Matt N
CF Legend
Hi guys. Innovation has driven the theme park industry for decades, and back in the day, some of these firsts and records were absolutely pivotal moments in the history of the modern industry. The world’s first tubular steel roller coaster at Disneyland in 1959. The world’s first modern inverting roller coaster at Knott’s Berry Farm in 1975. The world’s first roller coaster over 200ft at Cedar Point in 1989. Moments like these were truly seismic for the industry!
But as of late, we’ve arguably seen these “world’s firsts” and records take a slightly more… spurious turn. As we’ve pushed the feasible limits of height, speed, length, inversions etc, parks have increasingly been clutching at straws for their firsts and records in recent years. We’ve seen parks reach for some increasingly spurious and/or obscure records and firsts to sell their new rides in recent times. With this in mind, I’d be curious to know; which obscure/spurious theme park record or world’s first sticks out to you most as a particularly spurious or obscure claim?
I’ll get the ball rolling with a couple of suggestions of my own:
But as of late, we’ve arguably seen these “world’s firsts” and records take a slightly more… spurious turn. As we’ve pushed the feasible limits of height, speed, length, inversions etc, parks have increasingly been clutching at straws for their firsts and records in recent years. We’ve seen parks reach for some increasingly spurious and/or obscure records and firsts to sell their new rides in recent times. With this in mind, I’d be curious to know; which obscure/spurious theme park record or world’s first sticks out to you most as a particularly spurious or obscure claim?
I’ll get the ball rolling with a couple of suggestions of my own:
- “World’s largest loop diameter” (Do-Dodonpa at Fuji-Q Highland, 2017) - This one seems to me like they couldn’t quite do the world’s tallest vertical loop, but they still wanted a loop-related record… “largest loop diameter” seems so strangely obscure compared to “tallest vertical loop” to me, though.
- “World’s first roller coaster fully dedicated to virtual reality” (Galactica at Alton Towers, 2016) - I’m still not even sure what Alton Towers meant by this claim. Galactica was not the world’s first roller coaster to use virtual reality headsets, so I’ve got no idea how it was the first to be “fully dedicated to VR”… it’s arguably quite a spurious claim by mere virtue of how hand-wavey and open-ended it is!
- “World’s steepest roller coaster” (TMNT Shellraiser at Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park, 2021) - I’m not raising “world’s steepest roller coaster” as a spurious or obscure claim in itself, but I’m raising this particular example of it because TMNT Shellraiser arguably broke the record in one of the pettiest manners I’ve ever seen… it’s quite literally a clone of Takabisha that has the main drop half a degree steeper. Something about building a clone of a record breaking ride and claiming to have the record based on the drop being half a degree steeper, an amount that could potentially be encompassed within the scope of a rounding error, just seems so strangely petty!