June 7, 1990, dawned clear and bright. A crackle of anticipation was in the air. Walt Disney World had long been the undisputed leader in the Central Florida theme park market, leaving a trail of its competitors’ corpses in its wake. Yet this time, things were different. The venerable Universal Studios, a Hollywood icon since 1915, had come to town.
This was to be the opening day of Universal Studios Florida.
Disney had just opened its own movie-themed park, Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney’s Hollywood Studios), the year before. Could the region support two movie parks? Would Universal dominate, toppling what was then considered a half-day park? Or would Disney emerge victorious, as it had in every Central Florida theme park war since its 1971 opening? Although Disney took out a full-page ad in the Orlando Sentinel welcoming Universal to the neighborhood, it was clear that a battle of the titans was about to erupt. Lines were drawn in the sand, and both the local and national media were abuzz.
The disaster that unfolded that day was perhaps unavoidable, and certainly not surprising to anyone who knows their theme park history. Like Disneyland before it, Universal discovered that when a brand new park pushes the limits of technology, anything is possible. The resulting calamity was so bad that some commentators speculated that the park might not survive.
I was there that day, a young star-struck teenager filled with anticipation. Here is my recollection.
The backstory
Universal Hollywood first opened its gates to the public in 1915, three years after the studio’s founding, under the direction of original founder Carl Laemmle. For just 25 cents, visitors were welcome to stay as long as they liked and watch whatever happened to be filming on the lot that day. A chicken lunchbox cost five cents extra.
This setup worked well in the era of silent films, but when “talkies” debuted around 1930, there was no way to control the ambient crowd noise. Though Mr. Laemmle loved his open relationship with his visitors, he had no alternative but to close the gates. Carl Laemmle passed away in 1939, having lost control of the studio to the investment firm Standard Capital when he was unable to repay a sizeable loan.
The studio changed hands a couple of times, coming under the control of Decca Records in 1952. The new owners inked a deal with Gray Line Tours in 1956, allowing tour buses to travel the backlot as part of the company’s Hollywood Tour. After a 1957 fire destroyed much of the backlot, Universal changed hands again in 1959, this time to MCA ownership.
MCA President Albert Dorskind realized that tourists could prop up sales in the studio commissary (restaurant), and that tour revenue could boost the studio’s bottom line. The years 1962 to 1964 were a time of transition. Gray Line was contracted to run the all-new Revue Studios Tour, a lengthier backlot tour, separate from the Hollywood Tour, which also included lunch at the commissary.
In 1964, Dorskind convinced MCA Chairman Lew Wasserman to invest heavily in the facilities needed to create a truly immersive guest experience. The new studio-controlled GlamorTrams tour debuted that summer, adding several exhibits and demonstrations to the tour. This marked the creation of Universal Studios Hollywood as we know it today.
Over the next two decades, the park thrived. Several standalone shows and attractions were added, but the heart of the action continued to take place as part of the tram tour. With new wonders being added frequently, to the delight of locals and tourists alike, MCA was ready to expand. Florida was at the top of its wish list, but the powers that be were a bit hesitant to take on Disney in Central Florida, where it was the undisputed king of the hill.
In the early 1980s, MCA approached rival studio Paramount about a possible partnership. This would reduce the capital outlay, and hence the risk, for both companies, while allowing them to share the rewards. However, the deal was rejected by Paramount’s then-President and COO, Michael Eisner.
Eisner went on to become Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 1984. Meanwhile, the Universal Studios Florida idea seemed dead in the water—until fate intervened one day in 1986. As show designer Peter Alexander explains on his Totally Fun Company website, he was working on the animatronic for the soon to debut King Kong portion of the studio tour when his college roommate, Steven Spielberg, happened to drop by.
