Podcast: The Ride - Old School Knott's Berry Farm with Rachel Bloom

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Rachel Bloom (Reboot, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) returns to talk about some long gone Knott's Berry Farm rides, and share some home movies! Featuring Wacky Soapbox Racers, Boomerang, Windjammer Surf Racers, and more! The Irish Bar Where You Can Get hhhHAMMERED Episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Watch This Episode: https://youtu.be/Fi1XTvByqR8 Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus 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

FOREVER! DOG! rides from Knott's Berry Farm on Podcast The Ride, a theme park podcast hosted by three men who are extremely disappointed in the lack of ready-made grocery store funnel cake. My name is Mike Carlson. Joining me as always, Jason Sheridan. I have a lot of thoughts on that. Do you think it'd be like a take-and-bake pizza? Yeah, I do think it would be like a take-and-bake pizza. Scott Gairdner, do you think it would be like that as well pizza okay uh scott gardner what do you do you think would be like that as well um i guess so i don't i don't know enough about the wait but isn't don't you need the um uh the oil and the bat like there's there has to be a big vat at some point yeah there's a lot of uh machinery needed in a grocery store to make that so yes you're it

would be that's why they're not doing it i think, is because it just takes up too much space. But you're describing a version where we don't need a method at home. We don't need a big open vat of oil in our homes in order to finish out the process. Oh, I see what you're saying. It's not a take home. Oh, I see. Yeah, because what Jason proposed is that you would have to bring it home and make it. All right. I disagree with what Jason said. I think it needs to be made in the grocery store and you can take it home. Well, Scott voiced my concerns. Is that like, yeah, a big element of funnel cake is the hot

burning oil. So I'd be concerned like, yeah, I don't think you could just do it in an oven. You just have to get a big drum of oil outside. It's an outside thing. It's only if you have yards or patios. Right, like you have an artisan thing. It's only if you have yards or patios. Right.

And like you have an artisanal pizza oven, maybe if you're wealthy or something, and now you'll have an artisanal- Big drum of hot oil. Big drum of hot oil. It's like the deep fried turkeys that always go so well for everyone every Thanksgiving. Like there's so many wonderful videos of people going, wow, this is so safe and fun and delicious. Wow. Let's post our success. Let's post a video of how well it went. Yeah, yeah.

But let's bring her again. We have very exciting topics to talk about today. You know her from Reboot and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Returning to the podcast, it's Rachel Bloom. Welcome back. My God. So thrilled. Hey, thanks for joining us again. It's good to see you again um i could oh no i just spilled a ton of

green juice oh no oh jeez we're gonna have to vamp okay so back to see this she's illustrated exactly yeah what the problem is if you can spill green juice at home then a big open drum of oil that's fine so why the industrial it's why a more industrial kitchen like a grocery store, I think you would have to. You just want it to be available in more places. Yeah, because it's so theme park specific. One second. That's okay. Don't worry about it.

It seems like it's going fine. We don't have eyes on it. We can't see the disaster. Only Rachel knows what she did. It was only a shot. It wasn't a full 16-ounce bottle. So it could be worse. It was better that she did this

here and not like on a talk show or something. I think it's hard in a limited, you know, in a five minute window where now one whole minute of it is gone cleaning up green juice. Here we can stretch. She can deal with this and we can still have a big conversation.

We're playing it like it's live yeah what's fun i mean it's like almost like you know you know we're we're trying our best but like drew barrymore would have a lot of fun with this that could have been bad wait let me close my door our family won't see drew barrymore would have a lot of fun with it and she'd be very um reassuring all right luckily my computer was raised. I recently had fried my computer's motherboard by spilling hot sauce on it. Oh, no. You've just been down this road. This exact road. Listen, I'm not the most

graceful person. This tea's probably going to spill at some point. Oh, sure. Okay, we'll be ready for it. You know, you don't get a lot of physical comedy on a podcast, it being an audio medium. Nor should you. I don't know how funny that'll be.

I enjoyed it. As long as it wasn't stressful for you, you know, we're good. No, it was great. I wish I'd given you more of a, whoa, whoa, beep, beep. We can edit those in. That's perfect. You gave us ADR. We'll plug those in.

Hey, very wacky soapbox racers kind of crazy Spike Jonze sounds is what you just did. Yes. A segue. So, yeah, we're talking about a whole grab bag of old Knott's Berry Farm rides. Yes. A delightful request on your end to say you want to talk about old Knott's Berry Farm stuff. You are after our hearts with that. Well, like I went to Knott's Berry Farm as much as I went to Disneyland as a kid. And you have these. I loved amusement parks from a very early age.

I think we've talked about this. And I grew up in Southern California, which I believe you did too, right? I did, yeah. But like Valley more so. So it was all a little further. Where were you again? Manhattan Beach. We were far. Huh.

Yeah, that's not close to any of this, I guess. But I mean, sort of south a little more. I'm so jealous, though, that Knott's was in the picture as much as Disneyland's. That's great. So I didn't have a sibling to compete with of where we were going to go. And my parents just were down to go to amusement parks a lot. We had a year-long pass to Disneyland. We never had a year-long to Knott's, but we went quite a lot. And when you have these early amusement park memories, it almost feels like they were a dream, right? They're these deep memories, and no one ever talks about them again. And especially with a place like Knott's, Disneyland has so much more of a history and a lore and a fan base around it because Knott's is local.

Very few people are are talking about it. Like I went to Knott's. I'd forgotten that the Tampico Tumblr closed, which is one of the rides I listed I wanted to talk about. And I was just at Knott's with my friend Sarah. And I asked an employee, I was like, hey, do is one of the rides I listed I wanted to talk about. And I was just in knots with my friend Sarah. And I asked an employee, I was like, hey, do you guys have the, because I think it used to be called the jumping bean. But I was like, you know, the ride where you go like, I forgot it was called Camp Tampico Tumblr. And they had no idea what I was talking about.

And so there's a part of you that thinks, did I make that up? Yeah. Was that a dream i had because when you're a kid you kind of live in a half dream state but i didn't it yeah yeah um yeah everything's when everything in a theme park especially is like big and surreal anyway and then memories get hazy i feel exactly the the same with Knott's especially. Yeah, you're right. It's not like, up until only very recently maybe are people like really listing out, here's what all the stuff was. So like something like Knott's Berry Tales,

I don't know if you got to do that or if that was gone by the time you went, but like I had the haziest, like maybe I went on a ride with bears and berry juice. And I also, this one's I'm wrong on. But I had the haziest memory for a long time that there was a Smurfs ride at Knott's. And there is a Smurfs ride in the world, but it might be in Dorney Park. It's across the country.

And I don't think I went there, but who knows? I sort of like these like hazy, scary. Am I making up this ride or was this a dream? It's it's kind of fun Yeah, there was one at King's Dominion a long long time ago Maybe I went Wow, maybe like even before the Paramount ownership. Okay, huh? But your memory was you went on it Scott I saw I have the vaguest memory of Smurfs, and I remember that they were below me. I remember as if they were working in a mine, but am I just conflating that with the mine ride?

But I don't think I would have confused Smurfs with realistic ash-covered mine workers like you see in that scary Knott's Mine ride. Weird. This is where you start to get into Mandela effect shit. And there are things I remember that my parents maybe don't. And so then if I bring it up and they don't remember, I feel crazy. I mean, that happened directly with Berenstain Bears when the whole realization happened on how Berenstain was spelled. I have distinct memories of my father making jokes that the Berenstain Bears were Jewish

because it looked like it could be Berenstein. That's why I remember it was E-I-N. And I called my parents a couple years ago and I said, how do you spell Berenstain Bears? And they said, S-T-A-I-N. And I said, you're not my parents. I've been switched. I've been switched. I'm not your real daughter. you're not my parents. I've been switched. I've been switched.

