Ramble #99: Heritage USA

This felt like Jenny wished she had a whole year to sink her teeth into all of this. Really great what you accomplished only within a short month 👍🏼

Rewatching the video and just to give an update for anyone wondering: Heritage Tower is still standing but as of June 2026 MorningStar has agreed to finally tear it down and build a senior living complex in it's place, no timeline yet, details to follow in the fall. Also Jim Bakker is now 86 years old and still alive.

We went to Disney World in the 90s and our cheap motel was next to a "zoo." We were from NJ and didn't know about these awful zoos. It was indoors too. Lions and tigers doped up in tiny cages. Really depressing.

I have a different theory about the odd inflection on "jee-ZUS:" it's to make it clear they aren't taking the Lord's name in vain. Because when you say it the normal way, "JEE-zus," it kinda sounds like an intensifier.

your last-supper-themed character dining idea is DIABOLICAL im DYING. 'u better get jesus' autograph, he won't be here tomorrow'

Im still mad about 6 dollar refunds for 1000 dollar donations. Why even bother at that point?

Jenny said "Satuhn" like how they say "Jesuhs"

im sorry, 'morningstar ministries'? what a thing to name a xian org.......hilarious actually

I lived in Argentina for a bit and got to visit Santa Tierra in Buenos Aires! It’s definitely worth looking into, it has no rides but has these really uncanny animatronic shows that depict scenes like the last supper, and then there’s this like 70ft tall Jesus statue that rises from a faux mountain and plays the hallelujah chorus three times a day. It’s so camp it’s incredible.

I'm so tickled by Jenny saying, "The only people that your religious theme park will reach will be other people in that religion." Then going on to attend the Ruth the Musical the dinner show.

God (no pun intended) I would LOVE it if you did a video on the creation museum

This should be a main channel post

love the Bulborb plush purse

omg carnaval festival plush!

The Embassy Suites Hilton in Peoria Illinois has a lot of similarities to the whimsical hotel, including light box type elevators, rooms facing a central atrium, giant fountain, fake plants and lots of gold accents. Check it out en route to the Lincoln library!

The next gods not dead movie comment made me audibly laugh

THANK YOU for mentioning the jeSUS thing i swear i thought i was crazy for noticing the same linguistic difference. as someone who was raised catholic we always said jesus the way you say it, but i noticed at a young age everyone else in my area (southern baptists & other evangelicals), along with some other folks online that pronounced it with the extra emphasis on the end

I’m gonna need 1-2 business days to process Grace the Pro-Life doll I’ll be back for the rest of the video later Jenny

For a christian theme park there should be like one of those rides that fling you in the air to make you feel like you're flying and theme it after the rapture

Entertaining the kids was actually a major part of PTL and Tammy Faye famously put on puppet shows.

Book Recommendation for everyone: Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh It's a bit outdated, but a really fascinating breakdown of Christianity merch and the industry behind the Christian parallel universe. It's interesting from a business perspective, it's respectful, but it's realistic. Anyone who lived in the bubble would recognize all the stuff that gets cranked out to substitute secular products for [pick a reason]. In one church/school I was involved in, they took a stand against the Merriam Webster Dictionary and others because they were too liberal. When people are deep in that mindset, it's easy to convince them that any purchasable product that they might want is somehow against their beliefs, and then they can create their own and have a guaranteed market.

I have a sad vacation story to share, Your Nastiness! During a summer vacation when I was little, my parents decided to take our family to Marineland , which was a Sea World knockoff in Niagara Falls Ontario (Bright Sun Films has some amazing videos on Marineland, definitely worth checking out). The park had insanely aggressive marketing throughout southern Ontario, and this was *long* before anyone was widely aware of the animal mistreatment, so me and my little brother were just excited to visit a "legendary" theme park. My parents even booked a room at a nearby Holiday Inn, so we could stay the night at a hotel after a full afternoon at the park. We arrived at the park just before lunchtime, but after we started walking around, we discovered that Marineland had barely anything to do. Beyond the whale enclosure/show area, there was a single roller coaster (which was too scary for a 9-year-old me), a tiny number of dull unthemed flat rides, and virtually nothing else. No food vendors outside of one or two fast service counters, no wandering entertainers, and virtually no themed static park elements to gawk at. (I think the park had it's tiny waterpark section by that point, but neither my brother nor I liked waterparks so we didn't partake in it regardless.) The square footage of the park was also psychotically high, so visitors had to walk for ages through sweltering, unshaded, generic parkland before finding another overburdened attraction. Ultimately, we walked a single grueling circuit around the park, saw a single whale show (which left zero lasting memories, possibly because we were all suffering from mild heatstroke), and unanimously decided to leave without doing anything else. By that point my parents decided to check us into the hotel a bit early, which we kind of desperately needed for the AC alone. But probably 5 minutes after putting our bags down in the room, a test of the fire alarm started, which terrified my 5-year-old brother so badly that we had to leave. We were too exhausted from the hike around Marineland to do anything substantial at that point, so my dad just drove us to a dingy Niagara Falls McDonald's for a late lunch. The alarm test was done by the time we got back, but for the rest of the evening my brother was terrified that it would start again, making me restless and unhappy in turn. We drove straight home the next morning, and to this day my family uses Marineland as a punchline for bad trips

I flapped my wings

I live 20 minutes away from the former site of Heritage USA and when I was a kid I had a hyperfixation on abandoned theme parks and my mom would drive me to see the crumbling decrepit unfinished hotel because all the actual theme park ruins had been demolished a few years prior. Good times.

I think my favorite idea of a “Christian theme park” is the proposal of a themed last supper where I can get autographs from all the disciples and maybe Jesus comes out as the grand finale during dessert and poses for photographs

I have a very vivid memory of being woken up in the middle of the night as a small child, to drive down to Florida with some members of my family to go to Disney World. My mom quickly threw some of my clothes in a big blue shopping bag and we left. On the way down, we heard on the radio that there was an imminent hurricane, so my mom and older sister made the difficult decision to turn around and drive back. I remember the disappointment so clearly. Thinking about it as an adult, I decided to ask my sister what that was actually about - were we really going to Disney World? Was my mom trying to escape her marriage? What was going on? My sister is quite adamant that this never happened and I must have dreamt it. :| This troubles me to this day lol

I love how much research jenny does but somehow misses that jim bakker is still alive

Kind of obsessed with Ruth the Musical

The Wendy’s brand says “would you like a baked potato? 🤨”

Oh man. My most depressing family vacation was also the only family vacation we ever went on. I’m from Texas, so my (super miserly uptight conservative radically Christian) father decided the most reasonably priced vacation option was a 3 day weekend to Corpus Christi where we stayed in a motel 6 and went fishing out of a row boat in the murky golf. 10 hours of horrific sunburns and pre-packed soggy sandwiches later, we had caught two minuscule fish which we then were made to fillet and cook for dinner on the muddy beach. Then the next morning we drove home after my parents had a blowup fight because my mom was upset about the vacation. So naturally we never went on another!

When I was a kid, my parents donated to have Heritage USA built (the newer constructions), thinking they would get tickets or something once it opened, I'm not sure. Anyway, then the Bakker scandal happened, and they quickly lost interest.

I was homeschooled. I had a pretty happy childhood and my parents weren’t extremely weird and restrictive like many were. However, I had many many friends who were exactly like how you described that family at the Ruth play. If you wondering how their home life is, from my experience it’s generally restrictive, varying degrees of abusive, and trying to force the children into the “perfect” obedient child.

"I think he's dead now, I think he's in hell." Jenny, that almost killed me with how fast I choked on my laugh

My worst vacation experience was ehen I was in middle school, my divorced father (he was remarried by this point but he still has divorced energy to this day) had to choose between our annual trip to Orlando or keeping my childhood home. He chose the former despite me explicitly stating that I did not want that. The second worst thing that's ever happened to me on vacation was at a visit to Magic Kingdom where he smacked me in the back of the head so hard I fell down in front of a crowd of strangers for momentarily losing track of him after wandering to try pulling the sword from the stone. I do also have a more normal example where I went to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and just generally had a bad time because I'm not a fan of roller coasters and that's mostly what that park is.

✨✨✨turn these stones 🧛‍♂️🧛‍♂️🧛‍♂️into bread 😈😈😈

Find someone who loves you the way Jenny loves the atrium

1. River Country at WDW was awesome in the 70s! 2. The hotel atrium is giving Discount Contemporary Hotel. 3. Why America theme for a Christian theme park? Christian nationalism. 4. The indoor Main Street facade is reminiscent of a mall next to my hotel on the Strip in Vegas. 5. "Body of Christ" is Christianese for the Church. 6. I never went on a sad vacation; I grew up in Orlando so I went to proper theme parks or the beach for vacations. :-)

I want to visit the Ark Encounter SO BAD but I also don't want to give that much money to Answers in Genesis. (Why are the tickets so expensive?!) If anyone's curious, the podcast Oh No Ross and Carrie did a series on it. It's also about a homeschooling conference that was held there but it's an interesting listen: https://maximumfun.org/episodes/oh-no-ross-and-carrie/ross-boards-the-ark-part-1-not-a-boat-edition/

who is that red clown on the right side of jenny's room

Unsure if that counts but my saddest family holiday was when my family took me to otter world. They had a medieval themed show where a guy was showing off chainmail and knights armour. He got someone from the audience to come and shoot an arrow at him to show that it wouldn't pierce the armour but unfortunately the arrow went through the eye slit in the helmet. Everyone thought it was part of the show until the ambulance came. Rest of the holiday was fun though!

My "saddest vacation" is so sad that I honestly don't want to talk about it in front of this many people. But suffice to say, there were two parents who were not married to each other, and none of the kids were happy about it.

Only Jenny could wring genuine excitement and suspense from an online search for photographic evidence of a renovated hotel lobby at a defunct Christian theme park

dont worry jenny i lifted my arms and pretended to fly with you. because i was afraid you would sense if i didnt.....

I was not ready for Ruth to look so much like Phillipa Soo!

speaking of cutesy water park names, my grandpa HATES that stuff. we went to disney world ONCE like 20 years ago and he STILL calls blizzard beach "blister beach" and typhoon lagoon "typhoid lagoon".

humbly asking pardners to request a video on branson/silver dollar city. subtly christian 1800s theme park that is pretty normal for normal people but i could talk for hours about its culture. in college everytime i got high with my friends id make them watch ride videos and discuss and it got to a point where they were like “lizzie why don’t you remember you made us talk about the disturbing sociopolitical implications of the flooded mine last time”

wait can the Heritage USA Grand Hotel be part of mall world? Then we’d finally be able to visit it— in our dreams!

this is such a US-american concept, i feel like an anthropologist watching this

omg, the phantasialand shirt! the childhood memories!

Thank you!! First I’ve ever heard to call out that weird “Jeezuus” pronunciation. I went here as a kid but can’t really differentiate the memory from other water parks. The Main Street was cool but you can get the same vibe at Paris Las Vegas.

