Podcast: The Ride - Kings Island with Dave Ferguson

Episode Date: April 27, 2018

The Beast! The Racer! An Eiffel Tower for some reason! These are the icons of Cincinnatis Kings Island, best known as the park where the Brady Bunch went once.  We visit this no-longer-Paramount-branded wonderland with Ohio native Dave Ferguson (The Birthday Boys, I Love You America). Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/ FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warning, today's podcast contains an averted Brady Bunch disaster, a brief yet thrilling discussion of Kathy Ireland's business ventures, a revelation that's as shocking as a bird in the face, and a less than comprehensive exploration of King's Island with Dave Ferguson. It's amazing in here. It's Podcast The Ride, the theme park podcast so thorough we will eventually do an episode about every King Arthur carousel horse. It'll be a 68-part series. Look forward to that next year sometime. I'm Scott Gairdner, joined by Mike Carlson. Every horse has a backstory.

I would imagine. Yeah. And we'll make one up. Yep. And Jason Sheridan. Can't wait to get to those horses I mean the the red saddled one is different than the than the the blue saddle one is different than the blue with the gold trim yeah absolutely different than the silver with the uh with the purple trim and if you don't know that you're

trash you shouldn't be able to turn around right now not the podcast for you uh uh but you know who is invited and who's hanging out with us today uh one of my favorite folks i'm so glad he's here from the birthday boys from comedy bang bang from sarah silverman's i love you america it's dave ferguson hey hey guys how's it going oh it's good happy to have you you know that carousel is not all horses right i think yeah that's chairs and other things there's a bench or two so you're gonna do a bench episode oh i i'm a big fan of the bench on a carousel that'll be nice to break up the flow actually it's maybe the most unique episode everybody does the kid that ran for the bench yeah i because i have tall legs so sometimes those they bang into the ground if you're on a horse not bang but you have to hold them up but

like if i'm trying to have fun and not put them in the stirrups, put my feet in the stirrups. Right. I can't. Well, not to mention your big balls. Yeah. Your giant balls. Trying to straddle those horses. Yeah. That's impossible.

There's no, like there should be a groove in it in case you have giant balls. The Carlson groove. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the bench is perfect for a large, bald, tall-legged man like me. You got to go carve out the ball space in advance if you want to take that ride most places aren't letting you do that that sucks um uh dave you're here to talk about uh

probably your childhood theme park or what you what you grew up with uh yeah other than the local ymca which we will also do whatever yeah king's too. Yeah, Kings Island. Kings Island. And when we were talking about topics, you also mentioned Cedar Point you spent a lot of time at. But I feel like, partially selfishly, I wanted to talk about Kings Island, and I'm glad you wanted to do so. I've been to Kings Island. I was lucky enough to go. I have very fond feelings towards it. Yeah, it's a great park.

I can't wait to talk about it. How old were you when you went? I went in 2005. I was in college. My college girlfriend is sort of in the Cincinnati Columbus area. So, yeah. She set up a special King's Island Day.

We also went to the Ohio State Fair where we saw the Zombies perform. I'd seen the Zombies before. That's a great band to see at a State Fair. And also, Denny Lane, who is the lesser wing. Of course. Who performed very slow.

I know who Denny Lane is. But you may be the only person listening who does. My mom does. Uh-huh. My mom and dad. Hey, shout out to Mike's mom. Shout out to Denny Lane. He, that concert was weird because he like it felt a little

tepid it just wasn't like and he was pulling he was playing a lot of songs that he didn't write and then at the end he's kind of guilting you with like put your hands in the air for george put your hands in the air for john for linda he's like what associating he's like dredging up the guilt you might have like uh forcing your hands into the air to pay homage to those who passed um rather than propelling them into the air via his rock skills it sounds like it doesn't sound like the normal denny lane show i've always heard about i'll tell you that it sounds sounds like real weird, real unusual. Not the ones you read about in Spin Magazine. Yeah, yeah. That's very true.

Still packing them in 30 years later. That Denny heat. In 2005, where were you at with your going on rides? Oh, that's a good question. Are you at the peak power of like, I will go on a roller coaster to impress a girl? Yes. Jenna, my girlfriend girlfriend made me do things more than aaron has uh my now wife has made me do so i was uh kind of stretched beyond my

my typical roller coaster limits because you said in the past you've ridden the beast right i did ride the beast is sort of one of the signature rides of Kings Island. And on the more intense end of rides that I've been on, I did the Racer. And I liked both of them. Neither of those were upsetting experiences. The only one that was upsetting to me was Tomb Raider. Have you done Tomb Raider? Well, it's changed names many times.

But yeah, I think the ride now known as as tomb raider i think i've done it are you talking about the universal no tomb raider being that there was a they did a like an indoor yeah yeah yeah i had to look this up in my my memory lane trip but it was not called tomb raider when i last was probably was it called the crypt yeah i believe was the public domain version of it yeah and it seemed like it it sporadically operated after like they the effects wouldn't have been at a hundred percent right well it's funny because it's so exciting to talk about this through your lens because to me it was the local park i didn't know that the beast had national appeal ah okay i know the beast critical yeah because there was a very popular ya like thriller horror book called the beast that takes place in king's island oh does someone

get hit by a bird in the face in the piece no they travel back in time probably to the original park that inspired coney island which used to be down the road from this. And then there was a sequel to the book called Son of Beast. Wow. That came out in conjunction with that ride opening or the announcement of that ride opening. But this was like a Goosebumps, you know, Fear Street style horror book. And it's about Kings Island.

No kidding. And it's about the beast and about kids who get stuck in the past and then they have to get back to the future via the something i guess the beast sent back in time i forget now i really should have looked up more about the plot of this but we'll post it on the twitter yeah that is amazing because like uh i i mean i was into those books and i may have just not made the connection or the overlap or didn't assume it. But that is, that's some exciting stuff right there.

This was like a weird one-off book. This is up there with the Wright brothers being from Dayton, Ohio. That's like my only other claim to fame for my own time. Yeah. You finally have some points of pride in your, you know, well, you know what? The also, well, I don't know where he's from but it's got to be around where you grow in the area but neil armstrong i believe and because country yeah sure sure do you feel that growing is there some museum is there some way to pay a huge deal

in dayton ohio so the wright brothers are from dayton there's a bunch of famous astronauts so they have the they do this is the old debate with north carolina first in flight whether it be where they where the right brothers had their first flight or where that whether they were born in dayton what's more important for your little license plate debate but like so like that was like flight there's a flight of fear ride at king's island like there's they always tie in aeronautics into ohio theme park oh because there was the top gun coaster that then became the flight deck coaster uh the history of this park yeah is fascinating they've had four different owners starting with taft broadcasting you open it in 72 then paramount owned it from 1992 to 2006.

And then Cedar Fair owns it now. Right. Three different, yeah. So three different owners? And is there one? Who did you miss? Did you miss Paramount? Taft, Paramount, and Cedar Fair. There was another like mini one that I was,

there was too dry of a fact for me to write down. I think in that, well, and also, so it was owned by Paramount in the years that I enjoyed it most. So from the 90s, early 2000s, and they would brand it up. And then there was this weird, awkward year before they sold it to the Cedar Company where it was still owned by Viacom, but they were taking all the branding off. Very slowly.

So it was just caught in between. They were, okay, like the rights had all run out. So they were dismantling. They were taking down, I was just looking at video just like walking around the park you can catch like there's a poster for the untouchables yes or something like that or days of thunder they had the wayne's world car on uh there for a long time and i was so excited to double check if it was real it was not it was not real yeah yeah they had the mirth mobile there um uh and then yeah they paramounted it up during the paramount years and now all those like the the they just restored

a bunch of old names like one ride is now called the bat which is an old coney island ride you know they oh yeah they just like kind of went back which is probably great for nostalgic value i just haven't been back to enjoy the uh the deep branding i see which is our primary concern like if brands are stripped and unstripped that we got to be there um but yeah i was there i guess in the height of uh of paramount in which a ride was one of my favorite rides there was uh the italian job yes yeah the fact that there was a, I was thinking like the Italian job has to be one of the greatest disparities of popular,

like most, like how everlasting the film is versus there was a ride of it for a long time, which doesn't really reflect the movie. I mean, you could call this, the same ride could also be like fast and furious the roller coaster this is probably a great topic for this podcast because it applies to all theme parks or movie theme parks which is like a good movie doesn't necessarily equal a good

ride no that's bad movies sometimes make like great like the water world stunt show is great but i don't know that i ever need to watch all three hours of water world again totally like that sequence where tarzan and the animated disney tarzan where he's like surfing on the vines that'd be a good ride yeah yeah yeah yeah bad movie it's possible somebody might not like avatar yes it's possible but the land is great i mean i like both the movie and the land i'm saying if but It's possible, but the land is great. I mean, I like both the movie and the land. I'm saying, but it's possible.

So like you could enjoy Pandora. Some psychopath out there might not enjoy the breadth of the Akron's wings. Right. And so you obviously like Sivako, Rise to the Challenge

is the motto everyone has that goes into Pandora. Some of these movies were probably conceived as rides. Yes. And then they were like, we got to make the damn movie before we can make the ride.

That's why I want to make movie and TV shows so I can make a ride. I believe this. Yeah. It is entirely... I don't give a shit about... I did my show with Dayton native, Rob Lowe. Oh, yeah.

