Defunctland: The History of Action Park
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- Опубліковано 23 чер 2024
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Defunctland takes on Vernon, New Jersey's infamous water park, Action Park! Watch and learn the full history of this dangerous amusement park.
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"Faceoff" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Can we all stop for just a second and really think about the fact that Action Park bought the city more ambulances. That sounds like the punch line to a joke.
I'm closeby Vernon and have multiple friends there and let me tell you, stuff like this is not even remotely surprising. Vernon is absolute garbage
Princessuuke Yeah, it’s really not surprising at all lol. I’m not far from Vernon either and the whole area is trash lol.
The drivers obviously know the route they'll be driving most often.
Seems like they probably should have just built a hospital on site.
Or a new slide that chutes the person straight over to the hospital.
When I went as a kid, the longest line in the park was first aid
Lmao that’s sad-
@@harryrabbitts4765 stop
Was it fun atleast?
DAMN 😂😂😂
Damn that first aid ride musta been lit
I love how they had test dummies coming out MISSING THEIR HEADS and they still deemed the ride as safe
On one hand, test dummy heads aren't attached as firmly as human heads.
On the other hand, enough force to knock off a test dummy head isn't gonna be pleasant for a human neck. Also, it's a pretty bad omen, people never pay attention to omens these days.
after that i imagine that they just slapped a sticker on it that just said SAFE on it.
You cant take risks like that. You have to be as cautious as humanly possible. Even is the test dummies come out damaged, you cant just assume that the same wont happen with people. You need to ensure that the dummies come out in pristine condition to ensure that human riders are kept as safe as possible.
That just defeats the point of a test dummy
@@greenberrygk The point of crash test dummies is to take damage in place of human testers, until they come out okay.
Bruh that cannonball loop tho. Are they expecting me to curl into a ball like Sonic?
The blueprint for that thing was allegedly a scribble on cocktail napkin made by the former Wall Street Executive with no former park experience who created the place, so I'd say nobody thought that far ahead. The headless test dummies were a formality.
@@0g0dn0 basically, they came up with ideas like this when they were drunk.
In the words of the angry video game nerd:
“What were they thinking!?”
Or go Morph Ball mode like Samus?
and, there's no rings attached
@@crystalgemgirl731 Go Magearna mode
The cannonball loop actually had to have padding put in so people stopped hitting the top and getting so hurt. After that, people started coming out with cuts and gashes. They looked inside, and it turns out that teeth from previous riders had gotten lodged in the padding and was cutting people on their way down.
ARGH
Oh GOD
CHRIST
What the absolute fuck
EW! 🤢 That's foul on so many levels
"The lake had a large population of snakes", well that sounds like good fun for the little ones.
who knows pre 1980 how many deaths they kept under the records noses
It was great.
"Snakes..why it had to be snakes."
Are there really any snakes other then harmless Garter Snakes in New Jersey?
Imagine if they were a hard-core Jungle Book fan...
I worked here as a teenager in the 80's and oh man, the stuff that went on there. I was one of three working the alpine slide and that track was covered in blood stains the whole way down. Countless times a day, the sleds would come off the track or customers would slip off and get some of the most horrid skids and scrapes. All of us were smoking up, drinking, screwing around in the bushes etc. It was a fun summer, but none of us understood the gravity of how messed up the entire thing was.
You're one of the jerks that caused all those problems. Code word: Scumbag.
😕
Sounds based
"Blood stains"
Mind if I ask... like, how many? Was this every day or just every noe and then? Did riders notice it? How big were they?
That sounds downright medieval
@@Edge_Boye based... yaa frfr no cap like rent free even with rizz.. man, its already goated with the drip. now ppl ded with no clapback
"There's nothing in the world like Action Park!"
*GOOD.*
lol i agree with you and i hope it does stay that way.
That jingle has aged like fine wine!
Thank Luna.
@crystalgemgirl731 Luna?
@@gabe_s_videos Princess Luna from MLP. Also, I like saying it.
OSHA: surely they can't break EVERY rule.
Action park:
Action Park: hold my beer
Action Park: Yes, we can. He he he he he he haha haha hahaha HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH BWAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA
Hold my beer... Which they sold to minors.
Im about to ruin this company's career
At least they didn’t break the hallway height regulation! Oh, wait, they probably did.
Hamilton: “Everything is legal in New Jersey.”
My husband, who grew up going to Action Park: *nods vigorously*
*nods in 360 degrees do to severe neck fractures*
@@shinyagumon7015 LOL well done
Everything is legal in New Jersey-except that dangerous marijuana.
Suzanne Seven man do I have some good new for you
@@shinyagumon7015 has
The first casualty, the young man who was killed on the Alpine Slide in 1980, wasn't an employee of Action Park. This was a lie told to dodge officially reporting his death which makes it even more horrific. People should check out Class Action Park for the full story.
This! He worked at the ski resort years before
@@rubygirl214 True but he wasn't currently employed by the park at the time
wack
Who was he at the time it happened?
@@your_local_questerian He was a 19 year old boy named Georgie who had no affiliations with Action Park. He had worked at the park’s sister ski resort as a lift operator the year before, and just for one season. The park also lied claiming that not only was he an employee, but they tried saying he was there after hours, which was also false. He was a paying Park guest like anyone else.
The fact that they spent money on NEW AMBULANCES instead of safety measures??? I laughed out loud at how absolutely ridiculous that is.
Let me tell you from personal experience it made it that much better when I went there many times!!!! LOL 😂
There’s an ambulance squad down the road from the rebranded park
Amazon strategy
Yup, a classic (if extreme) case of treating the symptom and not the cause
New ambulances are safety measures
When an attraction called "The Kamikaze" can be described as "safer" in comparison to the rest, you've got a problem.
Sushi exactly
so it's not like every theme park in the world is safe but so dangerous so why just this theme park. To me every theme park out here are dangerous
@@TheIcpfan23 i hate to break it to you but most theme parks have actual oversight and safety measures. sure most theme parks have a couple of accidents in their history, mostly due to people blatantly disregarding the rules, but usually they take safety very seriously because an injury is a PR disaster.
action park seemingly just made poor safety practices their entire brand :^)
@@TheIcpfan23 there's a reason why a serious accident is noticed at six flags or Disney Land... It's rare. And there's an even bigger reason why action park's accidents were mostly ignored... They were common
Branding. It’s should have just been called the divine wind at that point.
