Continuing my series on DinoLand U.S.A., today’s post is going to be a look back at the Fossil Fun Games in Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama!
Until sort of recently, I don’t think the games were a must-do for most Disney fans. At the surface, they are pretty standard carnival games in an area of Disney’s Animal Kingdom that, again until recently, was overlooked by most guests as a tacky afterthought. Now with the news of DinoLand’s impending closure (and to be fair, a little earlier with the introduction of themed prizes), the games have been given a second life of sorts and I’ve noticed significantly more interest in them.
Memories of DinoLand’s Fossil Fun Games
I first played the games as a kid during my second trip to Animal Kingdom, I believe in 2002. At this point, the Fossil Fun Games were only about a year old, and Primeval Whirl opened only a couple of months before our trip. I remember specifically my family wanted to me to go on Primeval Whirl, but I was still scared of roller coasters at the time and that as an “absolutely not.”
I’m guessing there was a decent wait for Primeval Whirl since it was new, and while some of my family waited for the ride, a couple of us went to the Fossil Fun Games. I wish I remembered if I won the prize or if an adult won if for me or something, but I have what I believe is one of the original prizes, so that’s pretty neat.
Aside from that trip, where I think the games were really just used to keep my cousin and I busy while the adults rode Primeval Whirl, I didn’t really have any other experiences with them until I worked in DinoLand during my Disney College Program. I won’t rehash the entirety of my first College Program here, but the games were a huge factor in my improving my public speaking skills. I never would have expected to be placed on carnival games when I accepted an offer to work “merchandise,” but I guess with Disney you just never know!
My favorite game to work on was Brontoscore, or the basketball game. It was probably the easiest to spiel to guests since it was so basic, and it wasn’t rigged like carnivals outside of Disney would be (where the ball is often over inflated or the rim is smaller than it should be). Since it wasn’t rigged, guests had a real chance of winning at Brontoscore if they were at all decent at basketball. And, it didn’t require any regulation of a mechanical game like some of the other ones, which meant fewer safety protocols and more opportunity to just have real interactions with guests.
Whack-a-Pachycephalosaur, aka Whack-a-Mole, was fun to work on, too, though it would be tedious if you had all kids playing and it took them a long time to get enough points to win. (You couldn’t manually stop the game or have it name a winner at a lower score, so sometimes it could take a looooonnnnnggggg time.) Fossil Fueler, the squirt gun game, was also fun!
Mammoth Marathon was one of those work locations where I enjoyed it really depending on how busy the park was and honestly, what my mood was like. This one was the skee-ball game where each seat corresponded with a mammoth that would race across the back wall and move faster depending on how many points you were scoring. It was a lot of spieling, which is probably why as someone who isn’t thrilled with public speaking I say how much I enjoyed this one was a little dependent on my mood. At the same time, though, it was really fun and if the park was busy enough that you’d have most seats filled guests would be playing for one of the big prizes.
My least favorite game was Comet Crasher. It’s probably still me least favorite, even to play as a guest in the limited time DinoLand has left, because this is the only game of chance where the others are all games of skill. In theory, you have a good shot at winning the other games if you’re good at skee-ball or basketball, or in the case of Whack-a-Pachycephalosaur and Fossil Fueler, someone will win every time, and if the only players are you and your friends or family, well, it will be one of you. Comet Crasher on the other hand is totally up to chance, as it’s one of those games where you throw a wiffle ball and it has to land on certain colors to win a prize, only the ball rolls around randomly and you can’t really have a strategy here. People do win, to be sure, but most guests have an easier time getting a prize on the other games.
Fossil Fun Games Theming
The carnival games actually have some interesting theming and backstory that guests may not realize. For instance, Whack-a-Pachycephalosaur follows through with some of the educational components of The Boneyard by virtue of Imagineers choosing the Pachycephalosaurus as the dinosaur for this game. Since the dinosaurs replace moles in this version of Whack-a-Mole, Imagineers purposefully chose the Pachycephalosaurus for its 10-inch thick skull, giving the Cast Members who work the games an opportunity to share this fact with guests (I would always use it when kids asked about the dinos on the game to let them know that hitting their heads won’t hurt since their skulls are so thick.)
Fossil Fueler is actually the old gas pumps from Chester & Hester’s gas station repurposed into a carnival game. While there are also some vintage gas pumps and memorabilia inside Chester & Hester’s Dinosaur Treasures, the ones that make up the game are very much spruced up with neon lighting and extra details to entice guests to come and play.
To be honest (and I don’t mean this as the weirdest flex ever or anything, especially since it’s been 10 years at this point since I worked in DinoLand), but I haven’t heard as much of the spieling from Cast Members, especially the in-theme storytelling, in a long time. When I worked there, I was told that on Mammoth Marathon for instance, the balls were ice or snowballs because the game was intended to represent the ice age. And at comet crasher, the balls were actually asteroids and the holes were craters. I don’t remember too much of the specific spiels at this point other than the ever-so-catchy, “Come on over to Whack-a-Pachycephalosaur, the more you hit, the more you score!” but it was some loose theming that you could really run with if you wanted to.
Of course, this area also has the parking lot lines on the ground to show that you really are in Chester & Hester’s original parking lot, and several detailed signs adding more depth to the storytelling. The signs around Dino-Rama add to the immersion that guests have entered a roadside attraction, as you’d see signs from the highway and billboards advertising both the Dino Institute (with what is basically vandalism by Chester & Hester putting their own ads over the original artwork) and touristy photo ops all around the carnival area. One of my favorite touristy details is by the entrance to Chester & Hester’s Dinosaur Treasures, if you look up above the doorway you’ll see signs that read “When in Florida, be sure to visit EPCOT.”
DinoLand Prizes
The prizes at the Fossil Fun Games have changed several times over the years, and their current (or final ðŸ˜) version are easily the best. There is one prize that is a plush of Cementosaurus (the large, cartoony dinosaur that looms over Dino-Rama), and his side even has the Dino-Rama logo on it. I need to have this one. I haven’t played the games since this one came out, and with DinoLand going away it’s the perfect souvenir to remember it by. Basically, I will not be okay if I don’t win this one when I visit Animal Kingdom next month.
Other prizes still available as of this writing include a couple of other dinosaurs and Mickey and Minnie in Dino Institute t-shirts. Mickey and Minnie would also be nice to have, but since I spent the majority of my time working in DinoLand at Rama and not the Institute, Cementosaurus is my first choice!
Speaking of Cementosaurus, do you know what kind of dinosaur he is? He’s a Concretadorian, of course. He was originally yellow, which to be honest I still sort of miss since that’s how he looked during my College Program, but he was painted green when Rivers of Light debuted so he wouldn’t stand out in the sight lines of the show. (Speaking of that, are we ever going to get a new nighttime show in this park?!)
I’ll save the rest of my Dino-Rama memories and rambling for the next post in my “Goodbye to DinoLand” series, so be sure to check back for the next one! And in case you missed it, you can read my first DinoLand post, The Story of DinoLand U.S.A. here.
