Speaker 1: Guess what, Mango, what's that will? I'm going to Dollywood?
Speaker 2: You what?
Speaker 1: I'm going to Dollywood. Our family was at this event
Speaker 1: last week and we won a trip to freaking Dollywood.
Speaker 1: I feel like that Powerball winner from last week. And
Speaker 1: I do need to warn you about this. I may
Speaker 1: never come back to work again, so.
Speaker 3: You've got to tell me what happens in Dollywood.
Speaker 1: I actually have no idea. That's part of why I'm
Speaker 1: so excited. I mean, of course I've heard of it.
Speaker 1: I grew up a few hours away from it, but
Speaker 1: you know, other than knowing that one of the co
Speaker 1: owners is Dolly Parton and she's great, and that it's
Speaker 1: in this really pretty area of Tennessee, I know nothing
Speaker 1: about it. And I'm actually intentionally avoiding any information about
Speaker 1: it because I want to just show up and be
Speaker 1: completely surprised.
Speaker 3: Well, I do have one spoiler for you, and this
Speaker 3: is something I remember from reading about it a long
Speaker 3: time ago. In the Chasing Rainbow section, they have this
Speaker 3: autograph picture from Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and I think you
Speaker 3: read something like you are so very special.
Speaker 1: Oh how sweet?
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 3: I love that he gave her that affirmation, but I
Speaker 3: definitely want you to report back. I want to hear
Speaker 3: what your kids think about it.
Speaker 1: I definitely will. But winning this trip felt like a
Speaker 1: sign to me, you know that it was time to
Speaker 1: do this episode on the history and philosophy of theme parks.
Speaker 1: And we've been talking about doing this for a while now,
Speaker 1: so let's get started. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my good friend Mangesha Ticketter and the man
Speaker 1: making funny faces, that is through the soundproof glasses, our
Speaker 1: friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And today we're talking theme parks,
Speaker 1: all the science and imagination and you know, even the
Speaker 1: philosophy that goes into designing and building and running theme parks.
Speaker 1: So we thought it'd be fun to dig into some
Speaker 1: of the deep thinking behind one of the world's favorite
Speaker 1: forms of escapism. We've also got some great guests on
Speaker 1: the line to help us talk about that. Now, who's
Speaker 1: joining us today?
Speaker 3: Mego, yeah, Today we'll be talking to David Younger, author
Speaker 3: of the new book Theme Park Design and the Art
Speaker 3: of the Entertainment. David's guide covers every aspect of the
Speaker 3: theme park industry, including interviews with theme park legends and
Speaker 3: Disney imagineers. We'll also be talking with a couple of
Speaker 3: theme park enthusias who've made it their life's work to
Speaker 3: chronicle all the going ons at their favorite parks.
Speaker 1: Very cool, all right, So we're going to dive in
Speaker 1: in just a minute. But before we do that, we've
Speaker 1: heard from so many of you by email or on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter, and even on our twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven Fact hotline, and many of you have asked if
Speaker 1: you can play one of our ridiculous quizzes. So here's
Speaker 1: what we want you to do. Email us at Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com or call us on
Speaker 1: the Fact Hotline one eight four four pt Genius and
Speaker 1: tell us why we should have you on to play
Speaker 1: a quiz. Now, be sure to tell us something interesting,
Speaker 1: of course, a true interesting fact about yourself, and maybe,
Speaker 1: just maybe we'll have you on the show to play sometime.
Speaker 1: All right, So before we get into the exhilarating rides,
Speaker 1: designs and all that good stuff, we probably need to
Speaker 1: start out by talking a little semantics.
Speaker 3: Semantics, you want to take this to the least fun
Speaker 3: place possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know, but there is an important
Speaker 1: distinction we should make about today's topic. So if you
Speaker 1: were to ask somebody the difference between an amusement park
Speaker 1: and a theme park, you know, they might think it's
Speaker 1: a trick questions. I mean, you know, both kinds of
Speaker 1: parks are high energy, they're family friendly. You've got all
Speaker 1: the mechanical rides, the colorful designs, the tasty junk food,
Speaker 1: which is probably my favorite part. You know, but there's
Speaker 1: a very real difference between say, a seaside amusement park
Speaker 1: like a Coney Island, and a full blown theme park
Speaker 1: like Universal Studios or Lego Land.
Speaker 3: Sure, and I guess by the same token. Amusement parks
Speaker 3: can contain individual rides or areas that are themed to something.
Speaker 3: So if you think about something like six Flags in
Speaker 3: their parks, they all have a bunch of un themed
Speaker 3: roller coasters and carnival type rides, But then there are
Speaker 3: all those attractions from like Looney Tunes or DC Comics,
Speaker 3: So there's some crossover here and there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's true. But you know, for the most part,
Speaker 1: it's enough to know that the goal of an amusement
Speaker 1: park is to, you know, get people a thrill more
Speaker 1: or less through random assortments of exciting rides, And you know,
Speaker 1: the aim of a theme park, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: is to really immerse people in this elaborate storytelling experience,
Speaker 1: and that just happens to use exciting rides as a
Speaker 1: way of telling these stories.
Speaker 3: So it was interesting to me in doing research for
Speaker 3: this episode, that every aspect of a theme park, or
Speaker 3: at least a really good one, is meticulously crafted to
Speaker 3: support the park's theme. So not just like the architecture,
Speaker 3: but things like the smells in the air, the music
Speaker 3: being played, the characters of course, and employees' uniforms, but landscaping,
Speaker 3: the color of the paint, the style of the benches,
Speaker 3: even the trash cans. Like everything you see or hear
Speaker 3: or smell or touch like it's carefully selected, all for
Speaker 3: the story that's being told, which just seems like such
Speaker 3: a lofty goal for someplace where kids are like throwing
Speaker 3: tantrums and parents are angry that they're spending nine dollars
Speaker 3: for a soda.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I can't wait to be angry at Dollywood.
Speaker 1: A lot of us tend to associate these with, you know,
Speaker 1: crass commercialism, or think of them as a low brow
Speaker 1: or mindless form of entertainment. But that's something we'll see
Speaker 1: a lot today, is that there's more substance at the
Speaker 1: core of these theme parks than most of us give
Speaker 1: them credit for.
Speaker 3: And speaking of credit, I do want to take a
Speaker 3: minute upfront to recognize Frederick Thompson, the inventor of the
Speaker 3: world's first theme attraction and a true theme park pioneer.