Everyone's gangsta till the water slide has a l o o p
Coaster Fusion IT LITERALLY LOOPED WTF
Engonering
many water slides have several loops now, but a VERTICAL loop is insane. wtf were they thinkinggggg
Atleast no one was decapitated at any of the rides.
But what if you are stuck in the loop .. How do they know you are still in.. Thats scared
You gotta love a place where the slingshot, one of today’s most notoriously unsafe attractions, is the safest ride at the park lol
I have to remember this.
Pretty ironic 😂
Slingshots are completely safe😂
@@frozenuruguayball6436There are certain types that absolutely aren’t. Elastic cable Slingshots are the most notorious. Coaster College has a video that describes the differences between safer and more dangerous models really well.
@@frozenuruguayball6436There are some models that really aren’t - specifically older models that use elastic bands. Coaster College has a very good video that explains the difference between the newer safer models and the ones that use elastic bands.
The 19 year old first death at the park, they said he was an employee because they did not report his death. He had been an employee for a partial season at the great gorge ski resort, but was never an employee of action park. They also reported to the press that he was riding it at night, and that it was raining. Neither were true.
Source?
@@crazyfire9470 documentary - class action park
Ohhhhh that part and the "there isn't a problem with the ride it didn't kill him it was the rocks 25 feet away" pissed me off
@@veronicacarter2376nah bro it's fine. the ride didn't kill him. it just uh. launched him 25 feet into fucking rocks
@@juniperrodley9843its the rocks’ fault for being there
ER Physician: "Your friend's neck is fractured. What exactly was he doing?"
Patient's friend: "He was on the Snapple Snap-Up Whipper Snapper at Action Park."
"It's AWESOME!"
Sn = tin
Oh he was on the break your spine don’t forget to sign ride
I thought it was called the Spine Snapper Snap Up Whiplash Survivor at Action Park. My mistake.
It's 2 am and I just spit my coffee. Thanks A lot!
"That was thirty years ago! Things have changed!"
Yes, in the last 30 years human beings have become invulnerable to drowning, electrocution, and blunt force trauma.
No, just more safety rules
@@jessicanuoffer it's a joke :)
i’ve gone to mountain creek which is what action park is now called. you have to wear helmets to go down roaring rapids in an under inflated raft
@@kalikoserpent its more of a sarcastic remark, smart guy :)
Yay 100th like
"Greg, keep it professional." Why do I have the feeling Greg is someone who would spike someones drink.
You gotta wonder, if this is how comfortable he is doing that stuff while knowing he is live, what might happen backstage...
I mean it *is* Fox...
Yeah Greg made me physically recoil. Gross ass mf.
And there are people watching that and having the audacity to say crazy things like "she enjoyed it" and otherwise defend his behavior when it's one of the most unprofessional things I've ever seen.
@@The_Sharktocrab not just that, but it's also agonizingly obvious she DIDN'T enjoy it. The whole situation was incredibly awkward and no one was happy with the situation, and the fact that people say "she enjoyed it" makes me worry about these gross fuckers that can't read a room.
I'm surprised at the lack of comments about the creepy newscaster at the end. It's a good thing the cameraman chose to act when he did.
Apparently, according to another comment I saw, he's infamous for being a creep.
Times have changed.
He was such a creep! At least I think the on-site reporter wasn't hearing all of it (or at least wasn't sure what was going on) and the other caster tried to step in. But oh my god if he was that brazen while being filmed I can't imagine what he was like off camera.
At first I thought it was outtakes from a prerecorded segment, I was shocked to learn that happened live on air
@@anthonyjonas6236 what are you talking about
"Die Like a Man!" is not really a great marketing slogan.
At least it’s not false advertising
@@kindofhuman8147 They weren’t wrong should have said “Get hurt like a man!” since many did.
lol
dunno what you mean. Would definitely get my attention hahaha
@@WetAdek It reduces the sale of annual passes, however.
As an Action Park survivor, I can tell you none of this was exaggerated. Went home pretty mangled a few times,there were just so many ways to get injured there,and there wasn't much in the way of first aid there,hence all the ambulances!
Bob Luna this is why I’m glad I was born in the early 2000s.
Bob Luna I’m not like other teens. I don’t vape and I’m not irresponsible.
Jonathan Samet bitch millennials were born between 1981-1994. I’m Gen Z!
@@0utcast calm down, you're going off on someone just because of the year they were born lol come on just let it go my dude
Jonathan Samet try to imagine how it comes across to everyone else when you bash a teenager on the Internet for their age. the world will be a much better place when people like you learn how to be mature and respectful towards others. hope your night gets better man
So, the son of Gene Mulvihill, Andy Mulvihill wrote a book on his experiences growing up around Action Park and it's a really interesting read. It's been a while since my last reread, but some notes:
The Snapple ride was actually a brand deal, made when the company was just starting.
The guy running the food supplies literally served spoiled chicken at one point to masses of customers, which wrecked havoc on the low amount of bathrooms at the time.
Their lawyer was infamous for using manipulative tactics in court and stalling to the point of the legal fees simply becoming too much for the person who was injured.
Action Park was a large employer of teens in the area, but had them do anything from digging ditches to wrangling drunk people on Lola carts despite many of them being as young as 14 or 15.
Employees would commonly have parties at the end of the seasons, with those same teenagers getting heavily drunk and their sober friends making sure they didn't fall in the pool or something. It was wild.
Generally the employees weren't treated very well. The guy who ran the Aerodium seized his workers/performer's passports for the season so they couldn't leave, young lifeguards being put through the wringer trying to prevent people from drowning in the powerful wave pool (which Gene refused to turn down the power of/limit entrance and exit spaces for despite the danger and threw away the manual).
On a slightly funnier note, employees often took lunch breaks near the Tarzan Slide or similar rides that had reputations for women's tops coming off. They also wrote "CFS" (for "Can't Fucking Swim") on the wristband of anyone who had to be rescued yet went right back into the water.
It's quite the interesting rabbithole, so I'd recommend checking your local library for a copy (or watch the documentary on HBO Max. Both have different perspectives and are interesting to put together. I'm more inclined to believe the documentary's side of certain things, personally.)
