Universal Studios

I have a soft spot in my heart for Universal Studios. Sure, my family went there occasionally when I was a kid. But I mostly remember looking at my Viewmaster Packet! I wore that thing down until it was only 2-D. Those were the days when there were props from "Land of the Giants", the lagoon had Lieutenant Commander McHale's PT Boat, and Alfred Hitchcock was the spokesman.

Thanks to my mysterious "6th sense", I can tell that this is a photo of Universal City. Oh, that and the giant sign on the hill. The sign is made of delicious milk chocolate with white chocolate letters. Yum. In the foreground, the stripey roofs of the Glamor Trams, which took you on a tour of the studio backlot in style and comfort.


The classic stunt show involved plenty of simulated mayhem. Breakaway chairs, sugar glass bottles, gunfights, fistfights, and the always-popular "man plummeting to his death" pictured here. I don't care what you say, even a controlled fall from that height is a scary proposition.


Andy Panda had not made a movie since 1949, but the Studio must have figured that somebody out there remembered him. Andy wishes that you were there with him, looking at that phony-baloney waterfall.


Even as a tadpole I remember being impressed with the realism of the studio backlots. It wasn't hard to imagine people really living and working behind those detailed façades of plaster and fiberglass.