The lone and level sands stretch far away

June 6, 2015 2:14 PM

Searching for a real-estate investment? Bedrock City, a Flintstones-themed amusement park outside of Valle, Arizona, is for sale (Hanna-Barbera licensing rights not included). Comments below give a flavor of what it was to visit the park (see also: VICE). This tour (YT, 4:51) reveals a daylight-nightmare place devoid of all life and meaning. But these ladies seem to have a good time (6:26).
posted by Countess Elena (44 comments total)

If they're only having a good time, no deal. I think we all know exactly what kind of time a Flintstones-themed destination is supposed to deliver, and "good" ain't gonna cut it.
posted by No-sword at 2:27 PM on June 6, 2015 [22 favorites]

I don't know how they got a license from Hanna-Barbera in the first place. That's just... awful.
posted by Mooski at 2:34 PM on June 6, 2015

Somebody who knows more about both things than I do could probably come up with some pretty good Black Bedrock City gags.
posted by box at 2:37 PM on June 6, 2015

When I was little (late 70s-early 80s) I remember spending several summer weekends at a Flintstone's themed vacation RV camp/park near Slippery Rock, PA - at the time called Jellystone Park. There are still a few spread across the US, but many places abandoned the extra cost of licensing fees in the early 80s. I remember a lot of themed stuff there, but more along the lines of signage - lots of life-sized characters painted on buildings or on flat wooden signs and a few fiberglass statues, a few car-sized concrete dinosaurs, but not whole buildings made to look like those in the show.
posted by chambers at 2:44 PM on June 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Looks like there is still a functioning one in South Dakota, run by cousins of the people who founded this place, who had worked at the SD one before heading to the hell of AZ to create this sad display of desperation...

Going to be going through South Dakota in a week...
posted by Windopaene at 2:52 PM on June 6, 2015

For that place, I wouldn't exactly call $2 million a rock-bottom price.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:56 PM on June 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

which is part of a train ride that uses a re-designed golf cart

What... what exactly does it use it for?
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:58 PM on June 6, 2015

Season 3 of True Detective has its set!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:00 PM on June 6, 2015 [9 favorites]

Time is a flat circle, Wilma.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:02 PM on June 6, 2015 [4 favorites]

Wasn't Jellystone Park Yogi Bear themed? I remember seeing signs for them while on road trips with my family when I was a kid.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:04 PM on June 6, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm sorta making a video game around this, like you'll drive across country and the road splits off into this randomly generated tourist attractions that are in the middle of nowhere. All the motels are seedy looking, as well as the truck stops. Currently it's set up so that you can drive forever, until the floating-point math breaks down.
posted by hellojed at 3:05 PM on June 6, 2015 [16 favorites]

Season 3 of True Detective has its set!

And they somehow never leave the set - they just keep passing the same buildings and background over and over...

Even a well-made parody of True Detective done by editing together old episodes of the Flintstones and reasonably decent voice work would be cool too.

Why has this not been done already? This has lots of potential for a nice mix of funny and WTF.
posted by chambers at 3:05 PM on June 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

To think, if the planned Arizona section of New Vegas got made, this could've been a legion camp.
posted by The Whelk at 3:13 PM on June 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

My name is Barney Rubble, king of kings!
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:22 PM on June 6, 2015 [14 favorites]

I camped at the Flintstones™ Bedrock City in South Dakota on a family road trip about 25 years ago. It was pretty good as far as weird roadside attractions go. There was a convoy of National Guard troops stopped there too, which added an extra surreal touch.
posted by mbrubeck at 3:23 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

How awful! For some reason there were two of these in British Columbia. The last time we went it was devoid of tourists, but only because it was raining. Calaway Park in Calgary had a Hanna Barbera theme as well that was abandoned within a year or so. You can still see puppets of the Gruesomes in the haunted house and there are traces here and there still.
posted by Calzephyr at 3:27 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

*a vulture tears scraps from the fake fur seat covers of the Flintstones-mobile to use as nesting material*


¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "It's a living."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:47 PM on June 6, 2015 [19 favorites]

Consultation with my parents (happily visiting just now) tells me we went to the South Dakota one, not the AZ one. I had totally forgotten about this place but one picture and the memories are right there.

