
The Lowdown on the Plus-up - A Theme Park Podcast
Kelly McCubbin and Peter Overstreet take on all aspects of theme parks - Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Six Flags - discussing them in historical context and then finding ways, to quote Walt Disney, to "plus them up!"
No considerations of safety, practicality or economic viability even remotely entertained!
https://www.lowdown-plus-up.com/
A Boardwalk Times Podcast
https://boardwalktimes.net/
The Lowdown on the Plus-up - A Theme Park Podcast
The Amity Inversion - Jaws at Universal
Jaws was a lynchpin to Universal's theme park success, both in California and Florida. It was also one of the biggest headaches the parks ever dealt with.
Join us for the return of the J-Bang(!!!) as we pick apart what happened, follow the recriminations and discuss some amazing behind-the-scenes theme park designers who worked on this ambitious, and occasionally reckless, attraction.
It's so much Jaws goodness that you're gonna need a bigger boat.
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Special shout-out to Dustin McNeill's excellent "Adventures in Amity: Tales from the Jaws Ride" (https://www.harkerpress.com/jaws)
And to Sam Gennawey's "Universal vs. Disney" (https://shop.adventurewithkeen.com/product/universal-vs-disney/)
Thanks for listening!
We'd love it if you would give us a review on your podcast platform of choice. They're really helpful.
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You're gonna need a bigger boat. Hello and welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a podcast where we look at everyone's favorite theme park attractions, lands, textures and novelties. We talk in over about and through our week's topic and then, with literally no concern for practicality, safety or economic viability, we come up with ways to make them better. My name is Kelly McCubbin, columnist for the theme park website Boardwalk Times, and with me, as always, is Peter Overstreet University, professor of animation and film history in Northern California.
Speaker 3:So, pete, what are we talking about today? Well, today we're getting close to July 4th on the time that we're recording this and you know what that means. It's time to go to Amity Island. Yes, there be sharks. There be sharks indeed, and so today we're going to be discussing the various iterations of universal studios.
Speaker 2:jaws attraction that's right, and and we, uh, I believe, just passed the 50th anniversary of the release of that film. Oh yeah, 50 years.
Speaker 3:I cannot believe it. You know it's pretty good jaws.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that movie's amazing it is.
Speaker 3:A lot of people still consider it to be one of Spielberg's best yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's certainly up there. It's an amazingly tightly put together, thrilling, terrifying movie. Might have been a little unfair to the shark world, but it works.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it has some of the best editing. It has some of the best editing. It has some of the best acting yeah.
Speaker 3:It has one of the greatest movie monologues of all time in it. Yes, and it is also a testament to Spielberg as a young director, in my opinion, because he faced so much adversity, oh yeah, some of which was accidental, some of which was his own making, because out of sheer youthful bravado, yeah. However, that being said, he still managed to pull it off. I mean, it's like his creative brain was just going going, going so hard in order to get to the finish line and even though they shot over like poor Martha's Vineyard was expecting to be there for a very short period of time they wound up being there for like six months, oof, or something like that and he finally got there, managed to get Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw not to kill each other. Yeah, you know, he got the shark finally working and then it wouldn't work. Yeah, he overcame so many obstacles and in doing so, he actually made some of the greatest moments in film. In my opinion, as far as framing of a shot, the scariest scene in that whole film for me has nothing to do with the mechanical shark. Yeah, it's the scene which— which is good, because the mechanical shark didn't make it very far in that film no, I mean the great moment where spoiler alert, he, you know, eats Quint. Yeah, right there in front of you.
Speaker 3:It's like, okay, this is the big payoff moment. I think it's suitable because that's the one time you finally get to see what this thing can do to you. Yeah, like, oh my God, like all those questions Like geez, just get up, get up. It's like he can't get up. He's just kicking the nose, he's trying geez, why is he? Oh my god, is like he's trying everything he can. Like this shark killer is trying desperately to outdo this shark in any possible way and he's trying everything that you are going is going through your brain of like, do it, do it, do this, do this, do this. It's like he's doing it, yeah and he's still getting bit in half and he gets dragged off.
Speaker 3:I think it's actually brilliant that that's the only time you really get to see a big chomp of that shark. But the scene that scares the hell out of me every time it gives me a chill is when the two dips are out there on one side of the island in the middle of the night and they're hunting with one of their guys' holiday roasts on a chain. Yeah, the shark bites it and goes for it. Yeah, and so, bruce, the shark starts dragging out, thubba-da, thubba-da, thubba-da, thubba-da. Hey, he's taking it, he's taking it, he's taking it. And then the whole end of the pier snaps off because the shark is so powerful. And then the two guys are in the water and Charlie is pulled way out to sea and he starts desperately swimming back.
Speaker 3:You see the pier, the piece of the pier that's been floating away. It starts to creak and it turns around and it starts coming towards him and when you think, wait, remember how long that chain was that means that shark is right behind Charlie. Charlie, take my word for it, take my word for it. Don't look back. Swim, charlie. Charlie, take my word for it, take my word for it. Don't look back. Swim, Charlie. Swim, you know.
Speaker 3:get out of the water, Get your feet out of the water and I'm getting chills now talking about it because that scene has such a mark on me, yeah, and then finally the shark gets off or the chain breaks or whatever, yeah, and the pier just lands on the water. The two guys just oh God and one of them just goes. Can we go home now it's like yeah, my sentiment, exactly, dude.
Speaker 2:Well, and speaking of Bruce the shark, yes, the shark in the movie Jaws does have a theme park connection. That is not what we're talking about today, but it's worth investigating. We've talked about it before.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and it actually goes all the way back to 1953, during the production of a motion picture called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Yeah, that's right. They had created a sequence that involves a giant squid another monster of the depths attacking the Nautilus. Yeah, and there was the infamous sunset squid sequence. That just didn't work Right. And two gentlemen stepped up into the forefront. One was a designer, his name was Harper Goff Mm-hmm, and he redesigned the whole scene. He says well, first off, you're filming it in this kind of muddy, romantic lighting Like this is for a kissing scene. This is not for an action sequence, yeah. And second of all, the design of your squid it's so heavy and it's not working for you. Let's set it during a storm sequence, and that would be great. And they called upon a mechanical genius who was very adept at making animals, including stuff for the Jungle.
Speaker 2:Cruise. He was going to make stuff for the Jungle Cruise the next year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like this proved it for Walt to do it, and his name was Bob Maddy. Bob Maddy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bob Maddy himself. So Bob Maddy and we talk about this in our Jungle Cruise, the early years episode. But Maddy built all of the early mechanical animals for the Jungle Cruise and then later in his career got hired to make Bruce the shark for Jaws.
Speaker 3:Sadly Bruce didn't work, so well, no, because, yeah, I mean, if you look at the technical specs, somebody did this great 3D printable model, yeah, that you could download and you can 3D print it and it is functional, yeah, of Bob Maddy's puppet, of Bruce, yeah. And you look at how complicated it is, yeah, and you realize you're going to put this in the ocean, yeah, and you go. Well, of course it is yeah. And then you realize you're going to put this in the ocean, yeah, and you go, well, of course it broke. You know, like, I mean, it was a valiant effort and when it actually worked, it was great. Yeah, that's the thing. When it actually worked, it was great.
Speaker 2:Well, and this is interesting, so, tying this kind of into the later Jaws attraction at Universal Studios Florida. Yeah, later Jaws attraction at Universal Studios Florida. Yeah, I saw some interviews and we'll get deeper into this shortly. Sure, I saw some interviews with the company that made the original attraction. So, you know, people think, oh, I went to Universal Studios Florida up until you know what, 2011 or something. I rode the original Jaws. You did not. 11 or something. I wrote the original Jaws, you did not. You only you wrote the original Jaws.
Speaker 2:If you went to Universal Studios Florida between June and September of 1990 and happened to be there a day that it worked, oh jeez, because after that it was gutted and rebuilt oh, and rebuilt, and there's a lot of recriminations. We'll get into this. But I read an interview with someone that was from the company that built the original version of the attraction and they asked him if they had talked to Bob Maddy about building the sharks and he said exactly what you were just saying. He said, no, you don't want to do that, because the shark for the movie just has to stay together for a few seconds at a time. Yeah, and the sharks in the theme parks have to stay together over and over and over again for years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the tram has to come by like every 10 to 15 minutes and it has to go off once again. Go off once again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's talk about it. So we've got two fairly disparate versions of this attraction. We've got the one that was the earliest version, which was put in in the 70s, which was part of the tram ride in Universal Studios, hollywood. Right, why don't we start with?