And there was a moment in promoting it at Comic-Con. We got to do a laser tag experience for the show, which was only open for two days, but they made an immersive environment based on the show that was still a year away from premiering, and I remember people saying, we might never see Scott again. He might bail here because he already hit the peak.

It is the most fun thing. I think it brings together probably what people who would start such a podcast love the most of all these elements of creativity. Like we did a dumb thing for Birthday Boys where Tim Koppagus had this character that was Glannard Frugner, which was like a crappy Walt Disney.

Oh, yes. And he had a Frugnerland, which is kind of this inferior Disney. And pitching on what the attractions at Frugnerland are remains the most joy i've gotten out of a writing process i wish i could summon them offhand i remember loving this sketch do you do you remember frognerland not a one i know a lot of them were just based on like uh removing what's fun about like a roller coaster that's just flat you know like but it's it's it's

still like the specifics of amusement park go very well with our dumb brains i think that's like yeah yeah that's why roller coaster tycoon is a best-selling game i also like revisiting this stuff because i have i have never been to king's island okay but i a number of times my family went to king's dominion growing up in virginia which was owned by the same King's Entertainment Company as King's Island and Carowinds and Great America. One of the parks called Great America. And then there was a Canadian park, too. Canada's Wonderland. Canada's Wonderland, which they didn't officially own, but they operate.

It's some weird, weird, legal nonsense. Paramount ended up owning 80% of it. And there was an episode of Partridge Family or Well no that's King's Island but there's a Canada's Wonderland has an episode of this crazy Canadian show called The Littlest Hobo that's about a dog who

wanders from town to town and helps people with their problems and then keeps moving on. I had this run of like watching, they're all on YouTube, I watched every Littlest Hobo for a little while. And then being at this dull brown Canadian theme park. Oh boy, that's Scott Gairdner. Yeah, yeah, that's the wheelhouse.

Well, it's really interesting because like the first time I ever went to Disney World, having only ever experienced Kings Island and Cedar Point, it was a pretty huge mind melter because i i had never experienced a story park you know i mean king's island and cedar point are amazing amusement parks i now realize in hindsight even on like a world scale they're like world class but they don't mess around with them frills baby no i think i i put these parks at least during the paramount i i also i think i would have gone once or twice like pre-paramount but like they they always had hannah barbara characters yes

until like 2012 cheaper licensing deal yeah and so like i remember that when i was very young and then i remember all this paramount stuff showed up and i didn't really ride coasters a lot as a kid but like i remember uh uh the nickelodeon stuff came like in the mid 90s and then i was telling mike i don't think this was in king's island but in king's dominion there was a busy world of richard scary restaurants wow we did not have that i think i ate like every meal there that i could i thought it was great i think like the this might have been like right around the time that the cartoon series was starting i mean i definitely had the books as a kid um but i just thought that was great and then there was the the flight of fear in virginia was

called the outer limits colon flight of fear yep even though like none of us had seen the flight of same with the outer limits in year. Like that wasn't like, and this is a launch coaster for people. I'm right. Right. That's the one that takes off from zero to whatever. Oh, and it's got like an alien 51 vibe,

uh, to it. But I remember like, yeah, all the paramount stuff coming up. I think there was also a star Trek on ice. I seem to remember. I know we have to figure that out.

We talked about, somebody brought that up on another show, star Trek on ice. So we're going to have to do, we'll cover to remember. Oh, yeah. We have to figure that out. We talked about... Somebody brought that up on another show, Star Trek on Ice. So we're going to have to do... We'll cover Kingston, Finland specifically. But there's a lot less stuff about them. There was a lot more things of like the Mason-Dixon Theater,

and there was a coaster called the Rebel Yell. Oh, wow. There's a lot more Southern... That name has been changed since then. There was some regional appeal to Kings Island. Yeah, there was some regional appeal. But I also like looking back on this realizing between this and disney and universal like i learned so much about movie studios as a kid i was like the stuff i liked was like mgm and universal empowerment i

would like know who made like i was like well clearly these people made this movie and these people made this movie. You knew about brand alliances and. Yeah. And synergy. And yeah. You were indoctrinated. Yeah. Yeah. And you still are very fond of the Paramount brand specifically to this day.

And as a kid that the summers we would go to King's Dominion. Like, I mean, I knew Disney and Universal were like the next level, but this, I was also plenty happy with. Sure. This level of theming and stuff.

And it's a thrill park first and foremost. It is about like giving, getting up your, your gumption to get on a crazy coaster. I mean, that is like the main draw. So a little goes a long way with the story because at least for me, this is like the park of my teen years when you don't care about the kiddie stuff, storybook land or nostalgia. You're living life on the very edge. Yeah, you also don't care about death

because you'll live forever. Yes, and it was a perfect park for that time. All of my memories are tied to walking around with groups of preteens, which is a very different way to experience a park than going with your kids or even in your 30s and reliving what you think was great about your youth. Well, this is something I feel like every time we talk about one of these parks, inevitably the word horny shows up.

Oh. Because you're there when you're preteens because it's a local park. So when you're 15 years old there's boys there's girls there's a whole element of like who are you gonna see who you our eighth grade graduation trip so the big reward of the culmination of your k-8 experience was a co-ed trip yes oh and that's the whole thing because you're out you're not in school you're not in your parents house it was co-ed not the note where you at a boys school and like it merged with the girls i guess by default every experience was okay it wasn't a special um but no it notably it seemed notable for the same things that carl's

was pointing out which is just like yeah this was you were allowed you were still under total supervision but you were allowed to kind of walk around the park somewhat freely. And that was very different than the school norm. It was akin to a dance with a thousand feet high roller coasters about. Yeah, yeah. But you've been with your wife since you were both nine years old, correct? Yes, that's true. So you didn't have time to. Honestly, that is true.

What's the actual timeline? Most of my memories of those kind of pre-teeny teen trips were more about like just being mischievous like i remember an entire day of walking around the park because we had gotten on one of the log rides or not not one of the log rides one of the rides that had a water element and the seat was wet you know and we thought that was annoying or whatever we started asking people how their butt water was just you know like walking up to people in a very prepubescent way just to get a rise out of people saying how is your butt water

and that's not funny now i doubt it was that funny with that i think that's funny it was like the the culmination of like a great teen mischievous experience harmless yeah stupid harmless confusing confusing probably probably your most common response was huh yeah yeah i think that was and that was enough to get a pretty good laugh but you what's the ideal reaction is it like a harumphy lady like my word right i think you want an indignant response if anything i don't remember or to have somebody go to like a security guard and say you know what these guys said about butt water can you have them removed from the park and they're like nah man anything goes here

and then he gives you beer yeah that would be a surprise not in our wildest dreams did we think we could achieve it but yeah i mean king's island the other thing that's notable about king's island is it does have an attached water park um but what's what's unique here is that they're in direct competition with a giant water park across the road called the beach and the beach was an attraction like big enough unto itself to be worth the one hour drive for my family so like we never like equated the king's island trip with a water park trip i mean having to pack your wet uh swimsuit that was a lot of yeah my i remember my parents having to do the like all right we gotta have a bag because they're gonna have to put their bathing suits on and we'll have to have the

dry clothes and then there's towels right like it's so so we always did one or the other yeah but they had a great the theme song for um king's island this is really weird branding it was like a song a jingle that was like in the 90s it was like come to the beach oh it's easy to reach right across from the island the island uh so it was marketing while referencing the competitor that was the beaches um pitch basically is we're right across from we're by the other thing you really want to go to so just come here well and now there's also now i don't know this is replace the beach or not but it's replaced like there used to be a king's island hotel like a king's island in close by yeah that they closed a few years ago and now they say like

maybe you should stay at the great wolf lodge down down the road, which is a combined, we have one of those in Orange County. It is an indoor water park with a hotel built into it. Wow. That's kind of, it is really crazy. Like Ohio must be a natural magnet for this type of attraction. It's landlocked. It's, well, other than the Great Lakes, which are legit, but it just has, it just has that kind of easy-to-reach appeal for the region. Because Cedar Point is huge.

Kings Island's huge. There's a lot of little parks like that and, like, kind of highway attraction level. Things that have just, like, survived the test of time because they don't have to compete probably the same way. Is there anything around there that gives you, like, an actual beach? Like, where would you go if it wasn't to a lake or yeah you could go to the great lakes in the summer which is great it's like a very much a boating culture or a lot of people would hit like virginia beach go you know go east time the atlantic seaboard but i mean like for us it was like we were either going down to disney world and making a huge trip of it or like a lot of like dollywood is not far that's

that's tennessee so you had gone i've been to dollywood yeah we don't have a lot of people who've been to dollywood uh it's uh it's got a real smoky mountains theme which like it sits in the smoky mountains so as you drive in you're driving through like a natural preserve on a two lane like cool road and um there's like uh black bear themed things all over the place there's like an alpine slide you can ride there it's it's a it's a park in an actual cool part of the country that people wouldn't think to visit you know it's it's like got a big natural appeal okay actual natural we'll be going we'll we have to take it it's worth the trip yeah but you can see that seem like i don't want to like uh say too much but doesn't it seem like our best like shot in

terms of like uh maybe like outreach we have got because we put out a little bit of pr let's say this a number of different people have offered us free things uh in regards to dollywood uh-huh that's all i'll say yeah that's been our most progress so far. We've tried to reach out to certain places that have been more receptive than others. I know some mutual friends have gone recently. You've got to put this out into the world.

