Games and Sideshows - Wonderland History

Besides its rides and shows, Australia’s Wonderland ran games and sideshows in each land from its opening day to its last, paid for separately from the pay one price admission. The opening advertisements promised “fine food, great shopping, challenging games”. The games were run by the park’s Games and Merchandise department, and the stalls changed names and themes over the years. This page gathers what the park’s own guides, maps and vouchers say about them, with photos of the stalls below. The park’s electronic Games Arcade in Goldrush was a separate attraction, and photos of the games staff are on the Games and Merchandise staff page.

Hanna-Barbera Land, 1985

The 1985 souvenir book and the first season’s fun guide name six games in Hanna-Barbera Land, and the fun guide says how each was played:

Astro’s Action: a timed ball toss, “quick, toss the ball into the can before the lid closes”, named after Astro from The Jetsons
Jetson’s Star Maker: “small fry Skeeball”
Jabber Jaw’s Water Wonder: “squirt gun action for little squirts”
Pebble’s Ring Fling: “ring a bottle of Coca-Cola!”
Wilma’s Weigh-In: a guess your weight game, “you can’t fool Wilma when she’s guessing your weight”
Old McScrappy’s Golfing Farm: “eighteen holes of PAR-ticular fun for the entire family”, the mini golf course on the site later taken by Fred Flintstone’s Splashdown

The same guide lists the land’s shops beside the games: Rainbow Gifts (“every cuddling toy under the rainbow”), The Memory Market, Fred’s Famous Photos and Top Cat’s Treasures (“hats, hats and more hats”).

Medieval Faire, 1985

The book identifies five games centres in Medieval Faire: Jester’s Court, Ye Pitching Place, Royal Sports and Courts, Tournament Faire Games and Dunk The Foole. The fun guide’s young narrator wrote that they “kept us going for hours. Five big games centres with heaps of fun”. Ye Pitching Place and Tournament Faire Games had their own signs, photographed below. The book does not describe the individual games played in them. An early photo shows a ring the bottle game in a white pavilion with an attendant dressed as a clown, and another a family with a prize bear at a games counter near the fountain, its attendant in medieval costume.

The 1990s

The 1990/91 fun guide promised “olde worlde games of skill like Sorcerer’s Challenge” in Medieval Faire. The Kidzfest ’93 programme advertised that “everyone’s a winner when you play a game at any Hanna Barbera game outlet”. In 1995 the seasonal staff committee had a representative for Merchandise and Games, and the 1996 Big Book of Adventure still invited visitors to “check into Wilma’s Weigh-in”, with the prize going to anyone whose weight Wilma guessed wrong, and spoke of “loads of games to play and plenty of prizes to be won in Hanna Barbera Land”. The 1997 souvenir map marks games in Goldrush and Hanna-Barbera Land.

Wonderland Sydney, 2000 to 2004

A 2000 collector card shows the laughing clowns stall in the Tudor style games building of the old Medieval Faire, by then Old Botany Bay, and a 2001 discount voucher offered a free game of Bushell Ball in Goldrush. The photos below from the park’s last years show the stalls as they were then: the milk can ball toss (“1 in Wins”, with a Goldrush special of eight balls), the basketball hoops in International Village (three balls for $2, three in the hoop for a large prize, two for a small one), Ducks A-Hoy ($2 a play, numbered ducks for small, medium and large prizes), a coin toss, the Eureka Challenge in a Goldrush timber building, a stall painted as the Molten Nugget Casino and the Stardust Casino, and the ring the Coke bottle game of March 2004, three rings for $3, eight for $5 and twenty for $10, with a limit of two large prizes per player per day. Prizes were plush toys hung from the stall roofs.