SegaWorld Sydney had a Sonic Puppet Show!

Yes you read that correctly. In possibly one of the most bizarre but brilliant discoveries about Sonic in a very long time, SonnikuForever on the Sonic Retro forums (see the thread here) was sourcing the net for information on Sydney's SegaWorld park which was open between 1997 and 2000, particularly about that supposed live show of which a soundtrack CD was released to the Internet some years back. Barely anyone online could even recollect what the show was like but SonnikuForever found the website of the shows creator Phillip Einfield of whom he got in contact with and the puppeteer was kind enough to send over scans of photos of the show along with a full detailing on what the show was like, how it was made and more! Hit the jump for the full scoop:

Here's what Philip sent SonnikuForever about the show:

The Sonic the Hedgehog Puppet Show performed 3-4 half hour shows daily in Sega World Sydney throughout 1998-99.

It was performed on center stage, pretty much in the middle of Sega World next to the food court. People could dine at their tables while watching the show.
The show was designed, written, produced and performed by Phillip Einfeld Puppetoons. It involved 2 puppeteers and a live hostess.

Dr. Robotnik had devised a plan to finally defeat his arch enemy Sonic. He has concocted a robot making machine that would build the ultimate, evil, robot with every device needed to catch Sonic. With the help of his buddies Tails and Princess Sally, Sonic defeats the robot (Grounder) who turns out to be a bit slow physically and mentally. Robotnik blasts off back to his secret laboratory in anger and everyone lives happily ever after.

Originally, a show with dancers and costumed characters performed on the stage. The soundtrack you have heard is from that show. I think I may have the puppet show sound track in my files somewhere but it could take some time to find it.
When Sega decided to disband the original stage show, due to it not being very dynamic, late 1997, I was brought in to replace it with the puppetshow and some animatronic displays.

I redesigned the stage to represent planet Mobius, on either end were magic mountains, every 15mins except during show times, audio animatronic Sonic and Tails characters rose out of top of mountains and spoke to each other and audience, anouncing show times and upcoming events in Sega World. In center of stage stood the large, fully sculpted puppet theatre. Perched above the theatre was a big ,purple, animatronic bird that spoke to the audience. Above the stage was a large vid screen. Segments of the puppet show where filmed and appeared on the screen I.e when Robotnik blasts off in his space ship he is seen flying across a planet strewn sky above the audience (on the screen).

The puppets were large, muppet style creations, Sonic, Tails, Princess Sally, Dr. Robotnik and Grounder the Robot. A large 'Robot making Machine' prop was made along with special Sonic hats for children chosen from audience to wear. The show included much audience participation. I had 3 original songs recorded (I attached the lyrics).
I used all my own people for the voices (all approved by Sega) From memory I voiced Grounder, Dennis White voiced Dr.Robotnik, and Sonic, Tails and Sally were voiced by Alexis Nagy. The original music and songs were written and produced by myself and Mark Rosenberg.

The photos are just something else. It's almost like when Woody found out about his old cowboy puppet show in Toy Story 2. The puppets are huge and a little bit freaky but in a charming way. Sonic and Tails are adorable, Robotnik looks awesome and Sally is a bit of a ugly wreak, kind of like those plush toys of her that were sold at the park. There is also a puppet of Gronder from AOSTH, though his a bit off-model to say the least, but still neat.

The set is also inspired by the Adventures cartoon, and there are Sonic and Tails animatronics that popped out of the Dr.Seuss like scenery. The expression on Tails face is quite frankly hilarious. As a child though I would of love this to pieces, seeing as I loved puppet shows and Sonic. What a find! How many video game franchises can say they even had a puppet show based on them?

Btw this is just a good time as any of ask this: Sega Memories wants photos, memories and write ups about anything visitors of SegaWorld Sydney may have. If you went there back when it was open and something to say about it, we would love to hear from you!

A SegaWorld Coin, and a rather jammy story.

Here's an interesting story sent in to me via e-mail by a reader called Daniel recently.

"Back when I was about 9 I was invited to Sega World by my friend. His dad was the manager of it back then so I could spend the day there as the official ride and game tester! I was given lots of these Sega World gold coins that let me play anything I wanted for free. From time crisis to a trackball version of sonic (in Japanese) to a bobsleigh game played in bobsleighs I spent all of these coins. Except one. This one..."