Speaker 1: All right, So just to be sure we're not talking
Speaker 1: the same Fred Thompson, who is the politician and the actor, right.
Speaker 3: I hope that would have been awesome, like talking about
Speaker 3: politician Fred Thompson and then dropping the line like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: and he was a theme park pioneer.
Speaker 1: Right right, all right. We'll have a separate episode on
Speaker 1: that Fred Thompson one day, but for this episode, this
Speaker 1: seems like a good place to start tell us more
Speaker 1: about him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Thompson designed the first of what we'd categorized today
Speaker 3: as a dark ride, but he hasn't gotten nearly as
Speaker 3: much attention as some of the other theme park titans
Speaker 3: we'll talk about today.
Speaker 1: And for any listeners who aren't up on their theme
Speaker 1: park lingo, we should note that a dark ride is
Speaker 1: basically just an indoor ride where a vehicle is guided
Speaker 1: along this track and you know, you go from one
Speaker 1: set to another. So you know, think Mister Toad's Wild
Speaker 1: Ride at Disneyland, or Haunted Mansion, or you know, even
Speaker 1: the generic kind of haunted house that you would go
Speaker 1: through if you were at an amusement park exactly.
Speaker 3: And Thompson really helped develop this genre of rides. He
Speaker 3: was an architect who designed buildings for county fairs and
Speaker 3: public exhibitions, and he really wanted to create a ride
Speaker 3: that could dazzle the audience's senses and help them forget
Speaker 3: about their everyday worries. So in nineteen oh one, using
Speaker 3: copious amounts of plaster and modern advances like electric machinery
Speaker 3: and light bulbs, Thompson premiered his masterpiece, which he dubbed
Speaker 3: a Trip to the Moon.
Speaker 1: And you were saying, you know, this was nineteen oh one,
Speaker 1: so you know, if you think about the timing there,
Speaker 1: not only have we not made it to the moon yet,
Speaker 1: but even the Wright brothers, you know, their first man
Speaker 1: flight was still a couple years off. So this whole premise,
Speaker 1: this whole thing would have been complete science fiction at that.
Speaker 3: Point totally, and Thompson chose this theme wisely, which is
Speaker 3: why he was fine forking over eighty five thousand dollars
Speaker 3: to build the attraction, which by the way, is more
Speaker 3: than two million dollars in today's money.
Speaker 1: Wow, God, that is so pricey, all right, So what
Speaker 1: exactly did you get for that kind of cash?
Speaker 3: Well, the main part of the ride was a thirty
Speaker 3: passenger airship that was suspended from the ceiling by steel cables,
Speaker 3: and you can find pictures of it online. It basically
Speaker 3: looks like a huge canoe with these wide ore like wings,
Speaker 3: and the wings were controlled by this pulley system that
Speaker 3: let the ship rock back and forth. And they're also
Speaker 3: these like small fans that provide the sensation of wind
Speaker 3: rushing by. Like, it was great the feeling of soaring
Speaker 3: in this flying machine. And it's all enhanced by sound
Speaker 3: effects and hundreds of tiny lights, and there's like a
Speaker 3: painted canvas backdrop. It's amazing, especially for the time, and
Speaker 3: and it wasn't just that. Like the people rise beyond
Speaker 3: the Earth's atmosphere all the way to the moon, and
Speaker 3: then when the ship reaches its destination, passengers disembark and
Speaker 3: entered this lunar cavern and it's made of plaster, where,
Speaker 3: of course they meet a race of moon people called
Speaker 3: the Selenite.
Speaker 1: Right of course. So it was pretty much the world's
Speaker 1: first flight simulator, right and it had, of course this
Speaker 1: added dose of sci fi whimsy. I kind of wish
Speaker 1: I could go back and ride this kind of thing
Speaker 1: and see how people would have responded to it initially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and more than that, he was a visionary, so
Speaker 3: he included a gift shop where visitors could eat green
Speaker 3: moon cheese.
Speaker 1: Of course. All right, so Frederick Thompson certainly played a
Speaker 1: part in the evolution of amusement parks and that transition
Speaker 1: into two theme parks. And you know, but while we're
Speaker 1: on the subject of credit, we do have to get
Speaker 1: this one out of the way. It would definitely be
Speaker 1: impossible to talk about theme parks without referencing their patron saint,
Speaker 1: and that's Walter Elias Disney, or Uncle Walt, as he's
Speaker 1: known to those who've drunk the kool aid.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: But no matter what you think of Disney Parks or
Speaker 1: the behemoth parent company that they belonged to, there's really
Speaker 1: no denying that the man behind the mouse revolutionized the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry and of course paved the way for modern
Speaker 1: theme parks as we know them.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Disney was responsible for so many technical innovations that
Speaker 3: became staples of the industry. I mean the biggest is
Speaker 3: the audio animatronics, those lifelike robot characters that you see
Speaker 3: at par So the Caribbean and the Enchanted Tiki Room.
Speaker 3: But you know, if we really want to give proper credit,
Speaker 3: we should also mention the creator of the world's first
Speaker 3: theme park, which you know, a contrary to popular belief,
Speaker 3: was not Walt Disney.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was reading about that too, So this honor
Speaker 1: actually belongs to a guy named Lewis Coke. He was
Speaker 1: this industrialist and he had made it his retirement project
Speaker 1: to create the first ever theme park. Now, you lived
Speaker 1: near a tiny town called Santa Claus, Indiana. I know
Speaker 1: we've talked about Santa Claus, Indiana before, but as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, children from all of the world would visit
Speaker 1: the town in hopes of meeting Santa. Of course, they
Speaker 1: then only leave disappointed when they discovered old Saint Nick
Speaker 1: did not, in fact, spend his off season in the
Speaker 1: rural Midwest for some reason.
Speaker 3: He doesn't vacation in the Midwest. No, I don't think so,
Speaker 3: which is you know that's funny, Like I had heard
Speaker 3: of Santa claus Land, and I had heard of Santa
Speaker 3: claus Indiana, but I never knew the two were connected.
Speaker 3: But I'm curious, Like, I don't understand why parents would
Speaker 3: make that trek. It seems crazy.
Speaker 1: Well either way, Lewis Coke was the father of nine,
Speaker 1: so the thought of all those appointed kids coming to
Speaker 1: town it really got to him. He'd always wanted to
Speaker 1: build an amusement park, and so in nineteen forty six,
Speaker 1: this was nine years before Disneyland would open to the public,
Speaker 1: Coke introduce the world to Santa claus Land.
