Wonderbuzz

And I guess the fact that the Wonderland advertising & promotions manager was married to Shelly Craft (CH7 host on those holidays shows and also host of the short lived come back of Perfect Match) helped smooth things out between them.

Hey AlexB, I think I have a colour version of that B&W photo you got. I'm not sure why they had so many B&W prints, the colour one looks good with the sun set light.

Yes, that was the new blue website. But there was a version even before that with the purple logo, and I remember making little shaking "W"s on the main menu page. That Quicksand game was the worst "thing" I'd ever seen. You could actually win if you had the patience to keep at it and sit through the blotchy animation and repetativeness of nothing. All that happens is that you reach a small hill with a Wonderland flag on it........ I'm almost ashamed to admit that I finished it. Yes, the new banner was only part of the reworking.

OMG! :eek: How do you people find these things!? Allow me to clear a few things up in regards to the website. The yellow website was produced and hosted by an outside company. I had next to no involvement with that website (and apparently neither did he marketing dept ). Anyway, the web hosting company decided to go bust late 2001 and we lost the entire website. We then had no choice but to find another provider and build a temporary website (enter me). I learned HTML from scratch just to make a temporary website. At this point the new blue logo was introduced and there was no company style dveloped as yet. As the months progressed I got better at it and it started to develop into a half-decent looking site. Well, atleast from a self-taught amateurs point of view. And I'd like to say that it was my idea to put Shrek peering out from behind the Wonderland logo. Then early 2002 the marketing department arranged for a new website to be developed by Forest Interactive (who has close ties to Blinky Bill, which I think is the only reason they got involved). Despite all the money they spent, there were sooo many glitches and the way they arranged the pages (with links, frames and file structure) was a real mess. I always referred to the site as a Dreamweaver Wizard Template with Wonderland's logo slapped on it . I went through and made a long list of things that needed to be fixed and gave it to the marketing people, ofcourse next to none of it was ever seen to. As the marketing dept wanted to periodically update the site with current events they went to Forest, who would then charge a ridiculous amount each time. Eventually they started to come to me, so I had no choice but to try my best at working with the mess they called a website. Towards the end of 2003 I started to rework the site so it was some what organised, it never really reach the point where I was happy with it. But then came the announcement to close, and that was all she wrote.

The photos I have were scanned as they passed my way during my time there, but the majority of the older photos are in the form of 35mm positive slides. I did put some of the slides up on ebay once, but nobody was interested and I certainly wasn't going to let them go to waste. I believe that 35mm slides/negatives were used as photo archives before computers and CD-ROM were more common. The quality of the scans really depends on your equipment. A professional top-quality 35mm slide scanner costs $1000+, suffice to say that my $300 flatbed w/35mm scan capabilities will do me fine for now.

Okay, since I'm in a photo giving mood (see Aerial Photos thread), here's a photo of the Bush Beast AND Beastie trains together. For some reason before they moved them out the back, they moved them all to the maintenance area. Who would've thought that they would ever see all 4 trains together?!

The latest aerial photos I have are from around 1999/2000 (I could see the magic show sign at Galaxy Theatre), but the majority of them are prior to that. Believe it or not I only found one Judy's Jetliners pic. Cute little ride. I'm not sure when it ceased operation, but I think it sat there for a while and finally removed sometime late 2000(?). The space was then used for some bird cages for the wildlife park keepers. As to what happened to the ride itself I do not know.

Is there any angle in particular that you're after? I've got photos mostly from early to late 90's and a few prior. SeanM, it'll be interesting to see your photos from after closure. When you post yours I'll try to find older pics from similiar angles so we can compare. I've picked out a couple for you. If you look at Aerial-800-3 the beach is still being constructed, Aerial-800-6 the Zodiac is half built and brown!

As far as I know it is still property of Wonderland (and I use that term loosely). As I mentioned in another thread the last I heard the CEO is still dealing with Wonderland (or what's left). If you are serious about it I can contact him and ask, but I wouldn't hold your breath over it. You'd most likely have to offer more than what they'll get for scrap value, otherwise they won't even bother. I'll also add that the panel on the front carriage that had the logo painted on it won't be included.

Here's a pic I found of an old retail stand. That's the sports bag that we found. The other items were non-existant.

Not a real lot of Aus Wonderland stuff as I'd hoped to have found. We did find a sports bag with the logo in the first aid block, a few posters, post it note holders and the odd tid-bit here and there. Some of the old things I got that stand out include a framed park map from opening day, framed Bush Beast and Bounty's Revenge logo and a Aus Wonderland clear glass drinking mug. Those audtition posters, believe it or not, I found in the roof/ceiling of the audio studio! The entertainment supervisor mentioned that they used to use it as misc storage space. There were the posters, various bits of equipment and alot of deteriorated sound proofing sponge!