It's so strange, I never heard of Adam the Woo, but I had a suggestion of a video of his dad telling us he passed, and I gave it a watch. To see this video of you mentioning him was a crazy call back to that moment. Always sad.

Something about the old vhs footage is scratching and itch in my brain!

The Righteous Gemstones

ive only been in a hotel one time that had an atrium and that was in el paso

“The body of Christ” is a term to refer to Christendom

Count your days, Jim Bakker

I was watching this video in my kitchen and my dad walked by, asking what I was watching. I explained and he laughed, saying this was so much of his childhood. From what he explained…. My dad and his family would go down early 1980s to mid 1980s when the park was essentially just a campground. Eventually, an arcade was built, along with a skating rink. At one point, my aunt was literally babysitting the Bakers’ kids and Jim Baker baptized my dad. When the campground had a muddy week, my grandparents were given a free week to return during better weather. My dad remembers the place with a lot of fondness and said it was basically just a safe, fun campground. In the mid 1980s apparently there was a plan for housing nearby with their own school and my dad, aunt and uncles BEGGED to move there (since they made so many friends at the campground) but at that point my grandpa was already feeling the vibes were a little off. My dad remembers it being like… nothing was enough. The Bakers were always pushing for more and adding MORE and things were shifting. So the visits stopped before the water park and hotel and the scandals… But wow, incredible to hear it from you and from him. He wants to go look for footage/photos now, cause my family has always been very big on documentation.

idk if this is our saddest family vacation but it's probably the funniest; when i was 8 and my older sister was 13, my family went to disney world, this was in 2009 i believe. and my parents bought cheap resold tickets online. this is important because disney HATED resale tickets and at the gate they had fingerprint scanners to "confirm" the ticket was yours - of course this was complete nonsense, disney didn't have any kind of fingerprint database and there was no way for them to connect your fingerprint with your ticket. but at the age of 13 my sister was old enough to not believe my parents' reassurances that the fingerprint readers were fake, but not old enough to understand the concept of security theater. so she spent the entire 2 day drive down to florida scream-fighting with my parents about the tickets insisting we wouldn't be able to get in the park and that we'd even potentially get in trouble with the law. and finally when we got to disney world we went up to the gates and did the finger print reader and it let us in and everything was fine lmao

Getting fun whiplash midway through the video at the topic shift to the Pigeon Forge bible theater dinner was wild. I remember going at least once as a kid (Pigeon Forge was a frequent vacation spot for my family), and getting to buy this heavy stuffed animal sheep at the gift shop. I remember we saw a musical for Joseph and the coat of many colors, but not much of the actual show itself. I was too obsessed with my stuffed sheep. Bad whiplash at the end reminding me I grew up a repressed child lol

I live in UK where we not religious at least not where I’m from in midlands but televangelist sounds like the opposite of what Christian teachings are. From where I’m standing it looks like a cult.

when i was 8 as a very special birthday trip treat my single mom saved up enough to take us to universal in california for a weekend where she booked a special photo op thing with the actor they had for norman bates at the time (I love horror and for some reason the psycho movies/anthony perkins was my hyperfixation for years) and during the photo i was really shy but wanted to say something, so i apologized to the actor/empathized that he had to wear what i thought was really hot clothing in the middle of the summer he was not having it though and whisper-hissed at me to shut up and get it over with... we took the photo and that was it, i never mentioned it to anybody at the time and just had to quietly lie and say that it was an awesome experience when in actuality i was crushed LOL

Is anyone able to please tell me what regional accent the guy from 1:10:00 - 1:19:00 has? It's not an American accent I get to hear often, and it was very interesting to listen to.

i appreciated your empathy toward the kids in fundamental households! shit's bleak. when i was like 3 we went to myrtle beach in south carolina and i spent the whole time worrying my parents would get eaten by sharks whenever they were swimming (i was a very anxious child) and then 9/11 happened

My worst family vacation was my dad made us visit all of these civil war battle sites - outside in like 100 degrees and insanely boring (to teenage me).

Sadly, Jim Bakker is alive and well and begging for money on the Internet …and—with the miracle of E.D. meds, is still banging his blonde and 20-years-his-junior 2nd wife, Lori. “There is no God!” she quietly mumbles beneath him every night.

“I think he’s dead now. I think he’s in Hell.” You’re hilarious.

“The BaKKKers”

Camels are very disagreeable creatures and will not only bite and kick you, but will violently spit a foul substance at you at the slightest provocation.

Omg I am SO glad you mentioned that particular evangelical pronunciation of “gee-ZUS”!! When I hear a podcast guest etc pronounce it that way I always know they were raised in the church before they mention it.

I wonder if some of this is explained by Carowinds (the main amusement park in the Carolinas) being like a 15 minute drive from Heritage USA. You could go to Carowinds for the roller coasters and thrill rides and then Heritage USA for the Jesus of it all

I went to circus circus in Vegas (I think that's what it's called?) With my family once and our hotel room was disgusting and coveted in smoke even though it was listed as non-smoking, and both my brothers got violently ill there. But i got to see a 4d SpongeBob show and ride a couple rides so it wasn't all terrible

Mean like cows? Pardon me?? Cows are the sweetest!

I hope you consider making a main channel video about this because holy shit. What a masterpiece

This unearthed so many repressed memories for me lol. As someone who grew up in Charlotte NC, when I first became interested in abandoned theme parks in middle school I started searching for nearby locations to possibly explore- I ended up learning about Heritage USA, going down the rabbit hole of the scandal and everything, and also reading several contemporary articles about how the then-owners were battling it out with the city. It was my first real-world example of a religious organization acting in bad faith (no pun intended), and it was a real bummer.

Good news is, the music that played during Adam's (RIP) video is actually Royalty Free music by Kevin McLeod so you've never been more in the clear!

reminds me of south of the border...mostly bc of the location lol

Iirc from a podcast I listened to on the Bakkers, I think the park was in significant financial difficulty even before the scandal. They oversold those packages where for a 1 time payment of $1,000 you’d get 3 free nights a year for the rest of your life. I think there weren’t even enough hotel rooms to accommodate all the people they sold this to. So I guess the hotel just became a money sink since there was never room for new paying customers.

Jenny! Your Nastiest! This was such an amazing video, thank you, thank you for researching and creating it. It's all so incredibly insane, so much collective trauma, but my husband I were cackling the entire time, your humor came through so brightly and strong. I don't know what else to say; thank you for your effort on this amongst your other ongoing projects, this was so fucking funny. We loved every minute, we don't deserve you!

One time my family went on a cruise ship, or rather I should say planned on going, but during boarding we realized my passport had expired. Our bags were already ON the ship so we were forced to go home in shame and come back a week later to get our world-trotting bags. The worst part was that my DS was on my bag so not only did I spend my holidays at home with maybe two pairs of pants I had no real anchor to reality or joie de vivre (my DS) :(

i havent seen a video of urs in moonths, but i was j recently telling my gf how much i admire the work you put into them, so i wanted to pop back in to see what was up. in the least parasocial way possible, it was so lovely to hear ur voice! hope ur doing well and thank u as always for ur effort and time

Jenny, you have no idea how much I wish Jim Bakker was dead.

There’s so much weird/fun bible related media for kids. Veggie Tales is a huge one and I’d love to see a Jenny reaction to a couple of iconic episodes. I remember actually being scared of the chocolate bunny/Easter story.

When I graduated college my family took a trip to florida around Easter and my evangelical parents tried to take us to the Holy Land Experience. Me and my three siblings unanimously voted to go to the beach instead. I was pretty fresh out of the brainwashing so couldnt tolerate proselytizing but these days I kinda wish I had gone just to see the craziness of the crucifixion performance 😂

The first sad vacation memory that came to me was staying in a motel right next door to a cooler motel with a visible pool area with a water slide. My mom was determined to sneak us in so we got in our swimsuits and went over there only to be turned away. I was pretty embarassed but still had fun in our much smaller motel pool.

So, Ruth is actually a daily interesting story that most people just tell bad lol. Short answer, there’s some pretty heavy sapphic subtext, plus an outright seduction scene in it that I think make it pretty cool but is missed because for one it uses some old time euphemisms that go over some people’s heads, and the people who could translate it to a modern audience often don’t because they mistakenly believe it’s inappropriate lol

saddest vacation: unlike jenny, i love waterparks and specifically loved going to the wisconsin dells as a kid- my parents are from that area so my dad especially had a lot of fond memories. however there was one year where i just remember my dad talking about different attractions that used to be in the area but had disappeared over time and i gained awareness of how all the shops were selling the same cheap tourist junk, noticing more of the dingy motels in the area and just how empty the tourist traps were.. just a very upsetting nostalgia

This made me think of the one biblical theme park I know: Tierra Santa in Buenos Aires. I highly suggest looking it up. It’s exact what you would picture a biblical theme park to look like. Plus Jesus resurrects every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at dusk! I don’t remember any attractions though. Weird fucking place

This was not a childhood memory, but a few years ago for a big family vacation we rented a fancy house and it turned out to be a dump. Also it was right underneath the practice track for the air force so the extremely loud fighter jets were going sometimes for hours at a time AT NIGHT.

My father used to work for Answers in Genesis, the organization behind the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. He was the CFO and handled all the money stuff for them, I was at the ark encounter on its opening day, and I heard a lot about plans that never came to fruition, including seeing old concept art for attractions that are kinda similar to what you mentioned as ideas in this. I’d be happy to hop on a zoom call or something to discuss or answer as many questions as I could!

Good on you for cutting out the upcoming video updates at the end! The tone definitely feels more consistent when the video ends on the discussion question

Probably that time when my parents made us sit through a "Timeshare Presentation" in our swimming costumes, because they heard if you sat through the sales pitch, they'd let you use the Hot tub. So we got changed at home, drove to a Garden centre in our swimming costumes and it turns out no... It was just a boring presentation trying to sell us the hot hub, so we all walked back to the car in our dry swimming costumes. Does that count?

Loved it when Jenny referred to those defacing Heritage Tower(s) as hooligans.

Someone else may have mentioned this in the comments, I didn’t check, sorry for that. However, “bakker” is also Dutch for baker and, not to anyone’s surprise, is not an uncommon Dutch surname.

Does anyone know what video she features the water slide with animatronics?

the foreshadowing in this one is crazy

so glad to hear Jenny went to The Old Mill, one of Tennessee's finest breakfast establishments

Saddest Vacation is probably the one where my parents split up.

re: World's largest Wendy's inside a castle being amazing: Anytime I go out with my friends to another country or some historic location, most recently the city of Nantes in France, we look around at the beautiful castles and historic banks or other buildings, and try to guess what they would be turned into if this was in the UK. Like, that one would be turned into a Tesco, that one is a little small so it would be a Tesco Express. That one's pretty big, you could fit a Primark inside. Etc.

Omg. I worked on the crew for the very short lived Tammy Faye Broadway musical in 2024. There was a massive production number in Act One called Heritage USA. The memory of it is burned into my brain. Still excited to watch this, though.

