Fantastic Rides and Where to Find (What's left of) them

[piranesi]

This is directly the result of the passing of Doris Roberts.  Don't ask why.  It just happened that way.

So what are your favorite rides?  Do they have a history?  A website? A WIki Page?
Did they survive the onslaught of the 2000s or have they been modified/moved/sold for scrap?

Not just coasters now.  Flumes and things that spin around and those ridiculous cars you pretend to drive. anything you loved.

My all time favorite:

The River King Mine Train
WIki for The best there ever was

It was a wooden roller coaster made in 1971.  It was not the biggest at Six Flags St Louis (that was the Screamin' Eagle).  It was not the fastest (that was the Jet Scream) but it was easily the most likely to kill you (and it killed possibly multiple people, although one may have been a murder...yeah...)

LOOK AT THAT SHAMBOLIC WRECK!
It was the ricketiest thing you ever set eyes on and it wrenched you back and forth because it felt like the wooden tracks didn't quite hook up right or were warped or something. It was painful and scary and not in the fun way and I loved it for being so bad at being a roller coaster.

LOOK AT THIS SHAMBOLIC WRECK!!!!

This is the fence that did not stop you from trying to get the hat that fell off even though a kid totally got decapitated doing that here or maybe somewhere else or maybe that never happened or maybe it happened once a year.

It constantly blared the Ecstasy of Gold out of some tinny little speakers.  By the mid 80s no one really wanted to ride it and one day near when it closed down my best friend and I rode it 46 straight times because the line was empty.

The straight-up murder that happened on it:

 

 

On July 7, 1984, after stand-up modifications, a woman fell out of the ride and died due to brain injury. Much speculation has surrounded the reason for her fall, for example, some believe that she was too heavy or even that she was pushed off the coaster. However, the Six Flags/Bally’s Corporation released a statement which explained that the woman had simply fainted which caused her to slip through the restraints and fall out of the ride. Soon after, all the modifications were removed.

 

CURRENT STATUS:

ALIVE BUT BIFURCATED

From the Wiki:

- Today, the ride operates with its original name.

- In 1988, it (the second track) was sold to Dollywood where it was renamed Thunder Express and later moved to Magic Springs and Crystal Falls as Big Bad John where it operates with modifications today.

Hot Springs, Arkansas, HERE I COME!!!!

 

[Technico Support]

This thread reminded me of all the trips to Hersheypark I took as a kid and this creepy fucking ride they had for a little while.  It was some weird thing with a crazy preacher and the perils of gold and how it would lead you into damnation, then devils and demons came out and attacked gold miners.  Just crazy shit for a theme park.  WTF Hersheypark?

I did some Googling and it turns out it was called Frontier Meeting House. Here's the description from this thread, likely started by someone as scarred for life as I was.

Quote

A "magic room" ride (like Dutch Wonderland's Dutch Wonder House) constructed in-house by park workers to save money. Cost approximately $650,000 to build and was supposed to open in 1986, but the opening was delayed to the following season. The ride was an illusion attraction where the outside walls of the room would rotate while benches in the center (where riders sat) remained stationary. Themed as a western meeting house of the late 19th century, complete with a piano player, stove sitter, and choir, accompanied by a speaker preaching the evils of gold mining. Eventually an underground mine was seen by riders, where gold miners were attacked by the "demons of greed." Constructed in the geodesic domed building that formerly housed the Cinemavision attraction and that would later house the Double R-cade and Playdome Arcade (which stands today). Removed due to low popularity (many riders believed it was the same thing as the Cinema Vision attraction was) and relocated to a park in China.

 

[Raziel]

You didn't live in Jersey in the 80's unless you survived this

 

It was a badge of honor to get through the Alpine Slide unscathed.  Or actually get to go on Cannonball Loop during one of the like, 5 times in history it was actually open.

 

Behold, the Cannonball Loop in it's glory!

 

And the Alpine Slide, with a really bad hand brake!

 

[Pete]

There's a reason we called it "Traction Park" backinaday. We went as kids and our folks were smart enough to keep us far, far away from the rides that would win them the "Worst Parents of the Year" award.

[piranesi]

Is anyone old enough to have gone to a theme park when one of the big traveling attractions were 180 degree movies called "The Chevy Show" shown in big domed theaters where you just sat and watched POV footage of race cars and roller coasters and stuff?

This was before Imax but I remember we always made apoint to go and everyone was amazed.  In retrospect we must have seemed like those people in the 1900s who were terrified a movie train was coming at them.

[Raziel]

7 minutes ago, Pete said:

There's a reason we called it "Traction Park" backinaday. We went as kids and our folks were smart enough to keep us far, far away from the rides that would win them the "Worst Parents of the Year" award.

Hey, it's reopening this year.  Better yet, they've replaced Cannonball Loop, with this:

 

 

[Technico Support]

1 hour ago, piranesi said:

Is anyone old enough to have gone to a theme park when one of the big traveling attractions were 180 degree movies called "The Chevy Show" shown in big domed theaters where you just sat and watched POV footage of race cars and roller coasters and stuff?

This was before Imax but I remember we always made apoint to go and everyone was amazed.  In retrospect we must have seemed like those people in the 1900s who were terrified a movie train was coming at them.

I don't specifically remember it as a traveling attraction with that name but I definitely remember that attraction.  The was a different name for it but it escapes me.  Oddly enough, there was one right near the "Frontier Meeting House" in my previous post -- it was  the "Cinemavision" building noted in the quote.  They eventually stopped using it an re-purposed the building as an arcade.

[MADCAP]

13 hours ago, Technico Support said:

This thread reminded me of all the trips to Hersheypark I took as a kid and this creepy fucking ride they had for a little while.  It was some weird thing with a crazy preacher and the perils of gold and how it would lead you into damnation, then devils and demons came out and attacked gold miners.  Just crazy shit for a theme park.  WTF Hersheypark?

I did some Googling and it turns out it was called Frontier Meeting House. Here's the description from this thread, likely started by someone as scarred for life as I was.

 

Wow...you just unlocked a memory in my head.  I totally remember that now.  One of the perks about going to the boarding school in Hershey was that we got season passes every year. I was in high school when they opened that and I remember now, that being a place to go just hang out and beat the heat if you didn't want to hang out in the arcade. Deep pull!!!

[Shane]

We didn't hit HersheyPark much growing up (too expensive even then), but I spent a whole lot of time at Knoebels Grove. Famous in our bubble because it's one of Mick Foley's favorite parks. 

I feel like I've ridden the Phoenix at least once every year since I was big enough to do so. My favorite wooden coaster that I've ever been on. 

[Robert C]

There used to be a fantastically creepy park north of Austin called Prairie Dell Lake, back in the early 80s.  All us kids called it the Matterhorn, after the one part of it you could actually see from the highway, which was this bigass replica of the Matterhorn that was its most noticeable feature.  It sat there rotting away, and getting even creepier looking long after they closed down.

There's barely anything on the web about the place, but I did find this little note:

The park was the brainstorm of a man who owned a restaurant in Temple where the entire interior was made out of a material similar to paper mache to resemble a cave. They served Mexican food and there were small gift shops located throughout the "cavern". A great draw for the kiddies was a man in a tamale costume who would hand out cheap toys. The restaurant failed when the fake walls and ceilings started to fall on customers, resulting in several lawsuits. 

Sadly, I couldn't find any real pictures of the place.  However, it was immortalized as the home of Leatherface and his family in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.  You can get a partial glimpse of it in the end scene: