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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.พ. 2018
- This is raw, unedited footage from a promotional video that played on the television screens at the Exhilarama at the Memorial City Mall in Houston. It is believed that this was shot soon after the arcade opened in December of 1993. These arcades were prominent in the late 80's and early 90's, and were a staple in many malls. Their fantastic aesthetic is
I am including this as a Side Quest to my Expedition Log Series, accompanying the Echelon Mall video (Voorhees Town Center) in New Jersey.
![Arcade Games in the '90s - My Retro Life [Extended Cut]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2T5YxlpnMR4/mqdefault.jpg)
I really miss those days..
Your not the only one who miss the 90s and places like the one in this video, I wish that I could go back in time and visit the arcade at memorial city mall back in the 90s. 🙄
This place looked awesome! Sooo 90s, I felt like a kid wanting to play the games, eat some pizza, and ride the rides. It was like an indoor amusement park. Sad that there aren't more places like this now
This Exhilarama was one of a kind and out of this world. I don't think I have ever seen an arcade anything like this anywhere else ever!
My uncle who babysat me my whole childhood went to high school with a ton of the people who worked here. I grew up in this place everyday for most of my childhood. He would bet quarters kn the Mortal Kombat games and theydbhave tournaments.
I used to go to the one at the Echelon Mall, those were the days, they even had a little roller coaster
Sdyoyo I’ve been searching like crazy trying to find a picture of the indoor coaster at the echelon mall one and I can’t find anything on it :( I believe it was called the Whirlerama?
Yup, man I miss those days. The laser tag was Awesome too!
Dude yes the indoor coaster and giant jungle gym was lit!!!
That was my first job. I worked there from '93-'95. I accidentally started a fire on the metal bumper cars floor🤦🏾♀️. Those were the days.
So dope!!! Omg! I was here every weekend for a couple years during early elementary! It was the best! Way better than Chuck E. Cheese and other places like this. Had in door carnival rides!!! Easy tickets! Awesome prizes! Miss it so much!
This is really cool footage! Thanks for showing these gems. It saddens me, that so much of these sights and sounds are no more.
Blast from the past. I wonder if this was the same arcade that closed a few years ago. The food court had a large Tilt arcade that looked similar to this one. That mall has changed so much since the 90's it is hard too tell.
Yeah i remeber that arcade in tha food court it was next to a mc donalds
it used to be across from the Shannon's and the food court before I left the Memorial area
You're correct! It was first Exhilarama. The entrance was made out to be a normal arcade, but then once you got deeper into it, there were stairs that took you down to where all the attractions were. I remember one day visiting it as a child and realizing what was once the stairs to the "other side" was walled off with a painted metal accent. That was when Tilt took over and kept just the arcade. These memories feel so distant, almost like they're from another life. I can't believe how much this mall has changed.
It is the same one
Yeah, they just made it way smaller
Omg...this place was AMAZING!! Still to this day, nothing compares to what Exhilerama offered.
Wow, it's like a time capsule into my childhood. There were so many of these places back then. Really love all your vids
Why did they shut down so many of these places in houston?
@@anthonyruiz6365 Things change, unfortunately.
WOW This brings back so many memories. I Grew up in this place. My uncle who would babysit me everyday used to play mortal Kombat for quarters and leave me in the big Ballpit adventure place. He was friends with everyone who worked there.
Thai was my childhood memories. They need to bring this back to the children of these days . This was the 90s and earliest 00s
I used to meet up with my first girlfriend here. Back in 95
Thank you!!! This brings back a lot of memories 💙
It's so crazy to see a glimpse of my childhood like this. So many kids I knew that played games at Memorial City Mall here and I know I often visited with my dad. Got crazy for a while when they mad a lot of the arcade games 10 cents or 5 cents so could spend ages on them with just a few dollars.
Most of those games are at tilt studio. Most arcades haven't updated since the 90's.
