How to Build the Ultimate Theme Park

course I've heard of it. I grew up a few hours away from it, but you know, other than knowing that one of the co owners is Dolly Parton and she's great, and and then it's in this really pretty area of Tennessee, I know nothing about it. And I'm actually intentionally avoiding any information about it because I wanted to show up and be completely surprised. Well, I do have one spoiler for you, and this is something I

remember from reading about it a a long time ago. And in the Chasing Rainbow section, Uh, they have this autograph picture from Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and I think you read something like you are so very special, how sweet? I know. I love that he gave her that affirmation, but I definitely want you to report back. I want to hear what your kids think about it. I definitely will. But winning this trip felt like a sign to me, you know that it was time to do this episode on

the history and philosophy of theme parks. And we've been talking about doing this for a while now, so let's get started. Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and the man making funny faces at us through the soundproof glasses, our friend and

producer Tristan McNeil. And today we're talking theme parks, all the science and imagination and you know, even the philosophy that goes into designing and building and running theme parks. So we thought it'd be fun to dig into some of the deep thinking behind one of the world's favorite forms of escapism. We've also got some great guests on the line to to help us talk about that. Now, who's joining us today, Meg, Yeah, to Today we'll be talking to David Younger, author of the new book Theme

Park Design and the Art of them Entertainment. David's guide covers every aspect of the theme park industry, including interviews with theme park legends and Disney Imagine. Years will also be talking with a couple of theme park enthsists who've made it their life's work to chronicle all the going on at their favorite parks. Very cool. Alright, so we're

gonna dive in in just a minute. But before we do that, we've heard from so many of you by email or on Facebook or Twitter, and even on our seven Fact hotline, and many of you have asked if you can play one of our ridiculous quizzes. So here's what we want you to do. Email us at Part Time Genius at how Stuff Works dot com or call us on the Fact hot line one eight four four pt Genius and tell us why we should have you

on to play a quiz. Now, be sure to tell us something interesting, of course, a true interesting fact about yourself, and maybe, just maybe we'll have you on the show to play sometime. Alright, so before we get into the exhilarating rides and names of designs and all that good stuff, we probably need to start out by talking a little semantics. Semantics, you want to take this to the least fun place possible, yeah, I know, I know, but there is an important distinction

we should make about today's topic. So if you were to ask somebody the difference between an amusement park and a theme park, yeah, they might think it's a trick questions. I mean, you know, both kinds of parks are high energy,

their family friendly. You've got all the mechanical rides, the colorful designs, the tasty junk food, which is probably my favorite part, you know, But there's a very real difference between say, a seaside amusement park like a Coney Island, and a full blown theme park like Universal Studios or Lego Land. Sure, and I guess by the same token. Amusement parks can contain individual rides or areas that are

themed to something. So if you think about something like Six Flags and their parks, they all have a bunch of unthmed roller coasters and carnival type rides, But then there are all those attractions from like Looney Tunes or d C Comics, So there's some crossover here and there. Yeah, that's that's that's true. But you know, for the most part, it's enough to know that the goal of an amusement park is to you know, give people a thrill more

or less through random assortments of exciting rides. And you know, the aim of a theme park, on the other hand, is to really immerse people in this elaborate storytelling experience, and that just happens to use exciting rides as a way of telling these stories. So it was interesting to me in doing research for this episode that every aspect of a theme park, or at least a really good one,

is meticulously crafted to support the parks theme. So not just like the architecture, but things like the smells in the air, the music being played, the characters of course, and employees uniforms, but landscaping, the color of the paint,

the style of the benches, even the trash cans. Like everything you see or hear or smell or touch like it's carefully selected, all for the story that's being told, which just seems like such a lofty goal for for someplace where kids are like throwing tantrums and parents are angry that they're spending nine dollars for a soda. Now, I can't wait to be angry at Dollywood. A lot of us tend to associate these with, you know, crass commercialism or think of them as a low brow, more

mindless form of entertainment. But that's something we'll see a lot today, is that there's more substance at the core of these theme parks than most of us give them credit for. And speaking of credit, I do want to take a minute upfront to recognize Frederick Thompson, the inventor of the world's first them detraction and a true theme

park pioneer. Alright, so just to be sure we're we're not talking the same Fred Thompson who was the politician and the actor right now, but that would have been awesome, like talking about politician Fred Thompson and then dropping the line like, oh yeah, and he was a theme park pioneer. All right, all right, we'll have a separate episode on that Fred Thompson one day, but for this episode, this seems like a good place to start, all right, tell

us more about him. Yeah, Thompson designed the first of what we've categorized today as a dark ride, but he hasn't gotten nearly as much attention as some of the other theme park titans we'll talk about today. And for any listeners who aren't up on their theme park lingo we should note that a dark ride is basically just an indoor ride where a vehicle has guided along this track and you know, you go from one set to another.