And I can tell you that most of those 486 computers were there and running until the end. Even after someone decided to place a big bottle of fog juice for the smoke machines ontop of the computer rack, and ofcourse the bottle leaked.....

I think the seller may have a small number of each item, hence the constant relistings. As for the paper bag, I guess it's more for collectable value since everybody threw them away, so it's uncommon to have one. I found an Australias Wonderland bag, can you say that you don't find that even a little bit interesting?

Yeah that guys listed those same items a few times. Nothing new, I got plenty of that stuff. Although I could argue about the claims that they were "rare" and "not available since it closed down".

In that case I missed you by about 3 years.

Welcome. I don't recall any WWE fans working in admin. Did you mean in the admin office behind the scenes or in Guest Relations?

Actually there were Skyrider gondolas in the HB station, under the GR station and a few (spares/scrap?) in the graveyard next to the Beach. In fact you might have been able to see them through the fence from Wallgrove Road. There were a few pieces/boats of Splashdown in the Beastie graveyard. And there were only a few red tubes/slides from Silly Stix laying around. For Galleons, there were about 6 boats in the Beastie graveyard in the old colours. I'm no sure if they packed them up with the ride when it went. The dodgem cars were sold off to a few different people along with some of the electrical components. There was also parts from what I'm pretty sure was Ned Kellys Getaway in the Beastie graveyard.

The dance competition was called "The Performing Arts Competition" which happend every year. One time it was called "Freestyl'n" The MotoX competition was called "The King of FMX" done by Planet X. I believe that one of the riders broke a record for the highest backwards summersault or something like that. It was on the news, but they didn't mention Wonderland, they just said Eastern Creek. The wrestling show was from the IWA. The WWE (no longer WWF) is the most dominent brand of pro wrestling in the world, so you can't help but make comparisons. I did laugh when my manager took his young boy to see the show, and he turned to his dad and said "Hey, he's not really kicking him!" He was quick to realise it, not surprisingly because he also watches his dad at karate training.

Well around 2000 they did. I remember them fencing/covering off all around lakeside to do it.

Not really, it'd been drained (and probably cleaned out) before. Probably when they removed the pirate ship stage and I think around 2000 so they could contsruct the ramp for the water ski show.

I didn't really take much interest when I looked, just what's been listed already. As for mid air throw up, I never heard of it ever happening. But I could imagine it would be pretty gross if the riders copped it on the way back down! I did hear of someone drinking a big blue slurpy before going on HMS Endevour, and just as the ride was finishing it's cycle and rotating to align the gates, he let loose over the edge leaving an almost perfect blue circle on the ground below!

And credit cards, Wonderpasses, drivers licenses, hair clips, loose change....... from what I saw after they drained the lake.

Not my proudest moment but I was there! Scandalus performed at Action Arena. Bardot once performed at Sundown Theatre (behind Antique Autos) for I think it was Wonderlands 15th Birthday celebration.

I wouldn't say more than half, there was still a fair amount of fans compared to staff. I know there was about 8-9 of the marketing people dressed in Wonderland vests and buckets hats and a few other staff members in coloured wigs to try and get the cameras attention, but I think they avoided them if anything. None of them were seen when the show went to air. They were greeted by Scooby and Mutley, and the group started thier helicopter trip from the helipad in Goldrush, did a big circle round trip so it looked like that they were really just arriving.

Hmmm, this threads been a bit quite. Let me think: - The popstar group Scandalus performed thier first live concert at the Action Arena, and it was packed. The group sang live on stage, however they dubbed the concert when it went to air. - The next winner of popstars (what ever his name was) performed at the Galaxy Theatre, and the crowd bearly filled the middle section.... - The TV commercial to promote the opening of the Space Probe 7 was filmed in a studio with a replica carriage and tunnels as the ride itself was not yet built. The tagline for the comercial was "Live the news. Ride the movies. Space Probe 7 The ride". And if I recall correctly, there was a Ch7 TV special on its first launch which included Ch7 celebrities from Home & Away and I think one of the Gladiators taking the "first" ride. - The stage set at Galaxy Theatre for the magic show had two doors at the back of the set. The two doors weren't automatic or mechanical as they would lead you to believe during the show, they were operated by hand on a set of ropes and pulleys which worked similiar to window curtains. - One of the first TV commercials for The Australian Wildlife Park featured two talking Galas.