I have also been to Jellystone Park.

Honestly, if it was weird roadside US stuff in the 80s, I've probably been.
posted by feckless at 4:07 PM on June 6, 2015

Betty and Barney are the folks next door
I’m crawling around all over the floor
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:13 PM on June 6, 2015

Greg_Ace: "For that place, I wouldn't exactly call $2 million a rock-bottom price."

Mmmm. My heart says yabba dabba do, but my head says yabba dabba don't.
posted by boo_radley at 4:14 PM on June 6, 2015 [12 favorites]

According to the website there are still 83 Jellystone parks, and they're still offering francises.

But those are just campgrounds with a bigger-than-usual pool. This looks way cooler. If I had the fundage, I'd buy it and change it just enough so that I didn't need the licensing, and call it "Generic Cavepeople Fun Land".
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:50 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

I blame Mr. Slate.
posted by jonmc at 4:52 PM on June 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

Well, we've found the perfect spot for the creationist amusement park. The fact that people who think dinosaur bones are just god's little joke on archeologists would have drive into the searing desert under an unforgiving sun is just a bonus, really.
posted by dejah420 at 5:04 PM on June 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Would the Way-Outs play there occasionally?
posted by jonmc at 5:19 PM on June 6, 2015

There was a convoy of National Guard troops stopped there too, which added an extra surreal touch.

I can neither confirm nor deny that we do that sort of thing totally intentionally until some un-fun Captain reminds us not to scare the civilians.
posted by Etrigan at 5:22 PM on June 6, 2015

This is the type of place that is not necessarily worth a trip but fun to stop on the way, and I'm sad to think they are dying out.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:09 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

We used to go to the Bedrock City in B.C. when I was a kid in the 70s. It was awesome, and I am bitter that it no longer exists. I remember you could play in the little bedrock houses and they had dinosaur statues everywhere.

Photographic evidence of my father wrestling a dinosaur.
posted by evilcupcakes at 6:10 PM on June 6, 2015 [7 favorites]

Mmmm. My heart says yabba dabba do, but my head says yabba dabba don't.

We can fix that easily enough. There's just one little formality left - it's nothing, really, just a form you sign that says you're not interested and notifies my real estate company so that we never bother you again.

Could you do me a quick favor? My scatterbrained secretary left the forms we need to finish this all up over there in the closet on that high shelf, and I strained by back the other day and - yep, that's it, those papers underneath that bowling ball. No need to move the bowling ball, just grab those papers and give it a yank, I'm sure it will slide right out...
posted by chambers at 6:21 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

What I don't get is that art carney was taller.
posted by clavdivs at 7:02 PM on June 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

The first YouTube tour in the FPP, as promised, reveals a desolate, wind-swept, profoundly mute landscape.

But this FPP's second YouTube tour features a visit by Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart co-starring fan/follower Jordan and, well, I was smiles and laughs the entire way through.

So fun!

Just goes to show, adventures are what you make of them.
posted by mistersquid at 7:25 PM on June 6, 2015

Probably requires a bit of on-site maintenance too. Which would be required on the same night you're supposed to be with your wife to celebrate your anniversary. So you'd have to come up with elaborate schemes to be at two places at once.
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 8:22 PM on June 6, 2015 [7 favorites]

Loyal Order of Water Buffalo Lodge or GTFO.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:25 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

Twitch! Twitch!
posted by mazola at 9:36 PM on June 6, 2015

Here's what Bedrock has going for it: It's on the way to the Grand Canyon. You can camp there cheap. Annnnnnd thats about it.

That said, several years back, we had to go ahead and drop the few bucks to go in and see the place because, well, we just had to. Roadside Americana is harder to come by than before and my wife just wanted to see the kitsch. We were the only people there. The place was in the same condition it was when mom took us by there 15 years before that. Well, when mom took us there the golf cart train was driveable, so I guess it was in slightly better condition. On that trip we were also the only people there.

I really don't know how it's managed to stick around so long.
posted by azpenguin at 9:39 PM on June 6, 2015

Wasn't Jellystone Park Yogi Bear themed?

