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[2026] Bluey Coaster in CBeebies Land

I do find the level interest in what is for all intents and purposes a 40+ year old amusement park rollercoaster... perplexing? We're on page 49! If this was being built at say PleasureWood Hills we'd be on post 7.

In fact the LikeMe Coaster at Plopsaland seems to be the oldest operating Zierer coaster, celebrating its FIFTIETH birthday this year and is basically the same ride.

Obviously this is an AT forum and Bluey is a popular IP but it does speak to me about how little there has been to get excited about at the park for a long time.
 
Bowser said:
I do find the level interest in what is for all intents and purposes a 40+ year old amusement park rollercoaster... perplexing? We're on page 49! If this was being built at say PleasureWood Hills we'd be on post 7.

In fact the LikeMe Coaster at Plopsaland seems to be the oldest operating Zierer coaster, celebrating its FIFTIETH birthday this year and is basically the same ride.

Obviously this is an AT forum and Bluey is a popular IP but it does speak to me about how little there has been to get excited about at the park for a long time.
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I think it's more just that January/February are dull months and there's not much else to do. Given that the papers have spent the last three days debating whether it's acceptable for a man with Tourette's to say things he can't control, it's not just us who are bored.
 
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Bowser said:
I do find the level interest in what is for all intents and purposes a 40+ year old amusement park rollercoaster... perplexing? We're on page 49! If this was being built at say PleasureWood Hills we'd be on post 7.

In fact the LikeMe Coaster at Plopsaland seems to be the oldest operating Zierer coaster, celebrating its FIFTIETH birthday this year and is basically the same ride.

Obviously this is an AT forum and Bluey is a popular IP but it does speak to me about how little there has been to get excited about at the park for a long time.
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I thought the same thing, when I saw how many (almost-weekly) vlogs there are about this subject on YouTube (also for Aviktas, although this is a little more understandable).

I remember saying to somebody a few weeks ago that if YouTube had been around in 1994, the amount of Nemesis construction update vlogs being uploaded would have probably exhausted all of their available server space!

(Although perhaps not, as I'm not sure if Alton Towers had off-season opening days in December and February in which to film back then?)

P.S. It's not exactly the same thing, but WWE has a similar issue: the 1990s were regarded as an exciting time in wrestling, but podcasting was in its infancy; the situation today is the reverse (overabundance of podcasters, but a relatively bland product to now discuss).
 
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Secret Weapon said:
I thought the same thing, when I saw how many (almost-weekly) vlogs there are about this subject on YouTube (also for Aviktas, although this is a little more understandable).

I remember saying to somebody a few weeks ago that if YouTube had been around in 1994, the amount of Nemesis construction update vlogs being uploaded would have probably exhausted all of their available server space!

(Although perhaps not, as I'm not sure if Alton Towers had off-season opening days in December and February in which to film back then?)
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Please allow me to indulge in this thought experiment, because it is delightful.

If The Jack Silkstone or The Relevant Media® were attempting to vlog the construction of Nemesis in early 1994, the barriers to entry would be rather substantial.

There are no GoPros. There are no iPhones. Our intrepid vlogger would be wielding a Sony CCD-TR2000 Hi8 Handycam, to film on site. It weighs about 1kg (without the battery brick), costs £1,200 (roughly £2,500 in today's money), and has no flip out screen.

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In order to film a "piece to camera", they would have to hold this brick at arm's length, guess the framing and hope they weren't just filming their own left ear. There is no image stabilisation. Every step they take looks like the Blair Witch Project during an earthquake. Either that, or take a heavy and unwieldy tripod everywhere and have the Public Liability Insurance to boot.

Editing would prove a bit of a nightmare. They can't just "airdrop" the footage to an iPad. Non-linear digital editing on a computer in 1994 requires an Avid Media Composer suite costing upwards of £40,000, or perhaps a high end Amiga with a Video Toaster if they were rich.

Realistically, they're doing Linear Editing. This involves connecting two VCRs together with a scart lead. You play the raw footage on VCR A, and press 'Record' on VCR B at the exact moment you want the clip to start. If you mess up a cut, or want to add a title card later? Tough. You have to rewind and record over the entire thing from that point onwards.

Adding a "Smash that Like Button" graphic requires a separate titling generator machine from Tandy, or Sony.

image.png


Uploading is where the dream dies.

In January 1994, the average home internet connection was a 14.4k dial up modem.

Let's assume our vlogger has compressed their 10 minute update into a postage stamp sized QuickTime 1.0 movie file (160 x 120 resolution, 10 fps). Even heavily compressed that file is going to be about 10 MB to 15 MB.

Uploading a 15 MB file on a 14.4k modem would take approximately 2.5 to 3 hours, assuming the connection didn't drop because someone picked up the landline phone.

Assuming that a time travelling Chad Hurley solved video streaming protocols and successfully launched YouTube in 1994. The infrastructure required to keep it online would bankrupt a G7 nation.

In 1994, a 1 GB hard drive (a capacity considered obscene for a personal computer) cost roughly £700 and was the size of a concrete block.

If just 50 enthusiasts uploaded one 10 minute update each regarding the mud levels in Forbidden Valley (approx 15 MB per file), that is 750 MB of data. You've nearly filled an £800 hard drive in one afternoon.

Storing the "almost weekly" updates from the entire vlogging community over the 18 month construction period? YouTube '94 would need a server room filled with racks of spinning rust platters costing more than the ride itself. The sheer heat generated by thousands of 1GB drives spinning at 5400rpm would likely have opened a second hole in the ozone layer above Staffordshire.

And then there's the Bandwidth... The internet backbone in 1994 was held together by string and optimism. A T1 line (the absolute pinnacle of commercial connectivity, capable of a whopping 1.5 Mbps) cost about £2,000 a month.

If three people tried to watch a video at the same time, that T1 line would saturate immediately. The server wouldn't catch fire, it wouldn't even get to that point, it'd just hang up the phone in disgust.

If a vlogger existed in 1994, they wouldn't be online. They would be selling VHS tapes via mail order in the back of First Drop magazine.

"Send a Cheque or Postal Order for £12.99 to PO Box 456, Staffordshire, for NEMESIS: THE DIGGING (PART 4)."

You'd receive it 28 days later, by which point the ride would already be open.
 
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