So you know, think Mr Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland, or Haunted Mansion, or you know, even the generic kind of haunted house that you would go through if you were at an amusement park exactly. And Thompson really helped develop this genre of rides. He was an architecture designed buildings for county fairs and public exhibitions, and he really wanted to create a ride that could dazzle the audience's

senses and help them forget about their everyday worries. So in nineteen o one, using copious amounts of plaster and modern advances like electric machinery and light bulbs, Thompson premiered his masterpiece, which he dubbed a Trip to the Moon.

And you were saying, you know, this was nineteen o one, so you know, if you think about the timing there, not only have we not made it to the moon yet, but even the Right brothers, you know, their first man flight was still a couple of years off, so that this whole premise, this whole thing would have been complete science fiction at that point totally. And Thompson chose his theme wisely, which is why he was fine forking over eight tho dollars to build the attraction, which by the way,

is more than two million dollars in today's money. Wow, God, that is so pricey, all right, So what exactly did you get for that kind of cash? Well, the main part of the ride was a thirty passenger airship that was suspended from the ceiling by steel cables, and you can find pictures of it online. It basically looks like a huge canoe with these wide or like wings, and the wings were controlled by this pulley system that let

the ship rock back and forth. And they're also these like small fans that provide the sensation of wind rushing by. Like it was great, the feeling of soaring in this flying machine. And it's all enhanced by sound effects and hundreds of tiny lights, and there's like a painted canvas backdrop.

It's amazing, especially for the time. And and uh, and it wasn't just that, Like the people rise beyond the Earth's atmosphere all the way to the moon, and and then when the ship reaches its destination, passengers disembark and entered this lunar cavern and it's made of plaster, where, of course they meet a race of moon people called the sell a Knife. And of course, so it's pretty much the world's first flight simulator, right, and it had to of course this added dose of sci fi whimsey.

I kind of wish I could go back and ride this kind of thing and see how people would have responded to it initially. Yeah, and more than that, he was a visionary, so he included a gift shop where visitors could eat green moon cheese. Of course, all all right, So Frederick Thompson certainly played a part in the evolution of amusement parks and that transition into the theme parks. And you know, but while we're on the subject of credit, we do have to get this one out of the way.

It would it would definitely be impossible to talk about theme parks without referencing their patron saint, and that's Walter Elias Disney, or Uncle Walt, as he's known to those who have drunk the kool aid. You know. But no matter what you think of Disney Parks or the behemoth parent company, that they belonged to. There's really no denying that the man behind the mouse revolutionized the entertainment industry and and of course paved the way for modern theme

parks as we know them. Absolutely, Disney was responsible for so many technical innovations that became staples of of the industry. I mean the biggest is the audio animatronics, those life like robot characters that you see at So the Caribbean and the Enchanted Tiki Room. But you know, if we really want to give proper credit, we should also mention the creator of the world's first theme park, which you know, a contrary to popular belief, was not Walt Disney. Yeah,

I was reading about that too. So this honor actually belongs to a guy named Louis Coke. He was this industrialist and he had made it his retirement project to create the first ever theme park. Now, he lived near a tiny town called Santa Claus, Indiana. I know we've talked about Santa Claus, Indiana before, but as you can imagine, children from all of the world would visit the town in hopes of meeting Santa. Of course, they then only leave disappointed when they discovered old Saint Nick did not,

in fact, spend his offseason in the rural Midwest. For some reason, does in vacation in the midst which is you know, that's funny, Like I had heard of Santa claus Land and heard of Santa Claus, Indiana, but I never knew the two were connected. But I'm curious, Like, I don't understand why parents would make that track. It seems crazy. Well either way, Louis Coke was the father of nine, so the thought of all those disappointed kids

coming to town it really got to him. He'd always wanted to build an amusement park, and so in nineteen forty six, this was nine years before Disneyland would open to the public, Coke introduced the world to Santa Claus. I love that the first theme park has like the narrowest theme imaginable. I'd say it was pretty on the nose as a theme, but still groundbreaking as a concept.