I'm not your real daughter. You're not my real parents. I belong back in the other universe place. Wow. This is your matrix. This is getting yanked out of the matrix. Funny example to use because just like last night, I saw an image going around Twitter from one of the books that

revealed that Mama Bear is 27 years old. Really? Yeah. No. As a child, if you'd asked me as a child, I would have guessed 54,

62. Just off hat alone. Look, bears used to age differently back in the day when these characters were created. Oh, my. Wow, 27. That's a revelation. Oh, that hat is just so unsexy. The hat does a lot of the work in the aging.

Look, she looks terrific. Don't get me wrong, but that hat is wild. Yeah, I mean, bears age pretty well. Bears don't crack. Sure. They sleep a lot of the year, too. But she's got to style herself better to de-age. Well, she's constantly wearing clothes that she's going to bed, I feel like.

It looks like she's always going to sleep. That's the thing. She's depressed clothes that she's going to bed, I feel like. It looks like she's always going to sleep. That's the thing. She's depressed. Yeah. They don't have antidepressants in that world, I guess. Yeah. That's too bad. I read my mom's...

Somehow, I was allowed to read my mom's teenage diary at one point. And she said, for mom's oh it's mom's birthday and my brothers and i just got her some potato chips and a pillow because all she does is eat and sleep oh my goodness and i'm like grandma's grandma was clinically depressed wow not something to be mocked like and needled with uh mean gifts this is wow what a different time well different time or just my family uh continuously uh but uh um anyway i uh this has this gift been given since though has this been a generation it doesn't sound like the word honestly regardless of that potato chips

and a pillow Jason that's a good your next birthday both very practical you know I feel like my family is very pragmatic we all like and give gift cards and it's fun to have them I think they're fun i don't i

always thought they were fun and now i feel like people use them as like oh it's a toss-off gift i love a good gift card and my parents okay my parents are and have always been huge fans of barnes and noble and whenever i had a gift to give someone in high school, my mom would say, well, if you buy a Barnes & Noble gift card, you can pay for it on our account and we'll get points and you'll get a discount. So for like all of my senior year of high school

and maybe some of college, my gift to my peers would be a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card. And you know, worst case, they can go get coffee, you know, they can get a tchotch card and you know worst case they can go get coffee you know they can get a chachki you know no one was ever unhappy about it that was great yeah when when my parents would ask like for extended rel oh so and so wants to get you a gift is there anything i'm like well borders or barnes and noble it's always fun to go there with gift cards borders you can maybe i'll go to barnes and noble and buy up a bunch of gift cards.

And that's just my gift from now on. And I'm like, it's also a little bit of a go fuck yourself. But I kind of like it. Yeah. They could get a Funko Pop now, you know. That's one of the many, many stores that's converted to the Funko economy. That's probably one of the main things they sell there now. Yeah.

Starbucks coffee and Funko Pops Of like J.J. Abrams or something Which I've seen in the store I'm saying that from experience Oh you're not just being flippant No I'm not being flippant I've seen a J.J. Abrams Funko Pop in a Barnes & Noble Personality he is

Yeah Imagine if you have a toy of him All the adventures he could go on And you know that Funko Pop saw you as well, because you know, big glasses. What? J.J. Abrams, he has his big glasses. Oh, he saw me because he saw you back? Yeah, he saw you back.

All right. I guess so. I guess. All right, I'll let it pass. Are you saying that the only people who can see at all are people with glasses? Are you saying toys can see humans well i see different level i see through your your skin to your ligament you know we say the truth those glasses where so glasses can show i glasses show toys humans i guess is really what

i'm getting from you yeah yeah okay i don't know we have another another episode to unpack. That was a foggy sentence. We have to unpack what Jason said later, I think. Can I ask before we dive into not stuff, can I ask the parent question? Because you have a daughter now, correct? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Are you theme parking it up? Are you on the other end of that now?

Are you indoctrinating her? The best indoctrination. I am. And I wasn't forcing it, but we brought her to Disneyland. So she's three and she's been three times already, which is a lot. These are my stats exactly. We fit it in three times before he turned three. So he was free.

Three, three, free. Okay. So you get it. First time she was like, I was like, how is she liking this? And then the second time was when she was like, oh yeah, no, this is on. And so we went for her birthday and she loves it. And I think what's interesting is seeing her, the way she reacts to rides, really taking me back to how I used to react to rides, that you either, you kind of instantly fall in love with them.

Well, it's like you instantly fall in love with them. So when she went on the Astro Orbiter at Disneyland, we had to ride it four times. Wow, wow. Wow. Wow. Oh, cool. And I thought it would be too fast for her, but she glimpsed it across the park and she said,

I want to go that. I said, okay, it's fast and it's high. And she, she, she loved it. Wow.

She insisted on going all the time. And the first time she went on it, she closed her eyes. She got a little scared, but then she wanted to go on it again and again and again. You're always on. I guess what I'm saying is it reminded me how is it when you go to amusement parks as a kid you're always on that tipping point between exhilaration and fear yeah and that's

what's exciting the fear is what's exciting so we took her on mini mickey and minnie's runaway railroad is it runaway railroad railway or runaway railroad railway railway that is runaway Ian Minnie's Runaway Railroad. Is it Runaway Railway or Runaway Railroad? Railway. Railway. That is, Runaway Railway is, okay. Twister, yeah. Really separates the men from the Ian McKellans. We took her on that and she closed, there was some part she loved,

the Daisy Duck teaching dance class. She loves Daisy duck. She was obsessed with, and then there was a part where a mallet smashes is look like it's going to smash you. She got very scared and she came off the ride saying, I didn't, I didn't like that. But then the next day she just wanted to watch YouTube videos of that ride. Wow. And I remember that. I remember you're fascinated by what you fear. And I had that for years with upside down roller coasters. I knew all of the stats about big upside down roller coasters, but I wouldn't go on one. I was too scared. And then finally I went on one, which was Windjammer

at Knott's Berry Farm. That was my first upside down roller coaster because there was one loop, one of the rare upside down coasters where there's just one loop. It was very fast. I remember it. It was one kind of one quick hill going into a single loop. And it was like once I crossed that's a thing you can rediscover as a parent is the, like, theme park as gauntlet. That there are, like, many challenges for all ages. These are things to strive to at three or at eight or at 12 or whatever. Or at 37 to 40. Yes, as a person who wouldn't go on Splash Mountain until several years ago. Yes, sometimes it never ends. Oh, is that because of the drop?

Yeah, my biggest thing is drop. And especially, like, it's easier for me to do a drop on a track where it still feels controlled. But I think something where it is pure gravity feels very, like, naked and vulnerable and uncomfortable to me. The three of us are scaredy cats going into this podcast to start a podcast about roller coasters in some ways. We're scared of them.

And Rachel, I forgot to, I should have brought this up. Last time you were on, you suggested, because I was going to Six Flags, that I do Twisted Colossus. That was your recommendation. And I did Twisted Colossusus and it was one of the scariest things I had ever done in my life and the restraint like the harness also hurt me

it was uncomfortable I'm so sorry again you actually encouraged me to get into a part of the gauntlet that I had not gotten into and when I go back to Six Flags I'm going to do it again I'm going to conquer it somewhat conquer it uh next time i'm hoping but it was very funny because you did encourage me to do something that i was scared to do like

go on a crazier roller coaster so thank you i guess thank you yeah it's the only you can decide for sure if it's a thank you or not. No, it was, it was. Cause again, it's like, well, I didn't like that. It felt like when I was like little and I was like,

Oh, should I go on the ride? Should I go on big thunder? And like, Oh, I loved it. Versus, I mean,