Me when Jenny said "look at that bird! It flew up and then flew back down again! Must be nice to do that!" (probably not a direct quote): That was a weird thing to say. Oh well, on brand. Me when we get to the drone footage: Oooooooooooooh birb.

The Ark Encounter is fascinating as an example of like, what happens when people approach a topic with one firmly held belief that they will not let anything falsify. You can see it in all kinds of conspiracy theories, they're often built around one belief that believers think is built on their investigations when really their investigations are built on their beliefs. The Ark Encounter is just a little more open about it than others. Its creator designed "animal kinds" that he presents as the historic precursor to modern animals. He recognizes that you can't really build a ship so large that two of each animal in the world fit on it, so he essentially claims there was SOME evolution since then – at the time of the Ark, there were only a few kinds of animal, our modern versions evolved from them within a few thousand years. So he grouped animals together and created what he imagines those historic "animal kinds" to be. He's basing everything on his one belief that everything about the story of Noah's ark must be exactly literally true, that's the one thing you can't question. And then you build everything else to fit around that. It's fascinating. You can see this kind of approach in so many communities. My favorite examples are usually fandom conspiracies because they're very fun and can make for a good demonstration of how it works, but it's a very common pattern to all sorts of beliefs that seem baffling until you understand that their thinking is simply built on a different base than yours. ...I feel the need to add a disclaimer that I'm obviously not talking about religion in general, I'm Christian myself and I think it's pretty annoying when people reduce religion to like, the stereotypes a 13 year old reddit atheist might come up with. I just find conspiracy theories and fringe beliefs of all kinds incredibly interesting, so that's what I'm talking about! So often I'll be deep down a rabbithole into some fringe community, see their most unhinged takes, and feel like I'm going crazy until I remember that oh right, none of it makes sense until you remember the missing puzzle piece it's all built on: their foundational, unquestioning belief in creationism/racism/larry/whatever. Anyway, the Ark Encounter is weird as fuck and sounds like a blast. I'd LOVE a vlog.

As much as I have tried, your nastiness, I can't really single out any one particular vacation/trip in my memory that stood out as overall horrible. If anything, my brain just goes back to the many really bad moments in which I had an existential crisis, crashed out due to said existential crisis, been around stressful conversations, and other uncomfortable life moments that I will obviously not bother going into detail over. I'm hoping to get over all these bad memories by going on more solo trips than on family vacations, the first solo trip I took being last year. Surprise surprise, it ended up being one of the best ones I ever took! As quaint as that may sound to some more seasoned travels, this was very big for me.

Oh Pigeon Forge, one of the strangest places I've ever been.

Don't know why cows gotta catch strays here :(

South Carolina mention T_T

the fundie fridays crossover I never knew I needed

My experience going to the Ark Encounter is one I'll never forget. I feel like there was some new insane thing to gawk at with every step I took.

I grew up in Charlotte and Heritage is literally 12 miles from where I live now. My childhood church was on the property where PTL's first location was (my mom and ex-stepdad's wedding reception was in the old PTL pool room!) so I was always vaguely aware of the Bakkers growing up, but it's still so wild to me when I'm reminded that the Bakkers are internationally (in)famous and not just a weird local scandal.

I know exactly what you’re talking about with the pronunciation of Jesus, the first time I noticed someone doing it was nickisnotgreen on YouTube

It is so funny to me that Wii Bowling and Wii Tennis are used as draws for Heritage Towers. They truly did know their audience, huh?

Can the atrium be rented for bar mitzvahs? Probably a stupid question.

Regarding the strange pronunciation of Jesus, your assumption is completely correct. No other Christian denomination (Catholics, Orthodox, other Protestants, etc) outside of evangelicals does this. AFAIK the official reasoning is that they do not want to "diminish" Jesus in any way, so they pronounce both syllables with the same emphasis. In practice it functions as a form of cultural signalling for evangelicals. Dan McClellan, a biblical scholar, has a video on it with some more background: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GHoS9TtonAs

I really like Splash Landings at Alton Towers for water parks! It has a cool Carribean/tropical theme, and everything is very colourful. My favourite bit is it has a waterslide where you can pick the lights and sounds 😁 last time I was there I tried the Calypso theme and, my favourite, the Alton Towers theme, where it played In The Hall of the Mountain King 😆 Saddest holiday: I went to a closing down UK holiday park in the 90s which cost us about £5. Everything was so run down - the pool was full of leaves and there were bunnies living in the mini golf holes! Still had a fun time though.

I knew going in it was gonna be weird Christian evangelical focused, but Jim Bakker jumpscared me, I learned about him from a Behind the Bastards episode. Up there on the worst humans of all time list.

my thesis project for my history major was on the Houston IWY convention which had a lot of religious right controversy around it, so I forget not everybody knows way too much about Jerry Falwell— talk about crazy rabbit holes 😭 I never knew the water slide thing though I wish I could go back and put that in the footnotes of my project 🤣

I just found out that the Bakker’s son actually is a pastor in Minnesota who is openly pro choice and a LGBTQ ally. So at the very least their kids aren’t nearly as shitty as they were.

Didn’t Jessica chastain win an Oscar for playing Bakker lady?

"I'll know if you don't do it" was very motivating ty <3 I needed some flapping and flying today!

I worked at Gilroy Gardens back when it was Bonfante Gardens. It was my first job. Cute trees and low velocity rides

When I was 14 my mom's elderly cousins invited us to go to Alberta Canada with them. We drove past so many beautiful parks with canoeing, horseback riding and lovely interpretive centers on our way to liquor stores so that the cousins could drink in the hotel. My parents were too polite to tell them they'd planned a terrible vacation, especially for me and my younger brother or to even split from the group to do something else.

Does anyone know what song she’s referencing at the 34 min mark?

I'm sorry but you choosing to wear a t-shirt with a furry bondage dragon and hairband of one of the weirdest mascots in recent history for a sort of a Christian vibe is just so theater kid coded.

I love how Jenny keeps saying Jim Bakker is dead when he's still alive and still doing the same horrible shit. I wish I lived in Jenny's world lol

A long time ago i used to watch a YouTuber named Vic Berger who made edits of Jim and Tammy's post prison/Heritage USA televangelist run if anyone's curious what they were like: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV95EIdLbL_x_odT1aKeD9LSyBKgtTHs&si=j9cFM9mfNUoOF4iX

everything about the ark encounter is extremely funny to me, i'd love to see your take on it (even if just in an informal/vlog format)

at 1:34:47 during the Morning Star Heritage Towers promo uses a photo of Wii bowling

It's weird for me that this won. I think a lot of people have a morbid fascination with the tackiness of the far right evangelical christian nationalist creationist crowd (the christian nationalism is why they associate Jesus with American history btw). I'm assuming those are most of the people who voted for it, probably. And some of us who've left, like some people reminiscing in the comments have a sense of humor about it, so that's good. For me it just kind of aches, and not in an interesting way or in a way where it's fun to watch them get publicly dragged. It's like a friend laughing at your relative for wearing a tacky outfit when you're thinking about how the relative mistreated you, or you know they committed an actual crime. Very different wavelengths for different viewers, I think.

As a georgia boy raised in churches i can confirm youre spot on with the JeSUS thing, its just for reverence and drama. Usually theyre screaming it on the podium like 'Three days passed and JeSUS roooose up, and he moved that mighty hunk of rock! That is the will of the chosen son JeSUS!!'

You're Wrong About podcast did an excellent deep dive into the rise and fall of the Bakkers, the TV empire, the heinous crime and the general awfulness of Jim and the equal awfulness of Jerry Falwell. ANYway, it's titled "Tammy Faye Bakker and Jessica Hahn". And on a lighter note... "With a new paint job and a little tender loving care it could have been... awesome" CRUNCH! Local news Emmy to that savage editor please!

My saddest family holiday was the summer I had my 8th birthday there was a tropical storm and the whole campground flooded and I had to look after my toddler brother in a rec room with thirty other children who were all screaming and I remember having an autistic meltdown because it was too loud and I was just trying to watch dragon ball z on the tiny crt while our parents packed up everything. To be fair though it wasn’t a predicted storm and my mum felt so bad she took us to McDonalds on the way home which as an 8yo does cancel out bad experiences pretty well.

I'm not even sure if this was on a vacation, but I have this memory of being a small child and being in the kind of arcade where you trade tickets for prizes. Obviously I didn't end up with enough tickets for any of the stuff I wanted, and my consolation prize was a 1 inch miniature that I remember looking like an off-brand Nappa from Dragon Ball. I didn't really like him, and I was so bitter I tossed him away in a store, then immediately felt guilty and went looking but it was like he vanished, and it's haunted me ever since. Even now thinking about it makes me weirdly sad.

The thing about evangelicals pronouncing Jesus: "jes-US" is absolutely real. Dan McClellan made a short video on it. https://youtube.com/shorts/GHoS9TtonAs?si=1QSDkNr3lCSrTjTg

Drop Tower of Babel made me LOL at work

I'm on the older end of your viewers, and I remember very well the evangelical 80's. Unfortunately, stuff like this is an unpleasant reminder of the terrible social climate people like the Bakkers created, and all the hostility their ilk stirred up against anyone who they disapproved of. I'm not sure if the voters thought this would be a fun topic like the church musical video was, but these were terrible people who I really don't care to look at or remember at all.

Is it possible that "Owl" is a whimsical representation of the Tennessee pronunciation of "I'll [never lose my keys again]"?

As a former Christian homeschooled kid (this is Josie's wife posting), rest assured that, at least in general, these kids do have some level of actual childhood vibrancy, but they have a very practiced "public" persona that can be difficult to shut off when being perceived by strangers (or even just adults in general in some cases) even after you leave the fold.

OMG I HAVE ALSO NOTICED THE JE-SUS PRONUNCIATION THING!! lmao. always hits my ear weird.

Watching this video makes the Righteous Gemstones show make a lot more sense now

I am locking in now my goal to obtain at least 100 antique car credits in my lifetime.

I grew up in a religious family in Florida. While we did go to the Holy Land Experience once, we got season passes to Disney or Busch Gardens/Sea World most years. My most vivid memory from the Holy Land was the crucifixion scene in the passion play. I was young, and it was so graphic and violent but also I could clearly see the roman guards squirting Jesus with stage blood from squeeze bottles, and I just wasn’t sure how to process all that. (Which I think is kinda the point—look at how much he suffered… for you. If you don’t accept his gift of salvation all this suffering was in vain, etc.) Also at some point in the day we took communion (which I thought was supposed to be a sacrament, not an attraction??) It might’ve literally been a reenactment of the last supper, actually. Looking back it was probably just sour, room-temp grape juice but I was convinced at the time that I just drank wine for the first time and I was very concerned. Also I thought running around inside the belly of a giant whale was really fun because Jonah and the Whale is one of the most iconic Bible stories for kids. I don’t remember riding any rides. Also, I’m so upset your Stampede show got cancelled! I work as a server at one of the locations and would’ve loved to hear your thoughts on the show. If you go to the Christmas show it’s also sneaks in some religiosity with the 9 minute nativity portion of the show. If you do want to go you might consider the other location, it’s surrounded by plenty of conservative attractions and religious shows and otherwise weird experiences (as well as a pretty good theme park). I’m sure you would be so fascinated by it!

