Thursday, November 11, 2010

Epic Theme Park Videos

I came across two amazing videos this week of two *very* different amusement parks.

First: I've been following the development of the new Wii Game Epic Mickey with mixed feelings, since it started out very steampunk/post-apocalyptic, but has apparently been significantly watered down through the design process. However, this is cool:

You hardcore Dizgeeks (aka Disney Geeks) know Walt had an apartment above the Fire station on Main Street. It's one of those rare 'holy grail' kind of spots that only a privileged few ever get to see. BUT, because the apartment is featured in Epic Mickey (?!?) one of the game's designers was allowed to tour it - and shoot video. Woot!


Read more at the Orange County Register here.

This kind of thing makes my Disney-loving heart happy. I may even have to borrow someone's Wii so I can try Epic Mickey when it comes out. Maybe.


Next, a video that calls to my urban-decay loving heart: Abandoned Six Flags, in New Orleans:


Some of the shots between the one and three minute mark are so beautiful I actually had to remind myself to breathe. You *have* to see it. Oh, and turn your sound on: I guarantee that simple guitar music will have you thoroughly creeped out in two minutes or less.

And speaking of creepy: 1:42 & 5:37. That is all. [shiver]

82 comments:

  1. *shudder* That Six Flags video is like straight out of Carnivale

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  2. Wow, that Six Flags video is amazing, and you're right, the music is perfect and creeptastic! Thanks for sharing!

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  3. I really wish they weren't demolishing the Six Flags! It's just BEGGING to be the set of a low-budget post-apocalyptic horror movie... The footage was awesome, thanks!

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  4. That is creepy! Sad at the same time.
    I don't know if you've seen this, but since you love urban decay and that sort of thing; have you seen the photos of Chernobyl? It's pretty amazing and haunting.
    I don't know a specific website, but I've seen several photos and it almost seems like something out of a horror movie. The abandoned city is moving.

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  5. I actually had to turn off the music halfway through the Six Flags video. That is both eerie and beautiful.

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  6. Fair warning though: if you just straight up google Chernobyl photos, you'll get some pretty heartbreaking photos of the children effected by the nuclear fallout.

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  7. I might actually have to check out Epic Mickey... But creepy theme parks? Not for me. AT ALL.

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  8. Oh wow. Thank you so much for finding that video of Six Flags. I live in Baton Rouge and visited that park several times. I have happy fun pictures of myself in the photo-op they show at 5:37. SO CREEPY now. I kind of want to go check it out before they demolish it...also I love the zombie land sign. :)

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  9. :( i used to work for six flags fiesta texas and one of the best rides we had was The Joker's Revenge. it was a funhouse/coaster "devised" by The Joker from Batman. it was sold to six flags new orleans and apparently renamed The Jester. it's a shame that it's going to the scrap yard.

    what a uuber cool, desolate and unsettling video.

    By the way... have you ever read kingdom keepers by ridley scott? it's set in the disneyworld parks, after dark. great read.

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  10. I am very much reminded of "Spirited Away." I kept waiting for noh-face to appear.

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  11. The Six Flags video was so well done, and the music is perfect. Creepy clown! Argh!

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  12. O my gosh thats incredibly scary. I love the rollercoaster shots.

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  13. My friend was commissioned by Disney to do a mural for Epic Mickey. He's awesome!
    http://garibaldiarts.com/disney-epic-mickey-mural-recap-pics/

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  14. I haven't had time to watch the Six Flags video yet, but as a teenage Dizgeek, that video of Walt's own apartment just made a suckish day turn much, much better. Thank you so much for posting this...His apartment was so cute!!

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  15. The disney video is showing as unavailable. However the Six Flags video is seriously creepy and great - he just made that last week? Crazy. And interesting that New Orleans let him in.

    Also I'm not afraid of clowns, but the cutouts at 5:37 were super scary.

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  16. The images in that second video are really stunning. I'm curious what camera they used, my bet is on the Canon 7D.