Speaker 3: I love that the first theme park has like the
Speaker 3: narrowest theme imaginable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say it was pretty on the nose as
Speaker 1: a theme, but still groundbreaking as a concept. I mean,
Speaker 1: there had been tons of amusement parks before, but nothing
Speaker 1: quite like Santa claus.
Speaker 3: Land, which also seems a little crazy because the concept
Speaker 3: of like public amusement like that goes back all the
Speaker 3: way to the Renaissance. That's when a pleasure gardens started
Speaker 3: popping up on the grounds of English inns and taverns.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, somehow an amusement park with a
Speaker 1: dedicated theme had it really had never been done before,
Speaker 1: and thankfully the idea proved a huge hit with the public,
Speaker 1: and the Koch family was able to expand the park's
Speaker 1: theme in the nineteen eighties, and this allowed them to
Speaker 1: include areas themed around other holidays, so not just Christmas,
Speaker 1: but Thanksgiving, Halloween, fourth of July. It's it's like such
Speaker 1: a strange place, to be honest with you. But seventy
Speaker 1: one years later the park is still open for business
Speaker 1: than now it goes by the more inclusive name Holiday World.
Speaker 3: I like that Holiday World. It's so much smarter than
Speaker 3: like just hanging out with Santa, which you can do
Speaker 3: at any local mall. By the way, speaking of holidays,
Speaker 3: do you know that John Dee Rockefeller used to celebrate
Speaker 3: a personal holiday every year called job Day. It was
Speaker 3: the anniversary of the day he got his first job
Speaker 3: at sixteen, and he considered it way more important than
Speaker 3: any other day in his calendar.
Speaker 1: Aw Well, I don't think I've seen any job Day
Speaker 1: land theme parks, but I agree with you, it's better
Speaker 1: to have a broad and more universal concept. And you know,
Speaker 1: in thinking about all of this, I'm really curious about
Speaker 1: the decision making that goes into planning a theme park, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you settle on a theme or
Speaker 1: decide what kind of attraction to use for any of
Speaker 1: these given concepts.
Speaker 3: Well, how about we got David Younger on the line
Speaker 3: and see if you can walk us through that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Mangos. So a few weeks ago we did an
Speaker 1: episode on World Records, and I'm not sure if Guinness
Speaker 1: keeps up with a world record on the person who
Speaker 1: has interviewed the most theme park designers in the world,
Speaker 1: but if they did, I'm pretty sure we may be
Speaker 1: talking to the person who would take that crown. He's
Speaker 1: the author of really the the Ultimate Guide on designing
Speaker 1: theme Parks. He spoke to thousands of designers, engineers, creatives
Speaker 1: and others during the project, and the book is called
Speaker 1: Theme Park Design and the Art of Themed Entertainment. So,
Speaker 1: David Younger, welcome to part time Genius.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 3: So, David, I've read this was a massive project and
Speaker 3: it took four years to complete. How did theme park
Speaker 3: design become a passion of yours.
Speaker 5: Well, really, for me, it's been something that I've been
Speaker 5: interested in ever since I was a kid. It's like
Speaker 5: I was the kid that was playing roller coaster Tycoon
Speaker 5: non stop, designing all the different things. And so I
Speaker 5: knew I wanted to go.
Speaker 4: Into tempik design.
Speaker 5: The only trouble was that there are design courses, or
Speaker 5: they weren't at the time. And so I went into film, said,
Speaker 5: and I realized that you can get hundreds of books
Speaker 5: on stream writing and directing and editing for film, but
Speaker 5: nothing existed for themepuchs. So I kind of realized if
Speaker 5: I wanted to learn this myself, and I wanted to
Speaker 5: buy this book even though it didn't exist, I thought
Speaker 5: I'd have to write it myself.
Speaker 1: Well that's terrific. Now, in the book, you talk about
Speaker 1: three types of theme park guests and describe them as
Speaker 1: world travelers, character huggers, and thrill seekers. And I was
Speaker 1: curious to talk first about that that first group. These
Speaker 1: world travelers. Now, these are the ones that you describe
Speaker 1: as liking to be transported to another world that feels
Speaker 1: so convincing that you almost believe you're really there. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious for you, you know what parks stand out
Speaker 1: as the best in the world at doing exactly that.
Speaker 5: Well, if you look at the different themepaxs around the world,
Speaker 5: there are actually a number of different styles of design
Speaker 5: that the theme park's use. And the best way of
Speaker 5: thinking about this is to compare Epicot, for example, to
Speaker 5: The Magic Kingdom, where at the Magic Kingdom you're asked
Speaker 5: to kind of buy into this idea that you really
Speaker 5: are in the American West, or you really are in
Speaker 5: a fairytale village. Whereas you compare that to Epcot, where
Speaker 5: you'll go on something alike the Universe of Energy, which
Speaker 5: is where you're not really in any time or place,
Speaker 5: you're just being kind of tort about a tort about energy.
Speaker 4: And these parks like the Magic.
Speaker 5: Kingdom that tried to convince you that you're really in
Speaker 5: another entire another time and place. It's called new traditional
Speaker 5: style parks, and really the best at that is definitely
Speaker 5: going to be Disney. I mean, theyu of the people
Speaker 5: that invented it back in the nineteen fifties and they're
Speaker 5: still doing it absolutely brilliantly today. But as well as that,
Speaker 5: Universal Studios it was kind of going for a post
Speaker 5: modern type park in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties.
Speaker 5: Whatever Harry Potter open, They're going for this place you
Speaker 5: in the world.
Speaker 4: Convince you you're really their approach.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear you know where you see this
Speaker 1: this industry going. Obviously, there's been incredible evolution over the
Speaker 1: past couple of decades. What do you see changing or
Speaker 1: what do you see emerging the world of theme parks
Speaker 1: and theme park design in the next couple of decades.
