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A History of Roller Coasters, Part One: Early Ups and Downs · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. That's our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 1: Throw your hands up in the air. I'm been bowling.
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Speaker 1: Joined as always with the inimical, the imminent mister Noel Brown.
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Speaker 2: Hello have you guys? You guys know that Smashing Pumpkins
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Speaker 2: song in nineteen seventy nine, No what is music exactly? Who?
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Speaker 2: What even his music? Well, there's a really great meme
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Speaker 2: where it's a Billy Corgan writing a roller coaster. That's
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Speaker 2: the title of the meme and it's from the perspective
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Speaker 2: of someone writing a roller coast and he goes and
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Speaker 2: we you know, don't even care where they just extend
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Speaker 2: the Wii. And last thing, there's another amazing roller coaster
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Speaker 2: related image of Billy Corgan. This is actually of him
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Speaker 2: looking really bummed out on a roller coaster, just sitting
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Speaker 2: there with I guess presumably his manager, looking about as
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Speaker 2: crestfallen as one could be in the happiest place on earth.
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Speaker 1: Last of our last of first things shout out to,
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Speaker 1: of course Red Hot Chili Peppers Roller Coaster of Love.
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Speaker 2: People, how do America soundtrack? Uh huh? Excellent version of
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Speaker 2: that tune.
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Speaker 1: So, folks, you're probably wondering what we're talking about in
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Speaker 1: this week's series, which is an on purpose two parter.
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Speaker 2: We did it. We figured it.
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Speaker 1: Out in advance. This time we are talking about roller
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Speaker 1: coasters upside down on the dip dip dip A.
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Speaker 2: Have you ever have you.
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Speaker 1: Ever been just on your regular feet, on the regular
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Speaker 1: ground and thought this is disappointing.
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Speaker 2: Maybe there's more good exactly? Oh man, what if we
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Speaker 2: what if we put ourselves in this situation where we
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Speaker 2: were purposely under duress?
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Speaker 1: What if it felt like I was dying? And it's
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Speaker 1: funny because just for a second though, and how how
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Speaker 1: cool would it be if I waited in line up
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Speaker 1: to two hours before I had that rush? It's like
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Speaker 1: what if what if drugs were slower and then emerged
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Speaker 1: from the whole experience not dead, and we had renewed
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Speaker 1: lease on life and looking for your phone and your
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Speaker 1: hat and your parents limb or your kids. Yeah, so
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Speaker 1: this is this is the great noble dare we say
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Speaker 1: universal human impetus behind roller coasters, behind seeking thrills, The
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Speaker 1: modern roller coasters, we know, are pretty much multimillion dollar
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Speaker 1: operations at this point, and they're they're in an arms
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Speaker 1: race of hyperbole. What's the what's the tallest, what's the fastest,
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Speaker 1: what's the longest, et cetera, et cetera. But the idea
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Speaker 1: of a roller coaster the nuts. I actually know a
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Speaker 1: guy who works building roller coasters for amusement parks, and
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Speaker 1: he told me his historical thing. He won't give us tickets.
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Speaker 1: I checked, sorry, guys, sorry, ridiculous history ask but he said, uh,
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Speaker 1: he said, you know, been the interesting thing about the
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Speaker 1: history of roller coasters is I'm pretty sure the first
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Speaker 1: ones were non consensual. I said, what do you mean,
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Speaker 1: and he said, I feel like a lot of people
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Speaker 1: just fell down hills and died, and the ones who
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Speaker 1: lived were like, let's do it again, right.
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Speaker 2: It's like the guy who first ate a mushroom and
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Speaker 2: didn't die. I was like, you know what, that kind
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Speaker 2: of is a little bit yummy. It's almost as though
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Speaker 2: it has a fourth flavor, are called mummy, you know,
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Speaker 2: but yeah, you know, it's funny. It's like, speaking of
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Speaker 2: you know, non consensual. I mean, the earliest roller coasters
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Speaker 2: were borderline non consensual and the like. It was just
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Speaker 2: such an unknown people were kind of stepping consensually somewhat
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Speaker 2: into an experience that one could argue is non consensually
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Speaker 2: dangerous without their knowledge.
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Speaker 1: Right right, and big thanks to Gil Chandler for the
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Speaker 1: Massachusetts Department of Education, who says the modern day like
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Speaker 1: the purpose Flee designed thrill ride or gravity ride, goes
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Speaker 1: back to the sixteen hundreds in Russia wherein these folks
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Speaker 1: would build big high wooden ramps. They would cover them
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Speaker 1: with water, knowing this water would freeze and become ice.
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Speaker 1: So they were making like you know, luge courses almost
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Speaker 1: and they were about two feet wide, just enough for
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Speaker 1: a small sled, and you would have to climb a
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Speaker 1: ladder like you would for a water slide at a
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Speaker 1: water park. The ladder was pretty high, seventy feet and
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Speaker 1: then you would sit on the sled and then somebody
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Speaker 1: would come along at the top of the ladder, they
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Speaker 1: pushed the sled on into the ramp. You would speed
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Speaker 1: down to the bottom. You would safely, if everything worked out,
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Speaker 1: coast to a stop along a six hundred foot sort
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Speaker 1: of rampway or straight away.
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Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. And you know, like you said if everything
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Speaker 2: went well, there certainly were things. Whenever you play with
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Speaker 2: gravity and don't have a series of kind of contingency
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Speaker 2: plans in place, there are opportunities for things to go
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Speaker 2: horribly awry. And this does kind of just remind me
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Speaker 2: of like it's like almost just controlled sledding in a way,
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Speaker 2: because even earlier than this, you know, you could argue
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Speaker 2: that the early roller coasters were hills with people, you know,
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Speaker 2: in these little slidy crafts known as sleighs or sleds.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is the part where some where something
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Speaker 1: like British documentarian or European documentary if they're gonna be
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Speaker 1: heard all about it is like.
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Speaker 3: Man has always found great offense in the unfast structures
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Speaker 3: of gravity. Spit in the face of God one more
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Speaker 3: time upon the worthy gig.
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Speaker 2: May you slip and slide ye way exactly.
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Speaker 1: I would love to hear more commercials for these kinds
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Speaker 1: of rides phrased in that in that sort of high
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Speaker 1: melodrama up Britannica points out that there were mechanical problems
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Speaker 1: a right, not mechanical problems, but you know, there were
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Speaker 1: the areas of opportunity, as HR would call them, because
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Speaker 1: once the sled goes all the way down very quickly,
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Speaker 1: somebody's got to haul it all.
