Universal Studios, April 1972

Here are a bunch of slides from Universal Studios, courtesy of the Graziano family! I think my own family went there around this same time, maybe a year or two earlier. I particularly remember throwing foam-rubber boulders around, climbing on a giant telephone, seeing mummies from an "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode, and seeing H.R. Puff'nstuff in one of the displays.

I heard that the people who lived in this house had a relative who settled in a cabin on Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland. Nobody knows what happened to him! I get the feeling that forced perspective in being used here, what do you think? Something tells me that if you stood next to that surrey, you'd look like a giant. A nice giant, don't get me wrong!


From fire to a flash flood, you can see that there is a terrible downpour in this picturesque town (somewhere south of the border), and that a torrent of water is rushing down the street, straight at us! Many people remember the tree that slowly falls over, and every smarty-pants kid turned around to see it slowly right itself as the tram continued onward.


I like this old beat-up custodial truck, parked in front of a facade that looks like it belongs in a charming English village.


This fearsome gorilla applied for a job at the Jungle Cruise, but he lost out to another ape (a case of blatant nepotism, but that's another story). Fortunately, Universal was hiring. Here he is, hanging from a vine just like real gorillas do all the time. Please tell me he was not supposed to be King Kong! I don't remember him, though I think he might have shown up on a Viewmaster reel.


And finally, here's a stately plantation house that I have no doubt was used in many talkies. At first I thought it might be "Tara" from "Gone With the Wind", but then I realized that I was delirious and that it couldn't be. Wrong studio! Sets like these are so convincing, and yet the building itself was probably a hollow shell.


Thanks once again to the Grazianos for sharing these photos!