Wow... You're right. Somehow they totally merged together in my brain. However, I seems to recall that there were Flintstones characters there too. Maybe it was just a random sign or painted wall made by someone at the park, and figured "Eh, it's all Hanna-Barbera."

Right now I can't honestly tell if the memory of seeing both of them at the park was real and my mix-up was due to always having seen those characters together or if my memory just blended the two because that's what happens sometimes.

It's the oddest damn thing. I know the statues were of Yogi Bear characters, but I can clearly remember Fred Flintstone and Wilma painted on the side of a building by the pool, a 4th of July parade that had a golf cart made up to look like a Flintstone's foot car, and another non-moving Flintstone car where the wheels were logs.

I looked up where Hanna-Barbera had characters at amusement parks, and while I have been at Cedar Point (no HB there, IIRC), I don't think I ever went to King's Island as a kid.
posted by chambers at 9:45 PM on June 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Would I be a bad man if the first thing that went through my head was a homeless commune kind of like that one driven by Bitcoin in California?
posted by Samizdata at 9:46 PM on June 6, 2015

OH MY GOD. I have been here. Several times. My dad used to travel to Arizona for work and we'd always make a pit stop here on the way from the Grand Canyon. It's been at least a dozen years since I was last there but I remember it vividly.

It is exactly as eerie and desolate as the videos suggest. Even back in the 90s, the whole place looked like it had been eroding, unmaintained, for decades. All the machines were broken down, all the "attractions" unattended, all the little plaster buildings full of dusty plaster props nailed to the floor. I can still picture the forlorn "movie theater" -- a dank, windowless, pitch-black hovel with a busted projector that was supposed to be playing old Flintstones episodes. You'd emerge from it disappointed, blinded by the desert sun, a landscape of ruins splayed out before you, a lone bullhorn echoing the Flintstones theme song over the lifeless wasteland. Like climbing out of a bomb shelter after a nuclear war.

I don't know how on earth they stay open without the legal sledgehammer of the corporate rights-holders coming down on them, especially not if they're trying to sell it for millions. I just hope it does find a way to go on -- it's such a fun nightmare, one of the last and strangest ghosts of the old Route 66 roadside culture.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:07 AM on June 7, 2015 [8 favorites]

Rhaomi - their use of the Flintstones branding is licensed (though the sale brochure notes that "The Hanna Barbera license does not convey").
posted by russm at 1:18 AM on June 7, 2015

Yep, having RTFA now, I'm surprised to find this place still has the company's blessing. And that suggestion towards the end that it be torn down to make room for another casino or outlet mall makes me sad.

For another good look at what it's like in Bedrock City, check out AdamTheWoo's sardonic exploration of the park, briskly edited (with color commentary) to hit all the "highlights." He's also got a similarly creepy video exploring the ruins of the original set for the 90s Nickeloden show Hey Dude.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:39 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Millennia from now, when society has been rebuilt after The Event and future archaeologists dig this place out from under the ashes, what conclusions will they draw about the lives we lived and the strange gods we worshipped?
posted by Dext at 3:43 AM on June 7, 2015

I would live there if I could a brontosaurus hock brought to my car door.
posted by rankfreudlite at 4:07 AM on June 7, 2015

How much is a license for Dinosaurs the TV show?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:33 AM on June 7, 2015

Well, we've found the perfect spot for the creationist amusement park. The fact that people who think dinosaur bones are just god's little joke on archeologists would have drive into the searing desert under an unforgiving sun is just a bonus, really.

It's literally been done.
posted by anazgnos at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2015

We used to go to the Bedrock City in B.C. when I was a kid in the 70s. It was awesome, and I am bitter that it no longer exists. I remember you could play in the little bedrock houses and they had dinosaur statues everywhere.

Same! I loved that place so much as a kid. The one in Chilliwack (Bridal Falls?) was nearish to my grandparents' house so I always begged to go whenever we were there. I think my parents liked it somewhat less.

It then became Dinotown, which has since closed, and is now slated to become an RV park.
posted by urbanlenny at 9:32 AM on June 8, 2015