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Speaker 2: The way back up, right, I mean, I guess, I
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Speaker 2: guess in science y terms, this is what you might
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Speaker 2: call a simple machine. Right. It's about as simple as
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Speaker 2: it gets. And maybe they could have employed another simple machine.
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Speaker 2: The pulley and rope would have really been helpful in
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Speaker 2: hauling that thing back up. And we're gonna see a
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Speaker 2: lot of simple machines in modern coasters, like the wire
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Speaker 2: that literally hauls the coaster, or the chain that hauls
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Speaker 2: the coaster up that that incline that.
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Speaker 1: Royce maxically get that noise.
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Speaker 2: So the chain there, I believe, is what it's called.
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Speaker 2: We'll get to victims. But to me, guys, I don't
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Speaker 2: know about y'all. That's the scariest part of the entire
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Speaker 2: coaster is that it is a slow crawl towards death,
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Speaker 2: and then once you're in it, it's so fast and
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Speaker 2: furious part two that you don't even have a chance
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Speaker 2: to be scared. You're just screaming for out of sheer
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Speaker 2: joy and excitement.
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Speaker 1: I argue there's a purposeful psychological aspect to that. In
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Speaker 1: modern roller coasters because you could mute that sound now,
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Speaker 1: but the of the slow upward climb gives you just
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Speaker 1: enough time in a relatively short experience to think, was
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Speaker 1: this a mistake?
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Speaker 2: It's like the sound of the chamber rotating in a good, old,
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Speaker 2: wholesome game of Russian Roulette?
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Speaker 1: Did I know you were going to say that?
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Speaker 2: Click? Not nearly as scary, right, that's.
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Speaker 1: Another kind of roller coaster. I did say that on air.
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Speaker 1: But people, If we go back to Gil Chandler, he
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Speaker 1: notes that people in big cities and rural villages alike
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Speaker 1: all dug these things that they would call ice slides.
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Speaker 1: They were built in public parks. Some really fancy aristocrats
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Speaker 1: had them, because again this is pre Russian Revolution. And
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Speaker 1: some of them even had lanterns so you could slide
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Speaker 1: around at night.
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Speaker 2: A good night's slide. Who doesn't love that? Yeah? I
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Speaker 2: don't imagine too that some of these were probably pretty
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Speaker 2: ostentatious and incorporated like ice sculpturey, you know, into these
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Speaker 2: like winter wonderlands. I'm not I don't have this, you know,
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Speaker 2: on authority, but I can only imagine that certain of
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Speaker 2: the higher muckety MUCKs of the time would have insisted
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Speaker 2: on these kind of ostentatious flourishes.
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Speaker 1: Of course, these guys probably had like Siberian garden gnomes
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Speaker 1: and stuff, you know what I mean, or garden hermits,
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Speaker 1: So excuse us, excuse us. So the we do know
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Speaker 1: that they understood the elementary physics that to inform most
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Speaker 1: roller coasters a long time ago. If you look at
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Speaker 1: a ride in Saint Petersburg in seventeen eighty four, you
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Speaker 1: see that they had these carriages and grooved tracks that
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Speaker 1: traveled up and down small hills, all riding off the
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Speaker 1: power generated by the height and slope of that first ascent,
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Speaker 1: which is why the first hill is usually the largest
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Speaker 1: in old school coasters.
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Speaker 2: Is interesting how Soviets have a history of innovation but
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Speaker 2: also not the best safety track record, And a lot
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Speaker 2: of that has to do with just jumping right into
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Speaker 2: innovation without really thinking about how it might potentially hurt
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Speaker 2: hurt people. Yeah, one hundred percent, man shade necessarily maybe
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Speaker 2: mild shade, I guess. But it's true of even electronics,
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Speaker 2: Like they're known for really interesting early innovations in consumer electronics,
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Speaker 2: but also in a lot of like manufacturing flaws and
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Speaker 2: then problems in scale.
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Speaker 1: In the Space Race echoed those same lessons. It's a
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Speaker 1: big plot point, in fact, in a story we did
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Speaker 1: for a Fantastic Fiction anthology called The Passage, in which
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Speaker 1: j Edgar Hoover talks at perhaps problematic length about the
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Speaker 1: Russian approach to progress, which is historically throwing bodies at
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Speaker 1: the problem. Sorry, Russian listeners, Russian ridiculous historians, that is
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Speaker 1: just historically true. This is part of the reason why
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Speaker 1: roller coasters are so awesome. To bring it back home,
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Speaker 1: the first quote unquote roller coaster didn't emerge until the
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Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds, and it was a French builder who
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Speaker 1: bought what they called the Russian Mountains to Paris. And
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Speaker 1: the problem was the climate is very different. Russia is
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Speaker 1: colder than France, and so ice did freeze as well.
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Speaker 1: So the French quickly realized. It was kind of sad
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Speaker 1: at first. It was like, you know, when a little
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Speaker 1: bit of snow falls and people try to sled on
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Speaker 1: the snow flurry and they just get like stuck in
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Speaker 1: the mud.
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Speaker 2: Or someone trying to make a snow angel in dirty,
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Speaker 2: melty snow. It's literally just someone rolling around in wet mud.
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Speaker 2: It's really sad.
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Speaker 1: Which again is a perfect opportunity for our melodramatic, our
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Speaker 1: melodramatic European narrator. Right, it's like absolutely observe seeking angels
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Speaker 1: in the fifth.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and finding only devils. So the silky DeVos. So French.
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Speaker 1: I love this vibe we're getting so French. The French
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Speaker 1: engineers said, Okay, if we can't count on the ice,
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Speaker 1: which we cannot even back, then then will make these rollers,
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Speaker 1: these wooden rollers, and we'll still use sleds, but our
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Speaker 1: sleds will reliably roll upon these wooden contraptions. This is
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Speaker 1: the origin of the term roller coaster totally.
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Speaker 2: And by the way, Ben I find eyes in general
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Speaker 2: to be quite fickle. It's so changeable, you know. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: that was a really bad science joke, you know, because
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Speaker 2: they can change states. Yeah from yeah, okay, thank you,
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Speaker 2: I liked it. I'm going to stay. I'm not leaving. No,
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Speaker 2: you should keep it. You's with you, guys. Yeah, it's
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Speaker 2: rolling at this point, no longer sliding.
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Speaker 1: Right right, And and they still don't quite look like
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Speaker 1: the modern roller coasters. They're definitely not safe because you know,
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Speaker 1: we've all okay, full disclosure of folks, Max Noel and I.
