SPEAKER_04: 0:46

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.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06

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. Hey Pete! Yeah. What are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_11: 1:27

Well, today is gonna be a weird, weird episode because it's uh we're not gonna get too modeling about it, but uh we are gonna talk about some stuff that may be uncomfortable for some people. Yes. Uh Universal uh Disney, uh, because we're gonna be talking about a gentleman who just recently passed away. Right. And Kelly and I felt that this individual made such significant contributions to the world of theme parks that he deserved his own episode. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:53

And that person is Jay Stein. That's right. Jay Stein, the I would argue, architect of the modern theme park. I would agree that I would totally agree to that. Yeah, if if if the idea of theme parks in America originates with Walt Disney, Jay Stein is the one who made the modern version of it, and it's the version that everyone's chasing. Yeah. We we like to say, oh, everyone's trying to keep up with Disney, and it is not true. Even Disney is trying to keep up with Universal.

SPEAKER_11: 2:23

Oh, yeah. More so than that. Or for better or for worse. More so now than ever. This that trend was started by Jay Stein.

SPEAKER_05: 2:30

And and and I will I will say absolutely I'm Disneyland guy. That is my park. That is the one I I hold most dear, and I absolutely understand that what Universal did via this man, via Jay Stein, changed the industry entirely.

SPEAKER_11: 2:49

Yep, he really, really did. He retired from Universal Studios in 1993, folks. But still he is still very, very influential. If you're a regular listener to the show, uh to the dozens of you who are, thank you. Um but and and for all of you in Brazil, yeah, and in Russia, uh-huh, and where else have we have some of our international listeners have been popping up now?

SPEAKER_05: 3:18

Um, I have seen Kuwait, I have seen some people in Spain are listening now, which is amazing to us. There's certainly certainly people in Russia, yeah. It's kind of kind of all over the world at this point. Yeah. I'm I'm amazed. I don't know how you guys found us, but welcome.

SPEAKER_11: 3:35

Yeah, really welcome. And and again, if you really did enjoy the show and you see something or you have not been able to find something on our podcast that we haven't covered yet, and and we're not just universal in Disney, by the way. Oh, yeah. We we we've done episodes on like Frontier Village and some Six Flag stuff, and we even covered Gravity Shacks not too long ago. But if you there's an international theme park, like at some point, I'm sure we're gonna cover Tiboli and all the other great stuff out there. Yeah. Tell us about these parks. We love doing research. And if you have footage of these parks that you remember growing up and loving, or you still love today, like if you're from Dubai, tell us about some of that stuff that's popping up out there. We'd love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_05: 4:16

Yeah, and if you're from Dubai, you're about to get a metric dog-choking motherload of theme parks over the next 10 years. Because man, everyone is going there. Yep. Disney's opening one there. Universal just announced that they're opening something there. Warner Brothers either is opening or something. Are they doing a nuts?

SPEAKER_11: 4:34

A Knott's berry farm Dubai out there, too. Like that'd be great. This underground Knott's berry farm.

SPEAKER_05: 4:46

That would be amazing. It's just like life around the old oil, Derek.

SPEAKER_09: 4:50

Yeah, they just had withers out there like get in from out of the shun, kids!

SPEAKER_04: 4:56

Things whittles.

SPEAKER_05: 4:57

Whittles. That was it. Whittles. I thought it was withers.

SPEAKER_04: 4:59

That was it.

SPEAKER_05: 5:00

Okay, so yeah, Jay Stein back to Jay. Jay Stein passed away just about a little over a week ago as of this recording. It's been really interesting to watch. So I found out about it from Jay Stein's biographer, Sam Genaway. We'll be talking about Sam's work a lot during this episode because he's the guy who went and discovered how the Universal theme park started. He chronicled it, then later came back and chronicled Jay himself. This is actually it's sort of a fascinating story to hear Mr. Genaway tell it. He worked on a uh terrific book called Um Universal vs. Disney, which is just great. And it it talks about the the conflict between the two of them, how they developed side by side.

SPEAKER_11: 5:50

Really good book. Having read that book, I have to make a quick little note. When I read that book, I don't know what compelled me, but I I read that book while listening to the soundtrack to Ken Burns's The Civil War. Uh-huh. Because it kind of was like it was totally the blue versus the gray. You hear a shoking.

SPEAKER_05: 6:12

I just have this image of like Biff Ten and at Appomattox.

SPEAKER_01: 6:15

It's Yeah. Don't shot that horse. Mag dog. Nobody calls me Magdoe.

SPEAKER_05: 6:22

Yeah. But so Sam wrote that book, which is terrific, and then he moved on to another project. During the writing of that book, he reached out to Jay Stein, who is the single most significant force in the development of universal theme parks, and got nothing back from him, and which was expected. Jay had kind of become a little reclusive at that point. But after the book came out, Jay evidently called him and said, Hey, why didn't you talk to me for this book? And Sam said, I tried. He didn't respond to me. And Jay came out and said, Well, at this point, Lou Wasserman from Universal is dead. Sidney Scheinberg from Universal is dead. Most of these people probably don't want to talk to you. Steven Spielberg's not going to return your calls. Why don't we get together and talk about it? So Sam got back on the horse and did a second book called Jay Bang.

SPEAKER_01: 7:14

Jay Bang!

SPEAKER_11: 7:16

You've heard us mention this in the past. You're finally going to really understand the meaning of Jay Bang.

SPEAKER_05: 7:22

Yes. And so they collaborated on a book about Jay's career at Universal. And it's great. And just like Jay himself, it is full of bluster. It is a little chaotic. It tells us a story that is just filled with kind of joy and retribution. It's just terrific. So good. But I so I I found out that Jay Stein had died because Sam Genaway was posting about it. Yeah. And I I asked him, I was like, are you saying that Jay Stein has died? And he said, yeah. And they had become friends after that book. So I started looking around and couldn't find any other information about it. And I thought, this is weird because this is basically Universal's Walt Disney dying.

SPEAKER_01: 8:15

Right.

SPEAKER_05: 8:16

And nobody's saying anything. So I I wrote a piece for Boardwalk Times, just a short obituary about it. But so a little behind the scenes for people listening, my editor and I kind of sat on that a little bit because we couldn't find any other information other than Sam, who's a very nice man and a very responsible journalist. So we were pretty sure he was right. But we couldn't find any other information. Universal didn't post anything about it, didn't seem like any of the people who were in Stein's orbit who were still around were posting about it. It was weird. It has since been confirmed that Jay Stein did pass away. He was 88, though he might have been 87. This is how weird it is to try and find historical information about Jay Stein.

SPEAKER_11: 9:06

Yeah, his obituary on the on the Neptune Society here that says that he was 88. Yep. And he was in Bend, Oregon when he passed away.

SPEAKER_05: 9:14

That's right. The only other So there's there's three things you can find at this point. It's that, there's a thing on the Inside Universal site, which was the only one that printed anything concurrent with me. Right. And me. Yeah. And I I found myself being linked by other people. Um there's actually an NBC affiliate out of Orlando, Florida that linked to me. But I I didn't feel like it I was going to be the authoritative source on Jay's Time's passage. So thankfully some people did eventually weigh in, and obviously there's funeral information now in the Neptune Society. But it's weird because Universal has yet to say anything about it. Very bizarre. And Pete and I were just talking about the fact that Universal seems averse to preserving their history.

SPEAKER_11: 10:07

It's really weird. The research that Kelly and I have to do for this program, for those who listen and manage to stay awake every episode, uh you do know that we do get a little long-winded, and it's because we want to make sure that this information is out there rather than us just sitting on it. Because it damn it, it took us a long time to get this stuff. Or we've been storing in our heads, having glommed it from firsthand accounts, like some of the stuff that we've learned about various imagineers from Bob Gurr, we had to get from the horse himself. Or you get it from hearsay from other people within the industry. Otherwise, you can't find it. And time and time again, like when we did our Conan episode, when we did our Tumbleweeds in Transylvania episode, talking about Dracula, especially Castle Dracula Universal, which was a J Cy J Bang. It's damn near impossible to find real information, especially from Universal itself.

SPEAKER_05: 11:01

Yeah, it's it's a really it's really an interesting phenomenon. And the more you read about Universal, particularly in those early years of the park, so we we've talked about before the Universal studio tour goes back to like 1914. Like they they had they ran tours during the silent film era, they were pretty famous for it.

SPEAKER_11: 11:21

Well, and it was a silent era, so you could have people literally watch you film. On a live set, it didn't matter. Yeah, it didn't matter because no one was picking up sound. So people be eating popcorn, eating lunch, laughing, yelling, and stuff like that. The quiet on the set was just so that we they would tell people, okay, guys, you're too loud. They need to hear the directors. So shut up.

SPEAKER_05: 11:41

Right. But and much of Universal's tourism history for the 20th century is based around them trying to get people to pay money at the commissary. Yeah, well. Like if they truck people in to have them watch some movies, and then maybe they'll make some bank at the the commissary. Sure. And that that's not only true in the 1914s, that's also true in the 1960s, in the 1980s. That was true for a long time. They were like, how how do we get people in here to eat?

SPEAKER_11: 12:12

Well, yeah, they were probably actually taking a page from the Knott's, Mr. and Mrs. Knott. Absolutely. Running Mrs. Knott's chicken.

SPEAKER_05: 12:19

Tram Tour went dormant for a while. Universal's fortunes were were fading, as were a lot of the big old studios. In the 50s, early 60s, MCA, the Music Corporation of America, came in and bought Universal. Yes. Universal MCA. Yes, Universal MCA. And Jay Stein was an MCA man.

SPEAKER_11: 12:46

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05: 12:47

He had come out.

SPEAKER_11: 12:48

He was working in the mail room, 22 years old. Yeah. And he was working, he just got his butt in the mail room.

SPEAKER_05: 12:54

Right. And someone told him that he would by taking that job, he would get to deliver mail to really famous people. And he was like, that sounds good. He was just out of the National Guard. Why not?

SPEAKER_11: 13:05

Yeah. And and and and it just takes off from there. Now, here's what is so bizarre. Now, I I don't know about you, but I had a really hard time finding out how he actually got to power. So do you have that? Do you have that piece of information? Because I think it was like eight years. Talk about a meteoric rise. He literally starts off as a mailroom worker. Yeah. And within eight years, he's the president of the company.

