Welcome to the fourth episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast :)
Finally an episode where I can try to relax, I get so nervous recording these podcast episodes, reading facts from books and Wikipedia, some of this podcast is straight from my own memories . I've left errors in the other podcasts, some of them stand out, so I'm trying to be calmer and do a better job making new episodes. I include my little script as the description and also lyrics, so you should be able to read along as I talk. I'm including sources I've used in the script down the bottom, so you can see the actual address for the video clips I've put in this audio podcast, if you want to see them for yourself, its easy enough to search for my clips, and I say who uploaded them so they get credit, but the whole address is down the bottom.
In this episode, I'll talk about Australasian theme parks I've been to, and maybe an infamous theme park for good measure, Luna Park in Sydney oooooh! Maybe in another episode I'll talk about Disney, if you'd like me to do that, email me at jaywontdart@gmail.com and ask.
The first real theme park I ever got brought to was Rainbows End, a themepark in Auckland New Zealand. I was about 7, I dont remember much of it that well. I do remember fairly standard things like the dogem cars and one of those motion rides, where you are in a movie theater with moving chairs that make you feel like you are in the movie.
Heres a clip from New Zealand TV, Pulp Sport, which is a stupid show about sport, two idiot hosts do some dumb little stunts like trying to sneak beer into cricket games and having their mascot, which is like some kind of a rat or something sneak into places without paying, because hes a mascot. In this clip it goes to Rainbows End, where it gets taken out by the big security guard. You can hear when thats happening from the music change, from the Rainbows End theme song from ads, to Limp Biskit.
BUT the biggest thing I remember, was being terrified of the roller-coaster! The Cork Screw roller coaster, it was called the Coca Cola Corkscrew I think, pepsi, coke, something like that. Anyway, I was barely big enough to ride it, I was tall for my age, but it still scared the crap out of me! I got up to the queue, before telling my dad I "had to go to the toilet", he said he would wait but I told him to go on without me. I stayed back and watched him go around it twice, it had a bit, the corkscrew from the rides name, where it spirals over the footpath near where I was, standing, this huge metal thing spinning around upside down and back just a couple metres above where people were walking!!!
In this episode I'll mention some of the accidents that have happened at the different theme parks, in a respectful way of course, I mean these are real people that I'll mention, with families, they arnt just statistics to be brought up. But a theme park is all about making people feel scared, like you're on an out of control ride, its worth mentioning the times when things really did go wrong.
Two people have died at Rainbows End; a young man cleaning a ferris wheel in the little kids area, Michael Ross Stuart, he was horribly crushed. Before that, Thomas Wayne Hemi, fell from a bungy jump, the staff working at the theme park hadnt put the bungy cord around him properly and he fell.
New Zealand doesnt have many theme parks sadly, just a few circus kind really. Rainbows End has the only real roller coaster in the whole country, as far as I know.
I have been on some cool other rides like The Kamikaze, which is this big swinging thing, it has two pendulum cars that swing opposite from each other, really scary being inside but fun, amazing to watch from outside. The two arms have to built up momentum before they can go right over, they take a few swings each to get up near the top, before they go right over they get RIGHT up there, before slowly slipping back down, then the next swing takes them over fairly easily, and from then on they zoom around and around. The cars are sort of pointed in shape, both cars face both ways and the people inside face out at the end closest to them, say theres 12 rows of double seats, 24 people total, well 6 rows will face north and 6 rows south. If you are in any of the front rows of the 4 total sections, its doubly scary because you are so close to outside the car, you're just 20 centimetres or so from being outside of this swinging thing. I was really scared to go on the ride but got pressured by friends, I would have been 12. I really loved it afterwards and sure am glad I went. Looking up Wikipedia about the Kamikaze style ride, its known as a pendulum style ride meaning it swings about, people apparently have died or been seriously injured, seems to be when they are too small and slip out of the ride's harnesses. I'd rate the Kamikaze 3 out of 5.
So yeah, no real roller coasters in this country, New Zealanders go over to Australia for the real theme parks. The biggest parks in Australia are Dream World and Movie World on the Gold Coast, with Luna Park in Sydney. Ill leave Luna Park till last, its had a terrifying history!
I've been to Dream World and Movie World, in 2005 for a high school Geography trip to Australia. Warner Brothers Movie World is style after famous movies of course, it has rides to do with The Matrix, Scooby Doo, Super Man, Batman and Lethal Weapon. Something really awesome about Movie World, it has actual movie studios on set, they are closed to the public of course, but its really cool to think that big movies are made at an actual theme park , especially one I've been to. Movies made at Movie World include the live action Scooby Doo movies and Ghost Ship.