So people, if you're listening right now, call your friends. Call Dolly herself. If David Phillips is listening, let's make this happen. Did we talk about that on the air or did we make a whole episode yeah yeah we know somebody who got a birthday phone call i think you can make this happen dolly parton yeah yeah yeah and her as a guest someday oh it just has to be one of our birthdays i'm having a theme park empresario i mean i like the idea that we

would have her on and talk about just the theme park. Yes. Not the movies, not the songs. Just be like, well, what about the roller coaster? Were you in the design phase? Were you the one who was helping plan out what the layout of the park would be? She was in like a 3D movie or something. You wouldn't have to devote 40 minutes to that. Right. Yeah.

Beats the crap out of Mr. King or whoever the hell that was. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I don't know i don't know uh the dolly parton uh bringing this up uh reminded me of part of part of the founding of king's island was uh for one thing coney island the this this older park used to be about 10 miles down the road from where king's island is now constantly flooded yeah uh so they're like well we got to move we you know people some of the

board was like oh we should move this and people are resistant to it and then it was rumored that the actor fess parker famous for playing davy crockett in the disney uh miniseries slash movie and later on uh playing daniel boone was going to open a park in kentucky so they scrambled so they scrambled and they're like oh we gotta all right we gotta, alright, we gotta move it. And then, of course, the Fast Parker project fell apart. The money didn't materialize. But, like, there was almost another

celebrity-founded theme park in the region called Frontier Worlds. They probably played it right. I mean, they probably played it right because Newport and the area that the old park, Coney Island, was in on the river does flood a lot. Like in the history of the Ohio River, there's a lot of flooding.

And so they had like endless expansion room. And that's one of the things that's very well known about this park and why a lot of people think it has a higher ceiling than Cedar Point is they have room to grow. So they like kind of constantly improve and expand in a way that some other parks can't oh do they not yeah because it really butts up to just wilderness yeah it's pretty open do they own like all that or is there a hard boundary i don't know if there was you know about the i don't know if there was like a walt disney swamp buy up yeah story but i do know that like the Beast, so it's famous for being, is it still the longest? Or no? I think so.

I think possibly. Or maybe in the US, but not in the world or whatever. It's so hard. Like stuff loses it and then it's still noted at. But the longest in this region. So one of the longest wooden roller coasters in the world. And one of the reasons it's great is because, you know, if you ride Thunder Mountain at Disney, it's a great ride

but you don't have many straightaways yeah you know to kind of build suspense and um kind of just like enjoy your atmosphere but on on the beast you're going through a pretty woodsy area and they have a lot of like wooden tunnels with like open planks so it kind of creates this like really rustic natural uh vibe that like is unique for no other reason than you can go into a wooded area yeah yeah you really feel like you're in the middle of nowhere this is another i did a this video i did at funny or die that was called roller coaster safety with patrick warburton that was i don't think i've talked about on the show that was a real or it was a fake it a fake like the pre-ride video for a fake ride that we got Patrick Warburton

to be in of actual video Soarin' the level of nerd out to have our guy in one of the real video and he said you know I'm in one of the real things you think Patrick and then he walked away for half an hour and threatened to

leave because of my attitude he's also on Star Tours oh that's right yeah yeah which he revealed to me it hadn't opened yet and he like whispered on the set like

oh yeah I did something for the new thing true Hollywood rumors that wasn't even out online I got inside info for those couple months that's crazy I felt pretty special

I gotta say they picked his voice up too I don't think most people know it's him I don't think you yeah there's not really a tell he's the guy who's like looking through like he's like letting the tsa guy right

on soren yeah no no no on star tours well that's what he's doing in soren basically it's different characters they're different jobs warburton in in soren he's more of like a military he's a little calmer he's like a captain yes he's a little calmer. He's like a captain. He's kind of a captain. He's a hero. He saved lives, the Sorin guy. And on Star Tours, he's kind of like, all right, move along. Move along there. He's like robot TSA. They pitch it up.

So it's even more like, move along. We can hear it's his voice. A little bit of attitude. Yeah, yeah. Okay, keep going there. Keep going. Like that kind of. I mean, what a cool claim to fame for a Warburton.

I mean, like what a, it has more staying power than any other form of cameo. I mean, more people see that per year than. Yeah. And I think he kind of is a nerd for that stuff from what I could tell. Like he does, because sometimes you'll catch that actors, because I've probably watched every interview or like any glimpse I can get of, now you were in this ride and it really breaks my heart

when an actor's like, yeah, I don't know, that was a quick shoot and I don't remember and I never went and visited it. Warburton, I think, cares. Here's a fun tip for you. Ken Marino is,

you guys know what the hell I'm trying. Why did I even, like the second I started to say it, of course they know. They probably digested that whole episode we did an entire episode that hasn't come out yet i'm not sure if it will have when maybe we'll have but yeah we have yet to decide yeah i was i was on the ride last week this is the this is the rock and roller coaster roller coaster with aerosmith oh but i was

starting to say sorry the thing that inspired that i it was like a like a scary particularly odd scary video for a ride that doesn't exist that like seems to go forever and be insanely dangerous and there's a joke in it about like part of it takes place across the u.s canada border so yeah they're gonna like a mountie stops you and checks your passport and that was completely based on the king's island right experience because there was a moment in the beast where i was like i've been on this for half an hour i feel and we are so deep in the woods if we like if you if you fell off the ride at that point could you get back to civilization easily it is one of the few rides that you don't leave saying like ah like it's over before

it started. And one time I was there when it was pouring rain and we just got in as many rides as we could and doubled up on the Beast, which like they were letting people stay on. Yeah. Which is just like, that's a train ride. That's a trip from here to San Francisco. But it was like, it is such a great it rattles you so like if if you're ever at the park and you are the type of person that

gets doesn't like getting tossed around yeah it's not the best ride but it is like a classic my my personal favorite ride at least at the time i think if if I went back, the Beast was probably what I'd try to get on first. But it's actually the Vortex, which is a looping, like, when it first opened, it was one of the most loops for its type. And it just feels fast. It's like one of those rides where you're going the same speed you are

on any other roller coaster, but because you're feeling a little more Gs and, like, twisting, it's... It's so contained feels like a speed coaster sure sure that um you know that brings up someone had asked us on twitter recently like why why don't why do we think like smaller parks like this like we had done an episode on hershey park and uh um why don't they have more like disney style dark why don't they have more dark rides why do they have so many coasters because i don't really they didn't really like coasters they preferred more

dark rides sort of thing and i think one of the reasons is that it's i mean one it's easier to build a roller coaster you can essentially buy it quote unquote off the shelf because companies that make these just have different models and you can build them just like it is but then you can also brag about like the most number of loops in new jersey or like the fastest in the northeast region like that helps the marketing and that appeals to like you know uh the teens the thrill-seeking teens and that brings like parents in yeah like scott um you know to the yeah you appeal to the ultimate badasses like old Scott. If they just had something called the super high horn ball,

they'd have both things covered. And it would just be like a horny ride that goes really high and really low. More butt water per car than any roller coaster before. A lot of sophomoric jokes. Everything on it slightly looks like a dick. As you go up the lift hill it's like a lot of bananas with the apricots next to the base welcome to the phallic phantom there's like a kathy ireland animatronic at the top waving to you that is for an audience of you

people like everyone yeah it's for the pe Pepsi generation. Yeah, that's good. I remember her name getting said a lot when people were making a big show out of the fact that they like girls now. Like you wouldn't hear, my memory was people on the playground not saying like, I got Cindy Crawford's really attractive.

It'd be like, oh, Cindy Crawford. Like people had to put on these gigantic shows. I think nobody knew what was going on for themselves either. So there's a lot of projecting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if I start shouting about this now. I'll defend myself from the challenges of my peers. I like that Kathy Island was like the hipster choice.

Like, Cindy Crawford, that's old, man. That's your dad's model. Kathy Ireland's our generation's model what is uh what was kathy ireland was she just known for being in magazines did she have a couple tv appearances i recall um but i think she i think she has like a whole line of clothing she has a ceiling fan she has a ceiling fan line. She really got in on licensing stuff. Yeah, she owns a lot of stuff. Ceiling fan.

She could be a Shark Tank shark. Absolutely. The way they all own six or seven different businesses and have shares in a million things. I'll find a way to perfect the ceiling fan. I'm coming for you, Kathy. Dave, did you ever ride the Son of Beast when it was briefly open?

