Six Flags cowls

[eledoremassis02]

Got this off of Etsy (not available right now) and is a cast off of the Cowls used in the Six Flags parks.






I'm assuming it was for the stuntshows? Regarless, it's not a bad cowl and actually beats the quality of some of the bigger themeparks!

[thecolorsblend]

This thread seemed like a good place to drop this.

The video references (however briefly) Batman: The Escape, a ride from (the now defunct) Astroworld in Houston. I had occasion to ride Batman: The Escape shortly after it opened. The ride itself has little to do with Batman aside from Batman-related decals on the cars. It was billed as a "standing" rollercoaster. And in a sense, I guess it was. Still, it would be more accurate to say that passengers would awkwardly position themselves on bicycle seats so (presumably) they could have something to wedge themselves against during the curves and whatnot.

The main Batman aesthetics were actually concentrated in the line for the ride where passengers wandered through the Batcave, checked out the Furst Batmobile, the Ringwood cowl, etc.

Batman: The Escape was actually a pretty cool experience. It was obvious that the props and sets were custom made for the Batman: The Escape ride. That stuff turned BTE into more of an "attraction" than just slapping a bat symbol on the rollercoaster cars would've done. Besides, the actual sets, costumes, props and so forth that were used in the actual movies NEVER would've been put within public reach like that.

Another interesting aspect of BTE was the inclusion of the famous yellow ducks from Arctic World in BR. After Astroworld was shuttered and demolished, apparently certain things were sold off to private collectors. Presumably, that's how a friend and I came about seeing one of the ducks when we were driving around one night in 2008. We took pictures of the duck just sitting there by the side of the road.



It had been so long by then since I'd ridden BTE that I needed a minute to even remember that the ducks had been part of the BTE attraction from Astroworld. But here again, the ducks had clearly been designed for the BTE attraction. You can tell by the different wheels in the duck picture above as compared to the wheels shown briefly in BR. The interior of the ducks were nothing to write home about because the ducks were meant to be SEEN, not sat in. As a result, the "interior" was basically an opening that you could stand inside of. But there wasn't a seat or anything like that. And the interior of this particular duck was in pretty bad shape, frankly. Turns out, leaving the duck just sitting around in the open like that isn't a good way to preserve the interior from rot.

Still, there were some minor interpretive problems with BTE as I recall. You never actually saw the BR versions of the Penguin or Batman. No photos, no videos, no performers, nothing. I knew even back then that WB was a bit leery of BR's aesthetic. Whoever designed BTE had to tread a sort of bizarre middle ground in crafting something with a recognizably Burton/Batman aesthetic without committing to the bit TOO MUCH. Because even when the attraction opened in 1993, I think WB realized they'd reached the end of the road with Burton.

As a result, the Penguin illustration you see is a pretty generic comic book version of the Penguin for that time. And while Batman's cowl is on display, and it was plainly Ringwood-influenced, it wasn't TOO similar to the BR cowl. It was as tho the attraction's designers knew they needed to reference the Penguin (because BR had come out so recently). But they didn't want to be TOO dependent on that, in case the attraction had to be retooled to reflect a different villain in the future. To my knowledge, it always revolved around the Penguin. But I got the idea it could've gotten a face lift to revolve around a different villain (Two Face or the Riddler?) without completely reinventing the wheel.

Now, I picked up on all that even as a kid. But I wasn't put off by it. I was just happy to check out the BTE attraction and ride the roller coaster. I was lucky enough to ride the coaster just after sunset so the whole thing had the appropriate Batman atmosphere. I honestly can't imagine riding that bad boy during broad daylight. I mean, you take what you can get. But to me, the effect would've been diminished by going through there with the sun shining.