While it’s been many years now since I’ve been there, I’ve kept tabs on its development since then and have been so saddened by what’s happened to it. First, over a period of years, they began to tear out rides that focused more on atmosphere and theming (such as Mississippi Adventure boat ride, Injun Joe’s Cave dark ride, Super Sports car ride, etc.), and replaced them with high-thrill roller coasters. All of the original Six Flags parks have since abandoned theming and atmosphere and just crammed the parks with as many coasters as possible. I love roller coasters, too, but theme parks are supposed to be about theming and the overall experience.
As they did this, they seemed to deprioritize marketing to families and instead went full-bore toward chasing the adrenaline junky teen market. As they did this, it led to the deterioration of theming and cleanliness in the parks. They became more like glorified carnivals and less like actual theme parks. The experience was cheapened, which didn’t seem to matter anyway to the thrill-seeking teens. That’s when Six Flags started to get its well-earned reputation as not just a lower-tier experience to the likes of Disney, but truly a second-rate park with low-end guests. And THAT led to the parks being overrun by the Trayvon Martin wannabes. Magic Mountain and Six Flags Over Georgia seem to have been particularly affected by this.
I also visited the Georgia park in the early 80s, and back then it was still a very nice experience. But apparently it’s now gone the ghetto route of most of the rest of them.
I had a great time working at Six Flags Magic Mountain
in the late 70s just north of LA.
My older sister did too. Lots of stories, but the only one that would be related to this article.
I was working one night and it was quite busy.
Got a message for me to call Home immediately.
Thinking something had happened at home,
I found a phone and called them.
No, everything was fine there, they were worried about me.
The news had broken in on their TV show to tell them
that there was fights breaking out
and injuries at the park.
Didn’t know anything about it.
I think at the time I was working at the
top of the mountain in the sky tower.
Apparently, there was a band playing at the park that attracted a whole lot of people to that genre. Wink.