Hello and welcome to the very first prism of the past, a weekly series about historical events, people and situations from the fascinating to the forgotten. For a lot of people, the perfect way to spend a hot summer day is heading to the local

water park because nothing helps you beat the heat quite like being forced into

close proximity with thousands of sweaty strangers in their bathing suits.

Then launching yourself down a poorly designed shoot at high speeds with zero safety equipment and finally plunging

into a pool of stagnant water that also happens to be the perfect breeding ground

for E. coli and brain-eating amoebas. Now I I'm not saying water-park enthusiasts or lunatics, just that they have a much higher threshold for risk than perhaps some of us out there might. And if you were looking for thrills in New Jersey in the late 1970s and early 80s,

your Mecca was Action Park. Actually, Water Park is a little mild for what Action Park really was.

It's been described as Disney World meets

jackass. It was an anything goes adrenaline fest designed for maximum fun and zero thought put

into the safety. Boos, drugs, and sex were common,

not just among the visitors,

but among the employees themselves

who are often teenagers and received almost no training.

Owner and CEO Gene Mulvahill imagined Action Park as a place where the

visitor was in almost full control of their experience. On the park's notorious Alpine

Slide attraction, which we will discuss a little bit later on.

Riders would get into a cart and slide down a winding loge-like track.

Their carts were supposed to have handbreaks, but many of the brakes didn't even work.

And if the brakes did work, it was up to the

rider to decide whether or not to even use them. This is also a good time to tell you

that Action Park included several bars and even a fully functioning brewery. You can do the math

yourself but as one action park enthusiast put it the alpine slide was

...