Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, we’ve got a followup to last week’s article all about the Special Effects Stages at Universal Studios Hollywood. Normally, I start with a bit of news from the world of Disney or Universal, but since I’m being a bit unorthodox with a two part article, let’s jump right into the next iteration of the attraction.
Via The Studio Tour
As a quick recap, the Special Effects Stages closed on the Lower Lot in early 2010, but with the promise that guests would be able to experience the show again very soon at the Castle Theater on the Upper Lot, replacing Creature from the Black Lagoon: The Musical, a personal favorite of mine. For its move, the show was reborn as the Special Effects Stage given that the show would now take place in a much bigger theater with just one stage.
Compared to its predecessor, the show added quite a bit more comedy, especially through the stagehand, Jerry, who assisted our two fearless co-hosts. Jerry popped up in pretty much every scene with some kind of physical gag and by the end of the show, the entire audience was in on the joke, basically chanting his name. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as we should start at the beginning which, of course, began with a Universal clip show.
From there, the show moved on to a demonstration of how a glass shot worked by painting a piece of glass with a foreground that the actor could stand behind and appear to be a part of. They placed a volunteer from the audience behind a painting of New York to take in the view, when Jerry pretended to be King Kong by getting really close to the camera and miming eating the volunteer.
Via The Studio Tour
From there, the show moved on to a demonstration of rear-screen projection using a family from the audience as they acted out a scene on The Rita from Creature from the Black Lagoon, which I can’t confirm was the one from its predecessor musical, but it certainly looks like it was the same one. Along their journey, some other volunteers swung around some giant tentacles to make it appear like the family was being attacked by a giant monster.
But that wasn’t the only attack that they would face as the next scene also harkened back to the original show by giving the guests a taste of how visual effects work, particularly green screens. In this case, our volunteers played a group of explorers taking in the jungle when they were chased by a hungry T-Rex.
With the group scares complete, it was time to move on to the classic fake knife gag that appeared in every iteration of the show. It always got a good gasp from the audience and was a great way to showcase practical effects, though in this case they upped the scares even more when the volunteer was taken back for a picture and Mother from Psycho jumped out to scare the volunteer and then ran around the theater, brandishing a knife. But fear not, it was just our good old friend Jerry looking to rile up the crowd.
Via The Studio Tour
Jerry wasn’t done there, though, as he next came out in a mocap suit to demonstrate the technology by pretending to be a troll that appeared on the giant screen behind him, complete with some funky dance moves.
For the finale, the show decided to go to outer space, or at least show how space scenes are done with wirework. A lovely gentleman was selected to wear a spacesuit and be attached to the wires, with his lovely partner controlling his “flight” as the scene required him to float through the air and open the door to get back into his spaceship. But as the gag was starting to get underway, things went haywire and the volunteer was flipping around all over the place before disappearing backstage and seemingly banging into a bunch of stuff before coming crashing to the ground. But luckily, he came out a-ok with the closing reveal that it had been Jerry up to one more shenanigan.
I enjoyed the new iteration more than the first one because it seemed to have a lot more life and the larger stage allowed for some much cooler gags than before. Some might have found Jerry a bit annoying, but I thought they played the character with a lot of empathy, so everything felt very authentic and he was the clear standout to me.
After a few years, the Universal brass decided to rebrand the show, closing the Special Effect Stage on September 18, 2015 and reopening it in January 2016 as the Special Effects Show.
This new version of the show still had some humor, but on the whole took a much more serious tone than previous versions, really focusing on the acts of filmmaking themselves and featuring some more action. But the show started with a clip show of Universal movies because you can’t begin one of these shows without one.
From there, our two hosts took over, and similarly to the previous version started out by looking at miniatures and glass matting to showcase old school effects as we began our journey to the present.
The show then tried something new with a fight scene between three performers with some props scattered around the stage to showcase how fight scenes worked in the movies. It was a really cool way to inject some energy into the show and do something that they hadn’t tried before by then chatting with the performers to describe how they accomplished the scene.
But then it was a blast to the past with the foley experience from the Lower Lot version of the show making a reappearance, this time using the movie Identity Thief. The show still brought some volunteers up on stage to help demonstrate each of the effects and record it live to play it back.
The next couple of sections also felt very familiar as they had both been part of the previous two versions of the show. First, we had the fake knife cutting the arm gag again, though this time it was Michael Myers who came in for the scare. Then, one of the hosts dressed up in a mocap suit, basically doing the same thing as Jerry, though this time it was Ted who they performed as.
Via YouTube
They did shake up the conclusion quite a lot, borrowing a page from the nearby Waterworld show with a controlled fire burn. In the middle of the stage, they just lit a person on fire and it was pretty rad. It’s impossible to top that so with the fire burn, they closed out the show and showed how action-packed special effects could be.
I saw these last two versions of the show QUITE often over the years, and I thought they were a ton of fun and quite unique in that they still really dove into how movies and special effects are performed, giving guests an experience they couldn’t see every day. I’m bummed that their closure means that Universal Studios Hollywood moves farther and farther away from its original mission of showcasing how movies are made, but quite frankly it was probably time to move onto something bigger and bolder. So on January 8, 2023, the Special Effects Show and Animal Actors closed to make way for the upcoming Fast & Furious themed roller coaster that looks like it is going to completely rock, so can I really complain?
Via Facebook
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and have a magical day!