Step back in time to visit Universal Studios in 1974
After several years of looking through USB drives, I finally found my family's old home movies of theme park visits from my childhood.
These are silent movies recorded on a Super 8 film camera, which was the latest in home video technology at the time. Years later, my father transferred the Super 8 film to video and then to digital by recording a projection of the films. So do not expect today's HD quality from these videos.
Also, because these were recorded on film - and you only had a limited amount of film on each reel - people tended to shoot short, to conserve that film. The idea was not to document a moment like a professional historian but to capture enough of a moment to help you remember it later.
And remember this visit, I do. The highlight for me was being selected as an audience volunteer to board a San Francisco-style cable car on one of Universal soundstages for a fake Rice-a-Roni commercial that was filmed as part of the Studio Tour experience. Back then, riders exited the "Glamor Tram" to walk through several demonstrations in the soundstages. On this video, you can see the commercial shoot, as well as a makeup demonstration, and a couple of other special effects demonstrations - one in what I remember as a lawyer's office (was it Perry Mason's?) and another in a monster's castle.
And yes, that's me as the last kid off the cable car.
Other scenes on the driving portion of the Tour in this video include 1974's new Runaway Train and the Burning House that had debuted the previous year along with the Parting of the Red Sea. You also can see 1971's Submarine set, as well as the one encounter that remains today on the tour, the Flash Food, which debuted in 1968.
The video also includes scenes on a playground, and while I remember the oversized bench and props being at Universal, I do not remember the conventional playground equipment.
Later this week, I will post my family's home movies from Disneyland, which includes my first visit to the park. I also have home movies from Busch Gardens in Tampa, back when it was called "The Dark Continent," as well as what I think might be video of Busch Gardens Los Angeles.
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Replies (2)
OMG Robert, this is AMAZING! I went summers of 1973 and 1974 so I remember this so well. My parents LOVED the tour. On the 1974 trip, we got a glimpse of the actor Telly Savalas from the TV show Kojak which we were huge fans of. I was thrilled to see him although it was very brief as he drove past us on a golf cart. Can't remmember if he had the Tootsie Pop in his mouth or not. I have since been to USH about 5 more times. I could be wrong but wasn't the "playground" with the oversized sets from the TV show Land of the Giants?
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Great stuff! I visited Universal a few years later in 1978 as part of a school vacation week tour of Southern California hosted by Rex Trailer, the star of a popular Boston kids show. We visited Disneyland, Knotts, Sea World and the San Diego Zoo.
At Universal Studios our tour group was welcomed by an actual Battlestar Galactican (I forget which one) and a muscular dude in a wig and green skin paint ran through the crowd to the delight of this Marvel comics fan. I got a "Hulk" autograph and a smear of green paint.
A big hit of the 78 studios tour was the Ice Tunnel featured in the Bigfoot episode of The Six Million Dollar Man.