The Joker Media Day at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

After months of updates and closely following along with construction of California’s newest and highly anticipated roller-coaster, The Joker, it was finally time to experience it for ourselves during the Media Day! This report looks mainly at the Media Day, we’re currently also working on a very detailed Ride Review, which will launch soon! – For those with Six Flags Season Passes, you may ride the Joker May 27th and 28th, more details below!

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So what exactly is The Joker? Let the banner near the ride tell us… Anyhow, the media day was about to begin, with the ribbon ready to be cut in front of the ride’s entrance. But before any of the official opening stuff… WE WERE WELCOMED BY PENGUINS!  YES PENGUINS! Adorable (but actually not so kind to their keepers) PENGUINS! This here is Pong. The infamous penguin you may have seen on park banners. If he’s not Pong (one of the two they brought out was in fact Pong) then he just looks a lot like Pong. Either way, super adorable. Wow.  On our way in by the way, we noticed the park’s newest addition to their car line-up. This awesome joker-wrapped Ford!  But let’s cut to the actual opening of the ride now… First off one of the park’s directors, Kirk Smith, welcomed all the guests with his awesome shoes (matching green and purple shoe laces). He spoke a little about the past rides the park acquired and the significance of The Joker before introducing one of the honorable guests. A well-known Bay Area comedian, Michael Pritchard was welcomed to the stage to tell us a little bit about what it’s like to be a comedian, how it keeps one young, which all blended in with the theme of the Joker. There were 10 more honorable guests, all comedians from the Bay Area, that were introduced a little bit later on.  Next up was Six Flags Discovery Kingdom’s Park President, Don McCoy. He himself spotted some awesome Joker themed shoes too, in fact custom The Joker converse!

He then went on to talk about The Joker, and how highly anticipated the ride was, not only in Northern California, but in the World. Which is true, as we all know… RMC coasters are just simply amazing, and The Joker is no exception! Don McCoy then introduced 10 more Bay Area comedians (or should I say ‘Jokers’ 😛 ), who would be the first official riders of The Joker!  But the biggest Joker of them all made an appearance too of course!! The same awesome actor we all met at the train reveal! And then it was time for the official ribbon cutting! Done by Don McCoy and Michael Pritchard! And now the Joke’s officially ON YOU! HA HA HA! – Which by the way is on the side of the Breaking Wave structure and looks awesome!  Now let’s walk through the mouth of this giant clown to ride, shall we?Or you may find yourself waiting through these switchbacks… but you will eventually get to walk through the magical mouth to the station! The ride was operating with one train during the media event, luckily with two trains later that day for the VIP event. The sun also came out later that day, so in our Ride Review you’ll find lots of awesome blue-sky shots 😛 Oh and a little fun fact regarding the storage track, the park added a hole to the roof so they can lift the trains’ cars out of the storage track area!  Also new to the ride/ area… is the Penguin Ride. Themed after… the Penguin! The ride itself isn’t exactly new, as it’s Tsunami Soaker’s retheme. There’s still some retheming left to do, I feel, as there’s still some Tsunami Soaker branding on several ride vehicles, as well as some seagull theming on top of colored posts.  There is an official new sign for the ride though! Officially making the area its own little Discovery Kingdom DC Universe!  Here’s a look at the new Fun House Shop, more on that in the Ride Review!  But before the actual detailed Ride Review… let’s quickly talk about the ride experience! – There’s a few things that are pretty important to know: often times times a ride delivers somewhat different experiences in the back versus the front of the train. In the Joker’s case, it makes a HUGE difference. The front offers an entirely different ride experience than the back does. If you’re looking to be dragged along the course and experience continuous ejector airtime with a fling of hang-time in the Zero G Roll, then the back is your place to be. If you want be thrown around side-ways and experience very nice ‘pops’ of airtime, often quick ejector-filled ones, and want to experience more hang time in the stall, then the front is the place to be. But in whichever row on the train you ride, it is one marvelous roller coaster. The drop is what you get from mixing Twisted Colossus’ drop with that of local Vortex for example, and is just a very cool one. It’s comparable to a feeling you may get on Superman Ultimate Flight’s drop, depending on the row you’re riding in. But overall it’s a fun little drop. The inversions on the ride, except for the Step Up Under Flip, are filled with hang time, and to the surprise of many, that’s indeed also the case for the Zero G Roll. The Breaking Wave Turn is a very fun element, it throws riders around a bit for the first half, but is silky smooth and ejector filled in the second half, this of course is followed by more ejector, a turn that is not too forceful, and then the Asian Camelback, which may very well be the most interesting element on the ride, as the front vs. back situation on this ride is very noticeable in this element! Overall the ride does a good job combining airtime, ejector mostly, with fun laterals, in a well-paced wonderful RMC creation! – More in our Ride Review! (Which includes a Front car vs Back car analysis). 

Thank you for checking out this quick Media Day Report from The Joker, which is opening at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom on Sunday may 29th! Season Pass Holders can ride all day tomorrow, May 27th, as well as from 9:30am to 1:00pm on Saturday May 28th! Check out the full ride review of The Joker with many pictures of the ride and detailed experience analysis, soon!

Make sure to check out our hit MASS EFFECT: NEW EARTH Media Day Report!

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