When Universal Studios Florida opened in Orlando on June 7, 1990, it supplied a pair dozen of rides, exhibits, and points of interest.
Out of all of them, solely two stay in operation at this time: E.T. Journey and the Horror Make-Up Present. The remainder have all gone to that nice theme park within the sky (the place, one assumes, there are not any strains and no upcharge for utilizing Categorical Passes). By way of the years, Universal’s parks in Florida, Hollywood, and Japan have closed tons of rides to make room for brand spanking new ones — even just a few which are (or now had been) inextricably linked with the Common model.
Here’s a listing of 20 such points of interest, together with movies of every one in motion so you possibly can relive them yet one more time – 3D glasses and flying DeLoreans not included.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Artwork of Making Films
Nowadays, Common’s theme parks are solely dedicated to immersive rides and environments that permit friends really feel like they’ve stepped inside their favourite motion pictures and exhibits. That’s a stark distinction to their parks’ preliminary idea, which was a spot the place vacationers discovered the secrets and techniques of a movie and TV manufacturing, with a pair greater rides thrown in for some further oomph. Among the best examples of old-school Common was Alfred Hitchcock: The Artwork of Making Films. After a 3D spotlight package deal of Hitchcock movies was interrupted by the celebs of The Birds, friends had been ushered right into a soundstage the place a “director” and his “crew” defined how Hitchcock shot Psycho’s bathe scene. The finale of the attraction was an interactive space the place friends who take part in demonstrations of the sensible film magic behind Hitchcock motion pictures like Strangers on a Prepare, Rear Window, and Saboteur. It was like a cross between a thrill journey and a museum — and for a budding cinephile, it was a paradise.
Again to the Future: The Trip
The unforgettable Again to the Future: The Trip was a simulator that permit guests board an impressively detailed copy of the franchise’s DeLorean time machine for a aerial chase via the centuries. (The story of the journey, which performed out in pre-show movies that includes Christopher Lloyd and Thomas F. Wilson, was about Biff stealing a time machine and Doc sending vacationers in his new eight-seater, remote-controlled DeLorean to catch him.) With particular results by 2001: A House Odyssey legend Douglas Trumbull, BTTF:TR lived as much as the previous Common slogan that promised a trip the place you might “journey the films.” Its closure was inevitable; the “future” of the Again to the Future franchise is 2015, which is now a decade previous. The 2 American variations of the attraction closed by the late 2000s, though Common Studios Japan’s model managed to hold on till 2016 — one yr after Marty and Doc went again to the longer term.
READ MORE: 15 Beloved Disney Rides That No Longer Exist
Backdraft
One other of Common’s early how-they-do-it-style points of interest was Backdraft, based mostly on the 1991 Ron Howard movie a few crew of heroic firefighters. This present, which performed at Common Studios Hollywood from 1992 to 2010, and at Common Studios Japan from 2001 to 2020, included a number of behind-the-scenes movies that includes Howard and the Backdraft solid after which a sensible fireplace results demonstration on one of many Common soundstages. Backdraft by no means acquired a sequel (no less than till a direct-to-video one in 2019) and the rise of CGI regularly made sensible wizardry just like the stuff on show in Backdraft and its accompanying attraction, far much less thrilling to vacationers. The buildings that when housed this attraction is now the house of an elaborate 3D darkish journey impressed by Transformers.
Beetlejuice’s Rock and Roll Graveyard Revue
The historical past of Common’s parks is affected by all types of stage exhibits, usually fairly elaborate and musical in nature, most of which at the moment are as useless as Physician Frankenstein’s signature creation. For a few years the Common parks in Hollywood and Florida had been house to a song-and-dance extravaganza that includes Beetlejuice and the corporate’s well-known film monsters like Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera, and the Wolfman. As a result of while you consider bio-exorcists, undead ghouls, and diverse different horror icons, you additionally consider the basic disco anthem “I Will Survive.” Technically, this one isn’t completely extinct — in case you go to Common Studios Japan you possibly can nonetheless see the Common Monsters sing their Graveyard Revue. However that’s fairly a trek simply to listen to Dracula do a spooky rendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”
Dynamite Nights Stunt Spectacular
Stunt exhibits had been one other cornerstone of the old fashioned Common Studios. In Hollywood, the classic Waterworld stunt show is still going strong, however in Florida, there isn’t actually a comparable attraction. When that park first opened, they’d one thing referred to as the “Dynamite Nights Stunt Spectacular,” whose Miami Vice-impressed mixture of boat chases and explosions was like The Fall Man film come to life. If it had been as much as me, no theme park can be allowed to function with out no less than one actually nice stunt spectacular. It must be required.