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Speaker 1: We're dudes, which means at some point we were dumb kids,
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Speaker 1: which means we did a lot of like jackass level
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Speaker 1: stunts in our childhood, like, oh, what if we do
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Speaker 1: jump off this bridge?
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Speaker 2: We might still do that stuff, right, guys, I think
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Speaker 2: you might have me beat on that. I was a
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Speaker 2: little more of a timid child. I was afraid of
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Speaker 2: climbing trees. But y'all, I'm sure you guys did some
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Speaker 2: gnarly stuff, and I look forward to hearing about it
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Speaker 2: Pepper throughout this episode. I will say, though, as far
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Speaker 2: as roller coasters are concerned, I don't know if this
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Speaker 2: is y'all's experience, but I have to almost earn back
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Speaker 2: my ability to not be scared of riding them. Like
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Speaker 2: I will have a period where I don't ride a
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Speaker 2: roller coaster for a long time. Then I go to
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Speaker 2: an amusement park and it takes me a minute a
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Speaker 2: couple of times walking around the park before I can
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Speaker 2: be tough enough. I got to warm up to it.
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Speaker 2: It's not like riding a bike. It doesn't just come
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Speaker 2: back to you immediately. I sort of regain my fear
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Speaker 2: of death at the hands of these you know, metal
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Speaker 2: machines and then kind of gradually by watching little kids
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Speaker 2: riding them and mainly just not wanting to be embarrassed
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Speaker 2: by being the only one that waits behind while everyone
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Speaker 2: rides the ride and then has to sheepishly kind of
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Speaker 2: join them at the other side.
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Speaker 1: I'll be honest to me, roller coasters have a way
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Speaker 1: has been kind of like kind of like a like
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Speaker 1: ice cream is a weirdly good comparison. If it's around,
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Speaker 1: I'm fine with it, but I rarely wake up and say,
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Speaker 1: let me travel to some place to get ice cream.
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Speaker 2: Or not what you'd call it. Coaster head, And I
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Speaker 2: think at a certain point in this episode we're going
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Speaker 2: to talk about some that we quite enjoy, But first
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Speaker 2: we've got more history to get through going.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so safety measures, first off, not a thing in
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Speaker 1: the early days. The injuries that passengers got were actually
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Speaker 1: the best marketing for these rides, because people would come
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Speaker 1: up to each other in Paris and say something like,
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Speaker 1: you know, Jacques ruled one of the Russian mountains, and
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Speaker 1: they say he'll never regain full use of his left arm,
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Speaker 1: and people are like, what.
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Speaker 2: I gotta go. Yes, Gabrielle lost a finger.
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Speaker 1: Well that's classic Gabrielle. Let's get on this thing.
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Speaker 2: So she can't have many left at this point, right.
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Speaker 1: So in eighteen seventeen, the Belleville Mountains and the aerial
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Speaker 1: walks in Paris started adding some safety things. They added
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Speaker 1: wheels that would lock continuous tracks, and eventually they beat
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Speaker 1: that first problem we were talking about returning the car,
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Speaker 1: so they hoist They had cables that would hoist the
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Speaker 1: car back to the top of the hill so you
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Speaker 1: didn't have to have people pushing it. They finally did
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Speaker 1: that pulley that you're talking about. They still have not
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Speaker 1: made a continuous circle track yet.
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Speaker 2: Well, and if anything, this is just going to increase
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Speaker 2: their yield, you know, or their take, right because they
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Speaker 2: can have more rides per hour, per hour, you know,
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Speaker 2: per day, and not to pull the thing up by hand.
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Speaker 2: And again, Ben, where is this kind of in the
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Speaker 2: trajectory of like the history of the automobile.
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Speaker 1: This is pre automobile, Yeah, very much so.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we know even the early automobiles didn't really
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Speaker 2: have very many safety features. So in a lot of ways,
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Speaker 2: it's not like they actively didn't want to have safety features,
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Speaker 2: just like technologically they kind of hadn't really you know,
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Speaker 2: cracked it yet.
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Speaker 4: I Mean, I think one thing that's really interesting is,
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Speaker 4: and this is something I didn't know when I was
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Speaker 4: throwing the research.
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Speaker 2: It's like parallel time with the train, the Locomo very much,
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Speaker 2: very much so, which would have had things like locking wheels,
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Speaker 2: which would have had so and especially on a track.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely makes sense Max. That is there's that parallel between
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Speaker 2: a tract train and a coaster.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's right interesting because they're kind of advancing I
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Speaker 4: mean train much more than the roller coaster, That's what
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Speaker 4: I'm saying, advancing the ball together in some ways.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Interesting. Surely early trains didn't have those locking wheels either
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Speaker 2: or like some of the safety mechanisms, and that's why
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Speaker 2: there were so many train derailments and horrific acts, right,
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Speaker 2: uh huh.
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Speaker 1: And I'm sure at some point late in a night,
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Speaker 1: a Parisian engineer was speculating whether or not you can
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Speaker 1: make a coal powered roller coaster. However, we know, we
17:15
Speaker 1: know that the idea of train cars comes in here,
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Speaker 1: especially in the United States. If we go to some
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Speaker 1: great work by American experience, we see we see this
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Speaker 1: sort of parallel advancement that you're referencing, Max.
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Speaker 2: That's right. American Experience goes on to say, when the
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Speaker 2: proprietors of mauch Chunk Railway in eastern Pennsylvania began operations
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Speaker 2: in the eighteen twenties, their mission was not entertainment but
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Speaker 2: coal mining, and their first passengers were mules herded into
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Speaker 2: a train laden with cold. These lucky beasts coasted from
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Speaker 2: the top of Mount Pisga down to a canal, then
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Speaker 2: hauled the train back up for another go. Considering this task,
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Speaker 2: I don't know if i'd call them lucky. And then
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Speaker 2: by eighteen forty four there had been a return track lay.
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Speaker 2: And you know what it makes me think of too,
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Speaker 2: those little two person mining carts where you kind of seesaw,
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Speaker 2: you know, in order to propel the little the cart,
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Speaker 2: you know, on a train track. So, I mean a
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Speaker 2: lot of this stuff really is I've never thought about this, Max,
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Speaker 2: But the parallels between the technology advancements of the locomotive
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Speaker 2: absolutely parallel that of the roller coaster, only with much
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Speaker 2: lower stakes. One would argue, well.
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Speaker 1: How, I don't know. The financial stakes are high on
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Speaker 1: the trains.
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Speaker 2: But people, I mean, no lower on the roller coasters.
