Darien Lake - New For 2010!

I went to the press conference this morning at Darien Lake and got all the details on what's new this year. If you're a fan of waterparks, you're going to love the new park!

Yes, a whole new park! Splashtown at Darien Lake will open Memorial Day weekend. The waterpark and rides will now be two different parks. Pricing details are at the Darien Lake website. The season pass is the best bet for this, as it's still a great deal regardless.

Here's video from the press conference announcing Splashtown with details on all the new slides and attractions. I'll also list what's new below...




The new attractions include...

FLOTATION STATION: A 1,024-foot lazy river! I've been waiting for Darien Lake to get one of these forever.

LAZY DAYS LAGOON: A second wave pool, this one with gently rolling waves as opposed to the larger waves at their Crocodile Isle wave pool. It's actually part of Flotation Station.

SWIRL CITY SLIDE COMPLEX: Four new waterslides...

* Mister Twister - Features three funnels!

* Cannon Ball Run - A high-speed slide with a giant 40-foot "Cannon Bowl".

* Turbo Twins - Two twisted enclosed slides with some translucent sections thrown in.


In addition to Splashtown, Darien Lake has transformed ten rooms in their Lodge On The Lake Hotel into "Forts-O-Fun" family rooms. They offer kids their own room-in-a-room with a fort-themed play and sleep space that includes its own TV and Playstation 3 console.

Darien Lake has also added 24 lakeside Brown Bear Cabins to the campsite area.

More details on all the new additions are at Darien Lake's website.

The best news of all - nothing is being removed from the park to make way for all these additions! Although Floodgate Falls (the cascading lazy river in the original waterpark) will remain out of operation again this year.

Opening day is Saturday, May 8th (with Splashtown opening Memorial Day weekend)!

Darien Lake in the early 80's...

I was looking through some of my parents' old pictures and ran across these from the early days of Darien Lake.

It was like me and my brother had our own personal paparazzi following us around. No wonder I'm not a fan of getting my picture taken now! But I have to admit, I am happy my parents took all these great 80's pictures of Darien Lake...

Me (right) and my friend Patrick riding the Viper during its first summer in 1982.

I'm patiently waiting here for my parents to take a picture before going back on one of Darien Lake's awesome Rainbow Mountain waterslides in June of 1980. The second slide was called Acapulco Falls and the third was Kamikaze. I can't remember the name of the first one or the kiddie slide.

My brother (along with some random girl) riding the kiddie boats in June of 1980.

Here I am putting up with my parents telling me to freeze as I get out of the Enterprise car (now called Silver Bullet) on what I think was its second day of operation in June of 1980. Me and my Dad watched as the German mechanics did the final tests on the ride the day before. My Dad went on the ride in the afternoon that first day, while I finally got the courage to go on later that night. I even remember what I was thinking here: I just wanted to get out of the car and get back in line so I could ride again - lol.

Mr. Belvedere's Ilene Graff (Marsha Owens)...

Ilene Graff was Marsha Owens (the Mom) on the 80's sitcom Mr.Belvedere. The show lasted 6 seasons for a total of 117 episodes and she was one of only three of the cast to appear in every one of them (Christopher Hewitt & Brice Beckham as Mr. Belvedere & Wesley were the other two).

Shout! Factory recently released season 4 of the show on DVD. It's only available at the Shout! Factory website.

I think this (along with season 5) was the high point for the series. This is the season where Heather & Wesley went to Atlantic City while Mr. Belvedere went wild back at the house, Marsha got her first job at a law firm, George got a job as a TV sports reporter, Kevin got his own apartment, Robert Goulet made his second appearance on the series, and Wesley had a jump-the-shark moment at summer camp.

In addition to starring in this classic 80's sitcom, Ilene is also a singer. She had a chance to sing during part two of "The Trip" in season 4 of Mr. Belvedere. And she'll be singing this coming weekend on the Variety Kids Telethon here in Buffalo.

The pre-telethon concert will be Saturday night at 7pm at the Bishop Timon / St. Jude Auditorium on McKinley Parkway, then the Telethon itself will be Sunday at the Adam's Mark Hotel and broadcast live on Channel 7.

Earlier tonight, I had the chance to talk with Ilene. Here's the full interview and a list of all the links mentioned...

Full Star 102.5 interview with Ilene Graff

Mr. Belvedere Season 4 DVD

Ilene Graff's official website

Variety Kids Telethon website

The Variety Kids Telethon Concert page

Ilene Graff on The $25,000 Pyramid

Mr. Belvedere & Darien Lake...

