RIP Franchises of our youths

[Drunk Monk]

NOOOOO!!!

Beloved SF business Japan Video & Media to close its doors after 40 years
The Japan Video & Media storefront. Photo courtesy of the Legacy Business Program

He announced the impending closure through a note posted to the store's front window.
"We have managed to overcome many difficulties, changing market trend, recession and pandemic," the notice reads. "However, the time has come. We are closing the store at the end of May. 
We have served over a million people. We could not have done it without our loyal customers and our dedicated staff. We are grateful for each and every one of you."
A long history
The backstory:
Japan Video opened on Sept. 1, 1984, and has operated out of its current location at 1137 Post Street since 1988. The store was named a Legacy Business in 2020.
The store's application for the Legacy Business program states that Onishi's goal was to "open a store that introduced and promoted Japanese culture, making it accessible to Americans, and allowed anyone the ability to learn the Japanese language."
The business specialized in Japanese and Korean TV shows, films and anime, and carried a wide range of merchandise, including T-shirts, scrolls, posters, plush dolls, bags and collector's items.
The business has advertised a closing sale, with discounts on most of its merchandise — except for a large stuffed Totoro figure that the shop has become known for. Photos of the business show the four-foot-tall plushie carrying a price tag of $7 million.

[thatguy]

No!

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

Another in the "didn't know it was still going" category.

DR. DEMENTO, MADCAP RADIO DJ WHO LAUNCHED WEIRD AL’S CAREER, ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT
“It’s been a blast,” 84-year-old radio legend wrote in a message to fans, “but I have come to the decision that I need to hang up my top hat soon”

By ANDY GREENE

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JUNE 20, 2025

The pop culture universe became significantly less demented on Friday when Barret Hansen, aka Dr. Demento, announced his retirement after 55 years of playing novelty songs on the airwaves. “It’s been a blast,” he wrote in a message to fans, “but I have come to the decision that I need to hang up my top hat soon.”

Throughout the course of his long career, Demento introduced several fantastically silly songs into the public consciousness, including “Fish Heads” by the comedy duo Barnes and Barns, and “Shaving Cream” by Benny Bell.

But his greatest achievement took place in 1976 when he dug out a cassette mailed into him by a 16-year-old high school student named Alfred Yankovic, and played his homemade song “Belvedere Cruisin'” on the national airwaves. “When I first got this tape, it had nothing written on it,” Dr. Demento said in Weird Al’s Behind The Music. “It was a song that Al wrote about driving around the streets of Lynwood in his parent’s Plymouth Belvedere.”

Hearing his song on the radio was one of the most stunning moments in Yankovic’s life. “I just went nuts,” he said. “I ran around the house screaming. I couldn’t believe it.” Yankovic kept submitting songs, and was a mainstay on the program by the time he became a student at California Polytechnic State University. Early classics like “My Bologna” and “Another One Rides The Bus” were first heard on the Dr. Demento show, and Yankovic has often credited the DJ with not only launching his entire career, but inspiring him to record parody songs in the first place. In the 2022 mock biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Dr. Demento was played by Rainn Wilson. 

Before he first put on a top hat and called himself Dr. Demento, Hansen was a regular contributor to Rolling Stone.  In August 1968, [url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/life-184036/]he reviewed the Sly and the Family Stone album Life. “Sly and the Family Stone are opening the door to a whole new era in soul music,” he wrote. “With their emphasis on flash, on never-let-up entertainment of the senses rather than on the orderly telling of a story, they might well be the first McLuhanian soul group.”

In a 2017 interview with Mark Dago, Hansen explained how he picks the songs he plays on his show. “Over forty-plus years I’ve developed a feeling for what my listeners will probably like,” he said. “It’s very subjective. No hard and fast rules. It helps if the lyrics are funny, of course, and it’s best if they establish themselves as being funny rather quickly. It helps if the music is listenable, especially if the performer has feeling and what one might call charisma. Of course, now and then there’s something that’s so bad that it’s funny on account of that. Some people cherish music like that, but I find a little of it goes a long way.”