Earthquake: The Large One
Earthquake: The Large One was one other good instance of the previous “journey the films” Common ethos. The principle occasion was a modified model of the previous Earthquake attraction from the Common Hollywood tram tour, however earlier than friends boarded their trams they had been handled to a number of rooms filled with sensible results demonstrations impressed by the 1974 movie. After all, Earthquake was already a really previous film by the point this journey even opened; in 2007, the Earthquake particular components had been eliminated and the attraction was renamed Catastrophe! A Main Movement Image Trip … Starring You! Now the pre-show featured a hologram of Christopher Walken taking part in a studio govt named Frank Kincaid, who recruited friends to play extras in his newest film. After the earthquake finale, guests watched a trailer for the film they supposedly helped make, which was referred to as “Mutha Nature” and featured a cameo from Dwayne Johnson. Catastrophe! closed in 2015 and the constructing was retrofitted to accommodate one other transplanted tram tour cease from Hollywood, Quick & Livid: Supercharged.
Fievel’s Playland
Each theme park wants a playground to distract little children for a couple of minutes whereas their dad and mom take a break from the countless meet-and-greet strains. For a few years, Common Studios’ was Fievel’s Playland, themed to the now-mostly-forgotten animated franchise An American Tail. Its two movies adopted an adventurous mouse who immigrates to America along with his household. Accordingly, the playground featured gigantic variations of on a regular basis objects so that youngsters may get a style of what it felt wish to be the scale of a mouse. Though An American Tail largely pale into obscured by the twenty first century, Florida’s Fievel’s Playland endured for an inexplicably very long time, and solely closed in early 2023. There’s now a Shrek-themed playground instead.
Ghostbusters Spooktacular
Ghostbusters is a Sony property, an organization and not using a main foothold within the theme park trade. Because of this, the franchise has had a low variety of theme park points of interest relative to its generational reputation. However within the early Nineteen Nineties, Common licensed the Ghostbusters property for an attraction that used the identical Pepper’s ghost phantasm from Disney’s Haunted Mansion to flip the climactic combat between the Ghostbusters and Gozer right into a 20-minute stage present. Over its six-year run at Common Studios Florida, Ghostbusters Spooktacular existed in two distinct kinds, one which hewed nearer to the story of the primary Ghostbusters film, and a second variation involving Louis Tully (Rick Moranis’ dweeby accountant character) and Walter Peck (the EPA jerk performed by William Atherton). With no new Ghostbusters motion pictures or exhibits on the horizon within the mid-’90s, Common closed the present and changed it with a staged attraction based mostly on the studio’s latest blockbuster, Tornado. (It was changed just a few years in the past by a Tonight Present simulator journey.)
The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera
The left aspect of Common Studios Florida’s fundamental thoroughfare has housed a collection of huge simulator rides all through the park’s historical past. The very first was referred to as The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, and it featured quite a lot of characters from the Hanna-Barbera catalogue attempting to rescue a kidnapped Elroy Jenson from the villainous Dick Dastardly. It was primarily a tamer and fewer know-how refined model of Again to the Future: The Trip geared towards youthful children. In 2003, this journey was modified to … one other extinct attraction on this listing.