SPEAKER_05: 13:30

Yeah. Well, he's he's the president of Universal Recreation. Oh, I see. So he's not the president of Universal. But that's still that's amazing. The two heads of Universal are really interesting guys. So the one is Sidney Scheinberg, who is he was a lawyer, he came up, he really nurtured a lot of talent. The reason that we have Steven Spielberg is because of Sidney Scheinberg. He he discovered Spielberg early on, really protected him, got him his first TV movies like working on Night Gallery and Duel.

SPEAKER_11: 14:06

Yeah, with what I love is that like didn't he wasn't his first episode with Joan Collins or something like that? It was. Yeah. Not Joan Collins. Crawford. Joan Crawford in all of her psychotic glory. Oh man. I want to see again. I want to see trees and grass and color.

SPEAKER_05: 14:24

And talk about throwing him in with the lions. Young kid. Oh my god. Yeah, it's crazy. And Spielberg will come back in our story in a little bit.

SPEAKER_06: 14:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05: 14:32

But uh even more interesting, and and I love this guy, is Lou Wasserman. Lou Wasserman is a remnant of old Hollywood. Yeah. He is the crazy tough guy, larger than life, like Hollywood mogul that you see in a Cohen Brothers movie. He's that guy. Right. And he has connections everywhere. He is quick-tempered, much like Jay becomes. He has been, he's just been with Universal forever. Right. And he is the kind in a many ways the last vestige of old studio system Hollywood. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 15:20

That's right. We've been in the in the industry now for some time here. And I want you to understand that I've been doing theme parks now for over 30 years. And if you don't understand that, you don't know where I'm coming from. Okay, that's enough of that. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03: 15:41

That's good.

SPEAKER_00: 15:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_11: 15:43

Really shitty. Marlon Brando. Okay, anyway.

SPEAKER_05: 15:47

So yeah, Washerman and Scheinberg are kind of the ruling the roost at Universal Studios. The tram tour gets relaunched in 1964. Stein is taking a couple of different jobs. Stein is clearly a go-getter. Oh, yeah. He's going to do what it takes. And he is also, fortunately or unfortunately, has a name very, very close to the founder of MCA, who is Jules Stein. Oh ho. So Jay Stein, not seemingly because he tried to, but Jay Stein gets a lot of deference by a lot of people who think he either is related to Jules Stein or is Jules Stein.

SPEAKER_11: 16:33

See, having a good name just gets you into places.

SPEAKER_05: 16:36

There is a great story where Jay Stein goes to deliver a message, which is his job, he's the mailroom guy, to Cary Grant.

SPEAKER_01: 16:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 16:47

And so he shows up and Cary Grant is sitting there, he's he's in the small trailer dressing room. He Jay walks in. Kerry Grant goes, without turning around, says, Are you Jay Stein? And Jay says, Yeah. Grant is sitting there like he's on his couch. He's in bare feet. Okay. Up on his makeup counter. And he's reading some legal document. He starts reading it out loud and saying, This is not what we agreed to. And he he starts kind of getting angry. And and eventually, and Gren never turns around. He's just like, hang on, wait a minute. You're just going to hear the end of this. And he keeps reading. And then he turns around and he goes, You're you're not Jules Stein.

SPEAKER_11: 17:38

Yeah, you Jay Stein. You're a kid. Your name is actually J, J Y, not J, period.

SPEAKER_05: 17:46

Supposedly, like at that point, Grant just laughed and got up and shook his hand. And they kind of became friends. They they met a couple of times later. Okay. But so he he started moving his way up the ranks, partially maybe because people were concerned that he was related to Jules, to the head of the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unintended nepotism in order to get you there. Trevor Burrus, Jr. But also because Lou Wasserman discovered that he could count on him. Yeah. And and he like Jay wasn't afraid. So Jay would do whatever it took to get something done, and also was willing to like take the brunt of something if it went wrong. So he just he he started moving up the ladder.

SPEAKER_11: 18:25

Trevor Burrus It reminds me a lot of the relationship between uh the filmmaker William Castle and uh Larry Cohn, the owner of uh Columbia. They had a very similar relationship, although Cohn was like the devil incarnate. And and Bill Castle, but Bill like was kind of like his favorite because Bill was unafraid and would just be a go-getter and he would just get the job done. And that's what that's where he got his reputation from.

SPEAKER_05: 18:48

Well, and so Jay's like working his way up the ladder, and weirdly, so they relaunched the tram tour in 1964. It's doing okay, it's actually making money. And weirdly, he gets called into one of his boss's offices and they say, Do you want to take over the tram tour? So in 1967, he just gets handed the tram tour. And that's that's the beginning of a career with universal recreation that lasts until 1993.

SPEAKER_11: 19:23

That's crazy. So just just to keep in mind with the with the tram tour itself, the tram tour, when we talk about the trams that we know and love today, you think of for some of us, we think of the blue ones. Right. But when I went, they still had the pink and white striped roofs, yeah, the glamour trams.

SPEAKER_05: 19:44

The glamour trams designed by Harper Gough.

SPEAKER_11: 19:46

Yep. And boy does it show. Yes, it does. They look like Jungle Cruise boats or Willy Wonka's boat. They do. And it's oh my gosh. And what I loved is that they basically look like uh giant like Harper was like, Oh, I gotta I gotta finish this thing for Walt, but I'm getting paid to work on some universal stuff. And what am I gonna do? How am I gonna make these trams look different? And he's looking at his drafting table and he sees a regular pink eraser. Yeah, if you remember the old style pink erasers, they're all like slanted diagonally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what those trams look like. They were all slanted diagonally. And if you think like, well, I'll just make them taller, and there's my tram. Like thanks, Harper. Jeez. And those trams ran for a while. Absolutely. Yeah. I think they went to like 76 or something like that. And they were reinstated, they would get fixed up. But the tra the notion of a tram tour, by the way, does actually go as far back as the old, old silent era tours. Yeah. They would have like big open-air tour buses to drive you around because you had to get people through all of the orange groves. Well, let's take you over to the western lot and then take you over there. But as far as an actual tram tour with very specific spots with the narrator, it's very jungle cruise. Yeah, oh, yeah. And what I always loved about the tram tours is they would actually tell you what movies were coming out because they would put eight and a half eight by tens and lobby cards all up on the under like advertisements. Right. So you're like, oh, that's what's oh wow, Psycho 2's coming. That's cool. Whoa, gremlins, that looks amazing. Yeah. Oh, and then they probably talk about it because they're promoting the movies. It was it was a self-sustaining tour to get you to go see the movies, but here you are at the tour, have some fun. Yeah. Like the eat at the commissary. Yeah, yeah, go eat at the commissary. Oh, and then and the studio tour was not, it would actually start in the old days. You go to Universal City, you go to the big parking lot, but it's at the top of the hill. Right. And everything kind of trickles down from that point on. Yeah. And you'd go through the main gates into the theme park, Universal Studios tour, because it wasn't a theme park yet. It was just the Universal Studio.

SPEAKER_05: 21:55

No, and it wasn't going to be really a theme park for a long time.

SPEAKER_11: 21:59

Yeah. So you'd show up and go, wow, the theme the studio tour. Yeah. So it's a real studio. Yeah. When I for me, yeah, Disneyland was cool, but my grandparents lived closer to Universal Studios. Yeah. So we tended to go there more, also because they knew even at an early age, I was already a cinemaphile. Absolutely. I was already I was already memorizing pages from famous monsters. Yeah. I was quoting movies. I would talk about celebrities. I was already reading up on film history.

SPEAKER_05: 22:25

I was literally just talking to my wife about my obsession with the Dr. Kildare movies when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_11: 22:32

So I I I feel you. So we went a lot. So I have distinct memories of going to this top lot. You'd wait in these long, it was almost like cattle cages. You'd have to wait in line. Yeah. And they would have costume characters come out, somebody dressed up as Lucy Arnaz or somebody dressed up as Charlie Chaplin, who would uh usually be a fellow at first whose name was Billy Scudder. Oh huh. Okay. Billy Scudder, and it would also be played by another actor later, Jeffrey Weissman. Mr. Weissman. Mr. Weissmann, who is a mutual friend of ours, actually. Yeah. For those who who might be like I don't really know him, but I have met him.

SPEAKER_05: 23:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_11: 23:09

He's a friend of yours. Uh yeah, I know Jeffrey, and he's a very sweet gentleman. For those who may not know the name, you probably have seen him if you're a fan of the Back to the Future movies. Yeah. He's he's involved with the controversy of replacing Crispin Glover as George McFly. Yeah. He was working in the back lots as a working actor. He was in Twilight Zone the movie. He was in Pale Rider. And he eventually wound up uh being in Back to the Future 2 because he would have constant connections with the casting director because this is where you broke in. You were working the studio tour, you were going to break in.

SPEAKER_03: 23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 23:44

Yeah. And uh there are several actors that that did that. Either they were tour guides or they were people that were playing Conan or whatever, they would wind up being extras or stunt people in action movies. Yeah. And Jeffrey wound up playing George McFly and Back to the Future 2 and 3. But Billy Scudder would portray Charlie Chaplin at Universal and actually wound up being the Charlie Chaplin that would appear in all the old, I think it was IBM commercials on television, in which it's it's easy for you to use. Word processing is so amazing. And you'd see Charlie Chaplin interacting with his computer. That was Billy Scudder. Oh, interesting. The point is that they would also have costume characters as Frankenstein, Dracula, the mummy, and that kind of stuff. And they were okay. But every once in a while, a celebrity would actually show up and get on the tram with you. Yeah. Like Alfred Hitchcock would do this occasionally because he didn't want to walk down the hill.

SPEAKER_10: 24:41

I'm going to get upon this tram. We're going to go on a little adventure. How do you do? I'm going to sit next to you for the next 25 minutes.

SPEAKER_11: 24:54

Like, how thrilling would that be to get on a thing and there's Alfred Hitch. Amazing. Yeah. And the tram tour, when Jay Stein came on board, was only two glamour trams. Right. Housed in a Quanzett hut. Yeah. That's it. So it's interesting. Right around that time, as Jay is up and coming in 1963. Yeah. We had Lou Wasterman, who was the president, asked his vice president Al Dorskein to look into the feasibility of creating a permanent tour, hence the tram tours. So that's why it reopens in 64. Right. So it started in 63, the discussions of this. So it was very, very quick.

SPEAKER_05: 25:29

Well, there was and and part of the reason they did that was because other people were giving tours. Yes. Like other people were just like, get on the bus, we'll go through Universal. Yeah. And they're like, well, if we're going to do that, if someone's going to do that, why wouldn't it be us?

