Friday, April 13, 2007

Fruit as Projectile.

I don't want to give anyone the impression that all anyone ever did while working at the Park was act like a responsibility-shirking jerk, but, since most of the job involved sitting around waiting for something to happen, you made your own fun. And that fun was mostly of the Jackass variety.

Watching Michael & Dwight throw a watermelon off the roof of Dunder-Mifflin on the Office last night reminded me of one of those times. For a few seasons in the mid-90s, the Park featured a ride called the Sling Shot. It was billed as "Reverse Bungee Jumping." Two people were strapped into a pod, which was suspended by thick rubber cords between two metal poles. Increase the tension on the cords and boom! The pod goes flying upward. And then downward. And then upward again. (See this similar, but somehow safer-looking, ride in Reno, NV.) It was fantastically scary-- not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

One night, just after the Park closed, the attendants decided to see what would happen if they launched a watermelon. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect. (As long as what you expected was a watermelon-sized crater at the base of the ride and an impressive pattern of fruit splatter. Oh, and MOD Al's apoplectic episode when he discovered the damage the next morning.)

3 comments:

Colleen said...

How did that park survive as long as it did? How did everyone who went there not suffer the same fate as that watermelon?

therese said...

You asks questions to which there are no answers, grasshopper.

math t said...

there's footage of the Action Park slingshot starting at about 3:11 on this Youtube vid. the bungee tower is also prominently featured [just skip past all the 'what's your name, how do you feel today' footage and the volleyball game in the first 3 min].

needless to say the slingshot looks totally insane.

xo, math+