I was scared, but I made it out. And that's part of the fun of like going on a ride. Cause you're like, am I going to make it out? Yeah, I did. I'm glad I gave you that experience.'m sorry the harness hurt you i had that experience the last time i rode x x2 at six flags

uh the the ride was really bumpy and we may have talked about this last time but but the ride is really bumpy and it really fucked up my neck and it was like it yeah and not even like uh well it was fun but i'm in pain now no it was a little bit like uh something's wrong with this ride like they need to smooth it out they need to get the harness better like it didn't feel um it didn't feel safe like for my body like i mean the ride felt safe but like for my body yeah as opposed to so i went on hang time at knott's berry farm when i was recently there which has replaced boomerang which was on one of the rides that i remember hang time is intense and you have to

keep your head back if you don't keep your head back on that ride you will get kind of fucked up yeah if you keep your head back it's awesome yeah we did jason and i did that one and that one is fun like that one's fun if you're once you get out of the uh complete you know on your back well you don't rising up part i feel like you didn't like the the hang you didn't like the looking straight down for a beat we've and i really didn't like this the vertical we've talked about this on the show. Thrills versus chills. And chills to me is the sort of

slow acceleration. The one where they're dangling you. Psychological. Psychological are chills. And I'm not as big of a fan of chills as I am of thrills. I like thrills. I like thrills too. But we also, you and I, at some point rode Ghost Rider at knots which is

the wooden coaster that they uh built in goes kind of around the marketplace in the parking lot and um you know i i've ridden a lot of wooden coasters and i just went on with my glasses and like after the first few seconds i was like holding them the whole time because it is so intense i was so caught off guard by that coaster of like maybe one of the it's really good but it's maybe one of the most intense coasters i've ever ridden and i was not expecting it oh that's really interesting because i because when ghost rider i love ghost rider so much yeah and i've and i haven't ridden a ton of wooden coasters because um uh they i grew up here so like there wasn't there wasn't

one there there wasn't one at disneyland knots had this one but it was like not great and then colossus was like a kind of very smooth roller coaster anyway yeah i feel like it's one of the great rides out there but i can't tell because I haven't been on a ton of other extreme wooden coasters. But I think Ghost Rider is so good. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up on the East Coast, so there was a good amount of wooden coasters. And I think in the Midwest, there's even more.

But it's like, as a kid, I could just take the bumpiness, like the intensity of that. But yeah, until I was like 12 or 13 i was terrified of going upside down i don't know what i thought would happen if i would enter another dimension or something but like i think i thought i was falling out of the car yeah when i was a kid i thought oh i'm gonna go upside down and like i'm just gonna fall out of the car like that's i truly just very fundamentally that's what I thought might happen. Yeah. Cartoons just imprinted.

So like your daughter, we were scared of mallets and bills falling out of like the, the cartoon, the loop goes, the carriage goes in a loop and then falls into the car. When it gets back down, you had an actual fear. See, for me,

it was much more, how am I going to feel when I'm in that loop? Is it going to, is the feeling going to be unpleasant is it gonna be so intense but you but that's interesting a material fear of i don't like this shouldn't be possible it shouldn't be possible but yeah fear of unknown for sure like yeah how am i gonna is this really gonna be it's gonna be like a tilt-a-whirl where it really like pushes on your stomach and you feel it or yeah what is it

gonna be upside down is i think kind of overrated in terms of like it's we i think we all built it up in some way and then it's not that crazy at least to me it's not like the the craziest thrill in most cases it's visually daunting in the way that you know astro orbiter from a distance is visually very appealing you know yeah it depends how fast you're going on the loop too yeah yeah I have got I guess

the loop is negative g-force right that's negative g's and then positive g's is a hill I don't know good question you've stumped us I think positive g's are like the humps the airtime and the negative is the pressure on your head as i've gotten older i i'm i it's not like i don't like it i'm just i feel the same way it's uh it's fun but uh it's not the it's not necessarily the most intense part of the ride. Like a good hill going into a steep turn is just arguably just as kind of thrilling and intense as a ride with many, many loops.

That's something that I'm reaching now is I'm not necessarily afraid to go on any rides, but I am hitting, I feel my body starting to feel the weight of these coasters. In a way, I could go to not six flags in high school and be fine. And now I have to eat a big breakfast. I have to be eating throughout the day. I need to have a stomach that is not hungry or otherwise I'll get nauseous. I need protein in my body and I need to space out going on roller coasters. I can't go on them. I have to pace it because otherwise I will get nauseous.

And that never happened before. And I'm glad that I can still go on coasters. But the pacing, my pacing has slowed down. Like if I were to go to Cedar Point, which is still one of my dreams, I would have to make dreams, I would, I would have to make it, I think a multi-day journey. I would,

I couldn't, I wouldn't try to cram all those coasters in one day because my body can't do it. Yeah. That makes sense. I've, I've had this thought like, Oh,

I'm going to have to like train or keep in shape of, in some ways so I can go on the rides of the future. Because I do want to, because there's going to be cool rides when I'm 70 years old and I want to be able to do it. So I have to be in some shape. My neck has to be not like cramping up. I have to figure out how to, I don't know if it's just doing

more yoga. I'm not sure what. Diet you got to think about too. Sure, yeah. It's a little more astronaut for everybody. We need to be astronauts as we enter our 40s or 30s. Astronaut shape. Well, and at 5'1", if I'm not careful, my head will just ping pong ball on those shoulder restraints.

And I can kind of tell the upkeep quality of a coaster on how much that's happening. Sometimes I get off and go like this is going to get refurbished I may have gotten a slight concussion let me ask about oh good that's well that's one of my memories about Windjammer which is one of the roller coasters so Windjammer was uh you know first roller upside down roller coaster I went on it was a roller coaster at Knott's from I don't know the years but opened probably late 90s closed mid 2000s so so despite being called wind jammer it would close whenever there was a too high of a wind yeah it was a it was a badly it was a badly made

made ride that that unfortunately replaced the uh crazy soapbox racers, which was, I think, a bad decision. And I do have a memory the first time I wrote it of coming off of the loop, my head bouncing against a shoulder restraint. Luckily, they really padded it because I think they knew it was going to happen.

But even then, I was like, oh, this is weird. Yeah. Not even three years. This seems like the rarest. I didn't know this story at all, that it was seemingly notoriously bad and resulted in lawsuit, but it destroyed the reputation of the company that built it, who also built the New York, New York roller coaster, which from what I've heard, I haven't been on it. From what I've heard from people who have, that should be enough to destroy a company's reputation on its own. It's bumpy. It's a terrible roller coaster.

Has anybody done it here? Yes. It's bumpy, right? I haven't been on it in a little bit, but from what I remember, it's pretty for a steel coaster, it's very bumpy. It's pretty bumpy. Yeah, the company was called Togo International. It's a big Japanese

company, and they started an international subsidiary, and their main projects were Windjammer and New York, New York. That subsidiary pretty quickly closed. And now there is a different company that updated the track and ride cars on New York, New York.

I don't know that it's any better. Okay. Oh, but they just divorced even from, like if they need new parts, they don't even talk to this place. Because I don't think this division exists anymore. yeah this this is a thing that happens sometimes like disney got in this with uh one of their uh maybe primeval world or one of triceratops something in animal kingdom where it's like oh this ride is closed a lot in recent years because the company that built it

doesn't exist anymore so getting replacement parts is near impossible oh geez weird Scott you didn't go on this right what on Windjammer? no this was too so I was in like sort of middle school to early high school this was a very

scaredy cat time for me so no Windjammer Surf Racer. So in theory, this is supposed to be a racing ride, but it seems like the racing was never really committed to. They did not launch the two cars at the same time, so you weren't really racing. I do remember watching the cars,

and it was like you'd ride in these blocks of cars. It wasn't even like a... I think that's part of the reason it was like you'd ride in these blocks of cars it wasn't even like a um i think that's part of the reason it was closed it was it was like only kind of one car it was it was that um i i remember watching these two cars going around the loops at the same time and it was very cool but i think that's maybe the reason it was shut down is because you didn't have the heft of a long ride car you just had this one little thing and it made the why is it when you have a like on a crazy mouse coaster why are the why are the uh drops more intense when you're in just like a one you know what i'm saying like a one ride car as opposed to a smooth long thing. There's something about that though, where you feel it's like good as opposed to like,

yes, those are awful to me. I'm still not a fan of that. Yeah. I don't know. They have the less you have with you. So much of a train. So much of that for me is psychological.

