Action Park was about an hour from where I grew up and was a fun place to go but you pretty much knew you were going to bleed at some point. When you had an issue on the alpine slide, you would get horrible road rash. When the park workers saw you got "injured" their eyes lit up and they ran to get the "antiseptic spray bottle". What was in that spray bottle was a fucking nightmare! The pain that spray caused was unbelievable! The workers would spray you and start laughing when you walked away. Also, those go-karts that look like F1 cars were quick! 0 to 60 times were as fast as the Corvettes that came out in 86 and 87 and you could get on the highway by taking a dirt road ( that's a strech of the word road). I had a friend sit in his car where you entered the highway to see what the top speed was and it was between 80 and 85 MPH. That felt like 200 MPH in that little thing. The part where they were swinging off the ropes was where all the older guys hung out and abused all the younger ones which I'll let your imagination run on that one. Lastly the "Oktoberfest Lodge" didn't card anyone for alcohol. Considering the drinking age is 21, I was 16 and bought MANY beers there every time I went. So, I guess that made up for the injuries. How this helps explain the title of this video a bit.
This was in New Jersey, not too far from where I live. We called it "Class Action Park" bc of lawsuits 😂. I will NEVER forget that cement Alpine Slide. I was a young girl on it. I was terrified and bleeding by the time I got to the bottom. 😂😂
Our school used to take end of year trips there. It was a blast! You just had to know which attractions were likely to cause injury. I was never a strong swimmer, and I remember knowing about the drownings in the tidal wave pool in the later years, so I was pretty cautious on that one and stayed in shallower end. But the water slides, bumper boats, Alpine slide were all a lot of fun. In the winter, when the park was closed, it was a ski resort, and it was our school's main destination for ski club trips.
So the first alpine slide, (well maybe not the first but definitely before action park), is at Mt. Attitash New Hampshire and it’s still open every summer. If you go too fast, you will fly off the track. You control your speed.
I lived in Kansas during this time, this is the first time ever hearing about Action Park. We had our Joyland amusement park. Please, I mean no offense to those serious injured, I find this video and reaction to be hilarious😂! (except the deaths of course 😢). Had I live there I might have been a causality of the park! Yes it's amazing the park was allowed to exist, but those were the sign of the time back then!
I grew up about 40 minutes away from action park. I had a paper route that every summer you got 5 free tickets if you could get three new customers. Went every year usually more than once. It was s freaking awesome. Dangerous yeah but it said that on back of the ticket. I never got more than a little road rash but did see people walking around bleeding and hurt often. The surprising thing was no one complained or cared because it was so much fun. Have great memories and if could go back in time would go in a heartbeat. It's still open but haven't been there in some time. Thanks for the video know where I'm heading next summer. Love your stuff
I went there at least once year in the late 80's and 90's. My friends and I loved it. Thankfully, I survived with only a bruised tailbone on one of the water rides. Yes, I went back the next summer.
That’s why we called it “Traction Park”! because you could wind up in traction! Another reason it went under was the newer parks that were popping up in NJ. Too many amusement parks competing for too few dollars.
People weren’t just injured there they died there, the man who invented these rides didn’t know what he was doing, he had no engineering degree, it should never have passed inspection
The only one of these "rides" I've done is the indoor skydiving. That's the difference - the safe ones are indoors. It is really fun. There's a trampoline-type part on the bottom, beneath is a fan (there may be one at the top, too). You get in the area, with an instructor, they turn the fan on, and if you lay forward, you will "fly." But there was a safety class first, you had to wear safety gear (helmet, eye goggles, jump suit, no shoes), and the operator/instructor would be there the entire time. They might let you go toward the end once you got the hang of it. Don't let this example turn you off to the fun. Indoor skydiving can be found near most touristy cities and towns - we went to one in Gatlinburg Tennessee while on an autumn mountain vacation at a B&B so we enjoyed the leaves, too.
The park was a hell of a lot of fun. Any injuries can happen at any amusement parks but, I think that most of the injuries that happened there was from human stupidity. People doing things that they weren't supposed to do. I'm sure the drinking didn't help that either though.
I went on the Alpine slide as a kid with my dad. We went so fast down that hill and those curves were no joke. We crashed, got banged and bruised. I'll never forget that.
I only went a few times but it was always a lot of fun. Saw a few people get hurt but nothing too serious (which is not to say it didn't happen - just that we got lucky and it didn't happen to us or while we were there!) The alpine slides were dangerous for many reasons - sometimes the brakes didn't work, other times people were sent down one right after the other...so if you didn't go fast enough, you were slammed into by the guy behind you. Sometimes the brakes worked too good and the car would stop short and you'd fly forward. Scary as hell -- but also fun. The most danger we saw was with the wave pool. My buddies made fun of me because I rented a float (like a small air mattress) - and then while I was enjoying the three-foot waves, they were trying to cling onto my float for dear life! Some kids were trying to climb out of the pool but the waves would knock them off the tiny ladders. Some folks on floats or rings would ride them toward the shallow end where they would smash into the folks just trying to balance themselves and stand up against the waves -- it was kind of like bowling but with humans as pins. The cliff diving pool had quiet spots where you could avoid being dived onto from above...but it also had dark caves you could swim into. One thing that looked like a cave was actually a loose door which revealed the structure with pipes and wires and scaffolding - probably used to service /maintain the pools but the door really should have been locked... once I realized what I was looking at, I closed the door and a little kid that was about to swim into it (and probably fall or get zapped) decided against it when I told him it wasn't a cave. Mostly the rides were fun in a scary way, but it was dangerous not to have enough life guards or ride monitors who actually cared about safety -- it was all about being responsible for your own fun...but it could have been much safer! Oh, and some teenagers who rode the ski lift to the top of the alpine slides would spit on the kids already on the ride passing under them. Fun!