I mean, there had been tons of amusement parks before, but nothing quite like Santa claus Lands, which also seems a little crazy because the concept of like public amusement like that goes back all the way to the Renaissance. That's when a pleasure gardens started popping up on the

grounds of English inns and taverns. Yeah, but you know, somehow an amusement park with a dedicated theme had it really had never been done before, and thankfully the idea proved a huge hit with the public, and the Coke family was able to expand the park's theme in the nineteen eighties, and this allowed them to include areas themed around other holidays, so not just Christmas, but Thanksgiving, Halloween,

fourth of July. It seems like such a strange place, to be honest with you, But seventy one years later the park is still open for business. Then now it goes by the more inclusive name Holiday World. I like the Holiday World. It's so more smarter than like just hanging out with Santa, which you can do at any local mall. By the way, speaking of holidays, do you know that John D. Rockefeller used to celebrate a personal

holiday every year called Job Day. It was the anniversary of the day he got his first job at sixteen, and he considered it way more important than any other day in his calendar. How well, I don't think I've seen any job Day land theme parks, but I agree with you it's it's better to have a broad and

more universal concept. And you know, and thinking about all of this, I'm really curious about the decision making that goes into planning a theme park, Like, you know, how do you settle on a theme or decide what kind of attraction to use for for any of these given concepts. Well, how about we got David Younger on the line and

see if he can walk us through that. Okay, Bengo. So, a few weeks ago we did an episode on World Records, and I'm not sure if Guinness keeps up with a world record on the person who has interviewed the most theme park designers in the world, but if they did, I'm pretty sure we may be talking to the person who would take that crown. He's the author of really

the the Ultimate Guide on designing Theme Parks. He spoke to thousands of designers, engineers, creatives and others during the project and the book is called Theme Park Design and the Art of Themed Entertainment. So, David Younger, welcome to part Time Genius. Thank you very much for having me. So, David, I've read this was a massive project and it took four years to complete. How did theme park design become

a passion of yours, well, Rudy. For me, it's been something that I've been interested in ever since I was a kid. And it's like I was the kid that was playing roller coaster Tycoon NonStop, designing all all the different things. And so I knew I wanted to go into team time design. The only trouble was that there

aren't design courses or the worms of the time. And so I went into film and said, and I realized that you can get hundreds of books on screenwriting and directing and editing for films, but nothing existed for for theme parks. So I kind of realized if I wanted to learn this myself and I wanted to buy this book, you didn't exist. I thought I'd have to write it myself. Well that's terrific. Now in the book, you talk about three types of theme park guests and describe them as

world travelers, character huggers, and thrill seekers. And I was curious to talk first about that that first group. These world travelers. Now, these are the ones that you describe as is liking to be, you know, transported to another world. That that feels so convincing that you almost believe you're really there, and and I'm curious for you. You know what parks stand out as the best in the world

are doing exactly that well. If you look at the different theme parks around the world, there are actually a number of different styles of design that the theme parks use. The best way of thinking about this is to compare Epic, for example, to The Magic Kingdom, where the Magic Kingdom, you're asked Tom kind of buy into this idea that you really are in the American West, or you really

are in a fairy tale village. Whereas you compare that to Epcot, where you'll go on something alike, uh, the Universe of Energy, which is where you're not really in any time or place. You've just been kind of talked about a talt about energy and these parks like The Magic Kingdom that that try to convince you that you're really in another time, another time and place. It's all new traditional style parks, and really the best of that

is definitely going to be Disney. I mean value of the people that invented it back in the nineteen fifties and they're still doing absolutely brilliantly today. But as well as a universal studios um it was kind of going for a postmodern type park in but ever Harry Potter opened, They're going for this place you in the world, convince you you're really their approach. I'm curious to hear you know where you see this this industry going. Obviously, there's

been incredible evolution over the past couple of decades. What do you see changing or what do you see emerging in the world of theme parks and theme park design in the next couple of decades. Well, the main thing is how much theme parks are willing to commit to fully immersing you within, particularly intellectual properties like Star Wars

and an Avatar and Harry Potter. So, for example, whereas twenty years ago Disney might get the licensed to build a Star Wars to put Star Wars into their theme parks, and they'll build one ride, now twenty years later they'll build an entire land and four attractions all Star Wars themes into it, as well as Star Wars themes, restaurants and Star Wars themes hotels and Stellars them shops. It's also becoming more personal, particularly with video games kind of

threatening wity to step into a world. Theme parks have been trying to found ways of immersing yourself more and more um and one of the best ways of doing that is using new technology like the ones at the Whisping World of Harry potter Um where you actually get to cast your and spell within the environment. And that's