This would totally still be around if the Bakkers hadn't fucked it up. The raping your 21 year old employee thing wouldn't even be slightly a deal breaker these days, they'd just lost some AI-generated ActBlue donation records and his entire ministry would decide "that slut had it coming" simultaneously. I also think the really aggressively mispronouncing Jesus thing is just a way of crackerifying Jesus's name to the maximum extent. Like how can we possibly pronounce this obviously Middle Eastern and now culturally Latino name in the most Anglophone way possible. I haven't finished the video yeah, so maybe you do actually get into this. But it's extremely interesting to me that jim bakker's wife, who divorced him while he was in prison for, again, raping a twenty one year old and then bribing her with tax free donations, ended up becoming like a super pro-LGBTQ ally, which is like, just like a really cool character arc that you don't see these days. Tammy Faye Bakker.

"He's dead now, he's in hell."

I’m not USAmerican and I’m Jewish so watching this is kind of like trying to listen to a song in simlish I recognise the tune in places and some of the words are similar but overall no clue what half of this is about. *Benoit Blanc voice* Compels me though.

"Oh my god it’s definitely Satan, he had like an evil vampire collar on that glitter cape." is a new, and perfect sentence.

stuff like this makes me really happy i was raised catholic because being able to go “oh what they just said is SO blasphemous” is such a treat

I’m losing it. Abandoned hotel is all but literally my own personal religion (feeling so called out by the Internet Horror ramble) and then I get shown the hotel atrium I kept actively dreaming about over the last three years, and not even the creepy old one, but the new one. Thank… uh… well I’m glad I’m not religious or I’d be moving to the Carolinas to work in a televangelist complex. Now I’m just more perplexed than before. Gonna have a lie down.

jenny oh my goodness an ark encounter video would be so good. they built it in my hometown and i have also been to the creation museum. would love to hear your thoughts!

When I was 9 I got a spiral greenstick fracture on my tibia. That meant full leg cast, and crutches for two months. My Mum had booked this destination holiday on a tropical island in Australia, which they had assured us was wheelchair accessible. So, everyone had an amazing tropical holiday on an island paradise…except me. Turns out it wasn’t as wheelchair accessible as they had assured us. I got fed up one day and decided to go for a swim in the pool anyway with the plastic bag they give you for showering . Little 9-year-old me didn’t realise that the air trapped in there would mean my leg would stick out like a sail. Apparently there were a bunch of tourists around the pool laughing at me. It was horrible, lmao.

The body of Christ is another term for the people making up the church. They were basically said that not owning this theme park was a hard time for Christian's as a whole. Also Morning Star is an interesting name since it is most commonly associated with Lucifer. Like... i vaguely remember that at the end of revelations Jesus will become the bright Morning Star, so it might be a title instead of a name, but most devil including media refer to him as "the Morning Star" at least once. Seems weird to call themselves that. Maybe they are trying for a bible fandom deep cut.

Have you seen that SC is creating a new theme park that’s going viral? Measlesville! I think they’re planning on opening one next to the detention center in TX….

I would kill for an ark encounter video, I find myself morbidly fascinated by creationists

My saddest vacation was the summer I turned 12, my Aunt and Uncle from America invited me to go with their family to France a week and a bit. For reasons that were the other kinda sad I avoided spending time at the apartment at all costs. There was nothing for me to do in a small beach town as an 11 year old and a weak swimmer. I’d mostly just sorta loiter around the various Knick Knack shops around there, mostly they sold tiny dragon statues, butterfly knives and scratchy screenprinted Che Guevara t shirts. The only thing I did there I couldn’t have done had I stayed home in Dublin was trying out different French drinks and snacks which then made me really sick

The ark encounter/creationist museum are both run by pretty terrible people. As much as I'd hate to see them get exposure if they do wind up getting covered Paulogia on YouTube has been neck deep in that stuff for years and would be a pretty good resource.

Wait is that a Blinky plush in the back :o

I really love the Heritage USA map as the background whenever Jenny is showing video clips!

Aw my mom went here in the early 80s but they forgot the digital camera

I worked there when I was 14, I'm 53 now. You have no idea how fraudulent and corrupt that place was. Every manner of crime you can think of, they were doing. The place was shut down and Jim Bakker went to jail for some years. The movie The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a good movie about the place. The show The Mighty Gemstones is a comedy that is kind of like how it was. Except the Bakkers are really corrupt. Even when I was 14 I knew that a lot of things were off. The Bakkers swindled a lot of people out of their money. Some of those people were elderly. I'm glad that you did a rant about it.

My family and I went to Disney world when I was 6 or 7 and my dad didn't let us go on any of the rides BC the lines were long. He also didn't want to wait while my sister and I were in line

“narrowly survived abortion baby doll” is a sentence that has no reason to make sense

I grew up in western NY and the ONLY family vacation I can remember from my childhood is when we went to Boston because my dad wanted to go to Boston commons (so weird, that's like going to NYC just to see central park???). It rained the whole time.

Jenny commentating on other people's random theme park footage is one of my favorite genres of ramble

Weird how there's two big failed theme parks in South Carolina considering it's such a nothing of a state. (I can say that, I recently escaped there)

I pray at Wendy's every morning. I am not Christian. My religion is Wendy's

I want a nostalgia critic theme park

Oh for sure the Creation Museum was one of the most depressing vacations my family took. I loved museums and science/history as a kid so I went in very excited- only to have everything I'd learned in school/on my own refuted and labeled 'worldly lies'. My parents kept pushing it too, and quizzing us and our beliefs as we went. It felt like a long lecture and test. The plus side though is that they had an 'are dragons real?' exhibit towards the end. As a dragon kid I got really focused in on that and stopped talking about anything else for the rest of the trip. A little psychic damage thrown back their way for sure.

I STUDY CHRISTIAN THEME PARKS!!! this is so exciting!!!! the Holy Land Experience is definitely worth looking into not just because of what it is but also because it influenced so many later christian theme parks both positively and negatively. the Ark Encounter for example was explicitly trying to avoid many of the choices taken within the HLE because they felt that in their specific sect of evangelicalism, it was an affront to god. lol

saddest vacation was probably when i went camping with my neighbors. not really the fault of the campground but it flooded the whole time and one of the moms ended up getting a rock stuck under her toenail — had to leave super early and pack up in the pouring rain 😭 going camping was a yearly tradition atp but after that trip we decided that we were done LOL

It's crazy that back then controversy destroyed bakers ministry when if that had happened today he'd gain followers and get a presidential pardon. Maybe even a gifted novel peace prize 🕊️

Saddest family vacation for me was my mom and I going to Hannibal, MO because I'd read that they have a really cool Christmas festival thing. We drove several hours to get there, and there is literally nothing Christmas going on. We stayed the night and then left the next day :/ We had been looking forward to it because my dad had died the year before in November and Christmas was his favorite holiday, so we wanted to do something to get out of the house and avoid sad memories and also do something fun. Incredibly disappointing.

OMG ONE OF THE WORST VACATIONS MY FAMILY EVER TOOK, we road tripped to Branson, MI, for an event titled "worldview weekend" (a Christian circle jerk of JUST LECTURES) that my family with 3 kids under the age of 13 had to be dragged to. My sister's birthday weekend, coincidentally, our parents as an afterthought took us to a local theme park in the state after the event. Our bnb was lackluster, we had barely the supplies to make birthday pancakes, and no way to produce flame to light birthday candles. It's infamously one of my sisters WORST birthdays ever, and we kids despised having to road trip to some big conference with 0 kid activities any year the event was scheduled . We stopped in the badlands during the drive, which was sort of near, I guess

I have lived in Charlotte NC since I was about 9, in my 17 years here I never knew that this used to exist here

I never went to Heritage USA (it was before my time) but I have been to the Creation Museum multiple times and the Ark Encounter once during my childhood/teenage years. I remember the first time I went to the Creation Museum I was charmed by the whimsical Dinosaur displays and the (frankly sick as hell) miniature dioramas. I had a similar experience at the Ark Encounter. The main issue with both is that they just have the rancid vibe of being simultaneously incredibly smug and incredibly desperate to be taken seriously. They feel very ego-driven, which is not what you’d want from a Christian ministry, but exactly what you’d expect from a Young Earth Creationist propaganda project masquerading a theme park to indoctrinate sheltered homeschooled children who will never get to attend a real science class.

Jenny covering something so lowkey sinister with her usual theme park commentary was honestly so delightful

It's so funny to me how Jenny doesn't get the appeal of water parks at all. I LOVED water parks as a kid. I'm not even Christian and I probably still would have been psyched about a bible themed water park. Fortunately, the one near me was themed to a mining town and not run by people doing a bunch of fraud (as far as I know).

If you're bored, check out videos of "Splendid China," a now abandoned China themed park outside Disney world. It was made with love and was just a huge garden with tons of miniatures of Chinese monuments. They had acrobats and musicians and other performers and a restaurant. We went when I got sick while visiting Disney with asthma and we loved the place. It was abandoned with all those lonely miniatures for years.

I have an idea for how they could have themed the water park. Have a half donut - shaped pool, but the centre is just below water level. So guests swim in the round part but in the middle, standing on a platform barely concealed by the water, is a character actor portraying Jesus. He looks like he's walking on water and he can inspire the swimmers of course, but the actor is also a lifeguard so he can save people when needed.

My saddest vacation was when my dad took me to Omaha, Nebraska to take the SAT/ACT during COVID because the exams in my state (mind you, we were not close to Nebraska) kept getting cancelled, and I guess this was where he thought COVID safety guidelines would be the loosest (yes, the universities all went test optional that year; according to my dad this was actually a trap to weed out the students who weren't committed enough, or something.) Mostly I just remember the hotel we stayed at had really good snacks, they gave you like a big paper cup and the vegetarian options were french toast sticks or hash browns with a nice sauce/spice mix. Those french toast sticks were the only good part of the trip and a year later I went no contact with my dad

Oooh the next ramble is going to be #100! I also love those hotels with the atrium courtyard things.

