Wobbies World was an

amusement park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

which operated from about 1980 to the late 1990s in the Melbourne suburb of

Nunawading Nunawading is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 18 km (11 miles) east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Whitehorse local government area. Nunawading recorded a population of 12,413 at the 2021 cens ...

, 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 A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

"Whirliebird"

monorail A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and "rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, ...

circuit, mower motor driven 6 wheeler ATVs, a real

Bell helicopter Bell Textron Inc. is an American aerospace manufacturer headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. A subsidiary of Textron, Bell manufactures military rotorcraft at facilities in Fort Worth, and Amarillo, Texas, as well as commercial helicopters in M ...

refurbished as a ground-mounted simulator, a "Splashdown" mini log ride, a

mini-golf Miniature golf, also known as minigolf, mini-putt, crazy golf, or putt-putt, is an offshoot of the sport of golf focusing solely on the putting aspect of its parent game. The aim of the game is to score the lowest number of points. It is played ...

course,

trampoline A trampoline is a device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric stretched between a steel frame using many coiled spring (device), springs. Not all trampolines have springs, as the Springfree Trampoline uses glass-reinforced plastic rods. ...

s, a

ball pit A ball pit (originally called a ball crawl, also known as a ball pool or ball pond) is a padded box or pool filled with small colorful hollow plastic balls generally no larger than in diameter. They are typically marketed as recreation and exe ...

, several food and drink kiosks, a miniature train circuit, a miniature car circuit, four Melbourne W2 class trams and a large

Vickers Viscount The Vickers Viscount is a British medium-range turboprop airliner first flown in 1948 by Vickers-Armstrongs. A design requirement from the Brabazon Committee, it entered service in 1953 and was the first turboprop-powered airliner. The Visc ...

propeller plane fitted out as a movie-projector simulator. The plane now resides at the

Australian National Aviation Museum The Moorabbin Air Museum is an aviation museum at Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was founded in 1962 as the Australian Aircraft Restoration Group, in an attempt to maintain a World War II-era Bristol Beaufighter aircraf ...

, in

Moorabbin Moorabbin is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 15 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Kingston local government area. Moorabbin recorded a population of 6,287 at the . Most of the ea ...

, while the Bell helicopter is dismantled and currently sits in a paddock on Dandenong–Frankston Road at . One of the Whirliebird helicopters now resides in the front yard of a private residenc

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 A nursery is a place where plants are propagated and grown to a desired size. Mostly the plants concerned are for gardening, forestry or conservation biology, rather than agriculture. They include retail nurseries, which sell to the general p ...

and the Saxon Wood town house estate occupied the

Springvale Road State (Bell/Springvale) Highway, also known as Bell Street/Springvale Road State Highway (after its longest constituent parts), is the longest self-contained urban highway in Melbourne, Australia, linking Tullamarine Freeway and Nepean Highway ...

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. The plant nursery had now closed. The site is now the location of the new Forest Hill Police Station.

Pissweak World

The park was almost certainly being satirised by the Melbourne-based TV

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is ...

show

The Late Show The Late Show may refer to: Books * ''The Late Show'' (book), a 2017 book by Michael Connelly Film * ''The Late Show'' (film), a 1977 film * ''Late Show'', a 1999 German film by director Helmut Dietl Music * ''The Late Show'' (Eddie "Loc ...

, in recurring sketches entitled Pissweak World, consisting of fictional low-budget

TV commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

for various amusement parks under the Pissweak brand, which had a variety of disappointing rides and unimpressed patrons. The style of the satirical advertisements was reminiscent of the Wobbies World TV commercial, which did not have sophisticated production values.

References

{{Australian Theme Parks Amusement parks in Victoria (Australia) 1970 establishments in Australia 1999 disestablishments in Australia Defunct amusement parks in Australia History of Melbourne

Pissweak World

See also

References