Hercules and Xena: Wizards of the Display screen
Common Studios Florida’s opening overlapped with the heyday of syndicated tv programming, none of it greater than the two-headed journey present hydra of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. When the earlier topic of Common’s attraction all about TV manufacturing was canceled in 1996, they re-themed the present to be based mostly across the two in style collection. However then Hercules was canceled in 1999 too. Wizards of the Display screen was carried out for the ultimate time in early 2000; this space of the park is now house to Transformers: The Trip.
Jaws: The Trip
Everybody appears to benefit from the Diagon Alley space of Common Studios Hollywood, impressed by the Harry Potter franchise. As a lot as I like a cup of frozen butterbeer, I’ll all the time maintain a grudge towards the place as a result of to make room for it, Common closed the previous Amity part of the park, which included the basic Jaws journey. The attraction was like a scary, effects-laden model of Disney’s Jungle Cruise; friends boarded a tour boat for a visit round Amity, solely to be uncover all types of wreckage and chaos, after which Bruce the Shark himself. Jaded fashionable audiences may not be impressed, however to a child within the Nineteen Nineties, this was the peak of pleasure — no less than as soon as Common labored out all of the kinks that induced the journey to interrupt down commonly for the primary two years of its existence. Like the Common Monsters revue, this one nonetheless lives on in Japan … if you will get there.
Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast
In 2003, the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera grew to become Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast, a really related attraction that starred Jimmy Neutron and several other different Nickelodeon characters. That model lasted till 2012, when the journey was once more up to date to function the solid of the Despicable Me franchise, owned by Common. Whereas the movie has modified drastically via the years, the fundamental expertise stays largely the identical; individuals sit in a big theater geared up with transferring seats that rock together with the picture onscreen.
Kongfrontation
King Kong has been a mainstay in Common’s varied theme parks for the reason that mid-Eighties, when an enormous King Kong animatronic was added to the Studio Tour at Common Studios Hollywood. That was expanded to a full-blown attraction at Common Studios Florida referred to as Kongfrontation. Within the extensively themed journey, friends had been evacuated from Manhattan on the Roosevelt Island Tramway after Kong begins operating amok. Naturally, the evacuation does not go easily, and Kong grabs the tram earlier than it makes a last-second getaway. It was a surprisingly intense expertise with enjoyable touches — like the truth that the Kong animatronic’s “breath” smelled like bananas. Kong was put out to pasture in 2002 to make approach for a curler coaster impressed by The Mummy franchise, however the nice ape has since discovered a brand new house at close by Islands of Journey, the place an attraction referred to as Cranium Island: Reign of Kong opened in 2016.
Lucy: A Tribute
Maybe the only attraction within the historical past of Common Studios Florida, Lucy: A Tribute was mainly a miniature museum devoted to Lucille Ball and I Love Lucy. It sounds extremely dated, however the attraction opened in 1992, a pair years after Ball’s demise, at a time when nostalgia for her basic sitcom was nonetheless very excessive. The exhibit included artifacts from Ball’s profession, interactive quizzes, and a mannequin that recreated the unique I Love Lucy set in exacting element. Lucy: A Tribute survived in a small constructing on the entrance of the park for nearly 25 years earlier than Common turned the area right into a Whats up Kitty store (and later Depraved: The Expertise).
Homicide, She Wrote Thriller Theater
Youngs at this time would possibly discover it onerous to imagine, however for 12 years within the Eighties and ’90s, certainly one of broadcast TV’s greatest hits was a quaint present a few author (Angela Lansbury) fixing mysteries in slightly city in Maine. The present was so large, the truth is, that it acquired its personal opening day attraction at Common Studios Florida: The Homicide, She Wrote Thriller Theater. It was yet one more of the park’s behind-the-scenes exhibits, and it centered totally on the post-production course of. Friends moved via a collection of rooms, every centered on a special facet of TV making, like modifying, foley work, and ADR. Volunteers acquired to attempt a few of these points for themselves, and watch the Homicide, She Wrote scenes they helped to create. After Homicide, She Wrote was lastly canceled in 1996, it was changed by the aforementioned Hercules and Xena present.