The saddest vacation experience I had was probably our family trip to Birkenfeld in Germany when I was a kid. We had seen in the brochure that it had a swimming bond, there were these gem mines in the area that advertised that kids could like, run around and look for gems that the staff had hidden. It looked so fun. We had planned on a week trip before moving on to the next destination. But then we got there. First of all, it rained the entire time we were there. Secondly, the camping we stayed at required keys for everything. For the trashcans, for the toilets, for the entrance to the park, it was very annoying. Secondly, the swimming pond? It was completely black due to thousands of tadpoles swimming in it. The gem mine was also not as great because of the rain, and the gems weren't exactly hidden. They were just... lying around on the ground. The lady in charge of the camping was also unreasonably strict! We left that place earlier than we had intended and had a much better time after that but there's one last funny detail. On the way to the second vacation destination in Austria, we got in a horrible traffic jam. We decided to go off the autobahn and drive on smaller roads. But this was before we had smartphones with digital navigation so we got lost for a while, only to eventually find ourself eventually entering a completely different town that also happened to be called Birkenfeld, and for a moment we panicked that we had somehow traveled in a circle xD

My pitches for deep cut bible-themed theme park rides: - Small World dupe about taking the gospel to the world (it's the same but every scene adds a missionary reading the bible to wide-eyed and delighted locals) - Pentecost meet-n-greet - an area where you can go and meet the apostles but they talk at you in a variety of different languages while wearing special effects fire on their heads - 'To the Ends of the Earth' - an Indiana Jones-type dark thrill ride about the early travels of the apostles and their various martyrdoms - Character meet-n-greet - meet Solomon in his palace, ask him any question and in his wisdom he will answer (then pose for a pic), and in the queue are elaborate animatronics and scenes of the Queen of Sheba and others, but the scenes show that they're also queuing to meet Solomon - Reformation dark ride (iconic animatronic of Luther nailing the 95 theses to the door, scenes include the Heidelberg Disputation and the Diet of Worms, includes catchy theme song 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God') - Calming the Storm - log flume ride about being on a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee during a storm, ends with Jesus calming the storm, and as you exit the floor is like made of glass and projections make it look like you're Peter walking on water towards Jesus, who's in the gift shop - Army of Deborah shooting ride - includes extensive pre-show that shows the full argument between her and Barak, then you're a member of Deborah's army shooting arrows at Sisera's army

I'll be using "that's not a threat, that's a reality of time" thank you

Saddest vacation in heinsight I took was to Auschwitz when I was a kid and didn’t know anything about it and my parents didn’t know how to explain it so I played on my 3ds tomodachi life.

If you don't already know about Santa's Land you absolutely must visit if you're ever in North Carolina. It's gotta to be like top 10 most depressing roadside theme park vacation experiences in America.

I've heard Volcano Bay waterpark is cool for theming but I've never been. I wonder why there aren't more themed water parks in China, since Chinese dragons tie in more to water, and that seems like both a cool and pretty easy-to-execute theme for slides.

Before you explained your outfit I actually put 2 and 2 together and figured you were going for the biblically accurate angel look and I thought that was clever

Saddest family vacation in hindsight was the one my family took just before I entered high school to NYC where we did a lot of usual sightseeing, including going to the top of the tallest buildings like the Empire State Building and the South Tower of the World Trade Center in late August 2001.

I didn't vote for this topic on the poll, but that was a darn good ramble! Great work, Jenny!

Looked up Rulantica when she mentioned it as a really good waterpark and was not shocked to see an indoor forest as the first picture

Scripture suckers. Pffffft

“I’m gonna get bed bugs here.” 😂 So true about the hotel red carpet!

I think he’s in hell now 💀

hand made? by TERRY? fuuuuuuuuuck

Not Jenny starting a Canadian bid war over a vintage unaborted baby doll!

This reminds me a LOT of Primm, Nevada. The (99% abandoned) mall looks nearly identical to the indoor Main Street section, the (semi) abandoned hotels, the remnants of amusement rides, the sense of what could have been, etc. I love Primm but every year it gets a little closer to death and it's weird to like, semi-grieve it.

Bizarre how proud the morningstar people are about tearing down the interesting facades, it was such a prominent part of their pitch video

I chose to watch this instead of the Grammys (glad i did)

As someone who converted to Judaism and took the Hebrew name Ruth (the first convert and lowkey a bisexual icon) I find it truly hilarious that a bunch of Christians would make a musical about her.

Genuinely this is so funny to watch as someone who grew up Christian (no longer) and around all the Christian terminology. Yeah, no, none of it makes sense. They talk about the body of Christ. That’s just the church as a unit of people, but like obviously people don’t know that and if you step back for a sec, why would they?

omg i can't believe you shouted out water world. if you're talking about the one in colorado, yes we have themed dark rides w/animatronics that are extremely cool; a dinosaur one and an egyptian pharoah one. there also used to be a highly themed circus "land" on the far end of the park but it was remodeled a few years ago and the elephants & ringleader were redistributed to other areas of the park.

You so should've done the full Tammy Faye makeup, with absolutely zero explanation (even after showing footage of her)

I don’t love what they’re doing with my name.

Christian Disneyland is just regular Disneyland, and Christian Walt Disney is regular Walt Disney (he was a Congregationalist). That said, evangelicals use "Christian" to mean evangelical, and anyone else is part of a sect that isn't in true communion with God. (I grew up evangelical, they made a distinction between (true) Christians and, say, Lutherans and Catholics)

Lol at around 6:53. I was wondering about all the eyes, not just on Jenny, but Aragog (8), the Simpsons mutant fish (3), just seemed like a theme, but I thought I was reading (with my eyes!) too much into it.

Classy as always!

The body of christ may never recover from this.

Oh jeez(us) that Jim Bakker guy and Tammy Faye thing. Leaving comment at the 5:56 mark. Their story was crazy! Can’t wait to see where this video goes!

I laughed when you talked about the world's largest Wendy's because I went to college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The Taco Bell in town had an official plaque designating it as "The World's Largest Free Standing Taco Bell". It honestly wasn't all that huge. You'd never in a million years walk in there without seeing that sign and think it was anything special. Plus the "free standing" caveat made it especially hilarious. No idea if it has been surpassed today as this was in the 90s.

LMAO i wasnt looking at my phone and thought you said hologram CREATURE & i was so confused, all i could imagine was the weird furry art at the end of the nostalgia critic the wall parody which is funny bc narratively theyre doing the same thing

the antique cars credit is so funny, im imagining jenny sitting arms crossed slowly going around a track on a little car, and it's so much funnier knowing that she's talked about a bear kiddie ride at dollywood, shown footage of the similar horse ride in one of the euro park videos & talked at length about wanting to go on the water equivalent of this ride for the cool themed vehicles. this is why she's my hero

You should absolutely go to the creation museum and the arc encounter. I have been to both as an anthropology project, and they were INSANE and fascinating. So many animatronics!!

Not Jenny deadass "... I think he's in hell."

My father refers to his monthly Jackson Hole diner lunch with his mentally unwell brothers as a “character breakfast.” I’d much rather attend a last supper themed one. Also, I legit flapped along at the end. Thanks for another amazing video Jenny!

what I'm getting from this is that Righteous Gemstones was not just a parody of evangelicals but a documentary

I'm amazed at all the footage you found and details you got! We didn't have cable in my area until I was a teen, and before that we'd get home from school and watch whatever was on TV. Occasionally we'd put on Jim and Tammy Faye - PTL/700 Club was on some UHF channel (UHF was super low budget local channels) and we just thought it was weird. There was no internet for us to see how huge of a scam they were running.

Love Jenny beat-boxing vaporwave around 34:00

Visit Ark Encounter. Be sure to see the 2 part video of the TV crews' interview of Noah.

I’m sorry I couldn’t flap along, I’m on a public bus but thank you Jenny for that immersion

“Religion Ruins Everything” —Hitchens

I am 83 years old on a fixed income and would like to donate $1000 to your ministry for the construction of this "Star Wars Hotel." I believe it will strengthen the body of Christ and Kylo Ren

Most depressing family holiday: I was 19 and my younger sister wanted to bring her boyfriend and my parents said she only could if I brought mine (things weren't going well between him and I). I did it for her, we went to a great villa in Spain but it was up a mountain so getting anywhere meant I got horribly travel sick, and two days in to the two weeks we were there my boyfriend broke up with me. He kept going on long walks to have phone calls with the woman he had dumped me for...

I've listened to a few podcasts about the Bakkers, and honestly Tammy Faye was really interesting! Post-marriage to Jim, she became an LGBTQ advocate and campaigned for better treatment of AIDS patients. I am also deeply uncomfortable with televangelism and I wouldn't say she was immune from criticism, but I also think her later advocacy saying Christians shouldn't cut out LGBTQ loved ones and should help AIDS sufferers was a big deal for a lot of people.

It’s so wild to see this covered, because my mom went there back in the day! She was not a friend of the Bakkers by any means, but she was well-connected in evangelical circles at the time and has photos of her with them at the park. I asked her about it, and she was actually kind of shocked and dismayed to hear me describe it as a theme park. She did not consider it to be one at all, and instead saw it as a genuine spiritual experience, especially with the upper room prayer services. It’s easy to dismiss the disingenuous/money-hungry angle as something only old people would fall for, but unfortunately the scope is far, far broader than that. My mom would have been in her 30s at the time. I think it’s hard for folks who grew up outside of that environment to imagine, but there’s a kind of mental shortcut that happens where anyone professing faith is automatically assumed to be a safe person. It’s hard for people to imagine that someone with a “relationship with god” as they call it would do harm, kind of like how you might struggle to see your own relative committing a crime. Even today, my mom sees the Bakkers as people who were genuine and doing god’s work at the time she met them, but later on lost their way! Crazy stuff

Great pull with the Bonfante/Gilroy Gardens antique car ride. If I'm remembering correctly it had a 50s track and a Roarin' 20s track, and yes the car wash set piece was super cool.

Perhaps Jenny can book the hotel for SpiderCon (or Talking TreeCon, whichever) 2026!!

Jenny! Unfortunately, Jim Bakker is still alive and selling end-times MREs and fake supplements to this day.

Take a drink every time Jenny teases "the castle" in an ominous, foreboding tone. I was on the edge of my seat

speaking from personal experience unfortunately “kids being dragged into a big muggy room to listen to a bunch of boring old guys talk” is a pretty common experience of being a kid in a religious family

Speaking of Jerry Falwell, there’s an absolutely savage interview with Chris Hitchens where he ‘eulogises’ Falwell after his death https://youtu.be/doKkOSMaTk4?si=ibZQhgqtYw0xX6Jo

Depressing family vacation I went on: Palm Springs in August

HEAVENLY HASH!

My most depressing vacation is also my best vacation. When I was a preteen my family went on a summer-long crosscountry (U.S.) trip where we stayed in national parks and did sightseeing along the way. It was an amazing experience we all still reminisce about. But it was also when I started really reckoning with the weight of American history as a white person. You learn about this stuff as a kid but it hits more when you're actually AT the spot MLK was murdered (Civil Rights Museum in Memphis—incredible place). I remember being sad a lot that summer but it was still a really important experience for me.

I was raised Southern Baptist and, as a kid, noticed the Je-SUS pronunciation and it always struck me weird. In my experience, it was typically really over-zealous pastors and the "best" people of the chuch (typically judgy busy-body older ladies) that really put the emphasis on the "sus". To be fair though, it might just be a regional thing. I was in Georgia and Louisiana when we went to church a lot and that's really the only time I clocked that pronunciation. Given that Heritage USA was in the Carolina's that might be why.

