The 1960s sent a lot of people for a loop, but the first looped roller coaster wasn't built until the 1970s.

Keep that confidence, it's a plus.

However, the 1970's is incorrect.

Richard Knerr & "Spud" Melin invented the hula hoop in the 1950s, but the first looped rollercoaster. . . oh, wait, I can't guess again for another 2 hours.

In cheating, since I won't be in a position to make another guess, I learned that the first roller coaster was called the "Gravity Pleasure Switchback." Who needs the Kama Sutra when you've got Coney Island, eh?

1960s?

Interestingly enough, the first looped roller coaster was financed and inspired by the Glorious Revolution of William and Mary. It was built in what is now known as Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, VA but was then known as Darkest Indian Territory.

Answer: the 1690s.

(See you in 6 hours.)

Heh, heh, revolution.

Neither the 1960s nor the 1690s is correct.

The 1930s.
It was built by one Philo X. Chumberswat in Tasmania, and is considered that island's second-most-famous folly, after the replica of Errol Flynn's tire pump that measures eight feet high and is built entirely of milk bottles.

>>It was built by one Philo X. Chumberswat...

I agree! That's what I meant to write (typo).

They're staying away in droves, Bill.

I'm sorry I ruined your site.

Oh, I didn't see Gavin's post. Excuse me, Gavin.

1930's is incorrect. The milk bottle sculpture is, of course, real.

I'll add this clue: 1930's is too late.

Has anyone guessed the 1690s?

(I feel like I'm on celebrity Jeopardy.)

Did human beings ride this roller coaster? Or some form of invertebrate life?

Yes, it was a real ride ridden by humans. And possibly the occasional insect or worm. But it was designed and built to carry and amuse humans.

So...

I think yer trying to say it wasn't the 1970s, 60s, 50s or 30s. In fact, 'twas before the 1930s. It was build for humans with vertibrae.

And it had a loop.

ok.

well then i guess i'll just have to guess that it must've been built during the centenury of the Whiskey Rebellion and say 1894.

Still too late.

Bill, I've just ruined everything. Nobody's ever going to want to do the quiz again. I'm sorry.

I'm suspecting that this one of those things like the submarine, where you can't believe they actually used one in the American Revolution.

So: the 1770s. Invented by Benjamin Franklin. It served to distract the British during the Second Battle of Bunker Hill.

OK, now that's too early.

This is getting more and more fun.

What's the prize this week, anyway?

This weeks prize is a box of expired motion sickness pills.

Bootsy's guessed the 1890s, so I'll take a stab at the 1900s. (Aka the aughty-aughts.)

What's excellent about this is that I have seen (thanks to Boxjam) an illustration of the prototypical scream machine in question; and you're all going to be thrown, as it were, for a loop.

Or maybe the 1830s? On the roof of Barnum's American Museum?

Dang you're close.

I thought this question would last for a couple weeks.

Posted by boxjam at April 21, 2002 03:09 AM

The Quiz Never Sleeps.

Okay, we'll try the 1840s, just because Barnum was active then too.

1840's!

Correct!

Roller Coasters come from 16th century Russia, where they were sleds on lumber-built hills covered with ice.

In the 1840's, in France, the first coaster with a loop was exhaustively tested and run.

http://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/coasters/history/

Congratulations, and my apologies for the question.

I hate to bring the taint of controversy back to the Friday quiz, but the online resources I'm finding say that the 1846 loop never quite worked and that the first working loops were successfully introduced in the 1890s:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C002926/history/roller1.html?tqskip1=1&tqtime=0421

In 1846 the first loop was attempted in Paris. It was tested with everything from monkeys to eggs to glasses of water to make sure it was safe. Still, the force needed to get through the loop could never quite be achieved, and the loop wasn't very popular, so it disappeared for a while, waiting to resurface again when technology could support it.

http://www.me.utexas.edu/~uer/roller/history.html

As early as 1895, designers were experimenting with loops. The Flip-Flap rolled a two-passenger car through a 25-foot-diameter circular loop, but closed in 1903 because of the neck and back injuries it inflicted on its passengers.

Methinks we need a Whad'Ya Know-style disclaimer on the Quiz; to wit, that the correct answer is the one offered by the quizmaster, and all revisionary theories should be discouraged. With all due respect to your love of the truth, Gavin, we can't have our tatty little Oz here if people keep pestering the wizard with their deflationary "research."

Now, as to these counter-sources; we can dispose of the latter one first, as it deals only with American coasters, and anyway hedges its bets about dates by saying "as early as 1895..." Consequently, we can dismiss this site and its statements from the question: however much they edify, they do not apply to the problem at hand.

I reject the thinkquest.org citation on two grounds, albeit completely frivolous and arbitrary ones. The first is semantic: just because the 1846 rollercoaster didn't function smoothly doesn't mean it didn't exist. The question only specifies "with a loop." Ha! The second is aesthetic; viz. Boxjam's source pages provide a pretty picture of this early Victorian coaster providing delight to both riders and onlookers (scroll down the page). But the thinkquest.org site just shows a poorly executed cartoon geezer. Well, I know which I'd rather believe.

That said, congratulations, Gavin; and thank you, El Boxjam, for providing the most exciting quiz in recent memory.

I say we contact both authors (not the UTexas one, which is clearly wrong, and besides, consider the source) and have them duke it out in a Kung Fu Fight to the death.

A kung fu fight on a rollercoaster, natch.

Hey, all I know is that I got told that roller coaster scholars all agreed with crushing unanimity on the date of this first loop. And I was told this in boldface, so I believed it. And what do I find now? The authority of boldface shattered!

The Authority of Boldface Shattered: A Memoir of Typefaces and Disillusionment.

(The above is a shocking example -- those italics don't actually indicate a real title!)

Roller Coaster scholars do agree and speak as one when they say the first roller coaster with a loop was constructed in the 1840's.

They disagree on how well it worked.

The guy at UTexas isn't a scholar, but a hack. He cites Cartmell left and right; in fact, save for the 1895 gaffe, the paper could have easily been rewritten as:

"Cartmell said:

[entire contents of paper]
"

Yet Cartmell himself calls it 1846:

"Mangels cites this date as 1848, but Robert Cartmell corrected him, saying it was two years earlier."

I submit to you, sir, that a roller coaster that does not work is no roller coaster at all.

If you disagree, would you be interested in purchasing my very fine Philosopher's Stone?

Oh, it worked, all right. The question is how well?

If your requirement is perfectly, then no roller coaster has ever been built.

If it is something less, then look at this picture!

http://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/coasters/history/start/history_early4.shtml

Could they show somebody actually traversing the loop like that if it weren't so?

I can't help but notice that in that picture, there appear to be two carriages, both travelling downhill, heading for a horrible crash in the middle of the loop!

Or possibly a kung-fu battle. Hard to tell.