At 9:48 was a raft ride called Roaring Rapids. It closed because of a hill that would send a body flying. It reminded me of a hill in Ohio that we would sled down. It had a "bump" that would do that. We called it Suicide Hill. It was on a golf course and after there were many broken bones they leveled out the bump. It was still a good fast hill but it wasn't as wild as it once was.
I grew up nearby in Hamburg NJ from the 70's to 90's. Can't believe my parents never took me lol. I recall kids in high school saying how dangerous it was.
I went there 40 yrs ago when i was a kid and went on the worst ride there cannonball loop that some kids got stuck in and died. Also the blue tubes were so hot inside and tight even for a kid, you couldnt raise your arm in it to your face, it was like 1000 degrees in it and pitch dark, it was run by kids who would hose down your back bef you got in. I was scared to death on it , all the rides were mad dangerous, thats why i dont go on water rides today.Really wasnt funny, lot of kids died on these rides. It should of been shut down way before it was.
So basically, every reason GenX is awesome. Our Slip n Slide was right by the drive-in & the putt putt. Wacky golf by day, Porkys or Alien by night. I'm pretty sure I contracted tetanus on the playground.
i used to go there every summer , road rash was common on the alpine slide . i almost broke my neck on a water slide (head first) i went flipping over the stop wall .
I visited Action Park in 1990 after years of wanting to go but my parents not letting me go all the way to New Jersey. I had a great time except the fact that I went on one of the extremely step water slides and had my shorts torn off coming down.
@@csw3287The one and only time I rode the King Cobra standing roller coaster, it was new, and that stupid thing that came up between your legs to help hold you in place, fell down going down the first hill. I hung on to the harness over my shoulders like my life depended on it. Cause it sure felt like it did. I never rode it again.
I hit the end of the legend. 95-96. Lived 80 minutes away and everyone in High School went there at least once. Last time in 96 I took my 14 year old cousin. I was 16 or just turned 17. It’s still surprising we both came home alive. But to this day these videos give me that warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia.
Been there and I almost drowned in the wave pool in 1981. It's brutal walking from ride to ride because its on ski mountains . You can't even walk down from the ride its on such an incline that you have to run down . Never again !!!!
I grew up going to the Action Park in the Poconos. In case you’ve ever been and you’re wondering where it was-The Crossings Outlets and all its parking lots sit where Action Park used to be built into the side of the mountain.
I was there in 84 it was definitely something to remember. They actually sold. " I survived Action Park" t shirts the reputation was very well known . Class action park. Traction park.
lol…. we use to go when i was a kid in the 80’s. we had a blast but never realized it was dangerous. Alpine slide was the best BUT i will say i almost went off the track a couple of times. i was maybe 13. 😮thank goodness we survived. 😆
Ooohh! I've watched this before! I love Defunctland, I've been subscribed to him for years. He does amazing videos and they're always super interesting!
My friend was head of security at an amusement park, won't say which one, we used to take the go-karts off the track and play Fox and Hound in the early morning hours😂 Never took them on the interstate though 😂
I went there when it first opened and it was really fun. Other than slides in hotel pools, I believe it was my first water park. I think it may have gotten more dangerous at the end when it became popular.
Yo Bro, legend has it that if you rode down the Cannonball Loop and other pipe water slides, you could get cut by other riders teeth that had got broken off and embedded in the plastic pipes. 😳😆
I’ve been to Action Park several times! It was fun and I only got hurt a couple times. It’s now called Mountain Creek and has had all the necessary safety upgrades but some of the same rides are still there. It’s still just as fun but keep in mind that it’s literally built on a mountain so it’s a lot of uphill walking on top of the normal amusement park stairs
I remember going to a water park in Hong Kong in the 80's. There was an elevator up to the top of a cliff to get on the water slide. It was an open tube, not enclosed. When I got up to speed, I found I flew up over the top of the edge of the tube before falling back down, unless I physically acted to help regulate my speed. Not wanting to fall to my death, I did so. It definitely seemed like an unnecessary risk.
It was so much fun, we went to many times to count from age 16-20. Like mentioned most of the employees were kids. When you have friends who are 18 year old managers, you just may be able to use the “f1” cars to get around the park skip lines and even take them to Burger King a mile down route 94. Mountain Creek is still open but the rides aren’t just dreamed up by the owner and built by kids. It’s also a mountain bike park on the ski slopes until they can start making snow.
Ahh yes the good old action park, it’s an amazing theme park and yes it’s still up and running I live 21 minutes away from there, definitely a 10/10 experience as a kid.
Lewis...... Im with you. It reminds me of the water slide in Costa Rica. Up in the jungle you climb up through the jungle and when you get to the top they ask you how fast you want to go. Behind whereyou sit is big tank for lack of a better word that they can fill to different levels of water. They pull a lever and all that water rushes out, rocketing you down the slide. The more water in the tank the faster you go. I told them as fast as it goes..........there were a couple oftimes I thought I was going to fly out the side of it. I did it 2 more times.😂
"It's Fine Now! Why? Cause I am Here to watch your reactions" 146 like and 19th comment not to shabby. Alfred I would go to a lot of of water and Amusements parks But never never would I ever go to Action Park nothing but death awaits you. Never never never never as a child of the 80's you know not the horrors. As a Brit you don't know ...Keep posting and I'll Keep watching
Never been but I survived the open water slide at Splashtown in San Antonio. Never again. Lifting off the slide into the air while several stories up and feeling sideways blowing wind was genuinely scary.
I can vividly remember my grandmother packing a huge first aid kit to carry around when she took us there. Like it was no big deal she knew we were all gonna get hurt!!! We had so much fun though. I have a strip of skin on my leg that never grows hair and I’m positive it’s from all the road rash from the alpine slide 😂😂
We had "enchanted forest water safari" in the Adirondacks in NY. Though not as dangerous in the early 90s when I was a kid things were not as regulated and I very much remember getting burns from how hot the water slides were and skin ripped off from rough surfaces. It was so much fun. Also as an adult had an earring torn out of my ear on a roller coaster. Was a bar bell so only the top was torn and I didn't notice until hours later someone asked about the blood on my face.