Yes, it did catch the very end of my years around Ohio and being able to have time to do these kinds of things. I didn't like it, so I was part of the popular opinion. But it was like something to behold visually yeah because to build that internal inverted loop that the scaffolding around it was like it just looked like a honeycomb of like wood planks like it really is a unique architectural achievement even if it was a failure as a ride yeah so this was a wooden coaster sort of built like they made a big deal out of it it's like the sequel to the beast the son of the beast

and it had a loop it was a wooden coaster with a loop in it first ever uh uh i think second ever but the previous one was so long ago this was like in modern memory too many people died for it to count you're probably not far off they never completed a full loop so it didn't count because it didn't work yeah they just fall it doesn't connect but uh yeah but plagued with problems like pray like not pleasant to ride it seemed like they changed the cars eventually later on they found out there was some weird engineering problems where it was a miracle there was only a few accidents and no fatal accidents like yeah it really plays into the lore of the park probably in the sense of there was like it makes you wonder like is anybody watching what's going on here oh i was gonna say that to bring back to neil armstrong that i found

a quote from neil armstrong about the part which is that he did not go on the beast and when asked why he said when I went to the moon I was in control but you've got some 20 year old kid

running that thing and I got I agree that is very true although in this case I did go on the beast so you can call me

braver than you can call me a scaredy cat yes but clearly i'm braver than neil armstrong um did you would you have overlap with son of b scott on your visit it was there i certainly did not go on that well the funny thing jason correct me if i'm wrong but it kept standing long after they shut it down yeah it was still up for a while and they're like oh but next season how embarrassing yeah yeah i think there was also like i i watched if i think

i watched there's a series called the funk land that we like a lot and i think they talked about on it like the people in in ohio in charge of like monitoring coasters are like it's either the parks and recreation people or like the fish and wildlife it's people who are not qualified right to look at so like people would be like uh yeah i mean the math works yeah i guess it's okay like people just didn't know and like as they were tearing it down they're like oh yeah some of this wood is not wow right or like things aren't i mean building building the scaffolding out of wood in a in a region of the country it gets a lot of water a lot of rain a lot of wind you know tornadoes does seem like you're daring god to kill a preteen a horny preteen

yes um i died as he wished with a boner it's not the longest roller coaster anymore that's that belongs to the steel dragon 2000 okay longest wooden though the longest way it was the longest wooden until they took the loop out when they reopened it and now i think california screaming might be technically the longest way see that's the thing though about like these people are so mad right now that we don't know this well it's the same thing with height of buildings you know if you had the antenna all of a sudden yeah sears towers and doesn't count these building fights speaking of i'm sorry i didn't mean to say what i was gonna say it is very hard to keep straight at this point i feel like there used to be a clear what it was empire state building now it's and then it became sears tower

i don't know it's some dubai thing now i don't know what it is and they keep adding doodads they got to get the tallest building thing that was one thing's for sure it is not the eiffel tower at king's island which is an attraction at king's island when you walk in uh a replica quote unquote replica if you see the picture it's not really a replica it's a third size is what i saw my wife didn't know much about this park and that that part really confused her why is there an eiffel tower there's one in virginia too i think there's one at carowinds maybe probably that european eclectic vibe of like you can't have a castle you know this is fun yeah it was international street there's a bunch of fountains you know international style fountains is it the same theory like the same um thinking that michael eisner had when he wanted

to open disney's mgm studios were, if we just build a studio here, no one's going to go to Universal Studios. So they were like, well, no one needs to go to Paris now that we have our own just as good one. It's the New York, New York theory in Vegas. Yeah, yeah. We got it all right here, basically. How's their Eiffel Tower stack up?

That's got to be bigger. That's got to be bigger. And closer. Because the Kings Island one kind of looks like it's made of legos or something yeah and it but it is a good view of the park all of these things have their charm like i know they i was just reading that they redid like the turnstile entrance just to have a better signage and i was like oh my gosh is it going to be really nice and it was like no it was just a sensible update you know like they don't waste money where it doesn't have entertainment value.

And I kind of love that. I mean, Disney has the luxury to fail, you know, and, like, invest a lot of money in certain details. These parks, to survive and to keep them at, like, a non-cost prohibitive level for the average family, like, they make the right move. They buy, like, these prefabbed awesome rides yeah so it's admirable uh the other thing is thriftiness of it yeah that's why i like in a park a good thrifty appeal

the the other thing is a lot of these parks in colder parts of the country don't operate year-round they're usually like you know end of april middle of april to october maybe and maybe they uh looks like king's island sometimes has done yeah winter fest like open around christmas hershey park did this uh some of the six flags maybe do it um yeah i went to winter fest once at least i remember and they would basically just put up some temporary tents around the park um like kind of heated tents i can't remember there's probably like a lighting display and stuff in some of the area. But the most memorable thing,

again, I was probably 10, but there was a guy singing in one of the tents, like a novelty act. And he put on a Rasta hat and sang Jingle Bells. And the only difference was that he added man at the end of everything. It was the most culturally appropriated junk of all time. It was just jingle bells, mon, jingle bells, mon, jingle all the way, mon.

And me and my 10-year-old white bread friend thought that was the funniest performance of all time. And when I think about it now, I probably like went home and sang it to friends at school. Yeah, you absolutely did. Sure. Oh, what a freaking loser a young adrian brody saw it and i gave him an idea for his snl musical guest intro that's a very obscure reference but i know what you're talking about if anybody hasn't seen look up adrian brody what how is he introducing that's sean paul perfect it's he's introducing a reggae band so he decided to do this lengthy like they told him not to do it like this and

just like all this nonsense and then he oh did they tell him not yeah they told him not he said i want to do my reggae man character i want to do like a reggae guy character they're like no please don't and then he went did it anyway he just looks like a hard man yeah he's a hard man from doing that yeah he did he like like like hide the hat and the wig somewhere and then... He must have. That's a good point. He had to secure it somehow.

So unless the wardrobe department got clearance to do so, he like drove over to a 99 cent store in Manhattan. Oh, yeah. Maybe they never had the wig at all. And that was the quality of it from what I recall.

It was like what you'd buy from a costume store. So he kept that in the room. Like when Sacha Baron Cohen snuck Ali G into the Oscars. It's the same thing. Same thing, yeah. A beloved, two beloved characters making a surprise appearance on TV. Honed over the years.

Yeah. Did he put it all in a backpack? He had them in his pocket. I think his wife had it in a purse or something, and then she had to sneak it to him before he went up there. Oh, man. Weren't you working for the movie awards when one that was not Faye, that Bruno crash-landed on?

I actually did not work on that year. Oh, I thought you did. I worked the year right after. Oh, okay. So we were there for the fallout. It was like the Jimmy Kimmel or the Warren Beatty envelope. Never again. Security on high alert for comical Europeans. Wait, was the Bruno falling on Eminem?

Yeah. Wasn't that scripted, though? Wasn't that planned? Jason, how could you dare make such a claim? There's only one person here who would truly know the inside, although you weren't there at the time. I was only there for the follow-up. At that point, the rumor mill was in full effect.

The cover-up was on. Mr. MTV himself had shut it down. No, I don't know the full details. I know the people who would. But they're not here. They're dead to us. This isn't, yeah. They don't know us either.

They're in protective custody, right? They can't share this information. They're in protective custody, right? They can't share this information. They'll be shot. I'm not sure if the timeline overlapped in this, but that was all owned by Viacom, who owned these parks at the time, and they could have made a ride based on Bruno dangling down into that.

Actually, they would have owned the rides. Yeah, it could have been a stunt show. Oh, yeah, yeah. It would be a great stunt show. Like a Bruno Mars... Bruno Mars. Actually, that would be a much more great stunt show like a bruno mar bruno mars actually that would be a much more popular stunt show uh but uh like really a sasha barrett cohen character themed stunt show i'm i'm on board if you could get every character from the cohen versus you get bruno you get the general

you get uh borat i mean of course because the crowd work would be amazing because you would get like a local higher version of Sacha Baron Cohen if you held auditions at an Ohio theme park for who would play Borat there would be a line of 20,000 everyone in the state would audition for it young funny dudes

now is my shot females open to that too I think why not it's totally blind casting the best we can get 20 dudes. Now is my shot. Female, females open to that too, I think. Why not? It's totally blind casting. The best we can get. Fanning down the lot, that endless line,

longer than the beast itself. Yeah. Murmuring, my wife, my wife, my wife. Different people for each character too. Wouldn't be the same person playing all the roles.

Absolutely. No, you're going to see a lot of those baby blue Borat suits in that line though. Right. But you'll see some Bruno. You'll see some Ali G's. Bruno's borat suit isn't baby blue. It's kind of blue, right? It's baby blue. Oh, here comes a fight.

I don't know. I don't know. I'm mad. My role is the riff of the pod. That local casting, I know it's a thing you guys have covered occasionally, but Scott was nice enough in my little walk down memory lane. He sent me a 25th anniversary special that oh yeah we went fine yeah oh my god so jason priestly is the the talent yeah um and uh what

what the segue here for me was that he runs into a number of actors from the park uh and one of them is an approximation of doc brown but it's completely unlicensed and played by like a 14 year old well and he also was like talking about a lot of ghostbusters stuff it was like a doc brown outfit and just mixing in ghostbuster like phantasmagoric like slime like it didn't make any was he walking around the park or was that just for the special it's what i was i'll have you know i watched the entire thing and i never made heads or tails of whether these were actual pre-existing Kings Island characters that he was running to or if they were written for the narrative of the special. But basically, the theme that they went with is it's a 25th celebration.

Jason is interacting with real kids throughout the park that have snuck in with him on a day that it's closed and um he is kind of infiltrated his mission is infiltrated by these um secret agents that look like the blues brothers yeah but there's more than two of them there's four blues brothers uh and they're with the uh park aficionado committee the well this is what's weird to me they were with ace the american coaster enthusiast which is which is a real organization but they don't they're just people who like coasters and wear normal clothes uh i'm not quite sure why they made them look like sinister men in black i think the answer to your question of why is that this was likely written by a park employee that that's the feeling it had to me they had they had you know they were like we have 30 maybe 20 grand to spend on this big blowout we're gonna get priestly and

the rest is on us yes now why priestly was he uh biggest name who would say yes maybe team horniness but who the teens were the most horny for uh Was he like from the area though? No, I looked that up too. He's Canadian. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I thought. But maybe he had a trip to Kings Island or was he a random hire? I think he was legitimately hot at the time.

