What is a Kiddie Ride?
Kiddie Ride is a collection of miniature rides designed to entertain kids. They are based on popular television shows or characters and often play their theme song to attract customers.
Some rides also play a message before movement begins or an ending message when it is time to disembark. This helps to keep children seated properly and comfortably.
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing
A kiddie ride is a small, mechanical amusement ride designed to be operated by children. It typically consists of an elongated base with a figure, such as a train or car, that paces the length of the base and stops on reaching its limit.
A licensed kiddie ride based on a popular character is often found in shopping malls to attract the attention of young customers. The rides usually feature the character on a base shaped like a car, truck, boat, plane or other vehicle and play the character’s theme music when in operation. The Jolly Roger Amusement Rides company, for example, has made a fire truck and airplane featuring Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy, a train and police van starring the Pink Panther and Inspector Clouseau, and a sailboat starring Popeye.
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is a 2010 kart racing video game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Sega for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, and Windows, featuring characters from multiple Sega franchises. Each player controls a unique vehicle corresponding to their chosen Kiddie Ride character, and competes against a set of 20 challengers across a variety of stunning circuits.
Players collect stickers as they complete races and earn trophies. These trophies unlock achievements in Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam. The game features 27 tracks, with seventeen new ones and four returning from the previous games in the series. Some tracks change during three laps, while others remain the same throughout the race.
Bing & Talkie Taxi
Embark on a fun ride with your favourite Cbeebies characters Bing and Sula, as they discover a new toy at Amma’s creche – a talking ride-on car! Featuring Bing in his iconic Yellow Taxi, this push and play toy is made from chunky, colourful hard-wearing plastic. Press the steering wheel to hear fun squeaking sounds, perfect for babies and toddlers. Measuring approx 18 cm in height this toy requires no batteries.
Based on the award-winning animated television series that celebrates the joyful, noisy and messy reality of pre-school life, join Bing, Sula, Flop, Coco, Charlie, Pando and all their friends for everyday adventures. They might be flying their Hoppity Voosh kite, digging the biggest hole or giggling over sparkle magic, but no matter what they’re doing, it’s always a blast.
Coin operated kiddie rides are the perfect addition to any amusement arcade, allowing parents and children to have more fun and stay longer at your entertainment business. Dawpol kiddie amusement rides are designed to withstand the rigours of daily use, and are manufactured to high-quality standards confirmed by CE certification. This is the only ride with a red press button that doesn’t have a dashboard panel, so it’s ready to go right out of the box.
Thomas & Friends
Unlike other children’s shows that tend to annoy the adults with their weirdly childish dancing and singing this series is actually quite good and imagination stimulating. The show’s theme is great and the trains are very well designed. My son loves them and has a huge collection of Thomas items. I also like that the stories are well written, although it would be nice if they could avoid some of the more obvious cliches.
Unspecified Role Credit: The series up until series 22 never really clearly stated which actors voiced each character. Fortunately from Kiddie Ride series 23 they started to properly credit them.
Teamwork: Thomas and his friends are always working together to help each other out or to solve problems. This is a great way to teach kids the importance of being able to work as part of a team.
It has been a shame to see the show turn into a money making spree exhausting and devaluing the original but there has been some improvement such as the more realistic stories and the fact that some characters aren’t gender stereotypes (Thomas being a risk taking racing engine and Percy being a peace-making female). The only thing I really hate about it is that they pushed Thomas off their main channel and put it on the Nick Jr. channel and are doing little-to-no advertising for it.
Disney Princess
A Disney Princess kiddie ride is a themed, mildly interactive coin-operated amusement machine designed to entertain young children for a small fee. They are typically found in amusement parks, arcades, malls, hotel game rooms, outside supermarkets and large department stores.
These rides have a base that paces along the ground as it moves, while a figure, often a princess, sits on top of the base and is moved by the motion. Some of these rides also incorporate a video display. The ride action is usually synchronized with events on the screen, and the motion of the ride will start and stop based on actions on the display.
Character rides are more expensive than generic ones because of the royalty costs associated with the voice samples and theme songs. They may also require more frequent maintenance due to the higher number of push buttons.
Licensed characters are an attractive branding option for kiddie rides because they provide a mystique that appeals to children and draws them in. Generic kiddie rides, however, have a harder time creating this mystique than roller-coasters and other one-of-a-kind attractions because they are so commonplace. For these reasons, the concept of branded kidsdie rides is somewhat controversial in some circles.
