Universal Studios is basically an amusement park with a movie theme. One of the things I liked was how the streets are named after people like W. C. Fields, Kirk Douglas and Donald O'Connor (even though I don't think Donald O'Connor's street is nearly as nice as he was. The best part of the day was the studio tour where we got to see all those bungalows where the Hollywood movers and shakers come up with their genius ideas to make movies like "Waterworld" and "Heaven's Gate". One of the bungalows was Alfred Hitchcock's but of course, now it houses Dino De Laurentis and his ilk.
We paid a fortune for "Front of the Line" passes and I think it was worth it, because we did get to go to the front of every line and didn't have to stand and wait in the blazing sun and the intense heat. We were lucky to have cooler weather and clouds at Disneyland because it was much more pleasant there than it was today at Universal Studios. The best part was the studio tour where we got to see the soundstages that have been used in lots of movies -- the New York street, the "European" street (which they just dress up differently depending on the country), the Western street, and the city square from movies like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Back to the Future" (the same square!) We were toodling along as they started to talk about "King Kong" and we went into the set for Skull Island and suddenly we were in the middle of a jungle with dinosaurs all over the place and then King Kong burst out of the trees and jumped on our trolley and fought off the dinosaurs. It was really spectacular. We also went by the Bates Motel and there was a dusty car parked out front and a man came out of one of the rooms carrying a heavy load which he put in the trunk. He spotted the studio trolley and started to walk towards it as we speeded away -- a little bit of drama for the tourists. It was also neat to walk through those iconic gates of Universal Studios and see the globe and the statue of Carl Laemmle who thought of selling tickets so rubes like us could go and see how movies were made.
Strangely, there are rides at Universal Studios, based on tv shows and movies, like "The Simpsons" and "Transformers". They were great, but I think we are "rided" out. We're glad that the amusement park section of our trip is over, even though we have enjoyed everything we've done. The special effects show was Anthony's favourite -- they show you how they achieve all sorts of amazing effects in movies from long ago or from very recently. The most shocking was when they cut into a volunteer's arm. The blood seemed to be just spurting out and he kept sawing away and we were cringing in our seats, but it was a prop knife and he showed us how it worked. It looked horribly realistic.
There was a "Waterworld" show which was reminiscent of those Restoration plays in England at Sadler's Wells (I'm not old enough to have seen them, mind you; I've just read about them. Really.) It recreated the rather lame plot of Kevin Costner's "Waterworld" with a huge set and boats and jet skis and explosions and fire and finally a plane crashing into the set. All right before our eyes!
The place was jammed with people and it was fiercely hot and sunny, so we lost our staying power and decided to wend our way back to the hotel. The boys had their portraits done by some talented artists on the street (very impressive) and we saw a bit of Hollywood on our way home, but were glad to get back to our hotel to have a swim after our hot touristy day.
Mike wanted me to report that he discovered that the GPS had been programmed to avoid freeways and that might be why Jill's directions were so lame. She did much better today without the freeway avoiding setting. Perhaps we'll give her another chance tomorrow. We're going to see Mike's dad and then go on to San Diego.
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