Speaker 5: Well, the main thing is how much theme parks are
Speaker 5: willing to commit to fully immersing you within, particularly intellectual
Speaker 5: properties like Star Wars and Avatar and Harry Potter. So,
Speaker 5: for example, whereas twenty years ago Disney might get the
Speaker 5: licensed to build a Star Wars to put Star Wars
Speaker 5: into their theme parks, and they'll build one ride, now
Speaker 5: twenty years later they'll build an entire land and put
Speaker 5: four attractions or Star Wars themes into it, as well
Speaker 5: as Star Wars theam's restaurants and Star Wars themes, hotels
Speaker 5: and Star Wars them shops. It's also becoming more personal,
Speaker 5: particularly with video games kind of threatening its working to
Speaker 5: step into a world. Theme parks have been trying to
Speaker 5: find ways of immersing yourself more and more, and one
Speaker 5: of the best ways of doing that is using new
Speaker 5: technology like the ones at the Wisdom World of Harry Popper,
Speaker 5: where you actually get to casture and spell within the environment,
Speaker 5: and that's something that hasn't been done before.
Speaker 3: So we did an episode on Ikea a few weeks
Speaker 3: ago and talked about the thought that goes into the
Speaker 3: flow of the store, and I was curious if you
Speaker 3: could talk a little bit about how that works for
Speaker 3: theme parks.
Speaker 5: So with theme parks before seam parks were invented, thereway
Speaker 5: its kind of their state fairs and amusement parks like
Speaker 5: Coney Island. Their typical layout was just a grid layout,
Speaker 5: so you have intersection with the rides in the middle,
Speaker 5: and it was a really an interesting layout to walk around.
Speaker 5: It wasn't the most efficient way of laying things out,
Speaker 5: and so when kissy Land was designed in nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 5: they decided, well Disney decided to try something different and
Speaker 5: that's what invented the hubbn spoke layout. So in a
Speaker 5: Hubban spoke layout, you have a plaza at the middle
Speaker 5: with the castle, and then you have radial walkways spanning
Speaker 5: out into the different themed lands, and by doing that
Speaker 5: you kind of contain the steamed lands into their particular areas,
Speaker 5: so you can create immersion and everything like that. And
Speaker 5: also it's a much easier way of finding your way
Speaker 5: arount around the park. But then within that you also
Speaker 5: have you've got to get the guests to move around
Speaker 5: within the park, so you have the engines of movement
Speaker 5: that Sea Park design is used. And there are two
Speaker 5: main ones. Okay, the first one is the weeni, which
Speaker 5: is an odd term, but basically, a weeni is a
Speaker 5: visual magnate. It's something that you see in the distance
Speaker 5: and you go, wow, that looks interesting. I want to
Speaker 5: know more about that, and so you walk towards it.
Speaker 5: And the best example of that is obviously the Castle
Speaker 5: on Main Street UFA. You go through the gates of Disneyland,
Speaker 5: you see the castle and you immediately want to walk
Speaker 5: up to end and see what's see what's down there.
Speaker 5: And similarly at disneland Paris. Disland Paris is the first
Speaker 5: part where not only did they use a weenie at
Speaker 5: the end of Main Street USA, but they put weenieds
Speaker 5: into every single lap.
Speaker 4: So when you're in the.
Speaker 5: Hub you could look towards Discovery Land and see Space Mountain,
Speaker 5: you can look towards Frontier Land and see Big Thunder Mountain,
Speaker 5: and every which every way you look, you have this
Speaker 5: visual icon pulling you towards it. But then the second term,
Speaker 5: which is the one that's used in shopping walls, is
Speaker 5: the anchor. So in shopping malls, you'll kind of typically
Speaker 5: find that the biggest store of the pace at the
Speaker 5: extremities of the mall, and then all of the smaller
Speaker 5: shops and the boutique shops and the independent shops placed
Speaker 5: in between at the anchor stores. So the guests, we'll
Speaker 5: go to an anchor store, then they'll go to the
Speaker 5: next anchor store, and on the way they'll see these
Speaker 5: other shops along the way and go, oh, I'll have
Speaker 5: a look in here.
Speaker 1: David, this has been fascinating. I don't know about Mangash,
Speaker 1: but I can't wait to get to another theme park.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure we'll have this on our minds when
Speaker 1: we are walking around the next theme park that we're in.
Speaker 1: But thanks so much for joining us on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 5: You're very welcome.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, and today we're talking
Speaker 1: about the big ideas behind theme parks, all right, So mego,
Speaker 1: what would you say if I told you that Disneyland
Speaker 1: was actually more real than the world outside its gates.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'd probably say, you've gotten into that Uncle
Speaker 3: walk kool aid you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's a pretty wild claim, but it's
Speaker 1: one that kept coming up and doing the research for
Speaker 1: this episode. So I started wondering if there was something
Speaker 1: to the idea of theme parks being you know, this
Speaker 1: heightened form of reality. And from what I can tell,
Speaker 1: the first person to suggest this might have actually been
Speaker 1: Walt Disney himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm guessing Walt Disney was not biased at all.
Speaker 1: No, not at all, no way, no way was he biased. Well,
Speaker 1: but there is an interesting story here. The story goes
Speaker 1: that in the early days of the park, Walt once
Speaker 1: gave a private tour to the famous evangelist Billy Graham,
Speaker 1: and Graham walked around, thought it was nice, and he
Speaker 1: made some sort of comment that Disneyland was simply, you know,
Speaker 1: a nice fantasy, which which seems harmless enough, right. Well,
Speaker 1: Walt reportedly took this as this subtle dig against his
Speaker 1: park and the implication being that it was somehow false
Speaker 1: and therefore maybe a waste of time.
Speaker 3: So Walt's clearly offended. Did he kick him out of
Speaker 3: the park.
Speaker 1: Well, not exactly, but he did fire back with this
Speaker 1: passionate and honestly pretty shocking claim. So he told Graham
Speaker 1: here's the quote. He said, you know, fantasy isn't here.
Speaker 1: This is very real. The park is reality. The people
Speaker 1: aren't natural here. They're having a good time, they're communicating.
Speaker 1: This is what people really are. The fantasy is it's
Speaker 1: out there outside the gates of Disneyland, where people have
Speaker 1: hatreds and people have prejudices. It's not really real.
Speaker 3: Disney sounds so it's crazy. But you said, other people
Speaker 3: made similar claims to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know one of the most prominent to
Speaker 1: do so was the Italian novelists and essayistamberto Echo. It
Speaker 1: was the mid nineteen seventies and Echo went on what
Speaker 1: he described as a pilgrimage in search of hyper reality,
Speaker 1: or the world of the absolute fake is. This basically
Speaker 1: means he tooled around the US for a year. He
Speaker 1: was touring and critiquing these popular tourist spots that housed
Speaker 1: artistic reproductions or historical recreations and all these other examples
Speaker 1: of faux reality, so you know, even things like wax
Speaker 1: museums and the Western themed towns. But of course he
Speaker 1: also visited America's top two fake cities being Disneyland and
Speaker 1: California and Disney World in Florida.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like Echo is sort of skeptical of
Speaker 3: America's fascination with fantasy. How do you wind up concluding
Speaker 3: our theme parks are more real than the real world.