Speaker 3:that Okay. So just to kind of get deep on this for just a moment here boat-based attractions have been around for a very long time. I don't even want to go into safaris or fishing excursions. I'm talking about artificially contrived confrontations with wildlife. And it actually goes as far back to the Roman Colosseum, yeah, where they would actually flood the Colosseum with water.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3:They would. I mean, they would remove all the animals out of the pens underneath and get all the gladiators out and they would line it. I forget what they lined. I think they lined it with like tar-soaked or pitch-soaked canvas or something and they would fill it with water and it was 10 to 15 feet worth of water and sometimes they would put live animals in the water to participate, and sometimes it was spectacles of sea battles. That was just a you know big spectacle for the emperor. This is actually in Gladiator 2. They do recreate this.
Speaker 3:You're the guy that saw Gladiator 2. The one guy? Yeah, no, I only saw the one clip on YouTube. I mean, this is the height of Roman excess in the Colosseum, yeah, but they would put sharks and then sometimes, you know, and they would have gladiators get eaten by these starving sharks, and sometimes they would take them out on boats and so you could actually feed the sharks for some extra money. That the royals and the gentry of Rome could go out and check out these sharks and feel macho. It's a little bit like how some big game hunters go up to a cage and shoot a tiger.
Speaker 2:So not only does the history of boat attractions go way back, the history of boat attractions with sharks goes way back.
Speaker 3:That's where I was getting at yes exactly the contrivance of shark encounters is very very old. Yeah, and there have been other boat attractions in the past. Luna Park and Coney Island have featured a few. We've talked about Tunnels of Love. In the past We've talked about boat drops. This isn't quite the same thing, Right Apart from the submarine ride that I discussed in one of our previous episodes, where it actually featured real polar bears, penguins and seals and Inuits Ugh. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sponsored by Westinghouse, but in 1976, so really quickly they redecorated a back lot area in Universal Studios Hollywood. They added it onto their tram tour and it was like this big push in the mid-70s to take the tram tour and it was like this big push in the mid seventies to take the tram tour from hey, we're going to take you on the bat lot and you get to see. Hey, you get to see the Munsters. Hey, you get to see. Leave it to Beaver's house, you get to see. This Isn't that neat. Yeah, maybe you'll see something interesting.
Speaker 3:Right, there was enough production going on at the studio because it was still right at the tail end of the big studio system. There was still that crossover, yeah. And in the 70s, mid-70s you had movies like the Exorcist, the Godfather, easy Rider, I mean, all of this stuff was really big at the time. Yeah, and Star Wars, star Wars and they were not filming in Hollywood anymore, they were not using the backlot anymore and like the only people who were were television production and again, there wasn't enough to really guarantee that you would see a celebrity. That was kind of the whole appeal of the original tram tour.
Speaker 2:And after the sort of big studio contract system fell apart, they couldn't ensure that a celebrity would be there. Celebrities suddenly had some rights and they could actually say if you're going to prop me up as someone that's on display, you're going to have to pay me more.
Speaker 3:But the owners of Universal at the time and the park suddenly realized well, look, disney's making a ton of money right now because they've just had their. They're planning a big bicentennial celebration. Right, they're getting ready to open up Disney World. We better catch up fast, yeah. So what they did is they actually set up a tram tour and say what are some things that we can add to the tram tour that will guarantee that they get to see some sort of movie magic, even though it may not be an actual movie, right? So they added the collapsing bridge effect. This is featured in the Incredible Hulk and the Bionic man and Knight Rider and the A-Team. Okay, you know. It got to a point where, like fans of Universal Studios would watch these action shows and go, oh, it's Magnum PI, hey, they're on the collapsing bridge thing from Universal, yay, and they're supposed to be in Hawaii. And you're like, give me a break, or they had the rotating ice tunnel, which I forget what it was.
Speaker 2:It was from a movie originally, but then it got repurposed and they said, oh no, this is from Six Million Dollar man Right repurposed and they said, oh no, this is from.
Speaker 3:Six Million Dollar, man Right. And then what else did they add? The Parting of the Red Seas. The Parting of the Red Seas, I think they still do. I don't think they actually do that anymore, sadly, I think that is gone. That was butted up against the same little lake that was used in the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Gilligan's Island. It's the same. So when you go to Gilligan's Island you're in the Black Lagoon, that's great yeah.
Speaker 3:I think it was also used in Hogan's Heroes and a whole bunch of other stuff. But for those who are listening, who might be a little too young for this attraction, watch Mel Brooks' History of the World, part 1. Yeah, and there is a scene in which they actually feature the whole thing as Mel Brooks, as Moses parting the Red.
Speaker 3:Sea for Mel Brooks as Comicus, right, you know, but it's still. It's delightful because you kind of get a look like, okay, then you would go past another lagoon that was kind of meant to be a New England lagoon. Yeah, if you're really sharp and you watch early episodes of Murder, she Wrote. Yeah, it is actually the little town that the main character lives in, cabot's Cove or whatever it's called, but it is in fact the orca featured in the film floating in the water. Yeah, and there you had it. And they would have a fin in the water just kind of dragged through, and they went well, that's not enough, yeah. So then they added an animatronic man in a boat, yeah, and then the fin would go towards the boat and knock the boat over, and then all of a sudden, this red dye would start bubbling up out of the water as he's getting eaten and you hear this, you know getting killed. And then the shark would come out of the water right next to the tram and spray water on you.
Speaker 3:And then it became this evolution, right, and Spielberg Steven Spielberg himself, it turns out loved to watch this thing go off, because he would hide on the orca as a way to get away from all the other executives. He would bring it. He had a typewriter, he had a little mini fridge in it, yeah, and he would just sit where Quint is, you know, working away in the harpoon. He would just sit in the orca and just type away and just hang out. But he would watch the attraction and go, like, you know there should be more happening. So he would make some suggestions here and there and they would start listening. And, for example, they revitalized it, yeah, in the revitalized it in the mid-80s, and it became a lot more interactive, where you had a person getting dragged underwater and then the shark would do several different things. They would start dragging pontoons. So it really was like a full-on storyline, it was like a diorama that had come to life in front of you, right?
Speaker 2:It took like a minute and a half, but you got a whole thing, yeah it was a whole story.
Speaker 3:And finally, the bridge that you're on the pylons get pulled out. Right and so it goes dunk. And so you are leaning towards the water a little bit, and then the shark would come out. And then, finally, they added pyrotechnics where, like a gas main, would explode next to you.
Speaker 2:This was a thing that comes up later, once we get to Florida. Yeah, as certain things are not working, jay Stein, our friend of the J-Bang, j-bang, j-bang, j-bang Just kept saying well, there's one thing we know how to do fire.
Speaker 3:And he's just kept adding fire to it. Yeah, and so, sadly, one day Mr Spielberg grabbed his stuff, got on his bicycle, his Universal Studios studio bicycle, went down to Cabot's Cove and he had his typewriter and he had a six-pack of beer or whatever. He had with him cream soda I don't know what Steven imbibes on. I think he's actually a teetotaler.
Speaker 3:But, he got out there and he was like wait a minute, where's my boat? And apparently they had destroyed it. It had so much rot that it was actually quite dangerous for him to be on it, but he didn't care. It's like it's my boat, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, this is the thing with water attractions is water finds a way.
Speaker 3:Water does find a way, and one of the cool things about one of the earlier versions of the Jaws attraction and when you would drive away, when you first drove down into Cabot's Cove, they would have the unvandalized version of Welcome to Amity Island with the girl on the floatie yeah. And when you left, you would have the eek help shark yeah. How about those little paint-happy bastards caught and hung up by their Buster Browns? You know, you've got that on there and I always loved it, because I have had such a love for Jaws yeah, since I was a little kid, in my home, when I was growing up in Gilroy, we had a pool, and for 4th of July every year I still do it. I always watch Jaws, yeah, and I'm as old as the movie. Yeah right.
Speaker 3:And so, like I am the same age as that stupid movie, so for me I've watched Jaws over and over and over again. I've had CED discs, laserdiscs, vhs, blu-ray, hbo. I've seen every iteration of this because it's one of those movies I have a real deep connection with my father my, I have. It's one of those movies.