Jenny! You should have gone to the pirate show! (https://piratesvoyage.com/) It may not have been open yet. I went in October and it slaps. There’s a big Davy Jones animatronic that comes up out of the water.

I listened to a podcast episode about Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker a while ago, and I recall Heritage USA being mentioned, though not much was said about it in the episode. I'm curious to watch this and see what it was like.

It's so much worse than you realize. Morningstar? Yeah, they are the successor to PTL Ministries (I use that term loosely) - that IS Jim Bakker in all of his survival food apocalyptic insanity. He doesn't technically run it - but it's his outfit. Which is why the tactic of asking old people for money for hotel stays for the rest of their life is the same, and why the video soft peddles the scandal and collapse and talks about the land as if not having it used was hard for Jesus himself - it's Bakker back to his old ways, plus medical quackery since COVID.

My saddest family vacation was the time my dad dragged us all camping with a group from his church (my mom went to a different, more progressive church, yes they’re divorced now) and it was honest to god snowing when we got to the campsite. We only had tents and none of the folks with RVs offered to let us crash with them (how Christlike) so we spent the first night in a motel. On day two we set up camp and our dog kept looking pointedly from us to the car like “we’re going back to that nice motel, right? We’re not actually staying here, right? Bc that would be crazy!” That night my sister and I huddled for warmth with said dog under many layers of clothes, blankets, and sleeping bags, and it still wasn’t enough to keep us all from shivering. That trip was miserable enough to put me off camping forever. Also my mom was bummed bc her own church was having a big party the weekend we were gone.

My favorite part of this ramble was Jenny’s acapella rendition of “Aquatic Ambiance”

These televangelists will take anybody’s money, but in my experience growing up in churches around Iowa, most target elderly people who will willingly sign their estates over to them in their wills, or even getting documentation that overrides the other beneficiaries. I’ve seen local churches do this, too, so the TV preachers are basically the HSN versions of flushing your inheritance away. It’s a really gross industry, and religion is 100% an industry tax-exemptions or not.

Don't know why I'm thinking of this now, but has Jenny ever done anything on the Popeye village in Malta?

My cousins were the hypothetical kids you were describing at the end. They only places they ever went on vacation were the ark encounter and holiday world. To them that was Disney land.

Even when you do short from content it’s good don’t doubt yourself girl!

I love your Putt Putt demo analogy. I'm going to start using that one! My late grandparents went to Heritage USA. It was always something I found fascinating on the surface but never got too deep into.

"I think they're dead--oh they're not! Ah dang..." killed me LMAO

Watched with my family and asked my parents their worst vacation story. My mom's: when she was 8 her dad took her and her 11yo brother to Libertyland with his affair partner and her 3 kids. He was fully married to my grandmother at the time, scared the crap out of his kids to keep them from telling

Can we talk about how Jenny compiles such good footage? I know she apologizes for not researching enough but I’m always impressed by how much information she finds and makes it really interesting

Jenny we’ve gotta get you to a holidome

I wasn't raised religious so my Bible knowledge was pretty disjointed and the first time I heard about Ruth it was via some classical painting that left me with the impression she and her MIL were lesbians.

Well all do talk into the camera the same don't we? Even if no one else is going to see the video.

As someone who grew up in South Carolina but have never heard of this park I am terrified and also extremely excited for where this is going to go

Jenny Nicholson: Firefox pop-out video user, confirmed.

The bird swooping....was that foreshadowing!

Saddest family vacation activity: we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, not realizing just how whitewashed and Mormon it was. I can't even describe it, it just had my whole family's skin crawling by the end with the way native cultures were talked about there. Bonus for a book in the bookstore talking about bringing religion to "the savages".

i just started watching the video but i misheard your description of televangelists and thought you called them "creatures" rather then preachers 😭 i was like oh thats kind of bold but yk what sure

Well, my worst family vacation was when we all had to go on a mediocre cruise with our grandparents. There was a lot of whatever the ship equivalent to turbulence is and halfway through there was an outbreak of something and everyone started getting sick and puking (this was pre-pandemic) The ship had to make an early stop in Florida because something was wrong with the boat and they needed a new part I think. The cruise gave the option for people to just leave while we were stopped. So we rented a car and drove all the way back to Maryland where we departed from.

I found bunches of articles on newspapers.com, there’s one from after the sex scandal but before his conviction for fraud when he was trying to regain the park and it says most employees they talked to didn’t trust him and thought he was gonna fire everyone for like revenge. Also some articles that said Kings Castle opened as an arcade/go-cart place in May 1995

I swear I was like Jenny talking about thds heritage foundation wasn't on my 2026 bingo card. Oh it's a theme park, yeah that checks out.

I thought your Barbie video was next? I’m stoked to hear there’s another one, and maybe you’ll have at least two new videos on the main channel this year?

As for bummer vacations, I don't remember a lot of it (for reasons imminently apparent), but one time my family went to York, in England. I immediately came down with the flu and spent the entire time in our hotel room with my mum while my dad and two older siblings went out and about. Hercules, the Disney animated one, was just then in theaters, so of course they went to go see that while I was stuck staring at a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

There are three flavors of American pronunciations of "Jesus." You've got the regular kind, the G-sauce (as mentioned in the video), and then the Terry Bogard: GEE-ZAHS!

Great video! Sorry to say Jim Bakker is not dead and is back to televangelizing, he's doing an end-times food prepper grift now. I had a hardback book I found at a thrift store, "Jim and Tammy Bakker Present Heritage USA," it had so many great photos in it, I wish I still had it.

Highly reccomend looking up the Sight and Sound theatre. Its basically that Ruth show bit on steroids, giant sets, a bunch of live animals, etc. There's a location in Branson and somewhere in Pennsylvania Dutch country. I went to the second one to see Samson when I was a high-schooler in church choir. Don't remember much about the actual music, but I remember the spectacle of it all + the Amish restaurant we ate at after

So if you're at an amusement park run by faith healers and you're too short to go on all the rides, can they fix that

Trying to think of my most depressing vacation has actually made me grateful that a lot of my vacations have been pretty good if not great. I have the Girl Scouts and my grandparents to thank for getting to do lots of fun trips in my childhood. My most depressing was probably Lego Land shortly after it opened, which wasn't really that bad except that the park was not very populated on this particular day, kinda empty, it was overcast, and I remember it all had a weird smell. I was also too scared at that age to ride anything.

Incredible video! Your wretchedness is truly magnanimous to her toadies I'm gonna guess that the developer who offered to demo the castle for free was one of those older kids that'd kick over sand castles at the beach. Most likely yelling "nerd!" As the castle turrets crumbled to the earth

Living in NC, I got thrown for a loop towards the end of the video when I saw the news broadcast about the castle cuz that’s a regional news channel I’ve grown up watching. I never knew this place was so close, I too knew vaguely about the FL Christian park but not this one! Of course it was in South Carolina, that seems so on trend lol

two moments while watching(me to my spouse creature): IS SHE DRESSED LIKE A BIBLICALLY ACCURATE ANGEL!? several minutes later: “i was going for biblically accurate angel” Me, later: id love her to go to Ark Encounter. Jenny at the end: Maybe ill go to Ark Encounter. yisssssss. Great video, so happy i subscribed finally.

I was actually weirdly into the story of Ruth as a child, I used to walk back and forth across the lawn picking the grass seedheads and pretending I was gleaning, so I would have totally dug Ruth the Musical

Jenny goes to Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana?? (another Christian-owned but less overt themepark with actual attractions) Tbh, my family once went and we didnt book a hotel, so my mom, sister and I ended up in a Honeymoon suite in the middle of nowhere! Haunting!

I honestly forgot that Heritage USA was the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker theme park when I voted on this ramble, but I am so ready for your take on this. I never watched PTL, but Tammy Faye Bakker crying on the news was somehow a core memory for kid!me. I totally get what you're saying about the Bible belt pronunciation of "Je-suss" too.

Is it me or did that Jesus look like Anthony Starr?

biblically accurate jenny

I understand a big reason MGM Studios opened was to compete with Universal Studios, but I wonder if something like Heritage USA, as a “theme park” and functioning TV studio contributed at all. Considering how much money they made, I think it would be interesting to know if it ever turned up as something like a case study in Disney’s analysis of if or how a park like that could work.

I can't get over how Myaku Myaku's eyes are the exact same shade of blue as Jenny's...

As an ordained Christian minister who has worked as a nonsectarian/interfaith chaplain, I happily offer my services if you ever need a consultant for Bible or religious stuff

Jenny loved satan’s cape.

i love the podcast you’re wrong about (the host, sarah, has actually mentioned several times how much she likes jenny’s work) and she has a fantastic couple of episodes about jessica hahn and tammy faye bakker if anyone is curious to know more about that story but it is very very very very sad

About the question at the end of the video. In 2017 I went on a vacation with all of my mom’s side of the family to Punta Cana and it was…not great. It was just after a hurricane had hit and there were structural issues in our first hotel room and when we asked to be moved we had to pay an upcharge fee to move to a “higher end room” which reeked of cigarettes (no one in my family smokes) which made it almost unbearable to be in for us. The heat and humidity were intense and the resort did not have working air conditioning. All of the facilities in the resort were very run down and beat up and there was in general not very much to do. The food was not terribly high quality and it was extremely Americanized. Then on the night before we left my uncle thought he was having a heart attack (he has had several) and demanded to be taken to the hospital. My mother who is a doctor assured him that he was not having a heart attack and that he really just had bad heart burn which was true in the end but he nearly left of his own accord which would have been a logistical nightmare to get him back home if he had. Additionally I was struggling with severe OCD and depression that I would be hospitalized for when we got back. All and all not a very good trip and it was especially sad because my grandmother had financed the entire thing and my family feels she was duped by the travel agent in to spending a lot of money on a poor vacation. It was also the last trip we all took with her before she died three years later from cancer. Also I know Jenny said not to include anything obviously sad but I feel like this counts because A. She didn’t die immediately after the vacation and B. It was an actual vacation and not just a visit to her house right before she died.

I never realized that Zion's Landing from The Righteous Gemstones was based on something. There will come a payday, hallelujah, what a payday 🎵

"I think he's in Hell now." JENNY!! Like you're not wrong but JENNY!!

I love the idea that Jenny absolutely has the highly specific wardrobe to reference any number of fandoms, but when it comes to Christianity "umm...eye balls and...crap...this horny lizard; done."

Discussion response: my senior year of highschool, my parents had me visit potential colleges. My mom surprised me with booking a room at the great wolf lodge not knowing the target age ranges, and me being a 18 year old was supremely embarrassed to be staying there with my parents. I remember feeling so cringe surrounded by 8 year olds at the water park and I definitely made my mom feel bad. But now in hindsight I am so delighted that we went! She still feels bad though and I am sad I was such a brat about it. Now like a decade later I wish I had leaned in more, cuz now I would so love to stay at the great wolf lodge with my parents and ride the big water slide with them!!