"As I couldn't find any info about them on the net I thought I would share with you this rare piece of sonic memorabilia!"

Thanks Daniel! Now I'm just a bit jealous of that Sega related moment of your childhood.

Sonic 6th Birthday event in Hamleys, 1997

Sonic the Comic were good to me. Hell, Sega in general have been good to me as a fan, but Sonic the Comic really did throw some good stuff my way when I was a wee lad. Not only did I win a Sonic 2 patch from them when I sent in some self drawn Sonic comics, get my artwork in an issues Graphic Zone section which won me a watch, but I also manged to win a competition they held in 1997 for a exclusive 6th Birthday party event in London. Only 100 invites could be won and you could take a mate along with you, so there was a total of 200 of us (excluding parents) going to this one-off party.

Here's the invite they sent me when I won. Yes, I still own it. How sad is that? I also have a letter they sent along with it..

 

Photos of the event after the jump! Whoopie!

Hamleys as you may already know is a huge toy shop in London on Regent Street with floors upon floors of the stuff. On the below ground bottom floor was a gaming section called Metropolis, which was Sega branded and had a bunch of arcade cabinets and a snack bar of some sort. My memory of the place is pretty fuzzy and I don't believe it's still there, and if it is I doubt Sega still has their name plastered everywhere (much like how Segaworld became 'Funland'), but it was further evidence that Sega were huge in the UK. You never saw anything like this run by Nintendo, that's for sure!

Game wise, they had a few Saturn cabinets set up with Sonic R running on them, about a month before the game was due out. There was a raffle to win a couple copies of the game early, along with some other Sonic stuff I can't remember exactly. I also remember there being a contest involving getting best scores on the arcade cabinets they had there, of which I only remember the Scud race machines which i gave a whirl and got no where in. There was goodie bags that came with a bunch of badges of Sonic running about on a Hamley's logo which I still have somewhere) as well as Sonic Jam and Sonic R posters. Neat.

The highlight of the event was a guy wandering about in a rather impressive Sonic costume (far better than the one that stumbled around SegaWorld), who was being helped around by some woman presumably due to not being able to see very well. I remember one moment when she disappeared for a bit and he manged to walk into a wall, causing Sonic 3D posters to fall all over him. How embarrassing. but I kind of wished we got that caught on camera, could of sent that to Who's Been Framed. He practically had to shove his face into the cake to even see it.

Aww, why so sad, Sonic? Maybe he just had a vision from the future of how far his games were to plummet. That or he just played Sonic Labyrinth on his Game Gear.

Haha, he's nicked my mates hat and....what the hell is that?

Oh god, is this really the Sonic fan base of the 90's, or is she just there for the ice cream?

What would a birthday party be without a cake? The cake was plain white with a picture of Sonic's head ala the Sonic 3D artwork that was on posters everywhere that got his spikes all wrong. Not exactly an amazing cake, but big enough to be cut up into 200 pieces for all the guests.

I didn't really want to post this photo as the public domain like nature of the Internet would possibly jump on this like a pack of hyenas, so I hid my face to save the embarrassment of a generally unflattering photo. What I really wanted to show off however was the bad-arse jacket covered in Sonic patches. When I grew out of the original jacket they were on, my nan knitted them onto a new bigger jacket. Oh hey, I just noticed my Tamagotchi watch I'm wearing too. If that doesn't throw you back to 1997 I don't know what will.


Photos not enough for you? Then how about some home video footage? Yeah, that's what I thought. If the kid above wasn't enough to scare the feck out of you just wait till you hear some of them. Watch as a kid goes ape shit mental while Sonic is helped to cut his cake. Feel the urge to punch the annoying twat of a parent giving Sonic instructions on how he wants a photo taken with his kid. Cringe as I honk Sonic's nose, which I'm pretty sure he probably didn't like and worst of all; feel your ears bleed as everyone sings happy birthday. You'll also see Sonic do a little dance then go into a strop for some reason. Maybe he doesn't like the Sonic 3D art on his cake. I blocked out most of the noise at the start with some Sonic R music to save your ears a little.

