumb up, thumbs up. And if it's a heavy metal album name. Thumbs up. Oh, devil horns?

Nice, nice. You at home should try it unless you're driving. Don't do it when you're driving. All right. The afterburn Oh man All right All right

Colin Chris is a roller coaster Karen says album It is a roller coaster At Carol wins How about Antelope

Hmm Hmm Okay Karen and Chris A roller coaster Colin says album It is a roller coaster Yeah

And it's also the name of a band, so you're not wrong. But that's why it's album. I'm learning specifically for albums. Okay. How about rust in peace? Rust in peace. Rust in peace. That's too extreme.

Album. Everybody says album. It's an album. Thank goodness. It's a mega death album. Okay. I wouldn't ride that roller. I don't know. Tetis and death. Like, I don't know. Black Mamba. Oh.

Oh. Is there a both? everybody says ride it's a ride it's also a band name of a band i couldn't find an album with that name yeah i've heard of it how about two i'm sorry about too fast for love too fast for love that that would be a great roller coaster name but i gotta go with

everybody says album it's an album okay it's like a classic tunnel of love ride but like extreme yeah how about hall of the mountain king Oh Hall of the Mountain King Okay, so Karen says Roller Coaster Colin and Chris say Album, it's an album

Ah, yeah How about Buzz saw Oh, this could be Man, this could so easily be both Yeah The thing with Rollercoaster naming Like how far is too far

When it invokes like some sort of horrible death It's like, oh, that's too far Yeah Our lawyers advised us against this one But this one, I feel like everybody says roller coaster it is a roller coaster yeah a dream world how about massive killing capacity I really I really hope I feel like yeah he says the heavy metal yes it's a let's see that above a roller coaster you can kill so many people how about steel dragon

Now that's tough I'm not going to overthink I'm not going to overthink Everybody says roller coaster It's a roller coaster But what about British steel British steel? Steele

Steel Cairn says roller coaster Colin Chris say album It's an album But what about steel hog And hog is spelled H-A-W-G Steel hog

Steel hog Yeah I don't know anymore. That's the problem with these quizzes. You stop being able to tell what's real, what's not anymore. Karen says album, Colin Chris, say, roller coaster. Wow. Rod, a steel, hog.

Is it somewhere in the south? Indiana Beach. Hoag. How about a destroyer? Destroyer? Yeah. Colin and Chris say album. Karen says roller coaster.

It's an album. Last one. The Dominator. Dominator. Everybody says Roller Coaster. It is roller coaster. It's also an album. Oh, hey.

All right. Good job. Dominate okay. Destroy. Yeah. Massive killing capacity right out. Oh, no. Yeah.

So I found out something, not to bring this party down, but something that kind of depressed me. Okay. One of my favorite parts of Disneyland is, of course, Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. Oh, yeah. They're not there anymore. there anymore. No, Disney got, they retired. Oh, you did? Yeah, I went to their last performance. Oh, wow. Yeah. Sorry for the non-Disney people. Yeah. They're like a, uh, they're a, they're a jug band. They're a, they're a throwback, you know, country band. They're not the bears. They're not the bears. They're the real, they're the real people. Okay. And they sometimes play it like Thunder Mountain. The barbecue. The barbecue and stuff like that, right. Oh, man, there's this one, this guy's name is, and I looked it up to find it out because he was my favorite Disneyland person, Whistling Rick Story. That's his actual name.

Well, I mean, not whistling, but, you know, right? But he's the guy. I mean, if you've been to Disneyland, like, he plays the banjo, and he whistles, like, incredibly well, and he sings, and he's really good. So, anyway, Knottesbury Farm hired these guys. Oh. That makes sense. And now they're called, I think they're called, like, Crazy Kirk in the Hillbillies. And so now they're working over at Nottsbury Farm.

So if you want to go see him, that's where you can go. The new hillbillies. Yeah. The new hillbilly experience. I got to thinking about, you know, Stuff that used to be at Disneyland, and I was kind of looking at, you know, oh, well, what, you know, attractions used to be at Disneyland and are no longer there. And I discovered something really interesting. So there was, for the first, like, 10, 11 years of Disneyland, there was a little store called the Art Corner.

And it was in Tomorrowland. There's not a lot of information on the web about it, but there is a great, extensive blog post at a blog called 2719 Hyperion. So check that out. And that's where I got a lot of this. There wasn't really that much else. In Tomorrowland, in 1955, when Disneyland opened, basically it was a store that sold postcards, flip books, art supplies, how to draw Disney characters' books that actually they reprinted the actual, like, the models that the Disney artist would use for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The Art Corner also sold cells. It sold original cells from animated Disney productions.

