Sylvester's McMonkey McBean Unusual Driving Machines

Most parks have an outdoor motorized car ride. Pedal-powered or automatic, steerable or not, the cars follow the course from start to finish. Well, here is what oneupmanship has gotten too. Delayed for years but hope springs eternal, imagine that the track is as high as fifteen feet above the ground, circling about Seuss Landing and driving even through a festive carnival big top foodcourt. Right now you can see the green and purple tracks all over the isle of all things Seuss. They even have some animated trains wheeling around the track. Oh what wonderful places they'll go!

The original ride design was ambitious. Riders would be able to control the speed of their vehicles -- even lightly bumping those ahead. Honkable horns. Taunting the foodcourt flock. But the company that was building the ride made one major mistake. There was no escape path. If the ride were to ever break down cherry pickers would eventually have to take passengers down if the ride could not be restarted. Unlikely but a major mistake. So the redesign has held back the opening. Signs that read "Opening in 2000" were replaced with 2001 and eventually taken down entirely. Is 2004 the magic year? Who knows at this point? Supposedly the cars will no longer be user-navigated. A series of connected cars will leave at intervals, like a convertible monorail. It may not turn out to be as fun as was originally planned but it will be a welcome addition to a park looking to shore up its full-family rides.

Who is Sylvester McMonkey McBean? Well, in The Sneetches he is the opportunist who drives into turmoil when he finds the star-bellied Sneetches and the plain-bellied Sneetches at ends. The star-bellies are snobs and look down on the plain-bellies. Sylvester cashes in on the inequality with a contraption that will add stars to the plain-bellies. Woohoo! Once they get them, Sylvester turns to the original star-bellies and transforms them to plain-bellies. And on. And on. This is a fun read, but on a deeper level it is also a statement against racism. The two warring factions are only opposed to each other due to whether they have a star on their belly or not. This ride plays off that by reprising the story's role reversal. There are two boarding lines, one with the stars painted on the cars, one without. The ride will take passengers through Sylvester's machines. Those cars without stars will get them. Those with stars will be those with nars. Clever, catchy, sounds like a whole lot of fun for the whole family Not in operation - No official Opening Date.

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