Rides You Can't Go On Anymore At Universal Studios Orlando

Ever since I was a kid, circa 1993, I've been in love with movies and story telling and since I grew up in Florida I was lucky enough to call Universal Studios my back yard. However things have changed quite a bit since then, so venture back with me if you will to a time where Nickelodeon Studios was still sliming, King Kong was still climbing, and Jaws was still biting.

You wouldn't know it today because the Blue Man Group does a live show in what was once the old Nickelodeon Studios. People from around the world could take a 40 minute tour through the studio, and even sit in on a live taping of some of the best 90's kids TV Shows. Without this studio shows like Clarissa Explains It All, Keenan and Kel, Global Guts, Nick Arcade, Double Dare, Rugrats, and countless others wouldn't have even existed. As a 90's kid I owe a lot of the entertainment from my childhood to this place. I have personally walked the studios and even tried some of Kel's famous Orange Sode.

Who loves Orange Soda?

This guy right here loves orange soda and it's true.

I do. Eww.

Remember that old time capsule they buried right outside the building? You know, right behind the Slime fountain? If you don't remember, in 1992 Nickelodeon buried a time capsule of Nick memorabilia and items donated from kids right in front the studios and held a huge star studded event. However if you go the studios today and look where it was buried, you'll see it's no longer there?

What did they do with this time capsule of memories you ask?

Well they didn't just toss it out like the rest of my childhood (Heartless Money Mongers, there's a reason Nickelodeon sucks Now). They actually have since dug the thing up and placed it in front of a Nickelodeon themed resort in Orlando, so you can still go see where it's buried. Who knows what will happen to it by 2042 when they're supposed to open it back up.

Now, the Nick studios were awesome there's no denying that, but Universal Studios Orlando had the coolest rides anywhere on the planet. That's a fact you can look up, and since we're taking a trip through my memory lane we're going to take the same path I did as a kid. Next up was the King of the Urban jungle.

No, not Kanye.

King Kong!

This ride was the most intense attraction at the park. You board a tram dangling what seemed to be a thousand feet in the air, and took a ride to through a demolished city and encounter the beast as he attempts to rip apart the tram with his paws. At one point the tram is actually derailed by the forty foot gorilla and you plummet toward the ground. Of course the trusty tram operator saved the day (probably a thousand times a day) and we're all happy he did because we would have met our fate at the hands of Kong.

Now being that this is Florida, it gets obnoxiously hot in the summer time and chasing after myself and my brother proved time and time again to be no easy task. Parental units would insist we go through the Twister attraction (mainly due to the fact that it's air-conditioned) and Ride out the Storm! You walk through what seemed to be an educational indoor seminar of a line, and ultimately watch this dinky little vapor tornado tear the roof off of a gas station and send a cow flying through the air.

Yeah, it wasn't that interesting then or now, but for the sake of my memory I had to at the very least mention it.

Soon as that was over we would tear ass across the park to the Jaws ride, now this isn't a joke kids. This was the baddest ride at Universal Studios. You and thirty other passengers get on a boat and sail around Amity Island and encounter the Great White Shark that's wreaking havoc on the maritime town. The shark attacks the boat and the captain of the vessel has no choice but to seek shelter in a nearby boat shack.

The doors close as you hear the wood beams creaking and cracking, a can of gasoline is knocked over igniting a small fire just as the shark attacks the boat again. People would scream for their lives and the captain made a break for it ramming the doors of the shack open with the boat and escaping the other side. As soon as you think you're in the clear the shark attacks again. The captain has no choice but to use live ammunition and begins firing from a grenade launcher and ultimately kills the shark.

It was awesome, the shark would pop up and float in the water mangled and charred as a sure sign that we had all been saved from a most certain death.

The adventure never stopped, after being almost destroyed by King Kong and Jaws we would have to take a trip through time in Back to the Future Ride. The visual affects odyssey that spanned eons of time. This was a virtual reality ride where you would embark in Dr. Emmett Browns time machine as you take on dinosaurs and that butthead Biff.

This was also pretty much a ride for the parents, because again...Air-Conditioning (This was key to their survival I'm sure)

So much has been changed since I've now grown up, but I'll never forget the fond memories of the old Universal Studios. I figured I should mention that King Kong has since been replaced with a Mummy roller coaster ride which combines a theatrical ride with a roller coaster. Jaws is now Diagon Alley from Harry Potter, and Back to the Future is now the Simpsons ride. Which I have to say all of them were an improvement, but they'll never be as good as the memories that old park gave me.

#Jaws #UniversalStudios #Nickelodeon #KingKong #BacktotheFuture #Twister