The Big Flop - Action Park: The Water Park of Your Nightmares with Sasheer Zamata & Chris Gethard | 9

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

At New Jersey’s most dangerous water park, people of all ages broke bones, tore flesh, lost teeth, and yes, even lost their lives. For some, Action Park was a rite of passage. For others, it was a lawless wasteland that needed to be stopped. Shady business dealings, headless crash test dummies, and the most shocking rides you’ve ever heard of are just the tip of the Action Park iceberg. Guests Sasheer Zamata (Best Friends) and actual Action Park survivor Chris Gethard (Beautiful/Anonymous) join Misha to break down the meteoric rise and tragic fall of this absolutely bonkers amusement park.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's 1981. Andy Mulvihill is working his lifeguard shift at the pool when suddenly he hears a splash. He turns around and sees a kid thrashing around in the water. There's no question this kid needs help. See this isn't just an ordinary pool. It's the wave pool at a New Jersey water park called Action Park owned by his father Gene Mulvihill. Three-foot-high waves crash across the surface for 20 minutes at a time. You can't tell the deep end from the shallow end.

Plus, hundreds of people pack into the wave pool together. It tests even the most experienced swimmers. Andy jumps into action, swims over, grabs the kid, and pulls him to safety. He saves his life. Now, at most other lifeguard gigs, you might expect a thank you, but not at Action Park. The kid looks at Andy in the face, searching for the right words to say. He looks him square in the eye and tells Andy to eat a dick and then dives right back in. So over the course of the weekend, Andy says he and his fellow lifeguards will save no fewer than 30 people from drowning. And that's just at one attraction. In the 18 years

Action Park was open, people of all ages broke bones, tore flesh, lost teeth, and yes, even lost their lives. For some, Action Park was a rite of passage. For others, it was a lawless wasteland that needed to be stopped. This is the story of Action Park. Action Park was wild, and quite frankly, a lot of people got hurt over there. The most dangerous theme park of all time. The owner was like, I'm not going to hassle the kids with a bunch of rules. I'm just going to leave safety up to them.

It was like Lord of the Flies with booze and weed. These are the most amazing rides in the world. I love it here. There's nothing in the world like Action Park. There's nothing in the world like Action Park. We are on a sinking ship. From Wondery and Atwill Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and your ticket to a good time at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today we're talking about the most dangerous water park in the world, Action Park.

Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael.

From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.

Here to join me on the wild ride that is Action Park are comedian and host of the podcast, Beautiful Anonymous, Chris Gethard. Thanks so much for having me. And comedian Sashir Zemeta, whose new special, Sashir Zemeta, The First Woman, is out on YouTube. Welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you for having us. Chris, you're like an action park aficionado, right? I went to it. I went to it in its heyday. I don't know if I'm an aficionado so much as someone who survived to talk about it and is happy to ramble about it. Well, without giving away too much, can you talk about what was it like to go there as a kid? I grew up in North Jersey. And even before you went there, one of the important parts of the Action Park story is you heard about it.

You heard about it from older kids. You knew people got hurt there. There was a Catholic church in my neighborhood. The church used to send the altar boys on an annual trip there, and they'd all come back like cuts. A kid came back one year with a broken ankle. And these stories of surviving the place, going there, I was scared. I was scared when I went because I'd heard all those stories for years.

But it sort of felt like you kind of had to go. Sasheer, I read that in Indiana, where you grew up, you have a bunch of these world-famous wooden roller coasters. So I was wondering, are you an adrenaline junkie? Do you love a good old-fashioned death trap? I feel like I used to, but I think as I got older, I was like, these hurt. Why am I doing this? I went on the Cyclone a couple years ago in Coney Island, and I was like, my body actually feels like rattled. I don't want to put myself through this anymore. So Action Park may have been the wettest, wildest, most hardcore water park in history, but our story begins in another lawless wasteland, Wall Street. In the early 70s, our hero and future owner of Action Park, Gene Mulvihill, is working on Wall

Street. Some people spoke to a documentary filmmaker about him, and in the movie, they describe him in some pretty colorful ways, like Gordon Gekko before Gordon Gekko, a mix of P.T. Barnum and Donald Trump, and a piece of crap. Well, a stronger word was used, but you get the idea. So Gene Mulvihill is in his 20s, and he and his pal Robert Brennan are running a brokerage firm called Mayflower Securities. And just like the Wolf of Wall Street himself, they're running what's called a pump and dump scam. So they're basically tricking people into buying bad stocks and they're making a buttload of money doing it. And then zoinks, in 1973, they get suspended by the SEC.