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Speaker 2: Lower stakes in terms of like, you know, how much
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Speaker 2: loss could be accrued by a derailment or accidents. Every
18:47
Speaker 2: human life is important, every one of Gabrielle's fingers important
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Speaker 2: for some task. But you know this is like I
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Speaker 2: don't think there was there were as many eyes on
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Speaker 2: the safety track record of these early roller coasters as
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Speaker 2: there were maybe on the the the entire railway system
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Speaker 2: at large.
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Speaker 1: Regulatory bodies did not exist the way they exist today.
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Speaker 1: By eighteen forty four, there had been a return track
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Speaker 1: constructed for this Mount Chunk railway, and this removed the
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Speaker 1: need for the mules entirely. They dubbed this first system
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Speaker 1: the switchback And to our friends of Britannica, thanks again
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Speaker 1: for tuning into our Britannic episode. To our friends of Britannica,
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Speaker 1: this shows that the rail line was daring and it
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Speaker 1: was again entirely for mining coal. This is a huge improvement.
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Speaker 2: So it is a circular track at this point, or
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Speaker 2: is a whole other route going maybe not up the
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Speaker 2: steepest part of the mountain.
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Speaker 1: Max Max is orchestrating Maxwen.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: So it's basically a straight down in one part and
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Speaker 4: then it kind of goes around in a chill path.
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Speaker 4: So the train, it's like the train couldn't on its
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Speaker 4: own power, couldn't get up the hill, like, so that's
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Speaker 4: why they needed the mules. But so yeah, now it's
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Speaker 4: a circular track the entire way, so you could, you know,
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Speaker 4: ride it if you wanted to, if.
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Speaker 1: You wanted to, as surely some people did, but they
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Speaker 1: were at work, they may not might not have been
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Speaker 1: having the best day. They certainly weren't paying money to
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Speaker 1: ride it. This thing was pretty long. The journey downhill
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Speaker 1: is nine miles, so they would load up as many
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Speaker 1: as fourteen very heavy cars. We're talking like each car
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Speaker 1: having fifty thousand pounds of coal, and then it would
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Speaker 1: go down the mountain under with one guy who literally
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Speaker 1: has one brake lever and is just thinking, my time
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Speaker 1: means impeccable.
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Speaker 2: Well, and it would it would again be the same
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Speaker 2: kind of brake lever as you see whenever there's maybe
20:48
Speaker 2: a damsel tied to the rail railroad tracks and it's
20:52
Speaker 2: like you have to you can't just yank it, or
20:54
Speaker 2: the whole thing's gonna just USh, you know, every all
20:56
Speaker 2: the cars are gonna become smashed or whatever. You have
20:59
Speaker 2: to grab dually engage it, you know, so you're slowly
21:03
Speaker 2: losing speed instead of like because otherwise everyone would just
21:06
Speaker 2: slam into the front of the car and break their necks.
21:09
Speaker 1: And eventually the promise of danger lured in paying passengers.
21:15
Speaker 1: Coal was still hauled in the morning. But it's kind
21:18
Speaker 1: of it reminds me of the story. It reminds me
21:21
Speaker 1: of the story of Hidden Valley ranch dressing, where they
21:25
Speaker 1: started a dude ranch, but people increasingly just traveled there
21:28
Speaker 1: to get the condiment ranch dressing. So now people are
21:32
Speaker 1: increasingly showing up in the afternoon to pay. Sources differ,
21:37
Speaker 1: but to pay something around like fifty cents per ride
21:42
Speaker 1: just to go down that incline.
21:44
Speaker 2: How'd you get up in the first place? You would?
21:47
Speaker 2: You would behind that up. Yeah, you'd be hauled up
21:50
Speaker 2: by the mules, presumably up the gentler Like, how did
21:54
Speaker 2: the passengers? Yeah, how would the passengers have gotten up?
21:57
Speaker 4: I think I think the up part was the probably
22:00
Speaker 4: the more accessible part. I think what they were doing
22:02
Speaker 4: is because they mined the coal at the top and
22:04
Speaker 4: they went down and that's why guess where they processed
22:06
Speaker 4: the coal.
22:06
Speaker 2: I don't know, That's what it sounds like. I guess
22:09
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if they had to walk up the mountain
22:11
Speaker 2: by foot and then ride the cart down the mountain,
22:15
Speaker 2: or if they were actually because it's see, I'm confused
22:17
Speaker 2: a little bit about how it's a continuous track. No,
22:20
Speaker 2: I see. But but I guess I'm asking is when
22:21
Speaker 2: they're coming down from the top, there's there's obviously no mule,
22:25
Speaker 2: and there's enough momentum generated by that mutt. That's what
22:30
Speaker 2: I'm saying that I'm asking. Yeah, so there's enough momentum
22:32
Speaker 2: generated by that for it to make the downwards slow
22:35
Speaker 2: and then just continue back up of its own volition.
22:38
Speaker 4: Well, it it goes around the switch back the more
22:41
Speaker 4: level thing. And it's also you know, you have the
22:43
Speaker 4: train there, so the train will pull it the rest
22:45
Speaker 4: of the way.
22:45
Speaker 2: Got it, got it, got it? Thank you enough? If
22:47
Speaker 2: if it could.
22:48
Speaker 1: Uh, I wanted to do an inflation calculator to give
22:52
Speaker 1: everybody a sense of this, And so fifty I made
23:01
Speaker 1: eighteen forty four is the equivalent a.
23:04
Speaker 2: Lot of money ten bucks, twenty bucks, twenty dollars in
23:07
Speaker 2: eighty ten cents this ride. So it's it's a lottable,
23:12
Speaker 2: but it's still a lot. Well, I mean, nowadays you'd
23:15
Speaker 2: pay for the privilege of going into an amusement park
23:18
Speaker 2: where you can actually ride stuff without having abused tickets.
23:21
Speaker 2: Probably fifty bucks is going to be the minimum.
23:24
Speaker 1: I still is still one of the big problems I
23:27
Speaker 1: have with the coolest thing at six Flags here in
23:30
Speaker 1: Georgia for a long time, laser tag. You pay get
23:33
Speaker 1: in the park, and then laser tag costs more money extra.
23:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not cool. I appreciate Max rolling his
23:40
Speaker 2: eyes there. You've been there too, bro. I love laser tag.
23:42
Speaker 2: I miss it. I haven't played it in years, and
23:44
Speaker 2: I would love to. Isn't don't they don't? They do
23:46
Speaker 2: it at Andretti's that place out in the urbs here
23:49
Speaker 2: that does like go kart racing. I think they also
23:51
Speaker 2: have laser tag.
23:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, Lasertag is awesome. Six Flegs sucks well.
