Tokyo Sesame Place (東京セサミプレイス) was a Japanese Sesame Street theme park located in Akiruno, Tokyo, Japan. It was a Japanese version of the Sesame Place theme park in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Despite using the name, it was not affiliated with the American park and was owned and operated separately. The park was located near the Tokyo Summerland water park, although it shared the same car parking spot as the park's golf club.

Tokyo Sesame Place opened in October 1990 and closed on December 31, 2006, as the owners of the park went into management difficulties. The site of where the park was has stood vacant and abandoned since then, although some of the major parts of the park including signage, the Escalators and the Big Bird head were removed after the closure.

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Park

To enter the theme park, visitors went on a really long (40.8 meter, at the time was the longest escalator in Japan) escalator ride through a steep hill all the way to the top in front of a giant Big Bird head. Most of the attractions were after the Escalator ride on Sesame Square, while the rest were on the upper floor, called Barkley's Walkway. This is where the Big Bird head would go to.

Most of the attractions were the same as it's American counterpart during it's first years, with a few unique ones. Due to the small size of the park, the attractions were more or less like playground equipment. There was also a restaurant, some carnival games, kiddie rides (which were moved to Tokyo Summerland after the park's closure) and a gift store named after Hooper's Store.

Attractions

The Amazing Mumford's Water Maze - A water attraction.

Big Bird's Pond - Bumper Boat ride.

Cookie Mountain - Climbing equipment. This version doesn't include any net covering the attraction.

Elmo's Net and Climb - An enclosed 2-story outdoor playground. Ball Pool - Located on the second floor. Slimey Slider - A enclosed slide that took attendees down to the first floor.

Ernie's Bed Bounce - Inflatable bed. This version was enclosed

Ernie and Bert's Playroom - A indoor playground for babies and toddlers.

Grover's Super Dig - Kids could sit on small mechanical excavators and dig up dirt.

Guy Smiley's Tower - Staircase tower that could take attendees to the bottom and top floors.

Herry Monster's Net - Climbing net. It is placed over Sesame Beach .

. Monster Maze - Maze with large punching bags.

Rainbow Pyramid - Attendees could put balls inside the pyramid and the air would push them up.

Sesame Beach - Small water pool.

Sesame Forest - Small playground located in the forest area.

Sesame Street - An indoor replica of Sesame Street, similar to Sesame Neighborhood.

Sesame Studio - Indoor theater that had short live shows featuring the walk-around characters.

Snuffy's Ball Pool - a deep ball pool.

Characters

Walk-around characters included Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Ernie, Bert, The Count (first appeared in late 1990s), and Zoe (first appeared in early 2000s). In stage shows, the characters' voices were dubbed by the same voice actors from the NHK dub.

Walk-arounds of Mojabo and Teena from the Japanese co-production also appeared at the park during its last few years.

Merchandise

See also