Speaker 3:I have a real deep connection with my father. Yeah, like it really to a point when little personal story we went out deep sea fishing in Hawaii one time. Yeah and um, we were off the coast of Maui, yeah, and I'm sitting, you know, we're sitting back and we're on a ship about the size of the Orca, uh huh, and we're on a ship about the size of the orca and we're watching the flying fish and all that kind of stuff. And my dad's sitting next to me and we're talking and we're looking at. He's like, wow, and my mom was off doing something else, she was snorkeling or something we want to. Well, we're going to go catch something, yeah, and I'm about 15, 16. And then my reel starts going.
Speaker 3:And my dad looks over at me and I look at him and I go watch that reel. He goes, okay, he goes. And I start reaching over and I start grabbing the straps yeah, like putting it on, uh-huh. And I start hooking up and my dad's like you're going to have a quint moment. And I go, I know, grab a cup and get behind me. Yeah, you know. And my dad gets up and he gets. You know, he's looking around and he finds a coffee cup and I grab a hold of it and I put my feet in the strips, just like Quint, and I'm like I'm going to be Quint, like this is great. And finally he goes and I've got a hold of it, and the captain's like I'm like Dad, get behind me. I unhook the thing. I'm like so we get to start, and I start talking like Quinn, I'm 16 years old yelling at the sea captain like going to stop it already.
Speaker 3:Get it out of here. I'm like fighting this thing. My dad's dousing the reel with water. To keep it from zapping, I had hooked a huge marlin. Oh, wow, and I was pulling it and fighting it. I'm like pull it in. And I finally stopped and I looked at Dan and I go I don't know Chief, I don't know if he's very smart or very dumb and we started laughing.
Speaker 3:And the captain's like what is wrong with you guys? What are you talking about? And my dad just goes jaws and he goes, oh bitchin' he suddenly got it and it was like this is my Jaws moment. I pulled it and all of a sudden it went slap and I hit the floor. I'm glad I was wearing the vest because I was hooked to the chair, Because it really yanked me forward. I really would have hurt myself and we lost it. But then we saw this massive marlin come out of the water and then swam past us doing the same thing, Like wow, wow, wow, wow. And it was this great moment and so, like, those memories of this movie mean a lot.
Speaker 3:So when I was a kid, we would go to Universal Studios a lot, Right, and like I think I actually went to Universal Studios more than I ever went to Disneyland, oh wow, as a kid, yeah, as much as I love Disneyland, Sure, I love Disneyland, Sure. And Jaws was always the thing I looked forward to, and when it wouldn't work I would be so mad. But one day it was broken, yeah, but the tram broke down and they let us out and we got to walk around it, oh, neat. And then I got to look and the water was still because it wasn't being operated Right. So you could see the tracks, you could see how everything worked and it was like that's cool. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like that was this great little. Ok, that's a behind-the-scenes thing that I never would have noticed because of the way that the angle is when you're sitting in the tram Right and I could see the shark underwater and that was neat that is super neat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and the tram tours. In the 70s and early 80s they were a lot more laissez-faire of a thing than they are now.
Speaker 3:Yes, they very much are. They would even drive past some of the prop houses. After the Jaws about a couple of stops later, I think after the flood in Mexico attraction and a couple other things, you would go past this kind of open gazebo thing. It was like an open-sided shelter to protect some of the bigger props. And right there was Maddie's shark oh, wow, falling apart. Yeah, rusty as hell, but it has since been restored. Yeah, but there was that time and they go. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the real Bruce from the movie Jaws. Wow, and my dad's like wow, that's really cool, that's really cool Like slow the tram down.
Speaker 3:We want to look at that. That's really awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, and you know there's two. There was both in California and Florida. There's two really iconic things in this theme park related to Jaws that weren't the actual attraction, and that was those hanging sharks. Yes, initially the one in Hollywood was built off the exact same mold that Bruce's skin was built off of. Yes, for some reason, later they replaced it with a more generic shark. I've never been able to figure out why, but they did. But initially, for many years, it was actually a mold of Bruce.
Speaker 3:And it looked great. Yeah, I love that thing. And if you were there during the mid-80s, when Conan was around by the way, download our Conan episode they would also set up a talking kit car.
Speaker 2:Yes, I remember that.
Speaker 1:A Knight Rider, so you know. Hi there, why are you?
Speaker 3:sitting in my chair. I'm going to break wind. No, please don't do that. Michael wouldn't like that, you know. But then we get pictures with the shark, yeah, so every time, dad, let's go take a picture with the shark, okay.
Speaker 2:Can I just say as a quick aside, I've gotten a flurry of comments about the Conan episode recently, you know from our friend Danica, who suggested the Frontier Village episode. Yes, she sent some images from Bakshi's models for fire and ice. Oh, which was cool, like the stuff he was drawing off of Yay.
Speaker 3:Cool.
Speaker 2:And then suggested that we listen to the commentary on Lord of the Rings to hear Bakshi talk about it.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, Ralph Bakshi's a marvel.
Speaker 2:And then I ran into another person recently on Mastodon. I think it was reached out and gave me a long timeline of the He-Man and the Conan toy story. Like really involved. It's way more complicated.
Speaker 3:Like it would be a whole episode on its own. Yeah, but I really appreciate hearing from folks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:This is the type of stuff that we love on this show is getting this type of hey, you know, and thank you so much for sharing that folks, we don't get insulted by this at all. It's like no more knowledge, like, oh, this is cool, so please keep it coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got this stuff about the toys just like two days ago and and I was like thank you, this is really useful. Yeah, I really appreciate this stuff. It's so cool. Um, anyway, I didn't want to get sidetracked that was awesome because the Lowdown on the Plus Up is a BoardWalkTimes podcast. At BoardWalkTimesnet you'll find some of the most well-considered and insightful writing about the Walt Disney Company, disney history and the universe of theme parks, available anywhere. Come join us at BoardWalkTimesnet.
Speaker 3:In order to get to Conan, you had to go past the shark, yes, and you had to walk past a medieval tower kind of set that was used in El Cid at one point. Yeah, that's right. And all of that would eventually get torn out to be turned into like a plaza in order to get into the Terminator attraction, now the Simpsons, now the Minions, whatever God only knows what they've put there. But for a time I have very fond memories of that little plaza with the shark.
Speaker 3:It was all on pontoons and there was water spouts all over the place. It was great, yeah me too, and they still.
Speaker 2:I don't believe they still have a hanging shark in Hollywood, but I do believe that they kept one in Florida somewhere. Even though they've gotten rid of the entire Amity Island area, mm-hmm, I believe they still have the shark hanging somewhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I actually saw some. I guess they found some actors to dress up as Hooper and Quint. Oh, that's great. And so they hang out by the shark for the 50th anniversary. Hooper drives the boat chief, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, this, so this is interesting, like let's, let's move forward a little bit yes, and and jump to florida, because this is where things get weird is when, once we start talking about the jaws attraction in florida, which is a whole crazier beast, oh yeah, so you know, we we've talked before about how at least I think we have about how how, you know, mid-80s, michael Eisner takes over Disney. Well, he takes over in the early 80s, takes over Disney, starts pushing all these big things and one of the things that he does is decides to build the Disney MGM Studios. This drives Universal and Jay Stein particularly crazy this.
Speaker 3:I would actually make an argument and Kelly and I have had this conversation multiple times that this is a moment in theme park history that actually changes the whole game. Oh, it does. This one moment really changes the whole game.
Speaker 2:This is why, right now, disney is staring down the barrel of losing dominancy in this industry. Yep, it was because of this one decision, and it's complicated. Eisner was consulted about Universal's new theme park that was going into Florida, oh boy, and then later came up with his Disney MGM idea. I think he was with Paramount at the time, yeah, and they were asking, basically, if you wanted to partner with them, they should have gotten Robert Evans instead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's another Godfather attraction over here. What? A. Chinatown drive-thru, and if you don't remember anything of it, that's okay. It's Chinatown, forget about it.
Speaker 2:Nevertheless and I wrote about this recently in an article, so look it up on Boardwalk Times.
Speaker 3:I'm starting to feel like we're a 1970s Marvel comic. We need to have little asterisk things, little caps at the bottom where Stan would put it. Now, what he's talking about happened in Avengers number 143, true believers, excelsior.