23:54
Speaker 2: Okay, now I disagree. I disagree the Cedar Fair all day.
23:58
Speaker 2: Go to Cedar Fair Park. I don't know about that, Okay,
24:01
Speaker 2: I'll check it out. It farway near it.
24:04
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm more like hot air balloons.
24:08
Speaker 4: Well, it turns out we'll talk about this later. There's
24:10
Speaker 4: another park in Atlanta. I was, yes, Okay, well save it.
24:13
Speaker 4: This is awesome.
24:14
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say, by the way, guys, I
24:15
Speaker 2: haven't been the Six Flags in UH at least over
24:18
Speaker 2: a year, but I still pay my monthly subscription fee
24:21
Speaker 2: that's about fourteen bucks. It's so little that I barely
24:24
Speaker 2: notice it. But I am just filling the coffers of
24:26
Speaker 2: Six Flags.
24:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:28
Speaker 2: No, no coasters given in return.
24:31
Speaker 1: And look, when I say that I'm gay a pilot license,
24:33
Speaker 1: I want to ride hot air balloons, I'm not at
24:36
Speaker 1: all disparaging roller coasters. We all seek our flirtations with
24:41
Speaker 1: death in our own manner, in our own choosing right,
24:44
Speaker 1: so so we wish you luck on yours. We also
24:48
Speaker 1: know that, given the mining history of roller coasters, you
24:52
Speaker 1: might not be surprised to learn that enjoyment for the
24:56
Speaker 1: passengers was a side business for these guys. It was
24:59
Speaker 1: not there primary priorities. So as mines expand throughout nearby mountains,
25:05
Speaker 1: this switchback thing eventually becomes less and less useful, and
25:10
Speaker 1: they say, look, we are not making money with this
25:16
Speaker 1: thing as a mining implement or as a mining process,
25:20
Speaker 1: so let's just turn it into a tourist attraction. This
25:24
Speaker 1: is the first scenic railway. Scenic railways have been a
25:29
Speaker 1: thing for a long time. You can still ride scenic
25:32
Speaker 1: railways in various parts of the Southeast, for sure. There's
25:36
Speaker 1: still several in Tennessee, and some of them were pretty rough.
25:41
Speaker 1: I remember at one time there was a scenic railway
25:45
Speaker 1: I want to say in East Tennessee where where while
25:50
Speaker 1: you were on the ride, part of the ride was
25:52
Speaker 1: being attacked by quote unquote Indians and these guys dressed
25:57
Speaker 1: up as indigenous people would come on and like like
26:02
Speaker 1: haunted house, hassle you. Thankfully that doesn't happen anymore. But
26:06
Speaker 1: with this first scenic railway, you would the ride would
26:10
Speaker 1: start at five or ten miles an hour, and as
26:14
Speaker 1: a passenger you were able to look at the Pocono's
26:19
Speaker 1: and then you see a panoramic open quarry, a burning
26:23
Speaker 1: mine that have been on fire since eighteen thirty two.
26:27
Speaker 1: Nice to visit, don't want to live there. And then
26:30
Speaker 1: by the time you hit this thing they called the
26:31
Speaker 1: home stretch, the ride was sixty five miles an hour,
26:36
Speaker 1: so it's kicking up.
26:36
Speaker 2: Speed the entire time. That's right, that's huge at this point, right,
26:40
Speaker 2: that's like, I mean, man, unbelievably fast. This is these
26:47
Speaker 2: are speeds as yet perhaps unexperienced right by humans. Yeah.
26:53
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean at the it's definitely not a normal
26:57
Speaker 1: person's day. It goes sixty five miles an hour. In
27:00
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, at the peak of his popularity, this
27:03
Speaker 1: scenic railway carries something like thirty five thousand passengers a year.
27:08
Speaker 1: There were special trains run to accommodate the tourists and
27:12
Speaker 1: the enthusiasts. The more intentional roller coasters follow after this,
27:17
Speaker 1: they echo this, and it all goes back to eighteen
27:21
Speaker 1: seventy two. A guy named J. G. Taylor from Baltimore.
27:25
Speaker 1: He is, if you played that game roller Coaster Tycoon? Yeah,
27:29
Speaker 1: I love that game.
27:30
Speaker 2: It's so fun. This this guy's kind of like, would
27:36
Speaker 2: be would be roller Coaster Tycot? Couldn't you build them
27:40
Speaker 2: real dangerous on purpose and stuff like that? Wasn'tless a
27:43
Speaker 2: part of the fun of that game? Yes?
27:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as losses are acceptable or within an
27:49
Speaker 1: acceptable march, win the game. This guy, JG. Taylor, he submitsmall.
27:56
Speaker 2: Tycoons have an initial I just want to ask you
27:59
Speaker 2: gotta be you know or whatever? JK, that's such a
28:03
Speaker 2: tycoon thing to do. Sorry, please carry out.
28:06
Speaker 1: Oh, this guy, a Baltimore native, JG. Taylor, submits what
28:10
Speaker 1: was likely the first patent for roller coaster. People debate it,
28:14
Speaker 1: but he called it improvement and in kind railways.
28:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does strike me as a thing that would
28:21
Speaker 2: be a little tricky to patent, like all in right,
28:24
Speaker 2: because I mean, no one owns gravity, right, No one
28:28
Speaker 2: owns the manipulation of gravity with wheels. So I imagine you
28:33
Speaker 2: could patent a roller coaster design, you know, for the way,
28:37
Speaker 2: or a particular type of mechanic that like hauled you
28:40
Speaker 2: up and dropped you down or whatever it might be,
28:43
Speaker 2: perhaps even like a type of means of distributing electricity.
28:46
Speaker 2: But I can't imagine one could fully own the concept
28:50
Speaker 2: of a roller coaster. So what happened here?
28:52
Speaker 1: Well after that, there's a patent in eighteen seventy eight
28:55
Speaker 1: by a guy named Richard Knudsen, and he's in Brooklyn.
28:58
Speaker 1: He's a Brooklyn kid, and invention to your point about
29:02
Speaker 1: specifying the mechanics or the construction everything, that's what he does.
29:08
Speaker 1: His invention is two parallel sets of tracks, each of
29:11
Speaker 1: which progresses from some height down to ground level. And
29:15
Speaker 1: the car descends one set of tracks and then it's
29:18
Speaker 1: raised by a lift to the top of the other
29:20
Speaker 1: set of tracks. So it goes back and forth all day.
29:24
Speaker 1: It's a pretty small operation, the ways picturing, and it
29:26
Speaker 1: carries about four people at a time. And he never
29:30
Speaker 1: actually built it, but he called it the inclined plane railway.