I broke my toe there as a kid. There was like a playground with water hoses that sprayed you(mostly in the face) as you tried to see to run around….good times 😂
Went to Action Park for 5 straight birthdays as a child. I'll never forget the way the park smelled. A mix of pines, fuel, chlorine and food. It was almost a sickeningly sweet smell.
We went once after the first rebrand, we were passing through the state and stopped at "Mountain Creek" for some fun. But our folks were very aware of the reports around the place so we were forbidden from going on any ride that they considered dangerous. Spent most of our time there on go-karts and the wave pool since our folks banned us from the majority of the water slides
At one point the local town ambulance service complained they were volunteers and carting the wounded back and forth to the hospital was 95% of their time every summer and the regular town folk were in increased danger if they actually needed an ambulance while the park was in season. The park owner bought the town one or two brand new top of the line ambulances and they stopped complaining. Many people ask "How did he get insurance on that place?" The answer is ingenious and illegal. He incorporated his own insurance company in the Cayman Islands and it was glad to underwrite the park for him. His lawyers never settled and would drag you out in court until you couldn't afford to stay in the law suit anymore. Most lawyers would hang up on you if you told them you wanted to sue action park.
This place was 45 min away from my house. I was mutilating myself every summer there. Those alpine slides could give you legendary road rash. Loved every min of it. You kids live in a bouncy castle world! You need to find a better video there are some really good deep dives into how bad it really was on you-tube. This only scratches the surface.
I didn't go to this one, but to one that was similar when I was little. The wave pool, waterslides, go karts, etc were amazing. Lived to tell the tale. I feel like you should just have to sign a waver. People kick the bucket outside of Action Park too. I don't know. Still sounds fun. Maybe just learn from all the bad stuff that happened.
I grew up in New Jersey and we went to Action Park all year round. We didn't care about the supposedly injured back then. I even took my kids to this park. I love in California now, and honestly, I miss going here; even in my 50s!!
🤣I used to go to Action Park every year back in the late 80s-early 90s... it really was a death trap. I was luckily never seriously injured but I did get a good concussion once getting flipped out of a group tube that flew too far up a banking wall. I have had friends get some pretty bad injuries though, including 2 that got skinned pretty badly coming down the luge on the wheeled carts they used on them in the summer (Alpine Slides). ETA: It really was a LOT of fun... but we were young and stupid. I would never do the things I did then now.
Grew up in North Jersey. My high school ski/snowboard club got us season passes to Mountain Creek every year. I broke my wrist there. Never went to Action Park because it was closed before we ever started going up there, but the distinctive Rainbow letter sign was still there. With all the dumb shit I did as a teenager, It's probably for the best.
Everyone knew Action Park was a death wish. But we were young dumb and ready for the risk. Also the park did not check ID's for alcohol. So it was a great place to go and party big time. I probably went at least 4 or 5 times every summer.
I've never been (actually never heard of) Action Park, but I was at Old Indiana. After being at the bigger, well funded, well maintained Kings Island and what was then Marriott's Great America (now run by Six Flags), even as a teen the small rides at Old Indiana seemed to have lower safety standards and I was hesitant about going on any of them. In 1996, a deadly accident occurred on, of all things, the small train ride that circled the park. From the Wiki "On Sunday, August 11, 1996, 4-year-old Emily Hunt was paralyzed from the chest down and her 57-year-old grandmother, Nancy Jones, was killed after a miniature train ride at the Old Indiana Fun Park derailed and overturned as it approached a curve. The two victims were crushed under the weight of the cars. Upon investigation, the train was traveling much faster than its design speed of 12 miles per hour (19 km/h). The ride attendant claimed to have applied the brakes as the train neared the curve, but it was discovered that many of them were either broken, missing, or not connected, and that most of the anti-derailment devices were missing. The speedometer was broken, along with the governor, which limits the speed of the train. The track was littered with broken ride parts." The park closed and after a lawsuit it never reopened.
🎶Traction-Traction Park!🎶 I can still hear the jingle in my dreams. It was like Lord of the Flies took acid and conquered Disney and moved the operation to side of a ski mountain. The key was to set up your day so you did the Tarzan Swing around lunch time. The wait to use the swing was over an hour long so if you grabbed food and got on line you were ready to swim before you got to touch the rope. Everyone on line could see the swings the entire wait, so when someone did something cool the crowd went nuts, and when someone screwed up they got their balls busted and were howled at by the coliseum. At one point there was about 15 feet (5 meters) between the bottom of one rope and the waters surface. This pretty much guaranteed any and all bikini tops surfaced at a different time than their former wearer. Somehow this nipply anomaly was only half the amazing popularity of the Tarzan swings. The biggest round of applause I ever heard at the swings came in the dog days of summer when it was 90 degrees F and 90% humidity when a very comely couple swung one after the other at almost the same time. He mooned the crowd before grabbing and shaking his balls to hold up his cutoffs while doing a back flip and entering the water face down perfectly parallel to the liquids surface making the most spectacular slapping sound ever heard right before his girlfriend on the higher rope managed to wiggle out of her bikini bottom during a double back flip. She surfaced without either piece of her suit in sight and slow walked past the crowd like Lacy Underwood walking to the high dive in "Caddy Shack" before security wrapped her in a towel. The parking lot was across what I think you would call a "double carriage way" two lanes heading one way with a shoulder lane , two lanes heading the other way with a shoulder lane and pair of solid double yellow lines between them. It was very reminiscent of "Frogger". If you survived crossing the road you looked at your friends and and family with some wiseassery and some sincerity in your voice as you said some variation of "Hope to see you all in one piece on the way home". The first time I went when one of my friends was old enough to drive and we had no family members we ate magic mushrooms in the car a half hour from the park. We all clearly remembered yelling "WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE SALUTE YOU!" as we blitzed the ticket office. The rest of the day was rather difficult to reconstruct completely in our heads as we returned to the car 8 hours later with all of our stock equipment still attached and functional. I clearly remember getting heckled by a Dryad standing in the tree line on race hill that day.
