Oh What A Time... - #185 Abandoned Theme Parks (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

This week we’re looking at theme parks which simply no longer exist! We’ve got London’s glamorous and failed Segaworld, the slightly less glamorous Mr Blobby inspired Blobbyland and Wales’ own Penscynor Wild Life Park.Elsewhere, who was the last person to have read every book? How good was Kim Il Sung at golf? And can Jimmy Carter read 2,000 words a minute?! If you have anything on this, please email: [e-mail] from now on Part 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Wednesday - but if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, Water Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free. Plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the Oh Watertime Group chat. Plus, if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O Watertime.

Hello and welcome to Oh, What a Time in the History podcast That dares to remember what it was like If you fancied a book that was out of print Before the dawn of the internet And I'll tell you what happened Is someone would recommend a book to you And you go, oh great, is it in print? And they'd say, no, and I haven't got a copy

And you go, oh, that's a shim, I'd have liked to have read that And that was where the conversation ended And if you were really, really desperate to read it, You might go to a book fair and obviously the chance of the book turning up would have been tiny or you could go to Hay on Y and just troll all of the second and bookshops

in Hay on Y if you could be asked and that was it. Somebody recommended a cycling book to me the other day that was when I had printed 2011 and I bought it on the internet and arrived at my house two days later what a fantastic service. What a time to be alive, Elle.

No one's wanted to read this book for years but I am. So what you're saying is this internet thing might catch on. I think it might, obviously there are problems. Yeah. And obviously I would say that social media has got a slight feeling of Pandora's box about it. The dark web. If the dark web.

If you don't mind me chucking that in early doors. Which Tom Crane loves. Absolutely. There's various things he's into in his social life. I have no regrets about setting up the dark web back in 2002 at university. Its full name is Tom Crane's dark web. Exactly. While Zuckerberg was setting up Facebook, not me on the other side of the world,

was setting up the dark web, which hasn't proved to be as financially rewarding, but I still back it. But it's got an awful lot of cool points, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, thank you. The dark web guy. But if you are into books that have gone out of print, my God, what a resource.

Can I present a counter argument, O.L. Have you lost the incredible rush of finally stumbling across a book that you've been looking for for years? that has been stolen away from people now because I've had that well actually to be honest it was actually with an old football album that I was looking to buy

when I was just about 15 years ago and I did find one in a secondhand shop and I was delighted to find it it was like an old shoot album but that's been taken away now I do remember that feeling and it was very nice but that feeling was so vanishingly rare

I prefer being recommended books that are out of print and then just being able to buy them as opposed to about once a decade stumbling upon a book I'd heard of and quite like the idea of, you know, in a second-hand book shop and buying it. Not that I stop going to second-hand book shops, it's just some of the books are like quite niche. What about in like medieval Britain when there was literally like one copy of a book?

So it's like, this is literally the copy. So if you want to read it, you're going to have to get it from the, you know, the archbishop or whatever who might lend it to you. But that's the only way you'll read. What happened if it got lost? or burnt or thrown in a canal and also there were so few books back then

there were people who claimed to have read every single book ever Yes yeah that's amazing What a claim to fame that is Do you think anyone has ever read every single book ever No At some point there's going to be the first book Up to like the sort of late 1600s

People were claiming that If you claim that You say that like you remember people saying that down the pub. No, but you'd be the best person in a pub quiz ever, because all of the questions are going to come from books, and you've read every book. Whoever wrote the first book and whoever edited the first book, they definitely read all the books in the world at that point. So we can categorically say there was a point when someone had read all the books in the world. I reckon I read every single article about Welsh football in the 90s, because there

were so few of them in so few publications. I actually, actually think I read them all. I've now got an image which I can't get out of my head which is medieval times when there's one copy of a book and you're now having to take it back to your friend's house and to my mind medieval Britain is just 90% mud so I'm seeing myself walking through the village losing my footing trying not to fall over holding the one copy of it

yeah okay okay I've just Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 to 1834 the English point philosopher is frequently cited in literature such as by the author Martin Amis as being the last man to have read every book in existence while highly debated due to the millions of books already imprinted by the 1800s. That is an insane claim.

