Humor Is Dead - Ride the Skullbasher!

Ride the Skullbasher!

8/6/01 - It's only been a week since the "yet another amusement park accident" news out of Michigan that spawned last week's story. The latest belongs to big player AOL, sending over 20 to the hospital after a mishap on the Superman ride. It begs a look at the industry as controlled by major-media (who owns you?).

The theme park is in essence the wizard's castle at the end of the golden-brick merchandising road filled with movie and video purchases, clothing, and other associated collecto-crap. Whereas an amusement park is typically of nonpartisan interest, the theme park packs the entire corporate-owned entertainment channel onto a sprawl of acres worth of twisted skullbashing metal, health-less consumables, and minimum-wage sweatbags dressed like cartoon rabbits, ducks, and mice. Pack the offspring into the SUV, drive all over creation, empty your wallet for admission, shove some grub down their throat, and spin them dizzy on any number of nauseating attractions. It's a perfect formula, perfected by the Disney folk.

AOL Time Warner has their own wholly-owned knockoff: Six Flags. Superman (www.superman.com), of the ride that bears his supername, is a registered trademark of D.C. Comics, owned by AOL Time Warner. And of course, the creatures from Warner Brothers cartoons run amuck around the place. It's the whole package, all at super-profitability prices.

The concern? One budgeting department determines how many AOL disks get produced and mailed this year (roughly 41 trillion), and how many safety checks are run at their nearly 40 parks. Around $400 million on marketing way back in 1997!

7/31/01 - Not to be outdone by CSX, or the latest in a long list of Amtrak crashes, the amusement park bemusement continues with the Chaos crash in Michigan, which is now causing Chaos closing nationwide. So parents, before you pack the offspring into the center-of-gravity-challenged SUV, check the list, been on any of these? 6 accidents in July alone! Even still, much safer than America's railroads: 379 deaths, per the Federal Railroad Administration, many listed as "trespassers". Click here to play with the FRA "Safety Analysis" Database ... wooooweee!