Yeah. For some reason, I feel very comfortable when there's a long line of people, a bunch of friends are on the ride with me in my mind. And'm like well nothing's gonna happen to all of these people it's about like i don't think it is i'm saying for me specifically sure but yeah there's something movement though there's a i'm sure there's something in physics that explains why things are kind of more intense it's closer to what i was saying about Splash Mountain. For me, where you're in a little log and not the safety of a big, long train.

It just feels crazier to me. Goofy's Sky School, which is the scariest ride at Disney for me. That sensation of almost going off the track. And it's because you're in a little tiny car yeah and it's like i know that's yeah the idea is that like they're making you think you're about to fly off the track but that's by far the scariest ride for me at disney and windjammer also had a loop in it so the wild mouse loop combination not really done very often, maybe only this. Oh, that's interesting, yeah. Then it didn't work very well on top of that. Yeah, and it seemed like you would get a concussion on it.

So people sued because they got brain injuries? I don't know if any individual sued. I think the Knotts was really unhappy. On the Wikipedia, I'm seeing that the fact that they couldn't operate during medium winds, that Windjammers jammed in the wind. Knott's called it an embarrassment. Yeah. Wow. And then they just left it there and didn't deconstruct it, but didn't run it for a long time.

And also, I missed this one that at some point, an app company presumably called wind jammers uh challenged the coaster's name and they had to change it to jammer yeah that's really funny what a combative three years this is a disaster seemingly yeah yeah it's uh i just looking at the pictures of it it's just it seems like it could have been fun i just i don't know why it was it was fine i would say like on the list of things i'm sad aren't there anymore it's it was like a a pretty like not good roller coaster as opposed to the um the parachute jump which was awesome and and you still have the knots tower with the sky cabin yeah so i'm like why not just leave the parachute jump yeah why did you do that i'm not sure about that the parish yeah i i

kind of missed when i wasn't paying a lot of attention to knots i i missed that they took out the parachutes which i always associated with it because you can see it or you could see it on the horizon uh before you got into the park. Like it's part of it. If there is a not skyline that's iconic at all, parachutes are part of it. It was part of all the ads for a while as they celebrated 100 years. Like those are back in the mix. Like remember the parachutes?

But it's been a long time. The beautiful Buena Park skyline. Yeah. Well, and the great part of the parachute jump was, and that's one of the home movies I found, like the great part of the parachute jump is that it was the first intro to a drop ride that kids could have. Yeah. Because it was gentle.

You were standing up in a cage, like with your parents. So it didn't drop you that hard, but it just gave you a little sensation of what a drop ride was like. And it was super, it was super fun. So I should say I went through my mom years ago, gave me all of our home movies. So my, my mom, uh, my mom and grandpa both videotaped constantly. And I have 72, two DVDs worth of home movies that my mom gave me. And at some point I had them digitized and I put them all on my google photos so I have all of my home movies including like home movies from like my my dad's family in

like the 40s wow I have them all it's awesome so I so then google has like a really cool I mean it's spying on me but like a really cool thing where I can just put in uh amusement park and it'll show me any photo or video that i've had at amusement park so i was able to find home movies at knots and the one of the ones we have is a parachute jump and like yeah it's awesome geez yeah wow wow um wait do you have it can we see him yeah i do yeah yeah do you want me to share my screen yeah sure please yeah here we assume technically this is fine yeah okay great all right so this is fine. Yeah. Okay, great. All right.

So this is me, my dad, and my friend Dallas on the parachute jump. Oh, my God. I thought you were in the line. That looks like a line cage. That's interesting. You're standing up. Yeah. That's really weird.

Odd ride mechanism. You're standing up. Yeah. That's really weird. It's kind of like you're in a shark cage and they pull it up into the air. The opposite of a shark. It's going the other direction. And they're coming down. Wow. Wow. You're on the left or right? Where are you?

I'm on the left of the hat. You're happy. You're talking already. You're reviewing it. So it was once up and one down. Two big visors. Rainbow visors. Big visors, my family.

Also, we are wearing, I don't know if you noticed, we're all wearing matching sweatshirts except for my friend because we went to, we'd recently gone to San Francisco and we did a thing where you could sit on a dinosaur and look like you were all riding a dinosaur and we got that photo put on a sweatshirt, which I feel like people don't do as much now, getting a photo, like getting a photo on a sweatshirt, which I feel like people don't do as much now, getting a photo on a sweatshirt,

considering how many photos we take. All of our clothes, when you think about it, could be photos. That's true. Why don't we do that anymore? Yeah, that's weird, because I feel like Uniqlo or H&M often will sell just a baggy sweatshirt

with just a square or rectangular photo on it. But we're not opting for it at the tourist stops. Like a specialized. Yeah. Because you see at Disney, like the people have like maybe special sweatshirts, but it usually just says like grandma's turning 75 or something.

Like it'll be a custom made sweatshirt but it won't be like photos. But that was a thing. Was this just my family? My parents. No. Okay. Cause my parents have a pick,

have numerous sweatshirts of me as a kid on them and they'll wear them to shows of mine. Oh, really? Very cute. Yeah. It's very funny. And I feel like I should start,

um, doing that. Like maybe I should get a sweatshirt of my husband that says like my pudding and just, and just, and just wear it around. I think for sure you should do that he'd be proud yes that's great sure uh that parachute ride i feel like i would have worn my parents out like they would have been like all right it's your turn to go on the he wants to do it again but as an adult looking at it i'm like this is a little terrifying. Getting dropped in this little cage.

Standing? I remember the idea. I remember my parents suggesting that we do it. And just, no! Hey, what a no. Look, you just get in a cage and then it drops you. It's not funny! Stop suggesting it!

Even them badgering me i'm like this is not one of these things that'll be funny that i'm overreacting i'm shutting this down which probably they just made fun of me more right i i this this is a hazy memory that came back thinking about these parachutes like just a cage that doesn't seem i need something to hold on to this is why i have the bars of the cage i guess so oh but that sounds then they're just rattling that's not safe i'd want to go to the ground also yeah it wasn't it probably wasn't safe but it'd been around since like the 70s it was the symbol of knott's berry farm yeah yeah it's a thing we like two rides that are kind of intertwined like the sky cabin and the parachutes like yeah there was an original

like concept art for disneyland um in the night that the indiana jones ride would be a temple that the jungle cruise boat would be changed to go through and that's just two rides going in between each other is so fun oh i love i love that and it's so rare yeah you have the disneyland railroad that gives you a brief glimpse of splash mountain uh the people mover used to give you a brief glimpse of space mountain yeah and star tours yes and skyway used to go through matterhorn so a lot of them are are used to yeah the skyway is because they still have that in Disney World, right? No, it's gone for a while. It's gone everywhere.

Yep. So I thought they took it out of Disneyland because people kept opening the doors and jumping out and getting injured. But why did they take it out? The Sky Cabin was awesome. I think the liability on both of those were a nightmare. There was a guy who jumped out or fell out and ended up in a tree. It wasn't the only reason,

but I don't think it helped. Sky Jump, I don't know. Not to bring everybody down. There was a suicide on Sky Jump. The first death at Knott's in 1983 on Halloween night even. But it ran for a long time after that.

So that wasn't why. It's actually kind of crazy that they just like, well, what do we do? Gang? Put our heads together? Not adjust it in any way in the wake of the suicide? Nope. Still a cage. Still good.

No restraints. When you think about it as the most like, yes, that is the most suicidable ride probably ever. Well, because the cage, yes, is a shark cage with the top open, essentially. You just got one jump and then you're set. Nothing holding you in there. No belts, nothing. And someone had climbed, in the last few years, someone climbed to the top of the sky cabin. Yes.

