When Common Studios Florida opened in Orlando on June 7, 1990, it provided a pair dozen of rides, reveals, and sights.
Out of all of them, solely two stay in operation immediately: E.T. Journey and the Horror Make-Up Present. The remainder have all gone to that nice theme park within the sky (the place, one assumes, there aren’t any traces and no upcharge for utilizing Categorical Passes). Via the years, Common’s parks in Florida, Hollywood, and Japan have closed tons of rides to make room for brand spanking new ones — even a number of which can be (or now had been) inextricably linked with the Common model.
Here’s a record of 20 such sights, together with movies of every one in motion so you’ll be able to relive them yet another time – 3D glasses and flying DeLoreans not included.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Artwork of Making Motion pictures
Lately, Common’s theme parks are solely dedicated to immersive rides and environments that permit visitors really feel like they’ve stepped inside their favourite films and reveals. That’s a stark distinction to their parks’ preliminary idea, which was a spot the place vacationers realized the secrets and techniques of a movie and TV manufacturing, with a pair larger rides thrown in for some further oomph. Among the finest examples of old-school Common was Alfred Hitchcock: The Artwork of Making Motion pictures. After a 3D spotlight bundle of Hitchcock movies was interrupted by the celebrities of The Birds, visitors had been ushered right into a soundstage the place a “director” and his “crew” defined how Hitchcock shot Psycho’s bathe scene. The finale of the attraction was an interactive space the place visitors who take part in demonstrations of the sensible film magic behind Hitchcock films like Strangers on a Prepare, Rear Window, and Saboteur. It was like a cross between a thrill experience and a museum — and for a budding cinephile, it was a paradise.
Again to the Future: The Journey
The unforgettable Again to the Future: The Journey was a simulator that permit guests board an impressively detailed copy of the franchise’s DeLorean time machine for a aerial chase by way of the centuries. (The story of the experience, which performed out in pre-show movies that includes Christopher Lloyd and Thomas F. Wilson, was about Biff stealing a time machine and Doc sending vacationers in his new eight-seater, remote-controlled DeLorean to catch him.) With particular results by 2001: A Area Odyssey legend Douglas Trumbull, BTTF:TR lived as much as the outdated Common slogan that promised a trip the place you can “experience the films.” Its closure was inevitable; the “future” of the Again to the Future franchise is 2015, which is now a decade outdated. The 2 American variations of the attraction closed by the late 2000s, though Common Studios Japan’s model managed to hold on till 2016 — one 12 months after Marty and Doc went again to the longer term.
READ MORE: 15 Beloved Disney Rides That No Longer Exist
Backdraft
One other of Common’s early how-they-do-it-style sights was Backdraft, based mostly on the 1991 Ron Howard movie a few crew of heroic firefighters. This present, which performed at Common Studios Hollywood from 1992 to 2010, and at Common Studios Japan from 2001 to 2020, included a number of behind-the-scenes movies that includes Howard and the Backdraft forged after which a sensible fireplace results demonstration on one of many Common soundstages. Backdraft by no means bought a sequel (at the least till a direct-to-video one in 2019) and the rise of CGI step by step made sensible wizardry just like the stuff on show in Backdraft and its accompanying attraction, far much less thrilling to vacationers. The buildings that after housed this attraction is now the house of an elaborate 3D darkish experience impressed by Transformers.
Beetlejuice’s Rock and Roll Graveyard Revue
The historical past of Common’s parks is affected by every kind of stage reveals, usually fairly elaborate and musical in nature, most of which at the moment are as useless as Physician Frankenstein’s signature creation. For a few years the Common parks in Hollywood and Florida had been dwelling to a song-and-dance extravaganza that includes Beetlejuice and the corporate’s well-known film monsters like Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera, and the Wolfman. As a result of once you consider bio-exorcists, undead ghouls, and diverse different horror icons, you additionally consider the basic disco anthem “I Will Survive.” Technically, this one isn’t completely extinct — in case you go to Common Studios Japan you’ll be able to nonetheless see the Common Monsters sing their Graveyard Revue. However that’s fairly a trek simply to listen to Dracula do a spooky rendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”
Dynamite Nights Stunt Spectacular
Stunt reveals had been one other cornerstone of the old fashioned Common Studios. In Hollywood, the basic Waterworld stunt present continues to be going sturdy, however in Florida, there isn’t actually a comparable attraction. When that park first opened, they’d one thing known as the “Dynamite Nights Stunt Spectacular,” whose Miami Vice-impressed mixture of boat chases and explosions was like The Fall Man film come to life. If it had been as much as me, no theme park could be allowed to function with out at the least one actually nice stunt spectacular. It needs to be required.
