The weirder the better

There's no underestimating people's taste, and Time has a series of articles about the latest evidence:

 Josh Sanburn has this about the French:

It's been two hundred years since Napoleon ravaged Europe in the name of French nationalism, so maybe it's time to put aside the differences over all that warmongering and failed empire-building and all go to an amusement park together. France thinks so, at least. By 2014, construction is set to begin on Napoleonland, a new theme park designed to pay homage to the French leader some believe to be a hero and others think of as one of history's most loathsome dictators. Park-goers can expect a water show recreating the Battle of Trafalgar, tributes to Napoleon's crushing defeat of the Russo-Austrian Army at the Battle of Austerlitz, a ski run littered with the frozen bodies of soldiers and horses and a re-creation of Louis XVI on the guillotine— all of it on the site of one of Napoleon's greatest victories, the Battle of Montereau. Even the Battle of Waterloo, which ended Napoleonic rule, will be featured. "It's going to be fun for the family," Yves Jego, the brainchild behind the park, told The London Telegraph. Indeed. After all, wouldn't Disneyland be better if its grounds were scattered with war casualties and eighteenth century beheadings?

Samantha Grossman has more here about Napoleanland:

An attraction for amusement park enthusiasts and history buffs alike might seem like a tall order, but France has found the answer: Napoleonland. According to current plans, this elaborate park, spearheaded by politician Yves Jégo, will be built just south of Paris, at the site of Napoleon’s victorious Battle of Montereau, The London Telegraph reported.
Key diversions will include daily reenactments of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, which ended Napoleon’s rule, and a water show recreating the Battle of Trafalgar, another major defeat for Napoleon. The park’s planners also aspire to recreate the death of France’s last king, Louis XVI, who died on the guillotine during the French Revolution. Another potential feature is a ski run through a wintry battlefield, complete with frozen bodies of soldiers and horses, according to the Daily Mail.
Slightly less sinister attractions will include a museum, eateries, a hotel, and gift shops.
As of now, there is no national museum dedicated to the French icon. Jégo hopes to begin construction in 2014, opening Napoleonland’s doors in 2017. The park will likely create three thousand jobs, but will come with an estimated $232 million price tag. With any luck, the planners won’t come up short. (Sorry.)

Lily Rothman has this:

Grutas Park, a site about 75 miles outside Vilnius in Lithuania, doesn't have a roller coaster or a Ferris wheel— but it does have dozens of Soviet-era sculptures that escaped destruction when Lithuania gained its independence. The park's founder, Viliumas Malinauskas, used his family's mushroom-and-berry fortune to establish a place for those monuments to socialism to live on as a permanent reminder of past oppressions. But Malinauskas didn't stop there. Grutas Park, which opened in 2001, is also home to a Soviet-era playground, a restaurant serving Soviet-era dishes, and, oddly, a zoo, complete with non-Soviet-era ostriches. If you're planning a trip, aim for 1 April and catch an annual comedy festival featuring impersonations of Communist Party bigwigs and bureaucrats.

Chris Matthews has this:

Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida, sits in the shadows of some of the world's most famous theme parks, but visitors expecting hair-raising rollercoasters may be disappointed. Holy Land is more of an outdoor museum than an amusement park, featuring exhibits such as the Jerusalem Street Market, which recreates what the holy city was like 2,000 years ago. For the less faint of heart, you can even watch a bloody recreation of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Sounds fun, right? Bought by Trinity Broadcast Network a few years ago, the Christian media company has big ambitions for the little park, hoping that it will serve as a staging ground for TV shows or concerts for the network. As Trinity Chief of Staff Paul Crouch says, "[It's] a faith based version of Universal Studios."

Samantha Grossman has this:

BonBon Land is some fifty miles southwest of Copenhagen, the whimsical, wacky and vaguely disturbing theme park home to attractions like the Farting Dog and Skid Mark rollercoasters. Though now owned by Spanish entertainment company Parques Reunidos, BonBon Land is the brainchild of Danish confectioner Michael Spangsberg, who opened the park in 1992 to promote his developing candy business, BonBon. In addition to log flumes and rollercoasters, BonBon Land features a puzzling variety of cartoon animal statues, along with murals depicting seagulls defecating into alligators' mouths and dogs gleefully passing gas. General admission during summer months costs almost forty dollars, but can you really put a price on taking a ride on the Skid Mark?

Alexandra Sifferlin has this:

Visitors make their way into Hacienda Napoles, a museum and exotic animal park located in Colombia, by passing through an archway decorated with an old airplane. But that's not just any old airplane— it's the same plane that transported the notorious Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar's first load of cocaine to the US. The park is located on the grounds of the former drug lord's ranch. Before police shot and killed Escobar in 1993, Hacienda Napoles served as his home and a playground full of life-sized dinosaur sculptures, vintage cars, and more than a dozen hippos. Though the property initially fell into disarray after his death, a group of businessmen turned the site into a full-fledged tourist attraction for those eager to see the remnants of the cartel boss's home. Today, the park features guided tours, horseback riding, a swimming pool, and a zoo, and attracts upwards of fifty thousand visitors per year.