And then just hung out there and then eventually, you know, they got him to come down. Or was that the other one? Was that Supreme Scream? And is that the correct name? Oh. I don't know. I'm not sure. That would be very... To climb to the top of any of these would be dangerous, but Supreme Scream... Oh, I guess, though, you're never against... If you could climb the tower,

the Supreme Scream cars are never flush up against the pole. So I guess you'd be fine. That's so high. That would be so scary. One of these, for sure, it did happen recently. And the guy got down safely.

You know what? I don't know if there's enough time to put a stunt into the new Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning. But a Tom Cruise stunt off of this thing would be really exciting. Oh, sure. It's very high. Well, and getting to see him, you know, go to an amusement,

that's one sequence that we've never seen in a Mission Impossible is a big, like run amok in an amusement park sequence. I think we'd all like to see Ethan Hunt do that. Yeah. No, we would. I don't think they've done that on Fast and Furious either. Oh, that's true.

That's a good point too. Like a car riding in the roller coaster track. Oh, wow. Oh, it's on the, yes. Yeah. On the track. They have to perfectly steer to the contours. Ooh, that's great.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it also, if like it's Twisted Colossus has two tracks, like maybe one is the roller coaster and then one is the car and like they have to get somebody on the roller coaster so like they're trying to jump from the car to the actual roller coaster car that'd be well or because roller coaster tracks are much more narrow than cars what so but if it's a racing coaster you have two wheels on one track two wheels on the other track and you are the roller coaster is right behind you and if, that's good, too. And if you don't stay fast enough, that roller coaster is going to demolish your car.

Right. Yeah, that's good, too. You have to drive faster than gravity to stay ahead of that. I guess that's what I'm saying. Which is a big, that seems like a challenge that Toretto and the gang, if anybody was going to do it. Dom could do it, yeah. Dom and the family, yeah, sure.

With the power of family behind them. with the power of family behind them. With the power of family behind them. It does seem like- More powerful than gravity. It does seem like one of the comedy, like that Ludacris would get up to in those. He does all the gags and stuff. I believe ended up in space.

Ended up in an old car with a jet engine strapped to it in space in the last one okay great yeah so yeah roller coaster is possible yeah yeah um i what have we missed about oh you know what uh iconic thing as part part of the sky jump tower which is still there but the um the the big knots k that's an old school Knott's thing, which they replaced. It's now an LED K, so it can flash all these different colors. And we were all there for the opening of the new K.

Of the new K. What a moment. We were there when we saw the K turn on. We didn't go on any rides. We just saw the K. That's awesome. it was special well that was also that was like things are starting to reopen post-pandemic so truly like a k turning on was like tear inducing well i have an insane email because i i know the knots pr people because one time a bunch of crazy x a a bunch of us in crazy X,

like went to knots for free. Oh, I have an insane email. I sent. Oh boy. This is probably July, 2020. So my daughter's,

uh, three, four months old. It's thick of the pandemic. I had a very traumatic, uh, March, 2020.

I gave birth. My friend died COVID a week after she was born. I had a rough go. And I have an email that I'd sent to my Disneyland PR contact that says, Hey, I know the park is closed, but I have to imagine that you guys are running the roller coasters. Is there any way I can just sit on a ride while you're running a roller coaster? I haven't been on a roller coaster because I've been pregnant. I was pregnant.

I haven't been on a roller coaster in almost two years. I'm having a rough time. Can I please just sit on a ride? And then I'll go. And I said, I'll pay any, I'll pay you. I'll pay you. And I won't, I don't, I'm not going to go around the park. I'm pay you I'll pay you like and I won't I don't I'm not gonna go around the park I'm not I don't expect food I don't expect a bathroom but and she got back she's like um I'll check with my contacts I don't think that will be possible

and it's a it's a it's a crazy thing to ask, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Yeah, it literally never hurts to ask. The worst thing is they get a little mad and then probably forget about it. But also, maybe you made their day. Maybe that was like, you're not going to believe what happened to me today.

I got to tell you this story. Yeah. And it makes sense, right? Yeah. You have to run the coasters. Right. Yeah. They're there.

They're all somewhere. You have to keep them from being rusty. Can I just sneak onto it? Sure. Yeah. And they're making $0 as it stands. Right. I was like, I will pay you full

amusement park admission just to be on one ride one time yeah well I was the one who was assigned the duty of like a 2020 early summer pandemic me and my girlfriend put in an order

they had opened the knots chicken dinner restaurant for pickup and i went and we went down and it was so surreal to like there was only like 10 cars in the parking lot and half of them were workers and i was like i have to walk under the roller coaster to get like i hadn't been in a park i hadn't seen a roller coaster i hadn't used a public bathroom in months and it was just so bizarre and they're just like yeah public bathrooms open and it was just the cleanest thing i had ever seen but it was just so bizarre to be standing there holding our dog underneath ghost rider and no one's around and it's like perfectly quiet wow just being near just let me touch a roller coaster. Can I hog a roller coaster?

It was at that point. It's like, well, the pie and the chicken will keep. I think we can walk around a little bit. Jason had been emailing them every day. Can I please have a chicken? Please. Please. Finally they opened it up. Can I just eat a chicken while touching a roller coaster?

I don't even like it that that much white meat is so dry so often but i'll take it it got so sad all those things did you ever go to any of the things where it's like okay we are opening disneyland but not restaurants or stores you can just be in there nothing is open there is nothing to do and it is cold but you can go like i went to one thing like that that was it i think it made me feel worse actually then but i wanted to i was curious if it would make me feel better yeah we drove a car through six flags oh right during christmas time oh they had opened up they oh yeah that was the thing in 2020 you could drive your car through six flags uh and they would have like i don't know lights there would be some lights the light shows were

were pretty good and then there'd be some people dancing and then at the very end like a sad daffy and bugs well yeah but i didn't wave at you you said you saw bugs at the end and i didn't bugs yeah break and i was like well there was no finale and then we just left although we did get a hunk of fudge on the way in we got complimentary fudge on the way in which was nice delivered to your car snack on you're in a mask they're in a max a mask like a hazmat suit hands you fudge that's where we were at not long ago yes i remember it well did you do any of the like what do you do you have or maybe you you couldn't get out with uh with young baby at the time but did you have any like well this is a sure a sad attempt at trying to get theme park fun i did a drive-through drag

show okay oh that sat in sat in our cars and watched a big drag stage. That was fun. I did a Cinespia drive-through with Death Becomes Her. That was very fun. Oh, that's fun. That was it. We were really careful with the newborn. Yet, we still got COVID in late December, in December 2020, because my husband had an eye infection, and he had to go to the eye doctor and he wore an N95.

Jeez. But he got it. He got COVID from there. So we all got it anyway. We are so cautious. We are, I mean, we're on the more careful side of people and we have had COVID more than anyone we know. Wow.

Jeez. It's like you're, because you're more cautious. I don't know. It's weird reverse Geez. It's like because you're more cautious. I don't know. It's weird. It's reverse karma. It's weird bad luck, but especially it was rough before we were vaccinated, but post-vaccination, it's not as bad. Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. Let me just make sure we get to more of the not stuff. I, you know, let's I want to make sure we get a little time in for wacky soapbox racers. Because as we said, we kind of went backwards here. But the you know, this this problematic multi types of lawsuits when Jammer Coaster opens is gone in three years. This is the spot where now it now it it's accelerator which is the one it's like a pretty fast launch it's pink and there's like one big loop is the or one big tower is kind of the main facet of it but this spot was it was first a motorcycle ride it was called motorcycle chase until 1980 and then i guess it's a cursed spot because this was starting to be a problematic ride. Not in a cultural sense.

Yeah. The ride wasn't canceled. Yeah. No, they didn't have that then. Motorcycle chase. Okay. Yeah. I'm looking at pictures of it.

