Real Rides & Roller Coasters of Katy Perry’s Chained to the Rhythm
This week pop star Katy Perry released the music video for her new single, “Chained to the Rhythm” featuring Skip Marley. It features a 1950’s-inspired futuristic theme park and some great special effects. The video merges real rides, completely fictional rides, and real rides with some out of this world, physics-bending features. In the video, Perry brings some deep topics to a ...[Read More]
UPDATED – From Dreams to Screams Documentary: Fury 325 at Carowinds
Devin Olson, creator of Coaster-Net has created another From Dreams to Screams documentary. A few years ago, I was blown away by his work on an excellent Outlaw Run documentary. This time Olson focused on the most talked about roller coaster of the year, Fury 325 at Carowinds. UPDATED: Here’s the full documentary: I always love hearing about the creation process involved with building a new ...[Read More]
2013 Theme Park Year in Review
Here’s a wrap up of 2013 including the state of roller coasters and some of the biggest news stories of the year. The Year of the Wooden Coaster Comeback If 2012 was the year of the wing roller coasters, then 2013 was definitely the year that wooden roller coasters made a comeback. We saw genre-bending roller coasters with wooden coaster characteristics, but elements like loops and other inv...[Read More]
The Loop Gap Roller Coaster: YouTube Geek Week Commercial
I was at a wedding recently and people were asking me about two things. The Texas Giant accident and the roller coaster with a gap in its loop from the YouTube commercial running on TV. In case you missed it, YouTube’s been promoting their Geek Week with the commercial above. FreddieW’s “Roller Coaster Tycoons” – Fun with Special Effects After some research I found th...[Read More]
Insane Coaster Wars World Domination Teaser & Name That Coaster!
Season 2 of Insane Coaster Wars: World Domination This time it’s international. Insane Coaster Wars is returning to The Travel Channel and this year, their really hitting the road. Or should I say the skies? For the show’s second season the roller coaster showdowns will feature some of the most highly regarded rides on the planet. Robb Alvey of Theme Park Review was involved in the sho...[Read More]
Hobbit-Themed Area Could be Coming to Islands of Adventure
I came across an interesting rumor on Screamscape recently. Apparently there may be plans for a Hobbit-themed area at Islands of Adventure. And according to this article, Universal even used the success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to convince the Tolkiens that they could create a successful project that’s true to the source material. Could Harry + Hobbits = Too Much Fantasy? I had...[Read More]
Abandoned Freestyle/Hard Rock Amusement Park on NBC’s Revolution
People are fascinated by abandoned amusement parks. It must be the juxtaposition of a normally happy place looking sad, abandoned and creepy. One of the most recently abandoned parks in the country was the backdrop of recent episode of NBC’s Revolution. The show is based on an apocalypse caused by the end of electricity and in turn all electronic devices. Last week, our heroes found themselv...[Read More]
What Roller Coaster Would You Ride in a Coaster Marathon?
While I make it a goal to try to ride new roller coasters as much as possible, there are other enthusiasts that pride themselves in having 100 or even 1,000 rides on a single roller coaster. Last month, Kings Island celebrated a 70-year old man’s 7,000th ride on Diamondback. Could there be a better testament to B&M’s smooth rides? Roller Coaster Marathons – A Test of Coaster ...[Read More]
Insane Coaster Wars Coming to the Travel Channel
Insane Coaster Wars to Debut this Summer on the Travel Channel Summer is almost here, so we can expect to see more theme parks on cable TV again. This year, the Travel Channel is debuting Insane Coaster Wars. The show will pit the country’s best roller coasters against each other in 6 different categories. Insane Coaster Wars will add an interactive twist as fans can visit their site and vot...[Read More]
Harry Potter & The Forbidden Journey Review
On my recent trip to Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure, my family’s focus was on Seuss Landing. My oldest daughter is a Dr. Seuss fan and loves The Cat in the Hat TV show. We enjoyed rides like the Caro-Seuss-el, One-Fish, Two-Fish, and of course The Cat in the Hat dark ride. As our evening at the park was coming to an end, we made our way to the impressively-themed Wizarding Wo...[Read More]
Featured Photo #27 = Wesley Snipes + Intamin
A ride to the top of Kings Dominion’s 305 foot tall Drop Tower: Scream Zone is quite a harrowing ascent even for a seasoned coaster vet like myself. There’s quite a difference between a roller coaster car and just seats with restraints. At the top, Drop Tower holds its ring of 56 seats for a few seconds. These few seconds seem like an eternity to first timers. Then, the bottom drops ou...[Read More]
Donate to Theme Park Change
CoasterRadio Launches a Charity for Theme Park Fans Mike Collins from the popular CoasterRadio podcast sent me some information about a great charity that he’s set up for theme park fans. Here’s more about the program: Theme Park Change encourages amusement park fans to give up one thing they would normally enjoy during a trip to the park and donate the cost of that item to a worthy ca...[Read More]