There’s a really good documentary called “Class Action Park” about this place that interviews a lot of the former staff. Part of the problem was that their “lifeguards” and staff were all local, untrained kids.
You've watched all of the GenX videos and saw how we lived for danger and didn't give a single f#*k. I remember all of the stories and events that happened like it was yesterday. This was one of those places and we had no fear. Matter of fact we liked it even more BECAUSE it had an element of danger, no different than playgrounds and rooftops in our neighborhoods. I actually went there a couple times in the early 80's, had a blast. It was a 2hour ride so twice was enough. A neighborhood friend of mine was riding the Alpine Sled and went around a turn too fast and hit his head on the concrete wall and got knocked out! Said it was the best day of his life!
No, I think you might be thinking of “The Haunted Mansion at Long Branch” That had a fire in the 80’s that killed a few kids and they never rebuilt it.
Can’t find this on Wiki, one of the reasons I remember the Six Flags fire is because my husband and two friends went in the summer of 79 with our infant son, they went through the attraction while I sat outside with our infant son. There had been an incident the day we were there and the fire department was called to help with it, it was not a fire by the way.
I am 58 and had gone to a lot of water parks like this back in the day. You could expect an ambulance to arrive daily. Mostly, I got my head slammed into concrete at the end of water slides. Yes, the slides were concrete, and at the end of the slides you’d drop 2 ft to the water and my head would slam back. And once I got knocked down in a wave pool by a large man. I got stuck under him and got drug about 30ft under water along the cement bottom. Couldn’t breathe and thought I was going to drown and I could get him off me. Once I was able to get up, my back and back of my legs were bloody. The wave pools were a lot stronger back then. Heck, we paid to go to rock quarries that we’d jump off the cliff edge into the water all the time. Us GenXers called this stuff fun.
I would’ve been around 9-14 years old during 1982-1987 and I lived (still live) in Connecticut. I’m not exactly sure where Action Park is located in New Jersey but it’s in driving distance. It only takes 3 hours to get to the very bottom of New Jersey from my house. Exit zero, they like to call it. 😊 I never went or was allowed to go to water parks. I always wanted to and begged to go. I’m assuming this is why my parents didn’t allow us to go. We did go to big amusement parks like Great Adventure. We’d go every summer just for the day. We lived right on the ocean so we were always at the beach or in a pool so we didn’t need water parks. (We lived in a condominium complex that had a pool.) I now live even closer to the ocean, within walking distance. There’s a beach, park, paths for walking, or riding bikes, so I never took my son to a water park either. I kind of still wish I could go down a water slide. I’m 51 years old. I don’t know. It would probably be weird if my husband and myself showed up at a water park just the two of us and rode rides. 😂
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Action Park was about an hour from where I grew up and was a fun place to go but you pretty much knew you were going to bleed at some point. When you had an issue on the alpine slide, you would get horrible road rash. When the park workers saw you got "injured" their eyes lit up and they ran to get the "antiseptic spray bottle". What was in that spray bottle was a fucking nightmare! The pain that spray caused was unbelievable! The workers would spray you and start laughing when you walked away. Also, those go-karts that look like F1 cars were quick! 0 to 60 times were as fast as the Corvettes that came out in 86 and 87 and you could get on the highway by taking a dirt road ( that's a strech of the word road). I had a friend sit in his car where you entered the highway to see what the top speed was and it was between 80 and 85 MPH. That felt like 200 MPH in that little thing. The part where they were swinging off the ropes was where all the older guys hung out and abused all the younger ones which I'll let your imagination run on that one. Lastly the "Oktoberfest Lodge" didn't card anyone for alcohol. Considering the drinking age is 21, I was 16 and bought MANY beers there every time I went. So, I guess that made up for the injuries.
How this helps explain the title of this video a bit.
alpine slide was crazy!!! skinned your ass a live if you did keep your arms in... LoL
"The Orange Stuff" was a 50/50 mixture of rubbing alcohol and iodine.
I was in Colonia and it was an hr from me too. I do remember going to the lodge n getting served at 15 & 16
This was in New Jersey, not too far from where I live. We called it "Class Action Park" bc of lawsuits 😂. I will NEVER forget that cement Alpine Slide. I was a young girl on it. I was terrified and bleeding by the time I got to the bottom. 😂😂
I smashed into the barrier at the end because I was going so fast and was 5 years old lmao😂😂
I grew up in northern New Jersey, and i worked at Action park in the summer and in the winter it was a ski resort. Fun Place
10:05 I can just imagine. Welcome to Danger Park. Sign a waiver. It's the most fun you'll ever have in your life, and possibly the last. 😁
There’s an inflatable water park in a lake near where I live and you have to sign a waiver to go in.
We went to Action Park for our senior trip. Many people left in an ambulance. it was incredible, so much fun.
LOL, I sent this to you 3 months ago. Glad you did it. And, even though Action Park was only 1 hour from my house, my parents didn't let us go there.
Smart parents
Been there. Absolutely crazy it stayed open that long.
Our school used to take end of year trips there. It was a blast! You just had to know which attractions were likely to cause injury. I was never a strong swimmer, and I remember knowing about the drownings in the tidal wave pool in the later years, so I was pretty cautious on that one and stayed in shallower end. But the water slides, bumper boats, Alpine slide were all a lot of fun. In the winter, when the park was closed, it was a ski resort, and it was our school's main destination for ski club trips.