So now look, you can take the Wolf out of Wall Street, but you can't take the Wall Street out of the wolf. I mean, the man's a mover. He's a shaker. He's not going to sit around twiddling his thumbs even if he's been banned from his favorite hotspot in New York City. What do you think is the next logical step from Wall Street? A weird, dangerous water park on the side of the mountain in northern New Jersey? Obviously. That classic pipeline. He does what anyone would do. He decides to make a new hotspot of his own. So in the late 70s, he buys two ski resorts in Vernon, New Jersey.

But he's joined by his sketchy partner from the Mayflower Securities, Robert Brennan, and a few other investors as well. And they named their company Great American Recreation. So in the 60s, Vernon was a pretty sleepy town with around 2,000 people. But in the early 70s, it got a pretty surprising new addition. I believe you're probably referring to Playboy Club, one of the Playboy Clubs opened up there. Yeah. So, I mean, and for Mulvihill, this makes Vernon the perfect spot because the writing's on the wall. People are starting to travel from New York to Vernon, not just because of the Playboy Mansion, though I'm sure it doesn't hurt, but also because gambling is legal in Jersey.

So Mulvihill is pretty sure that Vernon, New Jersey is going to be the next Vegas. And remember, whatever he does, he does it at 150%, whether that's cheating people in their investments or operating a ski resort. And according to the documentary Class Action Park, he makes the world's largest snow making machine out of a jet engine. But even so, there is a problem and a big problem for a guy who wants to make a slope load of money by the way of a New Jersey ski resort. And you could probably guess what his big dilemma was if he wants to make money year round. No snow. It's very hot. No snow. I'm in New Jersey right now. It's 90 degrees. Yeah. So he needs to pivot and he comes up with this idea that's different and something new, and it actually is new, a water park. So water parks, they weren't really a thing in the 70s, but I think that's

pretty sound logic. I think pivoting to a water park when you have a ski resort is a pretty good idea. That was like kind of the kingpin. There were other weird amusement parks around Jersey. Like there's Wild West City, there's the Land of Make-Believe, there was Beaucraft. There were a bunch of these sort of like janky side of the road amusement parks all over the state growing up, but Action Park was a beast. It was kind of like them, but on steroids in a big way. Well, Action Park opens in 1978. And at this point, it's just a few water slides, a go-kart track, along with a few other simple attractions. But of course, this is only the beginning. And he divides the park into different zones, the water park, known as Waterworld,

Motorworld, and Alpine Center. So Mulvihill has a somewhat unusual philosophy that feels very quintessential Boomer, because according to his son, Andy, he feels like people are too coddled. Like even a roller coaster is too passive of an experience. So he wants people to be in control of the action. So when it comes time to add rides, there's this big question, what will they be and who will design them? Like, what are the biggest priorities to consider when designing an attraction? Sashir, what would you like make the top of your list? I think safety would be first. Big one.

Yeah, you'd probably want to get like, you know, the best engineers, people who are experienced with designing rides for the masses. Yeah, so safety is a huge one. But as you can probably imagine, because of the nature of this show, Mulvihill concerns himself with none of that. He's basically like, I got some ideas, let's build some stuff. Chris, if you could design any ride, what would it be? Maybe something where you could just drive a car full speed off a ski jump or something like that. Like something that's just true mayhem.

There's a way to do that safely. Yeah, that sounds fun to me. Yeah. What about you, Sasheer? Any desires for a ride? I think I would do something slow. Like if you're like in a sinking ship or something and just like the adrenaline that you'll get of trying to not go fully under

would be enough to carry you through a day. That's emotionally torturous in a way. I really love Sashay. The ultimate escape room. Well, speaking of sinking, among the rules that Mova Hill doesn't believe in, it is actually the rule of gravity. Because one of the most famous attractions that he came up with was called the Cannonball Loop. So I'm going to show you a couple of pictures of the Cannonball Loop. Oh, God. Could one of you describe what

we're seeing here? It kind of looks like a didgeridoo. It does have a didgeridoo vibe. Yeah. Or like one of those like curlicue straws from the 90s. It's like a tube and it's down at a very steep angle. And at the very bottom, there is a full circular loop before it shoots you out into, is that a pond? It does look kind of like a pond. Yeah. Just going to blast you out and let you fend for yourself. Now I can tell you, I saw this in person. You did? It was still standing. It was not in use. So I had heard about that thing before I ever went. And then I went and it did put some fear in my soul for sure.

