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Back in the fall, Six Flags made a joint announcement as they have in previous years that announced the new attraction(s) coming to each of their parks for the coming season. For Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, that attraction was the Total Mayhem 4-D Free Fly Coaster, the first of its kind on the east coast.
On Wednesday, Six Flags officially announced that the ride would no longer be called Total Mayhem, and instead will open as The Joker. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in California will also open a coaster called The Joker, but that ride is a refurbishment being done by Rocky Mountain Construction of the wooden coaster formerly named Roar. Ironically, the New Jersey ride is an exact copy (except for color scheme and name) of a ride named Batman: The Ride, a coaster that opened at Six Flags Fiesta Texas near San Antonio for the 2015 season.
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This summer, Six Flags Great Adventure is giving thrill ride fans plenty of reasons to flip out.
Earlier this season, the Jackson amusement park unveiled El Diablo, its 13th roller coaster. The attraction features riders sitting in face-to-face, rocketing forward and backward pendulum-style until the train completes a full revolution seven stories in the air. The coaster then makes a number of full loops, stops momentarily with riders suspended upside down, and then reverses direction. Inspired by Jersey Devil folklore with a Mexican-influenced twist, the coaster is aimed toward tween-aged Great Adventure attendees. Akin in intensity to the park's Skull Mountain and Dark Knight rides, it's a pleasantly surprising change of pace in an area of the park that's also home to the world-renowned shockers El Toro and Kingda Ka. FULL STORY While it has been all but confirmed now for several weeks that the stand-up B&M coaster would be relocated to Six Flags Great Adventure, no true confirmation or details would be given. The park has finally announced those rides, and will be adding a “new” B&M to their lineup, to be called the Green Lantern, after the DC Comics super hero.
The ride itself is none other than the Chang roller coaster, which was removed from Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom this past year. Though the initial plans of Six Flags seemed to be to move it to their park in Great America, where track began arriving and a height waiver was requested, those plans were scrapped and the track was moved to Six Flags Great Adventure. It will now be the parks 12th coaster, and will be the 4th B&M installation at the park. Green Lantern will stand 154 feet tall, reach speeds of 63 mph, and negotiate five inversions on its 4,155 foot long journey, including a 121' 7" tall Vertical Loop, 103' 10" tall Dive Loop, 72' tall Inclined Loop, and interlocking Corkscrews. Park President John Fitzgerald said “Six Flags is home to many of the biggest roller coasters in the world, and Green Lantern brings an all new dimension of thrills.” Six Flags Great Adventure, already home to such massive coasters as the B&M Nitro Hypercoaster and Kingda Ka Intamin Accelerator coaster, currently the tallest and one of the fastest coasters in the world, plans to open up the new Green Lantern coaster in Spring 2011, just before the release of the “Green Hornet” movie based on the superhero character the ride is named after. Great American Scream Machine at Six Flags Great Adventure gave it's last ride on Sunday night. The looper is to be removed to make way for 2011's attraction.
The official announcement of the removal was on July 18th, after which the coaster started drawing lines for the first time in years. Six Flags Great Adventure arranged a closing weekend event to commemorate the ride's years of faithful service. The park also auctioned off the seats for the final ride. The proceeds from that and a poster raffle benefitted the National Roller Coaster Museum. After the last riders disembarked, the coaster was officially retired. Great American Scream Machine was designed by Arrow Dynamics, and opened in 1989 as the tallest and fastest coaster, albeit briefly. The coaster incorporated seven inversions, consisting of three loops, a batwing and two corkscrews. The ride did require the tops of the three loops to be replaced with extra bracing in 1992, but ran very consistently over it's 21 years of operation. The removal of the coaster will follow in the next several weeks, as well as the announcement of the 2011 attractions. With the recent success of a large scale remake of Six Flags Magic Mountain's X into X2, Six Flags Inc. has decided to implement the same strategy on some of their other major attractions this off season, including Six Flags Great Adventure's Medusa.
When the park opened Medusa in 1999, the world was shocked by B&M's new minimalist train design. Described by some to be mere "flying chairs on wheels," the new Floorless rolling stock became an instant hit. The media attention garnered by this revolutionary new roller coaster thrust Six Flags Great Adventure into the limelight of the coaster community. In years since then, however, the ride's popularity has waned. With record breaking new additions such as Kingda Ka and El Toro vying for public attention and Medusa's poor location in a back corner of the park, ridership began to fall. But the new, money-conscious management of Six Flags decide to breath new life back into this trend setting ride. Last year they discovered that giving special effects and new advertising campaigns to existing rides can be a cost effective way to boost attendance. They are hoping that the same strategy will work for Medusa. When Six Flags Great Adventure opens next year, the world's first floorless coaster will once again be the center of much attention. Medusa will boast carefully choreographed, state-of-the-art fire, fog, and water effects as well as an audio production orchestrated to seamlessly integrate into the ride experience. This updated Medusa will be sure to provide a complete sensory overload experience to riders, all while continuing to thrill them throughout its spine tingling seven inversion course.  Just when you thought Great Adventure has had enough big thrills, think again. As a part of a two-ride deal with Intamin AG, Six Flags invested in the tallest and fastest coaster, Kingda Ka and now America's first Intamin wooden coaster, El Toro.Taking the place of the late Viper coaster, El Toro takes riders through sheer heights of 181 feet and down a steep, 76 degree, drop over 176 feet in length. Breakneck speeds of seventy miles per hour soon follow as El Toro then goes through its hybrid layout of both traditional out and back and twisted elements. Alongside El Toro, a new themed section is created as well, the Plaza del Carnival.Meanwhile, the park didn't forget about the kids again. A new kiddie section has arrived at the park, Bugs Bunny's National Park. Located on the shores of Great Adventure's lake, the new section will include new pint sized attractions such as a new theater, interactive water play area, and a snack bar in this wilderness themed area. This section will be one of three kids areas at the park, the others being the Golden Kingdom's Balin's Junglelan and Looney Toon's Seaport.El Toro and the Plaza del Carnival and Bugs Bunny's National Park will hopefully open in Spring 2006. Stay tuned for a ride gallery page of El Toro!
 Well here we go again, the next tallest and fastest coaster in the world was announced today by Six Flags Great Adventure:Kingda Ka. At 456 feet tall and 128 mph it dwarfs the current record holder Top Thrill Dragster by 36 feet and 8 mph. Kingda Ka is very similar to TTD in that it has a 90 degree twist on the way up and a 270 degree twist on the way down. It does have its difference though a 129 ft tall air time hill. It also appears it will have trains similar to the current ones on Storm Runner at Hersheypark. Kingda Ka will have 4 trains each holding 18 riders. Kingda Ka is to be built by INTAMIN and open in the year 2005.Kingda Ka is the main attraction in the new section of the park to be named the Golden Kingdom. Golden Kingdom will have 5 new kiddie rides and a 33, 000 sq ft theater. The theater will have a show with rare Bengal Tiger cubs. Kingda Ka and the Golden Kingdom are sure to bring many visitors from around the world to experience the world’s tallest and fastest coaster. The real question now may be: what will Cedar Point do to top it?
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