something that hasn't been done before. So we didn't episode on IKEA a few weeks ago and talked about the thought that goes into the flow of the store, and I was curious if you could talk a little bit about like how that works for theme parks. So we've theme parks before. The theme parks are invented their where's kind of the state fairs and amusement parks like Coney Island. Their typical layout was just a grid layout, so you have intersections with the rides in the middle, and it

was a really an interesting layout to walk around. It wasn't the most efficient way of laying things out, and so when dissee Land was designed in they decided, well, Disney decided to try something different and that's what invented

the hubband spoke layout. So in the hubband spoke layout, you have a plaza at the middle with the castle and then you have radial walkways spanning out into the different them lands, and by doing that you kind of contain the theme lands into their particular areas, so you can create immersion and everything like that. And also it's a much easier way of finding your your way around

around the park. But then within that you also have you've got to get the guests to move around within the park, so you you have the engines of movements that Team park Design is used. And there are two main ones. Okay, the first one is the weenie, which is an odd term, but basically a weenie is a visual magnet. It's something that you see in the descent and you go, wow, that looks interesting. I want to learn more about that, and so you walk towards it.

And the best example of that is obviously the Castle on Main Street USA. You go through the gates at Disneyland, you see the castle and you immediately want to walk up to and and and and see what's see what's

down there. And similarly at Digital and Paris Dislam Paris is the first part where not only did they use a weenie at the end of the Main Street USA, but they put we need into every single laps, so when you're in the hub, you could look towards Discovery Land and see space mountains, you can look towards Frontier Land and see Biggs under Mantain, and every which everywhere you look, you have this this visual icon pulling you

towards it. But then the second term, which is the one that's used in shopping walls, is the anchor h So in shopping malls, you'll kind of typically find that the biggest store to pay at the extremities of the mall, and then all of the smaller shops and the boutiques shops and the independent shops place in between at the anchor stores. So that guests we'll go to an anchor store, then they'll go to the next anchor store, and on the way they'll see these other shops along the way

and go, oh, I'll have a look in here. David, this has been fascinating. I don't know about bangsh but I can't wait to get to another theme park. I'm pretty sure we'll have this on our minds when we are walking around the next theme park that we're in. But thanks so much for joining us on part time, genius. You're very welcome. You're listening to part time genius, and today we're talking about the big ideas behind theme parks.

All right, Samga, what would you say if I told you that Disneyland was actually more real than the world outside it's gates. I mean, I'd probably say, you've gotten into that Uncle walk cool aid you mentioned earlier. Well, I know it's a pretty wild claim, but it's one that kept coming up and doing the research for this episode, so I started wondering if there was something to the idea of theme parks being you know, this heightened form of reality. And from what I can tell, the first

person to suggest this might have actually been Walt Disney himself. Yeah, and I'm guessing Walt Disney was not biased at all. No, not at all, no way, no way was he biased. Well, but there is an interesting story here. And then the story goes that in the early days of the park, Walt once gave a private tour to the famous evangelist Billy Graham, and Graham walked around, thought it was nice, and he made some sort of comment that Disneyland was simply,

you know, a nice fantasy, which which seems harmless enough, right. Well, well, Walt reportedly took this as this subtle dig against his park, and the implication being that it was somehow false and therefore maybe a waste of time. So Waltz clearly offended. Did he kick him out of the park. Well, not not exactly, but he did fire back with this passionate and honestly pretty shocking claim. So he told Graham, here here's the quote. He said, you know, fantasy isn't here.

This is very real. The park is reality. The people are natural here, they're having a good time, they're communicating. This is what people really are. The fantasy is it's out there outside the gates of Disneyland, where people have hatreds and people have prejudices. It's not really real. Disney sounds so, but you said, other people made similar claims to Yeah, and you know one of the most prominent to do so was the Italian novelist and essayist Umberto Echo.

It was the mid nineteen seventies and Echo went on what he described as a pilgrimage in search of hyper reality, or the world of the absolute fake is. This basically means he tooled around the US for a year. He was touring and critiquing these popular tourist spots that housed artistic reproductions or historical recreations, and all these other examples of faux reality. So you know, even things like wax

museums and the Western theme towns. But of course he also visited America's top two fake cities, being Disneyland and California and Disney World in Florida. So it sounds like Echo is sort of skeptical of America's fascination with fantasy. How does he bind up concluding our theme parks are more real than the real world. Well, it goes back to this idea of hyper reality. You know that the idea that simulation provides the ultimate expression of the thing

it represents. And it's a little heavy here, but just to explain it, so, so think about the Jungle Cruise ride in the adventure Land section of the park. That's the one where you take a boat ride down this you know, several South American rivers, and the skipper there at the helm makes you know all these bad animal puns.