29:37
Speaker 2: The inclined plane Okay, the ramp, yeah, exactly. And you know,
29:41
Speaker 2: obviously this is the kind of thing where you can
29:44
Speaker 2: try to patent it. You could do that, but it's
29:46
Speaker 2: so easy for him to make one little change and
29:48
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden it's kind of its own thing.
29:50
Speaker 2: And that's how you.
29:51
Speaker 1: Well, there is one carries five people, and so on.
29:55
Speaker 2: Can you patent the wind? Ben?
29:59
Speaker 1: Can you paint with all the colors of it?
30:00
Speaker 2: I can pay with most of them. One of them
30:02
Speaker 2: is continues to elude me.
30:04
Speaker 1: So we have to we have to continue the story
30:07
Speaker 1: with a guy named LaMarcus. aDNA Thompson.
30:09
Speaker 2: I love a LaMarcus.
30:12
Speaker 1: I knew LaMarcus.
30:14
Speaker 2: That means the Marcus. Yes. Yes.
30:17
Speaker 1: By the end of the eighteen hundreds, these American trolley
30:21
Speaker 1: companies were in on the game. They were building amusement
30:25
Speaker 1: parks at the very end the terminus point of their
30:29
Speaker 1: lines to attract people looking for amusements. You know, you're courting,
30:35
Speaker 1: you're out on the gas take. Yeah, you're taking the
30:38
Speaker 1: kids out this trolley terminus thing. The most famous is
30:43
Speaker 1: probably Coney Island in New York City. Have you guys
30:46
Speaker 1: been to Coney Island?
30:47
Speaker 2: Dude, I love it. I've r in the Wonder Wheel
30:51
Speaker 2: a couple of one coaster. I think it wasn't a
30:53
Speaker 2: crazy one. It was maybe like a sort of a
30:55
Speaker 2: smaller one. But the Wonder Wheel is class second. I
30:58
Speaker 2: just love the vibes. Man, It's just a it makes
31:00
Speaker 2: you feel like you're stepping into history, a lot of
31:02
Speaker 2: interesting American history in that place. You can feel.
31:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, Coney Island was the place to be for quite
31:10
Speaker 1: a long time. It also became home to several theme
31:14
Speaker 1: parks that were in competition. So, like, if you enjoy
31:18
Speaker 1: amusement parks, folks, imagine it similar to you know, every
31:24
Speaker 1: town or every big city has a couple of roads
31:27
Speaker 1: that are just filled with dealerships, car dealerships, and they're
31:31
Speaker 1: like right next to each other, right across the street
31:33
Speaker 1: from each other. Coney Island was doing this with amusement
31:36
Speaker 1: parks for a while, or theme parks.
31:38
Speaker 2: I think even to this day, there's two. There's like
31:40
Speaker 2: Luna Park and then there's the other one that's sort
31:42
Speaker 2: of across the way, and they still somewhat compete, even
31:45
Speaker 2: though it all just feels like Coney Island. And it's
31:47
Speaker 2: very likely that you'll do both because neither of them
31:50
Speaker 2: are like particularly massive.
31:52
Speaker 1: And they have the hot dog eating contest.
31:55
Speaker 2: Which I've never seen personally, but I do love.
31:57
Speaker 1: Attend in person.
31:59
Speaker 2: I think it would be a lot of fun.
32:01
Speaker 1: So Coney Island has a lot of their stuff is
32:04
Speaker 1: inspired by the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in eighteen
32:08
Speaker 1: ninety three. Also check out The Devil in the White City,
32:11
Speaker 1: a fantastic book about the about the exposition and the
32:17
Speaker 1: serial killer H. H.
32:18
Speaker 2: Holmes.
32:19
Speaker 1: Just gonna throw that in there.
32:22
Speaker 2: Thanks Maxx.
32:24
Speaker 1: They popularize the hot dog as American food, you know,
32:28
Speaker 1: the Frankfurture, a European invention. Anyway, into this milieu stros
32:34
Speaker 1: Lemarcus Adma Thompson. He is considered and what a cool
32:45
Speaker 1: street name is this? What a cool honorific. He is
32:48
Speaker 1: considered the father of the gravity, the father of the gravity.
32:53
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, not just gravity. Okay, well, I mean at.
32:56
Speaker 1: Least gravity is like a you know, a roller coaster.
33:00
Speaker 2: It's like the knowledge you know. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, okay,
33:03
Speaker 2: fair enough. Sorry, it's really easy to take that as
33:06
Speaker 2: like I am God, the father of yes for people. Yeah,
33:12
Speaker 2: God is the actual father of gravity or the actual
33:15
Speaker 2: creator of gravity, but the gravity is different.
33:18
Speaker 1: This guy, uh has a weird description in the American experience.
33:24
Speaker 1: He is called quote a Sunday school teacher and dime
33:27
Speaker 1: store moralist. He thinks you're gonna say moron, that would
33:31
Speaker 1: have been funny. I don't even know what a dime
33:34
Speaker 1: store moron would be. But like he looks at amusement
33:37
Speaker 1: parks and he's one of those shake your fist at
33:40
Speaker 1: the sky. I hate the stuff the kids like. And
33:42
Speaker 1: he says these amusement parks are sinful, they need redemption. Uh.
33:47
Speaker 1: But still his switchback railway gets built, and Cody, well, bro.
33:52
Speaker 2: I mean, think about it. I can imagine that some
33:54
Speaker 2: purists at the time, or puritanical folks, would take great
33:58
Speaker 2: issue with the idea of cheating gravity because that is
34:02
Speaker 2: not what God intended. God intended for us to have
34:05
Speaker 2: our two feet on the earth, you know, not to
34:07
Speaker 2: be flying around willy and or nilly in the sky
34:11
Speaker 2: on these these metal monstrosities.
34:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this is the thing it's like
34:18
Speaker 1: for I picture LaMarcus Thompson saying privately to himself in
34:23
Speaker 1: the night, Oh, the delicious forbidden pleasure, to deny the
34:29
Speaker 1: gravities of God, if only for a moment. Anyway, he
34:33
Speaker 1: does make this thing that is called the gravity pleasure ride,
34:40
Speaker 1: and off air. Several weeks ago, we were all talking
34:44
Speaker 1: in one of our one of our many group threads
34:47
Speaker 1: about whether the term gravity pleasure ride is inherently dirty.
34:51
Speaker 2: I just it sounds like handstuff to me. I don't know.
34:55
Speaker 2: There we go. Sorry.
