Universal Studios Hollywood

Yay! Thanks to Universal Studios' Salute to Schools program, I got a free ticket while my husband and daughter were half off! Hell to the yeah! Three for the price of one! Can you believe it costs $69 to get into Universal? Maybe I'm a cheapass but that is an expensive ticket!  I'm not a big theme parks person, but Bert and I thought it would be fun to take TC there now that she's old enough to enjoy the rides and shows.

We got there in about 2 and a half hours, by 10 am when the park opened.  One of the first things we did was go on the tour. The nice thing about this four day weekend (Presidents' Day weekend last week) was that it wasn't too crowded. We didn't even have to wait at all (except for the Simpsons' ride) for everything! TC got excited when we saw this!!!! The Scooby Doo Mystery Machine!  Zoinks! Like, Wow! (say that in a Shaggy voice please)

The tour took us to the Universal Studios backlot. In the summer  of 2008, there was a fire and part of it burned down. Many of the buildings were in the process of being rebuilt.

Here's a worker fixing one of the facades...

One last view of the backlot...

This is the "fake" Mexican town where they have a flashflood. This set is also seen in one of TC's favorite movies, "Big Fat Liar" where Paul Giamatti (yes, Oscar winner) is chasing after Frankie Muniz and gets caught in the flashflood.

TC also got excited when she saw this "Lyon Estates" gate from the "Back to the Future" movies.  "Oooh, look Mommy!!! Lyon Estates!!!"

New to the tour (we hadn't been here in 7 years) was the inclusion of a row of movie cars. This was the Deathmobile from "Animal House". They also had the DeLorean from "Back to the Future", Kit from "Knight Rider", and Tom Selleck's red Ferrari from "Magnum P.I.". There were a few more but I don't remember what they were. Oh yeah, shit from "Fast and the Furious"...

According to the Wikipedia entry on Float (parade) under the section "Floats in Popular Culture":

"The climax of the movie Animal House features the protagonists from the title fraternity surreptitiously launching their own float into a parade featuring legitimate entries from many of their rivals. The illicit float, in the form of a giant decorated cake adorned with the words "Eat Me," later splits open to reveal the parade-destroying "Deathmobile" inside."

We also went on a street called Colonial Street (named after the styles of the homes there). Look familiar? This yellow house is featured on "Desperate Housewives". Yes, this is Wisteria Lane! I don't even watch that show but I recognized the set. Check out more info here (there's a map too!)...

And here is my favorite....this green house was the 2nd house for "Leave it to Beaver" (heh heh, she said, "Beaver")...This house is also on "Wisteria Lane". I can just hear the theme music in my head now. Where's the Beave? What about Eddie Haskell and Lumpy? And, what about Beave's friend "Whitey"?

This was from the Whoville set for the Jim Carrey flick, "The Grinch".

This was funny...at the Bates Motel set (from the Hitchcock film, "Psycho"), there was a Norman Bates lookalike stuffing a fake body into a car trunk! He then approached the tour bus with a knife and made violent jabbing motions at the passengers.

Cue Bernard Herman's shrieking violin score here....It's the Bates house!

This was from the "War of the Worlds" set.  It really looked like a plane had crashed there. It was quite eery seeing the smoke, scattering belongs, and crushed cars and homes.

All right, now this is more like it! Krustyland!!!

Krustyland is home of The Simpsons Ride - the line looked barren outside but beware. Like Space Mountain, it was an illusion. You are led into labyrinths worthy of Hades and snake in and out of lines while at the same time, entertained by snippets of Simpsons episodes! Win for the Simpsons! Boo for the wait! The "ride" itself was simulated and lasted maybe about 5 minutes. I had to close my eyes because it went so fast. This ride used to be "Back to the Future". When Bert and I last went here back in 1999, Bert's neck and back hurt like fk and he had a headache the rest of the day. This time, he took Dramamine!

This was a display inside the inner sanctum  of the ride...it's everyone's favorite Scotsman, Groundskeeper Willie.

I thought this was funny!

In the Krustyland area, there was a Kwik e Mart! Sadly, no Apu Nahasapeemapetilon though.

View inside the Kwik e Mart where you can buy Simpsons merchandise of all kinds.

Like this giant Lard Boy Donut...mmmmm Donuts!

Or this Flaming Moe energy drink...(that's one of my favorite episodes):

You can even buy Duff Beer here - but this is an energy drink, not the beer!

One of Bert's favorites was this, the Android's Dungeon,which is the comic shop in Springfield. This was on the side of the Kwik E Mart building.

Behind the Kwik E Mart facade was Moe's Tavern!

They actually had this sign on the escalators!  How stupid can people be???  They also had one that forbid people going on escalators with strollers. This was the 4 part super steep escalator that brings you down to the lower lot. Imagine falling down that thing.

These rides were on the Lower Lot...The first one we went on was Jurassic Park. Luckily we didn't get too soaked. We sat all the way in the back. The big plunge was towards the end anyways. I had to close my eyes so I wouldn't see the drop. My stomach lurched though!

Jurassic was followed by The Mummy - TC was a bit scared of this one but she went anyways. None of us realized that the damn ride would go backwards as well! Like the wimp that I am, I closed my eyes as  because I started to get motion sickness.

We ended up checking out the Special Effects show, which TC really liked. It was cool for her to see how they used green screen and sound effects for the movies.

Actually we saw Backdraft first, then the Special Effects show...Bert and I hadn't seen it from before. You could really feel that fire in there!!!

TC's ice cream swirl at Ben and Jerry's. When we were sitting down and sharing this, there was a worker dressed up as the Nutty Professor in his aqua blue sweats and headband riding a Segway. His sweats were padded so that he would like "large", but you could tell he was skinny. He approached a table of African American women, and cracked some jokes to get their reaction. A few seconds later, he literally chased two Asian female tourists who screamed and ran away from him. He would stop, then chase them again. It was kind of mean...

This was the Waterworld Show. I wasn't really into this at all. I didn't like the movie so I didn't expect to like the show. I mean, the effect were great, but the acting was really stilted. But then again, nobody goes for stellar acting.  I do have to admire the actors' athleticism because they were running, jetskiing, rappeling, driving boats, swinging from ropes,  and shooting guns all over the place. It was 30 minutes of waiting for this to end. Almost as bad as listening to Kenny G.

One of the last shows we saw was Shrek in 4-D - one of those simulated rides. When we were last here in 2003, TC was scared by the graveyard scene and the giant spider. Now, she thought it was cool and enjoyed the "wet" special effects.

Lastly, let me leave you with this photo of a Chinese tour group leader. He had the coolest thing ever so his group could spot him - it was a cute little Santa Claus toy dangling on a stick!!! We saw him several times that day!

It was a pretty long and fun day! We brought our lunches with us (snuck in Bert's backback, underneath our jackets) and were totally hungry! Our next stop, dinner at Yoma Myanmar....