SPEAKER_11: 25:46

Right. Right. And originally you would actually board the tour on Lancasham Boulevard, which is actually really far away from the backlot. Yes. You can't really walk to it. I know I've tried. Don't ask me how I did, but I did. But yeah, you had a lot of people working on this. You had art directors, Harper Goff, we already talked about him. Randall Duell, who was a designer of Jailhouse Rock and Singing in the Rain, was one of the designers of the Trams.

SPEAKER_05: 26:12

The founder of the Dual Loop, which is the kind of theme park that Six Flags Over Texas is. Yep. It's a it's a instead of the hub and spoke of Disneyland, it's it's a kind of loop setup.

SPEAKER_11: 26:23

Yep. And then Bud Darden, if that's pronounced or Dardana or Dardane. That one I don't know. He was uh a minibus designer. So I think Harper made it look good. And then Bud was kind of his Bob Gurr. Like let's make it work. Let's actually make it work. Harper designed the famous Candy Stripe glam trams. Randall worked on the Future Tour Center, which is the commissary. Yeah. Go get some food. Before the opening, the team decided to debut the Universal Tram, which was a two-car version, which had a six-cylinder engine and a manual transmission, and arranged a special inaugural tour of the Universal for the secretaries of Universal Studios. Nice. Unfortunately, the tram broke down in a remote section of the back lot, and the poor secretaries had to walk all the way back to their offices in the front. Dang it. But on June 17th, 1964, they were the tickets were being sold out of a temporary trailer on Lancasham Boulevard. Wow. The Universal Studio tour consisted of two trams and a handful of eager young tour guides. Yeah. Including John Ford III, grandson of famous Western director John Ford. Wow. Dan Milan, son of Academy Award acting Ray Milan. Okay. The man with X-ray eyes. So this kid is a tour guide. And the early tour was about 90 minutes and included a stop off at the Studio Commissary for a luncheon, a makeup show presented by Michael Westmore of the famous Westmore family. Holy cow! So the makeup artists, the Westmores have really cemented themselves. And for those who don't know, the Westmore family have been in Hollywood since the beginning of Hollywood. You can't you can't turn over a rock and not find a Westmore somewhere in Hollywood. Yeah. In its glory days in the 40s and 50s, there was literally a Westmore in charge of makeup at every single studio. There was one at MGM, there was one at Warner Brothers. Yeah. The most famous being Bud Westmore at Universal Studios. Yes. I have a love-hate relationship with Bud Westmore. He did some great work, but he also had a bit of an ego that got him into trouble many, many times and eventually got him fired from he also had a drinking problem. Yeah. One of the issues was that he was working on several films all at once. One of which was Abbon Costello Meet Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

SPEAKER_03: 28:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 28:42

And they needed a mask to a makeup design for Boris Karloff to wear as he turns into Mr. Hyde from Dr. Jekyll.

SPEAKER_05: 28:50

That's actually one of the few of the Abbott Costello horror ones I haven't seen.

SPEAKER_11: 28:54

It's not the greatest, and don't get me wrong, I still love it.

SPEAKER_05: 28:57

Yeah, because it's Karloff.

SPEAKER_11: 28:58

It's well, it's not just because it's Karloff. There's some great gags in there that you don't they're not recycling all the usual stuff. Yeah. Yes, they do the candle gag. You know all that stuff. Yeah. But there's some other stuff in there that's actually quite clever.

SPEAKER_03: 29:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 29:15

And it ends with this tour de force where everybody turns into Mr. Hyde. Why not? Sure. But in order to do that, they needed to hire somebody to do that. And it was a young woman whose name was Millicent Rossi. Millicent Rossi got her start actually as an animator.

SPEAKER_03: 29:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 29:31

Working with another universal legend, Bela Legosi, on the film Fantasia. Yeah. Because Bela Legosi was the model for the giant demon in Night on Bald Mountain. Chernobyl. Chernobyl. And she was one of the artists who sketched him as he's shirtless gesticulating to the music.

SPEAKER_05: 29:46

Yeah, and you can find pictures of this, folks. You can look it up. You can see pictures of Legosi doing Chernobyl.

SPEAKER_11: 29:52

Yep. Shirtless. Millicent unfortunately fell in love, well, fortunately and unfortunately, fell in love with a fellow animator at Disney, which was Verboten. Yeah at the Disney Studios. And unfortunately, everybody knew what was going on that she was having an affair with this guy. Unfortunately, his wife had a massive tantrum on the back lot at Disney, at the Disney Studios on Hyperion. And because it was a public spectacle, she also committed suicide.

SPEAKER_05: 30:17

Oh no.

SPEAKER_11: 30:18

But not long after they got married. And his last name was Patrick. She became Millicent Patrick. And because she got fired from Disney, she had to find work elsewhere. She worked at Warner Brothers only on a cartoon and a half. Yeah. Because she was also involved. She had then become involved with another actor who was the voice of the big bad wolf in Little Red Hot Riding Hood by Tex Avery. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 30:41

How you doing?

SPEAKER_11: 30:43

That voice actor.

SPEAKER_01: 30:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 30:44

But this guy was nuts. And eventually she said, forget it, I'm not doing animation anymore. And she just became a sketch artist to the stars. Yeah. She'd be behind the scenes drawing pictures of Kirk Douglas and Gene Kelly and all these other people. And word got around that she was a really good imaginative designer because she actually went to the Chenard School of Arts. Yeah. She was a classmate of Chuck Jones's. Oh. She was hired by Bud Westmore, who had taken over the makeup department from Jack Pierce, the legendary Jack Pierce, who created Frankenstein, Wolfman, the Mummy, the looks of these characters. So Millicent got a job work in the makeup department, and her first assignment was sculpting the mask of Mr. Hyde. Oh, for Avan Costello and meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yeah. And they were also working concurrently on a new project called The Black Lagoon. And they had designs of these creatures that look kind of like an eel or a leech, and it just looked more like a guy in a scuba outfit. Yeah. And they and Melissa said, Can I tinker with that? And he said, Yeah. And she's the creator of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 31:49

I have I have to you loaned me that book, The Lady from the Black Lagoon. I have to read that. Yes, you do. I uh we actually have two copies now, weirdly. Yeah. I read I read the follow-up book by that same author, which was A Daughter of Danger about Helen Gibson, the silent film stunt woman.

SPEAKER_11: 32:06

Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Oh, yeah. The the um Mallory O'Meara. Yes, Mallory O'Mira. Mallory O'Mira.

SPEAKER_05: 32:11

She's got a great podcast, too.

SPEAKER_11: 32:13

Yeah, she does. So, Mallory, thank you very much for a great book. Yeah. So, all the way back to Bud Westmore. We've gone down this weird little colour cul-de-sac, but it's a lot of fun. Bud Westmore got fired from Universal, but the Westmore family is huge. And if you've ever seen the TV show FaceOff, where they challenge up-and-coming makeup artists. I have a friend named Jason Hendricks, who I worked with. Hello, Jason, you're awesome. He was on FaceOff. It was a it was a way to test makeup effects artists. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a young Michael Westmore who shows up and gives him advice. That's the same Mike Westmore who would do the shows at Universal Studios. That's really cool. So when you got made up, you would show up. Now I didn't I didn't go to the original makeup show. I was I was pulled out of the audience. I was five years old, real tiny kid. They made me up as Eddie Munster in the show that was called uh The Land of a Thousand Faces. Right.

SPEAKER_05: 33:10

And that show becomes sort of transitions into the Castle Dracula show later. Yep, exactly. Which we did several episodes on, so you go back and listen to those.

SPEAKER_11: 33:19

We're not going to really go into that much. Yeah. Except for the fact that okay, I'll just say it now. Vern Langdon was one of the advisors because of his connection to Famous Monsters. Yeah. And to the Don Post Mask Studio, who had made the very expensive masks that would be on the back of every famous monsters magazine, otherwise known as the calendar masks. Yeah. Then there was there was cheapo masks that you would see on the inside, like the the vampire woman, the bad mummy, the ape man. And there was a dollar ninety-five for those rubber masks. And they were cheap, they were flimsy, they they they had the same thickness as a rubber glove. Yeah. But the Don Po studio masks were Hollywood quality, some of which were actually pulled from the actual plaster cast of the real celebrities. So the original Frankenstein mask was from the cast of Frankenstein worn by Glenn Strange.

SPEAKER_05: 34:14

By the way, Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, really underrated. It is kind of a great movie. I actually really do like it. I do too. I think it's really interesting.

SPEAKER_11: 34:21

Anyway, so Vern Langdon became one of the main advisors on Castle Dracula. Okay. And would enter into numerous discussions and have constant conflicts with how to fulfill Jay Stein's J Bang requirements on a castle. Like, for example, as we mentioned before, they wanted a swarm of bats to fly over the audience and like, well, they're nocturnal. Okay, well, let's spray paint pigeons black. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 34:47

Well, it wasn't pigeons at first, it was parrots or something. Oh, yeah. And they just left. Yeah, that's true. Like they opened them up, they flew off, and they never saw him again.

SPEAKER_11: 34:55

And it was a huge amphitheater, so the effect doesn't even work. It was done. There's already pigeons and birds. Like you've got mud sparrows and stuff living in that open-air amphitheater anyway.

SPEAKER_05: 35:05

Before we get to the amphitheater, which is important, let's jump back to the early transitions to the tram tour.

SPEAKER_11: 35:10

And how we're going to do it? Yeah. The Munsters. Okay. Let's hop on back to the Munsters. Because Vern Langdon was also associated with the Munsters production. And the Munsters is one of the great star attractions on the tram tour. Because they were still filming it then. Yeah. And you could visit the house, and sometimes you'd see Grandpa Munster or Herman or Lily or Eddie coming out. Or Bob Burns dressed up as Kogar entertaining the tram tour. Yeah. It was a real pain in the butt for them. But they did it because they were all team players. Yeah. But eventually, when they stopped filming, people still the Munsters were still very popular. Yeah. So they actually made it a spot where you could get off, walk through the Munsters House. 1313 Mockingbird Lane. Yep. And you could actually get a photo with Herman on his bed. Oh my god. And it was just a dummy with some electrical devices. So it wasn't anything major, but you got to see what a set looked like. Like everybody get out, and it was like this little main street. And for those who want to see what this main street really looks like, watch the Joe Dante movie The Burbs.