34:57
Speaker 1: It was based on nuts and system from Brooklyn and
35:00
Speaker 1: this switchback railway quickly or like they charge people a
35:05
Speaker 1: nickel a ride and in just a few hours, like
35:08
Speaker 1: per day they make six hundred dollars.
35:10
Speaker 2: Now that's a big desiree steep discount from the railroad. Yes,
35:17
Speaker 2: discounts sense right, well, very yeah, but I mean that's
35:20
Speaker 2: pretty wild. So they're they're I think the deal is
35:23
Speaker 2: it's so centrally located that they're just turning over riders
35:27
Speaker 2: and this thing is easily you know, reloaded over and
35:30
Speaker 2: over and over and over again, every hour on the hour.
35:33
Speaker 2: So yeah, what would you say, Ben, I'm making about
35:34
Speaker 2: six hundred and six fifty a day.
35:36
Speaker 1: Six hundred bucks a day, yeah, a nick at a
35:39
Speaker 1: nickel pop per passenger. So in like three weeks, this
35:43
Speaker 1: entire contraption pays for itself. But it's not what you
35:49
Speaker 1: would think of as a modern roller coaster or even
35:52
Speaker 1: a scenic railway. It's got a top speed of about
35:55
Speaker 1: six miles an hour, and it's kind of you know
35:59
Speaker 1: how a lot of theme parks will have this sort
36:02
Speaker 1: of introductory quote unquote four kids roller coaster, right, like
36:07
Speaker 1: six Flags over Georgia, yes, whatever, exactly, get a couple
36:13
Speaker 1: hard turns. So that's what this thing is. However, it
36:19
Speaker 1: made a lot of money, and this dime store moralist,
36:24
Speaker 1: which is still a confusing term to me. Uh he says, Okay, well,
36:30
Speaker 1: surely God doesn't want me to be poor, so I'm
36:33
Speaker 1: going to go all in on this roller coaster.
36:36
Speaker 2: That's like some prosperity gospel stuff, right, and the American
36:40
Speaker 2: Experience goes on saying that was all the encouragement Thompson
36:44
Speaker 2: needed to apply his ingenuity to its fullest for his
36:49
Speaker 2: orient Scenic Railway in Atlantic City. I just can never
36:53
Speaker 2: get over that, the exoticism of all that, the use
36:56
Speaker 2: of that term. You still see it sometimes today. And
36:59
Speaker 2: you'll even go to like kind of you know, traveling carnivals,
37:04
Speaker 2: you know that go from town to town, and you
37:06
Speaker 2: can see some remnants of this kind of stuff, and
37:08
Speaker 2: in some of these like air brushed, you know, these
37:10
Speaker 2: collapsible rides and these gates. I gotta say this.
37:14
Speaker 4: I remember being a kid like elementary school, and you know,
37:19
Speaker 4: so it's a minute since then, and uh, when it
37:22
Speaker 4: was like a standardized testing and one of the choices
37:25
Speaker 4: for like race was orient and I didn't know what
37:28
Speaker 4: that was. But this is in nineties, and I remember
37:31
Speaker 4: ask my parents like, yeah, I don't use that term.
37:33
Speaker 2: Don't use that one.
37:34
Speaker 1: I remember my parents saw me always put other uh.
37:38
Speaker 2: And for some reason though, the only area where it
37:40
Speaker 2: seems I don't I still not argue appropriate but really
37:43
Speaker 2: common is with rugs. Right, you still see them all
37:46
Speaker 2: over the place as Oriental rugs. And I just don't
37:49
Speaker 2: understand how that sort of made it, you know, it's
37:52
Speaker 2: to still be around as prominently as it is.
37:54
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when you're walking around different parts
37:57
Speaker 1: of New York and you still see the double headed
38:02
Speaker 1: fire hose faucets and they say this is a Siamese
38:06
Speaker 1: fawcet or Siamese pump. I take pictures of those with
38:11
Speaker 1: my girlfriend whenever we're traveling out there, because her family
38:15
Speaker 1: is from Thailand. But anyway, yes, language is weird. It's
38:19
Speaker 1: an old this is an older legacy thing. It is
38:23
Speaker 1: a bad name, all agreed. Our boy LaMarcus discovers, Okay,
38:29
Speaker 1: America experience does another phrase that I think is weird.
38:33
Speaker 1: Here they say La Marcus rediscovered the French trick of
38:37
Speaker 1: pulling the cars up the first hill by cable, and
38:40
Speaker 1: I love the I love the vague mystery of oh
38:44
Speaker 1: the French.
38:45
Speaker 2: Trick, Yes, you know stuff? Yeah, what is the French trick?
38:53
Speaker 2: With the gravity pleasure ride? We are really getting steamy here, folks.
38:57
Speaker 1: So he also did a couple other I saw that
39:00
Speaker 1: hand signal Max. He also did a couple of other
39:03
Speaker 1: uh innovations, we could say mechanical innovations. He makes these
39:07
Speaker 1: triggers under the tracks that can stop the ride if
39:12
Speaker 1: something goes like a kill switch, an emergency cable. Yeah yeah, yeah,
39:17
Speaker 1: Like you know, if you've been on some older trains
39:19
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll have a cable at the top that you
39:21
Speaker 1: can pull. Sure where beat me here, max where, Like
39:24
Speaker 1: the oh shit handle is in a passenger.
39:27
Speaker 2: Car, sure, or even on a treadmill where there's a
39:31
Speaker 2: big red button in case things get out of hand.
39:34
Speaker 2: You slam that big red button and it'll cause the
39:36
Speaker 2: whole thing to come screeching to a halt.
39:39
Speaker 1: He also built tunnels, so you would be riding all
39:41
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're in darkness, right and uh. By
39:45
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight, this guy has become an actual roller
39:51
Speaker 1: coaster tycoon. He's like, take that, you patent nerds of
39:56
Speaker 1: previous years. I've actually built the thing. I've build like
40:01
Speaker 1: fifty I think fifty roller coasters across Europe in America
40:06
Speaker 1: had thirty patents in his own right. The guy's a beast.
40:09
Speaker 2: This is an opportunity here for a quick discussion that
40:12
Speaker 2: I'm curious about what you guys think. Like, obviously, in theory,
40:16
Speaker 2: something on paper you know that's been approved for construction.
40:20
Speaker 2: Everything should be able to be planned out to the
40:22
Speaker 2: last detail, with tolerances within a certain level of acceptability,
40:25
Speaker 2: et cetera, especially in modern times. But back then, don't
40:30
Speaker 2: you think that sometimes you had to build the thing
40:33
Speaker 2: to even figure out what the problem might be. Like,
40:36
Speaker 2: could you plan everything within levels of perfection just on paper?