I grew up at Memorial City Mall. My grandmother worked at Sears there. Started at Sears before the mall was even built then later worked at a place called Walter Pye’s then returned to Sears. I remember Fame city there even before this place. Taco bell there was previously Taco Bueno. The food court was called The Picnic before the words food court were popular. Used to be a neon sign for the picnic. Although this place is gone the mall itself is not dead. In fact its extremely busy even on weekdays. The sears did go now though. But they were clever. They filled that spur with mostly kids stores and anchored it with a giant new playground. Consequently the sears spur remains very busy even with no anchor.
The kids look so well behaved...unlike these monsters now!
Tell me about it it seem that back in the 90s it was more safe to go out and just have fun with no worries, not like the world today. 😢
Parents were better behaved, thus kids were as well.
Wow Blast from the past ! I used to work here in 95' when I was only 17 first job . So much fun memories , I even seen some people, I had worked with.
Great video of how we will remember how people interacted and had FUN before cell phones and did stuff together 🤔😎
So you stared at a screen in a cabinet instead a s screen in your hand. You could be just as isolated and insular at an arcade as you can today. And before you get your heckles up I was born in 1970 so I was already in college when this video was shot.
Ah yes, rigged games, nearly impossible odds.......I'll skip that. Born in 71 ,so I ' ve played a few as a kid.
I agree. I loved going to aladins castle and meeting other nerds and weirdos. Oh yeah, we talked and had personal interaction then I cashed out my tickets on some crap and went on my merry way. '77 here.
@@GeekFilter you are never isolated in a PUBLIC arcade.
OmegaRedFan You’ve never heard the phrase “feeling alone in a crowd”? Just because you’re around a bunch of people doesn’t mean that you’re interacting, or feel included. It’s very easy To feel isolated in a public place.
This is amazing. I remember going to parties at Echelon and can feel this video.
If you go back to the late 80s before Exhilarama, it was originally opened as "Fame City at Memorial City Mall" which was run by the Fame City indoor amusement park aka Fun Plex on Beechnut. It struggled financially, closed, sold? and converted into Exhilarama. I believe the back part of Exhilarama with the rides used to be Pipe Organ Pizza. That was a pizza restaurant that featured a large antique pipe organ and catered to kids birthday parties.
In the 1990s and 2000s, there were arcade places like Tilt, Jeepers, Jillian’s, Exhilirama, Pocket Change, Aladdin’s Castle, etc. that all went out of business in the mid-late 2000s. Main Event and Dave & Busters are still around but it’s not the same. I think Tilt came back to life though if I’m correct,
Chucky cheese is still around and now their is Andretti
@@anthonyruiz6365 yes but it’s not the same yk?
@@wowhaha4871 yeah I get it but atleast children and teens still has somewhere to go. Exhilarama had a few small rides inside and slides with balls and moonwalks. It closed down after town and country mall closed and transferred some of their stores to memorial city
@@anthonyruiz6365 that’s true
I wish this still existed! Remember going here in 1994 on a school field trip back when I lived in Katy
When I was a kid this spot was so🔥🔥🔥
I used to shop at that mall in the 90's
back when the food court had the extremely low ceiling and no skylights!
Fantastic!
Just came back from Memorial City Mall tonight and was telling my friends about this place.
I never thought I'd see it again and my mom didnt get pics of it.
THANKYOU for uploading and sharing this.
Some years after this footage, they walled off the majority of Exhilarama and it's rides, carnival games, and snack bar and it became just an arcade.
Several years later the arcade closed completely and the space is now used for a restaurant.
Though I do wonder what's behind the walled off section after all these years 🤔
Reminds me of Long John Silver’s Arcade at Kildonan Place Mall growing up, good memories 😊
Yes!!!
My boyfriend worked there so after hours one night on a weekend we all met up and brought beer and got to play all the arcade games for free and laser tag for free while we were drunk. Good times LOL (Memorial City around 1990)
If I'm not mistaken that's all part of the food court now. Memorial City was opened in '66. Then in the 2000s it was redeveloped with a Dillard's wing added when they moved out of Town and Country Mall. Sears recently closed and was razed to possibly make way for a lifestyle center. As far as I know there are no original anchor stores left at the mall . They have been razed and replaced with other stores.
I believe a portion of this space was demolished for JC Penney, then the remainder of it was split into other food court restaurants after Tilt closed.