You know, I was just wondering about the food... simply because by halfway into the video the very idea of these people getting any portion of this right seemed odd.
What’s the book name
@@FilmCriticAidan "Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America's Most Dangerous Amusement Park"
"They also wrote "CFS" (for "Can't Fucking Swim") on the wristband of anyone who had to be rescued yet went right back into the water."
One of the only practices we should keep from this place tbh lol. Some people... I s2g...
ok the cfs thing is really funny, at least those lifeguards had some humor about it
I highly recommend the Behind the Bastards episode on Action Park, it's very good and goes a lot more in depth. My favorite story is that it was so common for guests to get scrapes and bruises that the first aid station made a game to play with injured guests. You stood in a circle on the floor, and if you managed to stay inside the circle while they sprayed you down with an alcohol-based disinfectant, you won a prize. Having alcohol sprayed directly into your open wounds FUCKING HURTS, and in the entire run of the park (which had 10) were able to stay inside the circle while their wounds were treated. The prize?
A fucking pen.
Oh my gosh.... this is quite the worst horror of the whole thing. I can tell you this did not happen at every park. I had an injury at a water park, they sprayed me with something that disinfected and did not hurt and I was like 8, so I was sensitive. I did not cry, I got a band aid and I was just fine. Also I assume injuries were super common at most water parks, I lived near one with a wave pool and brush burns just happened on a daily basis to almost everyone its just the nature of the beast. The trick was not to slide up on the entrance as that was where the most rough ground was. Multiply that by the number of wave pools in the USA and you have a large number of injuries right there. I remember seeing a lady with a huge brush burn on her thigh and a huge piece of gauze on her leg covering it.
I don't remember the circle part but it's been almost 30 years since I went there. I only had to go to the med station once and a lifeguard escorted me there after I busted my lip after my friend and I bashed heads together. The collision made me bite down just below my lower lip and my teeth dug in a bit. They cleaned it out and just put a bandaid on it. It was pretty early in the day and we didn't want to waste our money so my buddy's mom left and went to the store and got some superglue and superglued it shut. Once it dried we were back on the rides. Had to keep reapplying it as the day went on since it would start to crack and I'd start bleeding again. lol Still have a really small scar to this day. But this was all my fault. My buddy and I would deflate the raft we were in a little bit so that when we hit the corners on the river ride we'd get higher on the wall and if we were lucky it would throw one of us out. Once out you just slide down the rest of the slide on your own until you hit the next pool and got back into the the raft.
I was there at least 30 times over my high school and college years but I never saw anyone get hurt to the point they needed an ambulance. So the 200 injuries a day thing sound like a bit of a stretch. Scrapes were common but you'd get scraped up, and if it was a little bloody you'd just go to the bathroom clean it out and just go back on the slide. ...but I will say this is a quote from my friend's facebook post when he worked there in the early 90s- "My god, I used to work there. The whole movie will just be people being hauled off to the hospital" Maybe I was only there on good days. lol
Place was a blast and best part of summer.
Big, big disagree. I tried Behind The Bastards at your recommendation and its awful. The hosts are insufferable twats who not even 5 minutes in admit to being lazy degenerates who sleep all day, hate amusement parks and think batman is fascist. Biggest nope in a long time, so kudos to you I guess.
imagine you’re bleeding to death with open-wounds and the doctor puts you in a circle and sprays you with disinfectant, that pain must be insane
"We consulted our in-house clinician, Dr. Mengele..."
"There's Nothing in the World Like Action Park!"
GOOD.
George The Friend that’s exactly what I was thinking lmao
😂
I agree.
Nothing in the world wants to be like Action Park!
Christ, this blew up.
😂
“Jackass: The Theme Park”
They made this into a film lol
I mean 2/9ths of Jackass made it into a movie, so yeah close enough
I'm surprised MTV didn't try to make that an actual thing at the height of the show's popularity
Here in Jersey Action Park got called "Traction Park" and "Class Action Park" most people i know who are a little bit older than me if you mention action park there like "hey look at this scar I got on the alpine slide
i can't bring myself to ruin your 420 likes
My parents apparently went here with their friends in college. My dad's friend nearly drowned in the wavepool but the lifeguards did nothing and some random dude saved him. My dad apparently had some gnarly injuries from the alpine slide. The 90s were truly a different time.
To make a long story short when I was 12 I almost drowned in a wave pool (not the action park one) and I had my parent right next to me the whole thing happened so fast she didn't even see me go under, I was also given swimming lessons for quite a few years when I was a kid so I was trained. If it can happen to me it can happen to anyone at any wave pool.
On my first ride on the Alpine Slide the kid ahead of me slipped the track. Two guys came out of nowhere, got his slider, put him back on it and pushed him off like it was nothing....
The 90s were truly a different time? 😂 The 90s weren’t THAT long ago. Let’s bring in the 70s and 80s. Makes more sense.
@@SaraAB87 also isn't the idea of a wave pool actually really stupid
I nearly drowned at an canadian water park. No one helped me.
This whole thing seems like a parody of a theme park you’d see in the Simpsons. I kept laughing harder and harder as you elaborated on the endless dangers. The cliff jumping attraction with ONE LIFEGUARD, I just-
Oh, you have no idea. And if you tarried for more than 30 seconds, that douch bag lifeguard would more or less push you in.
Feels like a whole Onion article.
Even the nickname "Traction Park" sounds like a location in The Simpsons.
They an episode of The Simpsons riffing on Action Park, so it went full circle
Like Pipi's in South Park
This looks like the kind of park you used to start building in Rollercoaster Tycoon but got bored with after a while and then didn't care about anything that would be placed in it at all.
So safety is 2nd priority then?
I had that game! It was awesome. I usually took it semi seriously in that I tried not to actively kill the guests. My younger brother on the other hand would intentionally go for the hidden achievement "Most Dangerous Park in The Country." Some classic memories of his included:
- Permanently trapping peeps underground
- Intentionally designing coasters full of peeps to land on footpaths
- Making said coasters go extremely slow to drop one car off the track at a time
- Creating a "Jail" for peeps: Dropping them off into a closed footpath section, with free drinks but $40 bathrooms and full of security guards.