I'm reading from Wikipedia for a lot of this episodes information. Wikipedia mentions that when Movie World opened in 1991, many huge A list celebrities were paid to show up, Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson were both actually there for the opening. Thats so cool, Clint Eastwood is awesome.
Rides I went on at Movie World were the Loony Toons roller coaster, the Lethal Weapon roller coaster, the second version of the Batman ride, Police Academy stunt show and Scooby Doo. Doesnt sound like much for all the time we spent there, basically a whole day, but there are hour long queues for some rides and other things in between the main rides.
My favourite ride at Movie World was Lethal Weapon, I'll play a clip from YouTube soon, a guy calling himself " cozza23" took a video camera on the ride and recorded it. Its awesome going through these ride view videos on YouTube, brings back memories :)
The first part of the minute long clip, you hear the ride very slowly crawling up the hill part it starts from. I felt awful at this stage, you are sitting in the harness, but your legs are free below you, your legs dangle beneath you, it doesnt hurt but it feels really weird. I didnt say anything going up, but I wanted off as it climbed up slowly, its a gross feeling looking down at the concrete beneath your dangling legs, it moves so slowly that I was feeling sick.
I felt pretty good in the actual ride, I really enjoyed that part. Reading about the ride, Lethal Weapon is fairly old now, and older steel roller coasters make a lot of noise, its sort of the design but also wear and tear over the years, they rattle and click a lot. More modern coasters are said to be much quieter and smoother feeling, people comment that the Lethal Weapon makes them feel sick or have a headache from all its noise. It doesnt sound very loud in the video, except for that clacking sound at the end, thats the brakes stopping it very quickly. I hate that noise, its just above your head!
Heres the clip.
Hope you could imagine the roller coaster ok. If you want to see the video I played, you can search for Cozza23 Lethal Weapon on google or I have the actual link in the bottom of my script I'm reading, you can see it hopefully in the description or Lyrics parts of my podcast. I'd give Lethal Weapon 4 out of 5, it really was cool, but its old and makes a lot of annoying noises.
When I visited Movie World, the huge Superman Escape coaster was in pieces in the parking lot. My friends noticed all the parts as we left, huge pieces of steel painted blue and red, the size and kind of shape of giant dinosaur bones. That ride opened up after we left, it cost 12 million australian dollars according to Wikipedia, thats a little over 15 million New Zealand Dollars according to google, you type in like "12 million aud in nzd", australiand dollar, new zealand dollar, and it can convert fairly well. I use it to work out costs when I buy things from overseas, you can put in usd for american money etc. The clip I'll play below mentions it costing 16 million australian, not sure what the right figure is, because Wikipedia is ALWAY correct. This clip came from YouTube, its a recording of the Sunrise morning program that plays in Australia, I cut out the boring bits of this ten minute clip down to the minute of the actual ride. The tv show had some annoying little host riding it around opening time, along with some Movie World manager guy next to him in front. The host never shuts up! Video by cheesy888au
"beat that ferrari" ha.
Something funny about Superman Escape, ok, so the whole ride is about you being on a subway train that goes weird in an imaginary city, things are exploding around you, then Superman is meant to fly up behind you, a blue laser kinda projection flicks past you, he says "Hold on folks, I'll get you out of here. Fast. Superman fast.", grabs the roller coaster car you are in and then blasts you out of the way, 0-100 in 2 seconds, doing all crazy loops and stuff.....The car actually has a plastic Superman sticking off the back of it, it looks nuts, having this plastic doll thing sticking out the back like its pushing the ride car.
Superman Escape probably has a waiting time of like an hour, all the major rides seem to have hour long waiting times, thats just normal. I didnt really keep track of the time, but it felt like I was waiting all day to go on each ride. Its pretty sad when you realise its over in 30 seconds! Its definitely worth going on all these rides, just saying, waiting over an hour for something that cost between 15-20 million new zealand bucks, that lasts 30 seconds?
I went on the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster ride, that was actually really cool, Tim in my school group had been on it before and so we all decided to do it. I think this might have had the longest wait out of all the rides we went on, it felt like TWO hours. The line waits inside this sort of haunted house thing, its surrounded with like fake stone walls made out of plastic and foam, theres heaps of really crappy looking props. Its embarrassing to look at the interior of the waiting bit again, I have a few pictures, on Wikipedia you can see this fountain thats inside, it has like these demon monsters made out of the plastic rock stuff, looks like shit in person when you have to stare at it for over an hour.