SPEAKER_03: 36:15

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 36:16

Because that is filmed almost entirely on the exact same street. Yeah. And one of the houses in that film is the Munster's House of 1313 Mockingbird Lane. And it's this weird little cul-de-sac on the back lot there. Yeah. And once you've seen it, you oh, there's Leave at the Beavers house. Oh, there's that person's house. So people are willing to see something a little bit more fantastical on this tour.

SPEAKER_04: 36:38

Well, and Jay Stein had had ideas.net, 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 BoardwalkTimes.net.

SPEAKER_11: 37:28

Well, and you know, Jay Stein had had ideas.

SPEAKER_05: 37:32

You know, he was full of energy and he he wanted to push what this tour could be. Now the tour was successful. He didn't have to save it. Oh, yeah. It was doing just fine, but he had ideas. The problem was that Sid Scheinberg wasn't that interested in investing too much into it. It was making money. It was not the business of the studio. It was a sideline. And he was pretty clear about that. But something really interesting happens. And Stein tries some stuff anyway. Oh, yeah. Like he's starting to throw some stuff in there. But an interesting thing happens the next year in 1968. The Screen Actors Guild bars visitors from visiting sound stages. So the Screen Actors Guild basically reach reaches out their enveloping arms to say we are protecting our actors from visitors. Oh man. And it and slowly it becomes everything starts to dry up. Like the tour doesn't have things to see anymore. There aren't actors really wandering around anymore. A lot of the sets are inside or their own location now. So Stein suddenly has a reason to start adding some spice to the tram tour.

SPEAKER_11: 38:49

Absolutely. And especially when you get to one of the first expansions, which is down to Prop Plaza. Yeah, yeah. It's an intermediate rest stop. And this was kind of like where you would be. I mean, this is kind of inspired by the Munster's House. Like, okay, we can stop places. You can actually let them off the tram. They're willing to get off, get on, get off, get on. Yeah. But Prop Plaza included the first animation. It was a Model T Ford that people could get in with a rotating canvas backdrop, old silent movie stuff. Oh, that's great. Uh rotating around. So you could pretend like you were driving and you get your Super 8 movie of you driving a car. Right. Kids loved it. It was something stupid and simple. But it it it really was increasing in demand. In its first year, the tram tour garnered 38,000 visitors. Wow. 38,000 visitors in its first year. Yeah. Okay, 64. So by the time we get by the time we get to Prop Plaza, it's double that.

SPEAKER_05: 39:45

Yeah. So it's what? Well, and and and by like 1967, they had had like a million visitors.

SPEAKER_11: 39:52

Eventually we wound up with another location that really begins the legacy of J Bang's, and it's all built around, funnily enough, the Black Lagoon. Yeah. The Black Lagoon is is uh built around a particular area of the park. Park Lake. Yes. Park Lake is actually this giant, muddy, green, algae-encrusted lagoon. Yeah. With lots of palms and lots of trees, mostly planted there to serve as South America for the creature from the Black Lagoon. Yeah. Eventually it would become portions of Gilligan's Island. Yeah. Oddly enough, there's a there's a place called Bora Gora that gets built on its shores, which is built specifically for the TV movie The Harlem Grobe Trotters on Gilligan's Island. It would also be used in shows like Tales of the Gold Monkey. It would also be used occasionally in the A-Team Magnum PI, especially it's in order to have like a dilapidated South American or dilapidated Hawaiian tropical Jamaican backdrop. But the lake has some interesting features to it. First off, it ain't that deep. Yeah, right. But it's man-made, it's it's man-made, and it ain't that deep, but it's deep enough that you could fall in it as a stunt person. Like you could you can you can have the creature grab Julie Adams and then fall off the edge of the Rita and go into the water without getting hurt. Yeah. But Jay decides to add a few things to this. One of the most famous is the parting of the Red Sea. Yeah. The Parting of the Red Sea, for you don't know, is that the tram tour, the actual drive, is on a is on a driveway, basically. It's it's got its own road. And the road just stops straight at the lake. Yes. Straight at Park Lake. Yeah. And at some point, the oh, we're gonna do some magic here. We're gonna it depends on the tour guide. Some people just go, oh, look, the water is parting. Yeah. But if you had a good tour guide that would say, no, let's pretend to be Moses. Yeah. We'll do some movie magic. Yeah, we'll do some movie magic. And the the waters would recede on this one little trail, and the tram would drive through. The water would be up at your eye level at where you're sitting. Yeah. So only the top part of the tram would be sticking out of the top of this. Yeah. If you want to know what this really looks like, watch Mel Brooks, The History of the World Part One. And there's a gag in which Comicus and all these other characters are trying to escape the Roman legions. Miracle the horse is leading him away. And they said, Well, it'll take a miracle to get us out of this one. And Moses, played by Mel Brooks, is standing on the edge and he raises his arms, and all of a sudden the waters recede, and the chariot drives through, and you think the heroes have been saved by Moses. But actually, there's a guy with a crossbow aiming behind Moses' back and keep them up. And he runs off going there, oh you son of a bitch, they won't let you walk, they won't let you breathe. And he goes off cursing in Yiddish. And it's it's a great gag, but it gives you it's a nice little time capsule as to how that attraction worked.

SPEAKER_05: 42:56

Yeah, yeah. And and I remember I did it many times. Oh, yeah. The parting of the Red Seas, and it was super neat. I thought it was cool.

SPEAKER_11: 43:03

Yeah. Now we had talked about Alfred Hitchcock showing up on the tour. Yes. There's footage of the tram tour that was a souvenir, it was a Super 8 movie that they used to sell at theme parks. You get a Super 8 reel that was kind of like a highlights reel of the theme park. So you didn't have to you didn't have to worry about the lighting. Like, don't don't worry about the lighting. Just enjoy the park. You could take the movie and say you did it. But on there is a certain celebrity who's helping part the Red Sea, and it's he's wearing a short sleeved shirt with a dickey. And it's Charlton Heston, Moses himself with his staff, and he just looks happy as a clam.

SPEAKER_05: 43:40

Oh yeah. He just seemed he seems so thrilled to be doing it. And he liked the tram tour. He was one of those actors that would deliberately come out and meet people. Oh yeah. He really enjoyed it. And some stars did. A lot of them had reached a point by that time, though, the late 60s, early 70s, that they were a little more gun shy about this sort of thing. Oh yeah. But yeah, it's it's great. And they Stein and he's working with these designers, and they're starting to add these little things. They're starting to add like a the flash flood, which comes 1968-ish. And he adds there's a burning house. Pete and I, before we started this, watched a film footage of the submarine attack. Well, the submarine attack.

SPEAKER_11: 44:21

I love that one because it was a full, it was a f it was like a half-sized submarine conning tower sticking out of the water. So they didn't actually build a full-size submarine, but they did in order to emphasize that you were seeing a submarine, they would line up all these models from various war movies. Yeah. Because they used to actually drive you through the props department. Yeah. And you could look up and you could see all these props, and you'd drive past the Edith Head building and see where they keep all the costumes. I used to work as a prop guy. Yeah. And for six months I had access to Universal's Prop Studio. Right. As in, I got to walk around and just kind of look. Yeah. And go, ooh. And a lot of it's just furniture. Right. But every once in a while you go, like, wait a minute, that's that prop. Oh.

SPEAKER_05: 45:05

They um they just kind of kept adding these weird little things.

SPEAKER_11: 45:10

It was punctuation. Kind of like a Jay Bang.

SPEAKER_05: 45:13

Very much like a J Bang. Like the collapsing bridge. Eventually, once we move into the 70s, we get uh like one of my favorite things, which was the rotating ice tunnel.

SPEAKER_11: 45:23

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 45:24

Which was originally a lot of people don't know this, and I didn't know it for a long time. Originally, it was supposed to be a tie-in to the Clint Eastwood movie The Iger Sanction.

SPEAKER_11: 45:33

Yeah. Wow. Obviously, you didn't know it either. I didn't know that either, because that is so obscure. Yeah. But I don't think Clint Eastwood knows that.

SPEAKER_05: 45:41

Probably not. But it got repurposed for a lot of stuff, most famously as the tunnel behind which the Andre the Giant Sasquatch lived in the six million dollar man episode. The story of Bigfoot. I think it was a two-parter.

SPEAKER_11: 45:58

Yeah, there's a story. Like, isn't Bigfoot like a robot or something? He's a robot played by Andre the Giant. And and like he's from like the lost city of Lang or something like that. Like they just went, like the writers were just like, they're stoned. They're trying to figure out like how we got to come up with a really good season ender. How are we going to do this? We got Andre to the Giant. What could he have? We could play up and play Bigfoot. What do we know about Bigfoot? And they turn on a Leonard Nimoy's in search of write all this down.

SPEAKER_05: 46:29

It's and it's so it was so great. Like when I was a kid. So, first off, this is, I think, the first time they built something for the tour that then got repurposed into actual production.

SPEAKER_11: 46:40

Oh, yeah. And the collapsing bridge was also follow-up to that.

SPEAKER_05: 46:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 46:45

I want to talk about one particular attraction there that is kind of silly. Uh-huh. But because of my love for King Kong, it does bear mentioning. Uh-huh. In the early 70s, there was the African village huts. Oh, I don't even know about that. That were over by the Bora Gora Inn. Yeah. And they're just like grass huts. It looks like Adventureland threw up in a little spot over in the corner there. Yeah. But the best part was this mechanical gorilla hanging, he's like hanging on a tree with one, with his foot on one part. Yeah. And it's the same type of mechanism that operates the uh the lost safari on the jungle cruise.

SPEAKER_05: 47:18

Uh-huh. Yeah, just up and down.

SPEAKER_11: 47:20

The just straight up and down motion. But most of the time, he would actually be holding a severed human arm. As he was like this rampant, vicious later years they took it out and put a banana in his hands there. He was a vicious gorilla. And I remember being terrible. Oh yeah, that gorilla's got a human arm. He's going to kill me. It's like my dad made a joke about it. He says, that's what happens when you put your arm outside the tram. And I thought, oh my God, that's terrifying. And it's and good work, Mr.

SPEAKER_05: 47:48

Overstreet.

SPEAKER_11: 47:48

Oh, yeah. Here it is. I've got a picture right here. There he is. There's the harm. Oh, that's amazing. Yes. It wasn't, it wasn't anything major. It was just like a little punctuation. And that's that's how J-Bangs really kind of start. It's like these little, like, hey, you're gonna have a submarine shoot a torpedo at you. Yeah. Hey, this bridge is gonna collapse on you. Yeah. Hey, you're gonna pull into a little Mexican village, and a flood's gonna happen. Flash flood.