As the story goes, Spielberg was so impressed that he asked Alexander to start working on concepts for a Back to the Future ride. A friendly rivalry with George Lucas, who was heavily involved in the 1986 design process for Disneyland’s Star Tours, had Spielberg’s interest piqued. When Hollywood’s Kong turned out to be a smash success, and Spielberg agreed to sign on, MCA finally gave the green light for the Florida attraction.
The original plans called for a similar park design to the one in Hollywood, with the bulk of the experience taking place on board a tram. However, Eisner had already seen those plans during his Paramount days, and when he caught wind that the project was a go, he took advantage of Disney’s independent government system to beat Universal to the punch by announcing Disney-MGM Studios. But Lew Wasserman and MCA CEO Sid Sheinberg stepped up to the challenge, deciding to beat Disney at its own game. The revised park would now consist of stand-alone attractions that smashed the limits of existing technology. Peter Alexander’s article calls it an “arms race” with Disney.
Disney-MGM Studios was not a critical success in its first year (although it was a commercial one). With few attractions and loose theming, many critics disparaged it as a half-day park. Popular opinion was that it was slapped together in a hurry, ostensibly for the sole purpose of heading off Universal.
Yet Universal had its critics too. Besieged by construction delays and problems with technology, the company pushed back its grand opening several times, from an original projected date of December 1989 to its official grand opening date of June 7, 1990. The local and national media reported everything they could get their hands on, both positive and negative, while local residents waited guardedly to see what would happen.
By the time opening day finally rolled around, the hype had reached a fever pitch. With a star-studded gala featuring some of Hollywood’s biggest names, the day proved nearly irresistible. Some came for autographs, some came to watch the park fail spectacularly, and some heralded it as a new dawn for a Central Florida landscape that they felt was entirely too dominated by Disney.
The crowds
In those days, Universal Studios Florida was just one park, with a single parking lot that sat roughly where CityWalk is today. There was an entrance from Kirkman Road and an entrance from Turkey Lake Road, both of which dumped onto the only road that led to the parking lot. Drop-off was on a small connecting loop off the main park entrance road, with an exit on Vineland Road.
This relative lack of space for cars waiting to get in meant that traffic backups were inevitable. My dad and I traveled from Lakeland, about 50 miles away via Interstate 4, and it took us more than two hours to get there. Once on property, we sat in a long line to pay our parking fee and find a spot, and then stood in long lines for both the parking lot tram and the turnstiles.
Long lines were the order of the day. Estimates put the crowd size at around 10,000—a fairly large number given that only 12 attractions were open, and a lot of the walkways were blocked by grandstands and other special opening day paraphernalia.
However, the vast majority of the crowd was friendly and in good spirits. In those days, long before the debut of FastPasses, Express Passes, and Speed Passes, waiting in line was just something you did when you visited a theme park. When a new attraction opened at an existing park, the waits were astronomical. For example, my family happened to be in Epcot on opening day for The Living Seas. We had been chosen for a soft opening the week before, so we happily walked on by the line, which stretched to the other side of Future World.
When a brand-new, heavily anticipated theme park opened, all bets were off. We visited Epcot on opening day in 1982, but my dad had a final exam that morning, so we were unable to arrive before lunchtime. The crowds were immense, and we were able to experience only a handful of attractions. So we knew going into it that we were not likely to see all that Universal had to offer on that day. So did the majority of people we chatted with while standing in various queues.
The stars
Universal rolled out the red carpet for its grand opening, sparing no expense for a truly star-studded gala. With more than 50 names on its roster, the park was filled with Hollywood royalty. Just a small sampling of the invited guests included Jimmy Stewart, Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Perkins, Sylvester Stallone, and Charlton Heston.
The first murmurs of dissatisfaction among park guests were heard early in the morning. One at a time, white limos rolled into the Hollywood section of the park, and the celebrity guests disembarked. They made their way up a red carpet to gather on a makeshift stage for the ribbon cutting ceremony.