So now everybody, you know what the ride looks like. You may be wondering, wait, this guy is not just going to like make up rides and throw guests in. That's crazy irresponsible. And to that I say, don't worry. Mulvihill may be an eccentric man and someone who actually at this point has committed financial and insurance fraud, but he's not crazy. Of course, he's going to test the ride before opening them to the general public. First, they test it out on crash dummies. Apparently, that doesn't go so great. The crash dummies go through the opening at the top, disappear into the slide, and come out missing body parts, including their heads. So that doesn't bode very well for the slide, but

no fails. Like, maybe this will just be better when it's real people. So he pays his teenage employees $100 to test it out. Here's a clip from the documentary Class Action Park. You know, going through the loop and having your nuts get smashed on a, you know, a fiberglass tube was not fun. But then, you know, Uncle Gene's down in there and he hands you a hundred bucks. Uncle Gene. How perfectly teenager-y is that?

Yeah, they're nailing it. Sashir, would you have done this for $100 as a teen? I would say no. Like, do I have a choice? Do I have any other options? Can I pay you to get out of this? No. Even if there was no loop at the end, I wouldn't even want to do that slide.

Like, it looks so scary and terrifying. The cannonball loop. It finally opens, but it only stayed open for a month because of a somewhat alarming problem. Listen to this clip from the Class Action Park documentary. The first couple people that came in came out and their mouths were all bloody. And that was before they had put sufficient padding in the top. There was a little bit. So they sent a couple other people down. And when those people came down, they came down with lacerations. They couldn't figure out why these people had lacerations from a giant loop. Then they took the loop apart and they found teeth stuck in the padding

from the first couple people that went down the slide and they had gotten their teeth knocked out. And these other people were just going up and ripping into it. There it is, straight out of the mouth of an employee. Pun intended. I should not be laughing at that, but it makes me laugh really hard.

So teeth in the slide, it sounds like something out of a horror movie. If I got attacked by someone else's teeth and they weren't in their mouth, I think I would just walk away and never come back. I think I would just go home and be like, I don't want to ever talk about this experience again. I love New Jersey so much. I love that I grew up here. I love that I moved back here. I just love this place.

Really, this is bringing me back to my childhood. I mean, good thing it's like pitch black in there, right? Also, they once had to remove someone who got stuck inside at the top of the loop. So they had to like create an extraction hatch. But let's not worry because the Cannonball Loop was only one of the many attractions at Action Park. And just to show you how many options there are, we're going to play a little game. I'm going to say the name of an attraction, and you have to guess whether it was a real attraction or one we just made up. Sashir, you guess, and Chris, you tell us if you went on it or not. So the first one,

the Tarzan swing, real or fake? Real. Yes, it was real. And they describe it as the guests would grab a 20-foot cable and then swing over a spring-fed pool of water, which at one point wasn't water at all, but rather a cushioned area, and jump in. I've been on this one, yeah, three or four times, and it was horrible. I can't believe I went on it more than once. That's on me. Yeah, it was really wild. You would just dangle off this wire and it would drop you into freezing cold water while people just mocked you and laughed at you. Oh my gosh. All right. So this one's called the Alpine Slide.

That's a real one? Yes, it is a real one. So the Alpine Slide was a 2,700-foot slide that you basically ride down in a little go-kart. You can't steer on a track that's not actually secure enough to hold in place. People would sometimes get thrown off the slide suffering road rash and broken bones. While taking the ski lift up 2,700 feet, people would also sometimes drop their own sliding carts on people zooming down below.

I've been on this ride as well. It was treacherous. There is not a way for me to verbally explain how ill-advised this ride was. I know there's things like this. There's other things called Alpine Slides now, but it was lawless. I saw it myself. I should not have been allowed to go on this as a child. It was really scary and really bad. Did you ever see someone dropping their carts that they were carrying up? No. I was once in a situation though where the person in front of me had a cart where the

brake was stuck. So they were going very, very slow and I hit them from behind. And then I got off, took my cart off, ran in front of them, put my cart on and jumped back on. So that gives you a perspective that I must've been probably 12 years old at the time. Like a 12 year old could just get off the ride at will and then run in front of someone. That was my most lawless experience with it. But you always knew in my neighborhood when the church sent the altar boys to action park, because people would come back with Alpine slide specific like road rash because they had been flung off of their carts onto the stone track and people would be covered in these scabs and bruises. So the next ride, the Guillotine Limbo, real or fake?