SPEAKER_05: 48:12

Yeah. And and the J Bang, it was it was a term that his staff used, and it was a term that I think eventually he himself used. Yep. Which was it basically meant in whatever the thing is that's happening when it happens, what is the thing that is going to elicit the big response? Yep. And it can be a big emotional response, it can be fear, it can be joy, it can be anything, but there has to be one and and it has and it has to be big. Oh. And if you did not when when you were proposing something for the tour or later for the theme park, if it didn't have a J Bang or enough J Bangs, because one may not sustain it.

SPEAKER_11: 48:57

Yeah, it would get greenlit because of that. Yep. Yeah, fla the flash flood. Yeah. I used to love the flash flood. Yeah. And all it is is just literally just them dumping a water coming straight at you. But what it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_05: 49:10

Yeah, it's kind of cool. And Disney 100% ripped it off when they did the Disney MGM studio tour.

SPEAKER_11: 49:16

Yeah. So we will get to later.

SPEAKER_05: 49:18

Let's not jump ahead.

SPEAKER_11: 49:19

Soon enough because yeah, that's pretty crazy. There's also the avalanche.

SPEAKER_05: 49:23

Oh, yeah, yeah. With a bunch of styrofoam rocks thrown on you.

SPEAKER_11: 49:26

Yeah. Yeah. Like, okay, there's a runaway train. Yeah. That went that almost hit you. And then it starts to get impressive.

SPEAKER_05: 49:33

We hit this point like mid-six mid-70s. Things are going well. The tour's really taking off. They're trying to figure out how to expand the trams. Yep. So they're they're like launching a tram like every two minutes. I mean, it's just it's crazy. And they're they're starting to add big stuff. Now the universal collaboration with Steven Spielberg starts. But of course, at this point, Spielberg is not who he is going to be. He's making Jaws. And Sid Scheinberg's nurturing Spielberg, and he's like, hey, Jay, we're going to do something with this movie on the tour. Jay sees it. He he he gets it. So they start working on it. And of course, they couldn't have predicted how huge of a movie that was going to be. And they start working on putting the Jaws attack in the middle of the tram tour, which is still there today.

SPEAKER_11: 50:26

Yes, it is. And we did a whole episode about Jaws. That's right. So in Amity Island and all that. And go back to that episode, you'll be able to learn all about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 50:35

And to my mind, this is when the Universal Studio tour kind of goes national, right? Before that, it was like, oh, here's this thing that if you're down in LA anyway, you might go do this tour. There's a couple of fun things. But when Jaws happens, oh no, this is a big deal. Yeah. It's the biggest movie in the country, and you can go experience it live. And Spielberg loved it. Absolutely loved it. Now Spielberg and Stein's uh relationship could be a little contentious off and on through the years. How so? Well, Spiel Spielberg was protected by Sid Scheinberg, who was over Jay Stein. So if if Spielberg wanted something, he got it. And I then this is not to say that he was a jerk about it. No. But Jay Stein was going to get overruled because Scheinberg was protecting Spielberg for good reason. Spielberg was going to make this studio incredibly rich. Scheinberg was right. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And and as as that partnership goes on, and that partnership lasts to this day between Spielberg and the Universal theme parks, even though Universal's gone through many owners since, there is there is a sort of unspoken rule that Spielberg is the face that we want to put out front. So even though he's not really doing any of the work, and and he's he's making very few creative decisions. Most of the stuff's being designed without him. He has a certain amount of veto power over his own properties. Uh-huh. But he's he's he's just kind of like letting these guys do what they do, and they do it well. But Stein and his team do not, they are not the face. They're in the background, but they are also doing all the work. Yes, they are. They're designing and building everything. And the there is a little contention there. Stein understands the public needs to see someone like Spielberg, or in Disney's case, someone like George Lucas spearheading this stuff. Sure. But it also rankles a little.

SPEAKER_11: 52:48

Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I do want to mention another J-bang here. We're we're gonna do a whole episode about this, I'm sure, because why not? But ultimately, we do need to talk about this. We some of the stuff is like you've got a talking car with kit, but you also have you've got Cylons because you've got the Battle for Galactica. The Battle for Galactica. Which, again, we're gonna do a whole episode about it because it deserves its own. It's fascinating. But it is it's it's not quite a backlot tour and it's not quite a stunt show. It's everything and more. Yes. And overstays is welcome.

SPEAKER_05: 53:24

Yeah, no, it's it's there for a long time. It's there for almost like 13 years. I remember going through the Battle for Galactica, yeah, and this was a period. So this would have been the like 77, 78 or so. Yeah. So this was a period where there was no internet. You didn't know necessarily what was going to happen. I had no idea. Oh, yeah. And and I certainly I was a kid, I watched Battlestar Galactica. Oh, yeah. I knew what I was doing.

SPEAKER_11: 53:51

Like in the back of the tram.

SPEAKER_01: 53:52

Baltar was right!

SPEAKER_05: 53:56

Baltar lives. So I'm taking the tram tour. I've I've done it before. Sure. But all of a sudden we turn this corner and there's a cylon, a freaking Cylon with a gun pointed at us, demanding us to go inside a giant spaceship. Uh-huh. And I had no idea that was coming. And that is like a kid's dream come true.

SPEAKER_11: 54:16

Yeah, it's it's a quintessential jay bang. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolute quintessential jaybang of like, no, this is this is what we want.

SPEAKER_05: 54:24

Yeah. Yeah. And I agree. I think we'll do a whole Battle of Galactica thing, a show later. But what an what an amazing piece and expensive piece. I think it was the first piece where they used their version of animatronics, the theatre tronics systems.

SPEAKER_11: 54:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_05: 54:42

Yes. But but just just incredible. And then we've got a a couple of other things that come after that. We've got the earthquake thing that comes in the 80s.

SPEAKER_11: 54:54

Oh, yeah. Earthquake, which you go inside of a San Francisco BART train station. Yeah. And like a tanker falls through the ceiling, a Bartrain slams into the side of your tram. And that still happens today. Yeah. You can see that happens every time that I commute. Oh, no, you mean in the theme park? Oh, yeah. No, it's still it still runs. It's actually a very, very, very good representation. You had those are all 80s. And then you also have one of my absolute favorites, King Kong. Absolutely, yeah. King Kong. That again, that one has to get its own episode because we could go for hours on that one.

SPEAKER_05: 55:32

Yeah. And and and that's that is in many ways, that becomes the symbol of the tram ride. Um, it becomes the reason that you do it. Like first Jaws was initially, and then sort of the Battle for Galactica, but uh Kong was the thing that was like, oh my god. The Kong that was developed by Mr.

SPEAKER_11: 55:51

Bob Gerr. Bob Gerr, man. Yeah. And it was covered in I think it was bearskins. Jesus. Because they needed so many of them. Oh no, that was the original one. That was the original head. I forget what they got, but they they had to get a special type of fur to go over this gigantic. And apparently the head was like perfectly balanced that one person could push it and move it if they wanted to. Bob was such a great engineer. Right. But the other part, like I remember when they launched it, they made this big deal about building the head, designing it. There was a whole TV special. And Jonathan Winters, for some reason, was filmed, was the host of it. And the best part, the first time I ever did it, they they said in this special, oh yeah, he has banana breath. Yes. And he absolutely did. Yeah, I know. There's fake bananas. It was fake bananas break. It smells like laffy taffy bananas. Right. And it was great. It was like he has banana breath. That's awesome. Well it engaged the thing about King Kong, and this is what makes it a supreme J Bang. Yes. You've got sound, you've got light, you have you have the sensation of being shaken on the tram as Kong is shaking the bridge. And you've got the smell, you've got all of the senses are completely engaged. Yeah. Completely. And I think that's what makes it probably one of the first of the greatest of J Bangs of all time. Right. Because it engages every single one of the senses.

SPEAKER_05: 57:12

They have never they've tried King Kong attractions since. One done by Peter Jackson. There's some stuff in Florida now. Yeah. Nothing comes close. That first giant animatronic Kong was amazing.

SPEAKER_11: 57:25

And that giant animatronic was actually inspired, and again, we'll do an episode where we go more into it, was inspired by another animatronic of Kong that was developed for the remake, the 70s remake, designed and built by Carlo Rimbaldi. Yeah, yeah. Who is one of the inspirations and one of the people who worked on a film that would inspire another very popular J Bang, E.T. Oh, wow. He created E.T. Yeah. He was the designer and the creator of it. E.T. being a very popular 80s hit becomes a new attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood.

SPEAKER_05: 58:00

Yeah, but first it's going to become a new attraction in Universal Studios Florida, which we haven't built yet. Uh-huh. So let's keep going. So this gets us through most of the tram tour stuff that happens in Hollywood while Jay Stein is in charge. And he begins to kind of turn his gaze towards Florida, but something he builds something else in between that is really important. And that is the Universal Amphitheater. Yes. And that was Jay's baby. Oh boy. Yeah. It was, they were using it for shows for a while.

SPEAKER_11: 58:39

Famously. Yeah. Multi-million copy selling blues album. Oh. Blues brothers briefcase full of blues. Yeah. Which was the opening act for Steve Martin. Wow. Who got his own album out of that same concert that same night. That's crazy. So when you listen to those two albums, Steve Martin's crowd is completely worked up. Yeah. Because they've just seen the Blues Brothers. Like they're laughing at jokes, or you're like, that's not that funny.

SPEAKER_03: 59:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 59:06

And that's because they're coked out of their brains. They've obviously visited Main Street. But yes. But that album. So that's the Universal Amphitheater.

SPEAKER_05: 59:15

But so so before it was a smaller theater that they were doing other shows in. And this was this was how Jay was also peppering up the lot. He was putting stuff on the uh on the lower lot that was just shows like petting zoos and little little shows. And he he they had a theater that was in the Universal Amphitheaters place where they were doing some stuff. And they and and Jay decides that he wants to build a big concert venue. So they tear it down. Oh God. And they build the amphitheater. Now the amphitheater is large. Yeah. It comes up in like 71, 72. And they're not sure. Uh-huh. This is going to really pay off. But how they end up selling it with a big hit. And this ties into Jonathan Winters weirdly. Go ahead. Go ahead. Jesus Christ Superstar. What? They bring in a concert production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Wow. That plays for a while. It's sort of installed there. And it is massive. It is a huge, huge hit. Wow. And this is the point where Scheinberg and Wasserman are like, Stein knows what he's doing. That's cool. Yeah. And like the he he gets it. And the reason that after all this time, now we believe what you're doing. Well, at this point, he's only been running the thing for five years.

