Coaster Radio: The Original Theme Park Podcast

The ArieForce One saga just took a turn nobody predicted, not the hosts and not a single one of the hundreds of listeners who sent in guesses. Mike and EB break down the reports, why the answer makes almost no sense on paper, and what it might say about Six Flags' bigger plans. EB even breaks out Photoshop to see where it could possibly fit. Then it's a loaded Quick Hits. Disney is patenting some strange new ideas for flying theaters and for what you drink at the parks. IAAPA 2026 is almost here, and a few early press conference announcements have the guys guessing which parks are about to get big news. A couple of holiday ride overlays are on the way, and the Halloween scare actor contest wraps up with a performance worth waiting for. After the break, the 2025 theme park attendance numbers are in. Which parks are booming, which ones are slipping, and what is one regional park doing that the big chains aren't? You might be surprised by who lands in the top 10. Plus a look at what's coming in the final weeks of Season 21, including a live show you can help shape.  

Happy Halloween from Coaster Radio! Mike shows up in a Ghostface mask, and he and EB spend the cold open on why the original Scream still holds up. Then it's First Drop. Mike thanks EB for hosting last week's solo show and gives the latest on the Six Flags Over Georgia tragedy. There is still no official word on what happened, so the guys stick to the facts. The Six Flags CEO says the chain will add seatbelts to Goliath and to other coasters with similar restraints, including Nitro at Six Flags Great Adventure and Raging Bull at Six Flags Great America, and will bring in independent engineers to review its rides. Mike and EB also look at which B&M hypers already have seatbelts and what other parks might do about coasters like Apollo's Chariot. In Quick Hits, the Disney news comes fast. Expedition Everest now runs with the lights on full, so you can see the static Yeti ahead of its rumored replacement, and the hosts have a theory about why. Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland is back from a six-week refurbishment with bigger loose-article pouches, a fix for Jeeps overshooting the load area, and electric doors instead of hydraulic ones. That adds around 125 riders per hour, and the park claims 320,000 more rides a year. Mike also makes the case for bringing back the original sliding-door illusion. Then there's a Tower of Terror update rumor, sparked by the voice of Rod Serling posting a photo outside Imagineering. The segment ends with Universal's soft third quarter, where theme park revenue fell 4.5% and Comcast pointed to marketing and to capacity and throughput at Epic Universe. After that, Mike and EB compare their home haunts. EB has a 12-foot inflatable pumpkin, a 25-foot snake, and a tentacle pine tree. Mike has singing projection pumpkins and ghosts flying behind his windows. The Halloween scare actor contest gets an update. The prize is now a check of about $35 toward your costume, the deadline is extended one more week, and a new entry comes in from Magic Mountain. After the break, the Coaster Radio mailbag brings a prize closet haul from Tom in Louisville, including an Alice in Wonderland puzzle, Metal Earth Haunted Mansion models, and foreign-language Disneyland maps. Then it's this week's interactive topic: which attraction designed to scare you actually did? EB picks the helix drop on The Beast at Kings Island. Mike picks a genuinely unsettling haunted house in Gatlinburg. Listeners weigh in with Demon Drop, Lex Luthor Drop of Doom, Oblivion, X2, Full Throttle's second launch, Verbolten, Tower of Terror, Catwoman's Whip, Kongfrontation, Jaws, the original Phantom Theater, and Tomb Raider: The Ride. Everything builds to the pick the hosts crown the scariest attraction ever put in a park: Alien Encounter at Magic Kingdom, with its evil robot, its lights-out chaos, and blood dripping on you in the dark. Want to enter the contest? Interview a scare actor in character, get them to say Coaster Radio, Mike, and EB, and send it to [email protected].

Mike is off this week, so EB flies solo from the Indiana studio for a spooky-season episode built around one very good guest: Tom Pointon, the self-described ghost expert of Alton Towers in England. In the first half, EB addresses the tragic accident at Six Flags Over Georgia, points listeners to a ride mechanic's video explaining how B&M clamshell restraints work, and notes that the full story isn't known yet. In Quick Hits, Hersheypark reopens Candemonium after inspections by state-certified and independent inspectors, and EB shares the park's full statement about the ride's redundant safety systems. Construction is also underway inside Kentucky Kingdom's old 5D theater, and everyone is guessing it's a new indoor coaster. After the break, Tom explains what Alton Towers actually is: a Gothic Revival house with roots going back centuries, an Iron Age hill fort, a king of Mercia, and a theme park built around it, home to Nemesis, Oblivion, The Smiler, Wicker Man, and Hex. He tells the story behind the ghost tours he created for the park. It starts with a staff ghost hunt in 2011 where three people, including a skeptical Tom, burst into tears at the same moment. Along the way he shares: The legend of the White Bridge and why he thinks it's probably made up The curse of the Chained Oak, the real tree that inspired Hex The night a shadowy figure kept following his tour group through rooms behind them The night he went into the towers alone after the park closed and lasted about 20 minutes How the tour sold out three times in a week He also covers who comes on a ghost tour, what the 60-minute version looks like today, and why he thinks these stories matter to English culture. Tom shared photos from the tour, which you can see in the YouTube version of this episode.