Speaker 2:Excelsior. Anyway, go ahead. Anyway, this caused the people and the Universal guys. They're a mob, they were vicious, cutthroat movie guys. Oh yeah, and they decided they were going to take Disney guys. Oh yeah, and they decided they were going to take Disney out. Oh yeah, and so they start building their theme park. It takes longer than they expect. They don't get it open until 1990. Yep, it is a disaster. At the opening they talk about Disneyland's Black Sunday, the opening day where it was so bad. Universal had Black 1990. Like, the whole year was bad.
Speaker 3:The Jaws attraction was literally a dude in a wetsuit holding up a blow-up shark going.
Speaker 2:Ah, and then he had to hum the song yeah.
Speaker 3:With a tuba, some dude with a tuba Running behind him.
Speaker 2:Tuba guy fell. Keep going, so they. But at this point in 1990, jaws is still in the public consciousness. You know, jaws, they've kept making sequels. They've done moderately well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are now at Jaws 4, the Revenge at this point, aren't we? Yeah, I think so, with Michael Caine's blue hair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what was the great Michael Caine line? Someone asked him if he liked the movie being in Jaws 4, and he said no, but I like my mother's house that I bought with the money from it.
Speaker 3:They had me get out there, out on a lake that was so full of blue food colouring it turned me out blue, that's alright. I made a lot of money. I don't even know why I was here. I had no grudge against the shark. The shark had a grudge against Mrs Brody, but they never even met, not even at the son's bar mitzvah. Wait, were the Brodies Jewish? I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Made a funny joke Maybe, but one of the big opening. Oh, how did you find a tuba version of the Jaws theme?
Speaker 3:Because I'm awesome, you know, fair, fair, that's the sound of the guy with the blow-up shark. So we're back to 1990 here To 1990. So we're trying to 1990 here.
Speaker 2:So we're trying Jaws 3, people zero. You know they're trying to get stuff open. They're trying to get the Kongfrontation open, the big expanded King Kong version thing. They're trying to get Back to the Future open. And, more than anything, they're trying to get this Jaws thing open, because it is not just a ride, it is an entire land.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have built Amity and it's going wrong. Things are not working. They have hired this company called Ride and Show. Okay, ride and Show have done a number of other interesting things, but they seem like, before and after this, a completely competent company. They seemed like they knew what they were doing. They seemed like such nice guys, such nice people. They got confrontation, they had problems with it, but they got it fixed. There was all sorts of things, but when it came to Jaws, things went wrong. Now, before we jump into the actual attraction, one of the interesting things that they did with this area of the park and I don't know anywhere else that's ever tried anything like this it's really interesting narratively what they did. They said okay, this area, which is the Amity area, is really Amity Island and all of the people that you saw in the movie Jaws were based on us. But we're upset about the way they portrayed us.
Speaker 3:I kind of like that actually. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2:So like they're still trying to like prove that there's no shark problem In spite of the fact that you go on the ride, the actual mayor, like I, don't actually wear.
Speaker 3:You know, suits with little anchors all over them.
Speaker 2:In spite of the fact that you go on the ride with a skipper who has a grenade launcher.
Speaker 3:I'm just saying you know it is New England.
Speaker 2:Quint is still alive and the story is that they exaggerated in the movie and he did not get completely eaten by the shark, he was just chewed on a little.
Speaker 3:They took the princess bride route. He's mostly dead, mostly dead.
Speaker 2:And I think this is fascinating. I think it's a really interesting way to play this. It is To say, like we're not based on the movie, the movie's based on us.
Speaker 3:That's kind of that's gutsy. Yeah, I kind of like that.
Speaker 2:And so in 1990, they're getting ready to open Things are not going great. There's a point where someone comes out to one of the people who's been working on the ride and he's like weeks before opening and he's like, has the boat ever made it completely around with everything working? And the guy running it's saying no, no, it never has. So they're racing into and we'll get into sort of some of the issues where things went south. Sure, but I want to just talk about this original ride a little bit. Okay, because it's so interesting and it was so short-lived. A little bit because it's so interesting and it was so short-lived. So basically similar sort of thing.
Speaker 2:They are going to take the Amity boat tours. I think later it becomes Captain Jake's boat tours when they redo it. Jake has a backstory. But they go on the trip, shortly into it they see the wreckage of a different tour boat. So this is concerning, right, they see a shark around that boat. The skipper tries to kill the shark but doesn't. But there's explosions, because Universal loves their explosions J-Bang, j-bang. And then they try and escape, and this scene is in both versions. They try and escape from the shark by driving into the boathouse.
Speaker 3:Right, right, right the boathouse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the boathouse is a pretty cool scene in both versions. Yeah, it's very dark. You know they're being told from the radio you need to go somewhere safe. So they go in the boathouse they hear thumping, thumping, thumping and then they realize the shark's in the boathouse with them, oh God, and they have to get out. Pretty terrifying because you know you've been out in the Florida sun the whole time and now it's pitch dark, right.
Speaker 3:So really, really, I know Samuel L Jackson going. We got to get away from this monkey.
Speaker 2:Different and go, we got to get away from this monkey Different movie. So then we come to the big problem with the ride. This is what is known as scene four.
Speaker 3:How long did scene four last?
Speaker 2:Well, until they closed the ride entirely and rebuilt it.
Speaker 3:Because they had ignored this particular problem until it swam up and bit them.
Speaker 2:So one thing that's important to keep in mind is that these boats are not on a track, oh God. They are large pontoon boats and there is a channel, so they can't quite get out of the channel, but otherwise they're free-floating. Oh no, the skipper is actually driving. Scene four the shark comes charging at the pontoon boat, leaps up, grabs the front pontoon in his mouth and shakes the boat back and forth and the pontoon deflates. What Right? Okay, this is something that we would have trouble doing now. Oh yeah, In 1990, they really had trouble with it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I want to real quick give some credit to this great book that I've read before but I looked at again for this. It's called Adventures in Amity, tales from the Jaws Ride, and it's by a guy named Dustin McNeil. Okay, I mean, the entire book's just about this ride, wow, and it's a fun read. But there's a quote I'm going to read from this guy, alan J Arena, and he was the head of engineering at the company Ride and Show Right, and so he's talking about scene four. He says the engineering on that was complex. Basically, we had a shark on one track intercepting a moving boat on another track, all happening in water and by tracks. What they mean is there was a kind of gear mechanism that you slotted into for this effect to happen. Those two moving things, my heart just sank a little.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know right, thinking about the engineering on that one, those two moving things.
Speaker 3:My heart just sank a little. Oh, I know right. Thinking about the engineering on that one.
Speaker 2:Those two moving things would have to lock onto one another in order to achieve the desired effect, oh my God. Yet we also had to design it in a way so that the ride could recover and move on if the shark failed to hook up, which happened all the time. We later came to realize that the shark bites boat effect worked best with the more aggressive ride operators. We simply assumed that the operators, the skippers, would throw the throttle wide open until the shark appeared and then back off the throttle Right. This too often was not the case, was not the case. Many of the operators would, in anticipation of the shark, ease off the throttle too early, which meant the boat would arrive in its designated spot too late. When that happened, the shark would fail to lock onto the boat and the gimmick wouldn't work.
Speaker 2:We eventually suggested to Universal that we switch to an autopilot system, but they didn't want to do that. They wanted to leave control of the boats to the ride operator. So the scene became very hit or miss. If you rode Jaws and had a more aggressive ride operator, you got the full effect of that scene. If you had a less aggressive ride operator, the boat slowed down, never connected with the shark and the scene didn't work, oh my God.
Speaker 3:And I read some it sounds like it's an amazing concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it did work, sometimes Right, and people read some— it sounds like it's an amazing concept, yeah, and it did work, sometimes Right, and people said that when it worked, it was unbelievably great. Okay, because you have a couple of things going on. First off, you've got the shark interacting with your boat and actually seeming like it has taken control, mm-hmm, and the front pontoon is punctured by the teeth, and so you think you're about to go into the water because you've lost your inflation there.
Speaker 2:Right, but it just didn't work very well. Oh my God, this was not the only thing that didn't work, but this was the main thing that didn't work.
Speaker 3:This is a pretty big deal.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I was listening to an interview with this guy, rick Bastrop.
Speaker 3:Do you know this guy?
Speaker 2:at all. I've heard the name.