Possess a legendary encyclopedia knowledge. That is up there with Kim Il-sung saying he's got 18 holes in one on his first time playing golf. No, actually, do you know what? I've been thinking about that fact a lot, Chris, so much so that I thought about doing stand-up on it, because he didn't say that. Kim Jong-un said he got 16 holes in one

and what I'm obsessed about in that is he thought he thought to himself I think 18 would seem unrealistic so he's docked a couple off and gone 16 feels believable. What did he get on those other two holes though? Exactly. Really blew those 500 over on it. 50 over par on each one.

Jimmy Carter claimed he could read 2,000 words per minute. No, none of these things are true. These feel like sort of things men would say when they're losing a grip on a date. And they're sort of trying to impress them. You can see that they're not into me. By the way, I'm a fast reader. Oh my God. God, I'm fussed.

How many words a minute? 2000. What books were read? All of them. All of them. What's 2,000 words? Four or five pages of A4? I think that's...

I think I could do that. Is it a minute, did you say? A minute, yeah. You can scan it. No, you can't read 2000. You're not the robot from short circuit. What are you doing? I think I could scan it and have a go.

That is utter rubbish. Four pages of single spaced A4. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. Can you read four pages in a minute? Ellis, it's a way of testing it, Elle. What we need to do is we will print out four pages of information on something. And then on the show, you will read it, Chris, to your same.

We will time a minute and then we'll ask you questions about those four pages. I think I'm up for that challenge because I do think it's my superpower. I can scan quite quickly. I've got an interesting fact for you that I just googled. The first ever book is widely considered to be the Epic of Gilgamesh, originating in ancient Mesopotamia around 2,100 BC. An epic poem was pressed into wet clay tablets using wedge-shaped cuneiform script. Wow.

Hard to read before bed. The idea of a bookshop wouldn't have really caught on one here. It's just slabs of wet clay. I tend to read before turning off the light. The clunk of your heavy clay pages. You can turn them over, waking your wife. I tend to read before bed and on public transport. You're a big reader, not really.

The other one is, Elle, is on the sun lounger on holiday as you're getting out your three and a half, ton clay. What was that massive splash? I dropped my book in the pool. The other thing is telling your parents that you're going to be an author and then just understandably not understanding what that is because no books have ever been written before. No, okay, you just have to believe me on this. It's going to be a thing. It's going to be massive. Trade change. You have to believe me. Anyway, welcome anyway to oh what a time. I'm already looking forward to the four page challenge, which we will do with Chris

skull in the near future. Just for a bit of context, I think it's nice that listeners know what's going on behind the scenes. Ellis might need to break off at any point because he's having a delivery of skirting board, which sounds like something that only happens in a sitcom, but actually is happening in Ellis's life. What is at the bottom of your wall currently, Elle, if you looked out, what is there? Big and sightly gaps.

Mouse holes. And mouse holes. So my friend Andy's going to do something about it. But the skirting board delivery person is. two hours late. So he was meant to get done before I started recording the world's

greatest history podcast. But sadly, I've been let down by the supplier. But when the skirting board man arrives, I've got to let him in. Well, boys,

let us not skirt around what needs to be done, which is move on to our correspondence. Should we do that? Should we kick off a show with a little bit of correspondence? Let's do that. So,

you sent us some correspondence, have you? Well, let's try to look at you then. We're going to do two emails today as a special treat. Thomas Plain has... Is that like a riff on my name? No, it's not, is it?

Thomas Crane? No, it's not. What a weird. No, of course it's not. It's his own name and that's fine. Hello, boys. I'll keep this short and sweet. Episode 183, he has written. I was thoroughly enjoying your discussion on the most claggy chocolate on the recent episode 183, followed by then talking about John Cadbury. Imagine my sheer disbelief when you all fail,

I'm mainly thinking about Tom in particular to make a Cadbury and Clagbury pun. Oh, yeah, of course. It was there for the ticking, wasn't it? I found myself literally shaking my head in disappointment. That's not a funny image. Nice to know that our podcast makes people shake their heads in disbelief. Oh, dear.

He then says, and before Tom says it, that sort of joke is definitely not beneath him. Keep up the good work, big fan from the start, Tom from Norfolk. Tom, you are completely right. We've missed an absolute sitter there. and Ellis, I mean, you still do stand-up. Yeah, I should have been in there. Although I think I was probably distracted by the fact that you've got a massive painting of a horse in yesterday.

