CoasterRadio.com #617 - Mannequin Accidents = PR Gold!

There were some crazy stories in the press this week... and a lot of them had to do with theme parks.

For instance...

Disney decided to drop a decades old rule that Walt Disney himself instated.  Starting next month, workers will be allowed to sport beards and goatees. Hipsters rejoice!

Thorpe Park in England said that their new coaster "The Swarm" was apparently having some trouble making its height clearances during testing.  Apparantly, some of the test mannequins came back without their limbs.  But the park's PR team didn't see this as a negative... they saw a golden opportunity!

I like this story for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it gave the the opportunity to post a still from one of my favorite 80's movies ever - Mannequin.  Emmy was one hot Egyptian, man.

The guys also take an opportunity to preview upcoming shows and contests!  You won't believe what is in store for February!

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Better Late Than Never....

We owe you guys an apology... because we totally slacked off on one of our contests.

Back in October, I was waiting for a flight in the San Francisco airport and I was looking at some fun costume ideas that listeners were sending in.

We were so inspired, we decided to give CoasterRadio.com listeners a chance to show off their Halloween costumes to the world while promoting our Twitter feed... @CoasterRadio, by the way.

We decided to turn the idea into a contest! It was the first CoasterRadio.com contest conducted on Twitter.

Anyway, we had some really good submissions... but as it often happens around here, we got distracted by producing the show.  Unfortunately, the contest got pushed to the backburner.

Before we knew it, it was Christmas!  Now it's 2012, and Halloween was more than two months ago!

But, I think it's always a good time to check out fun Halloween costumes.  So, here are some of our favorites!

RC Mayer channeled famous CoasterRadio.com character "Bob The Lobster"

Kerri's Daughter promoted our Twitter feed as a beautiful (but shy) princess.

DVO_Tron designed a suit and disc that really lit up!

Jonathan's son was the youngest contestant as a Bumblebee.

Wally (as a Ghostbuster) posed with his daughter for this cute photo.

Let us know who you think should win by voting below!  We'll announce a winner on the first show in February and send them some fun prizes.  Like we said... better late than never.

Twitter Halloween Costume Contest!

One of the things we learned by looking at the results of the online listener survey, was that many of you wanted to see more contests on the show.

We have some great ones coming up soon on the podcast, but we also have some that are designed solely for our listeners who follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Since it's Halloween weekend, we're unveiling our first Twitter-only contest today - and it's a costume contest (with a twist).

If you're heading out to a costume party this weekend or if you're taking your kids out Trick-or-Treating on Monday night, snap a picture of your costume and tweet it to us at @coasterradio. Use the hashtag #crcostumecontest too.

The catch is, you have to be holding up a sign that says "@COASTERRADIO".

That way, the jokers and CoasterBoys out there won't just tweet a cool costume photo they fine online.

And EB and I will be looking for clever fakes! Violators will be dealt with harshly!

The winner gets a top secret prize.  It's two tickets to a pretty cool location!

Have fun! And get your entries tweeted to us by Tuesday night!

CoasterRadio.com Contests

During the first go-round of our show, we had a lot of success with the different contests we ran.

We had the weekly SoundWave contest, where we would play audio from a roller coaster and give the audience clues to help guess it.

We had the Sign Generator Contest, where listeners came up with creative phrases and photoshopped them on to things like church and restaurant signs.

One of the most popular contests we had was the 'Reel' Design Contest. A few weeks before the Academy Awards, we encouraged people to come up with their own ride concept based on a popular movie. We had some really creative entries.

So as we're working on this latest version of CoasterRadio.com, we're looking for new contest ideas?

What would you like to see? What would be a good prize? Let us know what you think and we'll talk about it on our next episode.

To get your idea on the show, here are the different ways:

* Post your idea on Twitter
* Post your idea on our Facebook Fan Page.
* Visit this topic in the CoasterRadio.com Fourms
* Call our voicemail line - 206-339-3360
* E-Mail Us (the address is to the right of this page)

We'll talk about all of your answers in our next show!