Darien Lake Attacks Canada With Americentric Ad

Published by Toronto Mike on July 28, 2009 @ 21:23 in Miscellaneous

Darien Lake YouTube user Retrontario frequently uploads fantastic retro-Toronto-centric gems. These clips never fail to bring back a ton of memories for me, so I feature them from time to time.

If you grew up in Toronto, you saw the ads for Darien Lake on television. Darien Lake is a theme park resort located between Buffalo and Rochester in Darien, New York. They were always trying to get Canadians to cross the border for their rollercoasters and locals to stay put instead of coming here for Canada's Wonderland.

In 1986, in an effort to do the latter, Darien Lake went too far. They ran a campaign against Canada's Wonderland drenched in Americentrism and anti-Canada sentiment. Count the number of stereotypes in this sucker!

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7 comments

7 Responses to "Darien Lake Attacks Canada With Americentric Ad"

chris
July 28, 2009 / 21:47

Darien Lake may in bankrupt mode.

Lorne
July 28, 2009 / 22:27

In 2002, I won tickets to Darien Lake from CFNY. It was on the Canada Day weekend, so they were having a "Canada" celebration with fireworks and lasers.

After being unsuccessful at finding the Edge Sugar Daddy (remember that contest... fun times), we hunkered down to watch this show.

It started with a laser show of a U2 song. Hmm, okay, probably a standard laser bit.

The next song was some country ballad to Dale Earnhart-- complete with laser NASCARs and eagles.

Then they played the US national anthem with laser american flags.

At the end, they announced, with the same enthusiasm someone reminding people to not dismount the merry-go-round until all the horses have come to a stop, something along the line of "umm, and it's canada day soon". They played some rendition of Canada that they must have bought from a garage sale.

And for the record-- take Canada's Wonderland. Switch the Hanna Barbara characters with Looney Toons, and you have Darien Lake. Pretty much the same rides, same games, same food.

Ryan
July 28, 2009 / 23:00

Wow...

That is funny and pathetic.

It nailed every one of us down to the last detail!!!

OH CANADA!!!!

Horonymous
July 29, 2009 / 08:43

Good for a chuckle.

Pam
July 31, 2009 / 14:48

I can't believe anyone would be offended by this! It's so funny and true!!!

Pam
July 31, 2009 / 14:48

I can't believe anyone would be offended by this! It's so funny and true!!!

kayleigh
February 20, 2012 / 18:25