Yes, I have, which a few of our patron listeners have messaged about on our chat board. One person described it as weirdly distracting. There's an oil painting of a horse looking at me for those who can't see this at the moment. You distracted as well, Chris? Yes. It's a good thing we don't record this in person because I'm actually allergic to all this. The fact you said oil painting, I had assumed one of your kids had done it. Nope. It was a charity shop find. I'll give you that, yeah. Just because I found it hilarious.

Second email. Just before you go into that, Tom. We have actually had another message from our patrons that I spotted this morning from KP. I'm begging Chris to sit Ellis and Tom down and make them watch the killers live at Royal Albert Hall. There's no further comment after that. I don't know what KB might want out of that experiment, but I think next time killers go on tour, you should come with me and have a laugh for the first time in your life.

Well, just to sort of settle a few things, you will obviously be buying the tickets. Because I'm not spending money that could be used on... literally anything else. More oil paintings of horses. Exactly. Thoughts on that, Elle? The only thing that's tempting about that as an offer

is it would be very sweet to watch Chris have the best night of his life. Yeah. I'd think it would be very, it'd be absolutely adorable to see him. You'd start looking at me and enjoying me having a good time. And then slowly your neck will crane towards the stage and realizing you're witnessing a generational frontman

with a back catalogue that is vastly underappreciated. And you'll turn to me to say, Tom, I was wrong and realise that I'd left half an hour ago. Right, second email. Elliot Line, you horrible lot. It says, hi Ellis, Tom and Chris. I've been a listener for a while, but one thing always intrigues me. Who is the all right, you horrible lot man, who records all your adverts? It sounds like an older bloke, maybe one of you three putting on an old man voice,

maybe a famous actor or voiceover artist. for some reason I always picture David Bradley, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, when I hear him, all the best and keep up the good work, Elliot Line, North Warwickshire. Chris, would you like to blow Elliot's mind at this point? It is David Bradley. It is Shakespearean actor, David Bradley, Filching Harry Potter, Waldreux in Game of Thrones, and also the father of my wife's uni mate. And so we drafted him in to do a voiceover,

even though as a classically trained actor and very successful actor, it is massively beneath him. He does not need to be doing our jingles on our... But he does, none less. Our Patreon put. I was actually with David Bradley on, as we record this, last Friday night. And he'd actually acted with Lawrence Olivier. And he'd actually, when I joined him in conversation,

he was chatting about Lawrence Olivier. And he said how in Lawrence Olivier's era, it was a big thing amongst actors. of at the end of a performance, showing the crowd that you'd absolutely given everything you've got. And he said a lot of actors used to like, grip onto the curtain as it came down because they were given everything to the audience.

Yeah, he said it was a real trope among actors. But he said Lawrence Olivier never did that. He always had boundless energy. That's amazing. That's a good history fact courtesy of David Bradley, our narrator. How did he say recording our adverts compared to performing on stage with Lawrence Olivia? Did he say there were sort of a similar feeling of job well done, career satisfaction?

Isn't he in, I think he's in Pronokia with Benito del Toro, and that was nominated for an Oscar, and he said he was more proud of voiceovering our show. Also, eventually that went out of fashion, the old grubbing onto the curtains. And so at some point, actors, or a generation of actors, must have thought, no, fuck it. Got me up Well there you are David Bradley is I'm delighted to say

the man that you hear weekly on this show And today What are you going to be hearing about That is a more important question We're going to be talking all about Theme parks, aren't we today I think it's going to be a really fun episode In not just theme parks

Is it abandoned theme parks? Abandoned theme parks You're right This idea I think initially came about because I got trapped on a roller coaster on Alton Towns for 45 minutes recently. And then there was a chat with our brilliant historian, Dr. Daryl Leeworthy, about how there could be a fun subject around that, which is why we're doing it today. So today, I'm going to be telling you all about the massive flop that was Zaga World,

Sega as in the computer game company. It's incredible how much it cost and how badly it went. I cannot wait to talk to you about this because I, I am a big Sega World fan. Are you? Yes. Fantastic. I've got great memories of Sega World.

Yeah, I can't wait to talk about it. Well, I can't wait to hear about that. What are you guys talking about? It's going to be a trip down memory lane for any of our Welsh listeners. I'm going to be talking about the strange 1980s obsession South Wales had with cowboys. And I'm going to be talking about Penskeller Wildlife Park as well. Fantastic. And the best section may belong to me this week.

because I'm taking you back to Blobbyland. Oh, yes. Failed theme park based on Noel Edmund's Noel's House Party. So there we go. That's what we're going to be talking about. And if you want to send in any emails about anything we've covered thus far, maybe your favourite killer's song. Here's how you can get in touch with the show.