Jared Miller has this:

Does filling out loan applications sound like your idea of kid-friendly fun? Probably not, but it fit right into the idea behind La República de los Niños. Literally translated as The Children's Republic, the child-sized Argentine theme park was a product of the Eva Perón Foundation, run by the wife of populist authoritarian President Juan Domingo Perón. Created to teach Argentinean youth about the virtues of democracy, young visitors to the park can elect their own congress and haggle with banks over imaginary loans. With its tall spires and bright colors, the park almost looks like the original Disneyland. Indeed, the park's management claims to have inspired Walt's own creation, but that is a dubious claim as there is no evidence of Walt ever visiting or having knowledge of The Children's Republic, even if Disneyland did open just three years after the Argentine theme park welcomed its first batch of budding civil servants.

Nate Rawlings has this:

The world has heard a lot about Charles Dickens lately. In anticipation of what would have been the author's two-hundredth birthday, Time's executive editor Radhika Jones counted down the ten greatest Dickens novels, and the UK held a giant birthday party led by Prince Charles. But, for the visionaries who dreamed up Dickens World, Prince Charles seems very late to the party. In the best of times— the tail end of the global financial boom— Dickens World, located in County Kent in England, was a $124 million idea that, Sam Anderson wrote in the New York Times magazine, "promised to be an 'authentic' re-creation of the London of Charles Dickens' novels, complete with soot, pickpockets, cobblestones, gas lamps, animatronic Dickens characters, and strategically placed chemical 'smell pots' that would, when heated, emit odors of offal and rotting cabbage." But Anderson, who attended the delayed opening of the park in 2007, returned in 2012 to find a park wracked by the recession, surviving off of rent from the chain restaurants that abut the village. The park has fallen on hard times, which allowed Anderson a bit of thought in Dickens' fashion: "I found myself fantasizing that Dickens World would be adopted by a wealthier park," he wrote, "And that it would manage to somehow vanquish its villains, overcome the odds, and live happily ever after."

Jared Miller has this:

Located on the South Korean island of Jeju— known in decades past as the traditional honeymoon island for arranged-marriage newlyweds— Love Land is one of the world's most salacious sculpture gardens. The park greets visitors with sprawling limbs and remarkably acrobatic (and unmentionable) depictions of love-making, created by art students from Korea's Hongik University. Besides phallic artwork, the park also includes sex-ed information at its visitor center, and a gift shop for those who leave the park feeling, ahem, inspired. In China, one man was so taken by the idea that he designed and constructed a Love Land for his own country's citizens and served as its park manager. However, Chinese authorities shuttered the completed park in May of 2009 before it ever opened, relegating China's kinkier side back behind closed doors.

Alexandra Sifferlin has this:

Dolly Parton is a modern day jane-of-all-trades, but who knew the Queen of Country was also a theme park connoisseur? Dollywood, the entertainer's thrill park, is a full-fledged amusement extravaganza, with rides like Dolly's Demolition Derby bumper cars and the Dollywood Express steam engine. The park is actually considered Tennessee's number one ticketed tourist attraction. Sure, Parton's won her fair share of Grammys in her time, but she told the Associated Press that her theme park is "one of the greatest dreams she's ever had come true." Still not getting enough Dolly? Her water park, Dollywood's Splash Country, is right next door. Who cares about Song of the Year when you have your own roller coaster with a hundred foot drop?

Nate Rawlings has this:

Take a ride on the WayBack machine to a 2006 archive of the now-defunct English website for the Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park. Ignore the very lengthy narrative about the construction of the park, which began in 1986, and focus on the attractions, which include a gothic Cinderella Castle, an Arabic Restaurant, a European Blue Bridge, and a Russian Entrance Hall, and it's clear the park was indeed designed to be "more than sixty amusement facilities in one". But the problem with the park isn't its rides, which admittedly look quite fun, but its apparent copyright violations. When ABC News visited Shijingshan in 2007, they reported that much of the place looked eerily similar to parts of Disney theme parks and that the characters bore striking resemblances to Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Snow White. Even the park's slogan, "Disney is too far, please come to Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park," hints as the park's motives. Still, when pressed, Shijingshan's deputy general manager Yin Zhiqiang told the Associated Press in 2007: "We do not have any agreements with Disney. The characters in our park just look a little bit similar to theirs." While there hasn't been much written about the Beijing Shijingshan park since 2007, it was rumored that the park's managers toned down the similarities with Disney characters. To see if it's true, you'll just have to visit.

Rico says that, if it wasn't H.L. Mencken who said you can't underestimate the taste of the American people, it should have been. (But, Rico supposes, Dickens' World is at least slightly better than Wayne's World...)