HOW AMUSING
It was inevitable that at some point during my time in Georgia, I would head to Six Flags. After all, I am from Central Florida, which is ground zero for amusement parks, and so I am genetically disposed to answer their call.
The last time I had been to Six Flags, I was a child. As I recall, the big ride was the log plume thing and the big entertainment was singing and dancing by characters from H.R. Pufnstuf, an early '70s kids show whose creators constantly denied that it had any connection to drug use. Anybody who remembers the show might find such denials laughable.
Since then, Six Flags had sent Mr. Pufnstuf and his ilk back to Living Island, replacing them with the sleeker heroes of DC Comics, such as Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern. That was probably a decision spurred by the success during the last 25 years or so of comic book movies.
But the DC characters exist upon an ideal plane. Their impossibly good-looking faces are attached to bodies that look like they have spent considerable time at BALCO facilities, and they rush to help people with an alacrity that implies an emotional disorder. They are utterly apart from reality.
So seeing them brought into the here and now was something of a downer. There was simply no way that the actors and actresses playing these parts could be convincing. (But one has to admire their bravery; to put on one of those costumes and invite comparisons to the originals takes a lot of guts.) What we got was a physically flawed set of superheroes, ones who weren't strangers to comfort food and six packs ... of beer, that is. Suddenly, it became easy to imagine Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson occasionally blowing off the bat signal so they could sit around in their boxers, pound brews and watch "Chopper Chicks in Zombietown" on TV. Of course, they would use the Batmobile only to make beer runs to the nearest convenience store on such nights. I kind of liked that.
The log plume ride was still at Six Flags, but it had long been eclipsed by a host of roller-coasters that offered greater thrills by a magnitude of 100. Their names implied lethal force and danger: Georgia Cyclone, Ninja, Mindbender, Goliath. And true enough, these rides were fun as hell. But there could have been more accurate names for some of them: Herniated Disc, BrainScrambler, Cause for Litigation. But I doubt those names will go anywhere.
It was inevitable that at some point during my time in Georgia, I would head to Six Flags. After all, I am from Central Florida, which is ground zero for amusement parks, and so I am genetically disposed to answer their call.
The last time I had been to Six Flags, I was a child. As I recall, the big ride was the log plume thing and the big entertainment was singing and dancing by characters from H.R. Pufnstuf, an early '70s kids show whose creators constantly denied that it had any connection to drug use. Anybody who remembers the show might find such denials laughable.
Since then, Six Flags had sent Mr. Pufnstuf and his ilk back to Living Island, replacing them with the sleeker heroes of DC Comics, such as Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern. That was probably a decision spurred by the success during the last 25 years or so of comic book movies.
But the DC characters exist upon an ideal plane. Their impossibly good-looking faces are attached to bodies that look like they have spent considerable time at BALCO facilities, and they rush to help people with an alacrity that implies an emotional disorder. They are utterly apart from reality.
So seeing them brought into the here and now was something of a downer. There was simply no way that the actors and actresses playing these parts could be convincing. (But one has to admire their bravery; to put on one of those costumes and invite comparisons to the originals takes a lot of guts.) What we got was a physically flawed set of superheroes, ones who weren't strangers to comfort food and six packs ... of beer, that is. Suddenly, it became easy to imagine Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson occasionally blowing off the bat signal so they could sit around in their boxers, pound brews and watch "Chopper Chicks in Zombietown" on TV. Of course, they would use the Batmobile only to make beer runs to the nearest convenience store on such nights. I kind of liked that.
The log plume ride was still at Six Flags, but it had long been eclipsed by a host of roller-coasters that offered greater thrills by a magnitude of 100. Their names implied lethal force and danger: Georgia Cyclone, Ninja, Mindbender, Goliath. And true enough, these rides were fun as hell. But there could have been more accurate names for some of them: Herniated Disc, BrainScrambler, Cause for Litigation. But I doubt those names will go anywhere.
posted by John Parnell at 9:40 AM
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