>Free drinks with $40 bathrooms
What sick fuck would make that. XD
DreamCanvas I have stomach issues but I thought the $40 toilets was funny
DreamCanvas I made a loop coaster go off the rails and land in a pool where all the riders drowned. Fun times.
This place seems like something out of an old Simpsons episode
Jake Noble Ikrr
of course. simpsons is making fun of REALITY
I wanna go on the Yard Work Simulator!
Itchy and Scratchy Death Park in real life
Kamp Krusty
I spent many summers in Action Park. As a teen it was the greatest place to go, as an adult, knowing what I know now, I would NEVER let my kids go.
Would you let them go to to the modern version?
@@thevenom2731 my kids are adults now. I haven’t seen the new version but it can’t be anything like the old version. The rules today are so different.
yea you can do something but others can't. that's adults for you
@@businesswalks8301 I think that point hit Mach 3 flying over your head.
@@businesswalks8301Are you 3?
Can we take a second to appreciate the absolute back breaking work these 80's attendants were doing carrying 80s camcorders around a damn water park?
*best water park of all time
with that in mind, i bet there were a couple accidents because they tried to film the cliff-diving shots, but dropped the camcorder on their foot at some point, then slipped, fell a couple places and into the pool, which would probably result in a couple dead guys and a camera man in traction
again, i bet that happened at least two times, but they weren't reported in the news, because people kind of expected this to happen in a place like action park
"Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make" - Action Park Owner
Whered i hear this lol
@@spiceguy94 I think Shrek, Lord Farquad said that ... as far as I know lol
@@spiceguy94 also Monsters vs Aliens
media: someone will die
action park: of FUN!!
@@BlackqueenSW_ You mean Michael Eisner?
"In response to the high volume of guests visiting the hospital, Action Park bought Vernon NJ new ambulances."
Good business model!
Did they get a commission for every person they sent to the hospital ?
@@sashaircha6475 yes they actually did. Out of the 800 dollar ambulance ride they received 200 of it.
@@j.j.s.jr.5136 Money over park safety! What a time to be alive
@@alphacheeno7487 you ain't kidding! Lol
I feel like this is the best showcase of why rides in theme parks these days are engineered and calculated so rigorously
and yet they all suck compared to action park
@@businesswalks8301i prefer that to fucking dying
As a kid growing up in the 90s, I loved those kinds of wave pools, but my mom never liked me swimming in them. She would mention that people could die in them, but I never took her very seriously. 😢
Yeah, for most of us the older you get the more you start to realize that your parents were right about almost everything! Of course, by that time it's impossible to go back and change anything.
@@JSchaffer214 not even remotely true for the majority of people alive today
@@TRAMP-oline remotely true for the people alive today I'm 17 and most of the shit my parents we're telling me came back to bite me later
@@TRAMP-oline Oh no it absolutely still is.
@@SirDankington only if you have good parents.
That cannonball loop gave me anxiety just by looking at it. The fact that dummies came out headless should have been a sign.
Actually, people who would jump in such a death-sentence slide would only be shorter without a head anywayz.
I’d say the people who lost their heads on those slides could also count as dummies
Imagine getting stuck in there
WAIT PPL LOST THERE HEADS?!
@@dismyjamm7390 No they didn't, some test dummies they used when making the slide came out headless. Odds are, though, that they were just store-bought mannequins they got on the cheap, which are obviously not designed for water slides.
Rollercoaster Tycoon wasn't intended to be an instruction manual.
2 Guests have died on Water Slide 2.
This should be top comment
I did it for the cat girls
1 Guests drowned in Pool 3
It's not? Oh, I probably shouldn't have those designs based on my game's park layout to the folks working on Toy Story Land then. Well, that's gonna be an interesting opening day.
You think Action park would have tried to remake Mr. Bones' Wild Ride if they had stayed open?
My dad survived Action Park! He's been multiple times and would recall how there were ambulances on standby at all times and he would witness so many injuries- he even got some himself but nothing serious. After he found out I'm interested in this he got me a tshirt with the logo on it, it's my favorite thing
I love that I was watching this on the TV in the living room and my dad walked in and was like "oh yeah I used to go there as a kid" and my mom just look at him and asked "how are you alive?"
According to the song, "There's nothing in the world like Action Park."... That's probably not such a bad thing...
@@jackb6663 I would actually kill if that was a thing. You will not be safer you will be in FAR more danger.
The virus isn't even that dangerous you idiots! It kills old people who have never been sick! Rich billionaires die from it! And people with asthma....if you have asthma my condolences.
Maddie Joy
And the fact that you think that is why our world has become so pussified, overregulated, and frankly pathetically bland.
Explain 10 million cases
@@raagnarz sorry did you miss the part where PEOPLE FUCKING DIED??!? one of those people being a fucking CHILD?
"The park sold alcohol in many of the convenience stands, often to minors." Ah yes, a water park filled with poorly designed, dangerous rides plus hundreds of drunk teenagers, what could possibly go wrong?
A water park selling alcohol is already a bad idea, let alone to minors
@@MadWatcher thats the point no rules just do what you want
@@revolutionhotwheels7133 which is a bad idea
@@xlopez321 ehhh
I ❤️ Danger
"It's like coming to broad way it's wonderful"
I don't know what she's going for here but I want to give her a hug, she seems nice
She's got that Yiddish lilt that you don't hear a lot of people talk with any more. Reminds me of my grandmother's friends.
Hearing how that many people died on the premises and they continued to operate is insane. One person died at the theme park where I live and it was closed for about seven years. How did they get away with any of this?
Mostly due to the corrupt local government looking the other way, since the park generated tons of cash for the local economy.
4 words: it was the times.
as well as the reply on top of this one, that's the best reason for this too.
Two words: New Jersey
The guy who ran Action Park may or may not had Mafia ties
“There’s nothing in the world like action park!”
GOOD.
Brazil exists.
Australia doesn't, but if it did then that too.
The comment you copied is right above this one, lol.
@@yelladude6969 Isn't copied, they make two different comments on the matter. Just using the same quote from the park.
AMEN.
I could have sworn there was another line "where you're the center of the action"
Wow I hope anna the reporter got herself into a better job.
Amazingly action park wasn't the creepiest part about this video...
