A Bad Time to Ride the Universal Studio Tour
Don't even get me started on Jimmy Fallon
This is “Woof of the Week”, the newsletter about the things that make me say “Woof” the longest each week!
Subscribe to the newsletter (paid or for free) for weekly Woofs!
Welcome to Woof of the Week!
Every week day around 11AM at work I proclaim I am the sleepiest I have ever been to anyone who will listen. In true “boy who cried wolf” fashion, it does feel like I spent this whole week in between states of sleep and waking life.
Why was I so sleepy you might ask? (And even if you might not ask I will tell you!) I spent a great week and weekend with friends - going to Universal Studios, perusing every single gift shop in Little Tokyo, and then immediately hightailing it out to Big Bear Lake, where I spent three days in a large cabin playing games.
I wouldn’t trade any of those experiences for more sleep.
But could I use more sleep? Yes, totally.
For those waiting on me for … anything I suppose, thanks for your patience! While I did not actually spend this past weekend recharging my battery I did finally go grocery shopping! That’s gotta count for something right?
Around the World in 80* Woofs
*more like, a handful of bullet points
I was working on this newsletter while at the cabin, but couldn’t quite find the time to complete my main story. Here are the bullet points from last week and this week!
NFT’s - remember those guys? Via Kotaku - cryptocurrency analysts dappGambl “determined that out of the 73,257 total NFT collections it analyzed, 69,795 had a 0 Ether (ETH) market cap.” And yes, 0 ETH also means 0 real dollars. As friend of WotW Raymond (who sent me this article) likes to say - “Keep stacking apes.” Please also enjoy this tweet from Crypto journalist Molly White.
NO ONE IS SAFE - from bedbugs! Paris has a bed bug infestation and boy howdy am I glad that I’m not there. I’d be so paranoid, and maybe would be bringing a change of clothes everywhere I went if I took public transit. I do know someone that just got back from there though so perhaps I should wash everything I own in hot water, jut in case.
Central Perk, the coffee shop that the friends from Friends hang out in, will be getting a physical location in the real world - right on Newbury street in Boston. There is one on the Warner Brothers studio lot, but this one will be for the masses… and students of Emerson college, which is located right down the street, literally. Having gone to said college, one of our most acclaimed alumni is Kevin Bright the “Bright” of Friends’ “Bright, Kaufman, and Crane” - so you can imagine Friends is pretty big there. I can’t imagine how enthralling it’ll be to be a bright eyed and bushy tailed college freshmen taking selfies with your orientation group at Central Perk… and how annoying it’ll be for everyone else. I think I’ll stick to being annoying at the Warner Brothers lot.
The Writers Strike is OVER! Congrats to the WGA! But the SAG strike still continues - and maybe that’s why the poster (above) for Loki Season 2 looks so… bad? Perhaps they couldn’t call Tom back in for a photoshoot, or for some reason every single still of him from the show just wasn’t what the marketing team was looking for. Regardless - even if you didn’t know Tom Hiddleston, I think most people would look at that poster and think “Is this a muppet?” I don’t know what intern they asked to put the poster together, but Tom’s looking rough. Here’s a still image from a video interview he did - and he looks fine! Ignore all that makeup.
Tom Hiddleston on the set of Loki. Source
Like what you’ve read? Make sure to hit the “like” button or leave a comment. And don’t forget that you can subscribe (paid or for free!) to the newsletter to get it sent directly to your inbox by hitting the button below!
The Universal Studio Tour in 2023
Let’s go back to two Wednesdays ago - rumors of the WGA & SAG strikes lasting until January were rampant, tickets for a concert film looking to be the second theatrical event of the year were available for purchase, and I was boarding the tram for “The World-Famous Studio Tour” at Universal Studios.
Yes - during what seemed like the height of the entertainment strikes, I was getting on a ride that not only celebrated the movie industry (emphasis on industry) but also took you through the actual places that people in said industry work. Except now… no one would be working. The soundstages would be quiet, the lot empty. It felt odd to be enjoying the theme park, and now the studio tour, just minutes away from picketing writers and actors, especially having taken off of work to do so (if you work with me you didn’t read this). In fact, this was Paid Time Off - something that many (if not all) of the people affected by the strikes were not getting.
As I wrestled with these feelings I heard one of the only things that could have made me feel more guilty for boarding this tram - “Hey there I’m Jimmy Fallon. I’ll be making sure you get through this tour, in one piece.”
Yes, looking up at the TVs on the roof of the tram was a video of Jimmy Fallon who was allegedly co-hosting the tour, a detail I had forgotten from when I last rode this in 2016. My friends and I grimaced - this was coming off the heels of the report that Jimmy Fallon contributed in creating a toxic work environment on The Tonight Show.
With both the strikes and Mr. Fallon weighing on my mind, I was in certainly a very interesting mindset during the ride. Let’s unpack, join me as I take you on a tour of my mind on the Universal Studio tour.
—
For those unfamiliar the studio tour has a few different sections interspersed:
Actual sound stages and studio offices: Areas where filming and work are currently being done. If you’re lucky, you may see a celebrity! (Once while working on the lot, a studio tour tram spotted my crew and I transporting Chris Pratt a half a mile away and I’m still mystified about how they did that)
Standing sets: Certain sets, like the town square from The Good Place, still remain put together, and with clever set design can be repurposed for other shoots. They also make for great areas to ooo and ahh at!
Staged Events: Exactly how it sounds - with the exception of the 3D videos for King Kong and Fast & Furious, the rest are events that happen along the tour - like an old west set flash flooding to showcase movie magic.
