Visit Triteland: Check Out the Johnstown Flood Ride!

Question: Where will Triteland amusement centers be located?

Answer: Everywhere fun-loving Americans need them most: Little Big Horn, Johnstown, Pa., Selma, Ala. Gettysburg, of course. The Alamo. The Donner Pass. Pearl Harbor, of course.

Q: Why do people need amusement centers in these--

A: To take their minds off them! The proven fact is, your Gloomy Guses and nattering nabobs of negativism are a brake on social and economic progress. We want to release the positive energy that has produced 327 breakfast cereals, “The Hollywood Squares” and Ronald Reagan’s presidency--just since World War II alone. The guy who invented Super Mario Brothers didn’t do it moping around some graveyard!

Q: And Triteland is--

A: . . . Exactly! An on-the-spot alternative to the sort of sourpuss solemnity that could, if unchecked, bring our entire leisure-time economy to a standstill!

Q: But these precious historical sites are--

A: . . . an Excedrin headache of human misery, folly and evil! Think Merv Griffin would have come up with “Wheel of Fortune” after traveling the Trail of Tears? We say, give equal time to old-fashioned American shallowness whenever folks confront anything that makes ‘em think. Visit the battlefields at Gettysburg and People magazine’s Worst-Dressed Celebrity List is about the furthest thing from your mind. You start thinking more about Ulysses S. than Amy or Lou Grant. A nearby Triteland will balance historical funk with hysterical fun. Because, remember--the Declaration of Independence talks about “the pursuit of happiness.” Not a word about the pursuit of boring old statues!

It’s like Led Zeppelin incessantly boomed out over the P.A. system at the ballpark. Drives any complicated thoughts--any thoughts--right out of your mind. In fact, new studies show that season-ticket holders actually lose I.Q. points!

Q: And when intellectual discrimination goes down--

A: Correct. Sales skyrocket!

Q: So Triteland will ignore history?

A: Au contraire! We’ll have Talking Plaques, with Rich Little’s and Dom DeLuise’s actual voices impersonating historical biggies from Sitting Bull to Davy Crockett. But the lighter side. No dates or facts, just sidesplitting fun for the whole family. You should hear Rich, doing that disappointed office-seeker who plugged McKinley!

Q: But surely there’s room even at Triteland for educational--

A: Sure thing! We’ll have--hey, not dioramas but Hanna-Barbera historical Laff-o-Ramas. Big-screen cartoons that bring tears--of pure laughter!

Q: Will people take away any precious memories or--

A: Armloads of ‘em! We’ll sell hysterical historical souvenirs--lifelike plastic scalps at Little Big Horn, for instance. At the Donner Pass Triteland--edible human limbs, a souvenir first! Candy-packed cannonballs at Gettysburg. When you start thinking Trite, there’s no lower limit!

Q: Well it all sounds--

A: And the rides! The Johnstown Flood’ll be the wildest, wackiest water attraction ever. Watch out for the Floating Locomotives!! Pickett’s Charge will have you screaming all the way up the hill and through the smoke and right into the Souvenir Trench. And the Pullman Strike, the Lowell Massacre--sheer mayhems of miraculous mechanical mirth!

Q: What about a Lee Harvey Oswald Shooting Gallery, right in Dealey Plaza? Or I-Shot-Abe-Lincoln T-shirts at--

A: Come, come! We’re talking American history here! Some things, after all, are sacred.