Pop Xanadus of Fun and Fantasy

By Michael Demarest

Some 1.5 million certifiable celebrators will not spend the Fourth of July weekend incinerating hot dogs, guzzling six-packs, igniting fireworks, sailing, surfing, getting tennis elbow, dozing over portable TVs or lallygagging in hammocks. They are the indefatigable, demanding, endlessly seductible fun seekers of all ages who, defying summer's sweat and inflation's bite, will push through turnstiles to troop and whoop through the nation's three dozen major theme parks.

"It's not that often you get to see a rhino in Florida."

--Visitor to The Dark Continent, Tampa, Fla.

Theme parks from Anaheim, Calif., to Arlington, Texas, are the space-age descendants of the old amusement parks --and as far removed from their malodorous forebears as, say, Walt Disney's Snow White is from P.T. Barnum's Tom Thumb. Today's alfresco entertainment centers occupy vast acreage and take multimillions to build, maintain and expand. In return, they will pull in some $960 million this year.* They are lavishly and imaginatively landscaped, staffed with entrance-to-exit smiles and antiseptically clean.

They are pop Xanadus. According to taste, theme-park visitors may explore cotton-candy miniatures of the American past, plywood pastiches of foreign lands or Styrofoam fairyland fantasies. They may make moues at gnus or gape at apes, gawk at giraffes, elephants and zebras capering au naturel, or goggle at performing beasts, birds and fishes of uncanny talent. Or they can flirt with Audio-Animatronic bears, traverse chlorinated rivers on electronic boats, witness blank-cartridge shootouts and slurp Dr. Pepper at frontier saloons. They can jolt along in authentic vintage choochoos, paddle a real canoe, watch candlemakers and glass blowers--or take computerized thrill rides that would give an astronaut the heebie-jeebies.

"If I coulda come to a place like this when I was a kid, I woulda been in hog heaven."

--Sid Severin, visitor at Houston's Astroworld

Describing theme parks as "tailor-made for today's stressful world," Darren Newtson, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, says: "They're by far the most efficient means of adding variety to modern-day life, of saturating people's need for a change of pace within the shortest possible period of time. In seven or eight hours you get as much essence of vacation--variety, relaxation and excitement--as in a normal two-week vacation. You can rent for a day the means of enjoyment that, psychologically, will provide the same release as a two-week trip to Europe."

"It's like sex. You wait hours and hours for that one wonderful minute."

--Teen-age boy waiting in line for the flume ride at Great Adventure, Jackson, N.J.

The parks have certainly changed, but not perhaps their patrons. They are the not-so-spiritual descendants of the Romans who spent Saturn's Days gawking at chariot races or lion-Christian munch-ins; of the 18th century Londoners who visited Vauxhall Gardens to goggle at fireworks and take in country music; and of the Parisians who in 1817 rode the original shoot-the-chute (it was called saut du Niagara) or gasped at balloon ascents at Ruggieri's fetes champetres. Some parkgoers today recall grandparents' tales of the great 1893 Chicago Exposition, which introduced the Ferris wheel; their parents may have courted at Coney Island.

Social critics tend to scoff at theme-park patrons as passive non-participants in plastic fantasy. Obviously, such critics have never been tugged by tireless children through seven-plus hours (the average time spent per park per family) of short rides and long lines, mini-zoos and maxi-queues, live shows, deadly lines, fast food, slow lines, indigestion, blurred vision and pedialgia (sore feet). In fact, the vast majority of the 80 million people who will visit theme parks this year are involved, tireless and eclectic in their pursuit of pleasure.

There are as many families waiting in line for the world's longest, highest, fastest, scariest roller-coaster ride (just about every park claims the ultimate) as there are for the elephant ride or the multimedia screen show or the placid monorail to nowhere. City children will spend hours playing with small animals; other young visitors may take a dozen consecutive gut-wrenching rides or spend rapt hours trailing wandering minstrels. Many TV-age adults see live shows and big-name concerts for the first time--and possibly the last, until their return to a theme park. Notes California Sociologist Jim Dunnivan: "In contrast to the conspicuous consumption of the '50s and early '60s, the emphasis of the '70s is on experience. Today's adult isn't content to sit back and be a spectator. Instead, he wants to get actively involved as a participant." Says Gary Kyriazi, author of The Great American Amusement Parks:

"More than ever, people need a place to scream."