All right, you horrible look. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us. at hello at ohwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh what a time pod. Now clear off. Right now every week on this show

as one of the benefits of our top Patreon tier the O Watertime All-Timmers, we will take a name. All-timers! We'll take a name and figure out where in history you may have been before. And this week, gentlemen, We have the following name, Martin MacDonald. I think that's a newsreader in about 1994.

But Scottish telly. Yes, there you go, yeah. Perfect. Yeah. The Trevor MacDonald of the North. What is Vibele? I mean, how are you picturing this man? And feel free to do a voice as well if you want.

Tiny round glasses like the Demon Headmaster. Yep. My God, he smoked in the newsroom in the 70s. Did he cultivate a reputation for himself of doing the and finally funny VT at the end of the news? Oh yes. Okay, that's fun. Yeah. So you would have the...

A garden centre in Colburny has decided that finally speaking parrots could actually work behind the counter of the cafe. What would you like? What would you like? That was so good, Elle. Can we have one more bulletin, please? Ideally sport. This old lady has found an image of Jux Steen on her slice of toast. Playing in a local Sunday league football team might be most men's idea of unwinding at the weekend.

But not if you're playing for this team, blah, blah, blah, blah, who are the worst side in Scotland. Oh, yeah, lovely. Cut to a really miserable reporter in the freezing rate. They've played 18 games so far and have conceded some. 600 goals. It's so good. It's so good.

It's also such a comforting voice. It makes me feel of like the shipping podcast. It gives me that sort of feeling of I feel safe when I hear that voice. Well, a lot of the time we haven't actually got 11 so there's only eight

seven or eight of us playing. And if they're all up front, you know, there's big gaps and defence, which is why we concede so many. So we lost last week 200-0, which was obviously it's more than a goal a minute, very, very demoralising,

but it's a great way. At the weekend, it's a Sunday morning with your pals. You know, I'm not going to give up, but we're hoping to score a goal by the end of this season. And that man has the reddest face you've ever seen the entire life. You can't work out if it's drink or the cold. Very hairy cheeks. Martin MacDonald.

Thank you so much for subscribing to the O-What-time All-Time tier. And you can subscribe to and get bonus episodes. Here's how you do that. Hello again, you horrible lot. Enjoying the show. Well, why not show the love by becoming a Patreon supported today?

For a mere handful of fatherings, you can get ad-free shows two bonus subscriber episodes each month, access to all the past bonus eps, first dibs on live tickets and even help decide

what subjects the boys cover next. Your support makes everything possible, so sign up today at patreon.com slash oh what's a time or oh what's a time.com. What are you waiting for? Stop dawdling. So this week we are talking abandoned theme parks. I've got Blobby Landell. Pennskel World Life Park and more.

And I am going to kick things off. you lovely boys by telling you all about Sega World. Now, Zaga World's a bit triggering for me. Stop calling it Zaga World. Is it not Zaga? No, it's Sega. Sega. Sega. I let's say Sega Mega.

Mega Drive, not the Ziga Mega Drive. Oh yeah, you are right. It's an S. Yeah, you are. You are right. Okay. What a terrible start. Well, you said it once, and I let you get away with it. Normally, I'm failing to pronounce the name of someone who lived 700 years

ago in ancient Greece or what it happened to be. Not a computer game company from the 90s. Sega World. My apologies. As I say, a bit triggering. Regular listeners we'll know about the very sad story when I saved up for a game gear, a Zaga game gear. Sega. Jesus Christ, you've done it again. I'm still in mourning, Elle.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was like, that must be me. You're still saying Sega. Sega! It's Sega. It's Nintendo. And there's also The Zonny PlayStation Do we need to restart Tom? So, Sega World, which some I refer to as Zaga World,

I can't promise it'll remain on either footing. I think the word you're looking for is Zum. Very nice. As I was saying, I saved up for three years to get a game gear when I was younger. It was stolen before I'd even taken out of the box when I went for a rehearsal at Bath,

I'd be quiet painful time of my life. It's a quite painful. to talk about this brand. But were you Sega or Nintendo people back in the day? Let's start with that simple question, because everyone, I think, had a footing. Everyone knew what they were. I was Sega.