Absolutely loved this place. Ultimate eatertainment center - never seen better. Only Fame City came close. Jungle Jim’s and Pistol Pete’s were other favorites. 90s Alief & Sugar Land kid.
Memories.
I remember this place!, my friends and I were always in here playing. I remember the Arcade section had lines of people waiting to play games like NBA JAM. Thank you for this upload.
Im Mario and my friend Brandon and his brother Wesley were the Original Mall rats
I missed this place-their bumper cars and indoor coaster were good as a young kid.not to mention they had legit arcade games
We had fun! My how we have deteriorated.
Everyone take notice = not a single wild animal fight and not a single person staring at their little phone!
Miss this place
Very Cool Sal, Big Like!
There was an Exhilarama somewhere in North Carolina that I only got to visit once, but it's a foggy memory full of mystique for me. Thanks for posting this!
Cary, Nc
I just found a bunch of 1 point tokens in my drawer lol
So cool..I had my 6th birthday party here back in '99. I rode everything but I loved the bumper karts! I haven't been to MC mall in a long time but I wonder if they changed it to something else now, or if it's still there 🤔
Great footage. Where did you get it?
My local mall used to have a Tilt Arcade in the basement below the food court. It closed in like 2009, and is now a hair college. Wasn’t Exhilarama like at Memorial City, but Tilt was also cool I guess lol.
I have foggy, faded memories of an Exhilarama somewhere in North Carolina. I've always been fascinated by thee memories as I only got to go once and remember wanting to go back very badly, but it closed before I got the chance. Anyone know where the one in NC was?
Sal, Could you tell us some history of this place and does it still exist? We have a place like this in Peabody, MA called Bonkers and it's a lot of fun for kids. Thanks for sharing!☺
Novel idea!! Let me put something on the docket for a future video...thanks for the suggestion!
The mall still exists and is pulling tons of customers but I don't think it's had an arcade in 10 years or so.
Linda Goreham Exhilarama went out of business long ago. They had a roller coaster, that's how I knew about the fact that it existed.
Memorial City Mall is the 2nd busiest mall in Houston only after Galleria. The arcade has closed down.
Some of those younger kids are now my age, I could have been one of them. Also: "appearing today: the future!" yet this is from around 25 years ago and is now the past. Life's weird.
Anyone also remember the the Loews Theater that used to be at Memorial City Mall? The one before Cinemark.
Loews Theatre has no connection to Loews home improvement btw, lol
Jesus Christ... I remember this place when I was younger...
We do have a few places like this in Winnipeg, but not in a Mall
Curt Wakeman hello fellow pegger!
We'll be got hipster arcade bars Poppin up all over Milwaukee. Also round 1 is very successful. I do like these places, no shade.
Top 10 Greatest Things That Modern People Can't Attempt
2:00 Wonder why nobody wants any Fog Horn Leg Horn dolls.
Sir I say Sir kids love fog horn leg horn!
starofjustice1 “I said ,I Said BOY !!!” That girl is sharp as a Bowling Ball 🎳
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damn tokyo wars was out in late 93?! I could have sworn that came out 98 tops
Could've been '96, because i saw a couple of X-Men vs. Street Fighter cabinets
Do you have a video of what it looks like today? Is it still up and running or is it sadly gone like all the awesome malls that I enjoyed as a teen??
Crystal Marie Dixon the mall is still there but the arcade is gone I live near that mall
Long gone
no,is made in 1996 because you will see the San Francisco Rush Arcade in 1:01 an Tokyo Wars arcade in 0:19,Gunblade NY in 0:49
Isn't 1996 in the 90s, sherlock??
@@brenda.lizeth but not early 90's i said
@@kaiokendo Where does it say early 90s??
@@brenda.lizeth pre 95 and pre 00 arent the same
I remember tokyo wars...It was a rip off it was like $1 lol we had it at my local arcade/bumper cars/roller rink. place has been closed for over a decade
where will AMERICA and USA go from here?
This one looks ghetto. Ours in St. Louis was hi-tech
Bruh. Not gonna lie. I love the 90’s, but I feel like I was born in the wrong decade/generation.