The ride itself, you get into this little car, its like a mine cart kinda thing, the design is a "Wild Mouse" coaster, they are small indoor roller coasters indoors, with lots of quick turns like what a crazy mouse would do. The Scooby Doo ride starts off like a haunted house ride, its all dark and inside the walls are painted on glow in the dark skeletons and stuff. Boring! It gets much better, there are like swinging axes that you just fit under, I'm pretty tall and was actually wondering how much leeway people have, the tallest people in the world must get hit, would the staff warn them, "umm sir, you're too tall for this ride"? That would be embarrassing. Then theres mirrors inside the ride, someone in the group, I wont mention him, he got fooled into thinking there were two ride cars going to crash head first into each other because of the mirror in front of our car. Pretty funny, he said something like "woah, we're gonna crash!" or something, its a ride, its meant to look scary and out of control! Theres some robot puppet Scooby Doo inside that says something, I still dont know what it said, the Scooby Doo voice was kinda confusing to listen to inside this dark ride with fog and glow in the dark paint, and the ride FINALLY starts! Ok, so some door opens up or something, and the ride car begins the actual roller coaster part, theres some amazing elevator thing that lifts up the car, fog, green lasers that blast out neon green straight lines inside the ride, the elevator stops at its top, the car rolls BACKWARDS down and through some crazy little drops and things, amazing how scary that actually was, and unexpected, its a kids ride and its actually thrilling how nuts it feels going backwards in a scooby doo mine cart thing, getting thrown about the bumps. We were having a great time, we were all so scared of going backwards, thank god the ride turns itself around on some turntable thing before it goes into the rest roller coaster parts. Those were nuts, you're sitting down ok in a normal car, and its not as fast as Lethal Weapon, but its so dark, and you can kind of see the ground beneath the track, you seem to be really high off the ground with just this metal track holding you up. When the rides over, another robot puppet Scooby talks, and you get out. I dont know if you can ride again, that would be good, Spooky Coaster was actually one of the best rides that we went on, even with the huge wait in the foam/plastic rock room. 4 out of 5.
The Police Academy Stunt Show was kind of cool, it was very old and was replaced soon after I visited the park. Its to do with the old Police Academy movies. It was all kind of slapstick comedy, silly cops trying to catch stupid robbers. Theres an explosion that goes off from a crashing helicopter, the crowd in the stands can feel the immense heat from the blast, its amazing. It felt like my hair was being burnt off.
The stunt drivers can really do some cool stunts, they had an old american police car, a few mini motorcycles and a golf cart that did little tricks about the set, the concrete is hosed down to make it slick. The golf cart driver made it do a wheelie for the whole length of the circuit, and parked it in place before the nose came down, very impressive. After I left the stunt show, my group notice Tana Umanga, captain of the All Blacks rugby team, he was probably one of the very top New Zealand stars. Really weird seeing him in person. I didnt want to bother him, but others in the group asked for a picture, I took a few pictures of my friends with Tana Umanga.
I'll give the stunt show 3 out of 5.
Last ride I'll mention at Movie World was Batman Adventure: The Ride, another attraction Tim told us was good. Turns out, the Batman ride was updated, to make it "better", I've got quotation marks there for a reason, it sucks big time. You cant imagine how shit this ride was, it was awful. The wait was over an hour, it had like these velvet ropes I think, and its just a queue of people outside in hot weather, I was eating an icecream that was melting and going all over my hands, not fun. Outside are props from the old Batman movies, they seem so old now compared to The Dark Knight era, theres prop batman boats and things. Not very interesting. Then you get inside Wayne Manor, Batmans house, there a tour guide who had to say the same speech she'd made l iterally thousands of times before, it must be a soul crushing to work in a theme park , having to pretend you are interested in talking about the same made up characters a few times an hour. She was so uninterested in her job, it made me feel embarrassed to be in my late teens on the ride when even the staff dont like being there. She said something like "*unexcited voice* this is batmans house, look at all batmans books, he is rich, he has lots of books, ooh look, now a video is starting, lets go help batman". The video is about some security network batman uses to look after people, *cough*bullshit, its all to spy on us while we're in the shower!
Suicidal staff member pulls a book out of the bookcase, ooh a secret door opens up in one of the bookcases. That was the coolest part of this ride, I've always wanted secret passages in my dream house.