Earthquake: The Massive One
Earthquake: The Massive One was one other good instance of the outdated “experience the films” Common ethos. The primary occasion was a modified model of the outdated Earthquake attraction from the Common Hollywood tram tour, however earlier than visitors boarded their trams they had been handled to a number of rooms filled with sensible results demonstrations impressed by the 1974 movie. In fact, Earthquake was already a really outdated film by the point this experience even opened; in 2007, the Earthquake particular parts had been eliminated and the attraction was renamed Catastrophe! A Main Movement Image Journey … Starring You! Now the pre-show featured a hologram of Christopher Walken enjoying a studio govt named Frank Kincaid, who recruited visitors to play extras in his newest film. After the earthquake finale, guests watched a trailer for the film they supposedly helped make, which was known as “Mutha Nature” and featured a cameo from Dwayne Johnson. Catastrophe! closed in 2015 and the constructing was retrofitted to accommodate one other transplanted tram tour cease from Hollywood, Quick & Livid: Supercharged.
Fievel’s Playland
Each theme park wants a playground to distract little children for a couple of minutes whereas their mother and father take a break from the countless meet-and-greet traces. For a few years, Common Studios’ was Fievel’s Playland, themed to the now-mostly-forgotten animated franchise An American Tail. Its two movies adopted an adventurous mouse who immigrates to America along with his household. Accordingly, the playground featured gigantic variations of on a regular basis objects so that youngsters may get a style of what it felt prefer to be the dimensions of a mouse. Though An American Tail principally light into obscured by the twenty first century, Florida’s Fievel’s Playland endured for an inexplicably very long time, and solely closed in early 2023. There’s now a Shrek-themed playground as an alternative.
Ghostbusters Spooktacular
Ghostbusters is a Sony property, an organization with no main foothold within the theme park trade. Consequently, the franchise has had a low variety of theme park sights relative to its generational reputation. However within the early Nineteen Nineties, Common licensed the Ghostbusters property for an attraction that used the identical Pepper’s ghost phantasm from Disney’s Haunted Mansion to flip the climactic combat between the Ghostbusters and Gozer right into a 20-minute stage present. Over its six-year run at Common Studios Florida, Ghostbusters Spooktacular existed in two distinct kinds, one which hewed nearer to the story of the primary Ghostbusters film, and a second variation involving Louis Tully (Rick Moranis’ dweeby accountant character) and Walter Peck (the EPA jerk performed by William Atherton). With no new Ghostbusters films or reveals on the horizon within the mid-’90s, Common closed the present and changed it with a staged attraction based mostly on the studio’s latest blockbuster, Tornado. (It was changed a number of years in the past by a Tonight Present simulator experience.)
The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera
The left facet of Common Studios Florida’s fundamental thoroughfare has housed a sequence of massive simulator rides all through the park’s historical past. The very first was known as The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, and it featured quite a lot of characters from the Hanna-Barbera catalogue attempting to rescue a kidnapped Elroy Jenson from the villainous Dick Dastardly. It was basically a tamer and fewer expertise refined model of Again to the Future: The Journey geared towards youthful children. In 2003, this experience was modified to … one other extinct attraction on this record.