Speaker 1: Well, it goes back to this idea of hyperreality. You
Speaker 1: know that the idea that simulation provides the ultimate expression
Speaker 1: of the thing it represents. And it's a little heavy here,
Speaker 1: but just just to explain it, So think about the
Speaker 1: Jungle Cruise ride and the Adventureland section of the park.
Speaker 1: That's the one where you take a boat ride down
Speaker 1: this you know, several South American rivers, and the skipper
Speaker 1: there at the helm makes you know all these bad
Speaker 1: animal puns. And Echo writes about the ride and says,
Speaker 1: when there's a fake a hippopotamus, dinosaur, a sea serpent,
Speaker 1: it's not so much because it wouldn't be possible to
Speaker 1: have the real equivalent but because the public is meant
Speaker 1: to admire the perfection of the fake and its obedience
Speaker 1: to the program. In this sense, Disneyland not only produces illusion,
Speaker 1: but in confessing, it stimulates the desire for it. A
Speaker 1: real crocodile could be found in a zoo, and as
Speaker 1: a rule, it's dozing or hiding. But Disneyland tells us
Speaker 1: that fake nature corresponds much more to our daydream demands.
Speaker 1: He goes on to say, you risk feeling homesick for Disneyland,
Speaker 1: where the wild animals don't have to be coaxed. Disneyland
Speaker 1: tells us that technology can give us more reality than
Speaker 1: nature can.
Speaker 3: That's some deep stuff, and it actually reminds me of
Speaker 3: something I read about how really well manicured gardens were
Speaker 3: once destination spots for tourists, like long before mechanical attraction's
Speaker 3: caught on. In a weird way, they almost seem like
Speaker 3: precursors to theme parks, at least given that idea of
Speaker 3: hyperreality you're talking about, Well.
Speaker 1: How do you figure that, Well, garden's like a little microcosm.
Speaker 3: It's this idealized take on nature. And so if you
Speaker 3: think of a Japanese garden where you have rocks and water, plants, ornaments,
Speaker 3: miniature pagoda too. Like we arrange these elements as we
Speaker 3: please to create our own little oasis, a small piece
Speaker 3: of land that's meant to represent the best parts of
Speaker 3: the world outside it.
Speaker 1: All right, I get that. And just like a theme park,
Speaker 1: this elaborate gardens strives to mimic something about the real world,
Speaker 1: and of course by softening the edges and being really
Speaker 1: selective about what's included, and the result winds up feeling
Speaker 1: like something unique all together. And it's not quite fake,
Speaker 1: but not altogether real either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hyperreal. But here's the thing. The kinds of gardens
Speaker 3: people cultivate are usually reflections on the cultures to which
Speaker 3: they belong. So, for example, French gardens tend to idealize
Speaker 3: the symmetry and orderly rose to reflect man's mastery of nature,
Speaker 3: while many English gardens.
Speaker 1: Do the opposite.
Speaker 3: So what exactly do our theme parks say about who
Speaker 3: we are as a people?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'd kind of like to think it
Speaker 1: says something about us being a culture of dreamers. You
Speaker 1: know that we draw on timeless stories to make sense
Speaker 1: of the world and maybe even add meaning to our lives.
Speaker 1: And you know, although I'm sure there's a cynical answer
Speaker 1: about consumerism that others would offer as.
Speaker 3: Well, like the idealized version of a land full of
Speaker 3: Santa Clauses. Right right, maybe that, but let's take the
Speaker 3: high road on this one. After all, we'll be in
Speaker 3: good company if we do. Because you know, Ray Bradbury
Speaker 3: himself believed this.
Speaker 1: Oh right, yeah, I actually saw this as well. So
Speaker 1: Bradbury was one of Disney's most outspoken fans.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, definitely so. In fact, when a nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: five article in the Nation denounced Disneyland as vulgar entertainment
Speaker 3: on the same level as like Las Vegas, Bradbury basically
Speaker 3: published a piece in Holiday Magazine entitled The Machine Tooled
Speaker 3: Happy Land, and in it he sets the record straight
Speaker 3: on why intellectuals or anyone else for that matter, shouldn't
Speaker 3: be ashamed to visit the happiest place on Earth. And
Speaker 3: in particular, Bradbury praised Disney's breakthrough in audio animatronics, which
Speaker 3: he saw is the next best thing to creating life itself.
Speaker 1: Really wow, he went pretty far with this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you should hear this quote. So I'm
Speaker 3: going to read it to you. Only a few hundred
Speaker 3: years ago, all this would have been considered blasphemous. To
Speaker 3: create man is not Man's business, but God's Disney, and
Speaker 3: every technician with him would have been bundled and burned
Speaker 3: at the stake in sixteen hundred. That's true, right, But
Speaker 3: this is what he continues. But the fact remains that
Speaker 3: Disney is the first to make a robot that is
Speaker 3: convincingly real, that looks, speaks, and acts like a man.
Speaker 3: He has set the history of humanized robots on its
Speaker 3: way toward wider and more fantastic excursions.
Speaker 1: Wow. So you've got this science fiction writer who was
Speaker 1: seeing things he'd only dreamed of in his stories taking
Speaker 1: shape in real.
Speaker 3: Life, right, and he's just awed by the possibilities. He
Speaker 3: even goes on to describe this future in which these
Speaker 3: robots sort of affirm the truth of history and make
Speaker 3: it real to people in a way that simply reading
Speaker 3: about it always falls short. It's a really poetic notion
Speaker 3: about these future robot museums, where I'm going to quote again,
Speaker 3: we may begin to believe in every one of man's
Speaker 3: many million days upon this earth. For these students, it
Speaker 3: will not be history was, but history is.
Speaker 1: Oh well, that's definitely an interesting idea, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like Bradbury also recognized the hyper reality of these
Speaker 1: theme parks, but rather than viewing that as a negative,
Speaker 1: you know, he saw it as a way to reinforce truth,
Speaker 1: history and the world itself. I guess yeah, you can.