Yes. You were basically up too high. Like it was cool to sit on a motorcycle, but if this ride came to a sudden stop, you're really screwed. Like you're barely, you're barely hanging on. There was a problem with the center of gravity on the ride, but they wanted to keep the track and they wanted to,

they don't want to start from scratch. And a guy named Eddie Soto later in Imagineer realized, well, what if we just, it's the same track, but you put everybody lower and then maybe we can salvage this thing. And that was the core of it. But on top of that, he creates this experience.

That's this wacky, unique, singular cartoon world. This is like an auteur. This is, I really never, I knew this thing existed, but I never looked at it too hard until prepping for this. Boy, this ride seems great. And you got, you got to do it? It was awesome. Wow.

It was so fun. It was the perfect. I rode this when I was five or six, so it was a perfect. It was one of the few like family. I think at the time the only family roller coaster Knott's had. It was great. And you see you're still kind of above the track. So it felt a little surreal. I loved it. It was awesome.

It seems so fun. And in theory, okay, so the racing, which often doesn't work on a lot of rides and really didn't work on Windjammer. The idea with this is that it's kind of like a bobsled competition where if everybody works together and leans and uses their own center of gravity that you may be like let's work together as a team in the soapbox here and we can actually maybe shift our weight and win the race i don't know how true it was right but it seems like people actually did try and it which is what a cool dimension for a ride that you maybe there is an actual competition that really works. It's not arbitrary. Yeah.

And tons of painted original characters. I think there was some animatronics, too. There was an announcer animatronic of these animals. Cute lions and lions and bears and stuff. Cats. I did. It did remind me, too, of the Warner Brothers or not Warner Brothers, the Hanna-Barbera. That show was just called Wacky Racers.

So similar, very similar concept. But like this is a whole universe of characters exclusive to this ride. And I think this and Berry Tales are the ones that I hear most about. Like, oh, there's commemorative merch there's there's a very thorough Eddie Soto has a very thorough Wacky Soapbox Racers website like memories website

check this out Rachel wackysoapboxracers.com I have never seen such a complete archive of a website from the people who actually built it. You can see people painting and prepping all the characters and what the old ride looks like and why it didn't work and how he fixed it. And you keep scrolling and scrolling and more and more pictures appear. Oh, God, this is really watching the ride.

Yeah, you bust through the doors. Oh, yeah, this is really the doors fly open it has that kind of mad cap like the mr toad kind of deal um you know what i was saying about i don't rich i don't know if you've been on the mario kart ride yet not yet um we all uh maybe don't like the ride maybe we can just be as simple as that about it. Don't feel the best about it. The racing feels arbitrary and it's very slow. And they're trying to make the race nature of it all happen in the goggles that you're wearing.

The AR goggles, yeah. And I had been saying, is it a wild mouse? Is there some jankier way to feel more like Mario Kart? I think this is it. This seems more Mario Kart than the Mario Kart ride. Yes, for sure. This is, yeah, you were kind of mentioning it, but like, this feels like one of the pieces of Knott's identity, basically, that went away when they started like- Because it's original. It's original.

Yeah. Because it's original kind of IP. It's like original lore. Right. Yeah. And the Barry Tales was that way too, and now they've brought it back in a lesser lesser version yeah we never talked about it which might indicate i don't know we liked it i liked it have you done that rachel the the new the new berry tales it's like a shooter we're shooting pies uh i have i haven't it maybe i have if i have it's very forgettable well because

that took the place of the dinosaur ride and the dinosaur ride was awesome. Yeah. And that also had its own IP. It had its own animatronic character who was a doctor that was like, and I remember he'd go, we're going back, back. 50 million years. And it was this character.

It had its own story. And any ride now that has its own story has been taken out in the place. Well, I guess Berry Tales is its own story and any ride now that has its own story has been taken out in the place well i guess fairy tales is its own ip yeah and it's but yeah and they brought that back but like the only way you're getting not ip in a theme park is if the theme park can't afford ip right so we need our cheap parks we need knots to have no partnerships with anything or else we don't get these delightful original worlds. The story is on a lot of these,

and I had kind of heard versions of them over the years, but it's like, it all depends on like how well the park is doing financially, who's in charge. Like eventually when Cedar Fair buys Knott's Berry Farm, the guy is in charge and he makes an effort of like, we're gonna put in dark rides at all at all of these parks. And I only learned this from an expedition theme park video when Cedar Fair bought Knott's Berry Farm.

That was their first time running a year round park. Oh, that had never occurred to me because all the other Cedar Fair parks are in places with cold winters. So they close for parts of the year. But Knott's is open year round. And he kind of committed to, let's get some dark rides in there. Let's revitalize the ones that are in there. And that was part of the big change.

Eventually the family, the kids, the Knott's kids sold off the park to Cedar Fair and then Cedar Fair kind of, they know roller coasters so they start putting in that stuff and then eventually when this new guy takes over, that's when you start to see a lot of revitalization efforts at Knott's. Oh sure. Yeah.

Well, personality put it back in. And yet, the kingdom of the dinosaurs fell into the crap. Like I didn't realize this thing, they just let it rot. They stopped running it. Yeah. And then people just started going in there and stealing stuff or, like, breaking parts of it. Or, like, it's very, it's awful what happened to this.

Brett, can we see it? I think I sent an ad for Kingdom of the Dinosaurs just to go back to happier times. Which, imagine, like like it is 1987 i believe and you see you were like this is probably the beginning of kids being obsessed with dinosaurs it's like i don't know that that exists as much before the 80s oh wait they're not this one but the although you know oh yeah well you have it open um this is another i like this clip too which is um weirdly i played a part of this years ago this is this is uh so i don't know one of the hosts but the other one is gary owens from laughing

oh i recognize um and they they were hosting some dinosaur show and they went through the ride as as part of this but i didn't play this moment from it um just pay close attention to the animal that they point out on the ride. A sloth! There it is. Hey! A three-toed sloth. A sloth. A sloth. It's a sloth.

Oh, it is a sloth. Yeah, it's a three-toed sloth. How do you get sloth? Is the guy just dumb or do we not know what that part is? Is it not a prehistory of mania at that point? Is it a regional thing? Like just a weird, I had never heard sloth pronounced sloth. Oh, it's a Pennsylvania thing and you guys say sloth.

But that's unusual because sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, isn't it? That's right. That's why they want to differentiate it. Maybe he's like, yeah, he's very religious. He studies the sins and he's like, surely it can't be sloth. That would not be a nice name for an animal. Is it like how we learned the planet's

name was Uranus when we were kids and then all of a sudden it was like Uranus was the way people were pronouncing it and I suspect it's because we have to do something. Yeah, I call bullshit on that. Yeah. It's Uranus. It's Uranus. It's Uranus.

Yeah, let's just deal with it. Fuck you. Give kids a little bit of fun. Let them play with the naughty word. That's a fun day in school when kids learn that one. When you figure it out. Yeah. I feel like I pretended for a while.

I felt like, hey, Uranus. Ha, ha, ha. I get it. You did not get it. while I felt like hey Uranus I get it I did not get it I didn't know what Uranus was here's the on a cleaner on a more wholesome note here's this commercial it's wild

over 60 million years ago the most ferocious creatures the world has ever known mysteriously disappeared introducing kingdom of the dinosaurs mom guess what they're not that's that thank you cow missing for that video imagine I mean like

imagine seeing that in that year if you're a fraidy cat kid and the ride does not reflect the that like fast cutting psycho scream kind of part the ride was... When I went on it, it was, we're going back

in time. It wasn't scary. It was, look at these amazing dinosaurs. Yeah, yeah. Just very, very gentle, calm, sort of an eerie air, but then none of the dinosaurs do anything actually upsetting. That's a bit of misrepresentation. One of them said off-color

remarks. Right. But if you just plugged your kid's ears. Yeah. Yeah, it was very weird. Suddenly, like, at the end of the ride, the T-Rex was like, women can't drive. And it was... Everyone's coming out of the door, like, confused.