Hercules and Xena: Wizards of the Display
Common Studios Florida’s opening overlapped with the heyday of syndicated tv programming, none of it larger than the two-headed journey present hydra of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. When the earlier topic of Common’s attraction all about TV manufacturing was canceled in 1996, they re-themed the present to be based mostly across the two fashionable sequence. However then Hercules was canceled in 1999 too. Wizards of the Display was carried out for the ultimate time in early 2000; this space of the park is now dwelling to Transformers: The Journey.
Jaws: The Journey
Everybody appears to benefit from the Diagon Alley space of Common Studios Hollywood, impressed by the Harry Potter franchise. As a lot as I really like a cup of frozen butterbeer, I’ll all the time maintain a grudge in opposition to the place as a result of to make room for it, Common closed the outdated Amity part of the park, which included the basic Jaws experience. The attraction was like a scary, effects-laden model of Disney’s Jungle Cruise; visitors boarded a tour boat for a visit round Amity, solely to be uncover all kinds of wreckage and chaos, after which Bruce the Shark himself. Jaded trendy audiences may not be impressed, however to a child within the Nineteen Nineties, this was the peak of pleasure — at the least as soon as Common labored out all of the kinks that brought about the experience to interrupt down usually for the primary two years of its existence. Like the Common Monsters revue, this one nonetheless lives on in Japan … if you may get there.
Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast
In 2003, the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera turned Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast, a really comparable attraction that starred Jimmy Neutron and a number of other different Nickelodeon characters. That model lasted till 2012, when the experience was once more up to date to characteristic the forged of the Despicable Me franchise, owned by Common. Whereas the movie has modified drastically by way of the years, the fundamental expertise stays principally the identical; individuals sit in a big theater outfitted with shifting seats that rock together with the picture onscreen.
Kongfrontation
King Kong has been a mainstay in Common’s varied theme parks because the mid-Nineteen Eighties, when an enormous King Kong animatronic was added to the Studio Tour at Common Studios Hollywood. That was expanded to a full-blown attraction at Common Studios Florida known as Kongfrontation. Within the extensively themed experience, visitors had been evacuated from Manhattan on the Roosevelt Island Tramway after Kong begins operating amok. Naturally, the evacuation does not go easily, and Kong grabs the tram earlier than it makes a last-second getaway. It was a surprisingly intense expertise with enjoyable touches — like the truth that the Kong animatronic’s “breath” smelled like bananas. Kong was put out to pasture in 2002 to make means for a curler coaster impressed by The Mummy franchise, however the nice ape has since discovered a brand new dwelling at close by Islands of Journey, the place an attraction known as Cranium Island: Reign of Kong opened in 2016.
Lucy: A Tribute
Maybe the best attraction within the historical past of Common Studios Florida, Lucy: A Tribute was principally a miniature museum devoted to Lucille Ball and I Love Lucy. It sounds extremely dated, however the attraction opened in 1992, a pair years after Ball’s demise, at a time when nostalgia for her basic sitcom was nonetheless very excessive. The exhibit included artifacts from Ball’s profession, interactive quizzes, and a mannequin that recreated the unique I Love Lucy set in exacting element. Lucy: A Tribute survived in a small constructing on the entrance of the park for nearly 25 years earlier than Common turned the house right into a Hey Kitty store (and later Depraved: The Expertise).
Homicide, She Wrote Thriller Theater
Youngs immediately would possibly discover it exhausting to imagine, however for 12 years within the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s, one in every of broadcast TV’s largest hits was a quaint present a few author (Angela Lansbury) fixing mysteries in slightly city in Maine. The present was so massive, the truth is, that it bought its personal opening day attraction at Common Studios Florida: The Homicide, She Wrote Thriller Theater. It was one more of the park’s behind-the-scenes reveals, and it targeted totally on the post-production course of. Friends moved by way of a sequence of rooms, every targeted on a special facet of TV making, like enhancing, foley work, and ADR. Volunteers bought to strive a few of these features for themselves, and watch the Homicide, She Wrote scenes they helped to create. After Homicide, She Wrote was lastly canceled in 1996, it was changed by the aforementioned Hercules and Xena present.