Speaker 3:Tell me who Rick Bastrop is.
Speaker 2:So Rick Bastrop may be the coolest guy that ever lived. He runs an organization. He's still around. He's in his mid-70s. He runs an organization called R&R Designs, with him and his partner Richard Farren, and they met while they were both working at the Disneyland Hotel doing security.
Speaker 3:Which, by the way, if you want to learn more, please go listen to that episode. It's actually interesting. Okay, plug aside.
Speaker 2:So R&R Designs. I've struggled to find out exactly in what way they were involved with Ride and Show, but they were involved in this and Bastrop was there while this was going on. Okay, oh, let me tell you about Rick Bastrop, please, please. Here's some of the things he did Neptune's Kingdom at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Oh, the Pirate Mini Golf at the Beach Boardwalk, that new Haunted House thing that's there, which is actually pretty cool. It is actually, yes, he did the Yosemite Sam attraction at Six Flags Over Texas, which took over the Spelunkers cave that used to be there. Nice, quick aside, the Yosemite Sam attraction is now gone and it was replaced with a revamped Spelunkers cave. So that's kind of okay. But someone pointed this out recently. But someone pointed this out recently there are no dark ride representations of Warner Brothers cartoon characters in the United States. Huh, doesn't that seem weird? It does seem weird. There are some in Abu.
Speaker 3:Dhabi, oh yes, oh yeah. And Dubai, yeah, Yep. There's a great Scooby-Doo ride actually in Dubai.
Speaker 2:And so he did the update of the cave train on the boardwalk. Wow, he did the MGM boat adventure, that boat ride that was behind the MGM Grand.
Speaker 3:I rode that. Yeah, that was actually very bizarre.
Speaker 2:So here's a really cool thing If you rode that, you rode one of the original 1990 Jaws boats. That's where they went when they shut it down and rebuilt it.
Speaker 3:That's why everything felt a little thrift story. Yeah, anyway, he's so. He's Just a quick side. Yeah, for that attraction. Part of the boat ride, like I guess you went. I can't remember if it was Apocalypse Now or Rambo.
Speaker 2:They couldn't get the rights for Apocalypse Now, but that was what they intended to be.
Speaker 3:Right, but they did the whole thing. It was like, oh, we're going to have this action sequence and they have the helicopter. But the helicopter was built half scale and it's like 10 feet away from the boat. You're like why, at this point I literally spent the whole ride just kind of bemusedly watching it, the way that most parents watch their child doing a recital. You're just kind of like, okay, let's see what you did. That's not a slam against our friend that we're discussing here, yeah.
Speaker 2:Rick Bastrop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it is obviously because of a lack of any sort of space. Yeah, yeah, but it was. I was amused. I was like, okay, let's check this out Okay.
Speaker 2:But so he worked on the ride and his take on what happened and the reason that things didn't go wrong. They also had problems with the closing of the ride. The end of the ride didn't quite work either. They had some problems with some of the underwater equipment and his take was, as we got closer and closer to opening Universal just which was MCA at that point they kept bringing in more and more people.
Speaker 2:So what started out as two or three people making decisions was like 20 and there was no testing time before they opened. It was like a couple of weeks and that was it, and universal kept wanting changes. One of the changes that they wanted, which he he blamed a lot of this on, was that it was a clear water ride and Universal suddenly at the last minute, decided they wanted the water dark so you couldn't see the bottom. So what they did was they unleashed a whole bunch of particulate clay into the water, which of course gummed up everything. Oh no. So this is what Rick Bastrop said. The problem was and this is kind of a thing you hear from different people at Ride and Show as well the other thing I wanted to say about Rick Bastrop he always dresses as a cowboy still, and he plays guitar in both a country-western band and in an Anaheim surf rock band.
Speaker 3:Oh dude, I like this guy already. Right, he's the coolest guy in the world. Right, he is Rick. If you ever want to get interviewed on this show, please give us a call. Yeah, like I really want to meet you. You sound really cool.
Speaker 2:And I feel bad. He wrote a book that came out this year and I ordered it recently, but I haven't gotten it yet. Okay, I'm really interested. Tune in. Stay tuned we may actually score a celebrity on the show, and Bastrop claims that the interior boathouse part of the ride was his idea. He said that that was him saying we need one more scene that's different from everything else, with the sharks Right, and that is a scene that lasted through both versions of the ride. Mm-hmm, but so the ride failed.
Speaker 3:This is the 1990 version you were speaking about.
Speaker 2:This is the 1990, about three or four months long running.
Speaker 3:The executives came in. You know what we need Instead of water. How about we make it all sand?
Speaker 2:Sand, sand shark. Sometimes they get the cramps real bad, wow. And I've got one other quick story about scene four, yes, which is from this woman, lisa Marie Gabrielle. She was the first woman skipper, originally, and first they only had it for like four months, but originally they only wanted male skippers and she, very rightfully so, raised holy hell and got a job as a skipper. Very rightfully so, raised holy hell and got a job as a skipper, yeah. So someone asked her like were you there the day they shut it down? Did you remember that? And she was like yeah, unfortunately, okay From her. Not only was I the first female skipper on Jaws, I was also the skipper who caused the damage that permanently closed the version of the ride.
Speaker 2:Oh no, the incident involved the shark that we were talking about in scene four. Right, my boat was just leaving the boathouse and I was attempting to move into position to latch up with the shark. What I didn't realize was that my boat had snapped off an underwater latch and coasted too far forward. Oh no, as a result, we came to a stop on top of the animation unit oh God, somehow it's still engaged which caused the scene to play out with the boat resting on top of the shark's head. Oh dude, the hydraulics were trying to push the shark out of the water but couldn't because there was a boat in the way. Oh dude, the hydraulics were trying to push the shark out of the water but couldn't because there was a boat in the way. Oh no, our ride vehicle starts shaking in a strange way and suddenly there are nuts and bolts everywhere. Oh jeez, I knew right away something had gone horribly wrong.
Speaker 2:We eventually pull into the unload dock and I tell the young man working there you need to call the supervisor. I just killed the shark. And he looks at me and laughs Of course you killed the shark. You're supposed to kill the shark. You're the hero. He got all of the guests cheering for me, oh no.
Speaker 2:I looked at him and I said no, no, I mean, I really killed the shark. The ride is no longer operational, oh God. And then a little tag to that, and that was when they closed it. They were like we're done, we can't fix this anymore. Oh jeez, and this was another thing that I believe Rick Bastrop maybe said, which was the moment that you made the skippers responsible for the effect working. You've already screwed up Like you can't do that. You're right, their responsibility is safety of the people in the boat and their spiel, right so? But someone asked her like did you ever go back to the second version of the ride? And she said I did. I went back later with my boyfriend, who is now my husband. We went to ride Jaws and come to find out they reopened the attraction and named one of the boats after me. It said my name right on the front. I asked the attendant do you know why they named the boat Lisa Marie? She told me I heard it was someone who used to work on the ride but got killed.
Speaker 2:A little wishful thinking there from the executive branch at Universal Studios Florida. And the last thing I want to say about the 1990 version of the ride, because this sounds really cool, the way it ends. It ends very differently than the revamped version. The way it ends is the skipper fires a grenade into the shark's mouth, the shark goes under the water, there's an explosion and bloody bits of shark shoot into the air. Oh man, so you know. They fire off an explosion. They've got these like colored bits of foam. They shoot into the air and get caught in a net and brought back down. Oh my God, the later version. And that seemed to work okay, but the bloody bits of foam would get dyed by the chlorine. Yeah, so they shut it down. They were like we give up, we can't fix this. Uh-huh, they shut it down until 1993.
Speaker 3:Wow, yeah, that's how long. That's a long time for something to be down like that.
Speaker 2:They completely redid it. New ride vehicles on a track now, okay, new sharks. The sharks now could go something like 14 miles an hour, which doesn't seem like much, but evidently the force that it took to push an underwater giant shark 14 miles an hour was equal to the force that it takes to get a Boeing 737 in the air. Whoa, there was so much force behind the sharks that they couldn't turn at all because they'd just break, right yeah.
Speaker 3:Up down, that's all you get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the 1990s sharks could turn, but they weren't going as fast, Right? And they also the 1990s sharks when they attacked, their eyes would go white.
Speaker 3:Mm, which is cool. Mm, eyes would go white, which is cool. And those big eyes, they roll over white. And then you hear that high-pitched screaming and pounding.