And Echo writes about the ride and says, when there's a fake a hippopotamus, dinosaur, a sea serpent, it's not so much because it wouldn't be possible to have the real equivalent, but because the public is meant to admire the perfection of the fake and its obedience to the program. In this sense, Disneyland not only produces illusion, but in confessing, it stimulates the desire for it. A real crocodile can be found in a zoo, and as a rule, it's

you know, dozing or hiding. But Disneyland tells us that fake nature corresponds much more to our daydream demands. He goes on to say, you risk feeling homesick for Disneyland, where the wild animals don't have to be coaxed. Disneyland tells us that technology can give us more reality than nature can. And that's some deep stuff. And it actually reminds me of something I read about how really well manning here gardens for once destination spots for tourists, like

long before mechanical attractions caught on. In a weird way, they almost seem like precursors to theme parks, at least given that idea of hyper reality you're talking about, how do you figure that well gardens like a little microcosm.

It's this idealized take on nature. And and so if you think of a Japanese garden where you have rocks and water plants, ornaments, miniature pagoda to like, we arranged these elements as we please to to create our own little oasis, a small piece of land that's meant to represent the best parts of the world outside of all right,

I get that. And just like a theme park, this elaborate gardens drives to mimic something about the real world, and of course by softening the edges and being really selective about what's included, and the result winds up feeling like something unique altogether. And it's it's not quite fake, but not altogether real either, Yeah, hyper real. But but here's the thing that the kinds of gardens people cultivate are usually reflections on the cultures to which they belong.

So for for example, French gardens tend to idealize the symmetry and and orally rose to to reflect man's mastery of nature, while many English gardens do the opposite. So what exactly do our theme parks say about who we are as a people? Well, I mean, I'd kind of like to think it says something about us being a culture of dreamers. You know that we draw on timeless stories to make sense of the world and maybe even

add meaning to our lives. And you know, although I'm sure there's a cynical answer about consumerism that others would offer as well, like the idealized version of Land full of Santa Claus is right, maybe that, But I'm with you. Let's take the high road on this one. After all, will be in good company if we do. Um, because you know, Ray Bradberry himself leave this all right, Yeah, I actually saw this as well. So Bradberry was one

of Disney's most outspoken fans, right, yeah, definitely so. In fact, when a nine article in the Nation denounced Disneyland as vulgar entertainment on the same level as like Las Vegas, Bradberry basically published a piece and Holiday magazine entitled The Machine Tooled Happy Land, and in it he sets the record straight on why intellectuals or anyone else for that matter, shouldn't be ashamed to visit the happiest place on Earth.

And in particular, Bradberry praised Disney's breakthrough an audio animatronics, which he saw is the next best thing to creating life itself. Really wow, he went pretty far with this. Yeah, I mean you should hear this quote, So I'm gonna read it to you. Only a few hundred years ago, all this would have been considered blasphemous. To create man

is not man's business, but God's. Disney and every technician with him would have been bundled and burned at the stake in six hundred, which is true, right, But this is what he continues. But but the fact remains that Disney is the first to make a robot that is convincingly real, that looks, speaks, and acts like a man. He has set the history of humanized robots on its

way towards wider, more fantastic excursions. Wow. So, so you've got this science fiction writer who was seeing things he'd only dreamed of in his stories taking shape in in real life. Right, and and he's just awed by the possibilities. He even goes on to describe this future in which these robots sort of affirmed the truth of history and make it real to people in a way that simply

reading about it always falls short. It's a really poetic notion about these future robot museums where, and I'm going to quote again, we may begin to believe in every one of men's many million days upon this earth for

these students, it will not be history was, but history is. Well, that's definitely an interesting idea, and it's kind of like Bradbury also recognized the hyper reality of these theme parks, but rather than viewing that as a negative, he you know, he saw it as a way to reinforce truths of about history and the world itself. I guess yeah, you can really tell why Bradbury saw a fellow futurist in Walt Disney like they were both unceasingly optimistic about what

mankind could achieve. And I don't want to lean too heavily on his essay, but but there's one more section that really captures what a theme park can be at its best, So I'll go ahead and read it here. Quote in Disneyland, while has proven again that the first function of architecture is to make men over, make them wish to go on living, feed them fresh oxygen, grow them tall, to light their eyes, make them kind. Disneyland liberates men to be their better selves, and he continues,