Speaker 3: Really tell why Bradbury saw a fellow futurist in Walt
Speaker 3: Disney like. They were both unceasingly optimistic about what mankind
Speaker 3: could achieve. And I don't want to lean too heavily
Speaker 3: on his essay, but there's one more section that really
Speaker 3: captures what a theme park can be at its best,
Speaker 3: So I'll go ahead and read it here. Quote in Disneyland,
Speaker 3: Walt has proven again that the first function of architecture
Speaker 3: is to make men over, make them wish to go
Speaker 3: on living, feed them fresh oxygen, grow them tall, delight
Speaker 3: their eyes, make them kind. Disneyland liberates men to be
Speaker 3: their better selves. And he continues here, you will see
Speaker 3: the happy faces of people. I don't mean dumb cluck happy.
Speaker 3: I don't mean men's club happy or sewing circle happy.
Speaker 3: I mean truly happy. And then I've got to keep
Speaker 3: going because it's so good. No beat Nicks here, No
Speaker 3: cool people with cool faces pretending not to care, thus
Speaker 3: swindling themselves out of life or any chance of her life.
Speaker 3: Disneyland causes you to care all over again. You feel
Speaker 3: it's the first you feel. It's the first day in
Speaker 3: the spring of that special year when you've discovered you
Speaker 3: were really alive.
Speaker 1: No cool people with cool faces in Disney World. That's
Speaker 1: pretty great. I'd say that's pretty much the definition of
Speaker 1: a ring endorsement. I honestly, I'm not even sure how
Speaker 1: to respond to that.
Speaker 3: Well, the ideal of response would probably be to make
Speaker 3: a beeline for Disneyland. But since we're in the middle
Speaker 3: of an episode, how about we just break forth quiz.
Speaker 1: Our next guest is a super fan of theme parks
Speaker 1: and has turned his reporting and trip planning into a
Speaker 1: really successful career as the founder and editor of Theme
Speaker 1: Park Insider. Robert Niles. Welcome to part time Genius.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Great. Well, So, Robert, I was curious, was there a
Speaker 1: theme park experience or just some specific theme park that
Speaker 1: really sparked this passion of yours?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm a Los Angeles Natives. So my kids hauled
Speaker 4: me down to Anaheim to visit Disneyland a lot when
Speaker 4: I was a kid. But really maybe the thing that
Speaker 4: turned me onto this was when we visited Universal Studios Hollywood,
Speaker 4: back when it was just the Universal Studio Tour and
Speaker 4: I was about six years old or something, but I
Speaker 4: got picked to be one of those audience volunteers, and
Speaker 4: so I was the freckle faced little kid and the
Speaker 4: fake races Rice Aroni commercial that they taped on the
Speaker 4: back lot back then. I'm just like, wow, this is
Speaker 4: kind of cool I could be part of the show.
Speaker 4: So that always kind of stuck with me. And then
Speaker 4: when I was in college, I started working at Walt
Speaker 4: disney World during the summers, and that just really cemented it.
Speaker 4: So I've been a just a huge theme park fan
Speaker 4: ever since.
Speaker 3: Do you have a favorite weird theme park or just
Speaker 3: a favorite theme park overall?
Speaker 4: Oh? Wow, I mean I think my favorite theme park
Speaker 4: would be Tokyo Disney ce and Japan, just an absolutely
Speaker 4: lovely parking shows you what you can do with a
Speaker 4: budget of several billion dollars. But in terms of like
Speaker 4: little fun, quirky parks, I'm a real fan of Holiday World,
Speaker 4: which is located in the tiny town of Santa Claus
Speaker 4: in the It's just this wonderful place park, really out
Speaker 4: in the middle of a cornfield someplace, but it's got
Speaker 4: some really great World Clash roller coasters there, and you've
Speaker 4: got a really fun crew of sands that show up
Speaker 4: at this place. It's not like this is just a
Speaker 4: park out in the suburbs and everybody lives there comes in.
Speaker 4: If you're going to Santa Claus, Indiana, you're a dedicated
Speaker 4: team park fan, it's just nice to be around a
Speaker 4: bunch of other theme park geeks like me whenever I visit.
Speaker 3: That's so nice to hear because we'd actually read about
Speaker 3: it and talked about it a little on the show,
Speaker 3: but to hear that it's like a real park for
Speaker 3: enthusias is pretty great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's great. Well, what about some favorite attractions,
Speaker 1: just favorite oddball attractions you've seen, you know, at different parks.
Speaker 4: Actually, I'll talk about one that I haven't seen yet,
Speaker 4: but one of our writers just just went on it's
Speaker 4: at this park in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado. It's Glenwood Canyon
Speaker 4: Adventure Park, and they've built a rock ride except that
Speaker 4: when you typically think of drop rides, it's a big
Speaker 4: tower where you go up a couple hundred feet in
Speaker 4: the air and then you drop back to the ground.
Speaker 4: This is seemed to be a mind drop ride, and
Speaker 4: it's actually in a mine, so you enter on the
Speaker 4: ground and then you drop down one hundred into a hole,
Speaker 4: which just sounds like that could be a huge phobia
Speaker 4: trigger for a while, which of course makes it that
Speaker 4: much more fun for everybody else. But that's a that's
Speaker 4: a quirky little park that it doesn't mean it's not
Speaker 4: like a Disney park or anything. You did tiny attendance,
Speaker 4: but they've got stuff like a roller coaster that's perched
Speaker 4: on the edge of a thousand foot cliffs and all
Speaker 4: of these things that are a little bit extreme for
Speaker 4: a theme park attraction. So that's that's moved up high
Speaker 4: on my to view bucket list of places to go visit.
Speaker 1: Are there any pet.
Speaker 3: Teams you'd love to see developed into a park?
Speaker 4: Oh wow, yeah, I mean the first thing everybody always
Speaker 4: says is that, you know, everybody wants Lord of the
Speaker 4: Rings of the park because it's you know, just huge ip.
Speaker 4: But you know, a lot of parks have developed these
Speaker 4: kind of video game based shooter rides now like you
Speaker 4: see it. It does wide here at Disney, and Men in
Speaker 4: Black at Universal and Justice League at six Flags. So
Speaker 4: there's a desire to do something that's interactive. So I
Speaker 4: think one thing I'd really like to see is some
Speaker 4: type of thing where it's it's almost like you're in
Speaker 4: the game of Clue or something. You have to solve
Speaker 4: some sort of mystery in order to advance into the attractions.
Speaker 4: A lot of that sort of gameplay could be a
Speaker 4: lot of fun in the Team Park attraction.