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  17. Wow, thanks for really creeping me out. I loved the 6 Flags video. I'm glad someone got this on film before it's too late.

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  18. OMG in <3 with the Six Flags video, I love abandoned places like that. The Disney one was pretty cool too ^.^

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  19. It always amazes me how quickly places fall apart once abandoned. Of course, I guess this park got a head start from Katrina, but still seems like a place that's been closed 20 years or more, not just 5.

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  20. Awesome post!! Both videos are way cool in completely unrelated ways. The giant clown head is too creepy, the only thing worse is ventriloquist dummies!

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  21. Wow...thanks for the Disney link...amazing! So sad to see Six Flags abandoned and not loved.... :(

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  22. the six-flags video is stunning, haunting, beautiful. thank you so much for sharing it...

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  23. I thought the shot at the 3:40 mark was the creepiest, but it doesn't seem anyone else noticed what was going on _outside_ the window... So sad that you can tell a lot of the damage was man- created. ): I don't understand the whole, "Hey, no one's using it, let's trash it!" mentality.

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  24. Love the music in that Six Flags video. Just beautiful.

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  25. I am very much a Disney geek (and former cast member) so I love that Walt's apartment will be in the game! YAY! Oh, and yes, those headless bodies were VERY creepy!

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  26. The Six Flags video just about broke my heart...and totally creeped me out...I will be sleeping with a flashlight and a bat tonight...

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  27. what is it about abandoned amusement parks that make them so extra creepy????

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  28. The Six Flags New Orleans video? WOW. Just WOW. I think the swings just slightly blowing in the breeze, especially set to the creepy music, was the most unnerving for me. I kept feeling as though someone was about to come up behind me and scare the bejeezus out of me!

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  29. The Six Flags video so reminded me of the beginning of "28 days later". The park seems so utterly desolate. It doesn't seem like an abandoned park, it seems more like humanity has vanished. The music just adds to the feel. Loved this. Thank you so much for sharing this!!

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  30. The Six Flags movie was very moving. The music choice added so much... it's also the same song used in 28 Days Later, when the Jim character is wandering through deserted London. Definitely evokes an abandoned landscape.

    Wandered over here from Cake Wrecks - Love the blogs, thanks for sharing!

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  31. Our Dizgeek fam is totally looking forward to Epic Mickey! We'll just bring our Wii with us to WDW in December and you can just join us for an Epic Mickey party! LOL

    That Six Flags video is seriously heartbreaking. I'm sure so many people have amazing memories tied up there.

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  32. Wow, that theme park video made me think of any of the Silent Hill games, especially when you end up at the theme park or a mall or a school. It's so creepy, but I still have an urge to explore it! Especially if I were promised ghosts.

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  33. i lived near and drove by that six flags for 3 years, and always wanted to see what it was like inside... thanks for the video! :)

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  34. wanna be jealous? I've been in Walt's Apartment. TWICE. The first time - I was dating someone who worked in City Hall and had keys and took a handful of us on a tour. The second time was for training after a promotion. I no longer work at the park, but it was by far one of my favorite shifts. Check us out. You know the light that is always on in the window to symbolize Walt's presence in the park? Yeah, it's right behind us. The cupboards were filled with vintage baby bottles and dishes the Disney family actually used. It's much smaller than you would imagine Walt Disney's apartment to be. There wasn't room for a bed - the two couches folded out for Walt and Lilian to sleep on I-Love-Lucy style. My first apartment in NYC was bigger than his place, but then again his back yard was the Happiest Place on Earth.

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  35. @ e.m. - Yep, you did it: I'm totally jealous! Orlando doesn't have the history DL does, so I was thrilled just to ride on the Lily Belle our last trip there.

    I also got a picture in Club 55's elevator a few years ago (though of course we weren't allowed to see the 2nd floor). I was crammed in the tiny car with John and our friend Jeff, and Jeff accidentally set off a very loud alarm with his elbow: something the guide said was a first. Needless to say, we're all blushing in the photo. Ha!

