| Not to be confused with Steamin' Demon at Six Flags Great Escape. |
- "What we are really interested in is... where is the Demon? How did he get there? And why, why does he stay?"
- ―Background audio[src]
Demon is a looping steel roller coaster at Six Flags Great America, located in the County Fair section of the park. It opened as "Turn of the Century" along with the park on May 29, 1976. The ride also exists at California's Great America, the former sister park of Marriott's Great America, owned by Cedar Fair. The California's Great America version opened just nine days before the Six Flags Great America version.
History[]
Turn of the Century (1976-1980)[]
Demon originally opened on May 29, 1976 as "Turn of the Century", when the park was still known as Marriott's Great America. The ride featured two airtime hills and corkscrews.
Demon (1980-present)[]
In 1980, Turn of the Century became Demon, adding two vertical loops and different theming.[1] This is strikingly similar to what Six Flags themselves later did with Medusa at Six Flags Great Adventure when it became Bizarro.
Attraction experience[]
Queue[]
Guests enter next to a fiery sign that says Demon. They then enter the queue by choosing the standard line on the left or The Flash Pass line on the right. The line starts with a switchback section and an extended queue area. Upon completing this section, guests walk parallel to the pathways. This will continue forward, passing through some rockwork (meant to be magma.) After that, guests make a left turn and climb the stairs. A switchback section is followed by the loading station.
Ride[]
Guests get on one of three trains and lower down their over the shoulder restraints. After starting, the train leaves the station by heading into the tunnel, which then goes up an 100-foot lift hill, followed by a 90-foot drop. After heading into the first vertical loop, the train then goes into the second vertical loop, then into a tunnel filled with lights, before entering a mid-course block brake section. It then continues with a drop into a double corkscrew followed a turn into the second and final brake run, and then the train returns to the station. The ride experience is known to be very rough by coaster enthusiasts, as the shoulder restraints cause headbanging.
Ride overlays[]
Rage of the Gargoyles[]
- Main article: Rage of the Gargoyles
An optional interactive virtual reality experience on Demon during Fright Fest 2016. Like the other versions of the experience, guests "board" a plane and fly through a city while shooting gargoyles.
Original queue audio (1980-?)[]
From the ride's opening until after Six Flags acquired the park, Demon featured approximately 25 minutes of audio that told the backstory of the namesake Demon, and how he came to be. The audio was produced by Gene Patrick, had synthesizer sounds composed by Hoyt Curtin, and featured numerous Hanna-Barbera voice actors, including Gary Owens, Buster Jones, and Shannon Farnon. This was removed sometime in the mid-1980's, in an attempt to lighten the ride's tone due to complaints about it being too "devilish;" however, it has since returned. The audio also featured The Demon Song, sung by a Chicagoian barbershop quartet.
A deep male voice with a Transylvanian-type accent (Gary Owens) begins to speak, talking about how how "certain leading scientists" believe that the Demon first waded ashore from the "dark and muddy depths of a Louisiana swamp," seemingly referring to the Orleans Place section of the park. The voice then explains that other researchers believe that the Demon was "conceived" from "scummy, oily goo at the bottom of New York Harbor," referring to the Yankee Harbor section of the park. The ghostly sound of a foghorn from a ship can then be heard. The voice then explains that a third group believes that the Demon came from slime that landed in New Mexico in 1923 after an "intergalactic battle," likely a reference to the then-unbuilt Great Southwest section of the park. Synthesized laser sounds, akin to those on The Clash's Rock the Casbah, can then be heard. The voice then says "No matter, what we are really interested in is, where is the Demon? How did he get there? And why, why does he stay?"
The voice explains that at approximately 9 PM on a Thursday evening, the Demon "oozed and slithered" into the park's area, but he was so small that no one could tell that he was there at first. When he had finally sneaked onto one of the trains, he had made the riders vanish, except the parts of clothes on them. Then it's explained that even now, the Demon still uses the ride as its plaything. According to some eyewitnesses, the Demon can come various different shapes and sizes, as he can possess your imagination to see vivid and sometimes terrifying images of him as his disguise. A woman (Janet Waldo) even explains the Demon can make you act in strange ways, as was the case with her normally-aloof boyfriend. But by far the scariest part of the experience, Gary claims, is realizing someone's gum was stuck to the back of your shirt the entire ride.
An African-American guy (Buster Jones) claims he isn't scared of the Demon, but he gets summarily attacked. There are some interviews with scientists and a report by a Southern guy (Casey Kasem.) Gary Owens is also Captain Bucky McMacho, a pilot who attempts to blow up the Demon. The audio loop ends with a report of the ride dispatching while it was being tested, but the employee (voiced by Gene Patrick or someone else at Marriott) shrugging it off.
This audio refers to the rockwork round the ride as "molten rocks of magma," which became confusing for new riders after the rocks got removed.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
Queue Photos[]
Exterior Photos[]
References[]
External links[]
- Demon | Six Flags Great America
Demon at the Roller Coaster DataBase- Demon (Six Flags Great America) at the Roller Coaster Wiki
- Demon (roller coaster) at Wikipedia
