Volume 3, No. 13. July 11, 2003
Rocky’s
revival
Move over Richard
Rodriguez; Rocky Raccoon is the new media king of Coney Island’s Astroland
in Brooklyn, New York. Rodriguez may have set endurance records on the park’s
venerable Cyclone roller coaster, but Rocky got himself stuck in the
park’s observation tower last month. His rescue, from the machine room
at the top of the 250-foot ride, made every city newspaper, radio report and
television news broadcast.
"The Daily
News was the first to do the story, and then more news people called and
more news people called and more news people called,” said Mark Blumenthal,
Astroland’s manager. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Rocky apparently
climbed a ladder inside the tower’s tube. “He just kept going up and
up,” Blumenthal said. He got through a hole in the machine room capping
the tower. One of the maintenance workers saw the raccoon’s eyes one morning
and reported the trespass. Later, Blumenthal saw a raccoon near the base of
the tower and figured the now-dubbed Rocky had climbed down of his own accord.
But that turned out to be a different raccoon; a few days later Rocky was again
spotted at the top.
Now Blumenthal
was worried. “I was afraid he’d start chewing up the wires,”
he said. “There was no food up there for him. And the maintenance guy wasn’t
too happy having a raccoon up there.” Before he could set a rescue into
action, the Daily News got hold of the story. “All I wanted to do
was get rid of this thing, and everybody is going, ‘No, no, no, this is
great publicity.”
Sure enough, two
television news teams sent helicopters for aerial coverage of a maintenance
worker emerging from the top of the tower with a cage containing Rocky, who
was trapped by a bait of cat food and a Nathan’s hot dog. Reporters waited
at the foot of the tower to interview Rocky, who didnt’ have much to say.
He was taken to a wildlife preserve and released, Blumenthal said.
Meanwhile, morning show broadcasters and TV newscasters took advantage of the occasion to air reports from Astroland, riding the kiddie rides and using the midway as backdrop. Rocky proved a publicity bonanza for the park. “I couldn’t ever think of doing something like that to get that much publicity,” Blumenthal said. “Richard Rodriguez does his bit, but he doesn’t get as much publicity as the raccoon gets.”
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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