So he probably was an attention getter. And I don't know if that, it's a YouTube video now, but I don't know if it was a regional broadcast on paid television or. Must've been like a local TV thing. Look, I'll correct you. video now but i don't know if it was a regional broadcast on paid television or must have been like a local tv thing look i i'll i'll correct you i'll say it's the 20th anniversary if you look it up on youtube although we'll post it and probably post uh clips from it but for yeah the

the king's island 20th anniversary special from 1992 which to me i think this this whole thing elevates king's island for me that they had an idiotic 90s tv special again my favorite you like that better than the park sometimes oh yeah i put a lot more time into watching these things and archiving moments from them than going to places so yeah is this the only non-disney universal park to have a special of this nature with little skits no there's no way it was great i really did enjoy i thought i was going to watch 30 seconds and i kept going i'm so glad well i want to highlight another moment from that which is that yes so you if there is a loose well you described one of the blues plots

which is the blues brothers men magically appearing on the coasters but also the doc brown ripoff guy who you mentioned with a big hat full of doodads on it he's talking about particle disturbances that are happening in the park and i don't know why that day and they look like little digital tornadoes that have just been loosely animated across the screen yeah yeah that happens a number of times uh yes which culminating in a in the very strange section where Jason Priestley is talking to kids about what animals they like. And then he just casually says, I've always wanted to be a giraffe. Next line. Oh, no, Jason, look out.

The kid points behind him. He looks bizarre close up of just his eyes as the swirl that we saw in one scene prior. The digital tornado heads towards him it engulfs him then drops him off in a different area where he is human but quickly morphs into a giraffe giraffe in the safari park and i promise you on our twitter a gif that i've made already or a gif oh great uh it's an achievement yeah uh go to our twitter if you want to see anamorphic into a giraffe uh some of the i i wrote down some of those kids's lines like some of those kids's lines were pretty one of the kid goes there goes his career yes and then the other

kid goes oh he was gonna be a movies, which is like a very savvy Hollywood joke. Yeah, both are pretty good. So I'm like, wait, were the writers there feeding kids lines? Yeah, definitely. You thought those kids ad-libbed him? No, I was wondering if Jason Priestley's feeding them lines. I was trying to figure it out. I want to say Jason was more checked out than you're giving him credit for. Yeah, I have to think there were some writers.

Because then there's some weird mugging later on where he's like get out here wise guy and i'm like why is he doing that's like a comedy writer go to his like old-timey aphorism it reminds me a lot of john stamos on stamos on full house would do a lot of like yeah would you like it's some weird like several stages yeah yeah i i will say he seemed to be a good sport there's one memorable moment in the video where uh he's riding the racer with a young volunteer and they didn't pre-screen the young volunteer and the kid is terrified he looks like he's like trying to hide from the ride and and jason kind of puts his arm around him and like cheers him up like while still like playing the scene the way it was planned so you

know he won some points and at the end the the end of the video says uh promotional considerations or travel considerations and lodgings provided by and the hotel they show as his lodgings is the most adorable like budget in they show the room like the interior of the room and it's like he made a sacrifice to make a couple bucks. Yeah, they also gave a shout-out to the local RV company that rented his dressing for his dressing room trailer. Oh, yeah, Jason Priestley's trailer provided by him. They used to do that, I feel like.

They would say, like, trailer provided by him. I've seen that before. It's very charming. Yeah, you could tell they made a special effort to elevate their production situation to this Hollywood person. The charm that is imbued in every part of this park is evident there.

This is a, you know, it's funny because as much as people dig on Midwest stuff, it always does bug me because that's kind of a unique experience in the Midwest is priestly legitimizing your park there's nothing crappy about that that's that's great that's a coup for the park there's a coup for the rv company and that local hotel establishment and the midwest in general yeah

it's a win-win it's a coup for me to watch 26 years later. You referenced him a little bit. I accidentally did in the 70s when it was still owned by, who was the original owner? Taft Broadcasting. That's how they had the Hanna-Barbera license. And I believe the Smurf license because the Smurfs were present in the park

very early on. It's great. They also got crossovers. There's a Brady Bunch episode and a Partridge Family episode, both very similarly premised yes um what is the part the partridge family one because i know brady bunch but they're oh sorry go ahead oh no you if you know i'll make it up wrong i have the the thing here they're

traveling performers so they're performing at the park is the basics it's less torture to get them there yes the brady bunches he got the engineering job to do a design at the park so he's flying the whole family to cincinnati and they have this whole moment of like we're going to cincinnati oh yeah it's a real shit on cincinnati and then when he explains what's up because we get to go to a big theme park then the reaction's like oh cool okay it's still like a b plus enthusiasm from the family and both coincidentally there's a b story where the young male member of the family falls for a local keith meets the public relations host keith has a crush on her says the imdb yep oh wait i flipped through

it and i think keith is pretending he is older than he is. And there's a part where he demands wine. And Shirley Jones gives him the stink eye because he's not old enough to drink wine. There you go. This is the stuff of amusement park. The Partridge Family's episode was called I Left My Heart in Cincinnati. The Brady Bunch episode was called The Cincinnati Kids. On the notable events part of the Wikipedia, it seems like the Brady Bunch kids would come back a few times just to entertain

they did a show a few of them did a show uh a few years ago there yes i came 2008 and 2013 yeah barry williams and susan olson uh and then christopher knight was with them in 2013 but then mike looking uh looking land was with them in 2008 do we know why singing some songs telling some stories yeah you know why because ohio loved them yeah of course yeah yeah and treated them really although what so i uh for this i stopped uh on the way here i stopped at the library and looked at a copy of one of the great uh literature texts available at the library growing up brady or barry williams book which is a very of one of the great literature texts available at the library, Growing Up Brady, or Barry Williams' book, which is a very good book.

But he goes in-depth into the Brady's experience at Kings Island. And at the time, similar to what you were saying about Priestley having modest lodging options, there was only one hotel remotely near king's island at the time and it was called like king's island lodge or something and it didn't take much for the ohio natives to put two and two together and go oh that's where the bradys must be so all of the kids yeah the like everybody had to deal with like the bathroom window like people pressing up against the glass everybody the brad's were all trapped essentially there were just people with their kids or not with their kids the same thing happened to

the munchkins uh when they were shooting wizard of oz and call for city all the creepy culverians kept bugging them uh yeah they so like people are just not like knocking on the door and but and then like there was a lot of tension between the brady's and the people in the park because they did not pay to have extras fleshing out the uh the background of the scene so it's just regular people in the parks who have to deal with the shooting who have to be told do not stare at the camera do not stare at the brady's um and the kids got like the kids got to cut in line and go on everything uh uh they just got to walk straight on everything but like people started screaming at like like you hollywood assholes like people would like wow so there was actually so maybe ohio did not love the brady they do now well

they went back yeah yeah they like it was fun enough they wanted they wanted to make sure they knew where they you know they want to put them in their place really we're from this is not where you're from we're from here we're all people there's no lines in the eyes of the lord yeah um no cutting in line um uh the other big part of the brady bunch lore the blower of the cincinnati kids is that they all went on the racer and uh as and robert reed refused to go on the ride again i'm in a great lineup of great oh wow robert reed and first man on the moon neil armstrong yeah yeah well this is a ride that goes not due to they're not they didn't die because they were fraidy cats they just uh it's a pretty tame ride all in all it does go forwards and backwards so it was unique in that way and it is a coney island holdover it's one of the original okay i got it and it's kind of yeah and it's it's two tracks

parallel tracks you're racing each other yeah which at the time a very unique cool idea in the equivalent ride in king's dominion the name has since changed but for a long time was called the rebel yell oh no is it the racer now i don't know if it's a racer now it's something more generic it's i get i read that it's credited with reviving interest in roller coasters in the 70s probably bullshit too oh i know actually it was a more of a divergent uh. I want to hear it. Do you think that this theme park podcast could cover the Branson show, 70s music celebration starring Barry Williams? Do you think we could go?

A thousand percent. Right? As one of the makers of the rules, unless you guys disagree. No, I, of course. That was a question I knew the answer to. I just have a question. Do guests have veto power? Do hosts?

No one's forcing you to listen, Dave. If enough guests, let's say 30 guests, veto, all veto. So strongly about this. Then we'll think about not doing it. You know how my eyes glaze over sometimes when we go down classic rock rabbit holes? Could you imagine if that happens for 90 minutes? Yeah. Oh, you're against it? First of all, it yeah well oh you're against it you were your first of all

it's weird that you're against it second of all when you're saying classic rock this barry williams show i don't even know if we're getting into the territory well is this jason extrapolate if he's bored if we talk about the rolling stones let me show you he'd be probably even more bored everyone this looks good there's a whole there's so many different trailers he does all the brady bunch hits he does uh some like newer songs does he do the real greg brady uh his parody of the real slim shady our second m&m reference of the episode let me look up the set list do you remember when he did that have you ever seen he performed at a vegas award show and like he did a parody of what m&m had done at the vmas where a tub ton

of greg brady's are all walking into the mgm grand together um i have yes that's it's very stupid that is such a leap that is they parodied a very specific eminem performance yeah um why am i talking about all the eminem mtv yeah he had a lot of great moments. Triumph, when he hit Triumph in the aisle. Yes. I have a, while Mike is finding this, there is a moment of the Jason Priestley special I wanted to bring up. At one point, the animated Tornado

turns Jason Priestley into a kid. Yes. And he goes to a snack bar. Yeah, played by a little boy. And he says, I want a cherry slushie and a brownie on whole wheat, hold the mustard. Yeah, that was that.

