Your all-access pass to WESTERNLAND!
This week's rom-com series is West World (minus the violence) meets Adventureland.
Howdy from Westernland, a small-town theme park complete with a Saturday night barn dance and dubious historical accuracy. Pick up a cowboy hat from the gift shop and meet a whole cast of characters, from Calamity Jane to Wild Bill Hickock. You might want to avoid the hayride though… some little kid spilled his doubloons after too many corndogs.
🎢 Meet Cute Presents: The Theme Park 🎡
College boy Tommy has no idea what he's in for when he signs up to work at Westernland. Thankfully Calamity Jane has a few tips to share with him.
Holster your six-shooter and listen to Calamity Jane.
Jackson, the maintenance man at WESTERNLAND, is often mistaken for the Town Drunk. But under his rumpled exterior is a kind soul… Enter Molly, the manager of the amusement park, and her eye for hidden potential.
Get to know the man underneath in Town Drunk.
Class nerd Spencer and new girl Clare are paired up on their school trip to Westernland. But will the class bully come between them?
Get ready to dance in Two Step.
🎧 TUNE IN 🎧
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🎬 Plus a Stealing Scene 🎬
If we could work at any fictional theme park, it would have to be Adventureland (2009).
✏️ Writer’s Spotlight: Rob Wilder 📓
What inspired your Meet Cute series, The Theme Park?
The Theme Park series was inspired by an amalgamation of things that deal with the idea of fantasy--Disney (of course), Graceland, Westworld, and books like Swamplandia by Karen Russell and Who Will Run The Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore. I’m interested in the seams where you can see behind the curtain, where the fantasy or suspension of disbelief just isn’t working anymore. Those moments are great for comedy, romance, and even drama.
How did you come up with the concept of Westernland?
I live in the West so I suppose those myths and legends of folks like Annie Oakley and Billy the Kid are all around me. If you listen closely to the stories in Theme Park, you can hear the characters talk about how those legends don’t really hold up so well in our current world. I wanted a place that was barely holding on, the same way a lot of our old ideas about how the West was won are barely holding on.
Do you have a favorite IRL theme park?
Obviously, these are tough times for theme parks, but I have nostalgia for Rye Playland in Rye, New York. I was an altar boy as a kid and our big reward after a year of Sunday mass, weddings, and funerals was to all pile onto the church bus and head to Playland. The church manager gave us a handful of tickets and let us run amok, a little like the kids in The Theme Park. I prefer smaller, homegrown theme parks more than the big, flashy ones. To me, that’s where the stories live.