Oh, not the kind of recreative. No, the actual cells. How much? Well, I'll get to that. So, now, cells at this point, and certainly prior to this, they weren't really valued by Disney or any of the animation houses. In fact, like, it used to be because the sheets of acetate that they would, you know, paint the cells on were expensive. Yeah. They, after the film was finished, they'd wash them.

Yeah. They would put paint or roof on them and wash them and use them again and again and again for more cartoons. And then eventually, when money became less tight and the acetate became cheaper, they didn't reuse them. They just threw them in the dumpster. Wow. This threw him out. And so the guy who was placed in charge of the retail part of Disneyland, who was basically tasked with like, okay, figure out what is the retail presence at Disneyland going to be. He realized, you know, to his credit, like, we're chucking stuff in the dumpster on a daily basis that we could sell.

Like, these are products. We could just set out at Disneyland. People, of course, but they would buy these because we... Yeah, part of Disney history. Yeah, well, we just put it up as like, you know, it's a cool art thing. Right, it's a, it's a Disney original. It's an original, it's not a reproduction. It is a piece of art that was really used in the making of a Disney film.

And they did, and they sold them anywhere from, on the low end, $1 to $5. Now, today, that's like selling them from $10 to $50 or thereabouts, which still would be super cheap. So they're not, $10 today is not a terrible price to pay for a souvenir. But, like, you could go in there and they had a shipping service. So if you wanted to have, get souvenirs for people and then send them to them, like, you would just get them. And then they would just put it in an envelope and mail it out for you right from the R. They would cut them down to size so they would fit in a small, like a smaller mat. And then they'd mix them together randomly.

So, like, somebody says that he has one that is Mary Poppins with Donald Duck on a background from Paul Bunyan. Yeah, they would just take the cells and just layer them on top of each other and just sandwiched them. But randomly. Okay. Yeah. And then. That's where it seems a little half-ass to me. I'm going to say.

It really was. It seems like an art project. Like somebody's like, I'm going to make a nice picture for you. Yeah. Well, because it was thought of if we need to preserve these like. Can a re-contextualize this Donald. Yeah. It's about man in nature.

So that's why there's Mary Poppins and Donald Duck. Yeah, then he has no pants. But, you know, Disney historians believe that the Art Corner, which operated until 1966, that, you know, that is a key reason why, like, the cells we have today are even out there in the first place. Like, it played a major role in preserving all of that stuff because Disney was like, ah, we'll make a fuck on these. Yeah, right.

Would be great if they still operated an Art Corner in Disneyland and sold your original cells for $10. No way. No, sorry. Yeah. We don't even use cells anymore. Oh, no. That's why.

Right, exactly. Yeah. Like, they sold Lady and the Tramp sells in Disneyland. Bit by bit by bit. That's amazing. Wow. I mean, those have to be thousands and thousands of dollars. You know, actually the ones, because they did actually sell a lot of these things because, you know, they were a cheap souvenir.

So they, I mean, it does depend on, like, you know, if you want to get something that's, like, iconic characters in an amazing looking pose that's really from the movie. Yeah, you'll probably pay four figures. But, you know, you can. still buy some of these for like anywhere between 100, 200 down the low end for a If we're willing to settle for like a dopey instead of a snow white or right or even even more minor character than that basically yeah yeah we were considering oh man there was a cell of Robin Hood and made Marion like walking off out of the forest together yeah and and my wife and I were just like oh should be buy this is like two thousand dollars like no because

we love Robin Hood that was one of the first you know when we first started dating. She didn't have Robin Hood on DVD, and neither did I. And we bought it for each other. Yeah, we both accidentally bought it, you know, for the hero. But not, but we didn't lose anything. No, yeah. I just lost $10. It feels really good to be productive, but a lot of the time it's easier said than done, especially when you need to make time to learn about productivity so you can actually, you know, be productive. But you can start your morning off right and be ready to get stuff done in just a few minutes with the Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day podcast. You'll hear advice on everything from how to build confidence to how to get the best night's sleep.

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And this week we're talking about amusement parks. Yes. Well, I have assembled for you guys a, Grab bag, general trivia quiz about amusement parks and the rides and the foods and the things that are in them. So. We got to get our buzzers ready? Yes, please.

Get your buzzers ready. Karen, you lived in Denmark, right? For a little while. So you may have a leg up on this question. Oh, right. The oldest continually operating amusement park in the world is in Copenhagen, Denmark. Tell me, did it open in 1883? Oh.

1783, 1683, or 1583? Chris. 1683. Incorrect. Dang. Dana. 1583. Wow.

