Universal Studios Hollywood

Last July I spent a day of awesomeness at Universal Studios in Hollywood.  It was so awesome that I could barely stand it.  We arrived just after they opened for business, and powered past the giant monument of Jaws to get to the backlot tour gates before the marauding crowds. It turns out the marauding crowds don’t get up until about 11am, so it was all good. Until 11am.

I really enjoyed the tour of the studios, which included driving down Desperate Housewives’ Wisteria Lane, through Jaws’ Amity Island, past the War of the Worlds ‘plane crash’, and experiencing a fake earthquake in a train station, as seen in Bones, and a real fake real flash flood, as seen in, umm, I dunno. I was too busy freaking out over the friggin' flash flood coming down the hill to listen to the tour operator. We saw many other incredible sets, and others that were incredibly fake and tacky-looking that somehow manage to develop great authenticity on screen.

Now, back to Wisteria Lane, because DH is my favourite TV show and this is my blog. The set looks as fake in real life as it does on TV, but I didn’t care much, because I quite like plastic wisteria. Our tour guide told us they would be shooting later that day, so I got a little excited. But they probably say that to every one of the 5,000 tour groups they have every week.

I have heard stories of stars walking around in curlers, slippers and dressing gowns, but, alas, no sightings of Dr Phil.  We didn't see Susan, Gaby, Carlos or Mike either. We did see a few miserable props guys that seemed to be ignorant to the fact that they work on Wisteria Lane. They looked even more bummed when some of the tour group waved to them, as if they gave a shit. If they worked where I work they would have a cause to be depressed, but they work on WISTERIA LANE! I suppose the conditions and super plan for hired help in Hollywood ain’t that grand, so they were probably depressed about having to work until they are 120 to keep paying the bills.

Another highlight for me was Psycho’s Norman Bates at his little house. The actor playing Norm was straight out of Clark Kent Central Casting, but played his creepy role so perfectly that it made my blood run cold. As the tour rumbled up to his little shack, we looked over to see Norm carry a body wrapped in a rug to the boot of his car. At this point, he spotted us, and started running towards us, before getting out a large kitchen knife and just missing the hapless souls in the back row. It was scripted to within an inch of its life, but was very well done.

Universal Studios have infused massive amounts of money into their fun park to encourage the tourists to show up all year round. It was 35 degrees the day we rocked up, but they have these outdoor air conditioning units throughout the park that randomly spray you with a fine mist. It actually felt like you were indoors if you walked in the right places. It was very refreshing, but would be rather annoying if I had been trying to maintain humid-free hair. As it was, I was saturated not long after arriving at the park, so hair maintenance wasn’t an issue.

The cause of my saturation was the Jurassic Park ride, which I found equal parts terrifying and exhilarating. In a nutshell, you spend a pleasant few minutes cruising through ‘Jurassic Park’ in a boat looking at cute, squawking dinosaurs, and then you go up into a pitch dark building, where a T-Rex, with a mouth the size of an average car, tries to bite your head off, and then you drop about 20 metres to the ground into a splash pond. The photo taken right at the point when you know you are going down showed me practically in tears.

Before the Jurassic Park ride from hell, I was somewhat of a theme park amateur, but I learnt quickly that if the building that houses a ride is high, there is probably a big scary dinosaur inside, and/or a big drop into a body of water, and it is probably not my cup of tea. The Mummy ride straight after Jurassic had me distressed for hours.  And then we saw Delta Goodrem and Brian ‘Goodrem’ McFadden, like I hadn't been traumatised enough already.

After that, I reluctantly went on the Simpsons ride, because everyone told me how excellent it was, and it was a simulator, so how scary could it be. I was terrified the first time, but by the eighth time you couldn’t drag me off the thing.  I'm so not a fan of the show, but the day just got better and better after the Simpsons, which is not something you'd generally hear me say.

We wrapped up the afternoon hanging out with the Terminator. The incredible Terminator 2: 3-D experience is presented in two parts. First, a hostess from Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, where they make the robots, tells you about the company’s latest creations. Then you get caught in the cross-fire when live actors, who look like the real actors through your glasses, play out a 3-D film. Universal Studios use the latest movie technology, digital graphics, and 3-D cinematography, and this was showcased in the Terminator experience, and probably explains why you can’t distinguish where reality ends and fantasy begins on most of the rides.