No, there's not going to be a Mr. Belvedere themed ride at Darien Lake. Even when the show was actually on the air in the 80's that would have been weird.

The only connection between the two is I'm mentioning something about each today. First up, Mr. Belvedere and one of the stars from the show - Ilene Graff...

VARIETY KIDS TELETHON:

The telethon will be Sunday, March 28th on Channel 7. The true kickoff though is the night before at the Bishop Timon / St. Jude Auditorium on McKinley Parkway in Buffalo. That's when all the telethon celebrities will perform and officially kick off the Variety Kids Telethon weekend.

Ilene Graff, who played Marsha Owens (the Mom) , will be one of the celebrities this year. She's a telethon favorite who keeps getting invited back.

I'll talk with her Wednesday night on Star 102.5 about the upcoming telethon. And of course I can't wait to hear her behind-the-scenes Mr. Belvedere stories!

In addition to that, I'll be giving away DVD's of seasons 3 & 4 of Mr. Belvedere (from shoutfactory.com) during the all request hour at 6pm.


COASTERS FOR CARING:

Kind of staying with the charity thing, it's fundraising now. That's such a boring word. I hope I never have to be on the organizational end of that nightmare. But add roller coasters and spin rides to it and suddenly fundraising becomes interesting.

Darien Lake is helping non-profit organizations by offering discounted tickets to the park. Day tickets get sold for $19.99 and your organization keeps $5 for every one! Plus, you get two free tickets for every 50 sold. Visit the Darien Lake website for more details. But hurry, you must sign up by April 15th to participate.

California Dreams reunited!

The cast of T-NBC sitcom California Dreams recently reunited on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Too bad NBC didn't dump Jay and give Jimmy Fallon a better timeslot. His show is so much better - and here's proof...





Seasons 1 & 2 of California Dreams are out on DVD now from Shout! Factory. The season 3 DVD release will hopefully be announced soon as a Shout! Factory exclusive (only available at their website).

Olympic Bobsled Gold Medalist Steve Mesler...

Steve visited out studios Wednesday morning. We get a lot of celebrities that visit our seven stations, but Steve was by far the one everyone was most excited to meet. Especially our traffic (commercial scheduling) department...


And as you can see, Steve didn't come alone - he also had his Gold Medal with him! Which is a "he" as I learned during an interview he did with WBEN's Barbara Burns - LOL!

Steve is very down to earth and definitely deserving of that Olympic Gold Medal (along with his entire Night Train team).

Amidst the three other interviews he did in our building, I also got the chance to talk with him for the Star 102.5 morning show. I aired the interview in three parts scattered through the morning show. Here's the full interview.

Survivor's Cirie Fields on Star 102.5 again!

Cirie Fields, one of the Heroes of Survivor season 20, was voted out last week. This morning, she talked with me on Star 102.5 about what happened.

Cirie also talked about our perceptions of the Survivors based on the shows' editing and the food situation.

Here's the full 7-minute interview (portions of which aired on Star).

Who Is David Gray?

All week long at 9:00am with Star Of The Day, I'm giving away tickets to see David Gray at the UB Center For The Arts on March 29th. But who is he?

He's one of the artists many people can't place by the name, but I know you know some of his songs (at the very least the one from the 90's).

Babylon was a late 90's hit. Fugitive was a recent hit on the AAA charts and Stella The Artist (my favorite song from him) is his recent hit.

Hear them all here and then think up someone to nominate for Star Of The Day for your chance to win tickets to see him with Star 102.5...

The Ultimate Mousetrap Game!

Remember the board game Mousetrap? The game is actually still around!

I don't think I ever played the full game when I was a kid - instead, me and my cousins would put together the "mousetrap" and set it off over and over.

The group OK Go must have been a fan of that part of the game as their new video is like one giant version of Mousetrap.

By the way, that fun part of the game is actually a Rube Goldberg machine - an overly complex machine designed to produce a very simple result. That's definitely the case in this incredibly clever video...

A few final Winter Olympics videos...

First off, congrats to Steve Mesler & the rest of his team for getting the Gold in 4-Man Bobsled on Saturday! Here's an interview Steve did with Channel 2 the other day.

And here's Steve and his teammate Justin talking about bobsledding from an interview they did before the Olympics...



Speaking of bobsledding, I just saw this video of one of the members of the Russian team getting a little too excited over the Canadian sled crashing. Notice how he immediately changes his mood when he's reminded there's cameras on him. And all throughout, his teammate is stunned.