The final Dr. Demento broadcasts will consist of archival material from the course of his long career. 

[Greg]

What the what? I, too, did not realize he still broadcasted.

[Drunk Monk]

Six Flags California’s Great America Prepares to Close After 50 Years
The park's latest lease is set to end on June 30, 2028
By 
Colson Thayer
 
Published on June 23, 2025 03:50PM EDT


The Rocks Fountain Carousel at California's Great America amusement park, captured in 2008.Credit : 
Alamy

NEED TO KNOW

• Six Flags California's Great America amusement park in Santa Clara, Calif., may soon shut its doors
  
• During a recent investors meeting for the company, the Six Flags CFO announced the park will close after the 2027 season, unless they extend their lease
  
• The park is set to celebrate its 50th season in 2026
  

Six Flags California’s Great America may soon shut its gates permanently.
“Unless we decide to extend, and exercise one of our options to extend that lease, that park’s last year without that extension would be after the ‘27 season,” Six Flags chief financial officer Brian Witherow said about the Santa Clara, Calif., park. The comments were made while answering an audience question at the company’s Six Flags Investor Day 2025 on May 20. The news followed the May 1 announcement that Six Flags America in Bowie, Md., is closing at the end of the 2025 season.
“Those are two parks that are very low on the ranking of margins,” Witherow added.
This means the over-100-acre park would close in October 2027 after the Halloween season. The park first opened in 1976 under the Marriott Corporation as Marriott’s Great America.

The entrance of Six Flags' California's Great America amusement park.
Alamy

In 2024, the park’s parent company, Cedar Fair, merged with Six Flags in an $8 billion deal. Two years before, Cedar Fair had sold the 112 acres of land underneath the park for $310 million to Prologis, a real estate and supply chain logistics company. The amusement park company agreed to lease back the land for six to 11 years, announcing plans to close the park at the end of the lease. The initial lease agreement is set to end on June 30, 2028, with an option to extend the terms for another five years to 2033. However, the company has yet to announce a lease extension.
“We chose Prologis as our partner because of their deep ties in the Bay Area and their reputation for working closely with local communities on large developments,” then Cedar Fair president and CEO Richard A. Zimmerman said via press release in June 2022. 
Prologis is already making plans for the land: “We’re focused on identifying and partnering with planning and design experts to help us create a master plan for the property,” spokesperson Jennifer Nelson wrote in an email to the Los Angeles Times in January.
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California’s Great America’s counterpart in the Midwest, Six Flags Great America outside of Chicago, opened the same year as the West Coast park. However, only the Illinois park will receive enhancements and celebrate the park’s 50th season. 
Official closure details, including the final day of operation, is yet to be announced by Six Flags.

I'm sure we all remember when this opened. ED & DM even did a dormouse adventure there where it was determined that X is great for rollercoasters. 

We took Tara back in the day and it felt really run down and a tad ghetto. That must've been nearly 20 years ago.

[Greg]

We went that first summer. Nickel Root Beer and big cups of fries were the highlights.

[Drunk Monk]

Yep. I think we all did. 

DM did some sort of karaoke thang with ED when mollied up. Wonder if ED still has the tape...

[Greg]

Just saw Lorde on Colbert talking about how MDMA Therapy got her over her crippling stage fright....

[Drunk Monk]

Ya, I watched that too. 

It's in the lyrics of her new song.

[Greg]

Yeppers. That song was stuck in my head for many days.

[Drunk Monk]

Love Lorde. Been following her from her very beginning. 

The video also captures her rogue appearance in the park, which she talked about with Colbert.

[Greg]

It's not the end of a franchise. But it is the end of my connection to it.

I sent all my D&D stuff to my nephew, Zachary. He plays. When he heard I had some old stuff kicking around, he asked me to send it to him. Or when I heard he played, I asked him if he wanted it. Either way, it's off to Ohio. It hasn't been out of the backpack since Ireland. I still had the best Dungeon Master's book because it was printed upside down in respect to the cover.