Speaker 2:This month at Boardwalk Times we're writing a lot about Muppet Vision, what the loss of it means to the parks and to us as fans. We're also discussing Doctor who on Disney+. Have we reached the end of the partnership? Will the show live on? Come check it all out at BoardWalkTimesnet. So the 1993 ride. Scene four is now. The shark comes up on the port side of the ship. The skipper fires a grenade at it, right Misses it hits the gas dock.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Boom, there's your Big fire. Okay, j-bay. And then the ending of it, scene five, is they take it from Jaws 2.
Speaker 3:Oh, with him biting electrical cords.
Speaker 2:He bites an electrical cord, okay, that's fair and he sparks off Nice and you know it ends with. If you watch any of the ride-throughs of this thing, you'll always see at the end the skipper going call off the Marines, we're coming home. Everyone cheers Jeez. But yeah, the 1993 version that was redone by this guy, adam Biesark, and he's a guy that's still pretty active. He did the Shanghai version of Pirates of the Caribbean, the one that goes underwater. Yeah, he did T2 3D that show. Oh yeah. He did Jurassic Park the ride.
Speaker 3:And a little trivia fact About 14 years ago I actually interviewed to work for him. Seriously, yes, like his company, like for Bizarre Creativity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I went over there for an interview to be a concept artist. They were not looking for anybody, but they were very, very nice. Adam himself was actually really, really cool. I've heard that Really nice guy Love my portfolio, love what I was doing. He says we're going to add you to our list. Basically, when we need somebody, we'll call you. And they called me Wow, but I was already working for somebody at the time so I didn't actually wind up working for him. Wow, but it was. He was really cool.
Speaker 3:But a student of mine. Yeah, late, much later, I wound up teaching her. She didn't know what she wanted to do with her career. Yeah, and I said well, you know you could design theme parks. And she goes what I go? You're totally you're, you're made for this. Like you, you don't like video games, but you like designing environments, right, and you don't like this, but you do like doing that. You're a theme park designer. Yeah, she goes. Really I go, yeah. And I said why don't you? Here's his email, give him a shout, send him these pieces for your portfolio. She goes, okay.
Speaker 2:Oh, you've told me this before. I didn't realize this was who it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And she got an interview and she got like a summer internship at Bazaar. So it's like that's awesome. You know, they called him in to work on it. They were not fooling around with this redo. They called him in. They called a company called Eastport International, who were a subsea engineering outfit, because this was one of the things that Universal claimed and it kind of became codified as sort of legend, but I don't know if it's actually true. They claimed that Ride and Show didn't really know how to work underwater. They were using non-waterproof pieces. That might be true, it might not. Universal sued them, uh-oh, and it ended up being settled out of court. Ride and Show basically said no, no, no, we did know what we were doing. You have to have testing time on stuff like this, and there was none. And you're trying to blame us for a disastrous first year, yeah, so anyway, they settled out of court, but they called Esport International, an organization called Oceaneering International.
Speaker 3:They used Intamin for the track Wait the donut makers. I love Intamins no. No, different guys. Okay, because if they know how to make a circle, why wouldn't they know how to make a track? I'm just saying Different one, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm such a jerk. We love you.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks, appreciate it. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So Entenmann's, yeah, they did the tracks, regal Marine Industries did the boats. Wow, the ride system was iTech Entertainment. They were just, they were loaded for bear.
Speaker 3:We're going to make this happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were not going to let this one fail.
Speaker 3:We believe in the shark.
Speaker 2:And continually through the years. Even with the working version there was problems. They had to change the shark skin twice a year.
Speaker 3:Makes sense. They do that with the elephants on Jungle Cruise.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it'd get bleached, it would get worn because of all the pressure on it. So they're constantly changing that. They had a real problem with hydraulic leaks, oof yeah, so much of a problem that the state of Florida came after them at one point for contaminating stormwater. Oh, oh, because the hydraulic fluid was just I mean, it was just flowing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, gallons per million or whatever. Yeah, it's really oof.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and so that was like the 93 version opened and stayed open until wait a minute I getting the exact year 2011. Wow, okay, yeah, so I mean it's you know we talked about with Back to the Future as like that is one of the fundamental Universal rides. Oh, yeah, and I think Jaws is another.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Jaws is a close second to that, just because of the involvement of the storyline, et cetera. So were there any other iterations beyond 2011?
Speaker 2:Well, there is a version of this ride still going. Oh, really, yeah, it's in Osaka, japan. Wow, universal Osaka still has this ride. Wow, pretty much in the 1993 version. Whoa, yeah, which is nuts to me. I'm like really, and I guess it's still very popular. Yeah, so yeah, still running Minor cosmetic changes, but otherwise pretty much the same deal. That's cool. Yeah, wow, I'm just imagining Now this. Otherwise pretty much the same deal.
Speaker 3:That's cool. Yeah, wow, I'm just imagining. Now, this isn't my plus up, okay. Okay, but this came to mind. We have all these tales from these skippers here talking about how they've broken the ride or they're named after. They get a boat named after them, right, named after him, right. To keep it in the vernacular of the film, I would love to see a couple of skippers get together and they're sitting on a boat and they're drinking and singing.
Speaker 3:You know, show me the way to go home but home I'm tired and I want to go to bed. And as they're talking, one of them goes what's that? Oh that there, that's a tattoo. I had it removed. What did it say? It said Skipper Crew in 1990. Oh, really Well, you want to see something really cool. I got that beat. I totally got that beat. You see that right there. That's from one of the elephants over in the Jungle Cruise.
Speaker 1:It's like a Jungle Cruise skipper and a universal skipper, so like the Jungle Cruise skipper is Hooper.
Speaker 3:They're like Quint is the universal skipper and they're like comparing scars that they got from the rides that broke down and meanwhile off to the side, like Chief Brody, is like a guy who worked like the safari ride at Marine World Africa, USA. He's like he's looking at his appendix scar going yeah, never mind. Yeah, forget it Nothing, ever happened.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. You mention that because one of the things I noticed in reading a whole bunch of interviews with ex-skippers for this ride and reading a whole bunch of interviews of ex-skippers of the Jungle Cruise is both of those communities are incredibly tight-knit. Oh yeah, even now, with the Jaws ride in Florida having been gone for, you know, 14 years, it's still like it means something if you were a skipper on the Jaws ride. This is important. This is important and you know, I think it's sort of compounded by the fact that there was. It was difficult. Yeah, you know Jungle Cruise skippers they need to be funny, yeah, but for the most part they're pretty safe. Jaws skippers had a lot more stuff going on.
Speaker 3:These kids today at Disneyland. They bring out everything Radar, sonar, electric toothbrushes, lidocaine.
Speaker 2:I don't know Lidocaine, they shoot't know.
Speaker 3:Lidocaine. They shoot twice at a hippo. They think they've done something. You got city hands, mr Disneyland. You're counting money all your life. Hey look, I don't need this. I don't need this working class hero crap. I told you I like this movie. I've got it entirely memorized. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I could do the whole movie like verbatim.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. It does seem like one of those. So this is interesting when you think about it. Yeah, like there's foundational Disney attractions and they mostly are still there. Sure, there's a train and there's the Jungle Cruise. Sure, you know, a train and there's the Jungle Cruise. Sure, you know, even if you alter something like Snow White, there's still a Snow White ride there. Absolutely, universal seems much more willing to just pitch their foundational attractions. Oh yeah, and I understand that in this particular case, they needed the space to build Diagon Alley Right, which they knew they were going to make a dog-joking bucket load of money on. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they have, they have.
Speaker 3:And it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:However, it ain't Jaws, it ain't Jaws, it ain't Jaws man. Yeah, they got rid of it. I mean that is a really interesting thing where Universal they are. So and I know I'm kind of going on a limb by saying this because the language is a little inflammatory but they are so cutthroat. Yes, they are Actually not even so much cutthroat. I'll change my phrase so that way I don't get beaten up in an alleyway. Yeah, which you could, which I could very well.
Speaker 3:It's more of the fact that they are a lot more aggressive with their approach to the creative process. Yeah, that they are willing to just say get rid of it, just dump it, we don't care, dump it, move on to something else. Dump it, we don't care. Yeah, move on to something Like. Jaws really still does resonate with people on a very primal level. It does, yeah, as a film and as a ride and just as a concept of a giant shark that could eat you. I mean, I don't know if you. There are multiple showings all over the place of Jaws where you get in an inner tube.
