Wobbies World
 | |
| Location | 469 Springvale Road Vermont South, Victoria, Australia |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 37°50′45″S 145°10′27″E / 37.845824°S 145.174176°ECoordinates: 37°50′45″S 145°10′27″E / 37.845824°S 145.174176°E |
| Opened | Circa 1970 |
| Closed | 1999 |
| Operating season | All year round |
| Area | Melbourne, East |
Wobbies World was an amusement park which operated from about 1970 to the late 1990s in the Melbourne suburb of Vermont South, Australia.
The park consisted of many custom-built attractions, most slow moving and aimed at very young children. The park had some characteristic modes of transport including a helicopter "Whirliebird" monorail circuit, mower motor driven 6 wheeler ATVs, a real Bell helicopter refurbished as a ground-mounted simulator, a "Splashdown" mini log ride, a mini-golf course, trampolines, a ball pit, several food and drink kiosks, a miniature train circuit, a miniature car circuit, four Melbourne W2 class trams and a large Vickers Viscount propeller plane fitted out as a movie-projector simulator. The plane now resides at the Australian National Aviation Museum, in Moorabbin, while the Bell helicopter is dismantled and currently sits in a paddock on Dandenong–Frankston Road at 38°03′57″S 145°12′02″E / 38.06579°S 145.20047°E. One of the Whirliebird helicopters now resides in the front yard of a private residence
Despite memorable television advertisements over the decades, the park slowly deteriorated in the mid to late 1990s and had closed down by the end of the decade. Its demise has been linked to the high entrance fee for the time ($36 for a family of four in 1994) and the charging of separate fees to use some of the attractions .
A plant nursery and the Saxon Wood town house estate occupied the Springvale Road site, but the entrance gate (without road), concrete castle, bridges, a train station, the Birthday Room and the miniature golf course from the former amusement park still remained within the nursery.
In September 2012, the state government announced that a new Forest Hill police station was to be built on the site.[1] The plant nursery has now closed.
The site is now the location of the new Forest Hill Police Station.
Pissweak World
This place was almost certainly being satirised by the Melbourne-based TV comedy sketch show The Late Show in their sketch entitled Pissweak World, which featured fictional low budget ads for amusement parks with a variety of disappointing rides with unimpressed patrons. The style of the ads, although satirical, were reminiscent of the Wobbies World TV advertisement, which did not have the appearance of sophisticated production values.
See also
References
- ↑ "Site announced for Forest Hill police station". Media release. Premier of Victoria. Retrieved 2012-10-02.