You go into the batcave entrance, theres fake rocks and stuff I think, dripping water sounds and bat noises. Then you get to sit down I think and see Batman at his control centre, this part sucks so bad you wont believe how bad it sucks until you see it for yourself. I've looked on google for video of this part but can never find it, I think maybe Suicidal Staff members take away cameras from this part because they want everyone in the world to suffer through this terrible thing in person.
Theres all these screens and controls, its the batcave pretty much just like in the movies , with the worlds fastest supercomputer that Batman is meant to repace every twenty seconds with a new billion dollar machine. But, guess hes feeling the recession, because this thing is from the early 90's, my cellphone would be more of a super computer, assuming the prop was real. The screens all flash video of the criminals and warnings go off, and Batman himself rises up from the ground in a chair, it always faces away from you I think, you see his back, he has the cape and the pointy ear bits on like you would expect. This animatronic monstrosity can move its arms and head, the head kinda rolls from side to side I think, and the arms just keep moving like its punching someone, probably the same puppet is used in a boxing ride. Its meant to be pushing buttons and pulling switches, but its just like its punching the consoles. Something hilarious from Wikipedia, apparently theme parks rides are just let to break down, they cost millions of bucks and last ten years or so, near the end they are thrashed. Batman here, it used to turn around and face the audience according to Wikipedia, but it wasnt used often or something?, and its all rusted up, so it cant turn around? That doesnt make sense to me, but its fun to imagine, the rest of the ride is really that bad so why not have a malfunctioning batman robot? Even Batman himself is screwed up in this ride.
So then you get in these hovercraft things, it really spoils the ride because theres staff members there who have to help you get in. The videos tell you that an emergency is happening and all these comic book characters are stealing billion dollar diamonds, cutting off the power to the city, and you have to be helped into a seat by another disinterested staff member. They check everyones clicked their little belts on I think, and then they close the hovercraft simulator doors and a little motion simulator starts up, a few people in each machine. It shows onscreen some really bad CG movie, its got like Catwoman and Mr Freeze, The Joker, voiced by Mark Hamill, you know, Luke Skywalker? well these villains are flying with jetpacks or something around the city, and you are doing bad loop the loops and things after them, batman is meant to be flying his main thing in front of you with everyone else there just to back him up. Somehow you can beat the villains and the power goes on and the diamond gets returned, everything is solved. Job well done. I'd give this ride 1 out of 5, just for how funny it is thinking about the staff who hate doing their parts, and the secret passage. I wonder if they will update the ride again in 2015 odd to make it like the 2008 The Dark Knight movie.
I liked Movie World a lot. We had seen it in the "Visit Australia!" sort of video that got put on at school, it was some VHS tape I think, it had parts about the theme parks. At Movie World it had some really sad sounding 30 somethings singing the Aqua song Cartoon Heroes, you know Aqua, they did the Barbie Girl song, well they never had another hit like that, they tried and did a sort of sequel about how cool cartoon heroes are. To see these middle aged women, my definition, talking about how cartoons live forever and never get old, how they keep dreams of young kids alive, it was just sad. You'd think they could sound happy when they were being recorded for an Australian Promotional tape, but no, they hated singing the song from my memory. Forget Orgasms, Aussie women cant fake being happy at a theme park!
Dream World was good too. Dream World and Movie World are kinda like mortal enemies I think, they seem to both compete to have the best rides. I just found out something, if you type dream space world into wikipedia, it goes to some really crappy looking themepark in Thailand, it seems to just have ripped off rides, it has pretend Disney world attractions. You need to say Dreamworld together, with no spaces to get to the real Dreamworld theme park in Australia.
At Dreamworld I found lots of things I'd never seen before. The food was different from what Im used to, I went when I still ate meat, I ordered a chicken hamburger after a long wait at the rugrats themed resturant, it cost more than anything at Mcdonalds and it was tiny, I dont think there was any actual meat in the patty? It was all like stuffing or something cooked up and put in a bun, maybe a slice of tomato and lettuce, about 6 chips and a small paper cup of coke, that'll be twenty bucks thanks. Everything was also "halal", halal is a islamic way of killing animals etc, it means a lot of things but halal kinda gets summed up as "the ok way to do something". I asked my dad who worked at one of the Freezing Works here, he said that some people worked in the Halal part of it, where the animals got put onto some huge turntable that stops pointing the cow in the right direction, where Mecca, a holy city is, so that when the meat worker kills the cow its soul can fly to Mecca easily.
