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| Found on FlickRiver, credited to King Power Cinema |
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| Via CNNRotatingSquare on YouTube |
Did I mention that there were only three rides? Having an indoor location limited what the park could offer, so obviously sprawling rollers coasters were out, but the World did feature a Crystal Carousel with mythical creatures, a Living Island Dark ride (featuring a Krofft character, Witchie-Poo, as well as giant mushrooms and talking trees) and a Pin-Ball ride, where visitors were propelled through a giant pin ball machine.
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| The Pin Ball Machine ride, via toml1959 on flickr |
The World of Sid and Marty Krofft opened to much fanfare in May 1976. Jimmy Carter, Tony Orlando and Geraldo Rivera were among the A-listers who got invited along with the local media. The following YouTube clip contains the few remaining photos of that night and the park's history in general, as well as audio sounds that were heard during a visit to the World (just a warning that the music gets...uh...psychedelic creepy towards the end.)
The World was a cool concept, and a forerunner to Chuck E. Cheese, but it was competing with the nearby Six Flags Over Georgia, which offered a much larger, traditional outdoor amusement park experience for only a bit more money (and which featured a Sid and Marty Krofft puppet attraction.) The Kroffts' park was promoted as an all-day experience, but most patrons found that it only took a couple of hours to see and do everything within the floors and that the only direction one could go once in the park was down to the next level. The Omni Center was also constructed in what was at that time a rough part of Atlanta, surrounded by crime and housing projects. Parents felt it was simply too dangerous to take their kids there. Ultimately, the park just couldn't deliver enough bang for the buck and closed its doors in November 1976.
Today, the location of The World of Sid and Marty Krofft is now the CNN center, and all that remains of the amusement park is the massive escalator that used to carry visitors to the top floor. Don't you wish you could have visited it?
Here's some color postcards showing more images of the park in its heyday (click here.)
