443: Amusement Park

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2024

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We head to some of the happiest places on earth: amusement parks! Ira Glass takes us behind the scenes at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, where the young staff – coached by a funny, fun-loving boss just a little older than they are – truly seem to love their jobs.

Prologue: Host Ira Glass walks through a Kansas City Missouri amusement park called Worlds of Fun with Cole Lindbergh, who had a season pass to the park as a little kid, starting working there summers at 14, and then just stayed. Now he's a full-time, year-round employee, running the games department. It's possible he does this job better than anyone in the country. It's rare to witness someone so happily great at his job. (9 minutes)
Act One: Ira continues with Cole Lindbergh and the hundred teenagers who work for him in the games department at Worlds of Fun. We watch them compete against each other to see who can do the most business, in Cole's Sweet Sixteen bracket tournament, which pits all 32 games in the park against each other. We hear about all the things Cole does that other games managers don't. He invents games. He directs music videos starring his team. (23 minutes)
Act Two: We asked for your stories about amusement parks. Three hundred of you called in, with stories of fear, floating carnies and, um, vomit. (9 minutes)
Act Three: Jonathan Goldstein returns to Wildwood, New Jersey, where he spent one not-fateful summer when he was sixteen. Jonathan's the host of the podcast Heavyweight. (13 minutes)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From W.B.Z Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Robert Glass.
0:04.0	Okay, so we're going through the gate here into the park.
0:07.0	Yeah, we're going, this is our morning, this is the morning walk into the park,
0:10.0	so everybody will split up into their different sections and get the park open. Park,
0:14.0	everybody will split up into their different sections,
0:13.0	and get the park open, and we'll start putting out prizes.
0:17.0	We're at an amusement park in Kansas City, Missouri called Worlds of Fun.
0:20.0	We're going to be spending the entire hour today at amusement parks.
0:23.0	It's five minutes before opening and I'm walking with Cole Lindbergh, who's 25
0:27.0	with permanently must hair and the cheerful vibe of the Busham Buddies era Tom Hanks.
0:31.0	He's been coming to this park since he was a little kid.
0:33.4	Started working here as a summer job at 14 and then basically just never left. It
0:39.0	became his real job. 11 years later he is a full-time year-round employee. I love amusement parks.
0:45.1	Anytime my family would go on vacation we'd schedule it around an amusement park
0:50.0	because I love rollercoats because I love the music parks. I mean I've walked this pathway
0:55.1	that we're taking right now. I've walked it thousands and thousands and thousands of times.
1:00.5	When he was little his family had season passes here and they would come a lot
1:04.0	He traveled any new roller coaster to try it out daydreamed about a job where he would design parks and build roller coasters
1:10.4	And when his dad drove him here at the age of 14 for a job interview, he wore a suit to that interview.
1:16.0	Just sitting inside the parks offices, which a utilitarian, picture the principal's office at a public high school.
1:22.0	Even that was exciting. the principal's office at a public high school.
1:22.6	Even that was exciting.
	...

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