I'm from N.J.and been there back in the 80's. It was definitely a dangerous place.
OMG!! ACTION PARK!!! I've been waiting for someone to react to Action Park. maiming and killing kids since the mid-70s.
So the first alpine slide, (well maybe not the first but definitely before action park), is at Mt. Attitash New Hampshire and it’s still open every summer. If you go too fast, you will fly off the track. You control your speed.
I lived in Kansas during this time, this is the first time ever hearing about Action Park. We had our Joyland amusement park. Please, I mean no offense to those serious injured, I find this video and reaction to be hilarious😂! (except the deaths of course 😢). Had I live there I might have been a causality of the park! Yes it's amazing the park was allowed to exist, but those were the sign of the time back then!
I grew up about 40 minutes away from action park. I had a paper route that every summer you got 5 free tickets if you could get three new customers. Went every year usually more than once. It was s freaking awesome. Dangerous yeah but it said that on back of the ticket. I never got more than a little road rash but did see people walking around bleeding and hurt often. The surprising thing was no one complained or cared because it was so much fun. Have great memories and if could go back in time would go in a heartbeat. It's still open but haven't been there in some time. Thanks for the video know where I'm heading next summer. Love your stuff
I went there at least once year in the late 80's and 90's. My friends and I loved it.
Thankfully, I survived with only a bruised tailbone on one of the water rides.
Yes, I went back the next summer.
Action Park was such good times!!! I loved going!
That’s why we called it “Traction Park”! because you could wind up in traction!
Another reason it went under was the newer parks that were popping up in NJ. Too many amusement parks competing for too few dollars.
People weren’t just injured there they died there, the man who invented these rides didn’t know what he was doing, he had no engineering degree, it should never have passed inspection
There was an inspection?
I'm guessing you didn't watch the video? It made that quite clear I thought🤷🏼♂️
@@dannypalazzo1969 It was a joke... 🤦♂
Not to mention that he insured himself
You know what they say... Safety third. MERICA! 🦅
The only one of these "rides" I've done is the indoor skydiving. That's the difference - the safe ones are indoors. It is really fun. There's a trampoline-type part on the bottom, beneath is a fan (there may be one at the top, too). You get in the area, with an instructor, they turn the fan on, and if you lay forward, you will "fly." But there was a safety class first, you had to wear safety gear (helmet, eye goggles, jump suit, no shoes), and the operator/instructor would be there the entire time. They might let you go toward the end once you got the hang of it. Don't let this example turn you off to the fun. Indoor skydiving can be found near most touristy cities and towns - we went to one in Gatlinburg Tennessee while on an autumn mountain vacation at a B&B so we enjoyed the leaves, too.
The park was a hell of a lot of fun.
Any injuries can happen at any amusement parks but, I think that most of the injuries that happened there was from human stupidity. People doing things that they weren't supposed to do. I'm sure the drinking didn't help that either though.
.... and that would be the stupidity of park management.
I went on the Alpine slide as a kid with my dad. We went so fast down that hill and those curves were no joke. We crashed, got banged and bruised. I'll never forget that.
I only went a few times but it was always a lot of fun. Saw a few people get hurt but nothing too serious (which is not to say it didn't happen - just that we got lucky and it didn't happen to us or while we were there!) The alpine slides were dangerous for many reasons - sometimes the brakes didn't work, other times people were sent down one right after the other...so if you didn't go fast enough, you were slammed into by the guy behind you. Sometimes the brakes worked too good and the car would stop short and you'd fly forward. Scary as hell -- but also fun. The most danger we saw was with the wave pool. My buddies made fun of me because I rented a float (like a small air mattress) - and then while I was enjoying the three-foot waves, they were trying to cling onto my float for dear life! Some kids were trying to climb out of the pool but the waves would knock them off the tiny ladders. Some folks on floats or rings would ride them toward the shallow end where they would smash into the folks just trying to balance themselves and stand up against the waves -- it was kind of like bowling but with humans as pins. The cliff diving pool had quiet spots where you could avoid being dived onto from above...but it also had dark caves you could swim into. One thing that looked like a cave was actually a loose door which revealed the structure with pipes and wires and scaffolding - probably used to service /maintain the pools but the door really should have been locked... once I realized what I was looking at, I closed the door and a little kid that was about to swim into it (and probably fall or get zapped) decided against it when I told him it wasn't a cave. Mostly the rides were fun in a scary way, but it was dangerous not to have enough life guards or ride monitors who actually cared about safety -- it was all about being responsible for your own fun...but it could have been much safer! Oh, and some teenagers who rode the ski lift to the top of the alpine slides would spit on the kids already on the ride passing under them. Fun!
It’s Mountain Creek Now. It’s not the same and is much safer now. Like any other water park. It was a free for all back in the 80’s
It was known as "Traction Park" to the locals and an injury was a sort of right of passage
At 9:48 was a raft ride called Roaring Rapids. It closed because of a hill that would send a body flying. It reminded me of a hill in Ohio that we would sled down. It had a "bump" that would do that. We called it Suicide Hill. It was on a golf course and after there were many broken bones they leveled out the bump. It was still a good fast hill but it wasn't as wild as it once was.
I grew up nearby in Hamburg NJ from the 70's to 90's.
Can't believe my parents never took me lol.
I recall kids in high school saying how dangerous it was.
I went there 40 yrs ago when i was a kid and went on the worst ride there cannonball loop that some kids got stuck in and died. Also the blue tubes were so hot inside and tight even for a kid, you couldnt raise your arm in it to your face, it was like 1000 degrees in it and pitch dark, it was run by kids who would hose down your back bef you got in. I was scared to death on it , all the rides were mad dangerous, thats why i dont go on water rides today.Really wasnt funny, lot of kids died on these rides. It should of been shut down way before it was.