You go through all of this with a Universal tour guide, in my case, Paul. Right off the bat, I couldn’t gauge how into the tour Paul was. Of course, it’s hard to work in a theme park, especially on a hot day. But also - if you’re a theme park worker in Los Angeles, it’s likely that you have a lot of friends affected by the strikes, or it’s something that affects you as someone that might have aspirations on working in film. I spent a lot of the tour trying to read Paul. Maybe he hated that the script was so pro-industry. Or maybe he hated that his co-host was a pre-recorded Jimmy Fallon.
And on the topic of Fallon - it’s hard to know if any adjustments were made to the ride in the wake of the article criticizing his behavior on The Tonight Show. To my knowledge, Strike Force Five the podcast hosted by the big talk show hosts to raise money for their out of work crews, still has not addressed the article or Fallon’s apology. But the reason it was so hard to pin down was because his contributions felt so … minimal? His videos would pop on almost randomly, as if he needed to make sure to include a joke that wasn’t entirely additive to the experience. Was he there to entertain those who didn’t know what movies were being referenced? I wasn’t sure why Fallon was added but perhaps the people who like his comedy really enjoyed that he was there.
Yet despite a bored host and a semi-problematic host - the other aspects of the tour still shone on their own, no matter what my feelings were. The staged events were mostly fun and so was seeing the standing sets. There has always been a magic to the movies - how anything gets made is mystifying, especially in the early days of filmmaking. But as we move further in time from those early days in the movies, it does bring up the question of what we’re preserving and celebrating on these tours.
For example, two of the staged events reference two American classics - Jaws and Psycho. At one point during the tour you pass a lake, in which the large animatronic shark attacks a fake diver, filling a spot in the lake with “blood”. Then the shark charges the tram. When passing Bates mansion, an actor playing Norman Bates approaches the tram with a knife, very slowly. (Apparently this was inspired by Jim Carrey pulling a prank on tour goers, fun!)
While both are great nods to American cinema, I wonder how younger generations have reacted them. Perhaps it’s because I was brought up in a household that didn’t necessarily hand down American culture, but even both of these events are lackluster for me. Am I jaded? Am I not a big enough film fan? Probably both!
The larger question here though is: What will be the next “Jaws” ? If these were the exciting films to make events for on the tour, what do the newer generations have that can get them excited about movies? Does the film industry have enough cultural touchstones from the last 20 years to introduce some type of staged event that can have the impact that an animatronic shark popping out of the water has? And specifically, does Universal own the rights to any of those?
Their answer may be Fast & Furious and King Kong given both of their additions to the tour. Yet the events are purely digital experiences, a tram getting surrounded by 360 video screens and being turned into a larger motion simulator. While the motion simulator is fun and convincing, it’s also an indication of ho filmmaking has been moving more into the digital world, both in execution and in idea generation - if the first movie did well, make it a franchise to rinse and repeat!
Jaws and Psycho both have franchises, but do we remember those films for that fact? Or do we remember the impact that both of those original movies had? Both the Fast and Kong attractions are built off of their modern franchise appeal and it’s a worrying task to wonder what might populate the rest of the tour if Jaws stops being entertaining for newer generations.
The saving grace here might have been the set of Jupiter’s Claim from Nope. A recreation of an old west theme park featured in the movie - I was legitimately frightened as our tram rolled into the area. With the movie’s horror elements fresh in my mind, I wonder if this was the same thrill that people who love Jaws and love Psycho felt when seeing their favorite moments play out in front of them on the tour.
And while I don’t think kids are climbing over themselves to watch Nope, it does feel like a film that will be seen on sleepovers, if that’s something that still happens. Maybe Universal should start identifying more of these films and applying more modern references into the tour. With the prevalence of streaming and franchise films, it does feel like movies on the whole don’t feel as exciting to a general audience. There’s so many things to watch all the time - and movies, maybe they aren’t the go to thing. Movies, and how they’re made, can be exciting - they are exciting! And I feel like a tour, even if it is celebrating the industry, should be able to make you feel that.
Even though I originally planned to publish this last week while the strikes were going on, I think my point still stands - there need to be ways to incorporate more original films into the media landscape. Maybe the right film will take off and spawn its own franchise. But that first one, and all it’s behind the scenes and physical details can be preserved, and celebrated, on the studio tour for those to revel in, without a pre-recorded co-host to get you excited.
Quote of the Week
This week’s quote is from 2021, reminiscing about college:
It’s not about Emerson now, it’s Emerson in our memories.
Preserve what you can, when you can, in the memory palace of your mind.
Songs That Helped Me Write This Week
Now more than ever has it been important to find some focus songs…
L-Trip - James Ivy. I really wish I had gone to the James Ivy concert in August.
Last Train Home - John Mayer. My core memories associated with this song are (1) crying to it when it was used in The Bear Season 1 (2) Seeing all the John Mayer heads on his subreddit celebrating the usage of this song on The Bear as if this was his big break or something.
That’s all folks!
Thanks for reading this week’s edition of Woof of the Week!
A big thank you to Sam Beasley for helping produce this week’s issue!
Leave a comment because I’d love to hear your thoughts! Some questions I have for you -
How do you feel about the studio tour?
What’s your favorite movie?
Do you own an NFT be honest
See you on the next one!
Submit Your Woof!
Got a Woof you want to share? Click below to submit your Woof.
Woofs can be submitted anonymously so even your most secret Woofs are safe to send. And if you’d just like to submit dog pictures you can send those too!
2023 Template Send Counter: 0
A tram ride through Jupiter's Claim would definitely scare me...