Day 53: Geppi’s Entertainment Museum

On July 10, 2009, we first went to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum and the Sports Legends Museum, but from the start I promised Mik that if we had time we would also go to the Geppi Entertainment Museum. Of course, he was rushing us along all day, so he could see this museum, but we ended up with plenty of time here even though we did not really let him make us rush. The best part is the museum admission is only $1 on game days and it is located right above the Sports Legends Museum, so it was very easy to fit in time wise since we were almost already at the park by being in this building.

The museum starts with a room with the walls covered with comics on display and even more comics in display cases in the middle of the room. This room was enough to keep Mik’s attention throughout. Dad actually went back to check on him while Mik was watching a movie in here and brought Mik to near the end of the museum where we were. Thus this really is all Mik saw during our hour plus visit and boy was he not happy that Dad made him leave the movie. He was not exactly mad to miss the rest of the museum, but he was no longer motivated to see anything after Dad pulled him away from what he was enjoying already. Other than Dad being annoying, though, Mik thought this was an awesome museum or at least what he did see of it.

The rest of the museum is organized like a timeline. It begins with the Pioneer Spirit exhibit representing 1776-1894 continues to the Extra! Extra! Exhibit representing 1895-1927 and so on. Honestly, the first two parts were not all that interesting to me. It was just a confusing representation of things that were not exactly historically explained very well or at least I could not notice the signs that really explained what the heck was on display and why adequately. Not that I really tried that hard, as I kind of quickly went through these two to get to the somewhat more modern stuff. I like historical stuff great and small and all, but I was kind of in a rush to get to the Orioles game and wanted to make it to the Wizard of Oz exhibit near the end.

I spent some time in the When Heroes Unite exhibit (1928-1945), as they had a display of Mickeys and such, but I did not get a chance to linger because they had to kick everyone out of this exhibit in order to fix a Minnie doll that fell down and I forgot to go back to the exhibit. The American Tunes In (1946-1960) exhibit was kind of minimal and was mostly just about Howdy Dowdy. There were, however, some baseball souvenirs, such as a Jackie Robinson game and about 40 little ballplayer figurines.

The next exhibit is called Revolution (1961-1970) and has a giant Batman as the centerpiece. The displays here include Flintstones and Pez dispensers. The next room is called Expanding Universe (1971-1990) and has things like McDonalds toys and Star Wars collectables. The final timeline exhibit is the Going Global one that is in part of the gift shop and has things like Harry Potter figures and the 25th Anniversary Care Bear.

Before getting to that final exhibit and the gift shop, though, there is a special edition exhibit room. Currently the exhibit is on the Wizard of Oz. It had some Wizard of Oz series books on display, but I was actually quite disappointed in the exhibit. I really thought there would be more to it, especially with all the rooms leading up to it being so full of items on display. This one ends up looking extremely bare in comparison.

Overall it was a worthwhile museum to visit, especially since it was only $1 a person. I am not sure it would really be worth admission otherwise, but Mik thinks it would. I know I would definitely think so if the Ducktales exhibit that opens later this week was on display.