The Fifty Coasters That Doomed Six Flags — 45
V2: Vertical Velocity — Six Flags Great America
50 — The Boss — Six Flags St. Louis
49 — Superman: Ride of Steel — Six Flags New England
47 — Titan — Six Flags Over Texas
46 — Vertical Velocity — Six Flags Marine World
Just like this ride’s cousin in Vallejo, this installment ought to be a bit shorter.
I just got done telling you all about an Intamin Impulse. Now we get to talk about… an Intamin Impulse. This time the one in Gurnee, Illinois, the 2001 twin of the ride we discussed in our last installment.
I had originally considered disqualifying both these and the variants on Vekoma’s standard Boomerang, but ultimately decided to leave them be as there are not too many copies, and the circumstances influencing the decision to build the ride differ between parks. Marine World, Great America and Geauga Lake may have gotten the same rides, but they got them for very different reasons. Two ended up being a pretty sound investment.
Either way, this one’s gonna be a bit on the shorter end. We’re still going to take forever to actually talk about the ride. This time, to discuss a ride built in 2001 we’re going to start in 1976.
All across the United States people prepared to celebrate the Bicentennial, and all across the United States enterprises schemed to separate revelers from their legal tender. As a hotel chain, Marriott stood to benefit tremendously from all the potential travel and had ambitious plans of their own. Marriott intended to open three brand new theme parks themed to American history, one on each coast and a third to satisfy the heartland.
Unfortunately, by the arrival of the Bicentennial things already looked less than promising. There had been a natural fit of a location for a theme park celebrating 200 years of American history: Washington DC. Marriott announced plans to build a park there, but local opposition prevented it from happening. Despite efforts, Marriott would never succeed at opening a Great America park at their first choice location.
Two Great Americas did open for the national celebration, though. The Great America of Santa Clara would support the west coasters, as reported in the Oakland Tribune on the 5th of December, 1975. The park featured 27 thrill rides spanning 200 acres all for a ticket price of $7.95, a dollar off for kids.
A similar park would open in Gurnee. For the months leading up to the grand opening, an exhibition of some of the attractions traveled the country and promoted the new park, as seen in a report from the Wisconsin State Journal.
On the 11th of May, Chicago Tribune columnist Jack Mabley gave an emphatic preview of the coming park, summarizing its attractions and how much Chicagoans ought to enjoy them.
A special celebrating the Park’s opening played on WLS. The opening festivities included, among other things, Foghorn Leghorn singing Dixie. This was wholesome family content. It was a different time. Dixie wasn’t yet something a senator sang in the elevator trying to make another senator cry.
If when I started this you told me I’d eventually see Foghorn Leghorn singing Dixie at a celebration of American history I’d have said, that’s plausible.
For the coaster nuts, the park would feature Turn of the Century, a custom Arrow corkscrew. For the 1980 season this ride would be extended and reopen under the name it features today, Demon.
Elsewhere in the amusement industry, one established player was struggling mightily. Although Six Flags had been integral to Penn Central’s navigation of and emergence from bankruptcy, by 1981 it was an anchor on company performance.
Penn Central’s pretax income, which the company uses as a performance indicator because it pays no taxes, rose in 1980 to $168.7 million, or $6.21 a share, on revenues of $2.01 billion, compared with 1979 earnings of $100.6 million, or $4.29 a share, on revenues of $1.09 billion.
Not all Penn Central subsidiaries performed as well as Marathon. Trouble spots are GSC/Six Flags parks and the Edgington Oil Company, a small California refinery. Both will show reduced 1980 earnings. GSC/Six Flags revenues were curbed in 1979 by gasoline shortages and in 1980 by weather so hot it kept customers away.
Six Flags had six major theme parks spread among Texas, New Jersey, Georgia, Missouri, and California, commanding a national presence within the burgeoning chain themed entertainment market.
Later that year, Penn Central and Bally would agree in principle on terms of sale, as reported here in The Transcript:
However, not within Six Flags' portfolio purchased by Bally was the park nearest to their Chicago headquarters: Marriott’s Great America.