Speaker 1: Definitely. Yeah, that's pretty great. Well, we appreciate your telling
Speaker 1: us all about these parks, but we can't let you
Speaker 1: go without putting you to the test. So what game
Speaker 1: are we playing with Robert today, Mango.
Speaker 3: We're playing a little game called roller Coaster or Discontinued Superhero?
Speaker 1: All right, that's right, So this is simple work. We're
Speaker 1: going to give you a name and you tell us
Speaker 1: whether it's a roller coaster or a discontinued superhero. Are
Speaker 1: you ready?
Speaker 4: Why not? Both?
Speaker 1: Maybe should be here we go Number one, Bouncing Boy.
Speaker 4: I'm going to guess that's a discontinued superhero.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really dumb discontinued superhero Bouncing boys. Big
Speaker 3: skill was that he turned into a bouncing ball.
Speaker 1: I don't know I would have wanted to do that
Speaker 1: as a kid. All right. Number two he's one for one.
Speaker 1: Number two Steel Vengeance.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's definitely a roller coast, actually going to be
Speaker 4: a roller coaster.
Speaker 1: Wow, well done if bonus points if you happen to
Speaker 1: know where this is.
Speaker 4: Going to be, that's a Keeter points fantaska ohio hicily done.
Speaker 1: He is an expert here. Okay, he's three for two.
Speaker 1: Number three, Yank and Doodle.
Speaker 4: That's just awful. No matter what he is, I'm going
Speaker 4: to get a superhero.
Speaker 3: Yeah. According to ranker dot COM's description, when they're together,
Speaker 3: they have superhero strength. When they're apart, they're just dude.
Speaker 1: All right, all right. Number four King the.
Speaker 4: K Oh Definitely roller coaster.
Speaker 1: All right, bonus points for where it is.
Speaker 4: That would be at six Flags. Great adventure in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Nicely done. Number five The Red Bee.
Speaker 4: The red Bee. That could go either way, but I'm
Speaker 4: gonna say just continued superhero again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right. The Red Bee's power was that he
Speaker 3: was powerless, but he had a trained bee that he
Speaker 3: attacks people with, and that trained bee's name was Michael.
Speaker 1: Actually, you know what, there was one here for an
Speaker 1: even an additional bonus point. I thought this one was interesting.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go thunder Dolphin.
Speaker 4: Ooh, that's another one that could go either way. Could
Speaker 4: be a roller coaster to SeaWorld Parks. Not familiar with
Speaker 4: which one, but let's just say roller coaster.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this is a Tokyo Dome city and this
Speaker 3: agile coaster dodges buildings and threads the needle through a
Speaker 3: giant Ferris wheel.
Speaker 1: All right, nicely done. So how's Robert done today? Mango?
Speaker 3: He's got incredible seven for six, which has happened on
Speaker 3: a show before.
Speaker 1: Ah, it's a record.
Speaker 3: So what is Robert w Yeah, he earns a note
Speaker 3: to his mom or boss, singing his praises. So congratulations Robert.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if you guys are thinking about attending
Speaker 1: a theme park, you should check out Theme Park Insider. Robert,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us on part time genius.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we had a pretty heavy discussion earlier about
Speaker 1: hyper reality and theme parks, and you know, even Disneyland's
Speaker 1: role as this, you might say, a technological steward of history.
Speaker 1: But what do you say we keep things a little
Speaker 1: bit lighter in this last segment, Mango.
Speaker 3: I'm all for it. I was actually thinking we could
Speaker 3: just go back and forth with some of the lesser
Speaker 3: known theme parks we came across during our research. I
Speaker 3: don't know about you, but the ones that really grabbed
Speaker 3: my attention were these random, like oddball parks with with
Speaker 3: all these themes that are definitely not Disney.
Speaker 1: All right, sure, I'm up for that. So so what
Speaker 1: are you thinking of? First?
Speaker 3: Well, some of the weirdest theme parks I came across
Speaker 3: where were these kid Zania Family Entertainment centers. They're basically
Speaker 3: indoor kid sized replica cities, complete with miniature vehicles and
Speaker 3: buildings like hospital shops, banks, restaurants, and even a tiny airport.
Speaker 3: And the idea is that kids can gain valuable life
Speaker 3: experience by taking part in twenty five minute career based
Speaker 3: role playing. Says, oh god, yeah, it gets worse. So
Speaker 3: kids get a chance to try their hand at lofty
Speaker 3: job assignments such as performing surgery or pollerting an aircraft,
Speaker 3: as well as more menial tasks like that you find
Speaker 3: them like changing a tire or working in a Coca
Speaker 3: Cola bottling plant.
Speaker 1: It's like the worst theme park ever, mangt is what
Speaker 1: exactly is the theme? Is it adulthood or just monotony
Speaker 1: or what?
Speaker 3: Well, you haven't even heard the best part yet. So
Speaker 3: kids learn the value of their labor by earning kid zos,
Speaker 3: the official currency of kid Zania, and they can accrue
Speaker 3: interest when deposited in the kid Zanian bank.
Speaker 1: Gosh, oh wow, all right, well that's pretty bleak, but
Speaker 1: I actually still think I can top that. So last fall,
Speaker 1: the UK was home to a theme park based entirely
Speaker 1: on the literary works of Charles Dickens. It was called
Speaker 1: Dickens World, and the park offered this interactive tour through
Speaker 1: the drab buildings and grimy cobblestone streets of Old Victoria
Speaker 1: in London. They even boasted about this Greater Expectations themed
Speaker 1: water run and sadly the whole thing went belly up
Speaker 1: though this was last October because the company behind the
Speaker 1: park declared itself insolvent.
Speaker 3: And Tyler talking about the worst of times.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that should have been my my joke.
Speaker 3: Still, if we're going for bleak, you'll want to check
Speaker 3: out survival drama in Lithuania, and while not a park
Speaker 3: per se, it's the world's premier themed attraction for those
Speaker 3: looking to experience what life was like for a citizen
Speaker 3: of the USSR during the nineteen eighties. So the whole
Speaker 3: ordeal starts when guests are ambushed by the Red Army
Speaker 3: in the middle of a forest, and then they're transported
Speaker 3: to a former Soviet bunk her in the Eastern European countryside.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, and it.
Speaker 3: Only gets worse like from there. It's a brisk three
Speaker 3: hours of underground tunnels, barking dogs, verbal abuse, humiliation, coercion,
Speaker 3: and even propaganda screenings friendly and it's all followed by
Speaker 3: a celebratory tin of beef and a shot of vodka
Speaker 3: to wash the taste of totalitarian regime from your mouth.