I personally thought it was hilarious and fitting, being at Action Park. If the same comments were made at some other random waterpark it would be much more creepy somehow. I hope that makes sense.
Uh yeah glad to see Fox stayed classy all these years
@@IPS-bk2wr Doesn't mean it's right to be fucking creepy.
@@DeadHandtheSurvivor what part are you all talking about I must've missed it?
My favorite part about the cannonball loop is that people started coming out with lacerations and it was found that they were being cut by teeth that were imbedded in the walls.
What.
The fuck?
My family is from New Jersey. My mom told us stories of going there. She didn’t do most of the rides, but she had a friend who went on the cannonball loop. He supposedly had a difficult time standing for a few minutes after it. He kept standing and then immediately falling.
sounds like a concussion...
they really said: ‘well, compared to how many guests we see a year, our death toll is quite low’
WHAT
Another great marketing slogan:
"ACTION PARK - Our Death Toll is Low!"
Maybe low if they were comparing their DEATH rate to a normal water park's ACCIDENT rate.
@@NovaSaber Implying that the death rate is astronomically high is actually wrong factually. Not to make light of the deaths that DID occur, of course.
fr there shouldn't be a death toll period lol
@@tiarakinnebrew1054 Preventing what you can is a lot more fruitful than trying to prevent everything. IDK how that would be possible - say you at least went as far as you can go with regards to enforcing rules and the like - which these people abslutely should have - you still have idiots who don't know how to swim coming up, people horsing around, so people will get hurt or injured.
I love how the slide named after Japanese suicide bombers is actually one of the safer slides.
@Anne Yap "Kamikaze" means "Divine Wind" and refers to the typhoon that nailed a Mongol invasion force headed to Japan in the 12th Century. In World War II, it was adopted by the Allied Forces as a moniker for Japanese pilots who flew their planes into Allied warships in the hopes of heavily damaging or sinking them. The actual name for the suicide pilot unit was "Shinpuu", IIRC.
Anne Yap the logic behind it was “all our good pilots are dead/captured/wounded. Now we only have a bunch of relatively inexperienced pilots at our disposal. The Americans have hundreds of significantly better pilots who will annihilate most of our pilots. We should maximize the impact of each pilot who gets through. We could have them use bombs/torpedoes, but they could miss and aren’t guaranteed to sink/disable the ship it hits. But if we have the pilots fly their plane to impact the ship, they’re less likely to miss and with each hit more damage can be incurred on the American ships.”
Did it work? They sunk one carrier, the USS St. Lo, damaged the carriers USS Franklin and USS Bunker Hill enough to knock them out of service, damaged a few more carriers, though they returned to service later. They also damaged these: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_damaged_by_kamikaze_attack (this is Wikipedia, so treat with all due skepticism).
However, we had about a hundred carriers of varying sizes and thousands of submarines, destroyers, escort destroyers, cruisers, auxiliary vessels etc. so these loses were somewhat negligible and not one thing on that list was a nuclear bomber.
oof
it's not the safest by my knowledge. you skip across a 30 foot pool at the end and if you weigh more than 200 pounds you're likely to strike the other end of the pool
@@walterkennedy9474 Odd thing is, according to some studies, the Japanese pilots had gotten so bad by that point that they actually lost less of them in kamikaze runs than in regular attacks.
I find it so difficult to accept action park as a real place and not the plot to some dorky comedy film along the lines of National Lampoon's Vacation.
The slide loop? The extra ambulances? The cars accelerating at 50 miles an hour? It's all so perfect.
Their is a go cart place near my city that has 2 types of go carts slower ones that go like 10mph and anyone tall enough can drive them then their is ones that require a driver's license and go probably above 50.
if someone showed me this video and said it was an art project of some sort i would believe it. seriously. this is how fucked up this place is
somebody even said that action park had the basis of an amusement park parody you'd see on the simpsons. even the spoof name of "traction park" is grade a groening parody material.
It was REAL! I was there and its all TRUE!
The Cannonball-Loop slide sends me into hysterics every time because the amount of people that would have looked at it in any of its stages, which is more than two people at minimum, is astonishing. Someone drew up the idea, someone else looked at it, someone else made it, someone else installed it, and someone else looked at it again when it was done and thought, “This won’t lead to any serious issues”. Like HOLY SHIT looking at it for half a second made me laugh, _half a second_ . And no one had the guts to say or was heard when saying, “it just won’t work, because of physics and fucking REALITY” Like WOW
*W O W*
Yeah a fucking loop in a goddamn _water slide_ ??? what an idea!
Looping water slides do work though? Modern ones have a lot more thought put into them, but it wasn't exactly impossible.
It's just that they require a bit more thought towards their mechanics than a normal one.
This is literally the place that invented parents saying “if your friend jumps off the bridge, would you too?”
greg the groove DRUM COVERS lmfao
I'd jump too
If Hitomi-san was below the bridge I would even do a 360 on the way down
My brother did.
@@CyberKirby he lived right?
"I have a picture of a mother going down the Alpine Slide with an infant in her arms" THAT'S TERRIFYING
Seriously, idk what they were doing in the 70s... but it wasn't thinking 😂
@@Angelica_Rodriguez39 it was all disco and roller skates, zero thoughts
I feel like that photo should have been sent to CPS rather than used to advertise dangerous theme park rides
Did you catch the part about how his 71 grandmother was a devotee right under that quote? That she had ridden it three times her first time out?
I have crazy long lived family members who run around doing crazy things but there's such a thing as too crazy and sending an elderly woman down an unsafe concrete slide on a flimsy cart equipped with a hand brake and a helmet with nothing else is too crazy. All I can think of is broken bones but maybe it's because I currently work with a senior population where a minor fall can break a hip, let alone hurdling with little stopping power down the side of a friggin' mountain.
where did it say that at
The fact that the human slingshot was actually the safest ride in the park is probably the funniest part of this whole thing.
The mention that it's a common ride probably is why; it looks like almost everything in Action Park was custom made, while the slingshot rides are probably off-the-shelf designs made by actual designers who know what they're doing.
I just want to say, my father and his friends used to spend their childhoods here, and they actually have a crazy story about Geronimo Falls. One of them rode the slide backwards, and had his pants flown right off of him…..and this lead to probably the only time in the park’s history where people were actually kicked out.
