Where you’re the center of the accident.
May 23, 2018 2:17 PM   Subscribe

Traumatic License: An Oral History of Action Park
I can’t tell you the number of people who would jump into the water, start to drown, get pulled out, and then we’d ask if they knew how to swim. They’d go, “Nah, I don’t. I figured the lifeguard would pull me out.” That is just insane.
Action Park previously, previouslier, previousliest on MeFi.
posted by BigHeartedGuy (40 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
Ahhh...I may have to break my "never again read another oral history article" for this one.
posted by pziemba at 2:30 PM on May 23, 2018


I think it was the YouTube channel Defunctland that has a really fantastic video and history of (tr)Action Park and how utterly insane it was, as is the backstory of the owner and some of his other insane endevours.

Ah, here it is. So good.
posted by loquacious at 2:41 PM on May 23, 2018 [5 favorites]


These people are the worst. Personal responsibility? I guess you need something to cling to if you want to live with yourself after getting paid to watch people die.
posted by dilaudid at 2:42 PM on May 23, 2018 [5 favorites]


But look, the snakes never swam after people, okay?
posted by Squeak Attack at 2:49 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


AAAAAAAAARGH that place was awesome and deadly. I went on almost every water slide there. The lagoon with the diving cliffs was really a magical place as long as you didn't swim under the cliffs.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:51 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


tell us of the Things Beneath The Cliffs
posted by poffin boffin at 2:52 PM on May 23, 2018 [23 favorites]


I assume this Johnny Knoxville film 'Action Point' is based on this.
posted by Fizz at 3:04 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


tell us of the Things Beneath The Cliffs

the issue was more with the Things Atop The Cliffs, in that people would leap off a 25-foot drop to land in the pool, or to land on whomever happened to be swimming in the pool at the time if they failed to look before leaping. still a safer swimming spot than some of the other water attractions, like the ones that electrocuted people.

unlike the death kayaks, the cliffs are still there! but i don't think you can just swim there willy-nilly now. which is for the best, as you are at great risk of being sunk in a game of Bro Battleship beneath them, as you can see.
posted by halation at 3:14 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


wait i just realized you meant "because people will dive onto your head" and not "because eldritch horrors will snatch at your ankles and drag you down to their lairs"
posted by poffin boffin at 3:15 PM on May 23, 2018 [16 favorites]


That's OK, PB. Setting people up for popular follow-up comments is one of my specialties!
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:17 PM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


"because eldritch horrors will snatch at your ankles and drag you down to their lairs"

i mean
it can be two things
although given location the jersey devil is a more likely threat
posted by halation at 3:17 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


That sounds really fun, there's something charming about a place that isn't fucked to the gills with regulations and safety procedures and insurance concerns and all that. Some of it sounded like some kind of needlessly dangerous bullshit, but hey, life is needlessly dangerous bullshit fundamentally. It also sounds liek a place to just have fun, I didn't hear any mention of like millions of dollars of merch and marketing assaulting you at all times and angles like you get when you go to six flags or disney land or whatever.
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:38 PM on May 23, 2018


I was so pissed my mom would never take me there. She made the right choice. But still.
posted by uncleozzy at 3:46 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


“The ride didn't injure Larsson. It was a rock 25 feet away that hurt him,” park spokesperson Wesley Smith told reporters.

You know, I didn’t think I would still find this park funny after the Schlitterbahn incident, but there is some comedy gold in this article. I am halfway tempted to see the Johnny Knoxville movie.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:47 PM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


For the record, I lost skin on the Alpine Slide and a timex watch on the Tarzan Swing.
posted by mikelieman at 4:00 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


This could be the premise for a new Adult Swim animated show.
posted by cazoo at 4:20 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


None of this is as horrifying as realizing that one of the Six Flags being referred to in our amusement park was that of the Confederacy and that's why one section was Old South themed when I was a kid.
posted by emjaybee at 4:29 PM on May 23, 2018 [8 favorites]


I remember the Dollop episode on Action Park came after the one on a notorious lynching, and the lynching one was the depressing one even though waaaaaay more people died at Action Park.