Speaker 1: Oh for the kids, right, it's horrible. I honestly don't
Speaker 1: know what's worse that something like this is legal or
Speaker 1: that people actually pay to be a part of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, it sounds like the worst vacation ever,
Speaker 3: but according to the theater producer behind the attraction, that's
Speaker 3: kind of the point. Like in an interview with the
Speaker 3: Daily Mail. She said, quote, it's not for everyone, but
Speaker 3: these days children must learn that it's not a laughing matter.
Speaker 3: Men understand what it was like. They should realize how
Speaker 3: much progress there's been over the past seventeen years.
Speaker 1: I like how they have vacation time to learn these lessons.
Speaker 1: But I guess in a way that's kind of admirable.
Speaker 1: But we're supposed to be keeping things light in this
Speaker 1: last section. So did you you know, did you come
Speaker 1: across any lesser known things, parks that aren't completely mortifying?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So one of the coolest parks I found is called
Speaker 3: Eftling World of Wonders. It's this amazing one hundred eighty
Speaker 3: acre theme park in Amsterdam, and it's consistently ranked one
Speaker 3: of the best in all of Europe. And in fact,
Speaker 3: Eftaling is unbelievably popular. It's one of the few non Disney,
Speaker 3: non universal parks to crack the top twenty five highest
Speaker 3: attended theme parks in the world.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's pretty impressive. So what's the theme for
Speaker 1: the park?
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the cool thing. Though the whole park
Speaker 3: is based on classic fairy tales and folklore. So elves, gnomes,
Speaker 3: Fairies and the like, And even though there's some thematic
Speaker 3: crossover between this one and the Disney parks, there's a
Speaker 3: much tighter focus on tradition and storytelling at Eftaling.
Speaker 1: So it's, I don't know, kind of a less commercialized
Speaker 1: theme park.
Speaker 3: Maybe, yeah, kind of. I mean there are shops, to
Speaker 3: be sure, but they aren't as central a focus as
Speaker 3: they would be in any American theme park, which is
Speaker 3: all the more impressive when you consider the cutting edge
Speaker 3: ride technology and the lavishly detailed theming found throughout the park.
Speaker 3: Get the feeling the designers didn't have to make a
Speaker 3: whole lot of compromises in order to save a few
Speaker 3: pennies or squeeze in another store front, and the results
Speaker 3: of this really classy theme park.
Speaker 1: You know, before the episode, I probably would have considered
Speaker 1: a classy theme park to be an oxymoron, But you know,
Speaker 1: looking into all the philosophy at the root of these experiences,
Speaker 1: I guess I feel kind of differently now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all fun and games until someone has an
Speaker 3: existential crisis on Space.
Speaker 1: Mountain, right right. I'll try to hold yourself together, Mango,
Speaker 1: at least long enough for this episode's fact.
Speaker 2: Off Okay, so why don't you pick this on off?
Speaker 1: All right, I can do that. So did you know
Speaker 1: that Freud and Jung visited Dreamland and Coney Island together?
Speaker 1: It's actually true, and when they did, supposedly, Freud told
Speaker 1: Jung that Coney Island was the only part of America
Speaker 1: that interesting.
Speaker 3: So this is about Walt Disney, and it is the
Speaker 3: fact I always think about whenever I hear his name.
Speaker 3: Visitors came to visit Walt Disney, he'd serve them tomato
Speaker 3: juice and he'd be furious if they refused to drink it.
Speaker 3: In fact, his secretary would even warn people that it
Speaker 3: was best to just accept it before they walked in.
Speaker 1: I had actually heard that fact before. But speaking of Disney,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parks, And I don't know why
Speaker 1: I included this fact because I have the hardest time
Speaker 1: saying this word. But it's the Beijing Chijing Shan amusement.
Speaker 3: It's not as fun to say as it.
Speaker 1: Is so hard to say. And mental Flaws dubbed this
Speaker 1: the copyright and fringiest place on Earth. And although park
Speaker 1: has been sued several times and often had to take
Speaker 1: down statues, it's happily filled with ripoff animated characters and
Speaker 1: landmarks that look so much like these Disney characters. And
Speaker 1: oddly enough, this is something they've embraced in their advertisement.
Speaker 1: You know what their old slogan was, It was Disney
Speaker 1: is too far to go, Please come to Shijing Shan.
Speaker 1: I think I said so.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite theme park thrills to read about
Speaker 3: was this park called krocos Us Cove in Darwin, Australia,
Speaker 3: and they have something that's way scarier than any roller coaster.
Speaker 3: It's called the Cage of Death. So you get in
Speaker 3: this little acrylic tank which they then submerge in water,
Speaker 3: and you end up right next to the sixteen foot crocodile. God,
Speaker 3: it sounds terrifying, but Krocosaur's Cove isn't a one trick pony,
Speaker 3: and it also has the largest display of Australian reptiles anywhere.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is crazy. All right, Well, while we're on
Speaker 1: the topic of our favorite weird theme parks, one of
Speaker 1: these days, I really want to go to a place
Speaker 1: called Bonbon Land, which is just an hour or so
Speaker 1: away from Copenhagen and Denmark. And so, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we like to credit Harry Potter with popularizing all those
Speaker 1: nasty flavored jelly beans, from ToeJam to stinky cheese and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. But this park is the
Speaker 1: home of a candy factory that's been making disgusting confections
Speaker 1: like earwax, seagull droppings, and dog farts since the eighties,
Speaker 1: and in the early nineties they decided to open a
Speaker 1: theme park there. And I know my son would die
Speaker 1: to go to this place because they have one ride
Speaker 1: that's called the dog Farting Roller Coaster. Do you get
Speaker 1: to travel through lots of poop and enjoy the accompanying soundtrack?
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, as we always say on the show, no
Speaker 3: matter how old you get, dog farts are always funny.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 3: I can't beat that. I'm gonna give you this week's trophy.
Speaker 1: Congrats. Well, thanks so much, and don't forget to write
Speaker 1: to us at part Time Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com
Speaker 1: or call us on the twenty four to seven fact
Speaker 1: hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius. You can
Speaker 1: share a fact or tell us why we should have
Speaker 1: you on to play a quiz sometime. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
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Speaker 3: Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
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Speaker 3: Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1: Jason who