Also curious if you knew about the Tammy Faye musical that just flopped last year. She seems like a fascinating figure but from what I heard the musical was too willing to excuse her actual bad deeds

"Drop tower of babel" had me HOWLING what a brilliant idea. I love that you can approach something like this with the appropriate scrutiny and also appreciate the parts of it that were good for what they were

I love visiting current day Heritage USA. I worked in the decor department at Carowinds which was like 5 min away so after work sometimes I would hang out in the main street area or in the hotel lobby. you can actually go into the lobby and it’s still pretty cool. I’ve filmed inside Heritage a few times i’ll see what content I have of the hotel parts. One of my former managers has an office in one of the old storefronts and it’s definitely just a boring office space sadly. I started visiting because the idea of living by an abandoned theme park was so exciting to me but I became such a big fan of Tammy Faye after watching the multiple documentaries on her. She even stood up for trans women as early as 2004 which is so rare. She was incredibly welcoming and kind to the lgbt community and to everyone in the area from what i’ve heard talking to locals.

"Owl" never loose my keys again 😂 Man forget the Heritage Towers rebuild that Wendy's castle I'd get married there! My saddest family vacation was when we went to SoCal and on the first day I got food poisoning and was sick for like the whole week. Had to stay in bed the entire time and hear my siblings brag about how much fun Disney Land was 😞 Oh I just remembered that Tammy Faye movie from 2021 that got an Oscar. I don't remember much from it but wonder if they mentioned the theme park 🤔

Now I want a baked potato in the sun room of a Wendy's.

First: Incredible ending, I was howling Biblical ride idea: “Escape from Damascus”. Paul was lowered under cover of night out of a window in a city wall in a basket and hurried to a ship to escape a plot to kill him. I desperately want this to be the premise of a motion simulator ride: bounce back and forth down the wall, land in a chariot and get in a high speed chase with the plotters, launch into the boat where…I don’t know more bumps happen

They should make a Hallmark movie where a YouTuber books this hotel for a fake wedding so she can make a video about it, but she falls in love with her fake groom and they end up getting married for real.

Tammy Faye Bakker is such an interesting person, like as someone who grew up in that kind of Evangelical space and then grew out of it once I started figuring out more about myself, my values, the fact that I wasn't only attracted to women, it's just interesting to see someone who lived fully in that pretty harmful space but also just genuinely wanted to help everyone and actively spoke out for people like me when her peers very much didn't. She's such a weird character, and I think about her a lot, honestly. It's cool that you went down this rabbit hole a bit.

A sad family vacation story is when we went to Aruba to a very nice hotel but I got wicked sick before leaving. While in the plane I had the worst ear pain and suddenly couldn’t really hear out of my right ear. I had what we thought was a painful ear infection the entire vacation and my parents and sister spent the whole week trying to convince me to do things and hoping I would get better. They proceeded to go to the beach, a steak dinner, and a donkey sanctuary without me while I slept in the hotel. We get home and I go to the doctor and it turns out I burst my eardrum because of the pressure from the plane ride. I was sad I couldn’t do stuff (especially see the donkey sanctuary) and my family was sad I couldn’t do stuff.

Nice video, thanks! 10:10 I know what you mean about the way some people say Jesus. It’s like they are saying Jeez-suss rather than Jeez-iss. I think -suss is what better matches their cadence. Every word has to sound precise and deliberate.

I'd be shocked if this hasn't already been brought up, but obligatory "it's weird that it happened twice" comment...

I'm going to use the senior living at Heritage Towers pitch where we get to "admire the freshly-cut grass, which you didn't have to mow" energy every time I have friends over. Enjoy this can of soda, which you didn't have to buy. Admire my car as we go to Denny's, which you didn't have to drive.

Crazy take that cows are mean. I have only met extremely nice cows. Honestly, friendlier than most horse (although I have not spent as much time with horses as Jenny and I'm sure you can form strong bonds if you have a horse to visit over the course of years, just like with many animals, I'm really not anti-horse anyway I just think cows are sooooo nice).

So excited to watch! I’m from fort mill and the remains of Heritage USA are sooo fun to visit lol

Apparently in recent years, Jim Bakker has been selling apocalypse/end times/survivalist food buckets. A few years back, Rhett and Link did a great video about these buckets. They were not of great quality.

Not to venture too much into politics, but the whole concept sounds like something that could 100% be launched by a televangelist/evangelical/conservative figure in the present day, and they would also get some kind of sponsorship/shoutout by our current president. Likely all as some kind of reaction to Disney doing something “woke” that drives away their more conservative and religious demographics. Whether or not it would actually materialize is up to debate. It would most certainly get a whole lot of money dumped into it by well-meaning people though….

Not Jenny making me feel self conscious about my Bible Belt pronunciation of Jesus

I went on a Tammy Faye rabbit hole after watching this. Seems like she was actually a really wonderful lady and did a lot for bringing light to the AIDS crisis and treating LGBT folks kindly

Discussion question response: Growing up, me and my family would fly to Disney World every year over winter break. My mom got passes as a job perk, so we were pretty familiar with the parks. This particular trip was pretty depressing. Me and my two siblings were getting older and, at the time, we were just kind of going through the motions as a family. None of us were having fun — just kind of exhausting ourselves with three full theme park days. Me and my mom were riding Spaceship Earth, which was really just an excuse to sit in a 15 minute dark ride and disassociate. However, this was the year they refurbished the ride with the interactive portion at the end. Long story short, they take a ride photo at some point, cut out your faces, and then superimpose it over an animated short about utopian future living and play it on a screen mounted in the ride vehicle. Me and my mom looked MISERABLE in our photos. They had us zipping around flying cars and taking lavish futuristic vacations, except both of our faces looked like we wanted to die. It was maybe the one time we enjoyed ourselves on that trip because of how absurd it was — it felt like Disney World calling us out and laughing at how depressed we were. “We know you’re not having fun, so let’s create a little animation so you can at least pretend you’re having fun.” Ironically, of my favorite memories with my mom on what was otherwise a downer of a vacation.

Ugh, I love an atrium, we need to bring them back

Yes, on the Je-SAHS thing! I grew up adjacent to and then in a co-ed socialist religious order (note that the 'socialist' part was just that everyone's money went into a single bank account and everyone got a stipend, we shared all our stuff), and that was definitely somewhat of a thing when deep in religious fervor, lol. The Community of Celebration was the name. HILARIOUSLY their big iconography for the group was a rainbow and boy did they hate that rainbows turned out to be gay symbolism... Feel free to ask me about it if you ever need religious stuff. It was big enough to have a pastor sex scandal on Wikipedia and a couple of books! For the most part they were nice, but looked down on my mother and I for being poor and eventually stiffed us when they laid my mother off. Religious institutions do not need to pay unemployment, and this one didn't bother to make sure we knew that. Fun times, very Godly, *cough* *cough*. We'd lived nearby and were associate members but not bound by a code of conduct until my father passed away when I was still a teen and my mother joined. I'll uh, not explain more but I am no longer religious, 30 years later.

Spent a hellish field trip at the Holy Land Experience as an 11 year old. Very little shade, very little water, very little anything to see. I got! Very sick!

I'm so excited to watch this one!! Heritage USA was one of my hyperfixations about 10 years ago, and Tammy Faye is also just SO FASCINATING to me. Thank you Jenny!!

And just the mention of South Carolina and 1989 is the visiting NYC in summer ‘01 of meteorology. Hurricane Hugo is legend, one might even say biblical. Wild (and maybe the only funny thing about it) that it finished off this park

I had relatives who carried their camcorders around on vacations in the 80s and 90s - the point was to force your family to watch them with you when you got back. Excruciating.

Water World mentioned! Can’t speak for what it’s like lately but growing up in the Denver area it was a staple. GenX/Millennial kid age birthdays were Water World, Celebrity Sports Center or Boardwalk USA. And you must be talking about Voyage to the Center of the Earth, that was so big when it opened, pretty sure it was the same summer Jurassic Park came out too so it had maximum hype. You always had to always do it at least once, but man you had to earn it. The line was so long and then you had to hike up the hill with a giant freaking raft over your heads. The Egypt ride was cool too, but that was the consolation prize for me, I wanted to see dinosaurs

I totally get what you mean with the Jesus pronunciation thing at 11 minutes. I feel like it must some sort of rhetorical showmanship thing. Like a verbal version of having the H capitalized in He/Him when talking about God. Or maybe that’s just the way Billy Graham it pronounced it in his own accent, and all of these evangelical preacher types are copying him.

On the topic of bible theme parks, when I was a kid my family went to the Ark Encounter, which is truly impressively themed in terms of Ark stuff with a LOT of detail. However, in general its more of a museum for creationist ideology in a very cool boat. The nearby Creation Museum, which we also went to, does have animatronics in it. I remember when I was there I bought books by Ken Ham and a little ark minature. In general, if you have an interest in intense bible themed attractions the ark is up there. Btw i no longer have those fucking books.

Hi Jenny, this is my first time commenting and it has nothing to do with this very cool video, but I saw a post about an Australian toy store called The Lost Forest that made me think of you and your plush indoor forest agenda. I’m sure you’re already aware of this, but just in case not: https://www.tumblr.com/inber/807047229922770944/ohhhh-my-god-this-is-a-puggle-from-an-australian Anyway thanks for another great video!

Me for the first 6 minutes: "Man why does Heritage USA sound so familiar? Maybe I'm also thinking about the Florida bible park? But I could've sworn..." [JIM BAKKER pops up in the commercial] Me: Oh no, THAT'S why

Anyone know what the movie for the video she's working on is?

whoa, i wasn't raised religious or anything, but the song they use for that lights display is, like, THE song for my childhood christmas memories: https://youtu.be/pNKc_6ZqxrY

No pun intended but Jesus Christ, there have been more than one of these awful f***ing things?

Hey I really enjoy all your videos but I wanted to say... Would you please add a trigger warning to this video. Normally I am safe from my triggers on your channel and was suprised by the SA stuff. Should have trigger warned myself because it sometimes comes up when religious stuff is involved saddly. Using the letter SA instead of the full words can help people with PTSD like me still enjoy content while being less triggered. (Really love the japan expo headband btw)

There’s a YouTube vid of Jerry Falwell going on the water slide

i totally flapped along

My thought about the "pro-life doll" is just that proceeds from the sale would go to pro-life organizations and movements

That is the whitest theme park I have ever seen (and US theme parks in general skew pretty white). Jim Bakker is a horrible, horrible person. As someone mentioned below, Tammy Faye redeemed herself somewhat during the AIDS crisis. I'm trying to imagine how disappointed I would have been as a child if this is where we went for a family vacation (I am the right age for that to have happened, but happily my parents weren't awful). I bet I still would hold a grudge against my parents.