Everything I've heard about being a teenager in the 70s is absolute insanity. Like everyone was really out of their minds back then, huh?
@Joey Foster Ok, boomer
Seriously. Based on stories my dad has told me I'm surprised he and his siblings survived to adulthood. They used to jump off bridges into the canal and all sorts of other crazy stuff.
You should read the excellent graphic memoir (it's non-fiction, so not a novel) "My Friend Dahmer," by Derf Backderf. It was recently made into a movie as well. Although it's about the author/artist's loose friendship with future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in high school, it also shows the sinister side of the party-hearty 70s. Indeed, a lot of that era was not so much fun, and it extends to the decades before and after. Kevin Drum has written some fascinating articles about the decline in delinquency. It mirrors the Great Crime Decline in general. www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/05/teenagers-are-no-longer-scary-delinquents-30-years-ago/
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/03/kids-today-are-way-less-scary-they-used-be/
It was amazing. I feel sorry for the nerf covered world of today.
I’d honestly love to be a teenager in the 70’s :/
"There's nothing in the world like action park"
**camera pans to room full of disabled and dead people**
I mean, they weren’t wrong.
Like that scene in Gone With the Wind where the camera pans over to the injured soldiers.
My leg! My leg
Must of been worth it
Ha! Great play, Mark! It's a real... _KILLER!_ (Laugh track and Seinfeld riff)
The fact that no one was sent to jail for this atrocity is disgusting
Nah, you're just soft.
@@stevenschnepp576like 10 people died because of gross negligence shit happend you are all pansies
@@stevenschnepp576pretty sure it is disgusting
@@stevenschnepp57614 yo edgelord
@@stevenschnepp576
no, i think you’re just old
Man I wish they’d have let you do the “official” documentary on Action Park. You do things a lot classier and with better use of primary sources. Ironically by being “PG” you make you’re investigation and presentation much more adult and professional. Longtime fan @Defunctland keep up the good work and stay true to your style.
yeah but he also got some information wrong, like the first death was not an employee. that was just a lie that gene made up so that he wouldn’t have to count it as a death.
@@danielleanos1220 he was also an amateur who did it almost a decade ago. Yet he still presented it better and more professional than the professionals. My point still stand, Defunctland created a better documentary.
@@truthache8560 4 years is almost a decade?? and i don’t think so. some false information was put out meaning he didn’t do enough research and for it to be a documentary it would have to be longer than 17 mins. there is a documentary on hbo I believe that takes about it perfectly in my opinion. mostly because you hear stories of this from people who actually went there, worked there, and lost their loved ones
@@danielleanos1220 No offense to Kevin, but i take the information in these old episodes with a grain of salt. I remember when this episode came out, I realized the majority of the info for this episode was straight off the Action Park Wikipedia page, date errors and all. Entertaining nonetheless.
Holy crap. I'm no roller coaster engineer, but I am an engineer (electrical) and the mere picture of a loop on a water slide sent chills down my spine.
Also, as an electrical engineer, WHY WAS THERE ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT UNDERWATER THAT WERE NOT PROTECTED BY GFCI????!!!!! Even if NJ had lax amusement park regulations, that's a clear violation of the NEC and that death alone should have given code officials enough to shut down the kayak ride.
I know Jack shit about electric engineering but even I know water and electricity don’t belong near each other without protection if at all (thanks Pokemon)
My 6 year old sister could tell you why that’s stupid!
How did a grown man not know?!
I don't wanna come off like I'm trying to start a debate or anything, but I'm legitimately wondering: were those regulations even a thing back when Action Park was operational? o:
@@Roonifer Good question. I officially "started" in the industry in 2000 with a summer job as an electrician helper. My dad may know done he's been working since the early '80's as an electrician. Even then, it will be based on what was enforced in Virginia and not New Jersey.
@@eaglescout1984 I see!! Thanks!
The amount of times I go, “Wait, did you just say “large population of snakes?’” Is unparalleled
Did... Did anyone ever get bit?
It's actually pretty common for any water park that shares space w a ski resort. Good water supply + large open areas for snakes to back = snakes
@@jeffreytoman5202 People seem to forget that the entire world was just wild. Just because we build a fence and a pool doesn't make the world no longer wild. Snakes are fucking everywhere.
People be saying that snakes are common in these places and that's cuz they kinda are, but I bet most parks at least try to reduce the snakes. Can't imagine Class Action Park did.
Omg yes this!!!
Growing up in northern NJ in the 90s, my family would go to Action Park regularly. It wasn't until watching this video that I remembered I, too, unbelievably almost drowned in that wave pool at the age of 7-8. I actually got emotional watching this because I had not remembered, and it was very traumatic at the time.
This had to have been right before they closed around '96. I managed to pull myself out of an extremely strong current that was aggressively pulling me under, towards the deeper end of the pool on the left; But I remember thinking in the moment that I was drowning. This video triggered that memory for me. There will always be an overall eerie feel to Action Park; It was like that then & it is like that now when we look back at it nostalgically.
The exposed live wire is the one danger that strikes me as legitimately damning on a design level, maybe the loop-de-loop slide as well but while prone to causing injuries it isn't quite putting people stupidly close to death from one slip-up all the time. Most of the other problems were damaged or shoddy equipment that should have been safe, and a few attractions are risky but risks I feel people should be allowed to take. The Wave pool, dangerous to poor swimmers but not something that inherently shouldn't operate. Water cold enough to send people into shock, usually doesn't and that's a danger people risk when they just go swimming in nature as people often do, it's not really a man-made death trap. But you really shouldn't be able to get electrocuted by falling off a kayak.
How about the bump boats, which spewed so much two-stroke smoke you could gag, and if you got knocked out of your "boat" (a glorified inner tube) you could get chewed to bits by the props of the other boat OR drown!
You can't beat a live wire in a pool, but I think you underestimate just how goddamn stupid that loop de loop is, by design. The blueprint was a scribble on a cocktail napkin and, as they said, the test dummies they sent in came out without their heads.
I'm from NYC. As I child, I used to see commercials for Action Park. I asked my parents if we could go there numerous times and they always said no. Now I know why
Thank ur parents 40 times
Same here. My dad would just say that he would when I was a little bigger. And once I was a little older and bigger it was closed down. Probably for the best.