SPEAKER_11: 1:00:46

Well, yeah, but look at them honestly, seriously, like these guys take a lot of convincing with the sheer numbers of that have increased of the tram tour. Yeah. Of all these little little things that is now famous for. That they're selling merchandise off of it. Come on, guys.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:00

He he knows what he's doing. He builds the amphitheater. They put in there's a couple other shows that are kind of like, meh. They put in Jesus Christ Superstar, it explodes. It just explodes. Wow. And the reason that Jonathan Winters enters into this is that Jonathan Winters lived down the hill.

SPEAKER_11: 1:01:17

He lived in Universal City?

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:01:19

I thought he lived in Santa Barbara. That's wild. Must have been later.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:22

Yeah, it must have been later.

SPEAKER_11: 1:01:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:23

But there there were consistently noise problems with Universal Amphitheater, as you might expect. Universal is nestled in. There's not a lot of space in Universal Hollywood. And it it's this big hill, and then there's people. So there's there's noise problems, and finally Jonathan Winters calls someone, and he's like, Hey, this is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_09: 1:01:50

Like you kids just tone it down a little bit here because I'm trying to try to sleep down here. I just got to sleep.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:56

Someone, someone gets sent down, it might be Jay himself. Someone gets sent down to talk to Jonathan Winters. And they show up, and Winters pulls out a cassette player and starts playing the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar. And they're like, that's great. Were you at the show? He was like, No, I recorded this in my backyard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:02:23

Yeah. Probably not. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:27

And then after Jesus Christ Superstar was such a hit there, a year or so later, Bet Midler came in and just exploded the place. She was huge then. Oh, I know. But talk about a noise complaint. Yeah, right. She wasn't even using microphones. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:02:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:48

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. People adored her. She was just, she was so on the rise as a big star right then. Yeah. And that it was another big hit. And again, they had to just look at Stein and go, this guy, he's on to something. Yeah. You think? Yeah. And the and the amphitheater lasted till about 2013 or so. And the only reason they got rid of it was because of the Harry Potter expansion. Wow. Yeah, but it lasted for a long time. That is crazy. So they they start in the early 80s. Stein starts to look at Florida. It's you know, they've they've they've done kind of done what they can do, they think, in in Hollywood. Jay has some ambitions, but he is looking to Florida to because he's seen Disney go there. Right. And he thinks that they can just kind of nestle something in. You know, they're gonna they're gonna put something in down the road. At this point, he and the Universal and Disney are still on good terms. Okay. They have a they start like building up some designs for building a park in Florida. Sure. Now the park in Florida was also going to basically be a tram tour. They were pretty much just gonna try and replicate their success. So they start, they build all these plans and they are like, we need a partner in this. We can't we can't go this alone. Right. So they reach out to Paramount, uh-huh. Who is a high up at Paramount right then? One Mr. Michael Eisner.

SPEAKER_11: 1:04:26

Oh no. I see exactly where this is going.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04:30

They meet with Eisner and a couple other people from Paramount and open up the design books and say, This is what we're thinking about doing. Do you want to get in bed with us on this?

SPEAKER_10: 1:04:42

Oh man.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04:43

Paramount thinks about it briefly and then says, nah, we're gonna get out of that. And Stein thinks that that's over. Right. 1984, Eisner and Frank Wells as part of a very kind of ugly coup. Yeah. Um, which also saves the Disney company. Sure. But they are put in charge of Walt Disney. The next year, Michael Eisner makes an announcement. He announces that they are going to build a studio tour tram ride theme park in Florida called the Disney MGM Studios. Oh man.

SPEAKER_11: 1:05:29

It don't get no more blatant than that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:32

No, and and and this is this whole thing is so ugly. Stein and Scheinberg and Wasserman are furious. Oh, yeah. They un they get what's happened. And and this is not the only thing that Eisner does to try and keep Universal out of Florida. Oh, oh no. He is he is working a bunch of different angles. He's hanging things up politically. He's trying to keep grants that the state or the cities had promised from getting to Universal. He's threatening contractors. It's really bad. Wow. And and when a nice state you got here. Yeah, and there is there is a point where where Stein actually goes on the attack in the papers. Whoa. And it's incredible.

SPEAKER_11: 1:06:31

Like he just I've got one. On May 7th, 1987, there's an article written by Katherine Harris at the Los Angeles Times that says MCA official accuses Disney Company of blackmail tactics. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it says a simmering quarrel between two giant entertainment companies boiled over Wednesday when a high-ranking MCA official accused Walt Disney Company of using blackmail tactics to maintain its dominance in the Florida theme park business. MCA's fury was touched off by Disney proposals to build a$150 million to$300 million entertainment complex and tourist attraction in Burbank, just a few miles from MCA's own Universal Studios tours attraction.

SPEAKER_05: 1:07:16

Yeah. So that was the other thing they tried to do, is they were like, hey, we can also threaten you in California.

SPEAKER_11: 1:07:23

Yep. MCA Vice President Jay Stein alleged Wednesday that Disney had privately offered earlier this year to withdraw from the Burbank plan if MCA would give up its proposed Florida studio tour. Yeah. According to Stein, MCA vehemently spurned the offer, which has been relayed to top MCA executives by an intermediary who said that he had just met with a high-ranking Disney executive. The incident occurred six or seven weeks ago, Stein said. He declined to publicly identify either the messenger or the Disney executive. Eisner! There's a bullet with a Mickey Mouse hidden on it. Two top Disney executives denied Stein's allegations. Yeah. And as far as I know, we've never had a conversation with them in that area at all, said Disney chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:12

Except that he'd been in the freaking boardroom with them looking at the plans. Thank you. Like such a blatant lie.

SPEAKER_09: 1:08:18

Like, we're going forward with Burbank of the next year. Isn't that right, Mickey? Ha ha!

unknown: 1:08:21

You bet, Michael!

SPEAKER_09: 1:08:24

I have no idea what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_11: 1:08:25

Anything AMCI does or does not do, or anything anybody else does or does not do, will not affect our plans. Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios division, called Stein's allegation nonsense. It sounds to me like it's sour grapes.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:40

Of course, Jeffrey Katzenberg was about to no longer work for Disney and soon have an office with Steven Spielberg on the MCA Universal lot.

unknown: 1:08:50

Right?

SPEAKER_11: 1:08:50

Like this is this is such a crazy, crazy time. Stein, a veteran of MCA executive who has run the Universal Studios tour for the past 20 years, said that he recognized the seriousness of this accusation. There's no doubt in my mind what happened. Bang! He didn't say bang. Stein's contentions could present certain competitive issues that would have to be carefully analyzed by federal antitrust agencies, according to Stanley N. Gorenson, a Washington attorney who headed the special regulated industry section of the Justice Department's antitrust division for nearly five years during the Carter and Reagan administrations. If substantiated, the facts could be compared by at least some people to the facts in the American Airlines case, Gorenson said, alluding to a consent agree decree signed in 1985 by American Airlines and its chairman to end a government antitrust suit. Wow. Yeah, like this, and it goes on. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:47

I love the thing S Sidney Scheinberg said after the announcement was made. He said, the mouse has become a ravenous rat.

SPEAKER_11: 1:09:58

Well, he ain't wrong. No, really, no, he's not.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:02

And and it was so ugly, and it caused Stein to stop the plants. Right. And say, hang on. In in some ways, it was like we can't compete with them dollar for dollar. Right. But in some ways it was, what can we do to make them look bad? God. God. So they took out the tram tour. They duh they decided that they were going to, and this is from this point on, this is how Universal was going to do things. They start building individual attractions. Right. So there's not going to be a Kong on the tram tour. There's going to be a Kong ride.

SPEAKER_11: 1:10:43

Right. There's not going to be saying it ain't going to be on wheels. It's going to be a gondola.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:48

Right, right. You're not going to ride past Jaws. You're going to go on a boat in a lagoon where you have multiple shark attacks. Yeah. They're like, they just they just changed what they were doing. They also figured out, so there's a point where Eisner's making a whole bunch of proclamations about what Disney M Gym is going to be like. Right. And Universal is like, that doesn't sound right. So they they hire, and I'm not making this up, they hire an a Vietnam vet who has a helicopter to go fly over the construction site and get as close as he possibly can so that Stein and his buddies can take as many pictures as possible and figure out what's going on.

SPEAKER_11: 1:11:35

Wait, was his name TC?

SPEAKER_06: 1:11:47

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, in just a few moments, the window to the magic podcast show will begin.

SPEAKER_08: 1:11:57

My name is Patrick. My name is Calvin. I'm Mousketeer Greg. My name is Paul, and I will be your guide through the wonderful world of Disney sound experiences. This show is a weekly trip into the world of the Disney theme parks and resorts. And this is the place where you get to use your ears to surround yourself with the magic. For your safety, please remain seated while listening to the Windowthemagic.com podcast. Maybe there's a name for this, something like Disnotic of a section. Please visit window to the Magic.com for more information, or you can find us on Apple Podcasts and in the iHeartMedia app.

SPEAKER_11: 1:12:45

Like I'm imagining the whole Magnum PI, but it's Jay Stein doing all the stuff. He's holding the girl up while she's snorkeling. He's in the Ferrari and he looks in the camera with that little grin, but it's Jay Stein with his glasses and everything. Flying over Orlando. Wasserman is the butler guy. Sorry. Anyway. And as part of this Jay Stein, PI.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:13

I'd watch that show.

SPEAKER_11: 1:13:14

IDL of it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:17

As part of this deal, they really tighten the relationship with Spielberg. Yes. Spielberg gets a percentage of that park to this day. Jeez. Spielberg is probably richer from the percentage of Universal Studios Florida than he is from making movies.

SPEAKER_11: 1:13:35

At this point, probably.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:36

And and they're like, we he is our guy, he is our figurehead. We're going to base things around his properties like E.T. and Jaws and Back to the Future, which he produced. And that that is going to be our thing. But the other thing that they decide to do is they figure out that Disney MGM says that they're going to be an actual production studio, but they're pretty sure that's not what is what's going on. And they're going to make an actual production studio. So they literally build massive usable production facilities. Disney's built some, but there's not enough for it to be built in the world.

