1992 News Article: Park's Theme is Education

Here is an article about the park from 1992. At this point the park had been open for 12 years. It's interesting to note that this was in the Milwaukee Journal, far away from Langhorne PA and appeared in September - just a month before the season ended.

Here are some of the facts from the article:

-Sesame Food Factory (referred to as Food Factory) was still open and still had a glass enclosed kitchen where guests could watch food being prepared. Today the restaurant is named Elmo's Eatery and the kitchen is still visible to guests, but without any glass.

-No fried food was sold at the park at this time. The fries were baked and flavored ices contained real fruit.

-Captain Ernie's Cafe (now called Captain Ernie's Bistro) was the only place to buy hamburgers.

-Rides mentioned are: Big Bird's Rambling River, The Count's Ballroom and Cookie Mountain.



The image is a bit difficult to understand, I can see the recycling can and the can of Minute Maid juice being deposited by what seems to be Oscar the Grouch. According to the article, posters above the trash cans featured Oscar showing how to separate trash from recyclables.

I have traced what looks like Oscar to me:

Do you see something different? Maybe this is a Sesame Place Rorschach test!

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.