Theme Parks - What's the Attraction? By Katharine Whittemore
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 It's camp without counselors, high school without classes, the best place to ride out the endless summer. That's what.
The Timber Wolf looks twiggy and gaunt, like miles of scaffolding, like the Eiffel Tower lying on its side. The Timber Wolf is a brand-new, definitely terrifying, fifty-mile-an-hour roller coaster at Worlds of Fun, a theme park on the outskirts of Kansas City, Missouri. When you watch the Wolf from a distance, it makes you giddy and scared all at once. You can hear the screams from half a mile away, along with the baritone clatter of the linked cars as they ski-whoosh out of sight.
Understand the Timber Wolf, and you understand a good many things about theme parks and why millions of teenagers throng to them every year. It's not the pretty tulip and daffodil beds. It's not the cuisine. It's not really the dolphin-through-a-hoop shows and the serene tram rides through the trees. These may be some of the reasons 235 million people travel to America's six hundred theme parks every year (making parks the number one summer attraction in the country), but they aren't what give parks their thrill. The thrill is in the rides. When you stand in line for the Timber Wolf, you hear the recorded sounds of wolves howling in the wind. Then you ride the thing. Think you're going to die. Scream. Feel sick. All that good stuff.
Grip the harness bar so hard your knuckles turn vanilla, or throw your hands up high in the air. It's this kick, this danger fix, that accounts for the parks' real attraction. As Randy Geisler, president of the American Coaster Enthusiasts, says, "A good coaster combines car racing, bobsledding, and skydiving"-a combination that proves pretty much irresistible.
"Teenagers want to do everything just to do it," says Sherry Roberson, nineteen, a guide at Six Flags Over Georgia, outside Atlanta. "All their lives Mom has been saying, 'Don't do that.' And now they can!" Jennis Gaskill, fifteen, describes the appeal another way: "You don't have any control." As if that weren't go ad enough, the parks are a great place to hang out. A theme park is a lot like one giant singles club for people under twenty. It's summer camp for counselors-no campers. lt's high school without classes. Take Worlds of Fun, where about 70 percent of the attendees are teenagers. Worlds of Fun craves, needs, wants teenagers, and that's why they make such a big fuss over new and terrifying rides like the Timber Wolf.
Theme parks may not have been as popular ever before, but all this entertainment is not new. Essentially, the parks began to take off in the late '50s and early, '60s as spin-offs of the enormously successful Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, the first real theme park. (Even today Disneyland which opened in 1955, and Walt Disney World, in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, are the top two parks in terms of attendance.) And Disneyland was basically cleaned-up, jazzed-up version of the small amusement parks that had sprung up in places like Coney Island, in New York. The Disneyland difference was that the park was divided up into sections, and the sections were given themes. "A theme park is your basic amusement park," says Peter Irish, president of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. "The themes are just what the park happens to be wearing."
Some places connect themes to locales. At Opryland, in Nashville, for instance, you'll see lots of country music influence. But most of the parks opt for a sort of vague, syrupy concoction of internationalism and history.
Worlds of Fun, which opened in 1973, is based on Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days. Balloons still inhabit the Worlds of Fun logo, though the rest of the park is pretty much like any other.
As you stroll around, you cross from Scandinavia to Africa, from cutesy pastels to khakicolored stucco, from oompah music to conga drums. The divisions all blend together, and you end up remembering where you are mostly by the names of the rides (The Viking Voyager, The Fury of the Nile).
Like a McDonald's in Tokyo, most theme parks are virtually interchangeable. It's a sure bet, for instance, that there will be a water-splash ride, though the ride might be named Soak City (Cedar Point, in Sandusky, Ohio) or Frontier Chute-Out (Hersheypark, in Pennsylvania) or Thunder River (Six Flags Over Georgia) or Python Plunge (Worlds of Fun). Most parks have booths where you can have an antique-looking photograph taken, a recording studio where you can sing along with hits, and basically the same things to eat, no matter what they call it. Every park has pizza, hot dogs, caramel corn, nachos, and sometimes fast food versions of local favorites-like Cedar Point's cheeseburger on a stick (really) and Sea World's fried shrimp.
THE RIDE STUFF
COASTER WITH THE MOSTEST The Magnum XL-200, at Cedar Point, in Sandusky, Ohio: the world's lastest (70-Plus miles per hour) and highest (201 feet).
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN Birthplace of the modern roller coaster (in 1884) and the country's oldest amusement park (naturally):Coney Island, in Coney Island, New York.
NO EXIT World's longest ride: the 7,400-foot Beast, at Kings Island, in Kings Island, Ohio.
SWEPT AWAY Typhoon Lagoon, at Walt DisneyWorld, in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, has the world's largest wave machine.
REALLY AWESOME The "most intense roller coaster in the universe" (according to the editor of Roller Coaster magazine): The Mindbender, at Fantasyland, West Edmonton Mall, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Cudis Pesmen
It's also a sure bet that you'll see toss-asoftball or shoot-a-target games and people dressed up in giant bear or Gumby costumes. There are park logo T-shirts and biker water bottles and Budweiser mirrors for sale. And there's a show, staged on the hour, guaranteed to feature energetic, highly moussed young people singing and dancing to pop songs from the '50s and '60s.
