WHy is Six Flags never called six Flags?
I mean I live in New York City, which is pretyt close to Six Flags: Great Adventure. But No one calls it that, it’s always called Great Adventrue".
I mean all the six flags are no where near each other, so If I went to Texas and said I went to Six Flags, they would know where I was talking about. Same with any of the other ones, but nobody calls them “Six Flags” it’s always by the Subtitle (well maybe in Texas, thats one is Six Flags over Texas)
Six Flags over Georgia is simply known as Six Flags.
Was Six Flags Great Adventure not owned by the same company at the others at one time? If it was had an official name that was just “Great Adventure” perhaps people just kept calling it that even after it was bought?
That, of course, is just my WAG. I really have no idea.
In Ohio, (where they sucked up the independent Geauga Lake Park and the adjacent Ohio branch of Sea World and merged them into one), it’s just called Six Flags . Nobody calls it Great Adventure.
Because they figured we Yankees would be upset over the symbolism of “Six Flags over Texas”. My WAG.
Or maybe Great Adventure is just a better name than Six Flags’ Great Adventure.
Isn’t it called “Six Flags: (something else)” in other places? ie, it wouldn’t be called Great Adventure anyway… Not that that’s the point of the OP. Just being picky.
I hear it called both Six Flags AND Great Adventure. Depends on your mood, I guess.
I guess the common usage of the parks’ names comes from how well the names will stand by themselves without “Six Flags” in front of them. Houston has Six Flags Astroworld, but I never hear it called anything but just “Astroworld” among regular people. I’ve never paid attention to how the announcer in the commercials refers to it, though.
I clearly remember commercials for the NJ park when I was a kid, they just said “Great Adventure”. The one time I was there (1987, for Senior Week) I don’t recall seeing or hearing the “Six Flags” part of the name once. In fact I was under the impression that it was an independent park before, bought by Six Flags sometime in the last ten years or so. I could be wrong on that, but I know it used to be just plain Great Adventure in park ads as well as in everyday speech.
Correctamundo. Except that you’re doubtless old, like me, because you’ve compressed time.
Great Adventure opened in 1974. Bally’s bought it in 1979 and folded it into the Six Flags brand. Six Flags itself spent the eighties and nineties bouncing around among owners, including a stint with Time Warner, before ending up a subsidiary of Premier Parks in 1998.
And that’s probably why people still call it Great Adventure. Same reason it’s still the Pan Am building and 6th Ave. Old farts like us.
The Southern California park was known as Magic Mountain for years before Six Flags acquired it. The emphasis was as much on “attractions” as thrill rides in those days and advertisements featured a cast of customed characters. It was kind of a low-rent Disneyland. Six Flags added more excitement but bulldozed most of the park’s character, in this crotchety old-timer’s opinion.
The one I’m referring to is actually called Six Flags over Texas (warning - horrible high-bandwidth site) and appears to be in Arlington. Didn’t realise Astroworld was now under that banner too.
When I was little in St. Louis, other kids would talk about going to Six Flags. My parents were the type to never bother with it, and we didn’t have a tv, so I had honestly no idea what they were talking about, but that was the name they used.
In L.A., Six Flags bought Magic Mountain, but even after ten+ years, they don’t even try to work in the name. Even the advertising announcers just call it Magic Mountain.
The one near DC is called Six Flags America. Before that it was called Adventure World, and before that it was called Wild World. So you still get people calling it any of those names (though we leave the “America” bit off of Six Flags).
What were the six flags anyway? Spain, Mexico, USA, Confederacy, France, … ?
Six Flags took over the Jazzland park in New Orleans this year and it’s now called Six Flags: New Orleans, but referred to as Six Flags. Or Jazzland.
When I was 13 and there WAS only one Six Flags, the original one between Dallas and Fort Worth, my grandmother took my sister and I there. Made us wear dresses (couldn’t go out in public without being dressed like a proper little lady!) and wouldn’t let us ride on the ONE decent ride in the WHOLE park, the log flume.
Thank heaven times have changed!
When Six Flags moved in here this year, they said they own something like 37 or 38 theme parks around the world now.
