CoasterBuzz Podcast #172 - March 15, 2010

Jeff, Mike, Carrie and Pat review this week's news in the amusement industry.

• Mike takes his eldest daughter on a roller coaster at Disneyland.
• Jeff describes the horror of an operating room for the delivery of his son.
• A story on the regulatory aspect of a possible acquisition of NBC-Universal by Comcast is brewing.
• The Cedar Fair vote was supposed to happen this week, and right now it looks very likely that the deal will fail. Carrie and Jeff feel that there has still not been a real slam-dunk reason for selling. Plenty of reasons for showing how inept the executives are, however. "I just want to get back to running parks."
• SeaWorld Orlando and family of drowned trainer want to block release of video.
• Rock Band is coming to a Cedar Fair park near you. It's a very Six Flags-like promotion, though we're not complaining.
• Zippin Pippin is coming to Green Bay, sort of. Wait, didn't they tear it down? Preservationists cheer! It was Elvis' favorite coaster (since he'd clearly been on so many).
• Texas Giant is getting a $10 million "upgrade" with steel track. Really? The expense to benefit ratio is pretty strange.
• Weekly stupid file: Cashier at Busch Gardens Tampa tries to scam some ticket money.
• How do you keep people coming back to a former World's Fair site in Seattle? Apparently amusement rides weren't the answer, and glass art is.
• Six Flags bankruptcy trial begins to get approval for reorganization plan.
• Disney starts selling a superawesomeeverywhere annual pass for $700. The crew works out the math, to see if it's worth the California parks and the Walt Disney World everything.
• Mike asks Gonch what it's like to go to little hole in the wall parks compared to those that have a dozen roller coasters. Gonch likes to hang out, because he's cool like that.
• Six Flags Great America starts prepping the wood coaster from the closed Kiddieland. Preservationists cheer!
• Disney scores a million participants in their charity volunteering campaign.
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