I went on the first roller coaster of my life here, Rugrats Runaway Reptar, its a roller coaster for babies! Ok, little kids. Its painted up green and orange, with a little purple I think. It gets up to 40 kilometres per hour, not very fast for a modern roller coaster. It had a fairly short line, probably only 20 minutes or so waiting. 3 out of 5.
I saw The Cyclone too.
Its a traditional looking steel roller coaster, you queue up in this twisted cyclone style building, it spirals up. Its weird, apparently more people go on this than the two major rides that people think of at Dreamworld, I'll mention those next. The Cyclone has a terrifying history.....it was originally part of a Sydney theme park.....LUNA PARK! Im scared just mentioning the name of the place, but if I have enough courage, I'll talk about it last..... I started going on The Cyclone, but the line was too long. I'd like to mention I felt the evil that flowed from the wicked contraption...
Dreamworld also has The Claw, a big spinning ride that has a pendulum kind of thing that swings and spins guests around. I remember its opening on Rove Live, an australian show that we get in New Zealand too, people got to go on before it opened if they went naked at night time, so gross thinking about all those naked people's bums on seats, no way was I going on with that mental image of all the places the harnesses would have touched.
I did go on the Wipeout, which spins and turns people about, that was pretty good. An old friend had told me about it killing someone, my friend was lucky enough to go to Australia when he was quite young, he said he went on all these awesome rides, I couldnt even imagine what they would be like, not having theme parks here in Invercargill, population 50 thousand-ish. My friend said some kid fell out of the Wipeout harness, and fell to his death. I cant find any proof of that online, so I assume that was a lie to scare me. But I still thought about it while I was on the Wipeout! It has this big concrete wave behind the spinning ride, it feels like you will crash into the wave.
On an online site I read years ago, some cool dude from Auckland New Zealand had been to all the australian theme parks, he was trying to act cool like nothing scared him in his reviews on a theme park review site. Another commenter had mentioned about the "new water feature", so funny, and so the guy from Auckland laughed and said it was just this dumb shark on a track that circles in the water, its so silly when you see it! A plastic shark on a track, just its fin is out of the water really, and it goes round and around. You're not going to be scared of that when you are on this crazy shaking and spinning thing thats throwing you every which way.
4 out of 5, it gave an awesome view, you are close to people watching the ride, it was really good.
I saw the two biggest rides at Dreamworld, The Tower of Terror and The Giant Drop. The Tower of Terror is a roller coaster that gently strolls up the track, and up the mentioned 115 metre tower at the leisurely speed of.....160 kilometres per hour or so. No biggie. When it opened in 97, it was the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. IN. THE. WORLD. Acceleration takes just 7 seconds to hit the full 160kph. Riders feel weightless for the 3 seconds up and the 3 seconds down.
The car you ride in up the tower has spikes sticking out of it, it makes a hell of a noise going up. It weighs 6 tonnes, by itself I assume. I'll play a clip I took of the ride going up now.
Awesome to watch, but hurts my ears. If you want to see a video, theres quite a few on YouTube, just search Tower of Terror.
More interesting things about Tower of Terror, it uses 5 Kilometres of electrical cable, takes about 3500 litres to paint and uses over 600 tonnes of steel for the structure. My favourite fact is how much power it uses, its launched magnetically, by electromagnets, driving the motors uses 2.2 megawatts of electricity, thats enough power for a small town, and when the rides in use, it DOUBLES the power that the whole Dreamworld theme park uses, so all the other rides put together just equal the Tower of Terror in power use.
Using the same tower is the Giant Drop, its like an elevator, you go up the tower in the car, it holds you up there for 40 seconds, it doesnt tell you that, it must feel forever, before it suddenly plummets down at about 140 kilometres per hour to the ground.
Now for my excuses. I didnt go on the Tower of Terror because it screwed up somehow while I was there, it parked the ride car in the wrong place, it stopped it in front of the station instead of at the station, according to my friends who were in a separate group from me. Sounds like it could have malfunctioned and and emergency shutdown happened, maybe the computer thought something was wrong. But what if the computer decided to shut it down at the top of the tower? Could staff override what the computer thought was happening? What if something actually did happen? Im sure the car doesnt have brakes, it goes up the tower through its speed and momentum, it doesnt park itself up there, gravity would bring it down, but its pretty scary to imagine it parking up there.
In the same exact day, the Giant drop on the other side of the same tower, it had a problem too. It has a counterweight on the other side , and that counterweight bent its track I was told. Im not sure how that got out, if the staff members told people queueing up, but it took about 20 minutes to fix, I saw that much for myself.