My cousin had a Sega Master System, and so I also bought a Sega Master System. And I always slightly preferred the Mega Drive, although a good mate of mine had a Nintendo, a Ness. Or it might have been a Snez, actually. Yeah. But, yeah, I was definitely a Sega guy. What about you, Chris?

Same. Sega Mega Drive all the way. I used to have a Commodore 64, the ones where you had to load the tapes into, and you had to like play, and it would take like an hour to load. And then 90% of the time, the game would have an error, and you'd have to restart the process, and the games would all be crap. So to go from that to a Sega Mega Drive, where you just put in a cartridge, I missed all the game gear and the master system.

I missed all that and went straight to Mega Drive, and it blew my mind. Got Sonic the Hedgehog. A console where anything could be fixed by simply taking it out and blowing into it. It did work. It was unbelievable, really, but it always worked. Technology from the 90s was so robust. I went camping for a week with a Nokia 502, 4.02, sorry. It's okay, well, I'll let that slide.

That's all right. Left on the Monday morning. Got back the next Monday, still full charge. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I do miss that feeling of getting a cartridge and plugging it in. Yeah. Like, oh, that's such a satisfying feeling.

Completely agree. So much so, Chris, that this week I bought a Game Boy Advance. And so I can play my old Game Boy games and also lots of old Game Boy of cartridges. Because it's that tangible thing. I bought the old Mario's that thing of slotting it in. We're going away to France this week. Chance sort of play on the journey. I'm really looking forward to it.

Did you keep all your games then? Were you rebind games? Yeah, I bought this game boy here, which I'm holding up to the screen, on eBay, about three years ago. But it's impossible to see a Game Boy screen. I don't know if you've played on one. But it's not backlit. You can only see it under sort of like surgery level lights. It has to be incredibly bright in the room to be able to see the little Italian plumber.

How much was it? This cost me 60 quid with like six games. Oh, wow. I love it though. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I didn't have a TV in my house until I was 14. So the first screen I had in my house was a Game Boy. So I actually, an Nintendo boy.

First screen I ever saw. It's absolutely true. I'd seen screens before. They'd been wheeled into the classroom by my teachers. Of course, yeah. So how did your football results? Were you one of those people who used to stand outside Dixons at like 5pm on a Saturday afternoon? I would find them out often, well, either on the radio or in my dad's broadsheet.

It's not a lie. You have to wait in the following day. Yeah, I would. For a broad sheet to come into the house. We used to get to the same place in Cornwall every year for summer in a place where it was just for some reason there was no radio reception. You just couldn't get anything so I would have to wait until Sunday morning and my dad bought his newspaper. You had such a Victorian childhood until that Game Boy came into your life. And it all changed.

It's like a film. because, you know, in those time-travelling films where they go back and show modern things to a Victorian child and it blows their mind, that happened to tell me at a Victorian childhood until the game boy came out. Like a sort of project. No wonder he still wants to go back to it.

He still can't believe it. That's why he's on eBay hunting down more game boys. He also missed 1900 to 1995. He's gone printing press. Nintendo Game Boy. There wasn't a sort of linear gradual progression. They went for a pretty depressed game boy with nothing in between. Well, luckily, I've turned out to be a perfectly normal human being.

In fact, if there are any listeners listening, you have any suggestions for good Game Boy or Game Boy Advance Games, I should get, do get in contact because I need the tips. I'm clueless. Today, though, today, I'm going to talk to you about Sega. There you go. I've said it properly. I'm going to take you back to the 7th of September, 1996, where I was in Bath, whittling, as usual, because that's what I did with my childhood. But in London, London has awoke to the latest exciting attraction that they could go to. And this was an indoor theme park, which was at the time, the largest in the world, all set across seven floors. of the Trocadiro in Piccadilly Circus. And the idea of Sega World was to catalyed on Sega's massive popularity at that time.

Also, the mass appeal of video games and consoles. And on the specific draw of the company's mascot character, which is Sonic the Hedgehog, who, by the way, I was absolutely not into at all. Oh, I love Sonic. Just, no, too fast. You're too fast for me. I didn't like it.

What I loved about Sonic was if you didn't press the button, for 30 seconds, he would shrug his shoulders and look at you. Oh, that's nice. He'd be like, what are we doing it? What's going on? What's going on? Were you a fan of Sonic, were you? Yeah, I love Sonic. Just too much energy for me.