This week. Mike and EB take on a story that goes well beyond roller coasters: Paramount Skydance's $110 billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery. They skip the finance talk and ask what matters to theme park fans. Will anyone finally build a Star Trek land? Will Ferengis and Klingons return to the midway? What happens to Universal's Harry Potter rights at Epic Universe? They also cover Warner's park history, from Looney Tunes at Six Flags to Warner Bros. Movie World and Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, then go through the IP list. It includes Wayne's World as a 90s land, a Godfather restaurant, and a Wizard of Oz boat ride. Mike also explains how the Six Flags "Over North Ohio" clip took off on social media. In Quick Hits, Disney is reworking its parking plazas with digital price signs, which gets Mike and EB talking about surge pricing, "gamification," service fees, and tip screens in gift shops. There's a rumored Rise of the Resistance refurbishment, plus a question about how long the sequel trilogy story will last. A guest at Epcot's Food & Wine Festival dives off the Gran Fiesta Tour boat. Joe Rohde is on his book tour and says Lightning Lane is like skipping to the car chase in a movie. The back half opens with the Coaster Radio mailbag, including a commemorative brick at Six Flags Great America's 50th anniversary walkway that reads "Eat a Cricket, Half Price Ticket" for Fright Fest. Then two more entries arrive in the Halloween contest, where listeners interview a scare actor and get them to say the show's name. Ben's audio from Hersheypark Dark Nights features a man carrying a severed head and a Pennsylvania legend. Caleb's video from Six Flags Great Adventure stars Jelly Boy the Clown, a sword swallower. EB shares his three-question trick for landing an interview. Finally, Mike and EB settle what separates a great haunt from a bad one, using local haunts, haunted hayrides, and Universal as reference points. The topics are detailed sets, great actors versus bored ones, inventive special effects, too much darkness, conga lines versus pulsing groups, IP that lives up to its name, and storylines that make sense. It ends with Bunny Man Bridge and goblins sliding into Mike's studio mid-recording. Want to enter the contest? Interview a scare actor in character, get them to mention Coaster Radio, Mike, and EB, and send it to [email protected]. The prize is your Halloween costume, paid for by the show.

Happy Halloween, everybody — Mike and EB kick off spooky season with the old Crypt Keeper cold open before diving into one of the strangest stories in recent Six Flags history: a leaked survey sent to passholders asking how they'd feel about renaming flagship parks like Cedar Point, Carowinds, and Magic Mountain into options like "Six Flags over North Ohio" and "Cedar Point, a Six Flags Experience." The guys break down exactly why every single option on the list is worse than just leaving the names alone, and make the case that Six Flags has some serious brand rehab to do before anyone wants their name slapped on a park. In Quick Hits: X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain is officially closed for good after years of lawsuits and injury allegations, prompting a trip down memory lane for one of the most notorious rides ever built. Lagoon finally reveals its mysterious 2027 attraction: J3 Grand Prix, the first Intamin Hot Racer coaster built in the United States, replacing the aging Jetstar 2. Busch Gardens Tampa quietly fixes a long-standing complaint by making lockers free for two hours on Iron Gwazi instead of charging riders full price. And after a years-long saga, Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park has officially sold for $14.8 million through bankruptcy court following the tragic death that led to a massive judgment against the park — Mike walks through how Chapter 11 sales actually work and why the family is unlikely to see anywhere near the full settlement. The back half of the show is all about ArieForce One: Mike and EB go through dozens of listener predictions for which Six Flags park will land the relocated coaster, debating the cases for Kings Island, Carowinds, Knott's Berry Farm, Six Flags Great Adventure, and a few delightfully out-there picks (frequent-flyer-miles traveling coaster, anyone?). Then they reveal the full audience vote breakdown — and it's not particularly close. Plus, an update on the show's Halloween scare-actor interview contest, including a few spectacular early failures.