I was scared enough looking at pictures of those rides, then seeing it for myself. But when two rides sharing the same structure, the tower, both go wrong within an hour or whatever of each other, somethings not right! So I didnt go on it. My friends did, almost everyone in my group apart from me a couple others went on those rides. I think they loved them. They probably both deserve 5 out of 5, based on what my friends said.
ok, last theme park. The dreaded Luna Park over in Sydney Australia!
Luna Park, I get shivers just saying that, opened in 1935 for the FIRST time. Despite being around over 70 years, its been closed a lot of times, left abandoned, its had legal battles, people living near it have complained and other events.
The location used to house workshops and cranes from when the Sydney Harbour Bridge was built. On the 4th of October, 1935 the park first opened. It was popular, until it closed for winter. During the down time, rides were repainted, maybe new things were put in, general maintenance. The Wikipedia article says that Luna Park was a popular spot for soldiers on break. Large outside lights were kept off in case the Japanese decided to blow up an Australian theme park during the war. Australian and American soldiers would get into fights around the park, and prostitutes frequented the area.
One of the icons of the park is the smiling face at the entrance, I find them creepy especially in old black and white photos. The parks entrance Face has been redone a few times now, because they get old looking, the first was replaced because it had started sagging. Sounds pretty funny, going into a theme park through a big sagging face. The park stopped being as popular during the 1950's, when people started getting cars and televisions, black and white televisions no doubt. People just had other things to do. The park was overhauled, and a new mascot was dreamed up, Luna Bear, the Space age Koala! it didnt last long. In 1979 the first episode of horror occured, 13 people were injured on "the big dipper", a wooden roller coaster, from a steel beam that had came loose, it made the trains hit each other. This roller coaster had killed someone in 1946, the canadian had sat on the edge of the car, not inside safely, he got thrown out and hit a support pole. The Big Dipper, the wooden coaster, was demolished. In 1994, a new steel roller coaster was installed and called The Big Dipper. People living nearby complained about the noise, its use was restricted to certain times of the day. The park shut soon after. The Big Dipper was sold to.....Dreamworld, where it was called....Cyclone. So I started going on a ride that belonged to Luna Park, until it was shut down yet again, and sold to Dreamworld. I knew something was wrong with that cursed coaster, it wasnt just that the line was too long and I was scared having never been on a roller coaster before! So, I did the wise thing and went on a little kids coaster first!
Now for the worst thing in Luna Parks history, the 1979 Sydney Ghost Train Fire. It has its own Wikipedia article, but then I guess people have made an article on Wikipedia about what times Bus's run in Invercargill :)
The night of the 9th of June, 1979 the ghost train caught fire. Six children killed, one adult, thats 7 casualties. Nobody knows what started the fire, its believe it could have been a Sydney Underworld figure, as in the mafia. The guys name was Abe Saffron, known for selling alcohol illegally, night clubs, prostituition....all that mob kinda stuff like Scarface or Grand Theft Auto. Luna Park closed, again, until 1982.
In 1995 a memorial garden was installed where the ride had been, the items of the garaden got "lost" during the 2003 development. At the moment, theres just a plaque listing the names of the dead. Soon a mural is to be painted as well. In 2007 another memorial park was made in a different location, including a statue.
The Ghost Train was built in 1931, before the park was created. The fire couldnt be fought because of a lack of water pressure, not enough staff members and the fire hose system couldnt reach all of The Ghost Train.
Luna Park has been used for many Australian tv series and movies. Scenes were shot of Skippy the bush Kangaroo. After the park closed in 1996, The Olsen Twins shot part of a movie there.
So thats my episode about Australasian theme parks :) Hope you liked it. As I said at the start, I might make an episode about Disney, Walt Disney, the famous cartoons and controversies, and the theme parks. Quite a few amazing rides there that I'd like to see, and a lot of awful history, people being dragged to death behind the golf cart style park transport, people who snuck in after hours and died horribly, an elderly staff member being hit by the monorail and rumours that Walt is cyrogenically frozen and hidden at one of the theme parks. Oh, and Club 33, that could do with its own short episode! Look that one up, Club 33. I'd love to be a member, you get a special card etc, it costs an awful lot of money per year, and has a hidden entrance. Inside its basically a fancy resturant for rich people to show off how powerful they are by taking guests.
If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.
Have a super happy day, bye.
Sources:
Wikipedia pages on the theme parks.
pulp sport video rainbows end by jilnehan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heV7b1TnAn4
lethal weapon video by Cozza23
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6M5ZT9h1SM
superman escape video by cheesy888au
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tScPEHLgukA
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