I'm going to say fake because I feel like they accidentally dismembered people. I don't think they would purposely want to advertise that they were doing that. people. I don't think they would purposely want to advertise that they were doing that. We made this one up and we have the 70 foot bungee tower. Sashir, real or fake? I'm going to say fake. 70 feet sounds too tall. My brother has a funny story from that. My brother went on the bungee tower. I think it was Warped Tour, the big punk rock festival used to play at Action Park. My brother went and he went on the bungee tower. And the worker there, I still applaud this worker. As my brother was falling backwards, the guy just went, oh, wait, oh, no, no, no. And made it seem like the thing wasn't connected correctly. And my brother legitimately thought he was plummeting to

his death. Yeah. I feel like that's a trend on social media these days are these videos that go viral of these ride attendants who kind of do the same thing. But I think that with the reputation of Action Park, that's like a whole different level of psychological cruelty in a big way. Yeah. So that's the lay of the land of Action Park. The director of an emergency room at a nearby hospital said that they would treat five to ten park goers on some of the busiest days. The park actually bought the township extra ambulances because of it. So now, of course, usually a park like this would have to report their injuries to the state. But Mulvihill's like, that sounds like it might be legally pesky.

So he decides to only define injuries as accidents that require ambulances. And then he still doesn't even report all of those. Of course, the beer stations all around the park surely aren't helping. So, Sasheer, I know you said you wouldn't have gone to this park as a kid. Would you go as an adult? Like, what are the vibes? How are we feeling? Are we going to hang out at Action Park together anytime soon? Absolutely not. I can't believe it existed as long as it did. I just can't believe that people kept patronizing it. as long as it did. I just can't believe that people kept patronizing it. In 1980, something very terrible happened. A 19-year-old named George Larson is riding down the Alpine slide, and his cart flies off the track, which isn't super unusual, but when he

lands, he hits his head on some rocks, rocks that Action Park had been ordered to remove but hadn't. And George is in a coma for several days and then dies. Not much seemed to change after that. So Mulvihill lies and says that George was an employee so that he doesn't have to report it to the state. And he also pretends that it was after dark and raining and none of these things are true. pretends that it was after dark and raining, and none of these things are true. Two years later, there's a second death. A 15-year-old kid drowns in the wave pool. Just one week after that, someone's electrocuted on the kayak experience. And in 1984 and 1987, there are three more deaths. One person has a heart attack after riding the Tarzan swing into the freezing water and two other people drown. This is super sad at this point. So do you have

any ideas like how they're skirting around this and able to keep open? Do you have any theories? I'm guessing because the park brought the town a lot of money. I feel like there's a longstanding tradition of New Jersey politicians getting paid off for stuff, and I wouldn't be shocked if a few palms got greased on this one. What? Couldn't be. I mean, it is a great question, and there are different theories, and you two definitely hit two of the most popular. So the documentary mentions accusations that elected officials are turning a blind eye in exchange for free memberships and season passes, which let's shoot a little higher, guys. Some people speculate that it's just because Action

Park is so important to the local economy, like Sasheer suggested. But there's also rumors that Mulvihill's in the mob. That's very stereotypical. Come on, guys. But regardless of whether or not this is true, Mulvihill has the power of ruthlessness on his side because according to the documentary, he almost never settles. He drags almost any lawsuit into court for years, and he basically just wears people down. And he also shows this kind of sociopathic disregard for these deaths because Action Park had so many visitors per year that park officials say that their injury and death rate wasn't statistically significant. Wait, what? Yeah, I was always baffled as a kid, you know, kind of assuming that a lot of the stories we were hearing

were urban legends. And to find out back then, and certainly in the years since, how real it all was and how it was like much more real than even the urban legends say, it's actually very disturbing to think about. Because I think we all heard the stories and I think everybody was like, ha ha ha, Action Park, let's go get hurt, everybody. Somebody might get killed. And that was kind of like a joke. And then to realize that it was absolutely real, sort of like a horror movie in hindsight. Gene Mulvihill can't get away with all of this forever, and he doesn't. In 1983, there is a state investigation of misconduct,

but it's not because of the safety of the park or the injuries or the deaths. It's because of a fake insurance company that he made up since he couldn't get away with a real insurance company to cover his business. Gene Mulvihill pleads guilty to five insurance fraud-related charges, but he gets lucky. No prison time for him. But his former business partner isn't nearly as lucky. Robert Brennan winds up spending 10 years in prison from a different fraud investigation. But Action Park is still super popular at this point and continues to see huge amounts of visitors per year. So separate question, what do you think would be the equivalent of Mickey Mouse for Action Park? Like, is it a guy dressed up as a tooth you might be missing?

Is it just a drunk teenager in a costume of a bigger, drunker teenager? Like, what's the mascot here? I feel like a wet cigarette. Well, alas, despite how much money Action Park was raking in, it just couldn't make enough to keep up with the massive amount of lawsuits coming through. And thus, Action Park finally flopped its way into bankruptcy. Because it turns out, regularly injuring your customers doesn't pay off in the end. And Action Park officially closes September 2nd, 1996. Chris, were you sad when you heard the news of the park closing? I was. I mean, I understood it. I had been there. I had seen it.