here you will see the happy faces of people. I don't mean dumb cluck happy. I don't mean men's club happy or sewing circle. Happy, I mean truly happy, and I've got to keep going because it's so good. No beat Nix here, No cool people with cool faces pretending not to care, thus swindling themselves out of life or any chance for life. Disneyland cause you to care all over again. You feel it's the first you feel. It's the first day in the spring of that special year,

when when you've discovered you were really alive. No cool people with cool faces in Disney World. That's pretty great. I'd say that's pretty much the definition of a ringing endorsement. I honestly, I'm not even sure how to respond to that. Well, the ideal of response would probably be to make a bee line for Disneyland. But since we're the middle of an episode, how about we just break for a quiz.

Our next guest is a super fan of theme parks and has turned his reporting and trip planning into a really successful career as the founder and editor of Theme Park Insider. Robert Niles. Welcome to part time Genius. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Great. Well, so, Robert, I was curious, was there a theme park experience or just some specific theme park that really sparked this passion

of yours. Well, I'm a Los Angeles native, so my kids hauled me down to Annaheim to visit Disneyland a lot when I was a kid. But really maybe the thing that turned me onto this was when we visited Universal Studios Hollywood back when it was just the Universal Studio Tour and I was about six years old or something, but I got picked to be one of those audience volunteers, and so I was the freckle faced little kid in the Rice the Fake Race Rice Serroni commercial that they

taped on the back lot back then. I'm just like, well, this is kind of cool. I could be part of the show. So um. That always kind of stuck with me. And then when I was in college, I started working at Walt disney World during the summers, and that just really cemented it. So I've been a just a huge theme park fan ever since. Do you have a favorite weird theme park or just a favorite theme park overall? Oh? Wow, I mean I think my favorite theme park would be

Tokyo Disney Sea in Japan. Just an absolutely lovely parket shows to what you can do with a budget of several billion dollars. Um. But in terms of like a little fun, quirky parks, I'm a real fan of Holiday World, which is located in the tiny town of Santa Claus in the Anna. Um. It's just this wonderful points uh park, really out in the middle of the cornfield someplace. But it's got some really great World Clash roller coasters there, and you've got a really fun crew of sands the

show up at this place. It's not like this is just a park out in the suburbs and everybody who live there comes in. If you're going to Santa Claus, Indiana, you're a dedicated theme park fan. It's just nice to be around a bunch of other theme park geeks like me whenever I visit. That's so nice to hear because we we've actually read about it and and talked about it a little on the show, but to hear that it's like a real park for enthusiasts is pretty great. Yeah.

That's uh, that's great. Well, what about some favorite attractions, just favorite oddball attractions you've seen, you know, at different parks. Um. Actually, I'll talk about one that I haven't seen yet, but one of our writers just just went on it's at this park in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, This Glenwood Canyon Adventure Park, and they've built a rock ride, except that when you typically think of drop ride, it's a big tower where you go up a couple hundred feet in the air

and when you drop back to the ground. This is seemed to be a mind drop ride, and it's actually in a mind so you enter on the ground and then you drop down into a hole, which just sounds like that could be a huge phobia trigger for a lot of which of course makes it that much more fun for everybody else. Um, but that's a that's a quirky little park that it doesn't mean it's not like

a Disney park or anything. You didn't tiny attendance. But they've got stuff like a roller coaster that's perched on the edge of a thousand foot cliffs and all of these things that are a little bit extreme for a theme park attraction. So that's that's moved up high on my two new Bucket list of places to go visit. Are there any pet teams you'd love to see developed

into a park? Oh wow? Um? Yeah, I mean the first thing everybody always says is that everybody want Lord of the Rings of the Park because you know, just a huge ike. But um, you know, a lot of parks have developed these kind of video game based shooter rides now like you see it, it does light You're at Disney and Men in Black, Universal and Justice League at six Flags. But so there's a desire to do

something that's interactive. So I think, um, one thing, I'd really like to see some type of thing where it's it's almost like you're in the Game of Blue or something. You have to solve some sort of mystery in order to advance into the attraction of that sort of gameplay could be a lot of fun in a team park attraction. Definitely. Yeah, that's that's pretty great. Well, we we we appreciate you're telling us all about these parks, but we can't let

you go without putting you to the test. So, so what game are we playing with Robert today, Mango, We're playing a little game called roller Coaster or Discontinued Superhero? All right, that's right, So this is simple. We're going to give you a name and you tell us whether it's a roller coaster or a discontinued Superhero. Are you ready? Why not? Both maybe should be here we go. Number one, Bouncing Boy. I'm going to guess that's a discontinued superhero. Yeah,