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  36. The Disney video showed as unavailable in Chrome but played perfectly in Firefox.

    The Six Flags video was great. It's pretty rare that I devote my full attention to a video, and I was engrossed throughout the whole thing. I'm an urban decay lover too. There are several Flickr groups that help me indulge my obsession.

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  37. Is it wrong I was more moved by the Walt's apt. video than the Six Flags one? Although the soul-eating clown head made me move in a different way.

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  38. Walt's apartment!!!!

    When we went to DL for my first and so far only trip last Feb, we went on the In Walt's Footsteps tour... we didn't get to go in the apartment, but we did spend sometime in the firehouse below, talking about what was upstairs. Apparently, the fire pole was actually utilized by Walt, and after his passing, still would take one from the apartment to the ground floor, but it would also take would be souvenir hunters up into the apartment, so they had to block off the pole so you couldn't get inside.

    I worked for the Disney Store, and another store manager went out to DL on a work trip, and they got to do the same tour as me, but b/c they were all CMs, and managers at that, they go to go upstairs... I begged and pleaded anyway I could, but b/c it was just regular guests on the tour when I went, it was a no go.



    PS-- Kingdom Keepers, they're by Riddley Pearson, but so good, and so worth the read... They're technically "children's" books, but they're so well written from a Disney Park detail perspective, that if you've Dislove, you've GOT to read them!!

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  39. At 4:56 is that the first aid room? Yikes!! Maybe it's just me but there's something about places that were designed only for fun that make them seem way creepier than regular buildings when they are abandoned and empty.

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  40. it's so weird to see the park like this, i went to it before katrina, and now i live in post-katrina new orleans. and it's a different place, that's for sure.
    imagine if half the houses in your neighborhood looked like this, and that's pretty much what it looks like a few blocks' walk from my house.

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  41. That was great to see into Walt's apartment.

    For those who like spooky amusement parks, there is a game on Big Fish Games called Delaware St. John: The Seacliff Tragedy which takes place in an old abandoned amusement park. Link here (if I do it right).

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  42. The six flags video is the most awesome thing I have ever seen! My "creep out" moment came at :41 when the sign actually showed MY LAST NAME!! At any rate, the images are very beautiful & sad at the same time.

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  43. To Jen and your other Disney fans: There is another secret (not so) Disney place in SC - the Disney Catalog distribution center, and they have an outlet in Jonesville that's going to close in July. Well worth the trek if you're near the upstate. It is the true definition of outlet, with the ebayers coming in when the doors open to grab the good deals.

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  44. I can't WAIT for Epic Mickey! It looks great, watered-down steampunk regardless.

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  45. Wow, I am not used to feeling bereft after reading one of your entries here. After watching both clips, I need a significantly long moment of silence, for Walt and his family, for the kids... and adults who can no longer play at Six Flags New Orleans, who lost jobs, homes, friends, loved ones...

    ~~Swan

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  46. Talking about decay and Disney, don't know if you saw this or not.

    http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2344523

    Its pictures of what the old River Country water park looks like today.

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  47. I find urban decay so fascinating! I'm glad I'm not the only one! There are so many abandoned buildings in my city that I would love to explore...but I'm a chicken :(

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  48. I didn't find the Six Flags video creepy at all. Just sad. I wonder why they're demolishing the park instead of repairing it?

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  49. Wow! The Six Flags video made my morning. The music is by a band called "Godspeed You Black Emperor." If it's familiar, it's because it was featured in "28 Days Later" with a lot of editing. LOVE the pairing! Jen, thanks for the "listen" comment. Half the time I watch videos, I do it on mute, but this would have lost a whole layer if you viewed it w/ the sound off. Thank you!

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  50. This has nothing to do with the post, really, but I thought you would like this Esty shop:
    http://www.etsy.com/shop/catherinetterings

    She make steampunk rings, and other jewelry. Reminded me of you!

