Oscar's Big Game Show

Oscar's Big Game Show  was a stage show at the Paradise Theater that ran from 2002 to 2005.

Image from Photobucket

The show starred (a puppet) Oscar the Grouch and features contestants chosen from the audience. 

Image from Photobucket

The other performers in the show were Big Bird and "Sal the Trashman". 

Image from Photobucket

Aerials of the Parking Lot

Below are a series of aerial shots of the Sesame Place parking area:

1971:

Images from Historic Aerials 

This is an interesting shot to see. Of course, this was almost ten years before the park opened and there wasn't a parking lot yet.

Also, since the park was much smaller when it opened, this area wasn't likely a parking lot until years after the park opened. The original park had the entrance in what is now the middle of the park so it's likely all the parking areas were south of this lot.


1995:

This shot from 1995 shows the area taking shape. We can also see that the areas of trees in the 1971 shot are still mostly intact. It's interesting to see that the area was designed around the existing trees.

2002:

Here, in 2002, we see the lot greatly expanded into it's current size. We can also see that the park has expanded into the shot including attractions like Grover's Vapor Trail (the roller coaster next to the trees bottom center.)


2006:

No significant changes from 2002, but this was taken on a busy day at Sesame Place. You can see the parking lots are all filling up (or full) and you can see cars lined up to the road waiting to enter the parking lot.


2008:

This is the most current view on Historic Aerials. What is most interesting to see in this shot is how tall the trees plated in the lot on the bottom left have grown since the 2002 image.

It also shows empty lots, except for the few dozen cars in the VIP lot (bottom right.)

Sesame Place Water Tower News Report 2002

Over on YouTube someone posted a news video from 2002 that talks about the vinyl wrapping of the Sesame Place water tower.

The water tower is a familiar icon to residents of the area since it stands over interstate 95 and acts as a billboard for the park.
The video starts with file footage from August of 1993. First we see the water tower in it's blue (pre-Sesame) state. Then we see workers painting the Big Bird, Ernie, Bert & Elmo (and if memory serves, Rubber Duckie) portraits on the water tower.
We are told the process took 4 weeks.

The reporter, Don Polec (who is known for his silly reporting), is then shown "helping out". With trick photography we see that he painted a mustache on Big Bird.
Next, we see the image that will be "wrapped" onto the water tower by the Burton Imaging Group.
This project is taking "three weeks" and is being hung over top of the painted water tower.

The new image is photo realistic and includes Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Elmo (and a Fuji Film logo.) The grid pattern used to hang the sheets "like a jigsaw puzzle" is explained and Don unrolls a sheet containing Cookie Monster's eye.
We are told the tower is approximately 145 feet high and uses close to 20,000 square feet of vinyl. We are also told it's "the largest structure of it's type wrapped anywhere in the world."
The final moments see Don trying to affix a piece of the tower and dropping it off the scaffold.

I'm surprised it took 13 years before the water tower became a "billboard" for the park! It seems like such an obvious idea.
Seeing the "painted" version of the water tower again is wonderful. Pictures of it are really lacking on the internet. Personally, I prefer the painting, but I imagine to young children a large photo on the billboard is more exciting than an artist rendering.
You can watch the video by clicking here.