39:54 I'm sorry, those keychains are THIRTY DOLLARS A PIECE? That's insane. I make jewellery as a hobby and sure I know that to make these you have to buy supplies. Beads in higher quantities if you want consistent colours and patterns on offer, specialised beads like the carrier bead the key ring is attached to, maybe crimp beads depending on how you close the thread, maybe glue, and of course the thread and the key rings themselves. So like with anything you have some upfront costs. But the material costs are VERY LOW, especially since those appear to be very cheap plastic beads. Cheap and ugly. Anyone could make these, and while that's often a deceptive assumption because only someone who's invested the upfront cost for the materials and is willing to put in the effort could, for $30 you could get the materials to make like a hundred of these. Probably more. And sure you're also paying for the convenience of not having to buy a bag of carrier beads only to make a single bracelet, and you're also paying for their labour (which is very little, I could throw one of these together in minutes) – but $30 is just bonkers. For an ugly plastic bracelet. That's the price of a nice sterling silver bracelet, not some cheap plastic bead bracelet with a keyring on it. Whatever friend or relative of the owners got to put those things up for sale there got an insane deal. That would never sell anywhere else but somewhere families go to have a good time, just happen to see some colourful keychains, go "oh I lose my keys sometimes!" and buy it as a souvenir because they're in a good mood and there are no competing offers around that would instantly make these look much worse.

I grew up in Fort Mill and had a friend who lived in the neighborhood next door, built on old PTL land. We would go at night and walk around the abandoned hotel parking lot and the castles and freak ourselves out. In high school, I was in our TV class that produced the weekly news show for the school and for a Halloween episode a group of boys went and filmed a “found footage” short film in the hotel and we aired it in our show, snd got in trouble with the principal lollllllll

"it was a difficult time for the body of christ" -me in 33 ad trying to explain to my children what i just witnessed at calvary

also, jenny lore drop? i didn’t know you went to a catholic college lol, the more you know!

i didn’t know this was the same family as the ones in “the eyes of tammy faye” (i haven’t seen the movie but i watch the oscars every year) so when they said “eyes like tammy” i was like “THAT TAMMY???”

Supplying the soundtrack using the viral tiktok video music took me around the bend. I rewatched just that moment three times, for the dopamine. "Myuuurmyurmyuuyr..."

"Drop Tower of Babel" might be the best thing ive heard in months. Just. Its just so perfect oh my god

Speaking of biblical stories about women, my favorite is probably Judith, who decapitated an enemy general while he slept, but of course she doesn't get her own dinner theater musical.

As someone called Ruth, I hate that the Bible has made it so that the name means 'Friend of Beauty'. Like, growing up I took so much shit for that... And yeah it's a crap story! "My husband died so I suppose I'll hang out with his Mum" x

OoOoohoho, thank you your ghastlyness, mmmyess Whats with the U.S. Christianity and not drinking- Jesus is like represented symbolically by drinking wine blood. He turned water into wine, not grape juice Most disappointing place I've been was most certainly Marineland... A big concrete expanse where i got heatstroke and felt deep sadness for orcas.

Nyeehehhh, your villainy has once more outdone your cruelty, my mistress of the revolting. Nyeehh!

It’s such an interesting indicator of how culture has shifted to see that the park *completely* cleared out the second the scandal hit. I do not think that would happen now - if anything, attendance would probably go up!

Not a family vacation but Stonehenge was the most disappointing place I've visited. Tiny, plus England was struggling with Mad Cow Disease at the time so they didn't let us exit the bus.

I wonder if recently outed Disney/theme park content Adult “Jennette McCurdy” is here watching Jenny with us ♥️

Jenny, if you haven't done so, you should watch "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" with Jessica Chastain as Tammy and Andrew Garfield as Jim. Great performances and a stellar soundtrack!

It's very funny to me that the company now in charge of this place is called "Morningstar Ministries", seeing as the translation of "Morningstar" in Latin is literally "Lucifer". I've checked and apparently Bible refers to both Satan and Jesus as the morning star, but that's still, like, what I would call an evil televangelist company in a book if I wanted to be very on the nose with a "They claim to serve Jesus but they're evil" metaphore.

thank you for the video your nastiness!

"The Drop Tower of Babel" you snuck in there got me good.

I'm so glad you brought up the pronunciation of Jesus, because I've noticed it too but have had no one to discuss it with! I first noticed it with the Duggars, so I didn't even think of it being a matter of region but rather a matter of religious intensity, i.e. fundamentalist versus more modern Christianity. But they're from Arkansas so I think you might be onto something!

unsurprising "fun" fact the teacher that failed that one girl was a trans woman that was then immediately fired. these are vile, vile people and it's refreshing hear you have no respect or kindness for them even if it's a little depressing. I hope all the kids in these old videos managed to get away from these cults and life free, happier lives.

Why do people with theme park money always seem to make kinda shitty parks that end in financial ruin? Does absolute theme park money corrupt absolutely? Would I too create a kinda shitty park if I have theme park money? Much to consider.

"it's a space, a lot of it is outdoors, there are trees" me describing my dream home where I went to spend my final years

fun fact about jerry falwell: he had a big role in the kick-starting of the New Atheism movement because he was a horrible person (worse than even mr. bakker; he publicly blamed gays for 9/11 and was constantly flaunting his extravagant wealth everywhere), and people were giving him undeserved memorials after he died, and a clip of christopher hitchens speaking that truth on CNN went viral in the 2000s and was one of the first bits of internet media shown on atheist message boards. i guess he did manage to make history with his sad pathetic waste of a life after all edit: i just realized that this is not really related. i just think deep internet lore is interesting!

“Drop Tower of Babel” unironically sounds amazing

*Obediently flaps wings*

I work in historic preservation and a couple of years ago there was some preliminary interest in trying to list what was left of Heritage USA in the National Register. It never went past that initial discussion but man I sure fell down my own wild research rabbit hole.

i felt like the news crew doing that TV special were shading the park a lot, and it was honestly really funny. the line "you can't buy a beer or pack of cigarettes at heritage USA, but you can buy a lot of other things" sounded like shade to me LMAO

I’ve had the privilege to be able to work in several inside-outside spaces/forests, all being 27-43 years old and let me tell you that when you’re walking around beneath the trees, one of the top things on your mind is the dust that is most definitely constantly falling onto your head and into your eyes, and though it is indeed an honor, it’s also mildly chilling.

okay the end tangent about kids reminded me of not my saddest vacation, but my saddest work at a vacation spot. i worked at a very fancy hotel one summer (a few years prior they hosted the g8 congress kinda fancy) and the work was okay, we had a couple weddings that were suprisingly kind and considerate, but the day to day work in the restaurant was really sad because of the kids. They'd be well dresed and behaved, and acted just like small adults. They'd sit at the table with the adults, not speak for two hours, then leave. Made me really wish for a mcdonalds style playground next to the fancy restaurant. but probably these kids wouldn't have been allowed to play, because that wouldn't be dignified. The few kids who (still politely) asked if we had any chicken nuggets or pasta with ketchup were a real relief.

I love the deep dive here, I also find these places fascinating and I'd never heard of this place! That hotel atrium design is so peak. My grandparents lived in the western part of South Dakota so I had lots of weird childhood excursions to really tacky places around Mt Rushmore (itself a hugely tacky eyesore made by a klanner) including a little dinosaur themed play park and I think a Flintstones one similar to that one in Arizona! I went back in 2011 as a college student though, and while we still visited old white people mountain we ALSO visited a wild ass safari park called Bear Country USA where you drive through and there are just, bears!? And wolves!? And they wander right by your car? They also had herd animals and a little zoo area with otters and bear cubs, no idea how legit the place is zoologically but it blew away the brontosaurus slide from when I was 7.

omg late night jenny 💚🥹

I really want Jenny to read the book "I was wrong" in a very dramatic way. I think it would be very entertaining and maybe she could do a script doctor of it where it's an AU where the guy is actually a good person

We just blow past "friendly like horses or mean like cows" and I'm offended on behalf of the cows.

Tammy Fey really was a singular and pioneering voice for love during the AIDS crisis at a time when no one from the conservative camp was saying anything like that. She did right by them.

I have never heard of this place in my life. apparently I've been driving right past it for YEARS

*camera person zooms into plane* jenny: maybe thats what reminded me of 9/11

A fun ride idea for the noahs ark log ride would be if each log was actually shaped like a different pair of animals and only 2 people per cart. Maybe 4 people per cart with 2 sets of animals close connected so each couple could choose an animal to be and you ride up into the ark and see all the different animals in it and then it takes off into the sea/flood and the end of the ride is dry land with the flood waters gone

I can't believe the power of the Hello Kitty happiness bell ran out and you got cursed again 😔

I'm sick with the flu and a bit feverish, so this video and a lot of tea wil be my faithhealing :)

This is a delight. PTL! 🙏🏻

Starting watching now, I'm giving it about 30% chance that Jenny casts a curse on the theme park owners. Looking unlikely but still a chance

Jenny: Maybe just one rabbit-hole Me: Yeeeessss thank you!

One of my favorite women in the Bible is Ja’el, who offered to let an enemy army chief stay in her home, gave him milk and blankets, and then killed him by driving a tent pin through his head. I’m just saying I think she deserves a musical too

Jenny is here to restore our faith in humanity. Also, this place looked really cool!

Does anyone know if the Barbie vid is officially not happening? I feel like I missed an update somewhere.

Wait I think “Satan” from the Passion Play is actually King Herod asking Jesus to prove his son of God status. He has the “turn these stones into bread” so maybe. Idk could be wrong I don’t know the bible that well either but I’m mildly familiar with ALW’s Jesus Christ Superstar lol

wait how it is possible nobody you've talked to has noticed that that specific type of southern religious folk always emphasize the "us" in "Jesus" 😭 You are not crazy, I've noticed that forever!! I'm sure lots and lots of people have haha you are not crazy about that. it's very obtrusive 😂

Your disgustingness, please, my sleep schedule is already on fire.

Ok Im only 8 minutes in, but I’m guessing this park is going to shut down at some point so I really hope Jenny wont miss the chance to say “it is finished”

There are so many sad, decaying Victorian seaside resorts and 1950s era holiday parks in England that I visited as a child, all of them shabby and fallen into tacky disrepair after the package holidays to Spain and France became popular for UK people in the 1970s. Blackpool is the king of them all: it is hysterically tacky in places down by the beach, all neon plastic silliness and cheap thrills and nonsense. And then on the next street it is brutally poverty stricken, one of the poorest and most deprived places in the UK. It is very, very sad.

For my worst childhood vacation memory, once I was on a road trip with my family and my dad took us an hour out of our way to go to Tall grass national prairie. We all thought it was going to be lame but he assured us it would be a good time. When we finally got there, it was early spring and all the grass was cut down in that season. 12 yo me was bubbling with rage.

YESSS

oh hell yes

WE WON 😭😭 nicholsonators RISE

It’s 3am, no time like the present to watch this

Oooo new video!