I’ve been to Mountain Creek so many times without even realizing this lol
Keep in mind WHEN this was! You know those videos you react to about how gen x grew up and that tells u everything you need to know 😂😂
So basically, every reason GenX is awesome.
Our Slip n Slide was right by the drive-in & the putt putt.
Wacky golf by day, Porkys or Alien by night.
I'm pretty sure I contracted tetanus on the playground.
The rides that caused the deaths were not malfunctioning, they were just that unsafe
i used to go there every summer , road rash was common on the alpine slide . i almost broke my neck on a water slide (head first) i went flipping over the stop wall .
the go karts you could pull a wire and increase the speed .
it is still open today .....still called Mountain Creek.... and that new loop water slide....it is now open and running called Zero-G
I remember going there. I had issues on the bumper boats. It was crazy the things they had there.
Ah, the crazy amusement parks that America has had 😂
I visited Action Park in 1990 after years of wanting to go but my parents not letting me go all the way to New Jersey. I had a great time except the fact that I went on one of the extremely step water slides and had my shorts torn off coming down.
This place looks amazing... Fix the errors and bring it back!
the thing about Action Park to remember is that safety regulations can not be broken when they haven't been written yet
Cedar point!!!
King's Island!
@@csw3287i remember the I survived the Cobra T-shirts
@@csw3287The one and only time I rode the King Cobra standing roller coaster, it was new, and that stupid thing that came up between your legs to help hold you in place, fell down going down the first hill. I hung on to the harness over my shoulders like my life depended on it. Cause it sure felt like it did. I never rode it again.
@skullcrackers187 I rode that once, and my neck was so sore for weeks! Never again
I hit the end of the legend. 95-96. Lived 80 minutes away and everyone in High School went there at least once. Last time in 96 I took my 14 year old cousin. I was 16 or just turned 17. It’s still surprising we both came home alive. But to this day these videos give me that warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia.
Been there and I almost drowned in the wave pool in 1981. It's brutal walking from ride to ride because its on ski mountains . You can't even walk down from the ride its on such an incline that you have to run down . Never again !!!!
I’m gen X I was a kid at that time. And they just didn’t care what happened to us back then lol. I don’t know how we survived
I grew up going to the Action Park in the Poconos. In case you’ve ever been and you’re wondering where it was-The Crossings Outlets and all its parking lots sit where Action Park used to be built into the side of the mountain.
I definitely would have gone there looks pretty fun to me
I was there in 84 it was definitely something to remember. They actually sold. " I survived Action Park" t shirts the reputation was very well known . Class action park. Traction park.
lol…. we use to go when i was a kid in the 80’s. we had a blast but never realized it was dangerous. Alpine slide was the best BUT i will say i almost went off the track a couple of times. i was maybe 13. 😮thank goodness we survived. 😆
You’ve seen the Gen X videos. What other kind of amusement park would you expect. I loved it!!!
I never went there, but yes, we did crazy things back then. 😂
Ooohh! I've watched this before! I love Defunctland, I've been subscribed to him for years. He does amazing videos and they're always super interesting!
My friend was head of security at an amusement park, won't say which one, we used to take the go-karts off the track and play Fox and Hound in the early morning hours😂 Never took them on the interstate though 😂
I went there when it first opened and it was really fun. Other than slides in hotel pools, I believe it was my first water park. I think it may have gotten more dangerous at the end when it became popular.
I grew up near there & remember flying off the alpine slide a few times because of going too fast!
Had no idea, at the time, how dangerous it was!
Yo Bro, legend has it that if you rode down the Cannonball Loop and other pipe water slides, you could get cut by other riders teeth that had got broken off and embedded in the plastic pipes. 😳😆
I heard about this on the news. Horrible!
That is horrific and hilarious! 😮😂. It like past injured riders getting their revenge! Wow.
Nice, I love defunctland videos
I’ve been to Action Park several times! It was fun and I only got hurt a couple times. It’s now called Mountain Creek and has had all the necessary safety upgrades but some of the same rides are still there. It’s still just as fun but keep in mind that it’s literally built on a mountain so it’s a lot of uphill walking on top of the normal amusement park stairs
I remember going to a water park in Hong Kong in the 80's. There was an elevator up to the top of a cliff to get on the water slide. It was an open tube, not enclosed. When I got up to speed, I found I flew up over the top of the edge of the tube before falling back down, unless I physically acted to help regulate my speed. Not wanting to fall to my death, I did so. It definitely seemed like an unnecessary risk.
The Chicago based band called Shellac had an album called "At Action Park."
It was so much fun, we went to many times to count from age 16-20. Like mentioned most of the employees were kids. When you have friends who are 18 year old managers, you just may be able to use the “f1” cars to get around the park skip lines and even take them to Burger King a mile down route 94. Mountain Creek is still open but the rides aren’t just dreamed up by the owner and built by kids. It’s also a mountain bike park on the ski slopes until they can start making snow.
Ahh yes the good old action park, it’s an amazing theme park and yes it’s still up and running I live 21 minutes away from there, definitely a 10/10 experience as a kid.
I have the best childhood memories from action park! Every summer it was a must!. Lots of cuts and bruises but worth it.
Lewis...... Im with you. It reminds me of the water slide in Costa Rica. Up in the jungle you climb up through the jungle and when you get to the top they ask you how fast you want to go. Behind whereyou sit is big tank for lack of a better word that they can fill to different levels of water. They pull a lever and all that water rushes out, rocketing you down the slide. The more water in the tank the faster you go. I told them as fast as it goes..........there were a couple oftimes I thought I was going to fly out the side of it. I did it 2 more times.😂
I went there a bunch of times in high school and lived to tell the tale! I’m in my sixties now and I look back on it and still can’t believe it
Lewis i grew in the area of action park. We called it accident park. Place was a complete disaster.
"It's Fine Now! Why? Cause I am Here to watch your reactions" 146 like and 19th comment not to shabby.