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  51. That Disney one was awesome, and I would LOVE to go up there. I was actually getting teary eyed seeing the Six Flags video. The fact that Hurricane Katrina was THAT bad to tear apart an amusement park is insane. It's sad to see what kind of devistation a hurricane do for the many people that worked there that are out of hundreds of jobs.

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  52. The roller coaster shots remind me of the descriptions of the abandoned amusement park in Scott Westerfeld's "Uglies" series (great Y.A. fiction about a post-apocalyptic society built within site of the bones of our own).

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  53. Awesome! I moved to New Orleans not too long ago and the first time I saw Six Flags I thought of you and your love of urban-decay (which sparked my own interest, incidentally). I'm a photographer and I've been trying to figure out a way to get in there and take some photos without getting fined or hauled off to jail. (I'm also far too law-abiding for "recreational trespassing"...)

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  54. the six flags one. :'( I had to REMIND MYSELF not to cry. And the Cello at the end. OMW. so sad. I think I'll go cry in my pillow.

    WV; (I normally don't do this) Ungently. Adverb? Hurracane Katrina hit six flags VERY ungently.

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  55. Jen, once again, you've made me think we're sisters at heart. What you love, I love or learn more about and appreciate. Thank you for having a very cool finger on the pop culture pulse. God bless you!

    Suzanne S.

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  56. The Six Flag video music is also like the Left 4 Dead music. Sparse, twangy guitar certainly has magical hair-standy-uppy powers.

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  57. I remember driving past the park on our way to the coast about four months after the storm...it was creepy then, even just driving by it. And the video? Yipe! Even before the Zombieland sign, I expected something to jump and scream "BOO!"

    Urban decay both fascinates me and creeps me out. I love looking at the videos and the pictures, but I'm way too chicken to go rooting around in the abandoned buildings around here.

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  58. We had so much fun at that New Orleans Six Flags a year or so before Katrina. It was a nice little park, and it still makes me sad to see it all decaying. Like so much of New Orleans post-K. Sigh.

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  59. Next time look for the window above the fire station with the name Claude's Coats Big and Tall. Claude was an animator, background artist, original imagineer, and personal friend of Walt. He's also my sister in law's Grandpa.

    I just think that's cool. She has a few of his paintings and her mom has loads of animation cells.

    I know I'm not directly related to him. I also know I probably shouldn't feel a connection to him, but I have a connection to Lisa, and I take what I can get. : ) I love Disney so.

    That's a cool video of the apartment. I've only ever seen photos.

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  60. Reading Epbot has piqued my interest for both steampunk and urban decay. The Six Flags video was haunting and sad; my daughter was sitting across the room as I watched it, and after about a minute said, "That music is creeping me out." The pictures of urban decay are fascinating, but I'm content to explore vicariously. The combination of me being a wimp and having an over-active imagination would be my undoing, and I'd end up in a ball on the floor, a gibbering mess.

    I have a picture of myself in the Club 33 bathroom! My sister and I went down to visit my aunt a few years ago, and my aunt's boss had a membership and made a reservation for us. We felt like total dorks for taking pictures in the bathroom, yet couldn't pass up the opportunity.

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  61. I kept expecting zombies to come out. 5:37 was insanely creepy.

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  62. I so enjoy your blog. Creepy clown indeed (and mirror royalty).

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  63. For me, I see the urban decay and think "I can use that". I just feel the waste of things not being used to their potential, being demo'ed and being sold as scrap?! That lovely railing, and so many of the other items, simply sold for scrap. It makes my heart ache. Wish it could be repurposed instead.

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  64. Jen,

    Hurry......found the Castle episode on HULU called PUNKED about steampunk, but only 3 days left


    Jeanine

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  65. I'm not sure which video I liked better. The Disney one appealed to my inner kid and the Six Flag one was uber-creepy.