So I replayed that like three times because I was trying to figure out the McKenna. Again, that's like an old comedy writer joke. It's like a kid. If a kid orders a deli sandwich, wouldn't that be funny? But it's like, wait, a brownie on bread. Like children know what sandwiches are. Children don't.

It's a layered joke but here's my theory on the whole thing it was written by the same person that writes their comedy shows at the park because it had a lot of those like kind of like witty punny jokes uh where you're like you just tried just too much just for that one joke but it's funny because i do wonder you i was i was looking up if any famous people got their start as on a job at king's island and it's pretty good it's carmen electro was a dancer wow yep nick if you're listening sure uh nick nick lachey was a singer woody harrelson was a wood carver and dan patrick worked at the golf course so dan patrick wow weird that's pretty good well dan patrick's from dayton but still that most of

these are from cincinnati that is a pretty good ratio for a park in the middle of the country i wonder if any writers so if you're listening out there and you know some other comedy writers has anyone made the jump from writing for the equivalent of Bill and Ted's stage show or the Golden Horseshoe show? Have they ever made the jump to screenwriting? I found out recently my friend John Flynn, longtime UCB mainstay John Flynn, was in the rock and roll, I think it was the rock and roll show

at Hershey Park one summer. Whoa, there you go. Like a bunch of other theater kids, theater college students, he was with, all lived together and did the rock show at Hershey Park. I will shout out within the tour guide program, of which I was one,

Paul Feig, also a universal tour guide. Whoa. Yeah, that's going to be one of the biggest legit writer-director forces from that weird job. Yeah, that's huge. Uh-huh. I have a follow-up question to yours, Dave, which is, is it possible for somebody

who has written for television to make the leap to write for theme park shows? That is a much better way to frame it. Can anyone give me a specific email address of someone to ask for a job? Because you would like to mimic their career. I would like to go the opposite way, if possible. Yeah, I hear you. I cannot find a set list, but I did find a picture on Facebook of Barry Williams

loving the Right Cycle Company Complex at the Carolina historical park in Dayton, Ohio. Another great example of a local park. This one's a heritage museum. Uh, Caroline park is like the Dayton history park. I know it sounds lame guys, but they got a right B flyer and the cash register was invented there.

So what more do you want? Wow. Look at this. Oh yeah. I just pulled up a Facebook photo and this is a good, I'm glad you have not deleted Facebook as many people have done because then you'd be missing out on stuff like that. Yeah, that's true. The troops of the internet.

Scott deleted his. Yeah, look, don't assail my kind. The rebels in this movement. Thank you for your service. You're very welcome. I'll follow your tangent just for the moment. So did you delete it because of the data breach concern? Because if that's

the case, you're dumb. If you deleted it because you now had a reason that people wouldn't question, then I get it. Well, to be totally fair, I was probably not using it a ton already. The truth will set you free. If it truly was part not using it a ton yes already the truth will set if it truly was

part if it was if facebook was still important to me and a part of my daily activity i probably would not have been able to make the sacrifice but the fact that it had been whittled down to uh a lot of riffraff and stuff i didn't want to see anyway i think that's the moment we're at people aren't ready to defend facebook anymore because they don't care. Yes. Hey, here's a good segue. It's a very easy cut to make. And I'm one of them, but I just think that is the reason. Did you do it? Did you quietly do it?

No, I haven't. I will happily. I'll do it right now. Join us. Dare me. I would like for this. Oh, Carlson's ready. This could be a podcast first.

How are you going to top seeing Barry Williams in an old plane? Well, a great last thing to do this picture of barry williams in a tie-dyed shirt with jimmy jj walker maybe what a way to go out if that's the last thing you're seeing your final like is to like that like it and then delete your account and then we watch you do it right i'll do it and now here we go are you really doing it this is great like heroes i'll hit like and then how be heroes. How do you delete a Facebook right here? Do we go to settings? Mike could be king. This is only a Verge article or a Wired article to do this.

Scott did it. Tell me how to do it. It's in your settings. Oh, well, yeah, it's a little confusing because there's one thing to deactivate, but delete is a different thing and they make the delete link harder to find. Let's just get this because this will be a podcast first. I doubt any other podcasters have deleted their Facebook

on the air yet. Yeah, eat shit, Jon Favreau. So, can we get a Matt Carlson commitment that by the end of today,

by the time this posts, will you no longer have a Facebook account? By the time this posts? Yeah, sure. I think that's like cute. I'll delete it.

But we got a lot of episodes starting up, so it might be like two months. By then, Barry Williams... Although this may just not come out. This is true. We just may say,

hey, this wasn't as good, so we'll throw it away. Let me, because we were talking about heritage places, heritage things, this is the only theme park that I know of

that has a cemetery in the parking lot. Oh, yes. Dog Street Cemetery. What? Yeah, dates back to 1803. This is the only theme park that I know of that has a cemetery in the parking lot. Oh, yes. The Dog Street Cemetery. What? Yeah. Dates back to 1803.

The Warren County Genealogical Society documented nearly 70 grave sites in the cemetery. It looks like a Ghost Hunters episode. Yeah. And there is a Ghost Hunters episode called Roller ghoster uh where they investigate haunted occurrences in and around the park and cemetery uh most notably a ghost they call missouri jane oh that's minora jane it's funny because i have not visited the cemetery site i did ride the king's island equivalent of haunted mansion which rips off a lot of kind of like elements boo blasters yeah whatever haunted theater briefly uh called the haunted theater before that was smurf's enchanted voyage before that was a just a weird copyright free enchanted voyage it looks like hr uh i want to get this name right though now it's called

boo blasters on boo hill i wonder if they have any winks in there like the way disney has uh nods to past uh animators and stuff there's some little like nod to there's a dead smurf body somewhere i think the ghosty guy that played the organ in Phantom Theater shows up in Boo Blaster. Hey, all right. Boo Hill. That's good. But is that just saving on robot costs? Probably saving on robot.

I think this was also a Scooby-Doo themed. Sure was. That was one of the last things yanked out. Wow. And now it's Boo Blaster's on Boo Hill, made by the Sally Corporation, who also made Knights and White Satin the trip. No kidding. Yeah.

Whoa. Which, oh, I don't know. Well, it'll probably have aired. Yeah. A ride based on Nights and White Satin at the foreclosed Hard Rock theme park. Wow. Which we get into a little bit. You know, one advantage that a place like Kings Island maybe has on Disney, you know,

I've heard you guys talk before about like refilling the park how do you keep the energy alive yeah king's island is going to go through enough owners in its history and enough uh entertainment franchises that they have no choice but to rebrand occasionally it's kind of interesting i remember they had a nickelodeon theme uh kids area when i was last there and that's gone yep yeah um now they have a show that i sent to to you guys i don't think i passed this to you um i don't i need to check my notes because it's a complicated name i don't want to get it wrong the show is called nickelodeon's mega messa mania love it which i think was a show that was on tour throughout this nation of ours that eventually settled and had a in-one-place theatrical run at Kings Island.

A residency. A residency, like Barry Williams. And there's a clip of this that I'd like to play, rather than describing the plot. I think the only thing I have to do to set this up is that I'm looking at a lady in a very, like, the Nickelodeon mom. Like, the bizarre, grotesqueque bouffant wig looks kind of like edie mcclurg a little bit yes like a super like an exaggerated caricature of actress edie mcclurg who helped the principal and ferris bueller um so she kind of and she's wearing

regular size glasses and not a fat suit for those of you who haven't pulled up. Yes, I'm accurate. So she kind of explains the plot with the help of the character who she introduces. Is there a problem with the slime release valves? Problem? It's more like a slime catastrophe. Darla, my slime truck broke down, so I had to send the slime directly to the tank on stage.

I do have three emergency release valves. However, if they can't take the added pressure, it could cause a slime down. This whole place will blow, and we'll be up to our adenoids in slime. But never fear, I am a certified slimologist. I have everything under control. Problem could be slimetastrophe. This is, again, anyone who has the means for me to convert from being an attempted comedy writer to being a slimeologist at a slime related uh theme park

show please give me the context if you can we should say that that character the mom character's name is gackmeister darla bo. So, just so you know. It actually took me a second. It took you a second to... Hey, now what nationality is that? What region is that from? Amazing. Yeah, this special, this show was really something. You sent us this video,

and never have I seen a video, a special sell you so hard on, you can buy this. Oh, wow. This is actually being filmed and oh no you can buy a broadcast of what you were watching you'll notice this is shot in a multi-cam way and you could be in the show you might end up on the stage so you could watch it at home like a nickelodeon show but you're the star because there's about five minutes opening credits where they cut two audience members with like funny text underneath that people are laughing when they realize they're on screen and you can take that home with you a part of your favorite i mean i guess you know uh people

buy their own karaoke videos yeah yeah this isn't a hard stretch this too made a point of telling you that it's like we have 50 vhms machines recording this backstage so rather than just record it on one and make copies as needed they just record it 50 at a time because they could just there would be like losing no money if they just threw all 50 away yeah it would not be over them yeah that's true good point that's probably the son of beast was built out of discarded vhs tapes for part of the trick. That's a fun nostalgic romp. What a good show. I recommend the entire 45-minute show.