Alfred I would go to a lot of of water and Amusements parks But never never would I ever go to Action Park nothing but death awaits you. Never never never never as a child of the 80's you know not the horrors. As a Brit you don't know ...Keep posting and I'll Keep watching
OMG !!! I have been hoping and waiting for this reaction video!
Never been but I survived the open water slide at Splashtown in San Antonio. Never again. Lifting off the slide into the air while several stories up and feeling sideways blowing wind was genuinely scary.
I can vividly remember my grandmother packing a huge first aid kit to carry around when she took us there. Like it was no big deal she knew we were all gonna get hurt!!! We had so much fun though. I have a strip of skin on my leg that never grows hair and I’m positive it’s from all the road rash from the alpine slide 😂😂
We had "enchanted forest water safari" in the Adirondacks in NY. Though not as dangerous in the early 90s when I was a kid things were not as regulated and I very much remember getting burns from how hot the water slides were and skin ripped off from rough surfaces. It was so much fun. Also as an adult had an earring torn out of my ear on a roller coaster. Was a bar bell so only the top was torn and I didn't notice until hours later someone asked about the blood on my face.
I broke my toe there as a kid. There was like a playground with water hoses that sprayed you(mostly in the face) as you tried to see to run around….good times 😂
I find myself among the fortunate when I say I never heard of this place. I've always had a strong will to live.
Great to hear about it now, though.
Loved it there…but it was absolutely crazy in retrospect and old age
Went to Action Park for 5 straight birthdays as a child. I'll never forget the way the park smelled. A mix of pines, fuel, chlorine and food. It was almost a sickeningly sweet smell.
I got a gash over my eye that took 9 stitches at Action Park, I have the scar to this day, every time I notice it, it brings back great memories. 😄
We went once after the first rebrand, we were passing through the state and stopped at "Mountain Creek" for some fun. But our folks were very aware of the reports around the place so we were forbidden from going on any ride that they considered dangerous. Spent most of our time there on go-karts and the wave pool since our folks banned us from the majority of the water slides
At one point the local town ambulance service complained they were volunteers and carting the wounded back and forth to the hospital was 95% of their time every summer and the regular town folk were in increased danger if they actually needed an ambulance while the park was in season. The park owner bought the town one or two brand new top of the line ambulances and they stopped complaining.
Many people ask "How did he get insurance on that place?" The answer is ingenious and illegal. He incorporated his own insurance company in the Cayman Islands and it was glad to underwrite the park for him. His lawyers never settled and would drag you out in court until you couldn't afford to stay in the law suit anymore. Most lawyers would hang up on you if you told them you wanted to sue action park.
Action Park was so dangerous that it had nicknames like ‘Traction Park’, ‘Accident Park’, ‘Class Action Park’ and ‘Friction Park’.
Woah I remember that place, we went there for our senior trip! It's was great, and yep, there was bleeding.
This place was 45 min away from my house. I was mutilating myself every summer there. Those alpine slides could give you legendary road rash. Loved every min of it. You kids live in a bouncy castle world! You need to find a better video there are some really good deep dives into how bad it really was on you-tube. This only scratches the surface.
It still exists as Mountain Creek Waterpark. I have only been there in winter when it operates as a ski mountain. Yes, I got injured there.
I didn't go to this one, but to one that was similar when I was little. The wave pool, waterslides, go karts, etc were amazing. Lived to tell the tale. I feel like you should just have to sign a waver. People kick the bucket outside of Action Park too. I don't know. Still sounds fun. Maybe just learn from all the bad stuff that happened.
I grew up going to action park!! I almost drowned in the lazy river, it was 6 feet deep!!
I grew up in New Jersey and we went to Action Park all year round. We didn't care about the supposedly injured back then. I even took my kids to this park. I love in California now, and honestly, I miss going here; even in my 50s!!
🤣I used to go to Action Park every year back in the late 80s-early 90s... it really was a death trap. I was luckily never seriously injured but I did get a good concussion once getting flipped out of a group tube that flew too far up a banking wall. I have had friends get some pretty bad injuries though, including 2 that got skinned pretty badly coming down the luge on the wheeled carts they used on them in the summer (Alpine Slides).
ETA: It really was a LOT of fun... but we were young and stupid. I would never do the things I did then now.
I went to Action Park in the 1980s; I always had fun.
Riding rides at Camden Park in Huntington, WV is like playing Russian Roulette.Half the rides or more are out to unalive you. LOL.
Grew up in North Jersey. My high school ski/snowboard club got us season passes to Mountain Creek every year. I broke my wrist there. Never went to Action Park because it was closed before we ever started going up there, but the distinctive Rainbow letter sign was still there. With all the dumb shit I did as a teenager, It's probably for the best.
Everyone knew Action Park was a death wish. But we were young dumb and ready for the risk. Also the park did not check ID's for alcohol. So it was a great place to go and party big time. I probably went at least 4 or 5 times every summer.
I just checked, the website for Mountain Creek is online. The water park is closed for the season. Right now, they're getting ready for Winter sports.
I've never been (actually never heard of) Action Park, but I was at Old Indiana. After being at the bigger, well funded, well maintained Kings Island and what was then Marriott's Great America (now run by Six Flags), even as a teen the small rides at Old Indiana seemed to have lower safety standards and I was hesitant about going on any of them. In 1996, a deadly accident occurred on, of all things, the small train ride that circled the park. From the Wiki "On Sunday, August 11, 1996, 4-year-old Emily Hunt was paralyzed from the chest down and her 57-year-old grandmother, Nancy Jones, was killed after a miniature train ride at the Old Indiana Fun Park derailed and overturned as it approached a curve. The two victims were crushed under the weight of the cars. Upon investigation, the train was traveling much faster than its design speed of 12 miles per hour (19 km/h).