Unfortunately, only a chosen few had any real view of the proceedings. The stage was surrounded by grandstands occupied by media and VIPs, while the rest of us “commoners” lined the sidewalks a good distance back from the festivities. We were able to catch glimpses from our vantage point to the side of one of the grandstands, and even hear three or four words of Jimmy Stewart’s speech. For the most part, though, we had to settle for watching the limos go by. We couldn’t see the ribbon cutting at all. The general consensus among the gathered crowd was that TV monitors should have been mounted strategically to let us see and hear what was going on.
Universal made up for this in some ways later in the day, when some of the celebrities gave talks and signed autographs at select spots throughout the park. Unfortunately, these were not advertised, and communication was poor. We happened into a few events by simply being in the right place at the right time, and I managed to get Michael J. Fox’s autograph by running alongside the golf cart that was spiriting him away. Overall, though, the celebrity encounters felt very overhyped and under delivered.
The attractions
Above is a 75-minute promotional video released by Universal in 1990. To get a feel for what the park was like in those days, I encourage you to take a look.
Universal Studios Florida actually opened with 12 attractions, not a huge number, but double the six that opened with Disney-MGM Studios. The park had a heavy emphasis on not only allowing guests to “Ride the Movies” (its long-running tag line), but also to experience the behind the scenes secrets of filmmaking. Consequently, five of its opening-day attractions were theater shows, one was a production tram tour of the park and soundstages, and one was a walk-through tour of Nickelodeon Studios. There were only five rides on the opening day roster. Of those, the so-called Big 3 – Earthquake: The Big One Kongfrontation and Jaws – all opened in Technical Rehearsals, which meant that they could and did close down without warning throughout the day.
All nine of the remaining attractions were extremely well-conceived and were well received by park guests. The lineup included: Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies, Animal Actors, E.T. Adventure, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, Ghostbusters, “Murder She Wrote” Post Production, and The Phantom of the Opera Horror Make-up Show, in addition to the aforementioned Production Tour and Nickelodeon Studios. What was then the world’s largest Hard Rock Café was connected to the park via a guitar neck bridge from the back of World Expo (where Woody Woodpecker’s KidZone is today). Along the way, park guests could view the Psycho House and Bates Motel, built especially for that year’s in-park filming of Psycho IV: The Beginning.
The technical meltdowns
Things began to go wrong even before the first guests arrived for the grand opening. At 4.30am, just hours before Spielberg cut the ribbon, a power outage knocked out the software that managed the Earthquake: The Big One’s special effects.
Things didn’t improve once guests were inside the park. The “talkback” software that managed the interaction between King Kong and the tram holding his victims was still not operating properly, and technicians were forced to trigger the enormous animatronic creature’s movements manually in order to ensure that Kong didn’t snap his hand off.
While Kongfrontation and Earthquake were suffering, Jaws fared even worse. The ride operated sporadically for just two hours before thunderstorms in the afternoon forced it to be shut down for the day.
As the Big 3 continued to close for long stretches, the queues for everything else grew exponentially. Adding to the problem was the reality that then, as now, theme park visitors wanted to see the headliners. Universal had gone all-out with a promotional blitz featuring Kongfrontation, Earthquake, and Jaws, ticketholders had paid good money to see them, and they simply weren’t cooperating. By mid-afternoon, tempers were rising along with the temperatures.
So what went wrong? Why couldn’t Universal get its headliner attractions working reliably? The answers are highly technical, and blame could be laid at the feet of people across the board. What it all really came down to, though, is that each of those attractions was a first of its kind in one way or another.
Kongfrontation presented a realistic attack by a 30 foot ape, culminating in a near-drop into the East River. Earthquake was like Disney-MGM’s Catastrophe Canyon on steroids, placing guests frighteningly close to derailed subway cars, a falling propane truck, explosions, and 60,000 gallons of dumping water…and that’s after they survived the special effects on the soundstage! Jaws put park guests in the water with a demented Great White shark bent on destruction, who actually put the bite on the boat.