Everyone's, like, at the very end of the ride. Did you hear that, too? Did you? Hey, a comet's heading for us well i'm probably whipped by uranus they put that on a shirt though that in the retro merchandise oh sure dinosaurs saying women can't drive and uh millennials wear it now ironically so and they but all the ride operators are instructed to say no no, I didn't hear that. You're crazy. They roar. Dinosaurs roar is what they do.

I don't know what you heard. Yeah, I guess they're just so amazed. You must be the crazy one. Every employee is gaslighting everyone. This is the first gaslighting ever done. That's Berry Farm. It was that movie and then the ride 30 years later. I'm in with it.

Yeah, this was... Well, I do really quickly. It was that movie and then the ride 30 years later. Yeah. Well, I do really. Well, I do really quickly. I look at home movies are mostly boring, but I do want to just play you one more thing that I have, which is the old roller coaster boomerang, which is where hang time is now. Boomerang, which formerly was corkscrew. And then they changed it to boomerang. I don't know if it's a different ride or if they just gave it a new coat of paint but this was like um the only multiple upside down roller coaster at knots and in 2001 uh when i was in eighth grade i somehow got my dad to go on it

with me and my dad had been on upside down roller coasters but he was he was getting on in years. I have kind of an old dad. So my dad was born in 1945. So 2001, he was... He was... 56? Yeah, early 50s. So I do want to just play you my dad's reaction after going on Boomerang, because it's very funny.

Oh, good. All right. So this is us here. It'll be... You can edit around the boring stuff but it is quite fun all right not enough clips of parents we've done surprisingly little besides your song with your mom like that's true all right can you see yeah yeah all right so's see okay sorry i should have been finding his nails oh boy so we're joking anyway i'm gonna sign off now okay so my dad and i go on boomerang

uh my mom is filming us on boomer. Let's see how much you can see. Can't really see much. Where are we? All right, there's our car. Oh, my God. I don't know. I would never go on this road. Did mom always sit it out?

She sit rides out? She's never been on an upside down roller coaster. Oh, okay. So you can kind of see us. Yeah. Oh, there you are. Hold on. Oh, we're right there. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, my God. Good commentary. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know. I don't know why they're doing it. I don't know So anyway, we go on boomerang all right, you'll see our face It's a big slow lift back and then it drops you and then you do the thing and then another then you get stuck again And then you go backwards. I don't know if you can see that. What are you laughing at?

Oh, shoot! Okay, so... This is my dad getting off the ride. Is that him right there? In the white shirt? Yes! That was the person I remember. She's out of the will.

No, it was... Did you see me? Did you see me? On the loop? What do you say, Alan? How was it? No, you know why it was worse than... No, wait.

I've got to get his face. It was... It was an experience that nobody really needs. Get our picture. I believe they picked you up. They shook you up. They shook you down. Oh, my God.

I'll never be the same again. Okay. Bye. Bye. So that's what I wanted to. It's an experience that no one really needs is like kind of a great way to sum up roller coasters in a way. If you look at it, why? Why would anyone do this to themselves?

And then later in that movie, I get the camera and I'm like, Dad, Dad, and I'm being playful and he's like, I need to get home. He's clearly nauseous. He's like, I need to get home. Stop filming me. He's of in like a bad mood and he wasn't kidding about the will you guys have revisited this once a decade

yeah he meant it he said it with a smile but he means business I mean there's a few great things about that footage one your dad's reactions are so good like you can't script lines that good the other thing is your mom like the camera's a little shaky and then she finds you guys in the car and she perfectly captures the release she perfectly captures the drop she killed it

yeah yeah yeah and i don't know i i love home like Like if I love watching home movies of my own, I love watching other people's home movies. I just think what an amazing time we live in that we have ways of documenting. We have primary sources That's what I'm saying. How lucky we are. It's crazy. And that it shifts in the fun of like, here's old, here's 2001 DV versus like old 8 millimeter or whatever. We have the last and we're like the last. We're the last people that will have like old looking stuff. Old looking video like. Oh, yeah. In the future, like our kids are like have like perfectly clear videos documenting so much of their lives my kids life fully 4k a 4k life it's only gonna grow 20k yeah i have a photo yeah i have a photo

of my daughter like photos every day in very high quality but like i think it's fun that all our home movies still like kind of feel like the past and And I guess photo resolution will get better somehow. So maybe what I'm saying will be wrong in the future. I feel like how the 80s and 90s did, which is, I don't know, just a little bit janky. Yeah. I like that when we were kids feels like old. I like that. That's fun.

That's what I'm saying. We're from an era. It takes a little pressure that it's not like totally crisp like the evening news now. Like our phone is the same as like some films or some like broadcast TV.

But like watch it doing this show like combing through YouTube like home movies. I'm so grateful for them and it's so cool to see people like loving these attractions and stuff especially for ones I never got to do yeah yeah really no and it's yeah it's kind of neat that it's like archaeology that there's not like the crispest footage of wacky soapbox or kingdom

of the dinosaurs but yeah especially because both those two have similar stories of like towards the end they let it go to rot a little. Like they didn't keep it up. But then there's other ones like Boomerang stuck around till 2017. So you can find HD footage of it

which is surreal. Scott, when did we go? Was it 2016 for the first time? I went. It was 2016 maybe? No, it was before. 2014 I think.

Was it that far away? So I did Boomerang and I think it hurt. I'm pretty sure it hurt my neck. That's up. Like it really felt like it like compacted my neck, my vertebrae. And I did, like I hated it. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe like one of the worst rides I ever went on. So you're in Rachel's dad's camp. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was not. So I probably just was like going afterward and not saying anything funny, though.

If I could, as we're winding down, I have a couple of clips I like to play that and especially like to get your thoughts, Rachel, as a musical person, a musical fan. Because all of this is music oriented. And we we skip through some different like shooting eras as well. I know when we talked about Knott's many, many years ago, I showed a they made employee music videos every year in the late 80s. And I had showed an I Love LA, I remember. But I don't think I showed this one. Brett, we just call it employee song. And I'm a fan of this one, too.

And it's the production value is kind of crazy. Like they got a real crew to come film the employees singing and dancing how many jobs is that true of in 1989 good point okay not very fun

ghost town Rory 20's Camp Snoopy Ascension Bigfoot Ghost Town! Rory Twanish! Camp Snoopy! Fiesta Villa! Ascension! Bigfoot! Crawling out around the farm Are you ready for a brand new beat?

Summer's here and the time is right. For dancing in the street. Dancing at the main gate. Down at old school road. In gasoline alley. All we need is fire. That's the bulk of it, I'd say. There'll be good times everywhere. Wow. it, I'd say.

Wow. Yeah, look at that. The spirit here and this fully committed to. And that's just internal or is that for the public? I think that's internal. I think that was for a summer party. To light it. Those are camera moves and that.

That's a production value. They got a drone somehow before. Yeah. The first drone. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty great.

That maybe speaks to the spirit that was around there at that time. And then you got this and this is just camcorder. But do you know about the, the association over the years with elvira at the uh at the halloween events yes i remember this i've never looked into this too much i know i know doug jones has said the elvira show was so great and i think she only recently stopped doing it yeah but this is probably late 80s uh i think but right if we could pull up the elvira and i i don't okay i'd heard that and i don't know a lot about Elvira to be honest and this clip makes me like

okay I need to dig in much further because this is the most kick ass looking thing ever to There's a laser hitting a dragon. Is that Elvira or an Elvira impersonator? No, that's her. That is her. Yeah, she really did a bunch of shows every year at Knott's Berry Farm. And in this case, a big dragon head in the back

is getting hit with a laser. Yeah, a laser's like carving up the dragon, like trying to kill it, trying to blind it. Yeah. She was really big. And it was one of my first, like she dressed with her boobs out and she was sexy and she was ubiquitous.

I feel like she was everywhere. Yeah. And it was this thing where like as a kid you're just exposed to this like really sexy woman and everyone's like okay with it and you're like okay yeah i i guess this feels it felt very adult but but coded adult sure yeah and it's also like a Halloween thing. So you're like, well, she's dressed for the season. Yeah. I feel like maybe that's part of it as well. Maybe that's my headcanon for it.