SPEAKER_11: 1:14:19

Well, I mean, there's only so many episodes of That's So Raven that they can do out there.

SPEAKER_05: 1:14:24

One of the things one of the things that they actually one of the first things that they shoot in Universal Florida is the new Leave It to Beaver show. Which says something. They kind of change the plan, they refocus, they decide, okay, we're going to go with something edgier. We're going to go with something louder. No kidding. And um hang on, I want to I want to read this great thing that Gary Goddard wrote. Sure. Gary Goddard is a designer we've run into him before on Back to the Future. He there's there's some stuff. Oh, we ran into him with Conan. Oh, yeah. There's some stuff with Goddard that's a little uncomfortable. But I know he wrote this thing, the Ten Commandments for Writing a Universal Studios Attraction. The Ten Commandments plus one for writing Universal Studios Attraction. One, thou shalt honor the rule of the J Bangs, and keep them wholly burned into thy brain ever and always, and never shalt thou stray from them, or thou wilt face the withering scorn and bellowing angry rage of hell itself. Two, thou shalt cut to the chase, for truly there is nothing to be gained by the writing of long dialogue scenes which causeth the audience to become bored and frustrated, and which may causeth them to leaveth the park early? For is it not written that we must take every penny from each guest before they depart the hallowed grounds?

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:04

What the hell?

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:05

Therefore, cut to the chase without mercy, that thou might retain thy job. Three, thou shalt not kill, unless thee devises the most grisly and spectacular death that shall bring the masses to their feet and spontaneous cries of ecstasy and pleasure. For as surely as the rains fall from heaven, so too shalt thou ensure that creatures with huge pointed teeth or razor sharp fangs find favor in your script. And blessed be he who will see that such creatures shall drip venom or blood as often as possible. For truly such writing will be praised from the rooftops of the high black tower. Honor the well-timed explosion and spread them as you would seeds for the fall harvest. For hath it not been written in stone that a universal show with no explosion is like the stillborn calf who will never see the light of day? Therefore, be generous in thy use of pyrotechnics, knowing that explosions are to our attractions as manna from heaven is to the parched and starved. Wow. Six We're not even done yet. Thou shalt cut to the chase again and again and yet again. For should your writing ever slow down the action, even for a moment, then surely you will be damned, and you shall be as with the plague, and thou shalt be written up and reprimanded and sent away to labor in the fields of crowd control or churro sales. 7. Never shall the attempt to pen the so-called message into your writing. For indeed you will be cursed from the highest office of the Black Tower, as a message hath no place in a universal attraction. Let your pen instead seek absolution through the use of the Holy Trinity of universal attractions, explosions, floods, and fires. And if addition, if addition, thou canst devise a staged pestilence of reigning toads or of windborne locusts or rivers of blood or other horrific spectacles, then surely there is a place for you at the coveted lunch table of Sid or Jay. Eight. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's attraction budget. For surely it is known that the magic kingdom has a treasury like no other. Therefore, thou shalt labor to create massive and spectacular attraction, attractions with budgets that are but a fraction of the kingdoms. And yea, though you walk through the bleak and dark valley of cheaper, better, faster, thou wilt find a way to succeed, or thou shalt dwell forever in the land of cruise ship shows. Nine. And be not like the foolish writer who crieth out in anguish that he must create something with heart and soul, unless, of course, the heart is being ripped out of some creature, or stabbed through with a long, sharp ice pick, or whilst the soul is being tortured with great spikes or burned at the stake. Ten. Thou shalt be as patient as Job, as you are beckoned to rewrite and rewrite and to rewrite once more. Yea, though thee are called upon to write one thousand times, never shalt thou complain nor refuse, for truly the rewrite is too universal as the gold is to Midas. And worry not that notes thou art given are moronic or without intelligence, but instead find thee a way to make it work. And most surely thou shalt inherit a blessed parking spot near the front of the lot, and be granted an annual pass to the park. And the most important commandment, the plus one, thou shalt always, always, always tell a great tale. Therefore, with all of the prior commandments in mind, be sure that thine writing hangs these elements on a great story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and another end, and yet another end for maximum effect. And let your tale be told in a manner that willst excite, surprise, and delight the masses, and always in a manner that puts each person in the midst of the action. For indeed, the passive sit and watch and skip and wave show hath no place in the land of universal. That's exhausting. It's Gary Goddard's Ten Commandments Plus One of writing Universal.

SPEAKER_11: 1:21:02

So they had a lot of time on their hands on that one. Makes you wonder like, was he like, did he listen to like a lot of Bernard Herman music while he was writing that or something? Yeah, maybe. He was just in the mood. Like pretty amazing, but wow.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:20

That's intense. And and he did a lot of work with them as they were starting to design Universal Studios Florida.

SPEAKER_11: 1:21:27

Wow. Well, it definitely says, like, when you when you think about what what we have, what Kelly has just read to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:36

And think of it often, ye shall.

SPEAKER_11: 1:21:38

Oh, yes, ye shall. It really does actually reflect a lot of the type of stuff that they wound up putting into Florida. Yes. And also back in Los Angeles, too. This attitude led to these monster rides. Right. Like Back to the Future, like the Star Trek experience, like the Conan Sword and Sorcery Spectacular.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:59

Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's really interesting because what it did. So the the Universal Park in Florida got held up for a while. Yeah. Partially because they had to rework the plans, because they were like, well, we can't be chasing Disney, even though Disney's stealing our stuff. Right. And but they also got held up because they were searching for a financial partner, which was a real problem because they people kept coming on board and then bailing and coming on board bailing. But when they finally got it open in 1990, it the first year of Universal Studios Florida is considered something of a disaster. You know, it's it's Disneyland's opening day, but over an entire year. It was brutal. Yeah. And they still outsold Disney MGM Studios that year. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 1:22:50

No amount of Rudy Belber, of the MGM uh studio tram tour ride to entertain you. Now sit back in your chairs and relax as we take you through the booby ride.

SPEAKER_05: 1:23:03

But so they Jay Stein argues for a long time because people keep coming to him like, we're not ready, we're not ready. And his argument is it's better to open and stumble for a while and fix it than it is to delay. And he's not wrong. He's not wrong.

SPEAKER_11: 1:23:20

He's actually not wrong. As a show planner myself, I have opened up haunts where I go, it ain't ready yet. Yeah. Let's give them what we can. And then the following week, well, that's when that's when real crunch time kicks, is that the the week after your opening day.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:23:36

Because you're going through going, fix this scare, fix that one. And okay, now it works. Yeah. It ain't exactly what we wanted, but it's what it works. But you learn a lot, and then you'll never make that mistake again.

SPEAKER_05: 1:23:47

Yeah, and and you're realists. That's what I love about Jay Stein. Absolutely. Like he he just is gonna go and he's going to to fight, and he's going to upset a lot of people. A lot of people will leave, and a lot of people will become very devoted to him. Absolutely. It just depends. But he's gonna get the damn thing open. Yeah. And it's going to force Disney's hand in a couple of ways. Yeah. One is that by he had a choice when Disney announced they were going to do Disney Gym, they could have pulled back. They could have said, we're just not going to take them on, or we're going to do something smaller that has gets a smaller bit. That's not Stein's way. No. Stein was like, we are going farther. Yep. We're going to push harder. We're going to do things they never would have imagined doing. And by doing that, he starts drawing attention to what Universal is doing. And then eventually they're replicating the rides back to Hollywood. And he's forcing Disney out of their comfort zone. Oh, yeah. Like Disney has lived in this bubble for a long time with these sort of legacy characters and producing their own IP. And he's like, that's not what we're doing anymore. We're getting IP. We're talking to Spielberg. We're talking to who who whoever.

SPEAKER_11: 1:25:08

Like we're going to plan it from the start.

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:10

Yeah, yeah. We're we're going to do Fival and we're going to do Miami Vice and Waterworld. And he's like, and that's the way the industry's going to work now because Jay Stein decides that's the way it's going to work now.

SPEAKER_11: 1:25:25

Yeah. You're absolutely correct on that. And it it creates a whole new culture at Universal. Yeah. They basically started off like, we're not in a theme park business, it's just a studio tour thing. And then it was Jay Stein that actually said, no, we're in the park business. We're entertaining people. This is a multimedia experience. That's what J Bangs really are. It's this multimedia, multi-sensory experience. Yeah. That transcends what a dark ride is or what a roller coaster is. There's a lot more to it. This is essentially where danger minus death equals thrills. Yes really gets become part of the DNA at Universal. And that Disney has been starting only now, only in the past 20 years have they actually really been catching up. Right. And even then, they're still struggling to catch up.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:13

His his plan and and certainly the Disney parks outsell the Universal Parks, but not by a ton anymore. And I've made this prediction for years, and I think it's going to come true pretty soon. I think Universal Studios Beijing is going to be the top attended theme park in the world very soon.

SPEAKER_11: 1:26:32

I agree.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:32

As far as yearly attendance goes.

SPEAKER_11: 1:26:34

Universal Now is with their Islands of Adventure, with the Universal Monsters and Are you talking about Epic Universe? Epic Universe. I'm sorry, Islands of Adventure is something else. Yeah. Sorry.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:46

And we need to talk about Islands of Adventure a little bit.

SPEAKER_11: 1:26:48

Yes, we do. So why don't you go ahead?

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:50

Well, so so Stein uh gets Universal Florida open. They start working out the kinks. They come up with a really clever plan, which is basically just give everybody a free pass to come back. Wow. Because things are broken and it's not working, and people are taking trips to see these things, and you show up to see Jaws, and Jaws isn't open for nine months. Go back and listen to our Jaws episode, everybody. Like all of this stuff, it's it's causing press problems with the press. It's causing public relations problems. They come up with this idea that for the first year, basically, they give everybody a free pass to come back next year. Which is great. It was brilliant. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. That next year, of course, attendance is massive because a lot of people get him free. Yes, but they all go to the commissary. That's right. They all they all buy their Moe's donuts and whatever. And and it's a success. It's it really takes off. And Jace immediately, even before Florida opens, he's talking about the next park. And he's saying, Look, I can see what Disney's trying to do down the road, and we can do it better. He's like, I can see what they're doing with like a third park and their pleasure island complex. Yep. And he's like, we can do that. We know nightclubs better than those guys know nightclubs.

SPEAKER_11: 1:28:12

Oh, and he starts were probably written in one.