Speaker 3:And you float out in the open water and they put out a big projector and they show Jaws and you are are floating over the ocean. Oh, I couldn't do it. I've done it once. Yeah, it is unnerving because you start watching and you start going.
Speaker 3:It's at night, you cannot see what's in the water below you and it's like, and you're freezing. So you're like, oh, we're watching, this is not good and it's kind of a you know, like it's like. It's kind of like watching the Exorcist in a Catholic church. You're like I feel uncomfortable doing this, like this isn't good. So, yeah, it's interesting. Weird little story. Here's a weird little haunted house story my haunting days yeah, so there was a haunter.
Speaker 2:Isn't today still your haunting days?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, well it is. Now it's revitalized. But my old haunting days so right around the time when they opened up the second iteration of Jaws yeah, I was working with a haunter at a haunted house called Gyro's World of Terror and his name was James Bynum. He has passed away. He passed away several years ago.
Speaker 3:Very talented man, very not an easy man to get along with, but if you were in with him, you were in with him. If you weren't, he was kind of cantankerous. He had some stuff going on and my heart goes out to him, but he could be very talented. He was very good at doing big spectacle attractions for haunts. Yeah, this is the guy who snuck onto the set of terminator 2 by faking a security badge with a polaroid camera I like it and snuck on and got to see them blowing up cyber done. That's amazing, milpitas. Just like he worked on the Milpitas Monster as a stagehand. It was like his drama teacher was the director of the Milpitas Monster. It was like James Jimmy, you want to help me? Yeah, no problem. So he went out and helped.
Speaker 3:Well, one year when we were doing Gyro, he got a hair up his butt and he was going to do a Jaws attraction at a haunted house and the first thing we said is where are we going to get the water? Yes, and he said, don't worry about it, we'll make it work. Uh-huh, I think if he actually had the crew size that he needed, I think he could have actually pulled it off. Yeah, but I think his idea was very ambitious for the size of crew that he had and the dedication that he had. Yeah, but the idea was actually very sound, in which it was going to be a kind of one of those like cheesy aquariums where you go through the giant plexi tunnel, sure, and the shark attacks the plexiglass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like they've got the six flags here, but with a shark.
Speaker 3:Right, and that's what it was going to be. You were going to be going, you were dry, but you were quote underwater and then everything would be on strings and floating and it was like a bad version of the submarine ride in Disneyland. And then our shark would be attacking the tube, yeah, and then we would spray people with just a little bit of water, and so we had to sculpt a shark and man. That gave me a tremendous amount of respect for Bob Maddy. Yeah, because sculpting that thing and trying to get it to work was murder. Yeah, because we didn't have the budget of Disneyland or Universal or Steven Spielberg back in 1973.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had to make them out of chicken wire, 2x4s and rolling supermarket casters, like it was that bad, wow. And eventually we ran out of time and so we had to make it. You were inside an aquarium. Uh-huh, we couldn't make the tube. Uh-huh, but we't make the tube, uh-huh, but we did make a couple of walls, and so you were just about to get into the aquarium but he burst through the wall of the aquarium and attacked you that way.
Speaker 2:So it went from a really cool— Wait, did he just like kind of whack up against the glass or something.
Speaker 3:No, he literally came through an office wall at you and I said—I told him. I said why don't we get a picture of Chevy Chase somewhere in here? So at least we can actually go Go Landshark yeah.
Speaker 3:So we actually know that we're making a reference to the Landshark, yeah, and he goes no, no, no, no, no, people will get it. They didn't get it. No, but everybody kept walking through going. Mrs Bargain Barson, bargain Plumber, you know it was terrible. So my heart really does go out for the difficulty of maintaining the Jaws attractions in both Hollywood and Florida, because it's not easy, and my heart goes out to these guys who kept it going for as long as they did Well, and one of the things that is often impressive about Universal and we're seeing this in a big way right now with Epic Universe is that they just take big swings.
Speaker 2:Yes, they do. That's how they've always worked. It's a little bit like when, you know, in Vegas they bring up a new casino and they put rides or something in it, like the Luxor, and it's like you know you have not thought this through at all, but, man, I appreciate that you're trying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's totally it, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, you're seeing this with Epic Universe, where what we're starting to see is that it's a beautiful park with some really amazing stuff and they maybe didn't have the planning that you know someone like Disney would have brought in. Sure, they didn't think, hey, it rains like twice a day in Florida, but we don't have any attractions that run in the rain, so that's a problem. They didn't think about stuff like that. But no, I hear it's amazing. But I just appreciate. They just were like you know what? We're going to build a monster's land. We're going to build a huge monster's land. We're going to have this windmill burst into flames every 15 minutes. Yeah, you know, we're going to build this crazy ride.
Speaker 3:You know it's just rumor. Is that? Because, based off of the success of what they're seeing that the critical success there is talk of doing a jaws like ride based off of creature from the black lagoon on which you're on the rita? Yes, and I went. If you do that, I'm all in. Yeah, as much as I'm kind of all in already. Yeah, the two, the two universal monsters I adore are Frankenstein and the creature from the Black Lagoon. Yeah, and Creech is one of my faves. Yeah, and I would be all over that. That would be so great and it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and, frankly, because Creech could go above water and below it very easily. I think that may allow them to avoid some of the effects from scene four. He could achieve a scene four a little bit easier, I think, and it'd be great if somewhere out there is like Jorge's Boy's House, jorge bang, you know, and it's like A big explosion in the black. Like where do we get the explosives? I don't care, but we have to have the explosives.
Speaker 2:It is amazing Like Universal's total backup plan is always blow something up. Lots of fire, singe eyebrows, that's the plan?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean, I've actually I've had stuff singed on me at Universal Studios. Oh yeah, Did you do that Backdraft thing? Geez, oh Backdraft. I had my shoes melted on the Harry Potter Gringotts experience. No, that wasn't Gringotts, it was the Hogwarts ride.
Speaker 2:Oh, the Forbidden Journey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the Forbidden Journey. They have a dragon that shoots fire at you. The problem is, it's like my shoes actually caught fire a little bit, oh God. And so I'm walking out going. Why are my feet so hot, yeah, and why am I smelling burning rubber? And I looked down at the bottom of my Converse and I went wait a minute, hang on. The tread was slightly melted. I went whoa. So I bought new shoes at Universal. I bought flip-flops at Universal because I couldn't wear these shoes anymore. They had melted.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:It was crazy, so I got official.
Speaker 2:Harry Potter flip-flops. I could just see the planning meetings for the Dark Universe, the monsters area, just like well, okay, we're going to have a lighthouse, burn it, set it on fire. Yeah, right, yeah, we were thinking about having Igor walk around and greet guests. Set him on fire.
Speaker 3:Set him on fire. J-bang Gotta have a J-Bang, gotta have a J-Bang. So well, I guess we've come now with these tangents, but it does actually lead us to, yes, the part of our show, the last part of our show, where we ignore all safety, just like Universal. Economic liability and economics and other things like that and we do a plus-up yeah.
Speaker 2:And I did the first one last time, so I'm going to throw it to you.
Speaker 3:Okay the plus-up for me. You know the nostalgia hound in me would love it if there could be a return of Jaws at the park, absolutely yeah. However, I think they've already kind of beaten me If the rumors are true about this creature from the Black Lagoon ride. Yes, I honestly think they've already beaten me to my plus up. Yeah, because that really would have been my plus up. It's like okay, jaws, it's one of those things where the audience has seen it, yeah, the audience is expecting it, and it becomes, when it becomes, like an old favorite. There's no surprises. So unless you add something to it, yeah, you're really not going to surprise anybody, unless you accidentally run your boat over the top of the shark and right exactly um, god, that story still kind of freaks me out.
Speaker 3:It does does a little bit Like I kind of wanted to be there, yeah, but also I think it would have terrified me. I think, yeah, that would have been like, should I call home? Yeah, I think I need new shorts. Maybe I should get some official Harry Potter shorts when I'm done, but I think that would have been actually my plus up and I think that they've already kind of beat me to it because the Creech as a character, it has a very, very similar and honestly, there's a lot of similarities between the creature from the Black Lagoon.