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  66. It makes me mad that Six Flags would just abandon their park. I imagine it's cheaper to do so but it I kind of fell like they decided to give up on New Orleans and Louisiana. I remember passing by on my way to New Orleans and getting so much joy just watching the coasters go up the track. Creepy video, creepier music!

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  67. Both VERY COOL.

    I've seen lots of pictures of Six Flags post-Katrina and they're always fascinating. I find it surprising how sad I was to learn that it's all getting torn down. Demolishing a lonely, forgotten place.

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  68. The Six Flags video is amazing. I hate to see such awesome looking roller coaster go unloved for so long. I wonder why they never sold the coasters off to other parks before deciding to just destroy everything.

    I so wish I could go in and explore it right now!

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  69. Maybe it was just me...but on the Six Flags video, when they showed the shot of the stage? Did anyone else notice what looked like giant gears as part of the stage elements?

    Yeah, I totally want to go...er, "acquire"...those for use in my steampunk living room.

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  70. Wow. The New Orleans 6 Flags video was tremendous. Thank you for sharing that. At first when I saw the video module, I thought you meant to say that this is for the French Quarter section of Disneyland. Boy was I surprised!

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  71. I loved the Six Flags video. It is both sad and fascinating and very inspiring. I had to post and thank you for that link because I'm currently posting a story, and that video has the exact mood I'd like to reach for. Since you've posted this, I've been doing all sorts of thinking.

    All of the comments were helpful too. :D I now have a lot of cool things as sources of inspiration.

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  72. Old, abandoned buildings fascinate me. Of course, most of the time I'm too scared to go in them, so I admire them from the outside (a trip to a certain abandoned insane asylum in Northern New Jersey springs to mind). The Six Flags video lets me see inside without running and screaming because the flapping flags freaked me out. I loved its stark, moving beauty.

    Yes, I did cry a little. And, yes, I was expecting a zombie to come popping out of all the empty doorways.

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  73. There is so much more history of that Six Flags than just Six Flags. There has been a theme park in one form or another there since I was very young.

    I remember taking my son and his best friend there a number of years before Katrina, and seeing the new bits of the park superimposed over the original bits of the park was kinda freaky back then.

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  74. Big fan of stuff like this, but so sad to see something that could be employing so many people be abandoned. Geesh you'd think Six Flags could hire folks to reno the place and give the folks of NO a fun place to take their families.

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  75. Some people mentioned the video reminded them of 28 Days Later, well, that's because the music IS from 28 Days Later! I'd recognize it anywhere, I love it!

    I was expecting a zombie version of that creepy old man to come dancing out the whole time.

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  76. Wow! I wish they did that at the Six Flags Astroworld in Houston, where I used to live! Eventually it was torn down, though.

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  77. Here is the link to the website with the facinating pictures of Chernobyl: http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

    No kids in this one but just this Chick who lives nearby and takes you on a tour... fascinating!

    BTW, I agree Six Flags should be rented out to film studios! But I didn't really find it all that creepy - just sad.

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  78. we have a Wii, and for you guys, we could even get Epic Mickey. When are you coming?

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  79. My husband and I got engaged in New Orleans only two weeks before Katrina hit. We went to Six Flags during the day before he proposed that evening...now I'm glad we did that! Sad to see that they are demolishing it. I'm going to go find something un-creepy to watch now.

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  80. I'm a big fan of The Walking Dead, so part of me kept half-expecting to see a zombie go creeping past in the Six Flags video.

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  81. Wow..nostalgia kicked in while watching this...I lived in new orleans..I went to that six flags often...it now looks like it belongs in a zombie movie..holy sh@#...this is depressing...

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  82. The Six Flags video was very powerful. The videography was very well done, and the music was so eerie. Until this spring I lived about an hour from there, and visited this park several times. I had to pause the video more than once, as I was on the verge of tears. A note- the park was not demolished in January of this year, but I think it's still supposed to be. Also, if you liked this video, how about these

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