it's a really dumb discontinued superhero. Bouncing boys. Big skill was that he turned into a bouncing ball. I don't know I would have wanted to do that as a kid. Alright. Number two, he's one for one. Number two Steal Vengeance. Oh, that's definitely a roller coup. Actually going to be a roller coaster. Wow, well done if bonus points if you happen to know where this is going to be, that's a cedar point. Fantastic. Ohile, nicely done. He is an

expert here. Okay, he's three for two. That's right. Number three Yank and Doodle. That's just awful. No matter what, I'm going to get superhero. Yeah. According to rancor dot COM's description, when they're together, they have superhero strength. When they're a part, they're just dude. Alright, alright. Number four King Dakah definitely roller coaster. Alright, bonus points for where it is. That would be at six Flags Trade Adventure in New Jersey. Nicely done. Number five The red Bee.

The red Bee. That could go either way. Uh, but I'm gonna say just continued superhero again. Yeah, you're right. The red Be's power was that he was powerless, but he had to train b that he attacked people with. And that trained bee's name was Michael. Actually, you know what, there was one here for for for an even an additional bonus point. I thought this one was interesting. All right, here we go thunder Dolphin. Oh that's another one that's could go either way. Could be a roller coaster to

SeaWorld Parks. Not familiar with which one, but let's say Woller Coaster. Yeah. So this is a Tokyo Dome city and this agile coaster dodges buildings and threads the needle through a giant ferris wheel. All right, nicely done. So how's Robert done today? Mango? He's got an incredible seven for six, which has never happened on a show before. It's a record. So what is Robert? Yeah, he earns a note to his mom or boss singing his praises,

So congratulations Robert. All right, Well, if you guys are thinking about attending a theme park, you should check out theme Park Insider. Robert. Thanks for joining us on part time genius. Thanks for having me. Okay, so we had a pretty heavy discussion earlier about hyper reality and theme parks and you know, even Disneyland's role as this you

might say, a technological steward of history. But but what do you say we could keep things a little bit lighter in this last segment, Mango all, I'm all for it. I was actually thinking we could just go back and forth with some of the lesser known theme parks we came across during our research. I don't know about you, but the ones that really grabbed my attention where these random, like oddball parks with with all these themes that are

definitely not Disney. All right, sure, I'm up for that, soap. So what are you thinking of? First? Well, some of the weirdest theme parks I came across, where where these kids Zania Family Entertainment centers. They're they're basically indoor kids sized replica cities, complete with miniature of vehicles and buildings like hospitals, shops, banks, restaurants, and even a tiny airport.

And the ideas that kids can gain valuable life experience by taking part in twenty five minute career based role playing. Oh god, yeah, it gets worse. So, so kids get a chance to try their hand at lofty job assignments such as performing surgery or piloting an aircraft, as well as more menial tasks like that you find them, like changing attire or working in a Coca Cola bottling plan. It's like the worst theme park ever, man, what is what exactly is the theme? Is it adulthood or just

monotony or what? Well, you haven't even heard the best part yet. So kids learned the value of their labor by earning kids. Those the official currency of kids Zania, and they can accrue interest when deposited in the kids Zanian Bank. Gosh, oh wow, All right, well that that's pretty bleak, but I actually still think I can top that. So last fall, the UK was home to a theme park based entirely on the literary works of Charles Dickens.

It was called Dickens World, and the park offered this interactive tour through the drab buildings and grimy cobblestone streets of old Victorian London. They even boasted about this Greater Expectations themed water run, and sadly the whole thing went belly up. Though this was last October because the company behind the park declared itself insolvent and talking about the worst of times. Oh man, that should have been job. Still, if we're going for bleak, you'll want to check out

Survival Drama in Lithuania. And while not a park, per say, it's the world's premier themed attraction for those looking to experience what life was like for a citizen of the USSR during the nineteen eighties. So the whole ordeal starts when guests are ambushed by the Red Army in the middle of a forest, and and and then they're transported to a former Soviet bunk here in the eastern European country side, and it only gets worse like from there.