Philly Girl just entered the chat. I got the same answer. Over my Dead Body. Tnx Mom!
That’s how you know they love you
Same which is why it was one of my first destinations when i got a car
I can actually understand some of these mistakes given that Action Park was one of the first water parks in the US and there weren't as many safety concerns back then. What I can't even FATHOM is how ANYONE thought a water slide with a loop was a good idea!
It's been executed decently with more modern ones, but even those don't have a VERTICAL loop. That's just stupid.
A loop is fine, and many water slides have them. The vertical loop, however, is insane.
Rule of Cool is a powerful drug.
JustAnotherPest So you’re a troper
I remember hearing somewhere that the real issue wasn't the idea of a vertical loop, but the fact it was circular rather than ovular, and that you couldn't gain enough speed.
I can't believe people are longing for the days where parks were super unsafe lmao.
Times change, most of us would rather not lose teeth or break bones while trying to have fun.
They act like amusment parks aren’t fun when we have kings island cedar point magic mountain and hersheypark
It’s that survival bias, lol. Like, yeah, *you* think it was great and fine because you were lucky and never got hurt, but I think the friends and family of those who died have a bit more say in these matters
What fun is it if you don't have a chance to get impaled or die? Why do people ride motorcycles?
@@yepwhatever1142 Bro I'm positive that's not why people ride bikes lmao
We also still lived in buildings with lead paint and asbestos. Americans were generally stupid about safety and regulations back then.
"There's nothing in the world like Action Park!"
You got that right.
best park ever... too bad the safety clowns had to get rid of it
@@businesswalks8301 I'm glad that monstrosity is gone
@@businesswalks8301 Ah yes the clowns who got the park that had exposed eltrical cables under water so clowny
@@macgeorge8229 link or time stamp... thanks for lying through your fingers... nothings is as truthful as lies you tell
@@businesswalks8301 Here is the time stamp 11:22 where the guy who gets killed by live wireing happens.
"Get wild!
"Get wet!"
"Possibly drown!
"You can even race the karts on the motorways!"
"You can even fracture your bones!"
*You can even get shocked!*
p-p-p-possibly drown!
*"Possibly experience an excruciating death!"*
I survived Action Park! Place was fun as shit in the 80s! That Tarzan swing pond was extremely cold tho. You literally couldn't breathe for a couple seconds after you hit the water.
Thats scary
Shieeeet 50 degrees
U froze up & couldn't swim asap (*it was best served if you could swing as close to the ladder as possible **and GOD FORBID U SLIPPED or fell early!?!)...
Why the hell is it still that cold then? I mean it's not like water heating devices didnt exist...
YOURE A LEGEND
Never heard of Action Park before so I was unprepared for what felt like an investigational video with the ominous music and the various injuries and death that the attractions caused. Felt like I was watching some kind of lore video for a horror game with how poorly handled the park was.
It was not "poorly handled". It was exactly as it should have been, and if it re-opened I can guarantee you'd get a turn-away crowd. Except today you get some pansies with lawsuits, like they didn't realize (that ride) was dangerous.
@@caribman10 my man there was an exposed live wire underwater, if that's not poorly handled than i dunno what is
@@hotpocketsat2am They won’t understand that. Probably hit their head too many times.
My dad survived action park and he said it so casually when I was talking about dangerous water parks. I honestly think it’s so cool
My mom actually almost drowned in the old action park wavepool. She was luckily saved by a lifeguard, but *man* thinking that this theme park almost made me not exist, it’s chilling.
My dad almost drowned in some pool during the winter time in California or maybe Minnesota. I almost would not have existed
you almost never existed, that’s a chilling fact to learn.
Almost drowned as well along with my sister in a wavepool (not action park). Children shouldn't be allowed in there lmao
I almost drowned in the giant wave pool at Mt. Olympus before I was even 10. Dragged from the deepest part aaaallllll the way to the shoreline, underwater. No one noticed, or if they did, didn't care.
Imagine what the person you took the place of feels.
Avoided lawsuits
Tons of guests
Sold alcohol
Went bankrupt?
Dude prolly had some other shady shit he was doing behind the scenes
@@weasel7491 Definitely selling Cocaine. If not, owning action park, im disappointed
A lot of it was paying people off before they filed, and LOTS of tax evasion. The Mulvilhills are REALLY deep into American Libertarian political ideology, so they've both a history of dodging taxes as well as believing that people were reponsible for their own safety at Action Park, not the operators. They're...interesting people.
@Tyler Durden I read an interview with Mulvilhill's son. He expressed very strong opinions regarding personal liability and a disdain for oversight and the such. I'm not saying he's a card carrying member of any party; I don't know the man, so I don't know. But he expresed a lot of American Libertarian views, so it's safe to say that's where his beliefs lie, and he said as much that it's what his father believed.
@Tyler Durden Libertarians suck in general
I think the most absurd thing about the action park story is that instead of doing anything about injuries, they bought more ambulances for the city.
its called life. People get hurt when they are having fun. If you don't get hurt here and then you are prolly having a boring life.!!
I would love to see a documentary on the kids who worked at the park. That would be amazing!!
having to add a hatch to the slide because of too many stuck riders somehow wasn't a red flag
I remember I went on a hatch slide once at teneseee that the hatch opened from under you. I was terrified to go on it. It also had a loop in it. But the most terrifying part initially was the hatch dropping out under my feet. I’d watched too many bad stories about that hatch in water slides like if malfunctioning and hurting you. Thankfully it had no problem when I got enough courage to go down the slide. But freaked out at the loop cause I was too light to make it over the loop and for some reason though I was going to stuck in the ride for hours no way out.
I yelled my head off trying to get the attention of a personel and eventually looked up calming down and scrambling out of a hole in the top of the slide they put there for those who were too light to go over the loop. A personel greeted me there and it was all good but blimey was I terrified.
and that's coming from florida man so you know it's really bad
Your pfp is giving me anxiety
cupofcreativitea this is my favorite comment ever
@@shannonsmith924 If it's such a known problem that a hatch had to be made for light kids, why didn't anybody think to attach a weight on/under the seat
In the 80's, we called it Accident Park. We used to go just to watch the accidents.
Fred Garvin We used to call it Traction Park 🤣
It looked so damn fun. It helps that people looked so chill back then.