Holy cow. Yes. Was it just like two pieces of wood and a rock? They hadn't even invented fun yet. It's just a park for the first hundred years. The Dyer-Havs-Bakken, or just Bakken, I guess, locally known. oldest, yeah, continue operating park in the world. So originally it started off as like a natural springs, like a health and sort of wellness

and revitalization spot. And then just, you know, as a place that drew a lot of visitors and tourists, slowly over time, there were, you know, craftsmen and entertainment and rides and things like that. Right. And it has been operating in some form or another for hundreds of years now. Yes. And they are still quite popular from everything that I have read. On the internet.

Six Flags. Amusement Parks is the largest amusement park company in the world. They have 18 properties in North America. Tell me, where does the name Six Flags come from? Oh, man, I read this once before. What are the Six Flags? Karen. I think it's one flag for every continent.

Not a bad yes. Except for Antarctica. That is incorrect. Incorrect. I'll give you a little bit of a clue here. The original park from which the chain now takes its names was Six Flags Over Texas, which opened in 1961. The Six Flags and Six Flags are the flags of the six nations that governed over Texas in Texas's history. Oh, close.

So France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America, and finally, the United States of America. Wow. Yeah, it gets a little political there. Yeah. Towards the end. Yeah, right, more so toward the end. You're right. What modern amusement park ride is the descendant of cavalry training for nights in the Middle Ages?

Cavalry training. Like riding on horses. Oh. Chris. The merry-go-round? Yes. The merry-ground or the carousel. In fact, the word carousel goes back to at least the 1600s,

not earlier. It's related to the French word carousel, a tilting match, and the Italian and Spanish words, garosella or carosea, meaning little battle. Because used to, used to, like, ride the merry-go rounds and, like, try to catch a brass ring or something like that, right? So, I mean, it's sort of a game of skill. You're right. It was a game of skill and coordination. It was an old practice for knights to gallop and circles and, you know, toss objects or grab objects as they were going. Apparently, the carousel was introduced to Europe around the time of the Crusades. And it goes back centuries to Turkish and Arabian horsemen.

And it was like basically a mock enemy training simulator. Wow. Yeah. And it's like the dippiest, like, you know, most childlike ride. And it was originally used to pretend to kill people. Little battle. Yeah. What is the claim to fame of the Takabisha roller coaster in Fujikyu Highland amusement park in Japan?

The Fuji Q roller coasters are said to be pretty sick. Isn't it tall? Taka, tall. Yes. Dana. It inverts you the most times? Chris. It's called the Takamichi.

Takabisha. Takabisha. So tall. Tall, is it the tallest roller coaster? Is it the highest drop? It's got most inverted. Highest drop. Karen, want to take a guess?

Oh, you're saying highest drop. I mean, you guys are all dancing around the right thing here. Most, most longest zero G. Okay. You're all close. It is the steepest drop of any roller coaster in the world. Okay. Now, it took me a while to get my, to wrap my mind around this.

It has a drop of 121 degrees, so meaning it's past 90 degrees. Whoa. So 90 degrees would be straight down. Oh, yeah. This is actually inverted a little bit. It's concave. So you are actually upside down relative to the steep drop. Oh.

Whoa. Wow. That is a sensation I have not. How could we get any seeper? We can. We're just going to come all the way back around eventually. Rye Playland in Rye in New York State is one of the oldest amusement parks in the U.S. I've been there.

It's quite charming. It was featured prominently in what movie from 1988? Karen. Big. Yes. Yes. I was going to say Warriors, and I remember that was Coney Island. Oh, I love the movie.

what you're thinking, though. But big. Yeah, big. It's substituted for the C-point Park, which at the end of the movie is where Josh finds the Zoltar, the magnificent to, yeah, to undo his previous wish. It's been in a lot of movies, actually. It was in Muppets Take Manhattan. It was in Fatal Attraction. It's very, it's very scenic. Like, it's what you think of when you think old-timey amusement park. Yeah, cool. Yeah, very charming. Is the great Zoltar still there? No, that was just for the movie. Oh, they should have, oh, they should have built one.

I think it doesn't actually bring your wishes, though. It will not actually make you an adult. In a 2005 survey by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, Amusement Park visitors were asked to name their favorite amusement park food. Coming out on top with 28% of the vote was what? Dana. Funnel cakes. Yes.

Oh, wow. Excellent. Yes. It's the best. I agree. I agree. It's my personal favorite. Yeah.

What would you say? What are your guys' favorites? I was going to say, well, I mean, I was going to say that people would guess corn dogs. I love corn dogs. So here are the top five. 28% said final cake. 17% said ice cream. 14% said pizza.

13% said hot dogs. 12% said cotton candy. Those are all things that, I mean, except for cotton candy, the other stuff is like you can buy at home. Yeah. It's not like an amusement. Like, funnel cakes. Pizza. Yeah.

Like, you don't really buy at home or make it home. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that I've ever had a funnel cake outside the context of a carnival or an amusement park or, yeah, a fair. All right, well, good job, guys. Just get your amusement park palettes wet there. Gross. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go network.