I think it's probably for the best, but I do remember being struck by a feeling of, you know, there's certainly a piece of my childhood that's gone. And also there's a certain lawlessness that I grew up with where it's funny. It's one of those things where I go, man, I would never let my son go to a place like that. I wouldn't allow it. But I do feel like there was some value in having that option when I was a kid, even though I'm thankful that my kid will not have that option. I have very layered opinions on this. It's almost like an era ends, right? You know when something like that goes away, we'll never have something like that again.

No chance. And honestly, good. And also sad, but good. Yeah. Let's do a little where are they now. In a turn of events, in 1998, a Canadian resort developer, IntraWest, purchased Action Park property

and reopened it as Mountain Creek Water Park. In 2010, Gene Mulvihill led a group that actually bought back Mountain Creek. Sadly, he died two years later in 2012. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had this to say about his death. Quote, Gene Mulvihill's contributions to the economic development of Sussex County are unquestionable. His unique vision and entrepreneurial spirit will be greatly missed. End quote. I mean, that's pretty wild to only bring up. Like, he was a great entrepreneur.

That's very Chris Christie. And there's a real Republican entrepreneurship above safety and all else. So, in April of 2014, the Mulvihill family reverted the name back to Action Park, but then once again retired due to the stigma, and the park went back to being called the Mountain Creek Water Park. I will tell you when it was reopened as Action Park, it did coincide with the year I got married, and I did go on my bachelor party to Action Park. Not Mountain Creek. It was officially Action Park again. So I did get to relive that. And when we went, I asked a worker the quickest way to get to the Tarzan swing, and he went, I asked a worker the quickest way to get

to the Tarzan swing. And he just told me and all my friends to hop a fence and run across a field and hop another fence. So I was like, oh my God, there's still no rules. There's still no rules here. That's great and like no rules. Yeah. There's like some sort of charm to it that you can just create whatever you want. Definitely. Okay, I wanted to share some other notable things about what is now Mountain Creek Water Park again. A handful of the old Action Park attractions never left.

The 23-foot cliff jump is still there, as are a few water slides. The Colorado River ride now requires helmets with face masks. And New Jersey Senator Cory Booker tweeted that he still had scars from the old park, but said, quote, I so want to go again. but said, quote, I so want to go again. So, you know, I think that speaks to, you know, Chris, the same thing. Like, even though it was this wild and dangerous experience, there was something really memorable and special about it. People still talk about it all the time around where I live, and it will live in infamy forever.

We love silver linings around here. So Action Park was also the inspiration for Johnny Knoxville's 2018 film Action Point. The movie is about a daredevil who creates his own theme park. And for the next generation of park growers, you can still visit Mountain Creek Park for a ticket of just $50 and ride something called the Bombs Away, where you drop into a steep slide that ends with an 18-foot drop into the pool. It's no corkscrew, sure, but at least you probably won't lose your teeth. So knowing everything we know about Action Park, do we think that this is a baby flop, regular flop, or a mega flop? Well, I don't think it flopped in a huge way because it was

around for a long time. There was an entire generation of people that went there. I do think it flopped in the sense that it's now mentioned in conversation in only negative, cautionary ways. And in that sense, it's like, man, especially Gene, the guy who founded it, he lives on in a way that's almost as a cartoonishly manipulative guy. And I'm sure that he was a layered person who loved his family in real life. But in that sense, yeah, it's a flop. It left a real bad legacy. Even though it did last for a bunch of years, it left a really bad legacy.

This was a huge mega flop. People died. I don't even know if you could say it's a flop anymore. That's a tragedy. I mean, I guess it's a success that he was able to get away with so much. I feel like this was the ultimate scam. Somehow this thing existed for so many years. But yeah, major flop. decides to make a soda that's as healthy as it is crystal clear. That's right. We're talking Crystal Pepsi with comedian Dulce Sloan. Well, here's the thing. We're all stupid.

Because if you wanted healthy soda, just drink bubbly water. You're coming to a pig asking for chicken nuggets. That's what you're doing. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and Atwill Media. Hosted by me, Misha Brown. Produced and edited by Levi Sharp. Written by Marina Tempelsman. Engineered by Zach Rapone. Our executive producers are Rosie Guerin, Will Malnati, and Samantha Story for At Will Media. Developed by Christina Friel.

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We are on a sinking ship. We are on a sinking ship.