When the event was over, we popped over to SegaWorld, which you'll also see alittle bit of at the end of the video. This was the second time, and this time instead of paying about £12 each to get in with the rides included, it was only about £5, but you had to pay about £3 for the rides individually. (those photos I showed in an older Segaworld article must of been from a 3rd visit, as they're clearly laterThere was another guy in a Sonic costume walking around there, although that one wasn't quite as convincing: he had the hugest gob that looked like a tumor on his face. The highlight of the whole video, though? Mum filming some huge screen footage of the Spice Girls to show my sister, only for me to shout "Spice Girls, but not for long!" Take note this was a couple months before they split up. Ha ha ha!

Sega World Videos!

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of love for the old SegaWorld Indoor Park that used to be in London (now just one floor of arcade games called 'FunLand'), but at least there is Arcade Heroes, who back in October got their hands on some juicy SegaWorld videos! The first video they managed to lay their hands on was is a promotional video showing off all the 3D concept planning of the place, and a bunch of footage of the rides that were there which bring back vague but fond memories. It also shows brief clips of what appears to be a Pirate Sega commercial for Virtua Racing on the Mega Drive!

Videos after the jump.






The next two are of some sort of meeting/get together of Segaworld's 'corporate hospitality'. Apparently these lot got unlimited go's on all the games in the place, the lucky bastards! Not a huge lot to see amongst all the prats with their drinks and crappy food (I'm just jealous really) apart from a few of the arcade games and a very ugly Sonic costume guy, who I met once! Well, I met the costume, I don't know about the guy in the costume...uh, you know what I mean.





Other than this though, there really is next to nothing on Youtube of good ol' Segaworld. hell, one of the results is of SEAworld with a typo! So remember in Part One of my article a while back, I showed screen shots of old home video footage from the first time I went there? Well this severe lack of videos online motivated me to finally rip that footage and upload it for all to see!

There isn't really a whole lot there to be honest: you'll get to see me and as a young tyke with a group of my mates as we're lifted up the escalator of joy and wonder (You'll be able to tell which one is me: just look for the one who is flapping about like a lunatic from excitement), along with the one non-virtual ride (which was crap as my vehicle just got stuck spinning around in circles) some odd props hanging from the ceiling, and a play ground area of some sort. Yeah, don't blame me for the lack of much footage, that was most likely mum mum filming that! Anyway, it's a small contribution to the Segaworld love. If you guys have anything, ANYTHING to show of this place be it video, photos, magazine junk, anything, please send it in!

SegaWorld Part 4.5

Okay, well, I haven't actually got any new information for you readers regarding the wondrous SegaWorld unfortunately. However, I did dig these up;
First, the weird SegaWorld Sonic pom /banner thing. Apparently there were several different designs, but I only have this one myself. It proudly rests, stuck to my CD rack.
This is the glorious badge I was trying to get from the broken badge machine dispensing thing. Well, I got given it by staff along with the pom above as a friendly bonus.
And this is a pin I didn't know I had. I don't actually remember getting it, but I will make sure not to lose it now. Something about it's nice and stylish, even though it's just a little SegaWorld logo. I couldn't find the SegaWorld pen I used to have, but it wasn't all that fantastic. It was just a clicky white pen with the above Sonic / SegaWorld logo. So there you go, those a few of the pointless items I've acquired in my Sega fandom.

SegaWorld Part 4

Clearly SegaWorld was something extremely important to Sega fans. And by Sega fans, I mean Sonic freaks like Gagaman and myself. As such, I feel it’s only appropriate for me to write about this glorious place in my first entry for this blog.

(This is from my second visit, complete with my brother and his friend. I'm the hilarious one in yellow)

I actually lived in London whilst SegaWorld was up and running, which meant I got to visit it a good handful of times, which was great for me. However, I’m pretty sure these trips were about 7-9 years ago, so a lot of the details are hazy, but whatever – I can remember a few things.

I think what made this place so great for me was the absolutely ridiculous amount of Sonic imagery. The walls were plastered with the hedgehog’s face, statues adorned the various sections of the ‘theme park’ – even the bins had Sonic’s mug grinning at you. Then there was the fact that on my first visit there, I ran into Sonic Championship. Ohhh I wasted a lot of money on that game and I never managed to beat Espio whilst I was there. Stupid chameleon. Actually, now that I think about it, I remember also on my first visit I found a small corner which had monitors showing all the weird Sonic videos from Sonic Jam (this was before Sonic Jam had been released, mind you, so I decided to sit there and watch them) and an out-of-use Sega Sonic Arcade game (it wasn’t until my next visit that I got to play that – and for the record, the game is awesome and needs some kind of home release). Of course, there were lots of other great arcade games to play, but I’m not going to lie… I really remember very few of them.

