Theme Song: There’s like seven or eight videos on this tape, see below.

Interesting Dated References: People having carefree fun outside and not constantly making fun of other people while in public. Enjoying yourself, not drinking. Matt Dillon saying “Ummm…” a lot.

Best Line: “Ummmmm…” said 45 times by Matt Dillon. I know he was still a young actor and all, but it seems like with each segment he only did a single take. There’s a few points where he totally jumbles words and the director didn’t even see fit to fix it.

Social Context: I guess it harkens back to a time when we used to try to entertain our children with actual physical activities instead of television and video games, but really no one misses it, so who cares.

Summary: I was never allowed to spend much time in the Special Interest section of the video stores back in the day. As you may well remember that section was usually reserved for nature/space shit your grandpa was always trying to rent, and softcore/swimsuit/lingirie videos your grandpa was always trying to rent. it just wasn’t a place where kids hung out. But I guess it turns out (according to the label on this Betamax box) that the Special Interest thing may have held a few interesting videos for kids. Most of them are confusing messes and it’s bewildering to consider how they even got made, or how they even got pitched. I actually was able to travel back in time and find the notes made by the producer of Wild Rides before he pitched the idea to the executives:

That seems to be the exact strategy and rationale of the producers and writers of this special. I’m almost certain of it. Nowadays if they did something similar with some young actor they wouldn’t even release it onto dvd, it would just be some Travel Channel special or something. And then get this, imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only has Wild Rides remained relevant, but there’s an entire legion of roller coaster enthusiasts who watch the movie religiously and point to it as an example of footage of rollercoasters during the golden days of this modern era? No, fucking seriously, they do. They fucking chat about it on messageboards and shit. I was going to make youtube clips of some shit, but aside from the awesome graphic intro, and a few isolated monologue segments, every major section had already been uploaded by people with youtube handles like “rcoasterenthusiast” and “corkcscrewtom.” What the fuck is wrong with people?

So the intro graphics are a good example of how to do things right in 1981. Guitar licks, swoosh sounds, flashing lights, Dave Mason, etc. These are followed by Matt Dillon’s awesome intro:

By awesome I mean confusing and not good. Then the first segment beings and I realize what exactly this video is. It consists of several different music videos each with stupid actors doing stupid shit over stupid music and different rollercoasters. I have zero interest in this, even for the sake of being nostalgic. But I guess there may be some people out there interested in seeing these “coasters” in action, so I guess I’ll seriously talk about them to the best of my ability. I’m not going to embed youtube video for each segment in this review. That would be annoying and take way too fucking long. Follow the clip above to youtube and take a look at the related clips if you’re that fucking interested. And if you’re that interested in it, aren’t you on the wrong website anyway, shouldn’t you be on some amusement park messageboard instead?

Our first coaster is The Colossus at Six Flags Magic Mountain. The video is for “You” by The 80s Who. The video story seems to be some chick forcing some dude to prove his masculinity by riding the thing.

The guy and chick are played by real human beings who act like they are having fun. They ride the coaster and cheer a lot. The dude makes the chick gets off and he rides the coaster all night and then it ends.

The next segment is The Great American Scream Machine at Six Flags Over Georgia. The video is for some terrible synthesizer song called “Nothing To Fear” by Dave Mason. The video story is some obese creepy worker guy running around scaring children at night. Then he gets on the ride and becomes everyones friend. This one is particularly ridiculous, so much so I didn’t take a picture.

Next up we go to Circus World in Haines City Florida and ride some rollercoaster I didn’t catch the name of. Oh great, Steve Miller Band’s “Livin’ In The USA.” I hate that fucking band by the way. So once again some other couple gets on the fucking ride and acts like they are having fun.

You remember those old Wrigley’s Doublemint and Big Red commercials? That’s exactly what these fucking segments are like, except with less twins and more Steve Miller Band. I remember once this exgirlfriend of mine had this shitty Steve Miller Band greatest hits cd (like that’s even possible) and she used to play it all the fucking time and finally I’d had enough and she goes “I thought you liked classic rock and all that 70s music.” Can you believe that shit? How would you even group that shitty fucking band in with great rock of the 70s?

So the next segment gives a history of the rollercoaster and features that instrumental track “East St. Louis Todle-Oo” off of Pretzel Logic (by Steely Dan for those not in the know). It makes no sense and is stupid. I’m still salty about the Steve Miller Band greatest its cd thing. Then we’re off to The Mindbender at Six Flags over Georgia. The stupid video is for “Don’t Cha Stop” by The Cars. It features some guy acting like he’s riding some coaster in a marathon and it’s stupid.

Our last clip, for some reason features Fire by Jimi Hendrix. It takes place at The Texas Cyclone of Astroworld in Houston Texas. I think it’s called Astroworld. Dillons dialogue is mush-mouthed and hard to make sense of.

The premise here seems to be a bunch of hessians getting married on the coaster. After it’s over, the special interest video closes with Matt Dillon telling us he’ll see us “online” which meant standing around in 1981, not on Facebook like it does now.

Poster and Box Art: Come on, it’s that standard Warner Brothers box you’ve seen a million times.

Availability: There are used VHS copies available on Amazon, but it appears that all the roller coaster enthusiasts are jacking the prices up, so you’d better act fast.

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Posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008. Filed under Extremely Dated Musical Entertainment, Standard-Lowering Children's Entertainment