40:41
Speaker 2: You need both is the.
40:43
Speaker 1: Thing, which is why, you know, going back to our
40:45
Speaker 1: model training episode, that's why they had to build model
40:48
Speaker 1: trains after they had figured it out on paper, right,
40:52
Speaker 1: so they could before they you know, plunge into building
40:55
Speaker 1: a full size, very expensive contraption. That things happens on
41:00
Speaker 1: the way to his tycoon hoood is that we see
41:04
Speaker 1: our boy Labarcus gets this, I would say, gets to
41:11
Speaker 1: a crossroad about some of his high fluting ethics of
41:14
Speaker 1: what should or shouldn't be fun and he monetizes some
41:19
Speaker 1: scenic views from the Bible in a ride called Dragon's Gorge.
41:25
Speaker 1: This is incredibly influential. There's a lot of elaborate scenery
41:29
Speaker 1: now right Like previously you would just build these things
41:34
Speaker 1: maybe around a nice natural vista, but now they're actually
41:39
Speaker 1: building the scenery through which the ride occurs.
41:43
Speaker 2: One hundred percent, which is like part of the attraction.
41:45
Speaker 2: At this point where you're you're almost like uh in
41:48
Speaker 2: you're being transported into like a magical world, you know,
41:51
Speaker 2: where there's like things to look at along the way,
41:53
Speaker 2: and then obviously you know, if you look at Disney
41:55
Speaker 2: this would go on to extend even into the lines,
41:59
Speaker 2: you know, waiting in the having the themed attractions, which
42:02
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie man. Part of what I really
42:05
Speaker 2: enjoyed about going to Disney World as an adult was
42:07
Speaker 2: waiting in the lines. There's a lot of cool stuff
42:10
Speaker 2: to look at as you progress through those cues. You know,
42:12
Speaker 2: it's like being in a transported into this kind of
42:15
Speaker 2: world where every detail is paid attention to.
42:18
Speaker 1: I liked, I love the immersive environment. I'm all about
42:22
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. I will say that as a
42:25
Speaker 1: child being kind of like forced to go into roller coasters,
42:30
Speaker 1: I have some I actually almost died on a rituals
42:33
Speaker 1: coaster in childhood. We'll get to that part to me,
42:36
Speaker 1: But for me, sometimes, like if you're a kid and
42:39
Speaker 1: you're going to take a scary ride like Space Mountain
42:42
Speaker 1: and Disneyland, waiting in the line is sort of a
42:45
Speaker 1: longer version of that.
42:47
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you're right, And I have to say
42:50
Speaker 2: I distinctly remember being absolutely terrified by Space Mountain when
42:54
Speaker 2: I was a kid, and when I just went, you know,
42:56
Speaker 2: a few years ago as an adult, I didn't find
42:59
Speaker 2: it boring or any thing. But I found it a
43:01
Speaker 2: little tame, you know. Yeah, but when you're a kid,
43:05
Speaker 2: it's like there's a lot of it.
43:06
Speaker 1: Is dark in the dark.
43:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, for sure, no question about it.
43:11
Speaker 4: I found it terrifying as adult because I'm like, oh
43:13
Speaker 4: my god, this thing feels like it's about a fall apart.
43:15
Speaker 2: That's true. That's true. No one dies at Disney, guys. No,
43:20
Speaker 2: they get they get trundled off site where they officially
43:23
Speaker 2: or declared death. That's not entire it's sort of true.
43:27
Speaker 2: There's we I don't know, a topic for another day or
43:30
Speaker 2: check out our episode and stuff they don't want you
43:31
Speaker 2: to know about.
43:32
Speaker 1: Right, And at this point we are still kind of
43:35
Speaker 1: in line for the ride. There are a lot of
43:38
Speaker 1: things that are going to go down in episode two
43:40
Speaker 1: of Ridiculous History roller Coasters, which is maybe when we
43:45
Speaker 1: return in part two, we'll study the arms race that
43:50
Speaker 1: occurs when everybody figures out people are super into feeling
43:55
Speaker 1: like they might die for about two minutes. With that,
44:00
Speaker 1: thank you as always to our super producer mister Max
44:02
Speaker 1: Williams also a research associate for this episode. Let's see
44:06
Speaker 1: No gosh our credits get longer and longer, which I
44:10
Speaker 1: absolutely love. Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister, do you think
44:13
Speaker 1: he likes roller coasters?
44:15
Speaker 2: I you know, we should ask him. We should ask him.
44:18
Speaker 2: I know he likes Disney. But that's the thing about Disney.
44:22
Speaker 2: It's not very roller coaster heavy. They've got this new
44:25
Speaker 2: that they've been leaning more into the thrill rides lately,
44:27
Speaker 2: it seems like, but in general it hasn't been their
44:30
Speaker 2: primary focus. They've got this new Tron ride which seems
44:33
Speaker 2: incredible though, and the Guardians of the Galaxy Rye, which
44:35
Speaker 2: is also partially in the dark, is a coaster and
44:38
Speaker 2: it's indoor and it's really really cool too.
44:41
Speaker 4: Jonathan seems like a tepagud who likes the line like
44:43
Speaker 4: he wasted the line again, the.
44:46
Speaker 1: Line is the ride amazing.
44:49
Speaker 2: It's all about the journey, guys. It's about the journey
44:51
Speaker 2: and the food. They have really cool, interesting eclectic food
44:54
Speaker 2: at Disney as much. Actually look forward to going back.
44:56
Speaker 2: So thanks to Jonathan aj Bahamas. I don't know if
44:59
Speaker 2: he doesn't strike me as a coaster guy, but unless
45:02
Speaker 2: he was doing a deep dive where he only traveled
45:05
Speaker 2: by roller coast.
45:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, the year of traveling by coaster.
45:08
Speaker 2: What you would do? Also thanks to East Jeff Coat,
45:12
Speaker 2: who will be spoiler returning soon thanks to our fellow
45:15
Speaker 2: Ben Ben Thompson Badass of the week check that out.
45:19
Speaker 2: Thanks also recording with him this week I believe. Yes, yeah,
45:22
Speaker 2: he's on the way as well. Yes, spoilers and let's
45:26
Speaker 2: see and also you know, thanks to you, Ben, I'll
45:29
Speaker 2: take it. Thanks to you as well. We'll see you
45:31
Speaker 2: next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
45:40
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
45:43
Speaker 2: favorite shows.