It's a brisk three hours of underground tunnels, barking dogs, verbal abuse, humiliation, coercion, and even propaganda screening sproadly, And it's all followed by a celebratory tin of beef and a shot of vodka to to wash the taste of totalitarian regime from your mouth. For the kids, right, it's horrible. I honestly don't know what's worse that something like this is legal, or that people actually pay to be a part of it. I know, it sounds like the worst

vacation ever. But but according to the theater producer behind the attraction, that's kind of the point. Like in an interview with The Daily Mail, she said, quote, it's not for everyone, but these days children must learn that it's not a laughing matter. Many understand what it was like. They should realize how much progress there's been over the past seventeen years, Like how they have vacation time to learn these lessons. But I guess in a way that's

kind of admirable. But but we're supposed to be keeping things light in this last section. So did you you know, did you come across any lesser known parks that aren't completely mortifying? Yeah? So one of the coolest parks I found is called Efteling World of Wonders. It's this amazing a hundred eight a theme park in Amsterdam, and it's consistently ranked one of the best in all of Europe.

And in fact, Efteling is unbelievably popular. It's one of the few non Disney, non universal parks to crack the top twenty five highest attended theme parks in the world. Wow, that's pretty impressive. So what's the theme for the park.

I mean that that's the cool thing. Though the whole park is based on classic fairy tales and folklore, so elves, gnomes, fairies and like and and even though there's some thematic crossover between this one and the Disney parks there, there's a much tighter focus on tradition and storytelling at Efteling. So it's I don't know, kind of a less commercialized

theme park. Maybe, yeah, kind of. I mean there are shops, to be sure, but but they aren't as central a focus as they would be in any American theme park, which is all the more impressive when you consider the cutting edge ride technology and and the lavishly detailed theming found throughout the park. You get the feeling the designers didn't have to make a whole lot of compromises in order to save a few pennies or squeezing another storefront,

and the results this really classy theme park. You know, before the episode, I probably would have considered a classy theme park to be an oxy moron, But you know, looking into all the philosophy at the root of these experiences, I guess I feel kind of differently now. Yeah, it's all fun and games until someone has an existential crisis on Space Mountain. Right, I'll try to hold yourself together, man, go at least long enough for this episode's fact off. Okay,

so why don't you pick this one off? All right? I can do that. So, um, did you know that Freud and Young visited Dreamland and Coney Island together? It's it's actually true. And when they did, supposedly, Freud told Young that Coney Island was the only part of America that interesting. So this is about Walt Disney, and it's the fact I always think about whenever I hear his name. If visitors came to visit Walt Disney, he'd serve them tomato juice, and he'd be furious if they refused to

drink it. In fact, a secretary would even warn people that it was best to just accept it before they walked in. I had actually heard that fact before. But but speaking of Disney, one of my favorite parks. And I don't know why I included this fact because I have the hardest time saying this word. But it's the Beijing jing Shan Amusement Park. It sounds fun to say, it is so hard to say, And and mental flaws

dubbed this the copyright and fringiest place on Earth. And although park has been sued several times and often had to take down statues, it's happily filled with rip off animated characters and landmarks that looks so much like these Disney characters. And oddly enough, this is something they've embraced in their advertising. You know what their old slogan was, It was Disney is too far to go, Please come

to she Jing Shan. I think I said so. One of my favorite theme park thrills to read about was this park called crocoss Us Cove in Darwin, Australia, and they have something that's way scarier than any roller coaster. It's called the Cage of Death, and so you're getting this little acrylic tank wuity which they then submerge in water and you end up right next to the sixteen foot crocodile. It sounds terrifying, but Crocostaurs Cove isn't a one trick pony, and it also has the largest display

of Australian rough piles anywhere. Wow, that is crazy. All right. Well, while we're on the topic of our favorite weird theme parks, one of these days I really want to go to a place called bon Bon Land, which is just an hour or so away from Copenhagen and Denmark. And so you know, you know, we like to credit Harry Potter with popularizing all those nasty flavored jelly beans, from toe jam to stinky cheese and all that kind of stuff.

But this park is the home of a candy factory that's been making disgusting confections like ear wax, seagull droppings, and dog farts since the eighties. And in the early nineties they decided to open a theme park there. And and I know my son would die to go to this place because they have one ride that's called the dog Farting roller Coaster. Do you get to travel through lots of poop and enjoy the accompanying soundtrack. Yeah. So, as we always say on the show, no matter how

old you get, dog farts are always funny. It's true. I can't beat that. I'm gonna give you this week's trophy. You congrats, well, thanks so much, and don't forget to write to us at part time genius at how stuff Works dot com or call us on the seven Fact hotline. That's one eight four four pt Genius. You can share a fact or tell us why we should have you on to play a quiz sometime. Thanks for listening, Thanks

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