Over the last twenty years, of course, there have been some new theme-park themes. One of the newest trends is mollification.
Malls, after all, are the parks' stiffest competition for attracting teenagers. As fourteen-year-old Jill Everett, a patron at WorIds of Fun, says, "If it rains, we go to the mall. If it's sunny, we come here. " That attitude has provoked the theme-park industry to consider combining the two venues into one. One place where this has already happened is at the West Edmonton Mall, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada-home of the Fantasyland Amusement Park.
Here you have major retail stores and scary rides-and not just stuck elevators. Plus, the whole shebang is enclosed, which means no rainy day losses.
Another major wave of the future is movie-studio theme parks like Universal Studios Florida, opened in OrIando in May 1990, where visitors actually land in their favorite movies (in the water with Jaws, for example, or on the bike with E.T.). Disney's doing one, too, with the Disney-MGM Studios theme park, which just opened outside Orlando.
The standard-issue parks are doing everything they can think of to keep you coming, too. This means fresh rides, new booths, different shows. And many of them are hoping you'll come and stay-as employees. Two hundred thousand teenagers got jobs at theme parks last year, making the industry one of the largest seasonal employers of teenagers in the country. The pay isn't the greatest (at most parks you start at minimum wage), but there are plenty of worse places to work. Park employees of ten appear to be on a permanent busman's holiday; most of them say that if they weren't working at the park, they'd be hanging out there anyway.
LaToria Pointer and Lori Harrnon, both seventeen, have each worked at Worlds of Fun for two seasons. They selI merchandise like small round sunglasses at an open-air shop. "At McDonald's they might say, 'Don't get smart with me,' and you have to take that and work indoors," says LaToria.
"Here you meet so many new people, you work outside, and you get, well, more adventure." Says Lori, "I worked at a Safeway and hated it. Here the supervisors are more on your level. You get free passes, you get to go to parties. It's just better." Other perks? "You meet millions of guys," says seventeen-year-old Shannon Coffey, who works at Worlds of Fun.
The park social life can be pretty great. At Six Flags they hold "section parties" twice a month, where one part of the park is open for employees after hours. "People are dancing in the streets," says Sherry Roberson. At Worlds of Fun they have a huge dance floor covered by a tent where parties are held at the close of the day. There's always an employee eating quarters, like the Canteen at Six Flags, and you can tell they're good hangouts.
So, by and large, it's fun to work at these places. By and large. Sweeping is sweeping, for instance, no matter where you do it.
And most parks want employees to look happy-all the time. As fifteen-year-old Reggie Rowland, a groundskeeper at Six Flags Over Georgia, says, "It gets so hot and dirty, especially with all the trash around the restaurants and the bathrooms. Sometimes it gets to me. And then a supervisor will see you and say, 'Let's see you smiling!'" But in any case, you can meet hundreds of people your own age. You can make dozens of new friends. Not bad for a summer's work.
And theme parks are still the best place to get you and your adrenaline soaring and to pass a hot night courting controlled danger with your friends. Which is excellent for a summer's play.
THEMES IN SEARCH OF A PARK
MADONNARAMA You've seen the video, now experience the theme park. Visit the MATERIAL GIRL MUSEUM, showcasing all the important moments -and hair colors-in her glamorous life. Go for a fun-filled ride in the SPINNING BUSTlER CUPS (there's room for the whole family!). Race around on the ROLLER COASTER MARRIAGE RIDE. Children under thirteen not admitted.
WEENIE WORLD The mere thought of the Himalayan Bobsled Ride or Lightning Loops enough take you lose your lunch? Then try this sanctuary devoted to the sissy in us all - a place where the roughest ride is the escalator at the IT'S A MALL WORLD AFTER ALL exhibit, where patrons wear harnesses just to buy a hot dog, where golden retrievers and gerbils run free at the SPUDS MACKENZIE "WILD" ANIMAL PARK (be sure to keep the car windows rolled up!).
MATERIAL WORLD "All you need is greed" is the catchy catchphrase at this monument to materialism. Once you bribe the bouncers to get in, you're on your way - riding the BMW BUMPER CARS, visiting the HOUSE OF HORRORS (theme: "A World Without VISA Cards" -chilling!). Hottest-selling souvenir: a shirt that reads, "Mom and Dad went to Material World and all I got was this lousy silk blouse."
THE KRANKY KINGDOM Not in the mood to have your spirits lifted by a bunch of unbearably perky people? Don't worry... you won't be happy at this Shrine of Whine, designed with the perpetually peevish in mind. Long lines and outrageously expensive refreshments give bitter patrons plenty to complain about! Guaranteed to bring you down-THE DEPRESSING COTTAGE OF SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (Grumpy, Surly, Crabby, Huffy, Puffy, Grouchy, and Terse). Or forego the "fun" altogether by going on a madcap TYLENOL SCAVENGER HUNT." A bad time to be had by all!
Source: Seventeen Magazine
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