The ride attendant claimed to have applied the brakes as the train neared the curve, but it was discovered that many of them were either broken, missing, or not connected, and that most of the anti-derailment devices were missing. The speedometer was broken, along with the governor, which limits the speed of the train. The track was littered with broken ride parts." The park closed and after a lawsuit it never reopened.
🎶Traction-Traction Park!🎶 I can still hear the jingle in my dreams. It was like Lord of the Flies took acid and conquered Disney and moved the operation to side of a ski mountain.
The key was to set up your day so you did the Tarzan Swing around lunch time. The wait to use the swing was over an hour long so if you grabbed food and got on line you were ready to swim before you got to touch the rope. Everyone on line could see the swings the entire wait, so when someone did something cool the crowd went nuts, and when someone screwed up they got their balls busted and were howled at by the coliseum. At one point there was about 15 feet (5 meters) between the bottom of one rope and the waters surface. This pretty much guaranteed any and all bikini tops surfaced at a different time than their former wearer. Somehow this nipply anomaly was only half the amazing popularity of the Tarzan swings.
The biggest round of applause I ever heard at the swings came in the dog days of summer when it was 90 degrees F and 90% humidity when a very comely couple swung one after the other at almost the same time. He mooned the crowd before grabbing and shaking his balls to hold up his cutoffs while doing a back flip and entering the water face down perfectly parallel to the liquids surface making the most spectacular slapping sound ever heard right before his girlfriend on the higher rope managed to wiggle out of her bikini bottom during a double back flip. She surfaced without either piece of her suit in sight and slow walked past the crowd like Lacy Underwood walking to the high dive in "Caddy Shack" before security wrapped her in a towel.
The parking lot was across what I think you would call a "double carriage way" two lanes heading one way with a shoulder lane , two lanes heading the other way with a shoulder lane and pair of solid double yellow lines between them. It was very reminiscent of "Frogger". If you survived crossing the road you looked at your friends and and family with some wiseassery and some sincerity in your voice as you said some variation of "Hope to see you all in one piece on the way home".
The first time I went when one of my friends was old enough to drive and we had no family members we ate magic mushrooms in the car a half hour from the park. We all clearly remembered yelling "WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE SALUTE YOU!" as we blitzed the ticket office. The rest of the day was rather difficult to reconstruct completely in our heads as we returned to the car 8 hours later with all of our stock equipment still attached and functional. I clearly remember getting heckled by a Dryad standing in the tree line on race hill that day.
I fixed three bodies on the cars, my friend worked at the park and we one of the ones that rigged them till go faster
Bumper boats was a fun time, in the 90s, we were not given life savers, we were put into them and heard Ho😊
We need one of these in Corpus Christi, Texas
Hi Lewis, when they showed the slingshot your eyes were open so wide I think I could see your brain.
There’s a really good documentary called “Class Action Park” about this place that interviews a lot of the former staff. Part of the problem was that their “lifeguards” and staff were all local, untrained kids.
You've watched all of the GenX videos and saw how we lived for danger and didn't give a single f#*k. I remember all of the stories and events that happened like it was yesterday. This was one of those places and we had no fear. Matter of fact we liked it even more BECAUSE it had an element of danger, no different than playgrounds and rooftops in our neighborhoods. I actually went there a couple times in the early 80's, had a blast. It was a 2hour ride so twice was enough. A neighborhood friend of mine was riding the Alpine Sled and went around a turn too fast and hit his head on the concrete wall and got knocked out! Said it was the best day of his life!
Hey Chat, should I go? It's only 3 hours and 21 minutes from me and open until 9.
There was a fire at Six Flags in New Jersey in the 1980s that killed a bunch of people.
No, I think you might be thinking of “The Haunted Mansion at Long Branch”
That had a fire in the 80’s that killed a few kids and they never rebuilt it.
@ no, I just looked it, it was Six Flags Mid America,
@ but I will also look this one up.
Can’t find this on Wiki, one of the reasons I remember the Six Flags fire is because my husband and two friends went in the summer of 79 with our infant son, they went through the attraction while I sat outside with our infant son. There had been an incident the day we were there and the fire department was called to help with it, it was not a fire by the way.
I went. Got 2nd degree burns on the Alpine Slide. Almost drowned in the wave pool. I had the best time.
I am 58 and had gone to a lot of water parks like this back in the day. You could expect an ambulance to arrive daily. Mostly, I got my head slammed into concrete at the end of water slides. Yes, the slides were concrete, and at the end of the slides you’d drop 2 ft to the water and my head would slam back. And once I got knocked down in a wave pool by a large man. I got stuck under him and got drug about 30ft under water along the cement bottom. Couldn’t breathe and thought I was going to drown and I could get him off me. Once I was able to get up, my back and back of my legs were bloody. The wave pools were a lot stronger back then. Heck, we paid to go to rock quarries that we’d jump off the cliff edge into the water all the time. Us GenXers called this stuff fun.
Been there, done that. They just don’t make kids like they used to. 😂😂😂😂
I would’ve been around 9-14 years old during 1982-1987 and I lived (still live) in Connecticut. I’m not exactly sure where Action Park is located in New Jersey but it’s in driving distance. It only takes 3 hours to get to the very bottom of New Jersey from my house. Exit zero, they like to call it. 😊
I never went or was allowed to go to water parks. I always wanted to and begged to go. I’m assuming this is why my parents didn’t allow us to go. We did go to big amusement parks like Great Adventure. We’d go every summer just for the day. We lived right on the ocean so we were always at the beach or in a pool so we didn’t need water parks. (We lived in a condominium complex that had a pool.) I now live even closer to the ocean, within walking distance. There’s a beach, park, paths for walking, or riding bikes, so I never took my son to a water park either.
I kind of still wish I could go down a water slide. I’m 51 years old. I don’t know. It would probably be weird if my husband and myself showed up at a water park just the two of us and rode rides. 😂