I wasn't a fan of Mario, actually. It was because I really was a Sega boy. So Sonic the Hedgehog was my game. So this place launches in London, okay? The opening party for Sega World is a massive event. It features an array of British celebrities. Do you want to try and guess who was there for the opening of Sega World? I've got three listed.

First to get one right wins, and they are 90s legends. Take turns, because you will get there quite quickly. Chris? Is one Jim Kerry? He's not one of my three. All my three are British. Oh, I was going to say Peter Andre. 1996, you said?

Yes. The spice skills. No. Close, though. Chris? Who's going to see it? the points. What are the big names that you'd have in 1996? Big,

big British names who'd go to the opening of an envelope. Who are these people? Not Oasis, obviously. But music? Not Oasis. I'll give you a clue. Someone that Oasis had beef with over to you. Oh, Blur. Who have you gone for? No, not Damon Albem. No. Someone else they had beef with. Robbie Williams? Yeah, there you are. Robbie

Williams, classic. Jarvis Cocker I've also got there. And Anika Rice as well. These are the ones that I've got listed. She was also. a big deal for a while. She was a big deal. Yeah. That show is massive, absolutely. And the event was also covered for television at News Round, which is for overseas listeners, sort of kids TV news. It was a big thing back in the 90s. They covered it. Also, a program called Games Master, which was massive here on Channel 4 and covered computer gaming with Dominic Diamond and Patrick Moore. And such was the

excitement at the start of Zaga World, London, that other Sega worlds around the world soon joined. They were all built and badged in the same way. In fact, at the peak of the operations in the 1990s, there were more than a hundred locations of Sega World around the world. Japan, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, even mainland China. And there were others in Britain too. Do you remember this, Chris? You went to the one in London, did you? I went to the Trocadero one. I was obsessed with the Trocadero one. It was a big, deal when it launched. It was huge. Did you enjoy it? What are your memories of it?

So I was 13, I was just 10 and 13 when it opened, which is, I would say, the prime age for Sega World. My friends and I got dropped off by our parents and it was like, you could just run around. When it first launched, it was actually very good. We did get completely ripped off. There was all, like, different floors of arcade games on.

And on this one floor, they were like, come see this amazing attraction, it's five pounds each, you won't believe it. And we got conned and went in, and we went in there. And this guy, was dressed like a zoo keeper going, you're not going to believe this, it's going to come out, this thing's going to come out any minute. It was a guy jumped out of a cage dressed as a gorilla.

And then... Are you sure this was officially part of Saker World? Yeah, this is like, within Sagan War. And then we all ran out and was like, oh, that was it. Yeah, yeah, that's a rip-off. Maybe that was the beginning of the end of Sager World. Well, their pricing was a sort of a strange thing generally, as you will find out.

You're not alone in feeling that £5 was a weird thing. to pay for that because that was a running theme, okay? As I say, there were other Sega worlds in Britain. You were in London, but you could have gone to Sega World in Bournemouth. There was a Sega World in Birmingham. There was a Sega World in Wolverhampton. And there was the big one, of course, which was, this is the big one, was Sega World in Tamworth. Because you have to have a Sega World in Tamworth, don't you?

Otherwise, people are going to go, what about Sega World Tamworth? You know these other Sega Worlds? Presumably they're tiny. They can't be seven floors like the one in Choccadier. They are still proper places, but you're right. They're not as big as the London one. The biggest of the lot was London. And that expected 3,000 visitors an hour with 800 people gaming at any one point.

And at first, that is what they got. It's incredible that, isn't it? So, what, they were just lords of megadroves and muster systems set up with it. I can take you through Sega World in detail now, okay? Okay, great. Entry to Zeguil cost £12 in 1996, which is the equivalent to £25 today. And for that, you get entrance to a seven-floor, 110,000 square foot entertainment complex, which had six different zones and rides.

And in the words of the adverts, all of it would assault the senses. That was there. That's what they were going for. The rides were as follows. There was a beast in darkness. Do you remember any of these, Chris? Ghost hunt. Space mission, VR.

Aquar Planet, AS1 and Mad Bazooka. And the whole park was divided into names sections or zones, which were, and these are the different zones, the reception, which contained the Beast in Darkness Ride, a giant Sonic the Hedgehog statue and free to play Sega Saturn consoles. Then secondly, there was the combat zone, which had 50 action games such as Virtua Cop 2. Then the third area was the racetrack. One of these things really cements its time, by the way. That had 70 driving games, Aqua Planet Ride, and a Damon Hill Williams F1 car. If you really want to capture the time and place, it's that. Then next there was an area called the Flight Deck, which had 20 air combat games.

