The 6 Most Terrifying Theme Park Rides Ever Built

This is a great humor piece from Cracked.com. The picture captions are particularly awesome. Disclaimer: some language.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19302_the-6-most-terrifying-theme-pa...built.html

"The sound of breaking bones is the only thing that gets me hard." -Harry Traver [Citation Needed].

That's some funny stuff right there. I love Cracked.com! Love!

This was seriously a pretty interesting article.

Happy to see (Tr)Action park made the top, or bottom, of the list. Hooray for NJ!

Having grown up with Cracked magazine, along with Mad and their black-sheep-of-the-family Sick..I expected this article to be made up. But it's factually accurate, while keeping the skewed point of view I'd expect from Cracked. Enjoyed it, Vater. Thanks.

BTW, who remembers the name of Cracked's mascot..their version of Alfred E. Neuman?

Great stuff! I love Cracked as well. :)

Harry Traver and the Russians were definitely crazy, sadistic SOB's. I really want to try a SCAD someday.

I always thought the Mauch Chunk railroad thingy would be fun. :)

-Tina

Great article. I am wondering though, would anybody on this site actually try that human trebuchet?

Gotta like:

"The 1920s was a great time for roller coasters, but not so much for the people riding them. Apparently "not killing people" wasn't as much of a priority back then as "mentally scarring them for life.""

Was the Alpine Slide in NJ that much different from the one in Tennessee? I remember riding the TN one several times as a kid on a summer trip and not thinking it was very dangerous. Looks like it is still operating:

http://www.obergatlinburg.com/activity/alpine-slide/

The one in Obergatlinburg is still running, my wife and I rode it last summer. And, you are right they do seem a little on the dangerous side. The one up in Crystal Mountain Michigan actually has soft barriers aroud some of the sharper corners.

Oakwood Park in Wales (home of MegaFobia) has an alpine slide with a steel trough as opposed to the more common concrete slides - seemed a little safer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rollergator/3880452114/in/set-72157622212453614

Park visitor: "So, when is the Cyclone going to open today?"

Employee: "Whenever we patch it together enough to work." :)

Corkscrew, I would never subject myself to the human catapult. Those things are better left to Wile E. Coyote and the ACME company. ;)

-Tina

Mike Gallagher said:
BTW, who remembers the name of Cracked's mascot..their version of Alfred E. Neuman?

I don't know, but when I Googled 'cracked mascot', it brought me to another Cracked gem which had me literally laughing out loud. Way funnier than the one I started this thread about.

The 7 Most Terrifying Corporate Mascots of All-Time

GoBucks89: The one in TN looks to be the same thing as the one in Action Park. It was a fun ride, but if you weren't careful, off you went. That park definetely had a reputation for putting a hurting on folks..

And yea, I'd love to do the trebuchet thing.. as long as I was being launched into a lake..

Did anyone watch the video of the Japanese game show they linked in the human trebuchet section? I'm still laughing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixsCDevvhzg

Is that like the 100 ways to leave a game show (or whatever its called)?

And yea, I'd love to do the trebuchet thing.. as long as I was being launched into a lake..

Yeah, or a deep pool. I'd do that before I'd do a SCAD or the bungee-type thingies so ubiquitous at many parks.

Mike Gallagher said:
BTW, who remembers the name of Cracked's mascot..their version of Alfred E. Neuman?

Sylvester Smythe!

I love the lists the cracked dot com puts out. The Action Park part is a lot of fun. Remember on the alpine slide there they had pictures of gross injuries in the line waiting to go down as a warning about going too fast. The pictures they're using are the current alpine slide at Bromley, Vermont.

Even more amazing, most of these old rides were ridden by guys wearing suits and women with hats with big feathers. Every now and then, I hear of someone wanting to reconstruct the Mauch Chunk switchback. But I'm sure even if they found enough money in the world to do it, the experience would be destroyed because they'd probably require you to be strapped in so tightly you couldn't even turn your head to enjoy the view.

My personal favorite was when they overdubbed that Japanese game show and turned it into Most Extreme Challenge.

Kenny Blankenship and Vic Romano are my heroes.

Were they trying to be funny with the Mauch Chunk stats? 100 MPH?

I don't think it matters. Like Mike G., I was surprised at how factually accurate the article was considering the source, but I wouldn't care if it was riddled with inaccuracies. It's a humor piece.