Race Through NY Starring Jimmy Fallon
- Thread starter Brian G.
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They don't make money directly but the GS is through the roof and I have to think UC gets a kick out of putting something like this together. Great for morale in-house and for the guest. They do have value IMO
It's an evolving art form.
First you have the lands of Disneyland. Where everything just sort of fits within a motif. It aren't really tied together in a cohesive narrative.
From those you got the much stronger individual attractions, but still singular entities.
Tomorrowland's redo and then EPCOT Center is where you have areas where the various attractions interplay with each other. In Tomorrowland it was just physical and aesthetically, but then at Epcot they start grouping them by themes/concepts.
I think rise of the movie set "theme" where everything has a "oh look it's fake" side eroded the progress for a while. You see in attractions from the early 80's that show lighting is recessed, baffles and curtains hide mechanics, etc... then in the 90's (age of Studio parks) the mechanics are all exposed in this "isn't what we did neat?" format. Almost like a boastful magician.
AK realigns from that, as did TDS and IOA. But then we dip back into the self referential and "aren't we neat?" for a while. Then Potter brings us back, but we regress a little, and then now we've got Volcano Bay and Pandora both opening and bother fairly elaborate in their place making and overall storytelling.
First you have the lands of Disneyland. Where everything just sort of fits within a motif. It aren't really tied together in a cohesive narrative.
From those you got the much stronger individual attractions, but still singular entities.
Tomorrowland's redo and then EPCOT Center is where you have areas where the various attractions interplay with each other. In Tomorrowland it was just physical and aesthetically, but then at Epcot they start grouping them by themes/concepts.
I think rise of the movie set "theme" where everything has a "oh look it's fake" side eroded the progress for a while. You see in attractions from the early 80's that show lighting is recessed, baffles and curtains hide mechanics, etc... then in the 90's (age of Studio parks) the mechanics are all exposed in this "isn't what we did neat?" format. Almost like a boastful magician.
AK realigns from that, as did TDS and IOA. But then we dip back into the self referential and "aren't we neat?" for a while. Then Potter brings us back, but we regress a little, and then now we've got Volcano Bay and Pandora both opening and bother fairly elaborate in their place making and overall storytelling.
And there's talk of another possible World Showcase pavilion. It's been since like 1986 since the company seriously considered building one, pointing how things cycle and sometimes take a looooong time.
Those costumes look like they would fit in the WWoHP, but I assume they are supposed to be pages.
- Dec 16, 2012
- 94
- 175
They more or less match the newer NBC Page outfits introduced a few years back. You can google NBC Page and image search it.
They're only wearing those jackets because it is around 45 degrees outside
If you're on a one-day trip and have to do everything in the park, you're not going to be paying a ton of attention to areas like this sadly. I'm a big believer that most people follow that model.
I'm a firm advocate for building more areas like that though. Those little nooks are the reason I enjoy theme parks.
I remember on the (short-lived) production tram tour at Universal Florida they explained that the alley in the NY backlot area had been used in many movies and was made in a way that it could be dressed for several different time periods. They usually used "Matinee" starring John Goodman as an example of a film that shot in that alley, (although I don't believe there was much else actually shot there besides TV and commercials.) I know some Nickelodeon shows like "Clarissa Explains it All" and "All That" shot a little there. Almost the entire opening for All That was shot there, with additional shots from the garage doors next to what is now the Starbucks, and shots on the porches of the NY apartment buildings across from Fallon/Twister/Ghostbusters.
So yea, the alley in NY is awesome for guests and a nice quiet throughway for me, but was originally built with the intention of showing off how movie sets use curving alley designs to create a sense of going on forever, so they can shoot from many angles without seeing through to the other side.
EDIT: And a scene from "Parenthood" with Steve Martin was shot in that alley as well, dressed to look like the back of Mystery Fun House (remember Mystery Fun House?) And I wouldn't be surprised if a scene from Problem Child 2 was shot there as well. Those were all the movies mentioned on the tram tour. They were so proud of the 3 movies that shot there.
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Thanks. Not to stray too far off topic (forgot this was the Fallon thread,) but I swear I'm going crazy. It's hard to find anyone else that remembers the tram tour at Universal Florida. A lot of my trivia about the park I learned from that ride, and it's like it has been erased from history.
Many theme park blogs report history as something like "Universal set their Orlando park apart from Hollywood by eliminating the tram tour and focusing instead on individual rides... which is half-true... or "After Disney MGM Studios opened featuring a tram tour, Universal decided to scrap theirs when building Universal Studios Florida," totally not true at all. Makes me nuts.
From Wikipedia:
Okay, sorry, aside over. Back to Fallon.
So what you're telling me is that I've stood on the same ground as Lori Beth Denberg? That's officially made my day.