And also, this is insane. The money they've spent on this, it had an RAF Harrier Jumpjet, which blasted smoke every four minutes. Wow. What is that cost? It does sound incredible. Then the fifth area was called The Carnival, which had 80 RK games, a ghost hunt ride and an on-site McDonald's. This does sound brilliant as a child. From 13, it's perfect, isn't it?

Yeah. Then I'd say your favourite area, Chris, the sports arena, which offered 90 sports games, a game called Mab, Bazooka, that was a ride, sorry, an AS1 ride. And then finally, the Zaga store and one other thing. Do you want to guess what that one other thing is, which I'd say they probably didn't need. What do you think it was? I don't know. It was a second McDonald's, which feels like an insane decision. You know, though, you say that that would have been very expensive.

Until the early 2000s, it was a hugely successful company Sega. Absolutely. It was massive. They quit after the Dreamcast, didn't they? Yes. Because I remember Dreamcast sponsored Arsenal. That's right. It didn't really catch on.

Yeah, good console, though. I had a Dreamcast and it was good. Yeah, I had a Dreamcast as well. I did, yeah. Had tennis and all, like, there was actually a couple of good football games on it. It was a great console. I don't know why it didn't catch on. You're right.

It wasn't massively successful company, but as you'll find out, this was a very expensive venture. Okay. All of that stuff, which sounds great, I'm sure we can all agree it, was accessed by the rocket escalator, which was Europe's largest above ground travelator, which I don't think is a big enough claim to fame, but they still pushed it as a thing as a reason to go. And excitingly, visitors were also given the opportunity to play games before their official release and access to Japanese imports. It's kind of a rare chance in the days of console cartridges.

Of course, you couldn't play demos online, all this sort of stuff. You literally had to have the cartridge to play it. And then finally, there were the special tie-ins. For example, in 1997, I don't know if this is when you went, Chris, there was a new element introduced called The Lost World, which linked the complex with the latest film. in the Jurassic Park franchise, the blurb was, each player must help fight off life-size rampaging dinosaurs

using the most realistic computer graphics ever. And all of this just sounds brilliant, doesn't it? It sounds like it should be a huge success. And indeed, people were so excited by it. Initially, people flowed through the door in huge numbers. With Sega World opened 364 days a year from 10 a.m. to midnight and 1am on Fridays and Saturdays. So it was open from 10 a.m. to 1.m. to 1.

1 a.m. in the morning this place. But there was never enough people to turn a profit, not even in 1998, which is its best year, when 4 million visitors came and it still didn't turn a profit. And the reason was the project had cost 45 million pounds, and that's in 1996 money, and problems were apparent from the very beginning. Targets were missed. The first year saw a 1 million pound loss. Second year it went up to a two million pound loss and through it all, the rides keep breaking down constantly. The next bit really smacks of the panic. The 12 pound entry free was immediately slashed two pounds within a matter of weeks. That is too much of a drop because the reason was, do you know what? Why, Chris, do you remember maybe you came across this issue?

I remember thinking it was a bit of a rip off because once you got in, I think you had to pay again for it like everything. Okay, so you went after this initial few weeks, and that was because they slashed it from £12 to £2 to £2 because managers realised that a single payment on the door and then free rides inside just led to massive queues. Yeah. Just imagine the stress when you're overseeing this and you're realising the mistake you've made. And then in December 1997, so this is not long after, the entry free was got rid of entirely and they introduced a pay to play charge instead, which is probably what you experienced, with payments in £190.9.000. with payments in 99 arranging from 20p to £3 to go on rides. And one company executive was later heard to lament that the Zagirworld was badly conceived,

badly designed, and the wrong thing in the wrong market. So not ideal, really. In truth, though, Sega World did attract quite a lot of positive press attention. But the context is kind of key here. Games arcades were already in decline in the 1990s, because, of course, people had their consoles at home. And Zagher's next-generation consoles, which were the Saturn and the Dreamcast, they failed to keep pace with Nintendo 64, the Sony PlayStation.