@@nelzelpher2088 "chill" meaning not "safety-based pussies".
Fred Garvin still not as good as Class Action Park
I like how this entire comment section is filled with far right leaning people simply bothered by the existence of people just trying to be reasonable lmao
This seems like a cool concept for a theme park being marketed as the cool extreme theme park with rides that feel like they're from a movie. But you kind of need to ensure there isn't any real danger.
You guys left out the part where the original owner tried to create his own insurance company to manage Action Park specifically.
Action park is literally that one spongebob episode when glove world was breaking down
Johanna Jones thanks for commenting i didn’t even know I got this many likes
I thought it was the hibernation episode in theme park form
"Lifes as extreeeme as you WANNA MAKE IIIIT!"
IM LITERALLY WATCHING IT NOW ASCVBNXDSACVANSAMCND
This is such an underrated comment you deserve more likes
a throwback :,)
Get wwwwild
Get wwwwet
Get kkkkilled
GET GAAAAYYY
Get wwwwild
Get wwwwet
Get wwwwrecked
Get wwwwounded
Kadaverific
GET PUT IN A CASKET
Ouch
I can't believe they had people jumping off literal cliffs into pools and that wasn't even the most dangerous thing. This park is wild
I know that this channel hasn’t posted in almost six months and this video is six years old but I hope the creator knows I come back and watch this every few months bc I just find it so fascinating and well produced
"It's like coming to Broadway" I'm sorry what?
Broad-way
It’s like the comment is from someone who has never been to broadway!
If the Broadway show was Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark
@@TimmyTickle I wanted to see that so bad😭😭😭
to someone whos never been to broadway or a themepark i can see why the old lady would think that plus they did have plays and shows and music going on
"Mom, can we go to Disney World?"
"No we have Disney World at home."
At home: *"THERE'S NOTHING IN THE WORLD LIKE ACTION PARK!"*
Action Park > Disney
Chris Campana in what context because the only context i can think of is controversy
@@ashkhol you've never been there then, if you have been there you would understand
Chris Campana Ah yes dying fun! Broke bone! And bad regulation
*Snap* MY LEG!!!
According to the documentary on this the kid who died on the alpine ride was not an employee but a guest. Gene lied to the media saying he was. He had worked for the ski resort one winter but no longer was one.
Imagine working as a lifeguard here, that'd be an absolute nightmare
everyone loved action park
@@businesswalks8301 they clearly didn't
Especially as a teenager
I physically cringed when I saw that 360 degree water slide from the original park. Who could ever think that was a good idea?!
YODO lets make it a good one!
loop slides exist and work well if it's not a vertical loop, Wet N Wild has one that's angled to the side so you stay on the slide instead of falling on your face at the top of the loop, vertical loop is a different story
Twilight have you seen the Action Point movie? Because they did that!
I know Noah's Ark in the Wisconsin dells has an angled loop water slide. I went down it once and the loop itself was fun
Shelby427 was looking for this comment! I’ve been on the wet n wild loop slide a bunch of times and never thought anything of it lol until I seen this shit
They need to make a American horror story season out of this place
Facts
Ask around the area, everybody here hated it when it got toned down.
That would be good lmao
You know what, I would totally watch that season if it happened.
Or channle zero
That Fox anchor, really showing what Fox has always been about. Some things never change...
Man. I remember the day this game out. Was my second week at my new job. First one that paid above $10 a hour.
Final Destination:The Park
Aidan Lewis Your comment made me scream laugh at my phone.
If they add a tanning bed attraction, run very far the other way.
Fallout Pewterschmidt
Don't go to any bicentennial celebrations either.
Does that mean anyone who planned to go but couldn't or didn't died later in freak accidents because Death had to meet his quota?
Mine was your 666th like. You're welcome.
See, people complain about over regulation and too many safety rules these days, but then you see this video where a theme park had live wires running under water.
@@ordinarychef The thing is people call everything over regulation and coddling, a lot of people want almost no government regulation. There are still even states now with too little regulations about how you can build amusement parks, like in Kansas where a kid died recently because the waterslide he was riding was designed by people who had no credentials, was designed dangerously, and was still allowed to operate despite that.
+Shou Heartfelt Exactly. People think that by lowering the barrier to entry, it will make it easier for businesses to be created, like in Kansas, and while that may be true, all it does it make me terrified to go and spend my money there. The "buy at your own risk" culture this creates, and encourages because otherwise safer ventures have to compete with the lower costs of more dangerous ones, probably puts a ceiling on how much business these places can attract and how successful businesses can be in these environments. It probably goes a long way towards explaining why there is so much more money and success and people in the so called "nanny states" like California and New York.
Neither extremes are good but one of these extremes end with no deaths. HMMMM
Cause now we can’t have no fun it’s like how aren’t nowadays coddle there kids
but children went to the park. my mom and I went in one of the tube raft rides, along with this big guy and his young son. even with all 4 of us his kid still could of been thrown from the tube
I just love how there’s not a single ride here that isn’t life threatening
Bless the camera person who turned away at the end of that news report.
RollerCoaster Tycoon in real life.
reine yesssss
Action park 1 is too intense
Funnily enough, I learned about this place from Joel's RCT streams.
Yeah but RollerCoaster Tycoon is safer.
Clearly you've never been on Mister Bones' Wild Ride.
I don't know which was more disturbing, the park's complete lack of safety or that guy at the end.
Both are unsafe for children
By disturbing you mean awesome
rach riane disturbingly awesome. But yeah, creepy guys on television are nothing new. Safety first.
“Don’t be so frowning at me”
Wonder if he got fired. He would if he did that now.
6:48 and that is why most wave pools use salt water instead of fresh water
I had actually never even heard of salt water wave pools, makes sense to have more buoyancy due to the salt water. Then again, most wave pools I've ever been to have since closed/disabled the waves permanently...
I remember going and being able to swim right up to the front wall where the wave came out and it was pretty deep. They used to sound an alarm for when the wave started and you see people make a mad dash to the side wall to hang on or get out using the ladder or go out the shallow end. Think my first time there I tried swimming when the waves started but got gassed really quick. Hung to the ladder for dear life until the life guard helped me out.
I just love this documentary series, the videos have a specific feel to them that makes it so much more re-watchable and amazing!