Nickelodeon Studios
Common Studios Florida wasn’t only a gimmicky title again within the early ’90s; the place actually was a working movie and TV studio — most notably as the house of “Nickelodeon Studios,” the place the favored cable channel shot a lot of its recreation exhibits and sketch comedy collection. In a canny little bit of synergy, each present made at Nickelodeon Studios was additionally a business for Common Studios Florida, as a result of they ended with a graphic asserting the place they had been made. Youngsters who made the trek to Orlando may take a tour of the ability, the place one fortunate visitor acquired slimed within the “Recreation Lab,” and sit within the studio viewers if there was a present in manufacturing throughout their go to. Ultimately, the novelty of the place wore off, as Nickelodeon started making fewer live-action packages and transferring an increasing number of of their remaining ones again to Los Angeles. The studio closed for good in 2005. For a few years a manufacturing of Blue Man Group occupied the constructing. For the reason that Covid pandemic, Common has used the venue to host a vacation present starring the Grinch.
Display screen Take a look at Theatre
Bear in mind: When Common first turned their studio right into a theme park, there isn’t a such factor as a smartphone. Client-grade video cameras are nonetheless years away. Making your individual TV present is successfully unimaginable, therefore the attraction of points of interest like Display screen Take a look at Theatre, which let vacationers create their very own mock-ups of in style motion pictures and tv exhibits. One model from the Seventies inserted friends into Airport ’77; later, they there was a Star Trek choice shot on a surprisingly detailed recreation of the previous Enterprise bridge. Clearly, these types of points of interest — which often gave individuals the choice to purchase a memento VHS of their creations — maintain rather a lot much less attraction in a world the place you possibly can shoot your individual TV present in your cellphone and add it to YouTube.
Shrek 4-D
The aforementioned Alfred Hitchcock attraction in Florida was closed to make room for Shrek 4-D, an animated film with in-theater results together with vibrating seats, water, and gusts of wind. Opened on the top of the preliminary Shrek mania, Common regularly started winding down these Shrek 3D motion pictures within the mid-2010s, after the franchise initially petered out. (The Japanese attraction managed to carry on; it nonetheless operates part-time in a theater it shares with a Sesame Road 3D attraction.) However right here’s the factor: Shrek is again. He’s acquired a brand new film opening in 2026, and he’s already acquired new Common points of interest; in 2024, Common Florida added a brand new meet and greet with Shrek characters in their very own little swamp space. So may we see the return of Shrek 4-D? Or — dare we even dream it — a Shrek 4-D-2?
Particular Results Stage
Common Studios Hollywood has hosted quite a lot of make-up and particular results exhibits all through its historical past, beginning within the mid-Seventies. By the 2010s, the particular results present (typically referred to as the Particular Results Stage) discovered a house on the Fortress Theater, the place friends had been proven how quite a lot of fashionable VFX like movement seize had been created. The present was retired for good in 2023 and the Fortress Theater was demolished, together with the house of Common’s Animal Actors amphitheater, in an effort to make room for the brand new Quick & Livid curler coaster.
T2-3D: Battle Throughout Time
Common’s Terminator 2 3-D film and dwell present didn’t simply boast the celebs of T2 — Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Edward Furlong — it was additionally directed by Terminator mastermind James Cameron. Cameron shot the filmed segments at a value of $24 million, making it, in typical Cameron vogue, one of the vital costly movies ever made (no less than on per minute foundation). The story follows the T-800 as he makes his promised (however not significantly logical) return and takes the younger John Connor into the longer term to guard him from a resurrected T-1000. (Admittedly this isn’t one of the best plan.) T2-3D boasted spectacular results and built-in actual actors into the present in intelligent methods; at occasions the Terminator appeared to step off the display into the auditorium and vice versa. Sadly, its storyline contradicted the entire Terminator motion pictures launched after it, making its “battle throughout time” really feel slightly out of time by the twenty first century. It closed at Common Hollywood and Florida within the 2010s. The T2-3D at Common Japan — which had the coolest show building by far — survived till 2020, then closed for good through the Covid pandemic. Judgment Day has nothing on actual life nowadays.