And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at go-transit.com slash tickets. And we have one last segment. So the other thing I love about amusement parks,

you kind of mention, is the food. It's like the best excuse you're like, I'm having fun. So I'm going to eat some crappy stuff. Some things that are bad for my help because I'm on vacation. So here I have a quiz about amusement park food and kind of their origin. It comes to no surprise that a lot of this stuff, the origin is disputed, right? You have all these other different fairs saying, I invented this and I invented this.

So there are a lot of theories, and I'm just saying I'm just, that's kind of my disclaimer. So first question, get your buzzers ready. In some parts of America, this popular carnival food item is known as a Pronto pup. A pronto pup Corn dog? It is a corn dog Okay Corn dog actually had a U.S. patent

In 1927 So I'm going to quote Part of the pad It says When impaled on sticks And dipped in batter Then deep fried in vegetable oil The resultant food product

On a stick for a handle Is a clean, wholesome And tasty refreshment Wholesome Well, it's tasty. Yeah, we'll agree. I don't know about clean and wholesome. I don't eat a corn on being like, wow, I'm so refreshed.

This was quite a clean, wholesome meal I just had. It's more like, oh, like before a big run, Karen, you know, just, yeah. It's more like, oh, I hate myself a little bit, but that was doing. Like, I've just showered under a waterfall in forest. Refreshing. He rubbed the corn dog on your face. All right, number two, in one popular origin theory, this aromatic dessert was in part inspired by the Chinese food item known as Yoh Tiao, which literally translates to oily stick. Churros.

Correct. It is chiro. Couple of theories, but one of the theories is a lot of explorers who went to China and saw Yotiao, which is more of a breakfast food item. It's more savory. It really literally is just a fried, pulled, long stick of dough. But it's not really seasoned. So when they brought it back, the theory goes, they made it into a dessert. They would sprinkle sugar on it.

And they didn't really get the pulling right. They just kind of extruded out of a star-shaped dye. Okay. So it has that funny shape. All right. This snack first debuted in Disneyland. They were made at the Casa de Fritos restaurant in Anaheim, California. Fritos, right?

No. Another brand name. Oh, Doritos? Doritos? Doritos. We talked about this invented in Disneyland. The restaurant basically used extra tortillas they had, cut them up, and then fried them, seasoned them, and then that was kind of the prototype for Doritos. Next item, you cannot find this amusement park favorite in grocery stores because they cannot provide the extreme cool.

requirement to store this item. That's why they're abundant in amusement parks in their own cooling and customized compartments. Dippin dots. Yes. Chris is right. Dippin dots known as the ice cream

of the future. Ice cream that is a flash frozen and liquid nitrogen dot by dot and then you eat it collectively as separated dots and when you put in your mouth it melts and it tastes like ice cream. I don't feel like there really is an extra advantage of having your ice cream come in dots and dots form it's like

the astronaut ice cream it's like the value is the novelty you don't the astronaut ice cream doesn't need refrigeration true true this requires special refrigeration hip and dots were sent here from the future as a warning normal ice cream is good at worse yeah like this is your future unless you change uh last question traditionally corn oil sugar and salt together is cooked in a Dutch oven to make what popular snack? Dana Sorry, caramel? No.

No. What is it? Corn oil, sugar, and salt. Is that in a Dutch oven? Corn, comma, oil. Corn, comma, oil. Corn Corn, comma, oil. Yes. Oh, corn. Kettle corn? Yes. Oh, that's why I thought it was corn oil. Corn oil. Corn oil, sugar, and salt would be

gross or delicious. Yeah. Oh, I can see how that. It's like some kind of kind of syrup. Oh, okay. Yeah. Kettle corn. And the copper pot. Yep.

A Dutch oven or a kettle. Fun fact. So you know how you can buy kettle corn in like the microwavable pouches? And you put in your microwave and you have kettle corn and you pop them. That actually does not contain sugar because when you microwave sugar, it will burn really easily. So most kettle corn that you buy for microwavable kettle corn is made with sucralose and artificial sweeteners. because it doesn't burn. Because it won't just burn up.

Yeah, actual catacorn is actually really hard to make because you have to keep stirring it to make that little crust and have the sugar not food. That's one of those great, like, self-advertising foods as well. Like, you know, when you're at, like, a county fair and you can just, like, follow the scent all the way back to it.

Where is that coming from? And that is our show about amusement parks. Thank you for joining me. And thank you guys for listening in. Hope you learn a lot of stuff about, all thrill rides and food and Disney and metal albums and you can find our show

on iTunes, on Stitcher on SoundCloud, and on our website good jobbrain.com and thanks to our sponsor harries at harries.com and we'll see you guys next week. Bye.

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