(I don't want to visit Litter Zone)

What I do remember is the rides. As well as the under-the-sea virtual shooting game and the haunted house ride that Gaga described, I remember this one “scary” ride. Basically, you walked through a hall way which in some way was creepy (sorry the details are so vague, but all I remember is a dark hall – clearly I’m losing it at my old age) until you sat in these seats that were on a track (like a roller coaster only much slower and without the ‘coaster’ bit – basically moving seats). All through it, it was supposed to be that a maddened gorilla lived in this area and was stalking and chasing you. The seats would rock, there were maddened beast sounds and you could feel drips of saliva fall on you. Now, I was 8 or 9 at the time, so this ride actually scared the hell out of me. But hey, children are easy to frighten. Good times!

(Seriously. He was everywhere.)

I remember there was also an area that focussed on getting tickets for prizes and stuff. I was quite poor at getting tickets, so I didn’t win any prizes through conventional means. Instead, I had put money in a capsule machine that dispensed Sonic badges and nothing came out. So I got the attention of some staff people and not only did they give me the badge I so rightly deserved, but they gave me one of the token prizes as well – a small blue pom thing with Sonic’s face on it and a SegaWorld banner attached. It was awesome. I then found a photo booth machine that instead of giving you a traditional photo, gave you an ink stamp, complete with a small Sonic icon bordering the photo. That was a fun day. Somewhere along the way, I also got a SegaWorld pen. I don’t remember how.

At this point, I’m struggling to write something that wouldn’t just repeat exactly what Gaga said. However, the basic message is; SegaWorld was fantastic in every way. There were VR-rides, there was Sonic, there were video games and various other ways to enjoy yourself. SegaWorld is definitely one of my fondest memories.

(From my first visit - best photo ever)

One thing that has become incredibly apparent in writing this is I arguably liked Sonic a bit too much when I was a kid. Naaah.

Oh, it also seems that StC were hell bent on advertising SegaWorld, as I've found another article about the place different to Gaga's. It's below for viewing


P.S. Should I be sickened that I actually willingly listened to the Supersonic single whilst writing this article? Actually, don't answer that.

SegaWorld Part 3

While I have run out of photos I took myself of SegaWorld, I've stumbled across some more SegaWorld related stuff I had up in the loft with my countless other Sonic junk. Firstly, here's a three-page preview of the place featured in a 1996 Summer special Sonic comic, and contains many details (such as the names of the areas and rides) which I had forgotten. Just click to full view and try to ignore the awful 'radical' talk throughout it.

More after the jump.



I also found the ticket from my first visit. I scanned both the front and back.

And lastly here's a little plastic pin badge that you got as you came off one of the rides. Well, I'm not sure if everyone got these as it does say "Best Gunner", but I can't really remember. I also found some of the gift shop stuff, such as a keychain, a pen and another pen with a floaty Sonic that goes up and down. Memories~

SegaWorld Part 2

I promised I'd scan in some photos (what small amount I have, anyway) of the now closed down SegaWorld (see further down for the previous article about it) and here they are. Click to full view.

This is the photo you could pay to have done as you walked in from the two flights of escalators. We had two done on this first visit, and I've scanned the one with the least people, as it's the Sonic statue your all interested in. Seesh, I'm even doing a Sonic-ish pose, judging by the hands and feet. I'm surprised I wasn't wearing one of my jackets smothered in Sonic patches, actually.

More after the jump.



This was the outside entrance. Notice the lovely gold Sonic statue out front? Just one of many Sonic statues now either destroyed or shipped back to Japan where they still have some Sega locations.

The following pics, including the one above, are from my second visit in 1997. I'll go into the main reason me and one of my mates were in London another time, as that's also Sega relevant =P. Anyway, this statue wasn't here on first visit, and I think by this time Segaworld was around a fiver to enter (with the rides separate, so sadly we only ever went on them the first trip, although I think we paid for one this 2nd time). Remember what I said about the jackets? I still have bigger sized ones of them.

A huge Sonic painting up high in th racing game section/floor. I wouldn't be surprised if this was originally made for when Sega were a sponsor for a Formula 1 team. I'll have to find the book/comic that had photos of that car that had x-ray art showing Sonic's feet on it sometime. I've also cleaned this photo up a bit and made it into a wallpaper.