That sounds really fun, there's something charming about a place that isn't fucked to the gills with regulations and safety procedures and insurance concerns and all that. Some of it sounded like some kind of needlessly dangerous bullshit, but hey, life is needlessly dangerous bullshit fundamentally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Oi57fqdU0
posted by Merus at 4:50 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


None of this is as horrifying as realizing that one of the Six Flags being referred to in our amusement park was that of the Confederacy and that's why one section was Old South themed when I was a kid.

Damnit. This suddenly explains so much about even Six Flags Magic Mountain in CA. They had some totally weird country/rebel marketing bent going on with Yosemite Sam in it's much earlier days. Cripes, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing rebel and Confederate flags in the crappy carnival game prizes or something.
posted by loquacious at 4:58 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


look it was a different time okay we didn't even have car seats back then.

Jesus Christ I can't believe I survived the late 70's and early 80's..
posted by nikaspark at 5:04 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


The loop, man.
“We operated it for a couple of weekends and then shut it down. Then we’d leave it alone for a year or two and try to reopen it, and it just never worked. Maybe one in a 100 people would smash their face, but that’s too many. Maybe if it was one in 1000.”
I’ve heard of this place from a friend who says he went there as a kid. It is truly the ultimate combination of New Jersey and Generation X.
posted by migurski at 5:24 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I assume this Johnny Knoxville film 'Action Point' is based on this.

like, duh. My NJ peeps are insanely excited for it and I hope to attend with them, for anthropological reasons. I heard about the film on FB via the redoubtable Deke Dickerson, who scored some track work for it.
posted by mwhybark at 5:37 PM on May 23, 2018


MetaFilter: If you had three or four beers and you’re in the hot sun all day, you might be judgment-impaired.
posted by Splunge at 5:41 PM on May 23, 2018


That sounds really fun, there's something charming about a place that isn't fucked to the gills with regulations and safety procedures and insurance concerns and all that.

This describes most national parks? Like, if you go to the Grand Canyon, there are bits with guardrails and then miles and miles of cliff with maaaaaybe the occasional sign that says something to the effect of "If you fall down from here, you will die, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ " but mostly without even that.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:49 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


I took my kids there, and even went into the wave pool myself! I am a good ocean swimmer so was not afraid. My kids loved the place, but one week after my dad took them there, the person was killed on the kayak ride, which was scary.Weird NJ Magazine has had several articles about Action Park. It certainly was a strange place, I did notice the many beer stands.
posted by mermayd at 6:00 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


All the times we went and no injuries! It was so fun. Im pretty sure im the only one in my family who did the tarzan jump tho, thanks dad...
posted by supermedusa at 6:15 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


That sounds really fun, there's something charming about a place that isn't fucked to the gills with regulations and safety procedures and insurance concerns and all that.

This describes most national parks?


right. no entrance fee, no time restrictions, animals that can potentially eat you. i know in louisiana one brazilian professor took a wrong turn and got lost in the swamp, nearly starved to death.
posted by eustatic at 9:33 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Link to the episode of The Dollop covering Action Park.
posted by Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer at 4:30 AM on May 24, 2018


I can confirm that the Aqua Scoot was amazing. The giant 8-lane blue slide was always a sight to behold, with adventurous patrons catching lots of air on the most exciting lane. Sadly my memory of that particular attraction was somehow losing sight of my mom once I got to the bottom, resulting in a long day of tears and ice cream while waiting to be retrieved at the central office. The Tarzan Swing was sweet but scary. The super-tall slide gave me a wedgie. The skydiving simulator was a long wait for almost no payoff.

There was one ride where you went head-first on a toboggan down a curving water slide with very high walls that was one of my favorites (despite the rumor that one of the sections had come slightly loose and a kid had gotten his jaw ripped off) but, as was par for the course, the safety part of the equation was lacking. My stepfather, who weighed approximately 280lbs to my 85, was behind me in line and somehow the ride operator / mindless teenager didn't do the right calculations about how long it would take me to complete it. As a result, maybe halfway down the slide, I heard this ecstatic whooping coming from behind me. I turned to look and saw my stepfather barreling towards me at breakneck speed. All I could do was hope for the best. He slammed into me and sent me flying up one of the slide walls - in my memory my legs cleared the top and dangled in the open air, threatening a disastrous ejection - and the rest of the ride consisted of me figuring out how to immediately clear the exit area to avoid another collision once I got to the bottom.