It's a little harder to get through maybe than that special. Also, I cranked the volume. I went into Adobe Premiere and cranked the volume on what I just played, and it was still very quiet. But I'm sure in the moment seeing the show it was an in your face slime testicle event sure if you have a vhs of this let us know send us oh yeah somebody was probably on yeah i i that's something i might be able to help if i pull oh yeah kids yeah not the ones from the show but the ones from my life in terms of licensing turnover the one of my favorite details is um so in the nickelodeon area there was uh a a wild thornberry's themed log flume and when cedar

fair took over cedar fair of course in their parks like knott's berry farm or dorney park have the peanuts characters this ride got changed the name got changed to race for your life charlie brown yeah it sounds like such a threat we're gonna kill charlie brown by the end of this ride you're fucking dead brown how do you stop it you just have to have enough fun to where they won't kill him if you don't smile enough they choke him out with linus's blanket did i get that right is it linus with the blanket yes that's correct we're gonna pump dust down his throat you should you should have paid back the de marino family charlie brown this is a movie that's the name of one of the movies though you should have paid

yeah race for your life is one of the movies oh i know i got 77 um the p do you have memories of the peanuts area i'm looking through the peanuts area and i am astounded i've never been here i'm astounded by the amount of different peanuts rides and experiences they have they have they uh the kids area whatever the current incarnation is branding wise uh i know is like very well reviewed for a kid kids park which makes sense it's a very family park like i think it probably skews super young right um so i do remember it being huge but i don't most of my king's island visits were in my pre-teens and teens right so that was stupid to go to charlie you didn't have a kid shit they have charlie brown's wind up that where they've had some of

these are gone flying ace aerial chase joe cool, Joe Cool's Dodgem School, Kite Eating Tree, Linus' Beetle Bugs, Linus' Launcher, Peanuts 500, Peanuts Off-Road Rally, Peanuts Playhouse, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, Sally's Seaplane, Snoopy vs. Red Baron, Snoopy's Junction, Snoopy's Space Buddies, Surf Dog, The Great Pumpkin Coaster, Woodstock Express, Woodstock Gliders, and Woodstock Whirlybirds. That'd be enough for a whole world. I have questions. I have questions on Snoopy versus the Red Baron.

Is that meant to mimic a mental disconnect where the Red Baron part of Snoopy and the regular part of Snoopy are warring for control of his... He splits brains. Yeah. I don't know the details. I will say that it used to be Dick Dastard leads by plane.

Perfect. You know, that probably is a parental play, right? I mean, kids born since 2000 do not care about the Peanuts, I wouldn't think. I would think so, but they're still around. Did the film that came out keep them fresh in people's minds? Maybe. By Paul Feigek by former universal not a coincidence adults i mean adults i think force kids to like peanuts right still so you still show them all the special kids want to listen to a slow talking character yeah peanuts depressed little boy peanuts calvin and hobbs maybe farsighted those treasuries are

still in books and stuff and people get them that makes it more appealing to me so it's not a fail by any means it's just it is curious of like all the things they could license i kind of respect that they went timeless again it's probably a money saver where are the theme park rights to uh the the paw patrol because paw patrol clearly is a just juggernaut of current three to five year old culture right and i like paw patrol too i would love to go to a paw patrol place like one of these places i think i think disney i think this could disney could safely like buy the paw patrol theme park rights for like $500 billion and make it back. But if you had the thought, you're already too late. Yeah, yeah.

Well, no, I'm not looking to cash in myself. I just want to make sure they're spoken for. I'm saying that the youth will change faster than you can say, I don't know, any Paw Patrol characters. Yeah, you're right. By the time there's like a child in my life, I'll say so. So you into Paw Patrol? Isn't Paw Patrol cool?

Well, no. Why don't you say Barney? I'm reporting you to the police. You're a predator. You're Paw Patrol. I think there is truth to that, because I think a lot about, like, why aren't there more rides based on TV shows?

And I think it's, like, once TV shows stop airing, I mean, they live forever on streaming services now, but, like, they're kind of out of like i i don't think about you know i like breaking bad on the wire but i don't think about them that much they're not on the air anymore no i'm not gonna get on the mark ermitron uh coaster but like a few years ago at disney there was uh phineas and ferb stuff everywhere in the park like in all the stores and now when you go back i guess there's like a shelf maybe there's a shelf that's a costly update can i say i think one of the i don't know which but i i would venture to guess one of these peanuts rides of which you speak is a rename of

my favorite uh ride title from when it was still hannah barbara boo-boo's baggage claim adorable such a wonderfully dull uh uh like dick dastardly's accountant that you know that that would have been right up my alley because in king's dominion one of my favorite places in the world and i found video walkthrough of it looking this up was yogi's cave which i don't know if there was a yogi's cave here it was literally just an indoor walkthrough. You were walking through a cave, like a dark cave with music playing, and there's like a creaky boo-boo and a creaky Yogi animatronic at the end. But I just, I loved it.

I would just come out the exit and just grab my family, my parents' hand, and go right back to the entrance and take a picnic basket. Yeah. Yeah, Cedar point is very yogi themed um i'm not sure about now but i have vivid memories because when last time i was at cedar point i got hit by a tornado oh wow so my my memories are all blurred together with seeing the front awning of our hotel ripped off and then seeing the yogi's cave you know it's like oh my god you were like escaping the tornado yeah we had to we had to like go underground or you know like kind of the equivalent of when you go into the halls of disney the uh the shortcuts that go under the park or whatever um we went into like the restaurant holding uh until it like passed through and uh then walked through pouring rain to get my caricature from the front of the park

and carried it in a trash bag, got all the way home, and then the front awning of our Holiday Inn had been ripped by a tornado. It was like a traumatizing kid memory. Yeah. As a proponent of Holiday Inns and having fun at Holiday Inns.

It was a holodome, too. A holodome? Wow. You guys know what a holodome is? No. You might have to do all episodes. A holodome too a holodome you guys know what holodomes is no you're i'm sitting up straight for this holodome is a holiday and probably most of them are in the middle of the country i know there's we stayed at more than one it was like my brother and i's favorite thing where they have in a dome structure kind of like the arc light for people in la

a dome structure that has a basketball court a swimming pool a spa a sauna a play area a games arcade and like a workout facility wow so it was like an attraction in and of itself like a rec center type here's a postcard from a one that used to be in denver holidome indoor fun center wow we would make a whole vacation out of that that is beautiful this was like this was like a midwestern vacation in and of itself wow i have never heard the phrase hollow dome i consider myself a fan of holiday inns and domes and i am really distressed that i didn't know that they combined oh man uh anyone on twitter send us any info you got about hollow domes welcome to the great indoors yeah putt putt golf sometimes oh you know it smells real chloriney in these places

my brother ran into uh you know they had glass separating the workout area from the fun area and he ran headlong into it and broke the glass and broke his finger there's i mean all those great memories. Yeah, boy, you kind of buried the leader in terms of you've had terror at some of these places. Hey, you know, that's the joy of the thrill seeker. You're going to have high highs and low lows. You're going to find love. You're going to find failure.

It's the stuff of life. These are the theme parks. Fabio famously, we didn't even get to it, but Fabio famously on The Beast. Was it The Beast? He's on The Beast. And I believe, double check me. even get to it, but Fabio famously on The Beast. Was it The Beast? He's on The Beast, and I believe, double check me. Oh, that's the bird. He was on The Beast and was struck by a bird in the nose. Bloodied his nose. I believe he had some kind of cosmetic work.

This was the tabloid stuff of Cincinnati, Ohio, for not just national news, but it was like fever pitch in my hometown. This image is ingrained in me, but... I hate to do this. Uh-oh. Busch Gardens. No.

Busch Gardens roller coaster. No, this kills me. What city? Is it at least in Dave's home? This was like the... No, Busch Gardens, we don't have... That's St. Louis or... Is that St. Louis?

It was Apollo's Chariot, which is... Hold on. This is on the level of finding out that marilyn manson's drummer couldn't suck his own dick or whatever like this is like the stuff that like was passed around my high school oh that's the bush gardens i used to go to yeah oh that hurts so bad oh my god i'm so sorry jason is beating you now jason has more cred all of a sudden. Jason's pumping his fist in the air. This really was like the story of like it was told to me.

So this is secondhand that this happened. It shows how the internet has changed my life. Yeah. Because I just took it at face value. But I've thought since the age of whenever that happened, that that happened in my basically my hometown dave if it makes you feel any better this when we did the hershey park episode i found out i had been singing uh the hershey chocolate world song wrong for years it makes me feel no

better all i've got is your pain but it's not a competition we can help each other deal with these things and grow like a fraud but i throw in you throw into this also the revelation that neil armstrong is not as brave as me scott your your state is losing cred left and right tell me next butt water was made up it was other kids you weren't doing you weren't asking the question i wanted to make sure that there wasn't another incident where he got hit in the face with a bird and there's not has fabio ever been to cincinnati okay i'll look up fabio i feel bad i didn't cry like everything else i've talked about i kind of had to double check myself that one i like took for truth wow fabio has been to port washington the city where step by step is set uh or at least fictionally he has he went to visit his friend

bronson pinchow the hairdresser now that makes me feel better yeah doesn't it i mean that's your general region and i wasn't filmed there and everyone i'm referring to is fake but i i yeah i i hope you feel good about it um oh boy how can we rescue you are there yeah yeah is there something we haven't talked about one thing i guess i'd want to get out to the to the ride community is like right now unless i'm also mistaking king's island does not have what they call a giga coaster right isn't this like a is that a new i think oh shit man i thought i could go out with something good i mean this probably is good uh well i think one of them is called like a hyper coaster which are like the super tall ones now but i i don't know i I haven't heard of Giga Coaster. And all my little browsing yesterday, I read this. You're right.