These were major attractions doing things that had previously been unimaginable, and it took some time (and in Jaws’ case, a complete three-year redesign) to get it right.
Of course, no explanation excuses what happened that day. The company made a promise to the public, and it failed to deliver on that promise. Even worse was the lack of communication. Universal might have covered itself legally by placing big “Technical Rehearsal” signs outside of each headliner attraction, but it owed a little bit more to its paying guests.
As my father and I made our way around the park that day, we tried to ask different employees what was going on with the headliner attractions, and everyone we asked seemed to have a different answer. We spent better than two hours camped out in front of Kongfrontation and Earthquake respectively, because rumor had it that the attraction *might* open relatively soon.
We were lucky enough to ride both of them that day, but even when the doors opened the process was hugely disorganized. Outside of each attraction, team members had been actively discouraging the waiting masses from forming a line, instead trying fervently to make us go away. It appeared that the employees dealing with the crowds had little or no communication with the team inside the building, because at both attractions, the employees seemed shocked and ill-prepared when the doors opened.
So as you might expect, mob rule became the order of the day, as large numbers of hot, hungry, cranky, tired guests who had been waiting for hours, afraid to run for a snack or bathroom break for fear of missing their chance to ride, all tried to make it through the doors before they closed again. To my knowledge, no one was trampled, but the free for all felt a bit alarming at times.
The guest reactions
As the day wore on, people began to come unglued. The employees remained as professional as they could, but they were under nearly impossible pressure. Beyond the standard issues that need to be ironed out at any major opening, nothing that was happening was under their control. They were simply trying to keep guests calm as technology and communications failed them at every level. I don’t recall any of them acting inappropriately, but they were clearly overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, the rumor mill began to churn amongst the guests. With little official word on anything throughout the day, guests tried to communicate with each other, sharing information on when a ride was expected to open or a celebrity guest was supposed to appear. But as usually happens, what started as helpful tidbits quickly turned into outlandish rumors. We heard unfounded stories about fights, restaurants running out of food, water fountains not working, and so forth.
The one that was apparently true, or at least has become part of the lore of that day, was that Steven Spielberg and his family were stuck for hours out in the Jaws lagoon. The ride had opened and closed a few times throughout the day, but it did not reopen after that.
By late afternoon, many guests had finally had enough. I distinctly remember sitting on a curb taking a break when a random guy walked up to me, chomping on a turkey leg. “Did you hear they’re giving out refunds? To anyone who asks. About time, if you ask me. This place is a disaster.”
We weren’t sure whether to believe him, so we headed over to Guest Services. Sure enough, the frazzled-looking team members handling the extremely long line kept repeating over and over, “Yes, this is the line for refunds. Yes, you will get one.” We shrugged and joined the line.
More than an hour later, we finally made it inside Guest Services. By that point, they weren’t even asking anyone why they wanted a refund. As each person stepped up to the counter, it was a short and sweet transaction. “Refund? Here ya go.” Of course, that didn’t stop the angrier guests from going into tirades anyway. Some people accepted their refunds and went on their way, while others shouted about how horrible Universal was and how they were never coming back.
I actually didn’t have a particularly bad day. There were some definite disappointments, but some high points as well. I saw a lot of potential in the park, especially in its intentional edginess and sharp contrast to Disney. I wasn’t the only one.
I talked with a lot of other guests throughout the day, gathering their opinions on everything that was going on. They seemed to fall into a few distinct groups, depending on what their expectations had been. Those who showed up to watch Universal fail were vindicated. They could not see any good in the Universal experience, and they were full of stories about how rotten their day was.
Those who hated Disney and expected Universal to be a saving grace were angry and bitter. It was as if they felt personally let down and betrayed. They tended to talk about all the wasted potential, and how the park could have been great “if only.”