GOOD TIMES! I really do miss that place.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:54 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


Relevant videos for reference.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:35 AM on May 24, 2018


I feel bad because i know people died but I am crying laughing reading about the "Cannonball Loop"
posted by Don Pepino at 12:05 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


This describes most national parks?
It's interesting to ask why this seems so different from paths near cliffs, rock climbing, skiing, or surfing. My first guess is that it comes down to the degree to which the danger is obvious. A hiker can more or less tell how dangerous a cliff-side path is by looking at it. What's more, it's fairly clear what actions make it more or less dangerous. (Aside, perhaps, from rock slides and avalanches.) Riding a one-off mechanical sled with tricky controls down a slide with a rough surface is quite a bit different. It puts slide-builders into a different group from trail-maintainers.

In the same vein, I'll argue that the Tarzan Swing belongs in the national park category. If you forget to let go of the rope and fall backwards into the woods. . . well, I feel bad for you. But, it's not like you couldn't have easily foreseen the danger in its entirety. Figuring out how dangerous the Cannonball Loop actually is, though, isn't something a visitor can do without hours of research and tricky math.
posted by eotvos at 3:35 PM on May 24, 2018


Figuring out how dangerous the Cannonball Loop actually is, though, isn't something a visitor can do without hours of research and tricky math

Or, like, looking at it.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:57 PM on May 24, 2018


I was there for peak Action Park in the mid 80's. It was a helluva thing.
Some notes:
- for youth especially of that era, there was a very real sense of 'primitive tribe adulthood ritual' to some of the stuff AP offered. To do something scary and thrilling - and not like a rollercoaster, where someone else is in control and you're really quite safe - facing concrete (heh) risk, actual possibility of danger, with a whoop, can't be overestimated as a transition from widdle bay-bee to the next stage, where there was not going to be any crying in baseball. Action Park was for many in the tri-state area, our own Ten Meter Dive Tower (mefi previously) and if you were going to climb back down the ladder, you had to do it in public or not go up at all.

- injuries and deaths at the park triggered a wave of lawsuits and liability fears that had a chilling effect on all sorts of other amusements. All the public pools in NJ removed their diving boards, even the 1-meter ones, because if someone got hurt, the payout was going to bankrupt the town. And then this mindset spread to a lot of other things. I know I probably sound like the 'back in my day we played in the woods, sometimes with knives and fire' old man yelling at clouds; but the shuttering of Action Park is my personal-history marker for the before-times, when a kid climbs a tree, falls and breaks an arm, and that merits a shrug because it's something that happens vs. the after-times, where "trees are a menace that must be removed from our parks and public spaces because MY CHILD..." gets applause at a city hearing. I'll stop before I start sounding like the amusement park version of Irwin Mainway, and just recommend whitewater rafting, where "That was GREAT! We almost DIED!" said with a big beaming smile is a regular thing.

- the Cannonball Loop was an attempt to EXTREME-ify an existing, fantastic ride called the Cannonball. Picture a pipe the diameter of a manhole cover sticking out of a grassy hill at about a 30 degree angle. You cannot see where it goes, or how long it is. You climb a ladder and look inside. It is lined with thick rubber kept slick with waterjets. You stick your legs in, pull with your arms, and whoosh
You are in: DARK. There is only a slippery velocity.
It's a sloshy splashy back and forth hill and valley, like the enclosed-tube waterslides at other waterparks, but in complete blackness. You feel like you're maybe going really fast? but there's no way to judge.
Imagine a sensory deprivation tank mated with a washing machine. This goes on for ??? but probably only 10 seconds or so back in reality.
Then, somewhere past your toes, there is a pinhole of light. 1 second later, it is the size of a coin. Another second and it is the full moon and you realize it is the end of the pipe, coming FAST.
In the next second, you go from dissociating in a wet starless multi-g-force void to INSTANTLY MIDAIR, in bright August sunshine, 3 meters above a simulated alpine lake, which you are about to discover is SHOCKINGLY cold as you vector into it.
Man I loved that ride.

