Six Flags Over Memphis (Memphisworld AU)

Six Flags Over Memphis is an amusement park located in Germantown, Tennessee. It is owned by Six Flags.

Development
In 1984, the Memphis Entertainment Company began construction of their first ever park. Two years later, the $30-million-dollar park finished construction and it opened with huge fanfare on July 4th, 1986.

Operation under MEC (1986-1995)
When it opened in 1986, Memphisworld featured seven roller coasters:


 * The Memphis Screamer,
 * The Memphis Bobsled,
 * American Wildcat, which was later renamed to simply the Wildcat,
 * Jetliner, which is the only few Intamin Space Divers left,
 * Whirlwind, which operated until 1999,
 * The Flitzer, which operated until 1994, and
 * Sooper Jet, which only operated for one season.

The park's other attractions on opening day were:


 * The Vote Theater, an interactive movie theater which operated until 1993,
 * The Memphis Freefall, an Intamin 1st Gen FreeFall ride,
 * Memphis Skylift, an Gondola lift,
 * Earthquake, a HUSS Breakdance ride, and
 * The Floating Balloons, a Zamperla Balloon Race.

Premier Parks era (1996-1999)
In early 1996, Premier Parks assumed ownership of the park. MEC had gone belly up, having been the unfortunate victim of a massive money scandal.

In 1997, Mind Eraser opened, on a plot of land that was meant to be for a future hotel prior to MEC's bankruptcy.

Six Flags era (1999-present)
In 1999, Premier Parks was purchased by Six Flags and the park was renamed to Six Flags Over Memphis in 2000. Many rides was renamed and rethemed, and the park also opened two new coasters that year: Hurricane and Mr. Freeze.

Trivia

 * Both of the movies were filmed in 1984 for a Laserdisc movie theater called Cine-Vote at Expo '85. After the fair ended, the films were moved to Memphisworld for 1986 season.
 * The park initially wanted to contact CCI to build Hurricane. For reasons still unknown years later, they ended up contacting RCCA (Roller Coaster Corporation of America) instead.
 * Memphis Comet took one year to relocate. In fact the ride was still under reconstruction when the park opened in 1986, so it opened halfway through 1986's season; to compensate and to attempt to hide the coaster, a temporary stage was set up.
 * Wildcat (formerly known as American Wildcat) was the first coaster to be constructed at the park.
 * While rebuilding Memphis Comet, one of the NAD trains was seen in storage and later displayed in the ride's queue line. They bought black and red striped D.H. Morgan trains to replace them.
 * Headrests were added in 1995.
 * In 1991, the park bought Wild Mouse cars from Conneaut Lake Park to replace the old Wild Mouse cars. However, these cars had their wheels slightly damaged in transit, so slight no one noticed it. This lead to the incident you see below, under Incidents.
 * Originally, the park was scheduled to open on July 1, 1986, but it was delayed until July 4 due to them wanting to cash in on the Fourth of July holiday.
 * Originally, the park really wanted to build an Intamin Triple Ferris Wheel ride named Memphis Wheels ("Wheels" as in more than one wheel), but when the park first opened, the attraction wasn't there. The park didn't build an Intamin wheel of any sort until 1991 when the park bought Double Wheel from Kuwait Entertainment City, renamed it to Memphis Wheels and opened it for the 1992 season.

Incidents

 * On October 21, 1986, at 1:54 pm, the Sooper Jet coaster reportedly caught on fire. However, no one was injured as the coaster was closed for inspection that day, thought it was still removed at the end of the season (as initially planned).
 * On September 8, 1995, at 4:18 pm, a wheel on one of the Wild Mouse cars came loose after a huge drop. Luckily, no one was injured, but the ride itself was closed forever due to the fact that it was not only a maintenance nightmare but also because it was already on the chopping block. Things got worse, however, as during the off-season demolition of Wild Mouse, a member of the demolition crew (Caleb Walker, 39) fell from the 30 foot wooden support structure after a rainstorm made the wood wet, and "had his back broken into a million pieces". He later sued Memphis Entertainment Company for $14 million. The lawsuit was settled out of court as MEC was in the process of merging with Premier after a massive money scandal all but wiped out MEC's money reserves.
 * On May 11, 2004, at 9:13 am, a train on Deja Vu rolled back and flew off the tracks at the cobra roll. Four died and the rest of the riders suffered serious injuries. The cause? An hour before, during a maintenance check, a worker accidentally made the bit of track that comes off in maintenance to remove the train come loose. When the train reached it, it fell off. The worker was sued by the families for $40 million, $10 million for every rider killed. The worker lost and was promptly fired. The ride was given a major rehab so that it would be able to operate in the Mid-South climate for a long time to come.