WALLPAPER DOWNLOAD: 1024 X 768 (Click eet)

Yet another Sonic statue. There was loads of these. This one's surfing, as you can see, and was in the Sports games area (as you can possibly guess from the GetBass poster and other fishing game cabinet in shot).

Pocket money was spent, naturally, on the games. Me mate had a crack at Star Wars and Virtual On, and I had a go at the two Sonic games and Sega Rally 2, that had just been released.

If I found these two rare cabinets in one place ever again, I'd of most likely died and started having flashbacks of my life. hat, or I'd found myself in Japan.

Finally, some bonus material. I'm not sure if this was directly Sega related or not (I doubt it), but it was in SegaWorld, so it counts. This is a result sheet for that scream test attraction I told you about. You had to climb into this haunted house type room, sit down and hold on to these bars sticking out of the table that read your heartbeat as all sorts of animatronics and effects try to make you jump. It wasn't there the 2nd time we visited, so it must of been a outsider travelling attraction that goes to different destinations. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I was actually laughing through the whole thing.

This above photo is not from Segaworld, but in fact from Epcot in Florida. This dates back to 1998, although I remember also seeing the statue in S.T.C (Sonic the Comic) in a photo for a video game expo from around 1994. This was for a technology section of Epcot indoors that was full of Sega games, at the time a few Saturn pods (They had Burning Rangers!) and some arcade machines including one of those 10-in-a-row player-cam Daytona set ups. When we went again in 2000 they had another Sonic statue in it's place, the kind of ugly Sonic Adventure used at E3 in 1999 (sorry, didn't get a photo of that one), and the place was full of Dreamcast games, including Sega Bass with the fishing controller, which I found myself getting addicted on. Who needs rides about the history of communication anyway? Then by the time we visited again in 2004, the Sega section had been completely replaced by "Disney Interactive". =(

SegaWorld Part 1

One of the reasons I wanted to set up Sega Memories was to, quite simply, reminisce about some cool Sega related stuff from the past I remember, particularly the stuff you can't find anywhere on the Internet. One of these is the SegaWorld indoor theme park that was located in the Trocodero, Piccadilly Circus, London from 1996 to around sometime in 2000/2001, when the seven floors were blocked off and one floor has been made room for some of the arcade cabinets in an area they now call "Fun Land". I have some proper photos and other random stuff from the place to show, but for now here's some screen caps I took from an old home video of my first visit, back around the time it opened with a bunch of school mates. Take note these are grabbed from a DVD rip old video cam footage, so there not the best of shots.

More after the jump.

When it first opened it cost about £12 to get in, and all the rides were included in the price. Over time, the admission was made free, but you had to pay around £3-4 each for the rides. The entrance was two large, lit-up escalators, kind of like the one's they apparently had in the Japanese 'Joyapolis' parks. As you got to the top of these escalators, there was this big hulk of a Sonic statue, ready to be taken a photo with. You could pay to get professional photos done of your group alongside it, which naturally we did (I may show you the photo another time).

Most of the floors were pack to the brim with arcade cabinets, including some that you could probably only get here in the UK, such as that RZ-90? (can't remember the exact title) rotating After Burner style game, a row of about 20 Daytona USA cabinets set up with player cams, and as I'll show you in a photo another time, rare games like Sonic the Fighters and SegaSonic Arcade.

One of the real treats, however, was the rides. I don’t recall the all perfectly, but one of them was a haunted house with a twist, you had a transparent screen in front of you to play a light-gun game that, when you shot certain things, made scenery around you react! There was also a Virtual Reality ride, a sea adventure on a huge screen where everyone on the whole ride had to team up to get the highest score, and this ball-shoot thingy where you got in these bizarre tank things that was, from memory, not very good. There was also some kids ball-room with Sonic related parts, and this cool shock-test thing where your heart rate is rated. I still have my result sheet for that somewhere, got to dig it up.

Anyway, the place was a great day out, and I after seeing it vanish after going there 4 times as a kid, I really miss it now and wish I had more photos, or something. Does anyone else remember this place, and more importantly, have more photos of it? I'd love to see 'em and will post them here if you e-mail me them. From searching for SegaWorld stuff on Google, I also found out that there was also a SegaWorld is Sydney. Some info/photos of this would be cool, too.

More SegaWorld stuff to come!