And I can see why a park owner, doing an Undercover Boss listen-for-ideas, would hear every 3rd kid walk by and go 'can you imagine that, but if it did a loop and you went upside down too?' and tried to build it. But it was not to be.
posted by bartleby at 8:10 PM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]


Oh god, that description... I want to go on the cannonball SO BAD now. I know I would probably die screaming of claustrophobia in the first second, but I don't care if there's even a small chance I could see the pinpoint become a coin become bright, sunny hilarious fall-terror-splash-ice. Man, come on. Build a wall, antagonize North Korea, jump start climate change, sell the national parks to the Russian mob, blow up the world, do whatever you're gonna do, just give us back our death parks while you're at it. What is the point of living in the dumbest country if all the most hilariously dumb parts of it are gone?
posted by Don Pepino at 9:41 AM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


Action Park was awesome! Got to go twice, though remember looking at the loop and thinking "that's insane" and "why isn't it operating?" and "it must be not operating because it's insane".

I think the wonderfully padded tubing whitewater river thing set me up well for my years as a professional whitewater guide in Tennessee a few seasons later.

And, yeah, that 25 foot dive/jump was where many a suburban 17 year old male discovered they weren't quite as macho as they thought, even as the ones who weren't covered in Alpine Slide scabs were diving off of it...
posted by straw at 9:41 AM on May 25, 2018


From the descriptions, it sounds like a lot of the injuries (although not the deaths) could have been avoided by preventing overcrowding and not selling booze to people who are doing dangerous activities. It's the institutional version of "hold my beer."
posted by Hactar at 12:15 PM on May 25, 2018


Hactar, that sounds right. In grumpybear's first video link, you can see that there's a traffic jam on the waterslide, which is more like a lazy river with a sudden dropoff, and a grownup has to get off and pull apart the young tubers to send them on their way until he gets knocked over. It does look like fun! It also looks like a great way to trap bodies underneath bodies in the water, but frankly I'd have ridden down there in the day.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:23 PM on May 25, 2018


This one time? I was about I guess 12, so my brother was seven? We went back to Fayetteville for a visit and my parents' friends/best friend from Fayetteville's parents took us to what her dad called "a pretty halfassed place." It was one of those safari parks where you drive through a recreated veldt and stare at baboons or what have you. So we did that and then when we finished the motor tour we were wandering through some caged animal section of the park on foot and a teenaged attendant happened to be feeding hunks of some dead animal to a baby jaguar and he asked did we want to come pet the jaguar. Nobody volunteered except for my 7-year-old brother. He has always been a risk seeker. The kid says, "sure!" and my brother goes in the jaguar enclosure and begins making friends with the baby jaguar, which is really more of a young adolescent jaguar, about the age, in jaguar years, of the teenaged attendant. All goes well until the grownups distract the adolescent jaguar keeper with questions about the jaguar or the park or something I don't remember the exact conversation because all I remember is gazing in horror at my tiny brother who was standing in the middle of the enclosure petting the jaguar on the head when it went up on its hind legs, hugged my brother around his shoulders with its forelegs, and attempted to fit my brother's head into its mouth. I said, "Guh! uh! uhguh!" Luckily, my friend was not struck dumb and started to scream and point, whereupon the teenaged attendant hopped to and cuffed the poor jaguar 'til it let my brother go. My brother stood there for a while with tears and blood streaming down his face until my mother went in there and got him out. My friend said, "I wouldn't worry. Heads bleed a lot." I was just thinking, "so it's true! It's all true!" Because I'd just seen a National Geographic special or a Mutual of Omaha or something about how big cats kill, and it showed that exact method: up on the hind legs, hug the gazelle with the forelegs, bite through the skull. And the narrator said it was the most efficient, quickest way to kill something, and remarkably humane! My brother almost got euthanized by a big cat... My friend's dad said, "See? Told you it was a halfassed place." Then we probably went and got ice cream or something; I don't remember. But that's how it used to be in the nation's private amusement parks. They were lively.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:01 PM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]


and near-deathly!
posted by mwhybark at 1:16 AM on May 26, 2018


« Older The Image Book   |   Short answer: no Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments