Grover's Rubber Band Bounce

Grover's Rubber Band Bounce was an attraction at the part that existed from the early days into (at least) the 1990s.

 Mid-Cities News 1982

Located just on the edge of Big Bird's Court, Grover's Rubber Band Bounce was three large structures with two giant strips of rubber inside each.

 Image from YouTube

Kids would enter the Grover's Rubber Band Bounce and, essentially, bounce off the walls.

 Image from YouTube

Today the area where Grover's Rubber Band Bounce once stood now houses a few brightly colored benches.

Image from Google Street Views

Super Grover's Cable Glide

Super Grover's Cable Glide (sometimes called Grover's Cable Glide) was an opening day attraction at Sesame Place in 1980.

Kids would line up on the either side of a valley and would grab on to a zip line. The park employee would then swing them across a 120' valley.

The bottom of the valley was filled with mulch in 1980:

Image from YouTube

By 1983 the mulch had been replaced with sand.

Image from YouTube

 When the park first opened the single pit accommodated two zip lines and had four employees. The employees were stationed on the platform (one at each end of each zip line.)

Children would line up at either platform.

As the child held the zip line, an employee would run down the ramp pushing the child to the other side. Once the child got to the other side another child was pushed across.

In 1983, the procedure had changed. There was now only one zip line with an employee at each end and one at the bottom of the pit . The employee on the end would push the child forward to the employee in the middle who would send the child the rest of the way with another push.


In October of 1980 a 12 year old girl named Karen broke her wrist falling off the zip line. Perhaps this instigated the changes in setup and the decision to change from mulch to sand.

Super Grover's Cable Glide was located at the edge of the park, in fact, you could see the street from the platform:

Image from YouTube

Image from YouTube

The ride was eventually removed as the park expanded.

The Grover Clock

The Grover Clock was an icon from the early days of the park.

 Image from YouTube

The tall clock was had a Grover face in the center and a Grover faced pendulum that hung below. As the pendulum would swing from side to side his eves would follow.

  Image from YouTube

 Today the clock image has been replaced with an image of Big Bird and still stands in front of the Monster Rock Theater.

 Image from Google Street Views

There is no pendulum anymore and no sign of the "eye holes" anymore.

 Image from YouTube and Flickr

I can only assume this is an item that broke and it wasn't deemed worthy of repairing. It's a shame. It's one of the few updates to the park that feels like a downgrade. 

Little touches like this really make a park vibrant and lively.

Sesame Sandwich Shop

Image from YouTube

The Sesame Sandwich Shop was a counter service restaurant that opened between 1982 and 1986. It stayed in business at Sesame Place until sometime after 2000.

When Sesame Place opened in 1980 there was one place to eat, a 720 seat restaurant called Sesame Food Factory.

As the park continued to expand, Sesame Sandwich Shop was one of the other places to grab a bite.

Currently the location (across from Count's Splash Castle) is called Count's Cool Creations and serves frozen drinks on hot days.

Image from Google Street Views

The Computer Gallery

Image from YouTube

The Computer Gallery (later re-named The Games Gallery) is a former Sesame Place attraction that was located to the left of the entrance of Big Bird Bridge. 

 Image from YouTube

An article in the St. Joseph, MO., News-Press (from Sunday, June 7, 1981) referred to it as "the nations largest collection of computer games".

Joyce Hakansson of Atari designed the Computer Gallery, according to an article on atarimagazines.com. The system was described as "56 Apple II computers linked by three Nestar Cluster/One Model A hard disc systems."
The Computer Gallery was an important educational element to the park, as discussed in Intelligent Machines Journal in the fall before the park opened.

 Image from Info World

The games were state of the art (at the time) and helped children (and their parents) learn more about computers.

 Image from YouTube

The computers required tokens, were housed in large colorful metal cases and had membrane keyboards.

 Image from YouTube

 Image from YouTube

The computers became very expensive to keep up to date and were slowly replaced with Arcade games. Sometime after 1993 the space was renamed The Games Gallery.

Image from YouTube

The space was converted to a restaurant called Sesame Cafe in 2001. The restaurant has since been renamed Cookie's Cafe.

Image from Google Street Views

Count's Ball Room News Photos

As I researched yesterday's post on The Count's Ball Room I found three images in three different newspapers that appeared to all feature the same kids.

These pictures were probably all taken within a minute of each other and then sent out to different newspapers.

The first one is from the St. Joseph, MO., News-Press from Sunday, June 7, 1981.

This one features a nice article that lists all the new additions to the park as it started it's second season:
-14 new challenges to "the nations largest collection of computer games" at The Computer Gallery
-More merchandise added to Mr. Hooper's Store
-Several treats added to the Sesame Food Factory menu
-All but three attractions are now open to children AND adults
-Addition of a second Ball Room

The article also lists the park as 2 and 1/2 acres (rather than the often quoted 3 acre opening day size) and says it can accommodate 4,500 guests a day.

Next, an image of the kids in the Ball Room was used in the Youngstown Vindicator on June 29, 1981. This article mentions that the balls are purple and that the park has "40 outdoor play elements, 24 hands-on science exhibits and 60 educational computer games."
The article from the St. Joseph, MO., News-Press from earlier that month listed the educational computer games as numbering "more than 70".

The final one is from The Mount Airy News from Friday June 26, 1981. This one has a similar description to the one above, but with different wording:

The Count's Ball Room

When you ask most adults what they remember about Sesame Place as a child, the answer is usually "the giant ball pit".

Image from YouTube

The main "ball pit" was called The Count's Ball Room (sometimes listed as 'The Count's Ballroom'). It opened with the park in 1980.
A second Ball Room opened the following year.

St. Joseph MO News Press - June 7, 1981 

Images from YouTube

The two images above appear to be of the same Ball Room from different angles. You can see big wire frames in the top image and in the bottom one you see a large orange tarp covering the area to provide some shade.

The employee on the left is taking pictures of the kids in the Ball Room. She has an Oscar the Grouch puppet on her hand.

Image from Trekaroo

The original Ball Room was only about 2 feet deep, but held an estimated 80,000 plastic balls. Over the years the balls (and the carpet surrounding walls) were changed many times and were many different colors.
Muppet Wiki says that the attraction was part of Big Bird's Court, a play area that opened in 1983 and still exists in the park today.

This may have been where one of the Ball Rooms was located.
On a 2004 map only one of the Ball Rooms is listed and it was not near Big Bird's Court. Perhaps the other one was in the area where Grover's World Twirl or Big Bird's Balloon Race now stands.

 2004 Park Map

To back this up, in some early pictures of the Ball Room you see the man-made lake that's behind Sesame Place, before all the trees grew in:

Google Maps image

Image from Muppet Wiki 

Muppet Wiki also says The Count's Ballroom closed to "make way for pools of actual water". This is likely NOT the case. The one that was listed in 2004 was removed in 2006 for the Elmo's World land (specifically Blast Off.)
The other one was also in this area (since this was the only area of the park that existed in 1980) and the only "pools of actual water" are at the bottom of Slippery Slopes (which opened in 1983.)

 2004 Park Map

2006 Park Map

Google Earth Image

The setup for the ball pit (in the images below) seemed to be that you would wait in line and eventually lined up (sitting) along the edge of the pit until the Sesame Place employee gave you the cue to jump and and play.

Image from YouTube

Today there are no Sesame Place Ball Rooms, but the memories of wading through a seemingly endless pit of balls will never fade.

Image from YouTube