The Mall of America has lost its rights to use the Peanuts characters, which means the signature Camp Snoopy amusement park in the center of the Mall will have to be renamed. The Snoopy theme had been a good fit for the Mall because comic strip creator Charles Schultz had grown up in the area, and Mall management is said to be looking for another Minnesota-related name out of concern that they’ll be sued by Blois Olson if they remained nameless.
Fortunately there’s an easy answer. There’s nothing more Minnesotan than DFL politics, and the park can easily be converted to reflect this, starting with a warm, fuzzy-sounding name. Since Camp DFL doesn’t quite roll off the tongue (and might confuse people who think it refers to the public education system), a cuddlier adaptation would be Camp Doofy. All the rides, of course, are for the children.
Some of these rides could be renamed as well. “The Treetop Tumbler” would be more appropriately named “Tax and Spin”, but they’d only have to add one letter to rename “The Timberland Twisters”. Given their commitment to national security, “The Screaming Yellow Eagle” could stay the same, though there would be some pressure to rename the ride “The Belching Green Bus”. This faction would be placated, however, by converting the Paul Bunyan Log Chute into light rail and renaming it for Paul Wellstone.
Hmmm, “The Red Baron” could probably stay the same, but I’m afraid we’d probably lose “The Mighty Axe”, given its resemblance to the Republican platform.
I don’t know… that “log chute” thing, if you think about an analogy, is fairly emblematic of the DFL’s typical ideas.