Marcus Leshock checks out the latest in roller coasters, theme parks, trending news, feature stories and more - Chicago and beyond!
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I'm an anchor/reporter on the WGN-TV Morning News in Chicago. You can see me every weekday from 4-10am delivering the top Trending News of the day.
When I'm not in the studio, I'm often out traveling the country for my COASTIN' THE COUNTRY series - riding the world's biggest and baddest roller coasters, telling the stories of the people who build and maintain them, and just checking out the best theme parks have to offer. Look for all of that content to be posted right here on this channel.
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Hawkvandelay!! Also, I must have missed you at SFGAm yesterday! I think everything you said 3:58-4:27 was spot on. There is SO much work to do to get all of the parks on the same page. Six Flags parks need a lot of upgrades to their infrastructure. Changes will not be happening overnight. That said, as another SFGAm local, I’m pretty excited. Worst case scenario, I don’t think things can get worse from where they are right now, which is great. I think the smaller Six Flags parks will see the biggest improvement (if they don’t get sold). I’ve secretly wanted SFGAm under a different company for years, and now we have that (kinda), which is crazy!! Still can’t believe it!
They really need to have one pass for everything. That will be awesome. Even next year might be too soon for that to happen though. 2026 seems more realistic.
This is the biggest disaster in amusement park history! I guarantee that nothing good is going to come from this! I'm from Cedar Fair, and I absolutely LOATHE Six Flags and I always have! I am not going to change my attitude about them, either! I do not welcome the Six Flags family into my family whatsoever! The way this is going to go is, when a divorced man with kids marries a divorced woman with kids and the kids absolutely HATE each other and fight constantly! I'll just be blunt, if you are Six Flags people, I don't want you in my Cedar fair parks! I don't! I've always considered Six Flags the enemy and I always will! Richard Zimmerman and Salim Bassoul are SCUMBAGS! Both should be forced to resign and never work in the amusement industry again! How 2 men can be so god awful stupid as those 2 for pulling such a disaster is beyond me! This IS going to FAIL! There is no doubt in my mind of that! I am extremely livid! I know from now on, when I go to Kings Island or Cedar Point, I am going to have very bad days! There will never be a good day at those parks or any of these parks ever again! Six Flags has been like that for decades! Now the Cedar Fair parks will be also! Terrible operations, bad food, people getting killed because of bad maintenance, you name it! In 5 years, this whole company will be bankrupt and probably out of business! The parks will become the local landfills in their communities! To Zimmerman, Bassoul and Six Flags, I say F*** YOU!
The should take that single red flag and layer 5 flags over it each different colors and getting smaller in scale. There fixed it, total of six flags in the logo.
This is nothing more then are wonderful Government allowing another Monopoly to be born and now all this is going to do is destroy the industry the only focus is going to be profits feel sorry for the number of families that will never be able to afford to take there families to an amusement park and profits will be the focus and they will not care about a safe fun affordable day at an amusement park disgusting
I doubt any of the parks will close, ca great america excluded, but i do see them selling some. I doubt they got this merger through the justice department for approval without concessions.
There's actually very few areas where they were even direct competitors. Basically Knott's/Magic Mountain, Great America/Discovery Kingdom, Great adventure/Dorney. Most of their properties aren't particularly close to each other.
@@Userhandleidk they used to (Dragster and Kingda Ka as an example), but for the past 2 decades or so Six Flags has been relatively cheap with their coasters
I hope Six Flags Great America now gets to receive the best parts of what California's Great America will be losing when that park shuts down. Think of all the spare parts our old sister park could provide...
This is going to be a disaster. They will sell and or close several parks. The company cannot sustain these many parks. The Cedar Fair shareholders did NOT want this merger for a reason. I hope Hershend buys Cedar Point and keeps its legacy
I would say cedar point, magic mountain, great adventure, fiesta texas, sf great america and the former paramout parks excluding California's great america are going anywhere. Those parks are their flagship parks. I also doubt that knotts even given it's proximity to magic mountain will be put up for sale given its historic value. But anything can happen in the corporate world.
I hope that this means that Great America will get theming finally! I need it to be one the same scale as Knott's or maybe even Disney, just like the Marriott days. On top of that, YES! I hope both Great Americas collab, and CGA gets the Looney Tunes back
Shouldn’t be half is six flags half cedar fair on the board with the tie breaker being six flags old ceo as the head of the board so that means they’ll be people that where used to trying to find budget to give to a couple small parks something so I’m sure they’ll ger more love then cedar fair did in the past they said they want to compete with the big dogs so they have to bring all the parks to a standard and then build up from there that’s what I think they’ll do for the first 5 years
not a treue rollback. I wish you went almost up to the top, then rolled back. The thrill of launching from zero to 120 mph was also part of the thrill, which is now gone.
I miss the dragster sound effects they had before the coaster took off. Also the “keep your arms down head back and hold “ with the stop light. Made the anticipation better
I'd be okay except for the fact that we know that harnesses like those have a habit of maybe sometimes possibly... unlatching. Do they have a secondary restraint system, like a simple lap belt in addition to the harness? Cause if that harness comes open somehow (like happened on a drop ride in Orlando), there is no way in hell a person would be able to hang on and stay there, not with those G-forces. And if that happened, no way they could make it slow down quickly. Gravity sux sometimes. Gonna give this one a pass.
@@a.h.9576 There are a few factors. On this day, weather was certainly one of them. It was cold and breezy. Train probably running a bit slower and wind stopped us from getting over the top!
The recklessness of risking it all on an empty kiddie ride without the full protection on an N95. All for some likes. For shame. Hopefully you were at least triple vaxed young man.
I could feel the G's of that just watching. As someone who has rode every coaster at Cedar Point, including the OG Top Thrill Dragster, this clearly looks like it's going to be the best ride in the park. Although, I'll always have a place in my heart for Maverick.