Bally rushed to snap up their home park. The purchase was completed in spring of 1982, hardly half a year since the original announcement of Bally’s agreement with Penn Central.
CHICAGO — Bally Manufacturing Corp. Tuesday announced a $114.5 million tentative agreement to purchase a seventh amusement park, Marriott Corp.’s Great America in north suburban Gurnee.
Bally plans to expand and improve the 325-acre park in Gurnee and change its name to ‘Six Flags Great America’ in line with Bally’s six other Six Flags parks in St. Louis, Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston and New Jersey, Bally president Robert E. Mullane said.
Bally, which is based on the city’s North Side, is one of the largest manufacturers of amusement devices in the world.
Through this arrangement Six Flags came to own the Looney Tunes license it’s so closely associated with today.
Upon opening their pair of parks in 1976, Disney had forever married the concepts of theme parks and walkaround characters. To meet that demand, Marriott licensed the use of the famous Looney Tunes characters from the newly formed Warner Communications. The same WLS special that featured Foghorn Leghorn singing Dixie also featured an interview with Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny introducing the park’s many (extremely disturbing) Looney Tunes costumes.
Bally’s ownership turned out rather transitory as it navigated choppy corporate waters of its own- and in 1987 Six Flags was bought out by Wesray Capital for $600m.
Six Flags Great America still didn’t yet have the litany of coasters it’s known for today. Bally’s big production had been Z-Force, a collaboration between Intamin and Giovanola. With their turn in charge, Wesray would build Rolling Thunder, Shockwave and Iron Wolf at Great America.
If this whole thing were about coaster history, the four major coasters built by Bally and Wesray would be among the most significant. Looking forward into the future, it’s hard to find a collection of coasters purchased by one park that had a greater impact on the industry moving forward, and only because they were the primordial ooze from which the most dominant coaster manufacturer of today emerged, B&M.
But it’s not about that. It’s about the bottom line. And the bottom line didn’t look good.
Financial difficulties prompted Time Warner to make a first attempt at buying Six Flags, of which they already owned 20%, in August of 1991. By the end of the year it was announced that Time Warner had majority control. Time Warner would own all of Six Flags by 1993.
Time Warner, the evolution of the Warner Communications that originally licensed the Looney Tunes characters to Great America, would be the company to inevitably turn the park over to Premier in 1998- having contributed Batman the Ride, Viper, and Raging Bull.
Raging Bull is actually one of the fuzzy cases, not included in the list despite opening in 1999 as timelines and history suggest Time Warner would have commissioned the project. The company had a much more extensive record of working with B&M than Premier, and by 1999 B&M was known to have a long waiting list.
At any rate, that’s what brings us to the subject of our series.
Having received a B&M hyper in 1999, it would be 2001 until Great America would get its typical Premier investment blitz. That year would bring two rides: Deja Vu, a Vekoma Giant Inverted Boomerang, and today’s subject: V2.
What is there to say about V2? Not much more than what gave Marine World’s such a friendly position on this list- by buying rides in bulk Premier minimized design-related ride costs, allowing more budget for advertising.
We’ve already gotten a strong history of the coaster itself during our last installment- Marine World and Great America received matching copies of the Intamin Impulse, though there were no height regulations in Gurnee to force a modification.
However, the park received them under different circumstances- for Marine World, it came as a cherry on top of years of investment by Premier. And for mang guests it would content for top ride at the park.
For Great America, it would be a “Good Enough” filler between the B&M hyper that came with the park and the B&M flyer clone they’d install in the park shortly after. Not the flashiest additions, not likely to be most people’s favorites- but it’s Great America, it had to get something, right? It’s not like it’s Kentucky Kingdom.
Great America would give Six Flags its most lucrative license, but it would not get back a custom model roller coaster for the length that Premier owned Six Flags.
Not that Snyder would be any kinder to the park: Little Dipper would be relocated in 2010, but aside from that, not a thing of note.
He did sell Deja Vu, which depending on who you ask, could be to his credit.