'Class Action Park' tells the tale of the most Gen X theme park ever

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Originally published at: 'Class Action Park' tells the tale of the most Gen X theme park ever | Boing Boing

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AKA Traction Park. The stories always exceed expectations.

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I have the book that the documentary is based on. It’s a good read and has a lot of humor, although one of the authors (son of the park’s owner) went on a couple quick and probably unnecessary tangents about how much he loved the Republican Party as a young man. He also seemed to pine for the days of his youth when supervisors could date their subordinates without worrying about reprimands from the (non-existent) HR department. That park was definitely sketchy as hell in all respects.

Reading it, it’s sometimes clear which parts were mostly written by the son of the owner and which parts were written by the co-author who is a professional writer. Despite that, I still recommend the book for people who are interested in the operation of amusement parks, and currently have it out on loan to someone at Disney Imagineering.

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As a young San Dimas resident at the time that the original Bill & Ted movie came out, I couldn’t understand why they didn’t film that scene at the actual water park that was in San Dimas: Raging Waters. Instead they filmed at a water park in Mesa, Arizona.

But what does that have to do with Action Park?

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See also: the fun Johnny Knoxville movie Action Point.

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A water park mention in a popular Gen X movie at the bottom of a post about a Gen X waterpark lacks mystery to me.

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My generation just had motorcycles, and that was pretty awesome or awful depending on ones experience.

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It’s where a lot of young revelers met their Waterloo.

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I remember when that place opened. You could get in half price after 6PM, so I remember cruising down those water slides in near darkness in the waning heat of a California summer evening – there was something very charming about it.

(edit)

I too was a bit perplexed by why they didn’t show the actual Raging Waters in that movie. Maybe RW couldn’t afford the product placement or maybe there were legal issues. Weird.

And while on the subject of California, I remember seeing commercials for this, the west coast version of Action Park:

(edit edit)

“The Action Park of the West”

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Well it wouldn’t have really been effective product placement for RW since they called the park “Waterloo” in the movie. The whole gag about Napoleon going there would be less funny with the real name. But it would have been a lot more convenient of a shooting location for the film crew.

Edit: never mind. Turns out that they filmed most of the movie in Arizona:

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The book (just titled “Action Park”) is very good too.

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I am reminded of this fictional, but fun movie:

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Albini was a fan, it seems

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I survived. Only minor and concealable injuries.
But even as a reckless teenager, there was stuff that just said
“this kind of feels like playing with lawn darts”

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Great album. As a West Coaster I never got the Action Park reference until much later in life.

ETA I watched this documentary last year with Mrs Ficus. She wasn’t aware of Action Park or it’s reputation. Much of our time watching the film had her exclaiming, “what the fuck is wrong with these people?”

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