Speaker 3:The original film, not Revenge, or the creature walks among us, but the original creature from the Black Lagoon has something very, very similar People out in a boat trying to catch this thing and realizing that they are so out of their depth they have to kill the thing. Yeah, and they're both environmental stories. Yeah, Like I don't think you should be doing that. I really think like if everybody listened to Chief Brody people, you know Chrissy Watkins would have died no matter what, but sure everybody else. Yeah, it's like it just closed down the beaches. Beaches closed.
Speaker 3:No swimming by order. The amity pd. Let polly do the printing. Right. What's the matter with my printing? Let polly do the printing, but imagine doing that. But you're doing creature from the black lagoon and so you're going out to find the lost city of these creatures, yeah, Like if I were doing this and universally you may use this because I'm never going to do it. So you do it. You go on this ride and you're going into this lost Incan city that's half sunken, yeah, Now you're. So you're in the open lagoon and then the interior parts are inside this sunken place for creatures to come out all over the place Male, female, king creatures, whatever you want. Have fun with it. Yeah, but use some of the same gags where you're like. Yeah, you remember this from Jaws. We brought it back a little bit, but it's rethemed wink, wink, nudge, nudge, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I think that would give the fans of Jaws that, okay, see, you know all of us pushing our glasses up. You know all of us old school guys, we used to ride Jaws and it was like that. Only it was better because it was a shark and all the kids go. Yeah, but Creature of the Black Lagoon is really cool, man. Oh man, wouldn't that be a great world if kids were actually going. Creature of the Black Lagoon is really cool.
Speaker 1:I mean my kid does, but my kid is an exception.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know because she grew up with me around. You know, right, right, but yes, absolutely. So that's my plus-up. That would have been my plus-up, and Universal already kind of beat me to it.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to kind of tag on to your plus-up, but first I had an idea. While you were talking yeah, were talking I was like you know, one of the things that I love about Jaws and it doesn't get enough credit for that film is just the intrapersonal relationships. Oh yeah, like I could listen to those three lead actors just talk and argue for hours and I would be perfectly happy. So I think what they should do is make a ride where you just get driven around by a skipper and he argues with audio, animatronic Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss With the level of animatronics that were unleashed in. Universal Monsters.
Speaker 3:But it's a quint Like wouldn't that be? You know, just an animatronic quint that's interactive, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, here I am body of Mary and me, and just one and a half of him, because he got chewed up a little. Yeah, just cut a half of him because he got chewed up a little.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just a little. He's mostly dead.
Speaker 2:He's all right, he's hanging in there.
Speaker 3:Starting a Kickstarter campaign to start out my boating company.
Speaker 2:But I think for my plus up I'm just going to jump onto yours and add a little. I'm going to plus up your plus up, Uh-oh. So now we've been in trackless vehicles and it's a new technology. They do have trackless water vehicles. They use them in Tokyo, Tokyo DisneySea for this, it's called Aquatopia and it's neat. I mean, obviously, I haven't been there to experience it, but I've seen film of it. It's neat. I haven't been there to experience it, but I've seen film of it. It's neat. Yeah, so let's have the Creature of the Black Lagoon ride with autonomous water vehicles so it can change, it can do different things.
Speaker 3:And we now have the control to make scene four work. That's all we're going to call the ride scene 4.
Speaker 2:Scene 4 and just like you're in with your family in this one little autonomous vehicle and it goes up, it runs into Creech and he grabs your boat and shakes it around. And we have the technology to do that and make it work now yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there was a cover along those lines. Now I'm just going to go really crazy. Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:There was a cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland, yeah, and it said Jaws versus Ape. And the reason is is that I think the same year that Jaws came out, so did Dino De Laurentiis' remake of King Kong. Oh, yeah, and the cover actually was very intriguing. It was this very strange painted cover of King Kong and he's in the water charging at this giant, great white shark and I went I want to see that movie, king Kong versus Jaws. I want to see that movie. Yeah, king Kong versus jaws. I'm all over that. Yeah, you know, just see this giant monkey beating the crap out of a shark. Heck, yeah, I'm in it. And if I mean we talk about, like, the King Kong experience, we'll have to do that as a Bob Gurr tribute sometime this season. But, uh, you know, this season. But that's another monster combo that we can throw in there, like just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, king Kong, you know.
Speaker 2:And isn't there. There's somewhere in the back of my head that there is a movie where King Kong fights a shark. There's like a Toho film or something.
Speaker 3:I could be wrong about this. Maybe you're thinking of Zombie 2, with the zombie eating the shark. In some weird Italian side universe. Out there we're going to make a ride of zombies eating the sharks.
Speaker 2:The two things that I remember from Zombie 2 are that the zombie picks up a shark and eats it yeah, and that the guy, the lead actor from Terry Nation's Survivors, is in it yes, and I just thrilled like two people in the world and everyone else is like what is he talking about? What are you talking about? Don't worry, it was awesome, it was totally worth it, totally worth it. Those two people are worth it.
Speaker 3:Well is like what is he talking about? What are you talking about? Don't worry, it was awesome, it was totally worth it, totally worth it. Those two people are worth it. Well, I mean, here's another thing there's actually a fan theory out there that we could actually introduce ourselves into the Billy Friedkin universe, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:The Sorcerer universe or the Exorcist universe? No, the French.
Speaker 3:Connection universe, because there's a fan theory that Chief Brody is actually the same character that Roy Scheider plays in the French Connection. Because he's so sick of the crime and corruption of New York City, he changes his name to Brody and he moves out to Amity Island. I like it. So we could actually have our Roy Scheider animatronic. Yeah, and we could double our money, because then we could actually have our Roy Scheider animatronic. Yeah, and we could double our money, because then we could have our French Connection action ride under the L, you know, running over little kids and stuff like that in a car. It's like Rocket Racers, only it's in a 1968 Chevy racers. Only it's a 1968 Chevy.
Speaker 2:You know if I can only have one Roy Scheider animatronic, though it's the All that Jazz ride yeah.
Speaker 3:But that's from an era of Universal that probably should not be spoken of any further.
Speaker 2:Did you know that Richard Dreyfuss was originally cast in that role and he left it because he had lost confidence in the movie?
Speaker 3:Wow, really, and so they hired Roy Scheider instead. Thank God it wasn't Robert Shaw. Could you imagine, oh God. Speaking of which, my last little note about the Jaws experience of interacting with these characters, the interpersonal characters like you're talking about? Yes, there is a play written originally and directed and starring Robert Shaw's son.
Speaker 3:Oh, that is about the interactions between Roy Scheider, richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw, yeah, and the whole set is the orca, yeah, and the whole set is the orca, yeah, and it's the three of them on the set of Jaws talking about, you know, and how they would argue with each other and how they were like worried about the production and the shark is, you know, not working and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Like who's this new kid that's directing us? He doesn't know what he's doing.
Speaker 3:Right and it got like rave reviews in the and now it's on tour. I want to go see that. I desperately want, I want to be in it. Yeah, totally Like I want to be in this, like I want to play Quint, you know, I want to play, there you go. I want to play Robert Shaw, you know, so I can get drunk just before I have to do the Indianapolis speech. Spielberg has a great day where he's like oh, and I always loved that, yeah, and he did it one day and we were done and he memorized it. But whatever we do, my last plus up yes, is that, no matter what, we have to have John Milius write it. Yes, absolutely we must have John Milius write it. Yeah, so there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I think we've exhausted this to the hand.
Speaker 2:Exhausted is the term.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, please check out our previous episodes. We'd love to hear if you've ridden the Jaws ride and you have any anecdotes, photographs or videos, please share it with us. We'd love to see it and hear from you. Yeah, and if you're a skipper, please contact us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you've been enjoying these shows, please recommend them to other people. We'd love to get a couple more people on board.
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely Cue the music. I'm Peter Overstreet. And I'm Kelly McGovern and you've been listening to the Lowdown on the Plus Up.
Speaker 2:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us, and if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at boardwalktimesnet. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I at Lowdown on the Plus Up on Blue Sky, Mastodon, instagram and all the other socials, or you can send us a message directly at comments at lowdown-plus-upcom. We really want to hear about how you'd plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker, soldier Spy by Kevin MacLeod at incompcompetechcom. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we like you, oh man. What a day.
Speaker 3:What was that? Where the heck are you Base? This is Brody, are you all right, chief? This is Amity 6. Call off the Marines. We are coming home.