"God, I'd like a beer!"

--Frazzled father outside Crazy Horse Saloon, Six Flags Over Texas

Most theme parks are a mirror image of the puritan work ethic. The idea here is to play, hustle and use the last cent's worth of the $30 plus it may take a family of four to get in. At most parks (major exceptions: Disneyland and Disney World), there is a flat admission fee that enables parents and offspring to sample and resample every major attraction without charge. Remembering the rapacious playlands of the past, where gambling, boozing and whoring were as rife as popcorn and pizza, most theme parks promote soft drinks and fast foods. They dispense a dizzily dyspeptic array of instant edibles from storefronts with names like Yum Yum Palace, Mustard's Last Stand and the Hokey Pokey. Heroic exceptions to the no-brew stand-up eating syndrome are the Busch Gardens, near Williamsburg, Va., and Tampa, Fla. Since both parks are also the sites of Anheuser-Busch breweries, and their owners are understandably interested in promoting suds consumption, both spots have "hospitality centers" that actually give away beer (Cokes and Sprites cost 50-c-). Busch Gardens' Old Country, near Williamsburg, has a vast Festhaus where visitors can quaff Michelob and munch bratwurst. The company's Dark Continent, near Tampa, has replicated a famed Swiss inn and offers one of the few gourmet menus in the world that allows the diner to eat, sip wine and overlook the goings-on of free-ranging chimps, giraffes, zebras, ostriches and elephants.

"Well, it was either this place or Tijuana."

--Clinton Sharp, 20, Marine Corps reservist visiting San Diego's Sea World.

Closer, cheaper and safer than the sleazy Mexican border town are three of the best theme parks in the West. When Walt Disney opened Disneyland at Anaheim in 1955, the idea was that his fantasyland would be "a travel destination" at which visitors would spend whole weekends or vacations. Many families still do, but Disneyland, like Florida's Disney World, has become a focal point from which holidaymakers can radiate out to other parks, beaches, authentic historical scenes and myriad recreations ranging from surfing and sailing to deep-sea fishing and ballooning. Thus a family with a week or even two might consider one of these four vacation clusters:

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. Disneyland after 22 years remains a marvel of technological ingenuity, Waltgeist and two-hour waits. By contrast, only six miles away, is Knott's Berry Farm, which began as just that, is still run by the family and is eminently human. Rides and shows are built on Old West themes. In San Diego, 55 miles from Disneyland, is Sea World, the best-planned, best-stocked oceanarium in the U.S.

TEXAS. Six Flags Over Texas, a 20-min. drive from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, was founded in 1961 as the first regional theme park celebrating local history. It has been expanding ever since, will welcome its 30 millionth visitor this week, and is big on thrill rides, puppet-people-picture shows, musical revues and top-name concerts. From Dallas (an amusement park in itself), visitors can go on to Houston's Astroworld, which specializes in thrill rides.

CENTRAL FLORIDA. Disney World at Orlando is, of course, the magnet. An hour's drive away, at Tampa, is Busch Gardens' Dark Continent, which features not only exotic African beasts on a Serengeti-esque plain but also such other threatened species as snake charmers and belly dancers. Tampa, with good beaches and reasonable prices, is a fine base for a vacation that might also include visits to Orlando's attractive Sea World, Circus World and a waxworks museum, the Stars Hall of Fame, featuring Hollywood greats.

THE MIDWEST. Near St. Louis, Six Flags Over Mid-America is a corn-belt version of its lively Texan Six-Flagship. At Gurnee, Ill., halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee, is Marriott's Great America, with its ten-story-high carrousel. Not to be missed is Cedar Point, 50 miles west of Cleveland, one of the few old-style amusement parks to have made it into the theme age.

There are many other purely local theme parks that rate a visit: notably Marriott's Great America in Santa Clara, Calif.; Nashville's Opryland, celebrating every mode of American music; and even the revivified Coney Island. They all offer an escape for a day--or two--into a world of myth and hokum, melody and bang-bang, insubstantial pageants and cloud-capp'd towers.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on."

--William Shakespeare, visiting The Tempest. Michael Demarest

*More than Americans spend to attend pro football, baseball, basketball and hockey combined.

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