A Giga Coaster is a roller coaster that's between 300 and 399 feet tall and completes a full circuit. So this was like the one critique of a couple of ride heads that had visited Kings Island of like, this park is perfect. It's this away from being like world class so i just wanted to begin in a heartfelt appeal to the ride community right that we that we stir up the interest to get that for king's island yeah yeah you need it more than ever it looks terrifying uh what is there one in the united states do we have an example of what a giga coaster is again listeners potentially

screaming if we haven't by now established that, I think we're not a major coaster-related podcast, partially because we are too scared to go on many of them. But also, this is what I want to say about Kings Island, is that I think we covered Kennywood and we covered Hershey Park, and I'm sure a lot of those coasters are really good, but they don't give you a lot to talk about.

And I think there's lore to these Kings Island coasters there's premises that are pretty neat we actually didn't talk about face off right which is like a a ride that goes for like it goes one way and then goes back the other way and you're facing other people another while you do it you go back to back good ride bad movie again or okay yeah yeah um there was also a congo themed water ride there was just like a bigger one of the shoot the shoot water rides the bigger style vlog film like jurassic park was like briefly themed to congo and i think that was easier to take out um yeah i i it's it's very interesting to me that you guys are afraid of these things because I remember getting over this fear at age 13

but I Jason is less afraid than the two of us I am I can be convinced now to do it but I don't love it

necessarily but I like I went on stuff and then I go I did like it so you know what would be a great pitch

yes this I'll try to part with this I'll fail again go for it so you know it'd be a great pitch yes this this i'll i'll try to part with this i'll fail again go for it okay you know they have you must be this tall to ride this ride i used to be terrified of that walking up to that the thought of falling short is so emasculating embarrassing but uh uh they could have a thing are you afraid of this and like an analogous thing like if it's a kid's ride, it's a picture of a spider. And if you're like, that's fine,

I'll be okay. And if it's some of these big ones, they'll like really get into your brain and like test your emotional and mental fortitude. It's like it's a picture of like one of your evil uncles. It's like very specific.

Or like a sword will come kind of close to your ear. Okay. And then it's like, if you can handle that, you can get on the beast. You're going to be all right. Oh, I see.

I just think they can pre-screen. Just a similar thematic experience. Or like a film or something. Because I think you guys can handle all of these things. Look, especially now, I feel a like it is my duty as a journalist. Yes. I feel like we're journalists now. We're covering this place where I went on the Racer and I went on the Beast, so I feel set.

I feel no obligation to anything. It's 13 years in the past. I did it. I don't got to go on anything else i also want to say really fast because we got we got derailed just to finish the the brady bunch tale um robert reed refused to go on the racer um and they were so instead he was just like watching the crew set up the camera on the front of the roller coaster and he was like this rig is too high it's not gonna clear he was like a notorious

complainer on the show in general so like shut up robert let us let us do our job he walks the back and forth like next to the track and is like measuring and eyeballing in his mind and he's he's like it is never going to like that camera is going to break off it's going to hit all of these get like they're. They're toast. So they finally relented, and they did a test of the ride with the camera attached, and the car returned with no camera. It did break off. Robert Reed was right. Robert Reed saved the lives of his sitcom family. Much like in the later Brady Bunch Christmas special when he runs into that burning building and saves a whole bunch of workers i mean we've all seen this movie yeah there's a in the

christmas movie later there's a very dramatic and it's not like any other brady bunch episode but he runs into a burning building and saves a couple workers wow well he's an american hero he wasn't yeah he wasn't some fake hero. He put his money where his mouth is. I bet that guy would have quit Facebook. Damn right. Yeah. The online equivalent of running into a burning building.

So we salute you, Robert Reed. Dave, any final thoughts about Kings Island? Just a pleasure to have this walk down memory lane, albeit some true memories, some false memories. I think it was a real joy. And set up that giga coaster so everybody gets new memories. I do have the answer to the giga coaster. Fury 325 is the world's biggest giga coaster.

It is, where is it? It's in the Carowinds Amusement Park in Charlotte, North Carolina. We got to get one of those. Former King's Entertainment. It's in the family. It was in the family. And it looks like that

and it's got a giant tall thing. It's coming. Now it's in the Cedar Fair family. Yeah. Just copy that one. Cart it over and give it some name that seems like it used to be a Paramount movie name.

Gone in 60 seconds. Yeah, sure. Is that Paramount? But you have to reverse engineer it. At one point it was gone in 60 seconds. Now you have to make it left in 59 seconds. You know what I learned recently? Timothy Oliphant isn't gone in 60 seconds

i think in a supporting role go ahead uh they liked it the studio liked him so much they wanted him to star in a little script they had a little movie they were making uh or another studio a little movie called the fast and the Furious like a character named Dominic Toretto. Wow. So there could be a fast there's another parallel universe

where Timothy Oliphant was not the justified character. Oh, that's I don't want Raylan Gibbons. He got shivered. He was Dominic Toretto.

This for me is like you getting on the vortex that's how scared I am that means you're scared someone else would be in the Santa Clarita diet the first time you sat up the whole podcast yes that's true

I was also sued by memories of the former Paramount Parks and all the wonderful you know trip down memory lane yeah I know and we'll talk about more paramount things at some point when we cover king's dominion i'm sure we will uh if we missed anything you know i feel like we missed a lot of pressure there's a lot at these parks to if tweet at us if there's anything we missed and there's no reason why we can't pick up and do little another one mini segments about uh king's island yeah we love when people tweet at us uh

stuff we missed and and all that stuff because there's so much. What's that? King Cobra, the stand-up coaster. You're going to get a litany. Oh, yeah. You'll get it. Don't worry.

The first from-the-ground-up stand-up coaster. Other coasters had been converted to stand-up. This one was the first actual stand-up coaster. And it would have needed a Carlson cutout

from what I remember. Yeah, they're not pleasant coasters. That's my thing. I like riding coasters, but as a man who is 5'1", sometimes those shoulder harnesses, my head bounces around in them. Yeah, it is bad. Incredibly unpleasant.

And we also didn't really get into Tomb Raider, which is the scariest ride I've ever been on. Just really quick, it's a you sit in theater seats but there's like a harness over you and you really don't understand what the ride mechanism is when you get on because i certainly would have run screaming if i knew what it was going to be but it's then the entire theater like moves forward and you're on a pendulum and a big arm and you don't even realize and you're swung up at big stalactites and then you're looking down there's like geysers uh you didn't go on this one, Dar?

You went on the crypt when it was more... Yeah, it's been a while. The general tenor of the screams on this thing, I could tell I was not the only one who didn't understand what it was. They didn't convey, because it was not fun screams. It was like genuine, pure horror. If they had the Ferguson test at the beginning,

you would have been fine. I don't know what to tell you. What is like a right a tomb raider it's essentially the mechanics are just like a carnival ride like it's a popular kind of carnival ride but it's just like in the dark and heavily like themed a lot of effects but once combined with the uh the general idea of raiding a tomb it's ten times more so that's what you like the sign should have said it's spooky could you it's scary could you handle like uh could you handle a spider web with two spiders in it if not it may want to leave uh well day first and you've survived podcast right thank you for being here um anything

you'd like to plug no i i don't got anything man i look forward to that feeling you get when you get off every ride where you feel like shaking and you want to go to bed yeah getting back to your holodome that's being torn apart by a tornado terrifying i'll see you at the holodome that sounds great that's a good, that's a good call. Well, we've done these things. We hang out at hotel bars once in a while. Maybe the next one's got to be at the Denver Holodome. Anyone, listeners who have an in there, let us know.

And if you're listening, check out ancillary content on our Twitter at Podcast The Ride. Not on our Facebook group, damn it. The heroes are marching on. Yeah, we're all out of there. Do we have one, though, actually? Yeah, do we have one? I registered one right when we first started and really haven't,

we haven't done anything with it. Yeah, good, heroes. I had to figure, I didn't figure out the mechanics of it. I might look into it. People, some people are staying on Facebook, okay? Yes. We're going to have to fight about this off air, I guess.

Traitors. Yeah, email us. Rate and review us on iTunes. Yeah, it's a great help. That helps us out. Those five stars on iTunes, yeah. And force your parents to listen to the podcast. Because a lot of people say their parents listen, and that's nice.

Yeah, I is nice. I think parents have been enjoying it, and I think our swears have been mild lately. Yeah, we're like a lot more wholesome than we think we are, I think. I think a lot more, yes. The preteen in me is just hating this. Yeah, that's fair. You should. Oh, I want to be so rambunctious right now.

Dave has made a fist and is punching it into his other hand, which is open, but kind of a little closed. You know, that classic bully move. I'm fired up. They haven't talked about any bases this entire pod. Alright, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.