Nickelodeon Studios
Common Studios Florida wasn’t only a gimmicky title again within the early ’90s; the place actually was a working movie and TV studio — most notably as the house of “Nickelodeon Studios,” the place the favored cable channel shot lots of its recreation reveals and sketch comedy sequence. In a canny little bit of synergy, each present made at Nickelodeon Studios was additionally a business for Common Studios Florida, as a result of they ended with a graphic asserting the place they had been made. Children who made the trek to Orlando may take a tour of the power, the place one fortunate visitor bought slimed within the “Sport Lab,” and sit within the studio viewers if there was a present in manufacturing throughout their go to. Finally, the novelty of the place wore off, as Nickelodeon started making fewer live-action applications and shifting an increasing number of of their remaining ones again to Los Angeles. The studio closed for good in 2005. For a few years a manufacturing of Blue Man Group occupied the constructing. Because the Covid pandemic, Common has used the venue to host a vacation present starring the Grinch.
Display Take a look at Theatre
Bear in mind: When Common first turned their studio right into a theme park, there isn’t a such factor as a smartphone. Shopper-grade video cameras are nonetheless years away. Making your personal TV present is successfully unimaginable, therefore the attraction of sights like Display Take a look at Theatre, which let vacationers create their very own mock-ups of fashionable films and tv reveals. One model from the Nineteen Seventies inserted visitors into Airport ’77; later, they there was a Star Trek possibility shot on a surprisingly detailed recreation of the outdated Enterprise bridge. Clearly, these kinds of sights — which often gave contributors the choice to purchase a memento VHS of their creations — maintain rather a lot much less attraction in a world the place you’ll be able to shoot your personal TV present in your telephone and add it to YouTube.
Shrek 4-D
The aforementioned Alfred Hitchcock attraction in Florida was closed to make room for Shrek 4-D, an animated film with in-theater results together with vibrating seats, water, and gusts of wind. Opened on the top of the preliminary Shrek mania, Common step by step started winding down these Shrek 3D films within the mid-2010s, after the franchise initially petered out. (The Japanese attraction managed to carry on; it nonetheless operates part-time in a theater it shares with a Sesame Avenue 3D attraction.) However right here’s the factor: Shrek is again. He’s bought a brand new film opening in 2026, and he’s already obtained new Common sights; in 2024, Common Florida added a brand new meet and greet with Shrek characters in their very own little swamp space. So may we see the return of Shrek 4-D? Or — dare we even dream it — a Shrek 4-D-2?
Particular Results Stage
Common Studios Hollywood has hosted quite a lot of make-up and particular results reveals all through its historical past, beginning within the mid-Nineteen Seventies. By the 2010s, the particular results present (generally known as the Particular Results Stage) discovered a house on the Citadel Theater, the place visitors had been proven how quite a lot of trendy VFX like movement seize had been created. The present was retired for good in 2023 and the Citadel Theater was demolished, together with the house of Common’s Animal Actors amphitheater, to be able to make room for the brand new Quick & Livid curler coaster.
T2-3D: Battle Throughout Time
Common’s Terminator 2 3-D film and dwell present didn’t simply boast the celebrities of T2 — Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Edward Furlong — it was additionally directed by Terminator mastermind James Cameron. Cameron shot the filmed segments at a price of $24 million, making it, in typical Cameron style, probably the most costly movies ever made (at the least on per minute foundation). The story follows the T-800 as he makes his promised (however not notably logical) return and takes the younger John Connor into the longer term to guard him from a resurrected T-1000. (Admittedly this isn’t the perfect plan.) T2-3D boasted spectacular results and built-in actual actors into the present in intelligent methods; at occasions the Terminator appeared to step off the display into the auditorium and vice versa. Sadly, its storyline contradicted the entire Terminator films launched after it, making its “battle throughout time” really feel slightly out of time by the twenty first century. It closed at Common Hollywood and Florida within the 2010s. The T2-3D at Common Japan — which had the good present constructing by far — survived till 2020, then closed for good in the course of the Covid pandemic. Judgment Day has nothing on actual life lately.