SPEAKER_05: 1:28:15

Yeah, yes, probably. But he he starts talking about what will be their second gate, which is a thing he calls cartoon world. And his idea, so of course, this is a direct attack on Disney. He's like he's like, this is kind of our family friendlier side. We are going to try and buy the Warner Brothers characters, the Looney Tunes characters. And and I think we can really do this. Oh, uh this is a story worth telling, too, along the way. He's been suing Michael Eisner for like eight years. Just over and over and over for infringement. Eventually, Spielberg has to step in and tell Stein, like, stop suing Eisner at Disney. You gotta stop. Not a good idea. Yeah, it just it doesn't look good. But Stein has a white, hot hatred of these guys now. Oh, yeah. And to be fair, like they send some people, Stein won't go, but they send other people over to Disney MGM who've seen their own original plans, and they're walking around going, this is exactly architecture out of our plans. This is exactly taken from the things we showed Eisner.

SPEAKER_11: 1:29:36

It's it's just it's true. It's just who has the bigger lawyers.

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:39

And now that park, which is no longer called Disney MGM, but is now called Disney's Hollywood Studios, is it's the worst park in their portfolio. It's it's Disney's junk drawer.

SPEAKER_11: 1:29:50

Yeah, no, that's a great part. That's a great like the history, like it could have been called the history of the movies or something like that. Because they've got some fun stuff in there. Yeah, the Tower of Terror is still. There. I love that. The Indiana Jones stunts show spectaculars there. You've got Gertie the dinosaur selling ice cream, which is cool.

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:08

And there's some really neat themed restaurants.

SPEAKER_11: 1:30:10

Yeah. And the the drive-in. I don't think the drive-in restaurant exists anymore. No, it's still there. The sci-fi drive-in, yeah. Oh, good. Because I love that one.

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:16

Um and the primetime cafe.

SPEAKER_11: 1:30:18

Yeah, the primetime cafe. It's kind of this big meh. It's just all over the place. Yeah. They they and you know, I think I was like one of the on the one of the last few tours of the movie ride. Oh, that was I love that ride. It was it's pretty clever. We'll talk about that particular ride without bringing up Jay Stein too much in a future episode. But yeah, it's yeah, there's some good stuff to it, but it doesn't have the cohesion that some of the other Disney parks have.

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:42

Stein comes in like with this cartoon world idea. And to jump to the end of the story, about 50% of that idea gets built as Islands of Adventure. Yeah. But Universal starts going through ownership changes. Yep.

SPEAKER_11: 1:30:58

So Japanese company that buys them.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:02

Yeah, and Seagrams buys them for a while. Who knew that Seagrams had that much money?

SPEAKER_11: 1:31:07

Yeah, well, they didn't last long as an owner. No, they bombed out pretty quick. Not enough people were going to the commissary.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:13

And there's they are really struggling to get the Looney Tunes characters, which have been licensed to Six Lags for a while. Yep. And they could have, but there was an argument between Scheinberg and the person that we're they were negotiating with at Warner's. Oh dear. And Scheinberg got mad. Uh-oh. So for not too much more, they could have had those characters. Scheinberg made it a point of principal and held his ground and they didn't get them. So at that point, things start to look a little shaky for Jay's cartoon world. Right. He's he is very rightly so concerned about trying to make a cartoon-themed theme park with a whole bunch of disparate B-level cartoons. Sure. Like Hannah Barbera's great, but it's not enough. So he's he's fighting. Spielberg is about to release Jurassic Park. Yep. Spielberg wants a land. Oh yeah. And Stein is like, yes, you should have that, but not in cartoon world. Right. Yep. So there that that's going on.

SPEAKER_11: 1:32:15

Yeah, this big hill that we could put it on. Yeah, right. Jurassic Park ride.

SPEAKER_05: 1:32:19

Yeah. And then at at a certain point, like you MCA loses control of Universal, partially because Lou Wasserman's older and tired. He's been with Hollywood in Hollywood since the like late 30s, early 40s. He is and he is part of a different time. Yes, he is. And he's ready to be done. Sure. Well, a Japanese company comes in and and buys them out. Right. And at that point, Stein is done. Yep. He he's like, he's he's starting not to be listened to anymore. He's losing Wasserman, who is a big defender. And he just decides to go. And he's like, you can keep me as a consultant for a while. And also, once they could not get the war the Looney Tunes characters done, his cartoon World Dream was really falling apart. And he and he realized that they were going to listen to Spielberg if Spielberg wanted a Jurassic Parkland. Right. So he he resigns. 1993. And there's a a really beautiful moment in Sam's book where uh Spielberg calls him after he resigns. And there's been some contention between the two of them. Jay's smart enough to know that he's that Spielberg is the goose that lays the golden egg. So he's he's he understands he needs to be good to this guy. Sure. But there's there's some things. And Spielberg calls Jay directly and says, What the hell, Jay? Like, why why are you I I seeing what you're writing, yeah, this is not it. Right. And finally Jay unloads and he says, Look, like I'm I'm going to have no more say that I've devoted what almost 30 years at this point to developing this industry he has now built. Oh yeah. And like Florida's starting to that park's flourishing, the rides are coming back to Hollywood. Hollywood's flourishing. They've got the top and the lower lot like really just rolling in Hollywood. Like horror night stuff is starting to happen. They're just they're making a ton of money. And he's like, I'm I just I'm not in charge anymore. It's not worth it for me. And Spielberg kind of begs him, like, just sleep on it. Don't don't do this. Sure. And and and Jay's like, no, no, no, I'm done. Yeah. But it's a r it's a it's a really sweet moment of kind of humility of Spielberg going, no, no, no. I know what you did. I know how much you've done.

SPEAKER_11: 1:34:50

Yeah. Based on all accounts that we've read and we've gone over, Jay Stein probably was not the most easygoing of people. No, he was very difficult. Yeah, very difficult individual, which probably explains why Universal Studios to this day doesn't really talk about him much, and even after his death, he hasn't even mentioned it. So this is why Kelly and I have decided to do this episode. Yeah. Normally with our episodes, we usually do a plus up. Yeah. I'm not exactly sure what that would be here. What that would be here. But I will say that to to we're kind of at your zenith here. There's a couple things. One is I I do want to from a personal point of view, even without knowing who Jay Stein was, I was already applying a lot of these things to the haunted houses that I do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:35:37

You have to have and because I would treat them less like Disney. Now I have a friend named Stuart who also does haunted houses. He approaches his haunt more like Disney.

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:45

Yeah, I've met Stuart.

SPEAKER_11: 1:35:46

Nice guy. Yeah, Stuart Kurumoto. Very nice guy. He run he runs his own haunt down in Santa Clara. Really wonderful guy. Hello, Stuart.

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:53

I think he listens, actually.

SPEAKER_11: 1:35:54

He does. He's he's a wonderful, wonderful human being.

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:35:58

But he and I have always been different in how we approach our haunts.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:36:01

I've always been more of a Jay Stein Universal Studios type. Where yes, you're gonna have mood, you're gonna have this, but I'm gonna give you a couple things that you're gonna remember. Yeah, right. I'm gonna punctuate it with some stuff. And Stuart does that well as also with his shows, but he tends to end it, he tends to aim it a lot more like Disney, where Disney's approach is a lot more gentle. Yeah. Because Jay Stein was not gentle, and nor am I. You're right. And I actually I'm actually pretty infamous in some of these haunts to really take some chances. Yeah. Some of which actually have grossed out even Stuart, most notably a mannequin vomiting into a toilet nonstop at one point. Oh my god. Yeah, that was that was how we first met. But that's I'll let Stuart tell that story sometime. Stuart, do you want to be a guest on the show? Come on up, we'll do it. We'll have some fun. Welcome. We'll grab dinner and we'll we'd love to talk about your haunt. Yeah. But anyway, I would like to wrap up this show, as I think we should, by talking about innovations that are currently coming out there that are very based off of this kind of Jstein attitude. Yeah. And one of which is the application of artificial intelligence in the development of theme parks.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:37:04

AI comes with so many issues, especially from a creative standpoint. However, I do like to say that I will say and come out and say that look, AI can actually be a useful tool in certain circumstances. Sure. Sure. It can be very helpful when it is assisting you, not doing the whole job for you. And it's like small algorithms, that kind of thing. So it's not an end-all be-all. Yeah. So to pay tribute to end our show, I before we did this, about 24 hours before we're recording this, I sat down on full disclosure on Suno.ai, and I wrote, I wrote the lyrics for a song about Jay Stein. Yeah. In all in only a J-Bangy way that would like work really well at the Universal Amphitheater. So you're going to have to imagine all the explosions and no message whatsoever. Yeah. It obeys when you're reading the Ten Commandments, it totally read it. We're going to put that at the end of this episode here, just for fun, as a little tribute to Jay Stein.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:09

I I will say, so I I have just the slightest plus up. And and I will say, like, go out and read Sam Genaway's books about Jay. They're terrific. We didn't at all touch on Jay setting up the tourist trams for the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which he did. Jay running the concessions in Yosemite National Park for years and years and years.

SPEAKER_11: 1:38:32

Where people definitely went to the concession stand.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:34

They did. There was a heck of a lot of stuff that the guy did that was that was amazing and impressive. And I will say my sole plus up would be Universal, come on, acknowledge the guy. Yeah. He's he is he is where this all starts for you.

SPEAKER_11: 1:38:51

Yep. And our our collective condolences also to Stein's uh surviving family. Uh we are sorry for your loss. We want to thank him and all of you for supporting him throughout all these years for changing the industry that we know and love. Yep, absolutely. So all right, it's time to cue the lights. Start up the Pyrotechnics. It's time for our tribute. I'm Peter Overstreet. And I'm Kelly McGovern. And you're listening to Lowdown on the Plus Up.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:19

Hit it, guys. Our story begins 1959 at MCA, where young Jay Stein started as a mailroom resident, and in eight years became the president. How'd he do it? I hear you say, well, for bad ideas, there'd be hell to play. OJ had a way of relating. The biggest ideas were the same. It's a J Black Here the people as they say. Only big ideas could be the baseline. You can muster with old J S time. But soon the universal studios tour was revamped with trams to add a luck. The red sea farting and the lesson flesh blood and brothers bubble with blood. The tram tour's beginning to make clouds. He didn't care about expense number than a hassle.

SPEAKER_06: 1:40:23

Boys, I want you to build me a castle.