I don't know. The overlap between spooky and sexy is very confusing as a kid. Yeah. Did she start the correlation between the two things? Now I just want to go on an Elvira deep dive. Yeah. I've only done... I don't know anything.

I've never seen that movie. I've seen the movie. I just read she's a lesbian. She's been with a woman for... Oh, her name is Cassandra Peterson. Yes. Yes. Cool name.

Yeah, I know a little Elvira stuff. I've seen the movie. But I could go more... Cool name. Yeah, I know a little Elvira stuff. I've seen the movie. She made a good ad for that Universal Halloween award show. Yes. You should come party with her at Universal Studios if you won the beer contest. She's probably, I would guess, the most famous horror host of all time, which is a whole genre of performer that I'm pretty obsessed with, which includes like Sven Gulli and going back to many different people like Paul Thomas Anderson's father and stuff. The great Goularty, of course.

You have an hour ready to go. The hour is about to spill out of you. I would love. Because I've seen it. It's at the end of the episode. Many parties. I know. I want to talk about it.

You really do. There's a certain hour where you leave Mike. I'm going to go get another drink. There's a certain hour where you leave Mike. I'm going to go get another drink. You come back and he is talking about Goularty and Sven Goula. Graduate school thesis about a horror house. We do need to do more Elvira stuff, though, in regards to that. I mean, I want to know about this dragon show.

Why is the dragon there? Is the dragon an enemy? Is the dragon a friend? Yeah. Oh, the dragons. Come on. The dragon's a friend yeah that's true if it was it's a monster situation probably yeah it's probably a pet um one more thing really quick and this is i i want to see if you if we all agree this is i i labeled this not earnest

song and i think you'll agree this is a good title and i'm curious if this sums up everybody's feelings about the place of which we're all pretty fond at this point. But boy, this song goes for it. This is from some documentary from 1984. I couldn't believe the heartfelt nature of this song about this theme park. But I think we might, I don't know, it might sum it all up for us. Can we play this, Brett? You and I must try

Start up a new life somewhere plays Brett. Watching parachute footage. We're tired and hungry, pride in ourselves, and a love for the country. Not very far. Not very far. Oh, that's a picture of a bunch of berries barely lit. Jason, are you okay? Jason's not going to be. He's going to get too riled up here saying those berries this little part the most emotional song i love it that is a song that is a scott garner song i feel like that is

enough that has enough chords like The chord changes are like your chord changes that you like. A little bit unexpected. And there's a lot of them. Synthie noodling. I was trying to place what that is musically and I think it's somebody trying to place a song on a Wings album.

I don't think they accepted it so you had to rewrite the lyrics and make it about Knott's Berry Farm. Something kind of Carpenter's-y about it. Yeah. I'm a huge Carpenter's, like the earnestness of it. Yeah. I mean, this song is, at this point, that song is how I feel about Knott's Berry Farm. If that didn't exist, you would have willed it.

That harmony blast is crazy. Your sheer force of will would have made that reality if that song didn't exist yeah yeah if i could use ai for good i would use it to create that maybe i did somehow without knowing it and then that whole no mistakes no regrets about what she's trying to get someone to have sex with her at knott's berry farm. Maybe so. Yeah. All right. Look, there's this parachute ride and we got about, you know, look, there's nothing in the way. No harnesses, no mistakes, no regrets.

We can get up there, have sex really fast and then drop and it's a great experience. Or it's more innocent that she just wants to split a pie with someone. Yeah, maybe. Because there's that long shot of the pie. Oh, that close up. It looked very gruesome.

It looked like innards. Yes, it was not the one with the appetizing. Yeah, that's a pile of organs for a really intense surgery. But that looked good 50 years ago. Yeah. That pie looked good. There's another part. We're not long after it

there's just a shot of a dark vat just kind of a dark purple vat spinning around as the lyrics are like we can climb to the sky

anything is possible. There's another one about like we can build a home by a Model T start a new life erase the old one begin again.

Were they trying to build a celebration Florida but just for living in Knott's Berry Farm If so I'm in I'm totally in Do they have enough land to create a little They've got some just kind of dirt lot Where they do overflow parking If you build into the parking lot you can make a living Or they can work

If that rock and bruise in Buena Park ever goes out of business That's a nice plot of land pretty lot you could make it yeah or they could work if that rock and bruise in buena park ever goes out of business that's a nice plot of land pretty close yeah how could it well you're the sound business plan provided by gene simmons yeah sure so no it's unlikely but that carousel footage you know rachel earlier you were talking about like memories and like of of these places and they feeling dreamlike that carousel footage is seen very dreamlike to me seen very like a child's memory kind of an askew angle and you're kind of half remembering it you know it's not totally in focus yeah it's beautiful yeah it seemed like it was trying to hypnotize us so that she could cook us and eat us.

I mean, that's always on the table, you know? Look, after that song, I would have done whatever she wanted. Whatever's happening, I'm on board. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. A thousand percent. Yeah. That music, that good.

Yeah. She wants to kiss me, fine. If she wants to cook me, fine. Either way is fine. Kiss me or cook me. Either way, I'm yours. Let's go on the soapbox race. Start a new life there.

Might die too, whatever. It's all on the table. I'm good with it. It's the last decade where you could like burn your ID and then drive east or west until you ran out of gas and started a new life. You know? I live here now. Yeah. Well, if that journey took you to Buena Park, then you're set.

Anything closing, Rachel? I mean, the warm and fuzzy feeling, I assume it applies from your knots-laden childhood. Oh, I'm literally going to go on Etsy right after this and look for a bunch of vintage knots T-shirts to buy. Sure.

Jeez, beautiful, wonderful, great. Glad to get you into that state. Rachel Bloom, you survived Podcast The Ride. Thank you so much for joining us again. A great pile of stuff to get into. Exit through the gift shop. Anything you'd like to plug? No.

I mean, I'm doing a live show, so check my Instagram to see if it's in your city. Oh, great. Oh, you're touring. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Oh, geez. Great. That's cool. Muppets Mayhem also? Are you in Muppets Mayhem? I'm literally in three seconds of that. Oh, okay. Well, there's some. Okay.

Well, good. Look for the three seconds of that oh okay oh well they're so okay well good you know look for the three seconds um uh uh hey and thanks for everyone uh thanks for everything uh on the writer's strike too thanks for being uh outspoken about this stuff i watched the panel you did uh for the rap with kate cannon and other people and uh just thanks for for being outspoken about these things because they're important my pleasure yeah it Yeah. And it's also like, I don't know where we're at with shouting out things because there's been a general lack of, you know, talking about, okay, well, how do we make the studios hurt the most? What do we, where's the line? So it's confusing.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. But you, you know, as you talk about bizarre situations for, for writers that everybody finds themselves in, it makes everybody feel less crazy, I think, to pull these stories. Oh, good. I'm happy to help. Yeah, I mean, the negotiating committee members can speak on it so much better.

But, yeah, it's a wild time. Yeah, yeah, no kidding. Well, happy strike to you. Happy rest of the strike. Yes, happy strike. Happy strike. And, hey, as for us, thanks, Breadit Forever Dog, for producing the episode. You can find us on the socials at Podcast The Ride, merch in our TeePublic store.

But, you know, go buy some Knotts stuff instead. We'd all like to see that logo. A very thorough store website, Knotts Berry Farm. Really? Like right now, currently. I didn't know that. The marketplace has a store. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Good for them. They should. And for three bonus episodes every Oh, wow. Good for them. They should. And for three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast the Ride, the second gate, or get one more bonus episode on our VIP tier, Club 3, where we talked about fairy tales a while back. That's a fun companion to this. You will find all of that at patreon.com slash podcast the ride.

Ah, Knott's Berry Farm. I'll do anything you want me to do. Swallow me up. I am yours. Beautiful. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production.

Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.