Most guests seemed to fall into a gray area somewhere in the middle. Autograph hounds were disappointed or upset about how the celebrity aspect was handled, but generally managed to find something positive to say about the rest of it. Many people viewed the situation pragmatically, talking about the potential but acknowledging the difficulties of opening a brand new park. They tended to talk in worried tones, though. No park had ever managed to challenge Disney on its own Central Florida turf and come out victorious. Parks like SeaWorld Orlando were hanging on, slurping up some of the excess tourism, but were not considered real contenders. With such a poor showing, Universal was clearly doomed to failure, right?
The media
The media had turned out in full force to cover the gala opening, and were all too eager to hang around for the drama that was unfolding all around them. Reporters from TV channels, newspapers, and radio stations were everywhere. I was even interviewed on the radio, though the reporter quickly let me go when I told him I had a pretty decent day.
In the days and weeks that followed, the message was loud and clear: Universal’s opening day was an unmitigated disaster. In the words of Orlando Sentinel reporter Mary Meehan, “They came, they stood, they left mad.” Although only around 10 percent of visitors got refunds, that detail was generally buried deep within the media reports. It didn’t fit the sensationalized concept of utter failure that had become the story of the day.
The aftermath
In those days, before social media and moment by moment trip reports from people inside the park, the narrative that was being spun became the de facto reality. Across the country, legions of people who had never set foot inside Universal Studios Florida declared it a waste of time and money. In its Central Florida home, locals turned against the park. It seemed clear that it was only a matter of time before MCA would admit defeat, cut its losses, and go home to Hollywood.
Instead, MCA responded swiftly and decisively in a way that nobody could have predicted. The first order of business was to get the park operating properly. No matter what anyone thought of opening day, the reality was that the rides had to work. So everyone rolled up their sleeves and worked together. From front line employees to ride techs to high level managers, the Universal Studios Florida team united. Kongfrontation and Earthquake eventually came out of technical rehearsals (although this took months), but Jaws remained a real problem and was eventually shut completely.
Meanwhile, Universal management understood that it would take a lot to regain the public trust. The company immediately began a highly publicized “second day free” campaign in which the free tickets would never expire. This helped draw in new visitors by assuring them that even if things did not work properly on their first visit, they could always come back later for the full experience. Annual pass holders got an even better deal—their pass expiration dates were pushed back by six full months, plus they got the second day free tickets whenever they visited. Lots of friends and relatives of locals got free tickets to Universal for holidays and birthdays over the next year!
Things were starting to look up, and Universal Studios Florida earned the moniker, “The Little Park That Could.” But it wasn’t until October 1991 that Universal’s fortunes would permanently change. With a strong legacy in horror films, and attractions such as Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies and The Phantom of the Opera Horror Makeup Show receiving rave reviews, Universal decided to take a gamble on a three-night Halloween Party dubbed Fright Nights. With one haunted house, a handful of stage shows, and some roaming scare actors, Fright Nights was a sensation. The next year, it morphed into Halloween Horror Nights, which has been one of the top-rated Halloween events in the nation ever since. Add to that a strong opening for Back to the Future: The Ride, and the park was saved.
The way Universal responded to its opening day black eye set the tone for a corporate culture that has never significantly changed. Even today, Universal has a strong “roll up your sleeves and get it done” mentality that focuses heavily on teamwork, goal setting, and transparent leadership. The company has changed hands several times, but at the theme park level, the focus has always been, and remains today, on innovative solutions to create an excellent guest experience. And now, as then, annual pass holders and locals are a key part of that equation, receiving tremendous benefits as a genuine thank-you for the support.
Universal Orlando has come a long way since opening day, and it is tough to imagine that the hugely successful multi-park enterprise had such humble beginnings. Yet without that experience, I don’t believe that Universal Orlando could have become what it is today. The company learned some harsh lessons, responded admirably, and went on to succeed beyond its own expectations. Sounds kind of like another theme park franchise, doesn’t it?