They all basically took the victory there. And it was not just the London outfit that struggled either. The Sydney Venture opened in March 1997, only survived until November 2000 when the doors were shut down, and they ended up just demolishing the whole site. And while London Sega World limped on until its third anniversary, it's not long at all, closing on the 7th of September 1999, Sega's reputation in the UK basically had been irreparably dented by this failure. And these days, the site is now used as a hotel with Zaga World only a distant, faded memory. So you loved it, Chris, but it was a huge financial disaster for Sega.

And really, it had a direct impact on how the brand was perceived here. So, yeah, a real failure. A couple of things. I'm interested to hear you say it was badly designed because if you have a look at the pictures, it looked amazing. It looked good, but I guess it's badly designed from the perspective of like

it didn't make a lot of financial sense. It looked great, but I do remember a lot of the rides being broken. And it was a bit of a rip-off because whatever you wanted to do you had to pay for. Yeah, I think basically it was, it looked incredible, but the flow of people through,

which is so crucial with any theme park and all this sort of stuff, how quickly you can get on rides, whether they are available to use. It's kind of crucial, isn't it? And that flow and the costing was completely wrong, and that's basically what screwed it. My friend Rob and I loved Sega World as kids so much

that I think it was probably like 10 years ago. They finally closed its doors. Though it wasn't called Sega World anymore, there were remnants at the Trocadero of that old Sega World that you could go in and have a look. And I think it was the weekend before it closed, we were like, let's go have a look. And it was so depressing.

It was so insanely depressing. The whole thing was just falling apart. There was like plasterboard over whole sections, but you could see in between it and see the dusty old relics of a theme park behind it. There's actually a great blog somewhere. Someone did a photo essay of it, like the final throws of a trocadero arcade

before it became a hotel. Well, there's something that L and I have experienced a number of times, which is that feels reminiscent of, which is when you do the Edinburgh Festival and your agent has convinced you to do, do the final Monday. So 98% of people finish on the Sunday

at the Edinburgh Festival. If you somehow been convinced by your agent, oh, you should do an extra date. They're literally taking the buildings down around the prefab huts. But everything is just being the signs are being removed and you're still walking in. It's so weird.

I remember doing a gig in Edinburgh at the end of September, month after the festival had ended. And all the posters are torn and it's just really strange. what's funny as well is if a building is left they will start to decay very quickly so on Oakwood

which is a massive theme park in Pembrokeshire and West Wales it only closed last year but you've already got those urban explorers climbing up the sort of disused roller coasters and it's already it looks like a ruin yeah

yeah so why is it that they sort of fall to pieces so quickly. I actually now, this is a thought at the back of my head. I'm sure that everything that had gone in the Trocadero for

almost a hundred years had been a failure. There's something about the Trocadero. I remember reading a blog post about it where, and I think Will Self wrote a book about this, that there's certain things in London. Centerpoint was another good example. There's certain areas of London where no matter what you do in that space,

it just doesn't work. Yeah, there are certain pubs that you think, this should be brilliant. Why is it always changing its name and the new management? It's funny that. That's a good question for the listeners. Is there an example of a place through history where no matter what has been done there, it's always gone wrong? And please don't send us football grounds. That is a good show.

The Bermuda Triangle? The Bermuda Triangle. The thing with the Trocadillo. The Trocadero is right in the middle of London. And yet I never go there. No, yes. No, yeah, absolutely. I know it was briefly home to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company,

which is a restaurant which is launched off the back of, what's it called? Forest Gump. Forest Gump, yeah. That's so weird. It's mad that that brand has come off the back. Good old Funland, which is what it was after Sega World. So there you go. That is the history of Sega World, which is very, very.

costly and I'm afraid was part of Sega's or Zagas demise. I think Funland is too vague a title. Yeah. Isn't it? It doesn't say enough. It doesn't even describe the kind of fun you're having. And I've got to apologise to the listeners. You said Zaga so many times there, but I just stopped calling you on it eventually.

Same. It was unsustainable to call you on it. I noticed that Elmere and you were casting each other looks. As he kept saying it. It's gone too far now. Yeah. Anyway, you're listening to Oh, What a Time with me. And it's James Criskell and Dom Crane.

That's the end of part one of abandoned theme parks, but you can get part two either on Wednesday or right now by going to Patreon.com forward slash oh what a time where you also get two bonus episodes every month. And if you're listening on Apple, you can also subscribe by Apple too. Otherwise, we'll see on Wednesday. Bye. Oh, What's Time is now on.

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